评论
打印
??Introduction：Here is a riddle for you：“I am a word that you may see on roadways or medicine bottles, and even on some of your toys! What am I？” Did you guess the word WARNING!”？Why do we need WARNING signs？We need to know of possible danger, don’t we!
??Not long after God created the world, God gave a very serious WARNING to the people of the world. There was danger ahead! Even though people lived much longer back then, they were very much like the people today. They were busy working and playing, getting an education, building homes and cities, traveling, marrying and having families. However, just as most people today, the people back then missed the most important thing：they didn’t believe in the true and living God. As the number of people was increasing, so was their sin! Disobeying parents, hatred, murder, divorce, sexual sin, stealing, violence were all increasing because people had no desire to please God. Genesis 6：5 says, “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” God saw people living sinful lives, living only to please themselves.
??You and I are like that too. Isaiah 53：6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way…” When you live to please yourself, that is going your own way. You and I were born with that selfish desire to please ourselves. It is sin when you put your own selfish pleasures ahead of believing and obeying the Lord Jesus. It is sin to make fun of those who do believe in the Lord Jesus and serve Him. WARNING! Romans 6：23 says “The wages of sin is death…” If you do not come to the Lord Jesus with your sin, you must be forever separated from Him and His beautiful Heaven. Instead of enjoying His eternal life, those who refuse to believe in the Lord Jesus will be punished with eternal death.
??Genesis 6：6 says that the sin of the people “grieved him (God) at his heart.” God had created a beautiful, happy, and perfect world without sin. But man had “corrupted his way upon the earth.” (Genesis 6：12) However, God saw one man who did believe and obey Him! His name was Noah. He was a descendent of Shem, Adam’s third son. And his great grandfather was Enoch, a man who walked with God closely. We know that Enoch’s friendship with God had a great effect on his grandson for Genesis 6：9 tells us that “Noah walked with God.” It was Noah that God chose to tell about His terrible judgment upon sin：“I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air…Make…an ark of gopher wood; ” Then God instructed Noah in every detail of this ark. It was to be 450 feet long, that’s as long as 22 railroad cars put together! The ark was to be 75 feet wide and 45 feet tall, higher than a 4 story building! It was to have only one door. It was to be pitched inside and out with tar, which would make the ark waterproof. Noah was to build rooms, or stalls, in the ark. God told Noah that He was going to send a flood to destroy the earth and its people. The ark would be the only place of safety for Noah and his family. God also instructed Noah to take into the ark pairs of every kind of animal and insect and birds, two pairs of some animals and seven of others.
??Many scientists who believe the Bible say that it had probably never rained before, so Noah could not have been familiar with a normal rain, much less a worldwide flood. And do you suppose he had ever seen an ark before？The ark was not only going to be HUGE, but it would be more like a huge floating box than a boat! Noah must have listened carefully and kept his questions to himself, for Genesis 6：22 says, “…Noah did according to all that God commanded him…”
??Main Truth：If you have believed on the Lord Jesus as your Savior from sin, God wants you to listen and obey His Word! God uses the Bible to speak to you and me today, and every day we should read it carefully, listening for God to show us what to do. Look for a promise to believe, a warning you should heed, or something God wants you to do. James 1：22 says, “Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” If you have believed on the Lord Jesus, God wants you to listen and obey His Word. That’s how you walk with God daily. Is it always easy to obey God？Not now, and surely not in Noah’s day!
??Even though Noah was careful to obey God’s instructions in building the ark, it was not easy. There were trees to cut and lumber to prepare. His wife and his three sons would have helped him, but what an enormous task! The people around him were probably laughing and mocking as they passed by his building project. The Bible indicates it took about 120 years to build the ark, and while Noah built the ark, he also must have been preaching and warning the people that God was going to send the flood. The Bible calls Noah a preacher of righteousness. (II Peter 2：5) For 120 years God was trying to warn the people through Noah’s preaching and through seeing the ark being built. God showed His love and patience for the people in warning them for so long about their sin.
??God loves you too! Ephesians 2：4-5 says, “But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, …” God not only made you but He loves you and His plan is for you to be with Him forever in Heaven. But God is holy, completely without sin. He will not allow sin in Heaven. Because He loves you, He warns you about your sin and tells you what to do about it. God does not want your sin to keep you away from Him forever.
??God loved the people in Noah’s day, so He used Noah to patiently warn them about the coming punishment for sin. When Noah finished the ark, there was still work to be done. God had told Noah to gather food and store in the ark. After Noah’s family helped him gather food for themselves and all the animals, then it was time to board the ark. God had told Noah to gather the animals, but suddenly here came the animals of every kind, insects and birds, parading by pairs, male and female, into the ark! How did they know there was danger ahead？How did they know the ark was their only place of safety？God their Creator somehow helped them know. God had also helped the people know there was danger ahead by sending Noah to warn them. But the people stubbornly refused to believe God.
??Suddenly, as Noah and his family watched from the inside, the one big door of the ark banged shut. God had shut the door. It was now the end of His merciful warning and the beginning of His terrible judgment on sin. God in His love had made one way for the people to be saved from the punishment of sin, but the people refused to believe and come.
??God in His love has made one way for you to be saved from the everlasting punishment of sin. Our ark of safety is the Lord Jesus Christ, God’s perfect Son! When Jesus came down to earth almost 2, 000 years ago, He knew He was coming to take our punishment for sin. Before Jesus went to the cross to die for us, He said, “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected…, and be slain, and be raised the third day.” (Luke 9：22) Now the Lord Jesus is in Heaven, and He will never have to die again.
??He says, “I am the door：by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved.” God has given the Lord Jesus Christ as our only ark of safety. The moment you truly believe in Him and ask Him to save you, you are saved from the everlasting death and separation from God.
??God had made one way for the people to be saved from the flood, but not one of them outside Noah’s family believed and obeyed God’s warning until it was too late. As the heavy rains began to fall, the Bible also says “the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.” Scientists who believe the Bible say that this would have included earthquakes, as well as geysers of water, lava, and steam shooting up from cracks in the earth, as the fountains from underground broke up the earth’s crust. Noah and his family, and all the creatures in the ark must have felt the shaking of the earth. As the terrible judgment of God fell upon the earth, many probably screamed in terror, realizing their hopeless condition.
??The Bible tells us the heavy rains continued for 40 days and nights. During this time, the rising waters caused the ark to begin to float. The ark was not designed to be steered anywhere, just to float. The waters rose until even the highest mountains were completely covered with water. Genesis 7：23 tells us clearly：“And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground…and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.” Can you imagine how glad they were that they had believed and obeyed God!
??Are you wondering how God got all those animals on the ark, and how Noah and his family cared for them？Of course we are not sure exactly how it happened, because the Bible does not give us every detail. But scientists who agree that God created the world say that it was no problem to house some of all the animals on the ark, with much room to spare. What about the big dinosaurs？Dinosaurs are reptiles and reptiles continue to grow larger as long as they live. Creation scientists say that perhaps God sent the younger dinosaurs to the ark, and if so, they would not be the larger size.
??Many have asked, “How did Noah manage to keep all the animals fed, and how did he keep them from eating each other？” Again, Bible-believing scientists have a very good theory. Since the nature of many animals is to be still and quiet during bad weather, the animals could have gone into something like a hibernating condition. During hibernation animals eat very little.
??Even after the 40 days and nights of rain ended, the Bible tells us it took many months for the water to gradually go down. During the flood and even as the water was receding, the earth had drastically changed its form. Now there were much higher mountains! It was during this time, when the waters were running off rapidly, that the Grand Canyon and other huge canyons of the earth were formed. Scientists who do not believe God’s Word have other explanations, but it is so easy to see how a worldwide flood would have done it! In the strata of these canyons, and mountains, what do you see？You see many, many layers of rock which right after the flood were layers of mud. That mud eventually dried out and hardened into rock. Today you can see the layers packed together with billions and billions of fossils of all kinds of creatures. Those were creatures that died in the flood.
??As the waters receded, the ark came to rest on Mt. Ararat, which is in the country of Turkey. Through the years, many people believe they have seen the ark wedged into the side of the mountain!
??The day came when the earth was dry enough, and God told Noah to take everyone out of the ark. Can you imagine the birds flying out, the animals stretching their legs and taking their first run in over a year？Right away Noah built an altar and made an offering to the Lord. As they looked around at a very different world, Noah and his family were so thankful to the Lord for saving them. Then they looked up in wonder to see their first rainbow, stretched across the sky in brilliant bands of color! God had given it as His promise that He would never again destroy the whole earth with a flood.
??What a sadness Noah and his family must have felt, as they looked around at a world in which their family of eight were the only inhabitants. If only the people in his day had believed God’s warning, they could have been saved.
??Have you believed God’s warning about your sin？Have you told Him you are accepting His one way to have forgiveness of your sin？Acts 16：31 says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” God warns you that you need to be saved from the punishment of sin by believing on the Lord Jesus Christ and what He did for you on the cross. Will you go now to "How to Be a Child of God" and take those steps？??If you have already believed on Jesus, will you listen and obey God’s Word？Will you this week read 8-10 verses in your Bible daily, asking yourself these 3 questions and writing down the answer：1)Is there a promise to believe？2)Is there a warning I should heed？3)Is there something God wants me to do？When you listen and obey God’s Word, you are walking with God!
?
