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sermonette: Captain Noah of the S.S. Ark

God's Providence
Mike Ford
Given 03-Feb-07; Sermon #812s; 17 minutes

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A few weeks ago, I was privileged to see the port of Los Angeles up close. This is the busiest port in America, and I was amazed at the number of cargo ships and the size of those ships. And I did not know this, but depending on whether you have to go through the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal, their size could be limited because of those things. But in general they ran about 965 ft long. And 106 ft wide and they only needed a crew of 26. And then I read the other day that the newest and largest cargo ship, which is 50% bigger than these, needs only a crew of 13. Well, I wanted to talk today about another ship, one that was large, but not quite as large as these cargo ships. It was maybe a little more than half their size, and it had a crew of 8 managing a load of animals. So, you know, I'm going to talk about Captain Noah and the SS Ark. Well, God made many provisions for Noah and his family and the church, and I just wanted to expand on only a few of them today because of lack of time, but just a few of the provisions that God made. Now, when we first meet Noah, Genesis 5:32, he's already 500 years old. Now we are not given any information. About what happened in the previous 500 years. But we are told a lot about him because of his character. In verse 29, we are told his name means comfort. Some translations say rest. God names people what they are. In Noah's case, he would be a blessing to the world, not only in the rest and the comfort that he would give to all future generations by virtue of the knowledge and the skills and the abilities that he brings through the flood. But also in the spiritual sense by preserving mankind itself and the church. He was a type of Christ, the true comfort and the true rest. So let's turn to Genesis 6. And verse 5 to start this. Genesis 6 I'll read verses 5 through 9. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of His heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he'd made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I've made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. This is the first time we see the word grace in the Bible. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations. Other translations say blameless. Some say having integrity. So if I could amplify that sentence and reread it, Noah was a just man, a perfect man. A man that was blameless, a man with integrity. Noah walked with God. So while the rest of mankind went around spending every moment thinking and doing evil, Noah walked with God. This word walked in the Hebrew is halak, and in this context Young's analytical concordance says it means to go on habitually. So this is how Noah lived his life over a course of 500 years. He'd grown to the point. Where he is described as blameless, just, and habitual in his actions. Roget's Thesaurus lists the following synonyms for habitual. Established, automatic, disciplined. Ingrained, permanent, perpetual, persistent, rooted, and set. So in any given situation, God knew how Noah would act. One of the acts of provision of God is setting aside Noah, a man of character, to provide continuation of life. So Noah and his family were the entire church at that time. And God provided for them. The ark was the repository of the church. Now one of the arguments you hear from skeptics, the flood could not have happened. It's just a fable because how could these primitives build a ship this size? Well, that's a very condescending argument. It assumes that all generations prior to ours were stupid, and that's just not true. The people of Noah's day, including Noah, were literate. They were intelligent. They had many of the same conveniences as us. There is no reason to assume otherwise. I'll tell you a story. Around 1985 back in Dallas, Texas in Spokesman's Club, A friend of mine named John Coffey, and I do not think it was a speech, it might have been in topics. But he made a statement I'll never forget. He said, if you think about it, the radio, the telephone, the television, electricity itself, they are all simple concepts. And in the days before the flood with only one language and long lifespans, He said there is no reason to think that they did not have the same things that we do, even computers and space travel. Now we all had a good laugh, and he took it very good naturedly, but that comment stuck with me up to this day. Now some of you may have read Steven Collins' little booklet written in 1991 as in the days of Noah, and he expands on the comment that my friend made, not that he knew about it, but they were thinking along the same lines. These were not stupid people, is my point. I do not know where this came from. I've got it written in the margins of my Bible, as many of you have notes, and we did not footnote where they came from, but somewhere in the past, a man speaking on somewhat a similar subject said that he had calculated that there were 11 billion people on the Earth at the time of the flood. It kind of blows our mind because we do not think of it that way. He gave some very good calculations. Anyway, these people were not out everyday grubbing for roots and nuts and berries. They were not living in animal skins and mud huts. How much evil can a person get into if they are scrounging and every moment is spent seeking food and shelter? But how much evil can you get into if you have the freedom of a car, a television, and a telephone and the internet? If the world at that time were only a few million people living around the Euphrates, God could have wiped them out with the plague. Sure would have saved Noah a lot of work. Mankind was spread out all over the planet. And they had developed a world of technology and a world devoted to evil continually that had to be destroyed. Now, you're familiar in Luke 17:26. You do not need to turn there, but you're familiar with the prophecy Christ gives when he says that as it was in the days of Noah, He says that before he returns to the earth, it will be as corrupt then as it was in the days of Noah. Now we all feel that we are closing in on that time, but we are obviously not there. Christ hasn't returned. We are not as developed to the same point as they were in the days of Noah. Now we do not see much evidence of those antediluvian days because the flood wiped the slate clean and Noah started fresh. Now, let's take a look at the ark itself. How did Noah and his sons build such a huge ship? Now many of the commentators and many of the articles that I read, people feel that Noah was a ruler of some sort, maybe a mayor of a city-state, maybe a position that was higher than that. And he grew up, tradition has it on the banks of the Euphrates, the town of Pharah. Boat building was something they knew about, maybe not on the size and scale of the ark, but they did know about boat building. Now a boat of this size would obviously take a lot of, of labor to build. OK. So, there is an assumption you'd have to make that there was a reservoir of skilled labor available to help with the building of this boat. It's not something that you, that, having built a house or tried to build a house these last few years, you know, a boat of this size is not going to be done with a man and his three sons. It's just, he had to have some help. Let's look at Genesis 10. I'm sorry, 6:10. Genesis 6:10. Noah begot 3 sons, Shemham and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, The