Like It Takes a Family To Raise a Family, Not a Village
By Faith Noah
“It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. He obeyed God, who warned him about things that had never happened before. By his faith Noah condemned the rest of the world, and he received the righteousness that comes by faith.” (New Living Translation) (Hebrews 11:7)
Word association is a great way to help you remember things. I’m going to give you a word and I want you to remember the first word that comes to your mind. Ready? The word is: Noah. What picture word came to your mind? Most people I believe would respond with the word “Ark.” Noah and the ark go together like a horse and carriage. I’m sure there are other words that many would immediately associate with Noah; words like “flood,” “water,” “drowning,” “animals,” “rainbow…”
Well, the truest word to remember Noah by is “Family.” “It was by faith that Noah built a large boat to save his family from the flood. That’s a powerful thought.
To be sure, Noah was also a man of mighty faith, believing God’s Word even about “things not seen as yet,” preparing for a worldwide Flood in a day when God had never yet even “caused it to rain upon the earth” (Genesis 2:5). Noah was “a preacher of righteousness” (2 Peter 2:5) to an unbelieving world for at least 120 years (Genesis 6:3) “while the ark was a preparing” (I Peter 3:20), without gaining any converts except his own family.
But why was Noah a man moved by fear? Does it mean that he was afraid to die, to face life’s problems? Hardly! He was a man of colossal courage. The greatest courage is moral courage; the courage to stand alone for God in a godless culture; Can you imagine what people must have thought about Noah? We don’t know all that went through his mind, but we do know that he was faithful to do what God asked of him. By faith, he stood alone in obedience to God and refused to listen to the world. How would you have responded in that situation? He had “walked with God” for 600 years, Genesis 6:9, 5:32, 7:11) before the Flood, and he was certainly not afraid to die and go to meet the Lord now.
Evidently it was “to save his family,” that he was afraid, realizing that his own children would soon be engulfed by the awful spirit of unbelief and wickedness that pervaded the antediluvian world, if they could not somehow be delivered from it. So he “prepared an ark,” and his house was saved. “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.” (Genesis 7:1). Although his family could easily have refused, they all chose to follow righteous Noah.
In a like manner today, God speaks to the head of each house: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved-you and your household.” (Acts 16:31) A consistent example of obedient faith set by a godly father (or mother, if necessary) almost inevitably results in his (or her) children also trusting in the Lord for salvation. Every caring parent should resolve that, “as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15).
No matter what the enemy throws at you and your family; you can stand against it. God is a God of the family. Genesis 7:1, “The LORD then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.”
And Remember that last great verse in the Old Testament, Malachi 4:5-6,
“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the LORD comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents…”
Like Noah, make the salvation of your family one of your greatest priorities.
The Best Is Yet To be For You and Your Family.
Pastor Bryant