Do you believe that Noah made a difference in his mission of building an ark made of gopherwood (Gen 6:14) and preaching righteousness (suggested by 2 Pet 2:5) to a very evil and non-receptive world of righteousness (Gn 6:5, 13)? We may say yes to the construction of the ark but no in dissuading any man, woman, or child, outside his immediate family, from the path of unrighteousness within the 120-year window prior to the flood (Gn 6:3).
I
am of the opinion Noah was highly successful in his preaching because he did it
for a period of twelve decades from the largest bully pulpit ever built, metaphorically
speaking! He remained faithful to both tasks. It is God who saves, not the
preacher, yes? Noah preached whatever message God had directed for him to
deliver to the antediluvian civilization. Anyone who does the will of God according
to the Word is a success in my eyes.
The
size of the ark alone would draw people like a magnet to see this famous monstrosity
being built;1 Noah probably would take the opportunity to preach
righteousness to the visitors, gawkers, and critics. Like the proverbial water
off a duck’s back, the words of Noah had no apparent effect on a heart with an
imagination that was totally occupied with evil continually (Gn 6:5); it is hard to fill a cup that is already full, yes? The
construction generated curiosity and interest but not his words of impending
doom.
Let
me ask you something; are the results of doing God’s will determined by us or
God? It was Yahweh who closed the door of the ark, not Noah (Gn 7:16), around ~1,656
years after creation or ~2348 B.C. (Ussher). Does God see us as unsuccessful if
in doing His will the outcomes are negative from man’s point of view? What
matters is what God thinks, not some interpreter of outcomes. Consider Adoniram
Judson (1788-1850, Baptist missionary to Burma).
He
experienced 6 years in country before witnessing his first Burmese convert. Contrast
that to Noah’s outreach with zero conversions outside his immediate family in
120 years! The world would characterize Judson’s tenacity as noble but foolish
and an abysmal failure but what about Noah? Should we apply the same standards
to him? The world defines success in terms of positive results like education,
power (money and influence), and material things.
God, on the other hand, measures our success in knowing and doing His will for our lives according to the Scriptures, whether it is perceived as positive or negative from our vantage point; therein lies one of the vast differences between Christianity and the world; the results are predicated on God, not man. There is one caveat, however. God owns the results of those doing His will; believers must own being faithful in doing God’s will according to His Word. I believe that Noah and Adoniram owned it. If they had violated the teaching of the Scriptures in an attempt to do God’s will, they would have been spiritual failures because God will never dishonor His Word.
Whether
or not we are cognizant of the influence of our own testimony, making a
difference (M.A.D.) can never materialize unless we are committed to
knowing and doing Yahweh’s will immediately and completely in the here and now.
The world is results-oriented and results-driven. Whenever we adopt the ways of
the world we are already thinking like the world. The world is not the least
bit interested in the will of God. For that which is of the world gravitates
and drives incessantly toward the temporal things that will pass away (1 Jn
2:16). We, on the other hand, are to go after those things that last forever
and are found only in the will of God which is always in agreement with Scripture (1 Jn 2:17; Eccl 3:14).
The world determines the objectives, the mission, and the outcomes. God wants us to be faith-oriented, trusting in Him over outcomes that may be very challenging and appear from our point of view to be fruitless. We obsess over results (contrast Rom 8:28). God wants us to be preoccupied with Him, not what is going on all around us, stressing over that which we have no control over. It is a matter of being faith-focused rather than fret-focused, yes?
M.A.D.
(making a difference) is in obeying God’s will in a matter, leaving the outcomes
to Him. So many quit on the Lord for failing to do that very thing; they
attempt to own the outcome (God’s responsibility) and blame themselves if they
don’t get the desired results that they imagined which opens the door for the
accuser of the brethren to say, “Loser!”
