Oh boy, Noah and the Ark. Everybody knows this story. There's been movies made about it.
Well, people think they know the story of the Ark. Oh, don't we? Maybe we should read it and find out. That's the solution. Let's read the story today on More Than Inc.
Hey, hey, here we are. There's Dorothy. And there's Jim. And I'm Jim, and we're glad you're with us. This is More Than Inc., and we are reading our way through Genesis, and it's been.
Wow, it's actually been kind of crazy. It's a nutty story. There's just action everywhere. Yeah, and if you recall back to the Garden of Eden, the fundamental problem they had when they took from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is they wanted to know what good and evil was apart from God. And so, from that point on, where we are in the story here with the people, the descendants from Adam from there, it's a collection of people who are striving to know good and evil apart from knowing God.
And that's kind of. Be a problem, you'll see in a second, because it's not going rosy. It's a horrible thing. We looked at the line of Kane that ended up so murderous at the end. Oh, wow, yeah.
We got that little portrait of Lamech at the end, this man of incredible violence who took multiple wives and then boasted that he would murder somebody who just insulted him. Yeah, yeah. But the bottom line here, when it comes to evil, is if you want to understand evil on your own terms, you're a sitting duck. Yeah. And things are really bad, which is why God did not want them to be involved with evil.
And the aphorism for us many times is that experience is the best teacher, but when it comes to evil, it is not. No, when you turn away from God, you experience evil in a particularly vital way. But you think you're actually providing a good life for yourself in the process. There's the lie about it. And that's the deception.
That's the deception. Yeah. And the deception started even, and now we're reaping the whirlwind because of that.
Okay, so last week we read the generations from Adam up to Noah. Right. And it's all set up with Noah. And we've come down to, we got actually to the birth of Noah, whose name means this one shall give us rest. Rest, comfort, rest.
And now we're going to double back because we have to kind of understand what was happening. It's like the camera's going to zoom out again, and now we see what's been happening. On a larger scale, we're going to back away from Noah for just a second and see what's going with all these multiplying people on the face of the earth. Oh, we got him set up to go. He's a man for his time, so let's see what the problem is.
Chapter 6. Of Genesis? Yeah, read for us. Here we go. When men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive, and they took their wives as they chose.
Uh-oh. Yeah, we need to stop there for just a second. That's a troubling statement.
Well, if you're a careful reader, there's some really interesting stuff here, right? God set up this multiplication, right? He told Adam and Eve, multiply and fill the earth. That's my plan. Right?
And it emphasizes that daughters are born to human beings.
Well, Now we have people we can't identify. Who are these sons of God? Who are they? And who are these daughters of man? Who are they?
Right? And there's this fascinating thing: this little series of words in verse two. The sons of God saw. that the daughters of man were Attractive? Or this literally the same word as Eve saw the fruit as good.
They're back in the garden. Right. And they took as their wives any they chose. That is not a pleasant word. That is a seizing for one's own appetites.
Yeah. So that's the same sequence with Eve. It is. Saul. We got the fall all over again playing.
Attracted. It was good. Yep. And took. Right.
And so that's why when you look at these, whoever these guys are, the sons of God here in verse two, they're following in the same temptation fall that Eve is. Right. But now we're talking in terms of taking, doing marriages. Yeah. Daughters of man.
Yeah. But the question, you're right. The question is, who are these sons of man? Who are these guys? And all of a sudden, they're notorious because they have this forceful kind of connecting up with the women.
It's not a good situation.
Well, they're taking women to satisfy their own lust, which is actually what we saw with Lamech back in the couple of chapters back. Any they chose. Yeah. So, you know, do you want to talk about the fact there's three kind of thoughts about who these guys might be? Oh, yeah, who this is.
The text kind of supports them all, and it's very difficult to figure out exactly. We really can't, we don't have enough information. Yeah, this is one of those mysteries that are really fun to talk about. I mean, it's fun to speculate over, and people make their cases, but it has kind of settled into three camps.
