Title Noah
Content br> Studying the faith of the godly people of God in the Bible, how they served God and how they lived their lives is very beneficial for our religious life today. Because we just need to set them as models for our religious life and serve Jesus like them.
In particular, Noah is a person who represents the true faith of the saints of the last days living in the last days. This is because Noah is the person who lived the last age of human history from the foundation of the world to his own age and he is the person who opened a new age. We do not know about Noah's early life. This is because the Bible first introduces his life by recording that he had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, after he was five hundred years old. “After Noah was five hundred years old, he fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth” (Genesis 5:32).
However, we know a little about his ancestry. His great-grandfather was Enoch, a pious man of God. He is the one who went to the eternal kingdom of God without seeing death.
“After the birth of Methuselah, he walked with God three hundred years, and had children, and he lived three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not in the world, because God took him” (Genesis 5:22-24).
“By faith Enoch was transferred so that he might not see death, and he was found no more, because God had removed him.
His grandfather was “Methuselah.” He is the longest-lived man who ever lived on earth. “And he lived seven hundred and eighty-two years after he begot Lamech, and begot children, and he died when he was nine hundred and sixty-nine years old” (Genesis 5:26-27).
Noah's father was “Lamech,” and it can be inferred that he was also a man of godly God. Because he named his son “Noah,” which means “rest.” Noah's name was a prophetic name. “He called his name Noah, and said, ‘This son will comfort us in our toil, for the LORD has cursed the earth’” (Genesis 5:29).
When Noah lived
First, it was an era full of sin. We can know this from the Bible record, “Man’s iniquity pervades the world” (Genesis 6:5). The Hebrew word for “government” is “raba”, which means “great”. That is, it means that sin was very great in the world. At that time, there was no place without sin, and the era was so full that there was no more empty space for even more sin. How much more must God have been grieving at the creation of man on the earth, and decided to judge him with sorrow in his heart?
Second, it was a time when people's plans were always evil. “And he saw that every plan of the thoughts of his heart was only evil always” (Genesis 6:5).
People make plans for the future while living and thinking with their hearts, and study, work, and do something to achieve those plans. It must have been the same with the people of Noah's day. However, at that time, without exception, people lived with only evil plans. So, in order to achieve evil plans, is it not natural to do evil?
Third, it was a time of corruption before God.
“At that time the whole earth was corrupt before God” (Genesis 6:11).
“And God saw that the earth was corrupt, because the deeds of all flesh and blood on the earth were corrupt” (Genesis 6:12).
“Corruption” is the Hebrew word “shahath,” which means “corrupted.” In the days of Noah, the whole earth was corrupted. Home, school, religion, market, government office… It was all rotten times. It was a time when there was no holy place. It was a time when the smell of rotting hearts and souls vibrated wherever they went.
Fourth, it was an era full of violence.
“The earth was full of violence” (Genesis 6:11).
The word “violence” is “hamas” in Hebrew. It means “ferociousness”, “violence”, “destruction”, “violence”. The people of Noah's day were not gentle or meek, they were ferocious and violent, including violence, fighting, war, rape, and murder. At that time, if there were police stations or prisons, the world would have been without police and without prison guards. Everyone must have carried a weapon, and if they were offended even a little, it would have been common for someone to bleed and die due to a knife.
Fifth, it was an age in which we did not realize spiritually. “Before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they did not realize it until the flood came and destroyed them all” (Matthew 24:38-39).
I don't know how big the world's population was at that time, but people of that era, regardless of gender or age, fell into the pleasures of life and lived only in the flesh. They did not discern the era in which they lived. It was because he was deeply immersed in the world. God's judgment was imminent, and until the day of destruction, when Noah entered the ark, they knew nothing and were occupied with eating, drinking, marrying, and getting married. All were spiritually blind. They knew that all they needed to see was food and drink. They did not know how deep in the night they were. I didn't realize it. They must have been busy looking for food and drink even when the raindrops of God's wrath began to fall, and they may have been in a deep sleep from eating and drinking. Even on the day the destruction begins, prepare for the coma of sons and daughters, present them, get married, go on honeymoon... would have done But spiritually he was ignorant. I didn't realize it.
Sixth, it was an age without godly people. “He did not forgive the old world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and his seven household, and brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly” (2 Peter 2:5)
The Apostle Peter referred to the days of Noah as “the world of the ungodly.” Godliness is a right personal relationship with God. Worshiping God, serving Him, and doing righteousness in a right relationship with God. Even at that time, there may have been people who performed the rites to offer sacrifices to God. However, their rituals were all formalities and falsehoods.
Seventh, the age in which Noah lived was a hard age in which there was no “repentance.” Peter wrote that Noah preached righteousness. In other words, it is said that Noah was not hiding God's warning of the flood judgment in secret, but he conveyed it to the people of that time. God had already told this fact to Noah a hundred and twenty years before the judgment and told him to prepare an ark.
“My spirit shall not be with men forever, saith the Lord, for they are made flesh, yet their days shall be an hundred and twenty years” (Genesis 6:3).
"God said to Noah, "The day has come before me, because the earth is full of violence of all flesh and blood, and I will destroy them along with the earth. do it” (Genesis 6:13-14).
“He did not forgive the old world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and his seven households” (2 Peter 2:5).
It is difficult to think that Noah, who learned about God's judgment, only built the ark and did not disclose this fact to the people. Noah preached. He warned of God's judgment. He would have called for repentance. But no one except Noah's family repented. It was a tough era. This fact can be seen from the fact that there was no one on board Noah's ark on the last day except Noah and his family. It was preached not for a year, but for a hundred and twenty years, but no one believed in God's warning of judgment and repented. In a nutshell, the time in which Noah lived was a wicked world that was corrupted and rotted, and there was nothing that could only be corrupted. It was a world where it was impossible to escape God's judgment.
What was Noah and how did he live in this wicked world Our interest as saints of the last days is here. Because we too must live like Noah. Regarding Noah, the Bible introduced “Noah was a righteous man, perfect in his time” (Genesis 6:9). The word “righteous” means “a clean person without sin,” and “perfect one” (Heb: tamim) means a person who is ethically and without blemish in life. What kind of person did Noah live, so that he became “a righteous man and perfect in his time” and was the only one saved from God’s judgment?
First, Noah was a man favored by God. “But Noah found favor with the Lord” (Genesis 6:8).
It was not through his own merits that he became a righteous man and lived a perfect man in his present age. It was God's grace. He was a man chosen by God under God's omnipotent and absolute sovereignty, and a man loved by God. This was the beginning of his soul, the beginning of his life. This was the power by which his soul was made righteous, and this was the power by which his life was perfected. Without God's grace, Noah could not have been Noah. By the grace of God, Noah became Noah.
Second, he lived a life of walking with God.
“He walked with God” (Genesis 6:9)
Noah walked every day of his life with God. I lived with God. He did not leave God and lived close to God. I lived in conversation with God. that ?/td>