God was very specific here, and again, God is instructing Noah to build a floating box or chest, providing him the length, width, and height; to build a window, to build a door. But what is missing from these instructions that was given to Noah? There is no rudder and there are no means of propulsion. Boats and ships are built to navigate the waters, to transport people or something from Point A to Point B. The ark did not have the ability to do this because it had no way to determine where it would go. Why? Because the ark was not designed to go anywhere. In fact, once the earth was flooded there was no place for it to go. Its only purpose was to stay afloat and keep its occupants alive. God was the navigator of the ark. Noah did not know what was happening on the outside of the ark at all. They could not see outside.
It is clear that Noah was made motivated by a deep and abiding respect for God and took the warning of God of this impending crisis very seriously. We know that Noah walked with God. And it is interesting to me that in these scriptures about Noah, Noah does not talk to God like Abraham and Moses did. If you will notice, Noah is only listening to what God has to say and he obeyed. He obeyed everything that God told him to do no matter how difficult it would be. There is no evidence at all that his faith in God ever wavered; and he accomplished a significant undertaking which consumed approximately 120 years. There is no implication of any hesitation of obedience to God on Noah's part.
After God's first set of instructions He gave him, Genesis 6:22 says, "Noah did everything just as God commanded him." And then in Genesis 7:5, it also says, "And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him." And he did not do just that. In II Peter 2:5, it says that Noah was a preacher of righteousness. So during that 120 years, as he was building this enormous construction, he was preaching, he was warning people, and I am sure that Noah became very famous as they watched this huge vessel being constructed. And for what reason? And so I am sure that he had, probably, every day an opportunity to warn the people that they need to repent because there was an approaching doom.
Now, these were two very special men and I do not think it is a coincidence that they are linked here, and I want to just go over just a few parallels between these two men. Both Moses and Noah were saved by an ark. Noah, along with his family and the animals, were saved in this huge, massive vessel and Moses in this miniature basket of a vessel. Noah and his sons carefully coated the massive structure with pitch so no water could seep in and Moses' mother covered the little ark with the pitch and what it calls sludge.
What is interesting about the subject of pitch is that it is covered under the Day of Pentecost. It was a covering. The blood of Jesus Christ's sacrifice is our only means of truly having our sins covered and our hope for eternal life. Noah's only hope was the covering of pitch on the inside and outside to be saved. When our sins are covered, they are completely hidden. It may not be pretty, but since we do sin, we can have a continued life without guilt, which leads into my next point. Both arks were under divine protection. Noah and Moses, their only purpose in these arks was to stay afloat. These vessels, again, had no means of navigation or able to steer. How could a three month old baby steer anyway? And when Noah and his family entered the ark, it says the Lord shut them in. What would you think inside as those waters were rising not knowing what was going on on the outside.
Here God selected a man, Noah, who was not a shipbuilder. Noah was about 500 years old and, like I said, from the profession a shipbuilder he was not. Yet God trusted him to do what he was told. He had faith in Noah.
The dimensions of the ark on the 18-inch cubit would have been four hundred fifty feet in length, seventy-five feet wide, forty-five feet in height. If they used the larger cubit of 22 1/2 inches, the ark would have been six hundred feet in length, one hundred feet wide, and sixty feet high. Here is a man who had never built a boat.
As one comparison we use, the battleship Oregon was three hundred forty-eight feet in length. The Titanic was eight hundred twenty-five feet in length, ninety-three feet high, and weighed 46,000 tons. Using the smaller cubit with the square ends on the ark, it would almost be of the cube of the size of the Titanic. And this is the ship that Noah was asked to build. Yet, God had faith in Noah to accomplish what He asked of him and it was a tremendous job and it was an important job because He was going to save mankind from destruction.
The top population estimates at that time were somewhere around 11 billion people. What kind of ridicule did Noah suffer? What kind of laughter? What kind of catcalls? It was Noah and his sons and the wives, and I am sure he hired some help, but they built the ark. Yet he honored God's trust in him and with God&39;s help he finished the job. You see, God had faith in Noah to do what he was called to do.