Okay, so one is that these are fallen angels. Right. Perhaps. Maybe. But the second one is more interesting to me, that they are, you know, human beings who have grown up to be kings and rulers.
They're powerful. They defied God and thought of themselves as God. Yeah, they're usually called divine kings. They think of themselves as divine kings. And they are like Lamech.
They're men who just take women. Plural women.
So that's right. And that's very clear in the text. And then the third idea is that these were men, not out of Cain's line, but out of Seth's line, who were followers of God, but they married the daughters of Cain because there's some implication here of sexual perversity in the way they took these women.
So there's kind of a mixing of the nicer line. Mixing of the God word line with the God away line.
So all of those hold water from the text. And we just don't know for certain. But the things we know for certain is that these guys were, they were active, they were powerful, they did whatever they wanted. Right, right. And their offspring is starting to trouble me.
So yeah, go look that up because it's really, it really is a fun discussion. I mean, for instance, there's pros and cons biblically for almost all. Those proposals. Like, for instance, you know, Jesus, when he's talking about marriage, says angels don't marry, but they don't marry in heaven. But I mean, it's still, it's like, well, then if these guys are some kind of fallen angels, does it make sense they'd be marrying young women?
Angels have presented themselves in human form.
So who knows? Just interesting. We don't know. It just leads you, but it leads you down to all kinds of weird rabbit trails, which is not actually the point. The point here is degeneration.
Right. And if this was a movie, right at this point. You would hear the creepy music start to rise, and you know that something not good is coming. Right. Yeah.
Right. Based on these perverted relationships. Right, right. Yeah. Because, and look at God's response.
This is verse 3. Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years.
Okay. Is he saying humankind is only going to live 120 years?
Well, in the last genealogy, they clearly didn't. They lived hundreds of years. Everyone went past 120. Maybe what he's alluding to is: yeah, 120 years from this point, mankind's going to be done. There's going to be a flood.
Right. That's a possibility. That's usually what people lean on. And this is the, God sets the clock. He says, you guys got 120 years to change your mind about what you're doing, but then the flood's coming.
It's interesting that he says, My spirit shall not abide in man forever. I'm not going to allow these broken, degenerating human beings. My spirit is not going to indwell them forever. Right, right. Remember, that was the reason that he barred Adam and Eve from the garden, lest they eat from the tree of life and live forever in their fallen state.
Right, right. So, God's going to take action.
Okay. Okay. Now we get another little weird group of people. On verse 4. Oh, my goodness.
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of man, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Oh, man.
Now we got sons of God, daughters of man, and Nephilim. And Nephilim. And we don't know who they are either. No, we don't. The Hebrew word literally means fire.
fallen ones but it doesn't that doesn't necessarily mean they're angels no right they are fallen from the original condition in which god fallen from yeah the right but they're characterized by their violence by their mighty powerfulness by their ancient line right going clear back to cain perhaps and they're famous for it yeah so those may or may not be good qualities they're powerful qualities yeah they're powerful and um i guess that's all you need to know uh and the nephilim they're mysterious i mean they do show up another time in numbers 13 it turns out right um you know when they go in and they spy out the land when israel's going into the promised land they talk about the giants that are there and they they say and there we saw the nephilim the sons of anoch Who comes from the Nephilim, and we can, you know, we look like grasshoppers compared to them.
So that kind of underscores that last section in that verse: is that these were mighty men, and we're talking about powerful men, powerful, powerful men who were from old, and the men of renown. And that phrase is also used for the people who were in Canaan at the time that the Israelites came in. They're known for their violence and their powerfulness.
So these are formidable beings. Right. And not only just formidable, but. Sinful. Yeah, not good.
So that's a nightmarish situation. And we know that from God's reaction. Yeah. Yeah. And if these people are formidable and powerful and nasty and selfish and prideful and all those bad things and that's backed up by power, then clearly they're abusing the people on the land that are not like that.
And so God doesn't put up with that kind of thing for long. And they are reproducing. And there's more to come.
So they're teaching their children, apparently, to be violent. Again, the background music in the theater that's even teaching more toe curling. Yeah. It's just, it's sad. And even though we don't know specifically who they were, we know from God's reaction that this was not a good development in the history of mankind.
