09/05/04
1 (Slide
1)
And the Lord spake unto Noah.
And Noah spake unto the people saying.
Verily, I am telling
the truth unto you.
God spoke to me.
And the people replied.
Thou art off thy
head Noah, for thou hast been working too hard. At the age of 500 thou shouldest
be taking thy rest. For when a man who is old becometh overtired he mayest
easily imagine things.
And Noah saith, Verily,
verily I say unto you.
God spoke to me.
And with one voice all the people saith unto him…
Oh Noah… he didn’t.
And Noah spake in a loud voice unto them saying
“O yes he did.”
But they would not listen.
2. What do you think we can learn from the story of Noah? Here are
a few suggestions that other folk have made…(Slide 1.1) Plan ahead – it wasn’t raining when Noah
built the ark. (Slide 1.2) God
doesn’t retire us – Noah had a job to do when he was 600.
(Slide
1.3) The ark was built by an amateur…
the titanic was built by a professional. (Slide
1.4)
No matter how big
the storm, when you’re with God there’s always a rainbow waiting.
(Slide 1.5)
What can we learn?
Perhaps we often treat this story as if it is something
just for children. And we talk about all the animals going in to the ark. (Show noah’s ark toy)
(Slide 2) And so we think about the nice part of the story. The part
that is suitable for under 5’s.
But other parts of the story we are not quite so
comfortable with. For example:
Do we really think
that lions and lambs were there together on the ark?
Was there a world
wide flood?
Oh And wasn’t God
being a just a little bit harsh.. flooding the world and drowoning everyone?
And so sometimes people might look at this story and learn
some other lessons from it…
Lessons like (Slide 2.1) You can’t believe the bible.
Or even… (Slide 3) God is out to get us.
3. (Slide
4) Was there a flood that covered the whole earth. I don't know for
sure. We talk about the First World war, and the Second World war. But the
people of
Mind you the way that the story is told in the bible
suggests that this flood was a bit more than just a local crisis. I do know
that some people just assume that a world wide flood could never have happened…
the whole idea seems impossible. Although
maybe for us today, with global warning becoming a reality and scientists
telling us about the impact that melting ice caps will have on huge areas of
the planets surface, perhaps the flood doesn’t’ seem quite as impossible to us
now, as it might have seemed once.
(Slide 5) And there are other scholars with a lot more brain than I’ve
got, who say they have found evidence of a world wide catastrophic flood. I
know that at least one archaeologist reckons to have found the site of the ark
on
I am not certain.
But what I am
certain of is that there are lessons that God wants me to learn from reading
the story of Noah as it is recorded in the book of Genesis. There is truth in this story that I need to
know and understand. And if you spend all your time worrying about whether or
not Noah could have got a giraffe in the ark,
or arguing about whether or not every square inch of the earth was
covered with water, then there is a danger that you might fail to learn the lessons from the
story that God means us to learn.
4. (Slide
6)
It seems to me that the first twelve chapters of the book
of Genesis are a very special kind of literature, very different from other
parts of the bible. These 12 chapters
are like a mixture of history and parable... the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain
and Abel, Noah and the flood and the tower of Babel are all meant to help us to
see things as they are, to help us to see ourselves as we are, and also to help
us to see God.. as he is. They all
contain truth that we need to know. Truth about us, and truth about God who is
the creator of all things. God who is sovereign. God who gives life to us all..
and who takes life away. God who is the source of all love. God who will not
give up on his creation.
5. At
the beginning of time.. after the creation of the world Genesis records (Slide 7) God saw all that he had made,
and it was very good. Genesis 1:31
But a few chapters later.. in the time of Noah.. how
things have changed once human beings chose to go their own way instead of living
in obedience and love with God.
(Slide 8)
The LORD saw how great human wickedness on
the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart
was only evil all the time. The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the
earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
(Slide 9)
We are made in the image of God... in other words our
lives were intended to reflect the character of God. Jesus once said If you
have seen me you have seen the Father... the original plan was that that would
be true for every single one of us. But when God looked at people.. he couldn’t
see his character there in them, he saw something else instead.
(Slide 10)
You know how when you go to a hall of mirrors.. look at
yourself in a distorting mirror. Instead
of seeing a true image reflected we see a distorted image. We laugh at what we
see.
The trouble is that when God looked at his image of
himself in us… what he saw wasn't funny.. he saw a horrible parody of what we
were meant to be.
He
saw the tragic situation of people who were cut off from him... because of
their sin.
