Over and over again, we hear about Noah doing everything God commanded Him. Why is this important?
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.
(Parents, all Scripture comes from the CSB this week, the Christian Standard Bible and we will be mostly in Genesis 6) So, last week we talked about God telling Noah that He would make a covenant, which is a promise that God keeps forever, with Noah and that Noah and his family would be safely aboard the ark that God was commanding him to make. But, of course, God can promise to make a covenant with Noah and that Noah and his family can go onto the ark but guess what? If Noah doesn’t make the ark, then it’s all pretty much pointless.
So, what’s Noah going to do when God tells Him His plans for destroying all the people who were thinking nothing except for violent thoughts and only doing violent things all their lives? When God told Abraham His plans for destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, what did Abraham do? Well, Abraham tried to talk God out of it. Even though the people there were terribly wicked, according to the prophet Ezekiel, who said that their sin was that they were living in the lap of luxury and ignoring and even hurting the people who were poor, Abraham tried to talk God out of destroying those places. He kept saying, “If you find fifty people who are good, will you please not destroy the city?” And God said He wouldn’t, and then Abraham asked again but lowered the number and God kept saying that if He found that many, He wouldn’t do it. And Abraham talked God down to ten people and then after that, God disappeared so that Abraham wouldn’t talk Him down to one because there was only one guy in Sodom who wasn’t doing that sort of nasty, mean stuff and it was his nephew Lot.
So, did Noah beg and plead with God not to send the flood? Evidently not. Now, I don’t know if it was because the world and the people in it were just so violent that Noah was scared for his life and wanted them all gone or if maybe Noah just wasn’t as compassionate as Abraham, or maybe Abraham wouldn’t have tried bargaining with God if His nephew didn’t live there. Maybe Noah didn’t know God as well as Abraham did by that point. Perhaps Noah didn’t know that you could even talk to God and discuss things with Him the way Abraham and Moses did—we just don’t know. The Bible doesn’t tell us and remember that when the Bible doesn’t tell us something, what do we do? We pay attention to what the Bible does tell us. And the Bible never has Noah saying anything before or during the flood, at all, and the only thing the Bible records him as saying happens years after the flood. And it wasn’t very positive. But as for right now, mum’s the word. Not a peep out of Noah—all it says is that—well, let’s read for ourselves.
18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark with your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives. 19 You are also to bring into the ark two of all the living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of everything—from the birds according to their kinds, from the livestock according to their kinds, and from the animals that crawl on the ground according to their kinds—will come to you so that you can keep them alive. 21 Take with you every kind of food that is eaten; gather it as food for you and for them.” 22 And Noah did this. He did everything that God had commanded him.
So, even though Noah didn’t say anything that the Bible wanted to record, or maybe He just didn’t say anything at all, the Bible says that Noah did everything that God commanded him. And when we do everything that we are told to do, that’s called obedience. Throughout the Bible, God tells us to obey Him because He knows best. Obviously, Noah felt like obeying God was the wise thing to do! He built this ginormous thing that is described as a three-story box and stuffed it with food and stuff. And we are often so focused on the ark and the animals that we really don’t pay attention to the fact that Noah did this crazy thing just because God told him to do it. And that makes Noah very different not only from everyone else on the planet at this point but also very different from everyone who has gone before him. I mean, let’s think about the obedience track record of everyone so far, shall we? Do I sound a bit snarky? I feel a bit snarky this morning.
Adam and Eve—God said, “eat whatever fruit in the Garden you want to eat but not that fruit over there.” And maybe they said, “Which fruit was that again?” And maybe God said, “This one, right here.” And they probably said, “Okay, just making sure.” And what did they do? They ate that fruit! Let’s compare this to building a huge three-story box in the middle of wherever it was that Noah was living and filling it with animal and human food. Yeah, really not in the same league there. Super easy. Just, you know, don’t pick the fruit, don’t open your mouth, don’t bite into the fruit, don’t chew the fruit, don’t swallow the fruit. This isn’t exactly rocket science. They were told not to do a thing and they did the thing.
Cain—God said, “dude, you did your offering wrong. Just go back and do it right. And don’t go blaming your brother just because he did his offering the right way. This isn’t particularly difficult, okay?” And what did Cain do? Cain didn’t go back and do it right. Cain got angry at his brother and killed him, even. And that was just flat out overreacting to a very simple problem to correct. As we see later on in Leviticus, there was nothing wrong with offering grain and wine and presenting the first and best of your harvest to God, but something was really wrong. Can was told to do a thing and not to do another thing and he didn’t do what he was supposed to do and did the thing he wasn’t supposed to do.
And then we don’t hear about God talking to anyone for a very long time. I imagine He probably talked to Enoch but other than that, we don’t hear any talking out of God until the time of Noah. And then, out of the blue, God tells Noah to do this huge thing that must have seemed crazy and no one, and I mean no one, would have blamed Noah if he didn’t want to do it. That would have been some big job and I bet that when you get homework for school you look at it and think about how much work it is going to be and it’s just nothing compared to building the ark. But Noah did all that the Lord commanded him and the Bible says it twice! The first time is here, when Noah gets the orders to build and prepare, and the next time is when God tells Noah to actually get into the ark with his family. Let’s face it, the second command was much, much easier to obey! And you will find that your lives will be like that—sometimes the very first thing God asks you to do will be the hardest and after that, it gets easier. But not always. As you grow up there will always be challenges and difficult things that you have to do but you will almost certainly never be told to do what Noah did! Imagine how many trips you would have to make to Home Depot!
But all through the Bible, God is going to tell people to do hard things. Abraham was told to leave the place where he had lived for seventy-five years. He had to leave most of his relatives and take everything and start walking from Ur to the land of Canaan. And they could only travel as fast as the slowest of their animals, who had to eat as they went. He had no idea what he would find when he got there but he sure knew one thing, he was a lot safer back home with his clan, who all would have protected each other from enemies. They wouldn’t have any land that was theirs to settle on. They wouldn’t have any friends there that they could depend on. All they had was God telling them to go and do it. I think that was probably very scary. I think that building the ark was really scary.
Do you think that Noah worried about things like not finishing in time? I mean, he still had to do his normal work or his wife and three kids wouldn’t have any food to eat, right? He didn’t have any power tools—or electricity. All Noah could do was set one foot in front of the other and start. That’s always the first part of any job. That’s the hardest part. Just saying, “Okay, I just have to trust God that I can do this and that there will be enough time and that He will show me how to get this job done.” Maybe be hired people to help him build. After all, we will see later in the story that Noah knew how to grow vineyards and make wine and that wasn’t an easy thing to do so he was probably already doing that for a living. It’s a tricky business. If Noah was someone who made wine then he might have had a lot of money and could afford to hire people to help him build. We just don’t know. Remember that it’s always okay to talk about the “what if’s” of the Bible as long as we pay attention to the fact that we don’t know and we can’t say for sure that’s what happened. When we get to the story of Nimrod, we will see how people have forgotten that the Bible doesn’t tell us almost anything about him, or about Melchizedek, and there are so many stories but the Bible and history and archaeology don’t have anything to say about them either.
In the story about the flood, we have a lot that we just don’t know. And that’s okay because, remember, the Bible is a book where God is showing us things about Himself and not so much showing us about history. So far, God has used the flood story to show us how different He is from how the Babylonians saw their gods. He has used this story to show us that even when things get really bad, humans are still very important to Him and He will always save us somehow. And in today’s story, He is showing us that if He gives us a job to do, He will give it with plenty of time to get it done and He will even show us how to do it. Sometimes, He tells us everything all at once but usually, He tells us a little bit at a time so that we will keep listening. And we will find out next week that we aren’t alone when we are doing our jobs—Noah didn’t have to round up the animals, they came to him. That tells us that God will do the things for us that we can’t do ourselves. The false gods weren’t like that, remember when we studied the Babylonian flood story? They were mean, selfish, and not very bright! They created humans as slaves but God created us to cooperate with Him and to show the world what He is like.
And Noah is the first person in the Bible to actually cooperate with God! Adam and Eve had all the advantages in the world and it should have been much easier for them—they had the perfect environment, the perfect jobs, no laundry or cooking that needed to be done because they were bare naked and ate fruit—but they decided to try to be gods instead of cooperating with God. Noah really seemed to know exactly who he was and who God was and not a whole lot of people understand that. So, I want to talk about the word trust. Because Noah obviously trusted God. The Babylonian and Egyptian and Canaanite and Hittite gods sure couldn’t be trusted!
When we trust someone, it makes it easier to do what they tell us to do. When we don’t trust someone, we usually don’t want to do anything they tell us to do—even when we should. I mean, even untrustworthy people are right sometimes, and trustworthy people are wrong sometimes. I wish it wasn’t true but it is! It sure would be less complicated if it was the other way around. But with God, not only can we trust Him but He is always right even when we can’t see it. Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t try to change his mind like Abraham and Moses both tried to do, and they even succeeded but not every time! So did Ezekiel the prophet! Jesus even tried once. But wait, if God is always right then how come sometimes we can change His mind? Well, sometimes there is more than just one right answer. Sometimes we might ask Him if He can find another way of doing things. Sometimes we can ask Him to be merciful and to not punish us the way we might deserve. And if we think that everyone who has done something wrong needs to be punished to the full extent of the law every time, then we might think that being merciful is wrong. But mercy isn’t wrong when it is God’s mercy. His mercy is always wise. And sometimes mercy won’t work and He has to be harsh with us instead—but He always knows. We can ask Him to change His mind because we know that if there is no other way, He won’t go along with what we want.
If we don’t trust someone, and they tell us to do something—we have a decision to make. One, we have to decide whether what they are saying is a good idea even though we think they might be sneaky snakes. Two, we have to think about what they know that we don’t know because maybe we don’t have all the information we need. Three, we need to seriously think about what will happen if they are right, and we don’t do it and what will happen, and what will happen if they are wrong, and we do it and what will happen. Sometimes people tell us to do things that really don’t matter a whole lot one way or another. But sometimes, maybe you don’t like a teacher and they tell you to do your homework and you don’t want to because you think it is a huge waste of time but you need to stop and think—if I don’t do this now, will I wish someday that I had just gone ahead and worked harder? Will I miss out on opportunities because I was stubborn? When we ask questions like that, it doesn’t matter whether we like the person or not.
And so when Noah was told to build the ark and why—he had a choice to make. I imagine he had been walking with God for quite some time at that point—I mean, this isn’t the sort of thing God springs on you on day one, right? Imagine going to church for the first time, hearing about Jesus, giving your life to Him, and then God saying, “Okay, so next week I am sending you as a missionary to the Lahdakhi in Tibet and so you have to learn their language and all about their customs and I expect you to know as much about me as someone who has been a Christian for twenty years.” Oh my gosh, God wouldn’t ever do something like that? It would be a disaster. And so for Noah to say yes, He must have trusted God a whole lot already. He must have had enough experience with God to know that this was doable and not impossible. He must have known that God would do everything He said He was going to do.
Now, there are people who think that Noah did everything because he was scared of God because there is a verse in the Book of Hebrews that said that Noah obeyed God because he had something called reverent fear. But what is reverent fear? Well, it isn’t the same thing as being scared to death of someone, that’s for sure. Fear is what you have when someone can hurt you bad and when you can’t trust them to do what is kind and good, and you are scared of them because you know what they might be capable of doing to you or someone else. That’s the kind of fear we have of some humans. Reverent fear is when someone is so much bigger than you are and so much wiser and smarter than you are, and so much more powerful than you are, that you just know that they are better than you are in absolutely every way. We have another word for that, that’s closer to what we mean and that is absolute respect. Because God is who He is and never lies to us or leads us astray and is never unfair like the false gods of the other nations, we can respect Him so much that we wouldn’t think of not doing what He asks.
