Noah's Ark & the Bible

Imagine you're living in Arizona, working, just minding your own business and a voice from the sky tells you to build a boat big enough for two of every animal. What kind of faith does it take to do something like that? Can you imagine what the neighbors would say? Noah's faith in spite of everything he could see around him is the kind of faith that God asks us to have.

Noah’s story starts in Genesis Chapter 6. We don’t know when Noah lived, but if the account of his lineage as recorded in the Bible is uninterrupted, he was only nine generations removed from Adam. The times were bad. Genesis 6:5 records, “And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” “But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.” (Verse 8 KJV)

When God gives us a job to do, He gives us the means to do it as well. He gave Noah the information he needed to complete the work. That doesn’t mean the job will be easy. It took Noah many years to build the ark. All that time, Noah preached repentance to the people and they ignored or scorned him. How difficult it must have been to remain faithful for so long, when all the circumstances in Noah’s life must have made him think twice about his project.

God asks us to look beyond circumstances and look to Him instead. This is what faith is, relying on what God tells us rather than what we see. Hebrews 11:1 says, “ What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.” (NLT) It goes on to talk about Noah in verse 7, “It was by faith that Noah built an ark to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, Who warned him about something that had never happened before. By his faith he condemned the rest of the world and was made right in God's sight.” (NLT)

When we refuse to respond to God with faith, we lose the opportunity for His blessing and protection. The people of Noah’s time refused to hear God’s message and turn to Him in faith. By their refusal they condemned themselves. We are given the gift of freewill so that we can make our own choices in life. This also means that we make our own consequences some times. We never know when the consequences could be eternal, though.

When Noah had completed the ark, God gave the people seven more days to repent and be saved. None listened and God commanded Noah and his family into the ark. The rains prevailed for forty days and forty nights. Everything and everyone on the earth perished except the people and animals on Noah’s ark. (Genesis 7:1-17)

There are several lessons in this passage of scripture. Noah was faithful and completed his work, doing just as God directed. By his faith, he and his family were saved. God was faithful to Noah, too. When we do as God asks us to do, He is faithful to us and protects us.

A hidden lesson is in this passage of scripture too. The story of Christ is in the story of the ark. A time of judgment came to the earth but God provided a way for those who were faithful to Him to be saved. The ark is symbolic of how God provides a way of salvation for us. By accepting with faith what God told him, Noah and his family were saved. Accepting Christ with faith saves us.

From Noah, we learn the fundamentals of Christianity. From the beginning, God has only asked that we have faith in Him to provide for us and take care of us. From the beginning, God has protected and spared those who have had faith in Him. Sometimes it doesn’t look like we are protected or safe. But, the safety net we have is not anchored to this world. Our safety net is eternal life granted to us by Christ’s redeeming work on the cross. This we accept by faith, just as Noah accepted by faith that a flood would come and the ark would protect him. Jesus is our ark, our salvation, and our protection.

Without faith, we have nothing. We are left behind to suffer the flood. God didn’t want for any of those people to die. Matthew 18:14 says, “Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.” (KJV) But to save them He would have had to take away His gift to them, their free will.

When the rain ceased, Noah and his family remained on the ark for a year. The ark landed about 150 days after the rain stopped but they still didn’t leave it until the dove he sent out didn’t return and God told them it was safe to leave. (Genesis 8:1-15) Noah faithfully waited for God to tell him what to do. The land had to dry considerably before it would have been habitable. Imagine coming to the end of a long trip and not being able to get out of the car for ten months longer. Shem, Ham and Japeth, Noah’s sons, may have been whining, “Are we there yet?” But Noah waited for God’s perfect timing.

Patience is perhaps one of the bigger elements of faith. Without patience, we tend to abandon God and try to solve things for ourselves. And we end up where Noah would have if he’d abandoned the ark before it was time, in a quagmire. There is a Christian joke of sorts that says not to ask God to teach you patience unless you are prepared to suffer. It’s through the trials of life that we do learn patience. It’s through messing things up and trying to do it our way that we discover God’s way is not only the best, it’s the easiest and least painful.

Fortunately, Noah already knew to be patient and have faith. He did as he was told in building and boarding the ark. He waited for God’s timing to leave the ark. As his reward, he and his family were saved. We learn from Noah to board the ark of salvation, which is Christ and have the patience and faith to wait for and trust in our reward of eternal life.