No, no, this is not where God wanted things to go.
Okay, so look at verse 5. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Oh, that's boy, that's pretty bad. And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
So the Lord said. I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah, found favour in the eyes of the Lord. Awesome back to Noah. Yeah.
But it is interesting. It's as though God, as a landlord of a rental unit, says, I made this wonderful place for you guys to live, and you have just trashed it. Right. So now I'm going to take it down and start over.
Well, and their wickedness has affected the animals. That's what I mean. I'm that's like their wickedness has added to the bondage of the earth. Yeah, yeah. It's had an effect on the creation that God has done.
But Noah, yay, we got him in the genealogy previously, found favor in the eyes of the Lord. But did you hear God's grief? Yeah, in fact, that phrase I've never looked up before. In verse 6, it grieved him to his heart. That kind of thing.
It's used another time, and the context it's used kind of blew my mind. What? If you remember the story, it's later in Genesis. We're going to get there a long time later. But remember, Jacob had a daughter named Dinah.
And she was defiled. I mean, is sexually defiled. And boy, people were ticked off. And so it says in Genesis 34, 7, the sons of Jacob had come in from the field. As soon as they heard of it, about this defiling, they came in from the field and the men were indignant and very angry.
That's exactly. This phrase so it's this grief together with anger. Yeah, yeah. Grief that causes you just to be crazy with anger because of the injustice of it. Wow.
Yeah. And that was the only place I could find when I saw that. I thought, wow.
Okay, this looks like God is more affected in verse 6 than anything else to here. The things that God created as beautiful and good and purposeful for the blessing of mankind have been seized, perverted, and twisted to be used in another way. Yep, yep, exactly. Exactly.
So that's the conundrum we're in, and God looks around for someone who can work his will, and that guy is Noah.
Well, he's been watching Noah.
So let me read a little bit. What do you say?
So we get to verse 9.
So he says, These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation, and Noah walked with God. Hey, we've heard that before. Yes, that intimate relationship, ongoing, continual. Verse 10.
And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Now, we're not going to follow them immediately. It's going to take us till chapter 9 for us to catch up with them, but we're just setting them up. Yeah, so verse 11.
So now, look, the earth was corrupt in God's sight. The earth was filled with violence, and God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt. For all flesh had corrupted their ears. Can he use the word corrupt enough? Ruined, rotten, gone bad.
Yes, right. All flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. By the way, that word destroy is the same Hebrew word as corrupted.
Yeah. He's basically saying, You guys have destroyed the place, and now I'm going to trash you. And I'm going to trash you. Yeah. So, what you wanted, I'm going to finish you.
It's because of the corruption, the rot, the misuse of taking God's beautiful things and they've gone bad, but connecting it with violence. And violence, right? That evil oppression and wickedness and tearing apart. Yeah. Yeah, it's yeah, it's horrible.
And you remember at the outset in the Garden of Eden, God had given them jobs to care for creation. And here they've destroyed it. Yeah. Is isn't that where man goes? That's why we can't have any nice things because we always destroy it.
Yeah. So he instructs Noah, goes on in verse 14. Here's what we're going to do, he says: make yourself an ark of gopher wood.
Okay, make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and out with pitch. And this is how you're to make it: the length of the ark, 300 cubits, its breadth, 50 cubits, its height, 30 cubits. 30 cubits.
Okay, this thing's big. It's, well, it's the size of a battleship. I looked at a couple of standard battleships from World War II. It is right in there. Wow.
This is right in there. I mean, it's 450 feet long. That's what 300 cubits are. And then he says in 16: make a roof for the ark, finish it to a cubit above, and set a door in the ark in its side. In its side?
You better make sure that closes well. And then make it with inside, make it with lower, second, and third decks. For behold, I will bring the flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the bread of the breath of life under heaven. Everything that's on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you and your sons, and your wife, and your sons' wives with you and every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you.