(Slide 10.1) and his heart was filled with pain.
6. Used
a jargon word there... SIN. Doesn't mean
shouting at the kids when we shouldn't', doesn't mean being mean. Those things are just the SYMPTOMS of what is
wrong. So often people just concentrate on the symptoms of what is wrong in
their lives.
Try not to lose my temper, try to be more considerate, try
not to be so selfish. Try to be more forgiving…
Trying to deal with the problem of sin like that is like
depending on aspirin to make you well when your leg is broken in three places.
All the tablets can to is suppress the pain, deal with the
symptoms, you're not going to be able to walk properly until the real problem
is attended to.
(Slide 12)
Sin.. the real problem, is the word the bible uses to
describe what we do: we put ourselves first.. instead of putting God first.
We choose to ignore.. love, truth. Goodness, kindness,
patience, righteousness, joy.
Sin is the word the bible uses to describe the way in
which we reject the loving God who made us, ignore him, and fill his heart with pain.
Sin is what we do when we try to live our lives as if God
wasn't there. And the only answer for us
is to recognise that we are helpless, to say I don’t want to be in this
situation any more.. and to reach out to God for help. (Slide 13)
The flood story is in the bible to say that even the
tragedy of a human race, spoiled by sin was not beyond the reach of God’s
saving power.
What did Noah do? (Slide 13.1)
He obeyed God. He listened to him.
(He
reached out to him in obedience… he built the ark. He heard what God had to say
to Him… and he did it.)
7. Do
you know there are other flood stories.
Other cultures in the ancient world have their own stories
of a great flood which wiped out life all apart from a tiny group of people who
survived. It could be that these cultures borrowed stories from one another. I
think it is just as likely that they are records of a shared experience. (Could
be a powerful argument to suggest there was a huge flood that touched all of
human life)
Here is a bit of information that you might have come
across during your RE lessons at school, certainly if ever you study A level
religious studies... or do any theological training you will find out about
these other flood stories which are known to us as a result of archaeological
research.
(Slide 14) The Sumerian civilization... c. 2000 BC.. in Mesopotamia
the land between the two rivers of the Tigris and the Euphrates (area of Iraq)
Sophisticated cities with three storied houses when Abraham was a lad. They had
a story of a flood… where the gods decreed that the world should be destroyed.
(Human beings were making to much noise according to this story… keeping one of
the gods awake at night… and in a flood that lasted for seven days and seven
nights.. the world was destroyed.
(Slide 14.1) The Babylonians... they had their own flood story… the
Epic of Gilgamesh. Tales of a hero (Utnapishtim) who survived.
In the both of these ancient stories the flood is just a
great catastrophe.. caused by the gods..
Why? Well its just the sort of things that gods do to people, they're
out to get us. The fact that in each of the stories there was a survivor was
down to sheer chance and good luck... (actually in the Babylonian story it was
because one man managed to outwit the gods.)
But the Bible story of the flood is different.
(Slide 14.2)
Read in the bible about Noah and the flood, and it is
clear that we are not being told that god couldn't care less about us.
The lesson we learn from the story of Noah is not that God
is out to get us… rather it shows us how much the God who made us cares about
us.
The story of Noah teaches us that God cares enough about
us to want to see the earth filled with justice and righteousness not evil and
hatred.
Because the flood story is the story of a new beginning...
the beginning of God's plan of salvation which will ultimately be completed on
that day when he creates a new heaven and a new earth and makes everything new.
Read through the bible.. see how From Noah.. we made a
fresh start.. leading up to Abraham the founder of the Jewish nation .. and
then throughout he OT the story is told of how step by step God was at work to
prepare the way for the coming of his Son Jesus.
“But people died in
the flood” Did
God make that happen? They lost nothing that wasn’t given to them as a free
gift. Lost nothing that God could not give back to them. Maybe that is why
there is this passage later on.
(Slide 15) For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the
unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made
alive by the Spirit, 19 through whom
also he went and preached to the spirits in prison 20 who disobeyed long ago when God waited
patiently in the days of Noah while the ark was being built. (1 Peter 3:20) IF you are troubled by the flood story and
the thought that people died.. are you really saying that you care more about
other people that the God who made them.
(Slide 16) picture of drowning
figure
What do you see… someone about to drown and sink beneath
the waves… or someone about to be rescued.
(Slide 16:1)
You can look at the flood story and see destruction… or you
can look at the flood story and see God’s salvation.
What lesson can we learn from this story.
God is not out to get you.
He is wanting to rescue you.