Genesis 6:8

A LONELY MAN OF GRACE

‘Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.’

Genesis 6:8

I. The first fact that strikes us in the story of the Flood is this: that God, on account of the wickedness to which the world had grown, had made up His mind to sweep it away, once and for all.

II. Out of the seed of Noah God had determined to people the earth once more with a race that would not be so wicked as the one He destroyed.

III. Noah was told to go into the ark because his life was to be saved from the Flood. God has provided another ark for us; He tells us to go into it and be saved.

IV. Noah’s family was taken with him into the ark, showing the value God sets on family life.

V. God gave it as a reward to Noah for his righteousness that his children went with him into the ark. A holy and loving example preaches a sermon to those who watch it, and remains in the memory of the godless son and the godless daughter long after the parents have been laid in the grave.

Bishop Thorold.

Illustration

(1)‘Almost all races possess some tradition of a great flood which swept away all mankind save one righteous man and his family. Noah is the Fuh-he of the Chinese, the Manu of the East Indians, the Deucalion of the Greeks, the Xisuturus of the Chaldeans, and the Coxcox and the Tezpi of the Mexicans. They represent him as the second father of the race, and several of them agree that he had three sons. In these traditions the dove, the olive-branch, the raven, and the ark itself all find a place. As to the universality of the Flood the traditions also agree. By that is meant, of course, that the Flood covered all the inhabited world. “It is distinctly with mankind that Genesis is concerned, and not with the physical globe.” As to the time, it is generally set down as 1650 years after the creation of Adam.

The whole story of the Deluge is of exceeding interest. It begins with the amazing description of the wickedness of the world before the Flood. Corruption and vileness filled the earth, and wickedness was rampant. “God saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” And, therefore, “God said unto Noah”—the only righteous man then living on the earth—“the end of all flesh is come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.” ’

(2) ‘The earth was so corrupt that nothing short of a deluge could wash it clean. Cain, the first born, became a murderer, and good Abel, the next born, was put out of this life.

Humanity must start a new line or all would be Cainites. So Seth is born, but these “sons of God,” his descendants, soon married Cainites for their beauty, and the race got to be unnameably bad (Genesis 6:5). Extermination by drowning was but a little more speedy than by the natural results of their sins.

But because there was one fairly good family, the infinite patience of God determined to start the race again. He would save one out of Sodom, and one family out of a doomed world. What kind of a man was worth saving? He was a “just man and perfect.” All the wickedness of the whole world did not swerve him. He had communion with God as if they talked face to face. He had great faith, so that obedience kept him preparing the ark for a hundred and twenty years, when there was no sign of rain. The sneers of men never turned him from obedience.’