Noah
“But
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. These are the generations of Noah:
Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.
And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. The earth was also corrupt
before God, and the earth was filled with violence.” Genesis 6: 8-11.
In
Lesson # 19 we learned about the fallen angels coming to earth, seeing the
daughters of men, liking what they saw and taking them as wives. In Genesis 6:
5-7 God saw the wickedness of man and knew that the thoughts of man’s heart
were evil continually. And God was
sorry He had ever made man and even contemplated destroying all of mankind.
But
then we are introduced to Genesis 6: 8: “But
Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” Why did Noah find grace?
Because out of all the inhabitants of the earth, only Noah, verse 9, “was
a just man and perfect in his generations.” The earth was still as corrupt
as it had been, but God found one man with whom He felt could make a new start
for all of mankind. Therefore God
determined that he would destroy the earth (the flood of Noah), but He also
decides He will give man a second chance and saves Noah and his family.
Genesis
6:18.
Noah
was the eighth person from Adam, (2 Peter 2: 5) and eight people went into the
ark. The number eight represents a
new beginning. There are seven
notes in a musical scale: do-re-me-fa-so-la-te and we start all over again with
do.
God
instructs Noah to build an ark. He
tells him what kind of wood to use, how many rooms he was to build and how to
seal the cracks in the wood with pitch so that it would keep the water out and
the ark afloat. He then gives him a blueprint to follow as to the length,
breadth and height, and the placement of windows and a door. (Genesis 6: 14-16)
God covenants with Noah and his
wife (vs. 17-18) and his sons and daughters-in-law. Then he tells him who the
other occupants of the ark will be and how many of them to bring aboard. Ask
most people about the number of
each species that went into the ark, and you will get the answer, 2 of a kind or
a pair, both male and female, and they usually quote Genesis 6: 19. But that is
not the whole truth and the danger in reading just one verse and then stopping.
Look at Genesis 7: 1-3.
Here you will find they were to bring seven pair of every clean beast and
seven pairs of all species of birds (foul.)
There
is no mention of how long it took for Noah to build this ark. Some believe it
was 120 years and use Genesis 6: 3 as to prove their point. Others say that
Genesis 5: 32 indicates his age to be 500 years when he begat his sons: “And
Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”
Then they use Genesis 7: 11 to establish the fact he was 600 years old when the
floods came. So Noah had 100 years
to build the ark and to preach impending doom. But no one believed him. It was a
long time, whether it was 100 or 120 years is really insignificant. What I want
you to remember is that God chose eight people and only those eight people
survived the flood.
In
Lessons 15 & 16 we introduced you to:
1.
The deep
2.
The face
of the deep being frozen
3.
Waters
above the heaven and waters under the heaven.
4.
The
waters under the heaven were funneled into the oceans, seas, rivers and lakes
and the dry land reappearing.
Look
at Psalms 104:5-6: “Who laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be
removed for ever. Thou coveredst it with the deep as with a garment: the waters
stood above the mountains."
Here in Genesis 7: 11-12 we see
that all the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the windows of
heaven opened to allow the deluge of water to envelope the earth in a matter of
forty days and night. Noah and his family went into the ark and the Lord shut
him in. (Genesis 7: 16) When God keeps his own his own are secure.
Let’s
look at the time according to the month that the events concerning the flood
happened.
1.
2nd
month 17th day Noah entered the Ark and the flood began (Genesis 7:
11-12)
2.
The
waters prevailed upon the earth 150 days. (Genesis 7: 24)
3.
The ark
rested on land in the 7th month 17th day. (Genesis 8: 3-4)
4.
The
waters continued to decrease until the 10th month 1st day.
(Genesis 8: 5)
5.
The
waters dried up the 601st year, 1st month, 1st
day. (Genesis 8: 13)
6.
It took
another month before the land was dry enough to walk on 2nd month 7th
day. (Genesis 8: 14)
So
Noah and all the other inhabitants went forth from the ark and were instructed
to be fruitful and multiply. (Genesis 8: 17 - 9: 1) But the first thing Noah did
was to build an altar unto God. (Genesis 8: 20)
We
find the first mention of capital punishment in Genesis 9: 6 “Whose
sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God
made He man”.
Then
God made a covenant with Noah. Genesis 9: 9-17. There are basically two items of
the covenant:
1.
God would
not destroy the world by a flood anymore, and
2.
The
rainbow would be the sign of that covenant.
The
three sons of Noah represent the three basic human types (races):
1. Shem-
Mongoloid
2. Ham-
Negroid
3.
Japheth-
Caucasian
The verse that backs this up is Genesis 9: 19 “These
are the three sons of Noah: and in them was the whole earth overspread.”
The Hebrew word for overspread is naphats
– to scatter to be dispersed.
In
Genesis 9: 1 we find that God blessed Noah and his sons.
Fact: Once God blesses, He honors what He has done - He cannot lie. “God
[is] not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should
repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he
not make it good? Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath
blessed; and I cannot reverse it.” Numbers 23: 19-20.
So when Ham committed an act of shame, Canaan, Ham’s son was cursed. Why?
Because God could not “unbless” Ham, and at this point in time,
someone had to receive punishment.
“Keeping
mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will
by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and to the fourth
generation.” Exodus 34: 7.
Was
this thing that Ham did the same as a warning from the pages of the law of what
not to do? “And the man that lieth with
his father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness: both of them shall
surely be put to death; their blood [shall be] upon them.” Leviticus 20:
11 (See also Leviticus 18) or “Woe unto
him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest
him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness” Habakkuk 2:
15?
Is
this uncovering a man to look upon his nakedness just watching, or was it an
actual act of incest? One thing to
remember here is that the law had not been given yet. But the Scripture here in Genesis states: “And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done
unto him.” Genesis 9: 24.
I
know that God hates certain things. (Proverbs 6) And I know the law prohibited
certain acts. (The Levitical Laws) But
I also know that the law was done away when Christ was resurrected. Galatians 3:
23-25 “But before faith came (the
faith of Christ), we were kept under the
law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we
might be justified by faith (Christ’s faith)
But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.”
The
acts or lifestyle of homosexuals go against the law of righteousness, but so
does lying (white lies included), stealing, cheating on your income tax, murder,
self-righteousness and gossiping. You who are free from committing any of these
acts cast the first stone at the homosexual.
Christ
died for all; if He hadn’t you would have no chance for salvation.
I’m talking to all the self-righteous out there who pick one sin and
get on their soap box and yell to the top of their lungs about its immorality,
while they indulge in lying, cheating, talking badly about their neighbor.
They rationalize that their sins are the lessor of two evils.
Let me warn those of you who feel that way, you have become the judge of
what is right and wrong, of what is bad and not so bad. Jesus said in John 8: 15
“…I judge no man.”
Romans
14: 13 says: “Let us not
therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a
stumblingblock or an occasion to fall in his brother’s way.”
1
Cor. 6: 5: “I speak to your shame.
Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you?
No not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren.
Then
the next few passages talk about all kinds of unrighteousness, of which being
effeminate is just one that is mentioned. But
do not stop reading there, look at verse 11, “And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are
sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the
Spirit of our God.” When
Christ died on Calvary he died for all sins. When you trust Christ as your
Savior he forgives you of all sins – past, present and future.
Paul continues in verse 12 of 1
Cor. 6 by saying that even though all things are lawful to me, they are not
expedient, nor will he allow them to have power over him. I believe there are
saved homosexual who have allowed their lust to dominate and control their
lives. I believe that can change if
they submit to the wooing of the Spirit of God. I believe that mankind can
change if he has a desire to do so. But it will take the operation of the Spirit
to make it last.
Does
this mean I believe that homosexuality is okay? No I do not, but what I do
believe is homosexuals should be treated as one would any other sinner.
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