They shall be male and female. And of the birds, according to their kinds, of the animals, according to their kinds, of every creeping thing on the ground, according to its kind. Two of every sort shall come in to you to keep them alive. Also, take with you every sort of food that's eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them.
Verse 22, so Noah did this. He did all that God commanded him. Noah was a humble, obedient guy. And this was a big job. Oh my gosh.
Well, we're going to find out later how long it took him. Right, right. Well, we know from the ticking time clock, maybe 120 years. Yeah, maybe, maybe. Yeah, that could very well be the case.
So, let's go back to the ark for a second. One of the most fascinating things for me, being a scientist by training, is people have taken these dimensions. And, you know, not any rectangular box will float. You have to do it right so it doesn't keep tipping over and rolling on its side. And so they've tested these ratios, and this works great.
This is a seaworthy vessel. I've read from Christian scientists. They've looked at this. They've actually made models. This is seaworthy.
This will work. In contrast to, and this is interesting, you know, there are other flood tales and other cultures, not biblical. One that came out of the Mesopotamian area is the Gilgamesh epic. And it's similar in a lot of ways, but there are dimensions for an ark in that. And that one's not going to work because it's a cube.
It's 180-foot cube on the sides. And if you think about a cube with stuff inside of it, that poor thing is just going to be turning over on any face all the time. I mean, it's not going to work. A cube is one of the worst designs for the hull of a ship because it's just not stable. There's nothing that actually keeps it in one orientation.
It'll keep flipping over. But this one works. This one works. And while I'm on the other pagan stories of the flood, it is interesting that in almost every major ancient culture, there is a flood story. A large flood.
Yes. Yeah. And of course, the details don't line up. And some critics of the Bible have always said, hey, look, Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh epic, it's got a flood story.
So probably, you know, Moses heard that, and so he wrote it down on here and whatever. You know, he took the historical Gilgamesh story and turned it into a myth in the Bible. Works better the other way around. But it is. In a sense, actually, it's the other way around because here we have.
History that people claim is a myth, and it's not. And so it's a fascinating deal that there is just so much of worldwide history that hints at this very thing, but the details are different. It's like there's been kind of a long-term memory in these cultures about. This big event, and they preserved that big event. But here we get an account.
Actually, when you look at the accounts, the surviving written accounts we have of the Bible versus the Gilgamesh epic, or there's another one as well. I forget what it's called. This is the oldest one. This is the oldest one. And it makes more sense.
It makes sense. Yeah. Because this is all about God and Noah's relationship with God. The other ones are about strange things and arks that won't float without tipping over on their head all the time. Yeah.
Thank you. Yeah. Well, and there's actually a lot of stuff you can you can look up and you can go visit the the models of the ark in various places. But I I'm actually more intrigued with the the very clear kind of intention of God to recreate. Yeah, this is the recreation.
Because he tells Noah, I'm going to wipe everything out, every living thing, but. you and your family and the animals That I'm, I want you to have male and female because we're going to start over, right? Right? So, God. Even when he wiped out all life on the earth, brought through Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives, and then enough animal kind to start over.
Now, God didn't need to bring animals through. No. Right? He could have just recreated them from the beginning, like he did in chapter one of Genesis. But here he trusts Noah.
In this ark, this safe-carrying vessel, to bring these animals through and make sure you feed them.
So, the assignment to tend and care for God's good creation is still functioning. It is. It is. It really is. It is amazing that God would entrust to him this much work, to tell you the truth.
That would take so long.
However, the speculation is that during the long dredgery of making this thing, That it was a testimony to the world. You know, people write little speculations about what the dialogue says. I think Peter says that, or the writer of Hebrews also says that, that Noah testified of his faith. Yeah, so this is why God often entrusts things to us that he could do with a snap of his finger because he wants it to be worked out slowly in the face of other people as a testimony and as kind of a stimulating thinking. Like when God comes in the garden and says, Where are you?
He's saying to all of humanity through this ark, this long ark building.
So where are you guys? You know, why do you think this is coming? You know, what are you doing that's wrong? I mean, it's a testimony.
