Life Lessons: Facts, Faith and the Family of Noah
A lot of folks struggle with Genesis.
They don’t believe in a worldwide flood as described in Chapter 7.
They wonder… Who did the sons of Adam and Eve marry? How could so many nations, languages, races and ethnic groups develop from only two people?
There are lots of questions and so many things we have a hard time understanding.
And this…
I’m not sure if anyone is entirely clear about the “Nephilim” and where they came from!
Being neither a scientist nor scholar, I’ll leave the technical explanations to someone else. I will say there are excellent resources out there. Science is science and faith is faith; they aren’t the same nor are they meant to be. But neither do they contradict. In fact, the very opposite is true. Everything I have studied, (including a fascinating and powerful series by Brad Harrub, Ph.D.) has only strengthened my faith. The truth is, every bit of proven scientific fact not only doesn’t contradict the Bible…it actually supports it, despite what many would have us believe.
I’d highly recommend Dr. Harrub’s work to to anyone struggling, looking for answers, or having a tough time coming to grips with some of the issues they find so hard to believe. At www.focuspress.org, you’ll find abundant resources. There are many good articles in the Apologetics/Science section and a free Believe Bible Study download under “Books” as well as a number of items available for purchase.
I’m thrilled to leave the scientific questions to the scientists! What I’m in love with are the stories. While they do make sense technically (if you care to dive into that realm), what I’m fascinated by is how much sense they make emotionally, psychologically, and from a moral and spiritual standpoint.
After all, given that there IS a Creator… wouldn’t we WANT a relationship with Him?
I never realized how “neatly” everything was laid out in the book of Genesis. It has an easy to follow and logical order. Did you know there were 10 generations from Adam to Noah and another 10 from Noah to Abraham?
Growing up, our youth used to participate in “Bible bowls.” We studied Bible facts, memorized Bible verses, then competed in teams to answer Bible questions. What great memories! That may have also contributed to my being something of a nerd who gets so absorbed in collecting and organizing facts that it’s easy to miss the message surrounding those facts… haha! Along the way, I’ll be sharing some of the activities, charts, memory aids, etc. developed to complement this lesson series. If you’re a fellow nerd, please enjoy. If not, just skip over them; they are neither the heart nor the purpose of the study.
Adam to Noah
After Cain killed Abel, Adam and Eve had another son, Seth, and here begins the rest of history!
As the human race increased in number, unfortunately it also increased in wickedness until at last, God made a decision to make a clean sweep….
I think this must be one of the saddest verses in the Bible:
I’m not sure which makes me saddest…that God was hurt, that we are the ones who caused His pain, or that the extent of His grief was sufficient to cause Him regret over having made us.
As a parent I know two things… One, a child can fill your heart in a way unlike anything else. And two… a child can break your heart in a way unlike anything else.
I’m blessed with a son I’m proud of; I hope you are too but this isn’t the case with everyone. There are parents who suffer deeply over unspeakable actions committed by their children. As a parent, I don’t even want to imagine a situation so horrible that I actually wished my son had never been born. I can’t imagine the pain and trouble of soul that would drive that level of regret. But God doesn’t have to imagine it. For parents who suffer such heartbreak … for the times no one else can understand the devastating grief they somehow mange to live with, God can.
Thankfully, there was Noah who walked faithfully with God. I’m glad there was Noah… glad for the parent’s heart of God that He had a faithful child and glad for the human race because it got a second chance.
God told Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them.” As instructed by God, Noah built an ark wherein he and his family would safely ride out the destruction. The day it started to pour, Noah moved in along with his wife, his three sons and their wives. For FORTY days it rained. They were on that ark just over a year by the time the rain stopped, the waters receded, the earth dried completely and they received the command to disembark.
I don’t know who came up with all these great life lessons from Noah’s ark but they are better than I would have thought of so I’m sharing this list instead of trying to top it!
Can you imagine what stepping out of that ark after all that time, one of eight living humans alive in a virtually whole new world must have been like? Noah builds an altar and offers sacrifices to God Who vows to never again kill off every living thing, despite the evilness of humanity.
Also man was given permission to eat meat in addition to the green plants they’d already been eating, and capital punishment is instated as the penalty for murder.
We are given (in Genesis 9) a glimpse of a shameful family moment that, far from staying private, wound up with very public and permanent repercussions:
Noah planted a vineyard, got drunk from some of the wine and fell asleep naked in his tent. His youngest son saw him, went outside and told his brothers. The older two, however, took in a covering for Noah, entering backward and turning their heads to avoid seeing their father naked. Upon awakening and learning what his youngest son (Ham) had done to him, Noah cursed Ham’s son, Canaan. (If it isn’t already, that will become a very familiar name as this curse is played out over time.)
After coming out of the ark, Noah and his sons had been blessed by God and told to “increase in number and fill the earth.” Here’s a quick peek into that development: (In red are some names that are going to become really familiar as we march along!)
A Message From The Tower of Babel
Let’s look at one more critical incident through these brief excerpts from Genesis 11:
On the face of it, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with building a tower. There is, however, something wrong about what motivated the construction. For one thing, that blessing God had given earlier wasn’t only about growing but also filling the earth. If they thought building a tower would stop them from being scattered, they were mistaken. Because, here’s something else to know about God: We can’t outwit Him! Interestingly enough, it doesn’t stop us from trying. You’d think with all of the times this is made obvious through the stories of God’s people, we would eventually get the message but that doesn’t seem to be the case (at least for some of us.) I’ve tried more times than I could count to find a way around God’s will in effort to achieve my own but never fared any better than these people did.
Secondly, the people thought they could make a name for themselves, but God’s purpose for us is always greater than that. With their egos in the way, they didn’t realize how much better off they’d be trying to “impress” God rather than man.
And it’s true for us today. Whether it applies to churches obsessed with bigger, better building projects or to any number of ways we strive personally in effort to exalt ourselves, impressing people will never be as important as impressing upon people the the glory, the grace, and the goodness of our awesome God.
Wishing you and your family a beautiful holiday season… Until next time!