In Genesis 6:8 it says that Noah received grace. He found grace in God's eyes. So have we. Noah found grace, but he had to apply himself. And as he applied himself, he was producing the very means of his safety during the coming storms. It shows us in Genesis 6:22 that Noah was obedient. But even if he had been obedient, and he was, Genesis 8:1 shows that even when things got at their worst, God was still there with him. Throughout all that he was going through, God was still giving Noah grace. He never left him.
There is hope because if God allows these times to parallel the days of Noah, He will also have things paralleling what He did for Noah. So He gives us that hope. And if we're alert and we pray always, meaning we're always in contact with Him, we pray to Him every day, we ask Him for the faith, we ask Him for the love, we ask Him for the guidance, we ask Him for the correction, we ask Him for whatever gift we need, He will give it so that we can rise to the occasion and glorify Him with our lives.
In each of the cases that we've covered so far the person fled, or was taken because of the anger or the hatred—maybe the two of them combined—anger and hatred of others that threatened the life and limb of the servants of God. Now we're going to examine a somewhat different condition. Let's go to Noah in Genesis 6.
Here we have very clear evidence of an escape that was originated, planned and engineered by God. It required the cooperative preparation of those who were escaping, because Noah and his sons had to prepare by building the place in which they were going to escape. They were surrounded by worldwide trouble that they could not completely flee from, and so God gathered them into one place while the devastation was going on.
They were prepared both physically in making the ark and spiritually in being righteous before God. The two were working together, the physical and the spiritual.
I wonder if you ever noticed this. Noah is not pronounced to be a just man, perfect in his generations and that he walked with God,until after God describes the wickedness of the times leading up to the Flood, and that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord before he ever was pronounced a just man.
A conclusion is inescapable: In order to be consistent with the rest of the Bible, Noah was not chosen by God because he was a righteous man, because he was not. He too was blindly involved in the pre-Flood wickedness. To what degree, I have no idea, and until God opened his eyes, until God took action, until God sent forth His Spirit, then Noah responded, and the rest, they say, is history.
Please consider how God looked at Noah with favor because he did what he had been prepared to do in faith, as we read in a correct translation of Genesis 6:8-9 from the Amplified Bible. Many have said this sets Noah apart perfect in his generations, but I think the Amplified has a pretty good here:
By faithfully living and learning God's way of life in whatever way God gives, we too become part of God's living witness of faith in the hope that is before us through the merciful and complete work of Jesus Christ.
