The Righteousness that comes by Faith

Hebrews 11:7

Verse seven tells us the following: “By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household.  By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”  Why did God pick Noah?  Why did Noah listen to God in the first place, and what do we know about this man whom God confided in for such an important task?

Noah’s early life is somewhat a mystery; he does not appear in Scripture until he is five hundred years old.  If you go back to the book of beginnings, in the fifth chapter of Genesis you find a list of Adam’s descendants to Noah.  If we begin with Noah’s great grandfather, Enoch, we find he fathered a son at age 65 who he named Methuselah.   Now Noah’s great grandfather Enoch is a man worthy of our listing because verse 24 states; “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.”  Wow, a great grandfather who was translated by God and did not have a physical death, because of his close dependence and walk with the Lord.  And look at Noah’s grandfather Methuselah who was the longest-living man, according to Genesis 5:25-27.  And what do we know about Noah’s dad, “Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.”  (Genesis 5:28)  It is in verse 32 we have a second mention of this man Noah; “After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.”  Somewhat a slow starter, it would seem.

What kind of society did Noah live in?  He lived in a desperately corrupt age, much like the one you and I live in.  Genesis 6:1-7 gives a clear picture of the moral darkness and yet Noah’s life was a light to those around him.  I believe redemption is the heart of God, and Noah, who lived in this evil and moral darkness, yet found favor in the eyes of the Lord.  In chapter 7: 9, “These are the generations of Noah.  Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.  Noah walked with God.”  Noah, had learned well from his great-grandfather, grandfather, and his father, and their dependence on God was carried on, their faithfulness is seen in the life of Noah.  As I stated earlier, we live in a society much the same as Noah.  Often, we look past what God calls sin, and we give it another name, but verse 11 tells us we should be looking only from God’s point of view.  “Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence.” 

As a grandfather of two fine young men, this study has inspired me to be the kind of example that Noah had in his granddads.  As I was writing this, a Scripture came into my mind from the gospel of Luke: "As it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.” (Luke 17:26-27)."  And three verses later, Jesus said; “so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.”

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice