October 18, 2009                                                         Pastor Scott Snowden

In the Beginning…

#3.  Noah-  Out of Step with his Culture;

 but In Step with his God!

But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

Genesis 6: 8

   We are all familiar with the story- Noah, at God’s command, builds a boat and fills it with all the earth’s animals, then rides out the 40 days and 40 nights of continuous rain. But why Noah? What made him different from everybody else? Why is he (and his family) singled out and spared the wrath of God? What did God see in him that warranted grace and deliverance?

Noah found favor in God’s eyes because …

• he was walking with  _GOD_ and not living to please _HIMSELF_ or following the “_CROWD_.”

• Noah lived in a society characterized by _PERVERSION_ and _PRESUMPTION_.

…the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful,

 and they married any of them they chose.

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days- and also afterward-…

They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

Genesis 6:2, 4

• Noah chose instead to live _UNDER_THE_DIRECTION_ and  _IN_THE_PRESENCE_ of God.

Noah was a righteous man; blameless among the people of his time,

 and he walked with God.

Genesis 6:9

• Noah, not taking God’s grace for granted, thanked Him for His  _PROTECTION_ and  _PROVISION_.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and,

 taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds,

 he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.

Genesis 8:20

• he faithfully obeyed God’s _CLEARLY_EXPRESSED_ Will.

• God’s Will involves daily  _RIGHT_LIVING_, and failure to comply brings His wrath, tempered as it is by His love.

The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become,

and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.

The Lord was grieved that He had made man on the earth,

 and His heart was filled with pain…

Genesis 6:5, 6

• Though at times difficult and demanding, God’s Will involves doing the right  _THING_ at the right _TIME_, in the right _WAY_.

“So make yourself an ark of cypress wood…”

Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

Genesis 6:14, 22

• It may require _PATIENCE_ and  _PERSEVERANCE_ to see God’s Will accomplished, but He is never late in keeping His promises and rewarding the faithful.

Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever,

 for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

Genesis 6:3

Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth…

By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year,

 the water had dried up from the earth…

By the twenty seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.

Genesis 7:6 & 8:13, 14

• It seems that there was a substantial period of time, perhaps 121 years, between the call to start building the ark and the call to finally come out of it!

Conclusion: I have the same choice today that Noah had then; listen to God and find His grace; or run with the crowd and miss the boat.

“As it was in the days of Noah,

 so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

For in the days before the Flood, people were eating and drinking,

 marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the Ark…”

Matthew 24:37, 38

October 18, 2009                                                         Pastor Scott Snowden

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