end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them. And behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark, cover it inside and outside with pitch, and this is how you shall make it. The length of the ark shall be 300 cubits. Its width 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits. You shall make a window for the ark, and you shall finish it to a cubit from above and set the door of the ark in its side. You shall make it with lower, 2nd, and 3 decks. Now, the ark was made from a wood. Nobody knows what it was. Nobody knows anything about it. But God was specific in his design. He requested this gopher wood. So, obviously, it was a type suited for building of, of a boat like this, a ship. God laid out the interior partitioning. He gave instructions on the waterproofing. The window that he mentions, most commentators feel it was not a single window. This was a band of windows that ran around the entire top course of the arc for ventilation. There were three decks. Now it mentions the cubit and these measurements. If you use 18 inches for a cubit, and that's the minimum measurement most people will give for a cubit, the arc was 450 ft long, 75 ft wide, and 45 ft high. This was the biggest ship to our knowledge of all time until 1884. These were these were in advanced people. The Titanic by comparison was 883 ft long, 92 ft wide. Oddly enough, I read naval experts say that the most stable ocean going vessel is built on a 6 to 1 ratio. Length to width. The arc was 450 ft long and 75 ft wide. God sure lucked out on that one. No, God made provisions. He made provisions for the church to be saved. Let's go over to Genesis 7:18. One page over. The waters prevailed and greatly increased on the earth, and the ark moved about on the surface of the waters. This tells us that the ark floated basically wherever God wanted it to. Conditions were such that a steering system really was not needed. It wouldn't have been usable. But the ark was virtually impossible to tip over because God was in control. Another interesting piece of His providence, verse 19. The waters prevailed exceedingly on the earth, and all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed 15 cubits upward, and the mountains were covered. Now, obviously we do not know what the draft of the ark was. I read 11 writer theorized that the the ark had a 1515 cubit draft that would be 22.5 ft of the ark under the surface of the water. Now that's important because obviously the ark is to run into a mountain peak, then you've got the Titanic situation, but God kept the rains coming until the tallest mountain peak was buried under 22.5 ft of water, so that the ark obviously skims right over the top. Skeptics will say, how did God get all those animals on that ship? Can't be done. OK. Well, many books have been written on this subject. Genesis 6:17. Behold, I myself am bringing the flood of waters on the earth to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life, and everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall go into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, your sons' wives with you, and of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark to keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Of the birds after their kind, of animals after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after its kind, two of every kind will come to you to keep them alive. Well, these verses tell us that God is going to destroy the mammals of the earth, those with the breath of life. So the 25,000 different species of fish did not need to go on the ark. There is 107,000 different types of mollusks, mussels, clams, oysters, that kind of thing. Didn't need to go on the ark. 838,000 species of anthropods, lobsters, shrimps, crabs did not need to go on the ark. So those, you know, the skeptics are going to try to bring all of this into play, but it doesn't have to be that way. The list goes on of the different things that did not have to go on the ark, but I think you get the point. A book titled The Genesis Flood. Written by doctors Morris and Whitcomb. Came up with 35,000 individual animals and they make a pretty good case, which I do not have time to go in here, into here. Another book, Noah's Ark, A Feasibility Study by John Wood Marapi. Uh, he suggested as few as 1700 animals, and, and he makes a good case for it. But the point is, um, that the English word specie cannot be equated with the biblical word kind. If God could take Three couples and create all the diverse races we have on Earth from those three couples. Did he need to put boxers and Labrador retrievers and German shepherds on the boat, or could he put two dogs and taken care of it from there? I think he could. In these books they also estimate The amount of space an animal would take up to compute how much space in an ark the animals would need. Now if you take the highest number that I found in these two books, which was 35,000 animals, and let's add another 15,000, round it up to 50,000 animals. Use the amount of space they said an animal would need. They make, they make a good point too, that they did not have to be adult animals. They could be juvenile, juvenile. They could be small. They could be young. Anyway, they said one deck would be more than enough space to put 50,000 animals in. After seeing these cargo ships in the port of Los Angeles, I can believe it. I can believe it. Amazing what can go on these ships. Now, what was on the other two decks? I would imagine one deck provided living quarters. Supply rooms and such, I'm sure a library of how-to manuals for when they get off the ship. Another deck for food storage, rooms of implements and things they might need to set up life. How did these 8 people feed and exercise and clean up after 50,000 animals? It's quite possible that God might have put the animals into a state of hibernation. A state of dormancy, slowing down their systems so that they slept a lot of the time. How do you feel on a rainy afternoon? I want to sleep. Why could God not do that? He could, of course. So why is that so hard to believe? But the skeptics use that as an argument. Knowing the rest had a lot of work to do, sure they did. But I can imagine in the evening, maybe in the afternoons, They would be, there would be possibly some classes or some teaching going on. I mean, Noah and Mrs. Noah had over 600 years of experience. They had a lot of knowledge to impart to these three couples that were going to start life again. And they need to know these things, so there'll be a lot of teaching going on. I'm sure there was constant discussion of how did this come about, why did God feel the need to bring this flood on us? How can we prevent this from happening in the future? Unfortunately, it appears that only one of Noah's sons over the long haul stayed with the truth, and that was Shem. But from him we have Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Christ, as well, Samson. They all came, I'm sure, from Shem. God made provisions for his church. Now, we've never been great in numbers. There was, there were just the 8 of them on the ark. The room here is, you know, there, we've never been great in numbers. But God has always made provisions for His church. He's always provided continuation, you might say. Our Noah today is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is our present day Noah, preparing an ark, you might say, even now, to save his church, to bring his church through the flood. And even now as these finishing touches are applied to that arc, we are being brought, you might say 2 by 2 to that arc. Because God does provide.