Our passage today covers so much material it's hard to choose what to focus on!
It is sad how quickly sin's grip on humanity is revealed. Only one generation in and we have a murder! The sin of murder started with the much "smaller" sins of a wrong attitude and jealousy. A good reminder that when we allow any sin to take root in our lives, its grip on our life multiples exponentially until we are so blinded we do things we never could have imagined we could do. We must be vigilant and remember the truth that "there but for the grace of God, go I".
I found several things about the genealogy of chapter 5 fascinating. First, take a look at this chart....
When laid out like this, we can see that Adam was still alive when Noah's father was born. Adam, who had walked with God and experienced a relationship with him unlike any other human, was still alive to give testimony to the drastic effect the consequences of sin had on his life and his relationship with God. And yet still humanity had declined to such an evil state that God decided to wipe humanity off the face of the earth.
I found something else interesting - I didn't have time to verify all the names on the list, but the ones I checked were accurate, and I found this fascinating.....
Hebrew
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English
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Adam
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Man
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Seth
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Appointed
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Enosh
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Mortal
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Kenan
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Sorrow;
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Mahalalel
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The Blessed God
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Jared
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Shall come down
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Enoch
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Teaching
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Methuselah
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His death shall bring
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Lamech
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The Despairing
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Noah
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Rest, or comfort.
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Now read the gospel: Man [is] Appointed [to] Mortal Sorrow; [But!] the Blessed God Shall come down, Teaching, [and] His death shall bring The Despairing Rest, or Comfort.
Even in a genealogy God tells us about His plan for salvation!
Something else I marveled at is the strength of Noah's faith. We often feel like Christians are in the minority, but we've got nothing on Noah! He was the ONLY man of genuine faith living on the face of the earth. The only one. I can't even grasp that. The only one. And yet he built an ark, in a time when there possibly had never been rain on the face of the earth. Why? Because God told him to. What faith!
The ark, of course, is also a picture of Christ. The Answers in Genesis website explains....
By entering the Ark, Noah ensured the physical survival of himself and his family. When we enter into saving faith through Jesus, we ensure our spiritual survival through eternal life with Christ.
When the destruction of the world loomed, God called out to Noah: “Come . . . into the Ark”. God was with Noah and his family throughout that frightening year-long ordeal and protected and presumably comforted them. When we receive Jesus as our Savior, God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, comforts and protects us.
The Ark had only one door through which Noah had to enter in order to be saved from the Flood. Likewise, salvation in Christ has only one door. We enter it by faith in Jesus’s once-and-for-all-time sacrificial death on the Cross and His bodily resurrection three days later.
Finally, after Noah entered the Ark, God Himself closed the door. Those people outside who chose not to enter the Ark’s door were left to face the destructive force of the Flood. Today, we have only this one life to enter Christ’s door of salvation.
Sorry this got a little long - tons of fascinating stuff in our passage today!
3 comments:
Interesting how many things in the old testament reflect the gospel from the new testament, and how many more are we not seeing?
I love the one about their being only one entrance into the arc, just like there's only one way into heaven, only through Jesus can we be saved.
An interesting thing I noticed was how it said in chapter 7:15
"Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark."
When growing up I always assumed that Noah and his family went out and gathered up all the animals, but here it says that they came on their own (God guiding them) to the arc and into it. It would have been almost impossible go out and gather some of the larger and more dangerous animals without God's help.
So interesting to consider the overlap between people. I think when you read geneologies you tend to
see them as individuals and not part of the others' story.
I liked the fact that you pointed out that Noah was the only one who was worthy. Sometimes the society around us makes us think that we are the only ones but Noah really was. I imagine Noah's neighbours Would have teased him for building an ark. One might even think they would have seen it and maybe thought about repenting. I wonder if Noah spent any time witnessing to others so that they too would be saved?
Interesting point of Adam being alive at the same time as Noah's father, and seeing the continual downfall of man. I wonder if he ever blamed himself for that?
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