This
is not our job; our responsibility is to be faithful and execute His will in
the power of the Holy Spirit. Noah, as a preacher of righteousness, would have been
fired today because many believers are determining the outcomes and putting
pressure on producing results or fitting their narrative. When God calls us to
do something, He already knows the outcomes; it is called omniscience or
all-knowing. He knew Noah would have zero results after 120 years as a
preacher.
But
was Noah really a failure because no one heeded his message? No, because he did
exactly what God wanted for him to do (Gn 6:22; 7:5). If God knew no one would
convert, would it not have been better to have Noah focus solely on building
the ark rather than waste time preaching? I cannot speak to God’s reasoning,
but I can safely say that He loves the world (cf. Jn 3:16). Giving those who
hate Yahweh, 120 years of opportunity to repent is, in my opinion, merciful and
gracious, but once the door of the ark was shut, everyone in the world outside
the ark of safety died.
By
his faithfulness to God, Noah and his family were the only survivors of the
antediluvian civilization (Heb 11:7) along with the animals within the ark, and
preserving the godly line of Seth. Every time I think of the ark; I am reminded
of this ungodly woman who once challenged me concerning the animals within the
ark. She boasted that preachers didn’t want to converse with her because,
according to her, “She asked tough questions that they couldn’t answer.”
I
asked her for an example. She let me have it, “If there were two of every
creature on the ark, where did they put the fish?” I responded with a calm demeanor,
“God left them in the water!” I will never forget how quickly an arrogant look transformed
into a look of concern to the point of being frightened! She never asked me another question concerning the
Bible again! In fact, she avoided the topic altogether.
Did
the challenges of constructing the ark, preaching to deaf ears, and being one of
only eight people living on the earth take their toll on Noah? I think it did. We
see evidence of it after planting a vineyard. The man in Gn 6:9 was not the
same man in Gn 9:20-21, but this decision was Noah’s.
We
get a glimpse of Noah's life before the ark in Gn 6:9 which was in stark
contrast to the world around him (Gn 6:11). From Gn 6:14 and the next 120 years
(Gn 6:3), he was consumed by constructing and preaching (2 Pet 2:5). It is
difficult to understand how demanding, unrelenting, and overwhelming at times
it must have been. There was a 120-year window before global destruction.
Think
of it; Noah was 600 years old when the flood came (Gn 7:6). The only world Noah
knew for 600 years would be no more. I do not know if there was any remorse,
but I am of the opinion he and his family were ready to leave such a hostile
place obsessed with ungodliness. After the flood, there were only eight people
on earth. We can sense the drastic change of pace in a post-flood world for
Noah,
Noah
began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard. Then he drank of the wine and
was drunk ... (Gn
9:20-21b).
An indeterminate amount of time had transpired because Noah cursed his grandson
Canaan (Gn 9:25), the youngest son of Ham who was the youngest son of Noah (Gn
9:24). Ham had four boys (Gn 10:6). Obviously, he had some girls as well.
Normally, females are not mentioned in Semitic genealogies.
Noah
began to be a farmer, and he planted a vineyard (Gn 9:20).
This
doesn’t mean he waited all those years to try his hand at farming and growing
grapes,
After the flood, Noah began to cultivate the ground, and he planted a
vineyard (Gn 9:20, NLT).
Cultivating the soil or vineyards was not new to
Noah. With the vapor canopy gone, it wouldn’t take long to realize the potency
of the wine may have changed along with the change in weather conditions,
Then
he drank of the wine and was drunk, and became uncovered in his tent (Gn 9:21).
I
agree with one commentator of Genesis that too many people get “mired in the morass of fruitless speculation” concerning the meaning of Ham seeing Noah’s
nakedness. So much so that I am of the opinion that it overshadows the question of why was Noah drunk in the first place.
Everyone
loves a scandal. With a spiritual resume like Noah, people pretend to be horrified
when something happens to a spiritual giant, but in reality, they are inwardly
relieved that their flaws are revealed to make them feel better about themselves, or
think or say to others, “I knew Mr. High & Mighty was nothing but a
hypocrite.”
Living
around godly believers is uncomfortable to the world and carnal believers. They
purposely look for flaws and hypocrisy to ease their own guilt and hypocrisy. The
verb became
uncovered should
probably be viewed as reflexive; Ham did not uncover his father. He probably
stared at his father’s nakedness and delighted in telling his other two
brothers.
Ham’s motivation for doing so is unclear. So, after Noah became sober, he cursed Canaan, Ham’s youngest son, not Ham (Gn 9:24-27; cf. Deut 27:16) in his oracle. We can speculate until the cows come home on what was Ham’s motive or Canaan’s involvement. Incidentally, the wine was not the problem here; the misuse of it was.
350
years after the flood, Noah finally died at the age of 950 (Gn 9:29). He was
one of only seven men recorded in Scripture to live over 900 years of age! In
all of his greatness, he fell to the grapes. Noah had a sinful heart as all of
us. The impartiality of the Word of God pulls no punches, revealing the faults
and virtues of all the saints of God. This is expected given the holiness of
God and the sinfulness of man, godly or not.
It
doesn't mean that Noah did not rebound from his moment of drunkenness, nor can
we assume getting intoxicated was the first time during the 350 years of his
life after the flood, but the last 3.5 centuries were uneventful except for
this recorded moment of indiscretion. It does seem anti-climactic in light of
his first 600 years in service to Yahweh (cf. Gn 7:11). This teaches us that we cannot ever let down our guard as long as we have breath (Prov 4:23) because the devil remains on the prowl to destroy our testimony for God (1 Pet 5:8). After the flood, there were only eight people for the devil to go after!
Witnessing
the death of the world of evil men is unimaginable. His drunkenness reveals
that the removal of all the unbelievers from the earth does not palliate the
sinfulness of believers. You can take a sinner out of a bad environment, but
you can’t take the nature of sin out of man, at least on this side of eternity,
yes?
Look
at the world today; it is torn by the sinfulness of man that can be traced back to
eight believers, the only survivors of the antediluvian civilization, who traced
their sinfulness back to Adam (cf. Rom 5:12). Adam had no idea what he
unleashed through his disobedience to Yahweh. He made a difference
alright, a negative one. Noah, on the other hand, was making a difference in a
positive way. How he did that is the same way we are to do it,
Thus
Noah did; according to all that God commanded him, so he did (Gn 6:22).
But
what kind of man was Noah in the eyes of God? This is an amazing testimony
given the fact that Noah lived during a time when the earth … was corrupt
before God, and the earth was filled with violence (Gn 6:11). Even so, it was said of
Noah,
Noah
was a just man, perfect in his generations. Noah walked with God (Gen 6:9b-c).
His
walk matched his talk. His great-grandfather was Enoch who also walked with God. He was translated at
age 365 (Gn 5:23-24), but Noah was destined to be a shipbuilder, Captain of the
Ark, and a preacher of righteousness. The year his grandfather died,
Methuselah, the oldest man recorded in Scripture at 969, the flood came upon the earth.
M.A.D. for God or making a difference in the world for God is impossible
outside obedience to His will, and that means thinking, feeling, and doing all according to His Word. It
is vital that we allow God to define what that “difference” is, not someone
else's! Are you M.A.D. for Christ? <><
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1.
To appreciate the scale of Noah’s Ark firsthand, go and visit the Ark Encounter
in Williamstown, KY; it is phenomenal and based on the Hebrew long cubit of
~20.4 inches: L: 510ˊ, W: 85ˊ, 51ˊH (cf. Gn 6:15).
2. The Bible does not provide the number of months in the age of each antediluvian patriarch listed from Adam to Noah in Genesis 5. If we factor in an average of 6 months between generations (10) for the month differentials, we could probably add another 5 years to the total number of years between Adam and Noah (1656 + 5 = 1661 years after the Fall, came the Flood). https://answersingenesis.org/bible-timeline/timeline-for-the-flood/