Trust is what makes us able to obey with a willing heart—and what God wants more than just our obedience is a willing and trusting heart. If we don’t trust, then we have to rely on fear but trust is about love and knowing that someone else is good and worthy and not out to get us. Who in the Bible do you think trusted God more than anyone? If you said anyone other than Jesus I am going to give you a second guess. What? Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. Although Noah had to trust God enough to build an ark, and Abraham had to trust God enough to leave the only home he had ever known, and Joseph had to trust God enough to live a virtuous life among the Egyptians, and Moses had to trust God enough to face the anger of Pharaoh, and David had to trust God enough to fight against mighty Goliath with no armor and a sling, and Esther had to trust God enough to risk death in order to stand up for her people, Jesus had to have more trust than anyone because what he faced was much more terrible. And we could never have done what Jesus did—He lived a perfect life, and he willingly faced all of the anger and rage of Satan and all of his forces of evil so that we could be free of them. And that was such a hard thing to do that, on the last night of His life, He prayed hard and asked the Father if there was any other way to accomplish their important work to save us. And if there was another way. I know that God would have found it. But only Jesus could do what we can’t, because we have all sinned and done wrong things in our lives and so if that had been us, then it wouldn’t have been worth anything.
I want you to think of our bodies as cups full of everything we have ever done, good and bad, okay? Maybe our good stuff is air, and our bad stuff is thick mud. Some people’s cups have a lot of mud in them but everyone has quite a bit. But look at Jesus’s cup—no mud. Only air. Nothing but the good things He did. Satan has a cup too, and the liquid inside is green and smells horrible. If Satan wanted to mess with us and he poured the disgusting stuff in his cup into ours, he would still have a lot of leftovers so that he could mess with other people too. And Satan’s bad cup is not anywhere near as big as Jesus’s good cup. God knew that if He lured Satan into a trap where he could mess with Jesus, and if Satan threw absolutely everything he had at Jesus, then Satan’s cup would be drained all the way dry and he would be defeated. He would lose his ability to do whatever he wants with whomever he wants. So, when Jesus was crucified and died for a crime that He hadn’t committed, actually when He hadn’t committed any sins at all, it meant that Satan abused his authority and lost the battle. It meant that the Roman Empire abused its authority and lost the battle. It even meant that the High Priest and his chief priests abused their authority and lost their battle because they weren’t representing God when they all worked together to kill Jesus, who was not only innocent of the crime He was accused of, but innocent of everything.
Have you ever been punished for something you didn’t actually do? I am sure you have. Mistakes happen. Have you ever gotten away with something you did that you really should have been punished for? I am even more sure of that. We’ve all been wrongly accused of things we didn’t do. I have done it with my kids too. But a lot of times, they did stuff that I didn’t catch them for. It doesn’t make it right when I would punish them or accuse them and I was wrong about it, but it does mean that they weren’t perfect and so even when they didn’t deserve that punishment they couldn’t claim to be totally innocent. But Jesus could. Jesus was innocent because He always obeyed God and did what was right—even when some important people got really angry at Him for it.
Now, the really cool thing about Noah was that he wasn’t a perfect guy. All he was, was righteous and blameless compared to the other people who lived at the same time. That means that he cared very much about doing what was right but it doesn’t mean that everything he did was right. But, when God gave him a huge job, Noah said yes. When God said, “Just your family and just two of these kinds of animals and seven of these other kinds of animals,” Noah didn’t go sneaking more animals onto the ark. What Jesus did in obeying God and being willing to die for us, so that Satan wouldn’t be in power over us anymore–that was amazing! And we wonder how Jesus could do that and part of it, a big part, is because He loves us so much. But the other part is because of how much Jesus trusted God because they had been together from the beginning of the Heavens and the Earth. Because Jesus knows God the Father better than anyone ever has or ever will because they are part of each other, it was possible for Jesus to know that God’s way is the only right way to do things.
But Noah didn’t know God as well as Jesus and yet he still obeyed. He built the ark exactly like he was supposed to. He didn’t sneak more people on board even if he wanted to. He didn’t sneak more animals on board or say no to animals he didn’t want to have to deal with. Noah trusted God and he just obeyed, and I bet it was hard. So, I don’t want you to feel alone when God asks you to do something hard. Because the Bible is a book full of people who trusted God and obeyed and didn’t trust God and disobeyed, and sometimes people do a little of both!
I love you. I am praying for you. And I pray you have a wonderful week studying the Bible with the people who love you.