Imagine that you are the head of a God-fearing family, living in a corrupt and violent town. It is so violent that you are afraid to be on the streets at night. You try to raise your children to know right from wrong and to live godly lives, but it's difficult, because all of their peers, as well as yours, are doing as they please. It is a wicked and sinful population. Your neighbors refuse to worship God and they laugh at his commandments. Their motto is "Take care of number one" and "If it feels good, do it." This was Noah. He was the only righteous man to be found, not just in his neighborhood, but in the world. He was the one obedient follower of God.

In Genesis 6, we read that the people of the earth had become completely wicked. The bible says that every inclination of the thoughts of man's heart was only evil all the time. God, the Creator, was so filled with pain over the condition of his creation, that He decided to wipe mankind from the face of the earth. The people had filled the earth with sin and He would no longer shield them from judgment. However, in His grace, judgment would be delayed 120 years, while Noah built an ark.

God told Noah "I'm going to put an end to all people. I will destroy them and the earth." He gave Noah the dimensions of the ark he wanted him to build. Then Noah was to bring two of every living creature, male and female, and every kind of food into the ark. As a provision for sacrifice, he was commanded to take seven pairs of every kind of clean animal. God told Noah that he would send rain and it would continue rain for forty days and forty nights.

"Noah did everything just as God commanded."

God said, "Go in, you and your whole family because I have found you righteous in this generation." Noah, his wife, sons, and their wives entered the ark. The animals entered and God shut them in.

The flood-waters came. All the springs of the great deep burst forth and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. All the high mountains were covered to a depth of more than twenty feet. Every living thing on the earth was wiped out. Only those in the ark were saved.

The earth was flooded for a hundred and fifty days before God sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. On the 17th day of the seventh month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. On the first day of the tenth month, the tops of mountains became visible. Noah and the inhabitants of the ark waited.

Finally, God said to Noah, "Come out." After a year and seventeen days in the ark, Noah stepped onto dry land. The first thing he did was to build an altar to worship the God who saved him. Noah and his family must have been very aware that everything material, that had once been their security, could be lost in an instant. Their true stability rested in reliance on God.

God commissioned Noah and his family to have dominion over the earth and to be fruitful and multiply. This is the command he had given Adam in the Garden of Eden. He was beginning again.

Noah was not a perfect man. He was sinful, just as every person is. He was saved because he depended on God. By God's grace, Noah and his family survived the judgment of the flood. Humanity had a second chance through Noah. He didn't live a perfect life after he left the ark. Only Jesus Christ led a perfect life. We receive God's grace when we believe in Jesus' sacrifice for our sin. That grace is our ark. The world will not again be destroyed by flood, but there will be judgment. We live far from perfect lives but we will survive the next and final judgment as a result of God's grace.

Read the whole story of Noah:
• Genesis 5:29-10:32
• 1 Chronicles 1:3-4 Noah was the grandson of Methuselah, the son of Lamech and the father of Ham, Shem, and Japheth.
• Isaiah 54:9
• Matthew 24:37-38
• Luke 3:36 and 17:26-27
• Hebrews 11:7 Noah walked in consistent faith.
• 1 Peter 3:20
• 2 Peter 2:5,6

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