So here's Noah walking with God through these 120 years of building this thing in humility, in obedience, in faith that God is going to do what he said he would do. Noah, because he walked with God, probably shared God's heartbrokenness over the degeneration of what he saw around him. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And it begs a question as we're getting kind of low on time right here. Remember the meaning of Noah's name? We were looking at that. This one shall give us rest.
Yeah, rest and comfort.
So, in what way is, I mean, you know how the story is going to go.
So, I'm just going to leave that there on the table and we're going to answer that as we go on. How is it that Noah's role is actually the manifestation of rest and comfort for people? mankind because what what he's going to do is he's going to save a remnant And then, and then recreation will happen on the earth, and recreation in terms of the in terms of the generations of mankind will start over, get reset. Yeah, so well, we also skipped right over the fact that God says in verse 17: Everything that's on the earth shall die, but I will establish my covenant with you. First time that were first time.
This is the first covenant we have. And God is initiating. He says, I'm going to make an agreement with you. We're going to make a pact. We're going to do life together in this way.
And so watch for that as the story unfolds. God is making promises here. And because Noah believes God. He goes forward in obedience and follows through on everything God had commanded him. Yeah, so every time you see the word covenant, if that's a bothersome word to you, just substitute promise.
Yeah, that helps a little bit. It's a little more strong than a promise. It's not a promise, but a contract. It's a contract and an assurance, and something you can take to the bank, something you can trust. And it takes place in a relationship.
Yeah. Right. A covenant takes place between people who are agreeing to do a relationship in a particular way. Right, right. So, even here, we're not exactly sure how you would spell out that contract from here.
Well, we're going to see a little bit of it later. We'll see a little bit later as it comes out.
So, keep your eyes out for that as well. What is the assurance? What is the trustable assurance God has given him? And the fact that he does trust that and is him saying, Okay, I'll put my trust in that. I'll work on this stupid boat for 120 years.
He probably didn't say stupid. No, I probably didn't say stupid, but I think, but you know, when you think about it, let's say it did take 120 years. You know, this is an effort of great patience and endurance and persistence. And something has to drive you to say, I'm still going to do this. I'm still going to do this.
I'm still going to do this. Going to do this. And that something that he uses as his foundation is God's promise, his covenant. Yeah, so let's just keep an eye out to see if we can figure out exactly what that sounds like because he's not telling us exactly here. What he's giving him is a gigantic job.
It's going to keep him busy for a long time. It's going to keep him busy. Probably employed his sons and their wives and his own wife. Yeah. Kept him busy for generations.
Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just point out one more contrast with the Gigamesh epic because if we're talking about Noah, there's no way in which in the biblical story you would call Noah a hero. God's really the hero. He's the one that brings the salvation.
But in the Gilgamesh story, there's one central guy. He's the only guy who survives. And he's lifted up as a gigantic hero of all mankind. I mean, he is made almost divine because of what he does. The Gilgamesh epic.
That's radically different than here. Here you have a God who is still compassionate and loving toward mankind in the face of mankind's frailties. God is the hero. God is the hero, and Noah is just the obedient kind of wingman to get him down that road. But God's the hero in this story.
The Gilgameka epish. The gods are nasty, they're not the hero.
So here's God saving mankind and starting over. And Noah, Noah now is looking like a Moses figure and a Jesus figure all tied together. Which, incidentally, Moses is the only other person in the Old Testament that is actually stated of him, you have found favor. You have found favor. And he's also the only other person.
who was in an ark. That little basket that floated in the reeds, that was called an ark. Isn't that a different? It's a means to salvation in the face of death.
So, anyway, come back with us and we'll continue to unfold the. All the flood narrative, which is pretty darn crazy. I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we'll see you here next time on More Than Inc.
Yeah. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note. Wow, Noah walked with God. He was a righteous and a blameless man in his generation.
Yeah, and you wouldn't figure that would happen in this string of just horrible news about the fallen and sinful mankind. But there he is, and we're thankful for Noah. We'll see what happens next time. Yeah, bye. Yeah.
This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.
