Impact Week Seven

Review

Last week we were in Daniel chapter four, looking into the life of King Nebuchadnezzar. Israel had fallen into captivity of one of the great superpower kingdoms of that day. This king decided that the kingdom of Babylon that he was in charge of had become mighty because he himself was great. What he failed to realize, was that God had established his rule in the first place. Nebuchadnezzar had a troubling dream that no one in all of Babylon was able to interpret save for Daniel, a prophet and a man of God. God warned Nebuchadnezzar through the dream and through Daniel that Nebuchadnezzar would fall from power for a period of time until he was humbled and gave the glory to God for everything he once had. Nebuchadnezzar indeed did fall from power and became a wild creature of sorts before humbling himself and making a declaration that God was the King of kings.

In our own lives we need to remember that whatever success that we have, whatever we have accomplished is due to God’s grace. We haven’t actually accomplished anything. If you’ll recall, in the movie “Bruce Almighty”, Morgan Freeman, who played God, gave Bruce his power to look after a portion of Buffalo because Bruce thought he could do a better job than God himself. When Bruce came to his senses, he looked up, and cried out that God was the one in control and that He should decide what was best for him. As Christians, Jesus is not only our Saviour, but the Lord of our lives as well, meaning our miniature kingdoms are at His hands.

Background

Go with me if you will to a time when only one man on the face of the earth was found righteous amongst the entire population of the earth. The earth hadn’t even been around that long. Details on the exact time are extremely sketchy, but we’ll make a guess that this is somewhere around 3000 – 2400 B.C. To put that in perspective, the earth is somewhere around six thousand (6000) years old, not millions like your science class may teach you, and the beginning of time is somewhere around 4000 B.C. During this time, people lived a great many years. It was not unusual for a man to live eight hundred (800) years before dying. Noah was no exception.

Somewhere towards the last hundred years of his life, God made the decision that He was disgusted with what He had created. I won’t get too imaginative because the statement is rather short and to the point: “The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.” Frankly, the earth is little different today. The only difference is a few million people who call upon the name of the Jesus as their Saviour and Lord (that’s hopefully you and me as well).

Reading: Genesis 6:5-22

End

We don’t end up covering the flood here at all, just God’s instruction to Noah. I’ve seen a few cartoon adaptations of this event and they all seem to flower it up a bit. The fact is, there’s no mention of Noah trying to bring the people of the earth to repentance because God never told him to. Apparently God had had enough with creation and wanted to start over with the only righteous man on the face of the earth. So God instructed Noah to build a large ship in which two of every creature on the face of the earth at that time and Noah and his family could survive the flood in.

One thing you have to realize is that prior to the flood, the earth had never been rained on. Most biblical scholars contend that plants and crops grew by water coming up out of the ground. If there’s scripture to support that, I don’t know where it is, and I didn’t have much time to search for it. But the notion that the earth was going to rained upon in the first place, let alone that it would be flooded by water falling from the sky, was utterly ridiculous. It had never happened before. So I do imagine people that lived near him thought he was crazy building a ship on dry land.

Noah had to take God at His word. There was nothing to support the idea or that it would happen other than what God had said. But Noah decided to trust God rather than what his own sense may have told him. God still speaks to his people today. The most solid source we can turn to is His Word. But the things that he asks us to believe are crazy. Last week’s memory verse of Proverbs 3:5-6 sums it up pretty well: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 6 in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Following God in light of our own understanding makes little sense. God will never flood the earth again in the extreme nature in which he did in that day, that’s His promise. So don’t worry, you’ll never have to build a ship.

Never the less, we are the Noahs of this day. It isn’t popular to follow what God has laid out in His Word for us to do. Here in America, we have a good shot at following God. But our freedom to do so isn’t guaranteed. It is in this day, and hopefully that will continue for years to come. But we are not promised that the people around us, whether they are our enemies, friends, or our family, will always support our walk with God. We have to take what God has said in His Word and follow it the best way we know how, regardless of what people think or have to say about it. I feel I should also add, you need to honor your parents and do what they tell you do, as long as you are a minor. Even after you grow up and move out from under their care, you still need to honor and love them.