We’re looking at Genesis 11:7 this morning, at Noah’s faith. As with all the examples our author points to in Hebrews 11, these people’s faith produced action, and what he is emphasizing is that true, biblical faith always produces obedient action. In Noah’s case, because he believed God’s warning, he built an ark.
We saw last week that Noah’s obedience begins with God’s grace (Genesis 6:8) just like ours. Paul told the Corinthians, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me” (1 Cor. 15:10). Every act of obedience, Paul says, happens because of God’s grace. We also noted that Noah’s obedience occurred because of God’s Word. The faith that stands alone is the kind of faith where everything in my life is dictated, shaped, molded, and directed by God’s revelation, His Word.
Noah’s dependence upon God’s Word is remarkable because he had never seen an ark, nor had he ever seen a flood. All that God told him was outside the realm of his experience and therefore he could have judged it absurd. Instead, he believed God’s warning and obeyed. There had been no rain (Gen. 2:5) and the task was huge. Also, Noah couldn’t call Home Depot and order the materials. He had to cut down the trees and hew them himself with no power tools.
You might remember, although he has fallen out of favor, the old Bill Cosby video about God and Noah.
God: (standing on a chair behind Noah, he rings a bell once) NOAH.
Noah: (Looks up) Is someone calling me? (Shrugs and goes back to his work)
God: (Ding) NOAH!!
Noah: Who is that? God: It’s the Lord, Noah.
Noah: Right … Where are ya? What do ya want? I’ve been good.
God: I want you to build an ark.
Noah: Right … What’s an ark?
God: Get some wood and build it 300 cubits by 80 cubits by 40 cubits.
Noah: Right … What’s a cubit?
God: Well never mind. Don’t worry about that right now. After you build the ark, I want you to go out into the world and collect all the animals of the world, two by two, male and female, and put them into the ark.
Noah: Right … Who is this really? What’s going on? How come you want me to do all these weird things?
God: I’m going to destroy the world.
Noah: Right … Am I on Candid Camera?
Yes, on many levels it was unbelievable what God was asking Noah to do, but in actuality Noah didn’t question God and he certainly didn’t argue with God. Rather, he believed God.
Noah’s action wasn’t based upon meteorological evidence. The sky was as blue as blue can be. Noah’s obedience wasn’t based on past experience. Noah’s response wasn’t to satisfy the curiosities of his mind. He built the ark simply because God told him to build the ark. Noah did exactly what God said (Genesis 6:22; 7:5).
Noah did everything just as God commanded him (Gen. 6:22). And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him (Gen. 7:5). Noah obeyed God accurately (“just as God commanded him”) and completely (“did all that the LORD commanded him”). Noah didn’t negotiate, procrastinate or complain. He didn’t negotiate the size of the ark (that it was too big a job), or the lostness of man (is this really necessary?) or the appropriateness of the judgment (really, the whole earth?) or the exclusivity of salvation (just my family?). Noah didn’t procrastinate until the last minute, for delay and denial are not part of genuine faith. In fact, Noah was persistent for not just 20, or 50, or 80 years, but 120 years! And there were the jibes and insults from the neighbors. Noah was hearing jokes like, “how many children of Noah does it take to…”
But still, he acted on God’s Word. That is the standard and guide for his faith. This is what Christian faith is—not merely a positive feeling about what we hope might happen, but the confident assurance of what we know will happen because it is based upon promises from God’s mouth. This word of “warning” is a word used almost exclusively in the Scriptures to speak of communications which come directly from the mouth of God (Heb. 8:5; 12:23; Matt. 2:12, 23). In spite of everything else that the world would scream at him on the contrary, Noah took God as His word.
And again, God’s warning did not take place for 120 years. How many of us start to gripe and complain after 120 minutes?
Enoch named his son Methuselah, which means, “when he is dead, it will come.” What will come? If you do the math in the genealogies of Genesis, you discover that Methuselah died in the very year of the flood! Once Methuselah was dead, God’s judgment came! If you’ve ever wondered why Methuselah lived the longest of any recorded human life, it was to show God’s great patience before He brought judgment on this wicked earth.
In Genesis 6:3, God said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal ; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.” This probably means that there would be 120 years until the judgment of the flood. The earth was so wicked that, without apology, God could have judged it right then on the spot (Gen. 6:5). But in His grace and patience, He delayed judgment for over a century, while Noah built the ark (see 1 Pet. 3:20).
Peter tells us that in the end times, mockers will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” But, as Peter goes on to explain, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead, He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:4, 9).
So Noah had to persevere in building the ark, despite persecution, because God was patient in allowing the opportunity for people to repent and be saved.
The third thing we see in this passage is that Noah’s obedience flows from fear and faith, or a fearing faith (Heb. 11:7). True faith first affects our affections (producing holy fear) and then our actions (we obey). Hebrews 11:7 says, “in fear [he] built the ark.” This is the inner life of faith bowing humbly and trembling with joy before the awesome word of God.
The word translated reverence is the aorist passive participle of eulabeomai. It can be translated as either “fear” (Acts 23:10) or “devotion, piety or reverence” (Hebrews 5:7 and 12:28 translate eulabeia in this manner).
The NASB has “reverence” and emphasizes a respectful attitude, one that holds God in highest regard. At the heart of obedient faith is deep respect and reverence for God, a fear of disappointing God. This kind of fear is seen in Psalm 2:11-12, “Serve the LORD with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling. Kiss his son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”
It is not just an Old Testament way of relating to God. We find this concept in Philippians 2:12; 2 Corinthians 5:10-11 and Hebrews 5:7 and 12:28.
The fear of the LORD is needed to overcome our natural fear of man, as Ed Welch illustrates in his book When People are Big and God is Small. He describes the fear of the LORD as a spectrum of emotions from terror to worship.
The Bible has a great deal to say about a proper fear of the Lord. More than a mere healthy respect, when we realize just how big and majestic and holy God really is, our natural reaction will be a good healthy dose of fear.
Jewish theologian Abraham Heschel, in his book In Search of Man, has this to say about the fear of the Lord:
According to the Bible the principle religious virtue is yirah. What is the nature of yirah? The word has two meanings, fear and awe. There is the man who fears the Lord lest he be punished in his body, family, or in his possessions. Another man fears the Lord because he is afraid of punishment in the life to come. Both types are considered inferior in Jewish tradition. Job, who said, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him,” was not motivated in his piety by fear but rather by awe, by the realization of the grandeur of His eternal love.
Fear is the anticipation and expectation of evil or pain, as contrasted with hope which is the anticipation of good. Awe, on the other hand, is the sense of wonder and humility inspired by the sublime or felt in the presence of mystery. … Awe, unlike fear, does not make us shrink from the awe-inspiring object, but, on the contrary, draws us near to it. This is why awe is comparable to both love and joy.
In a sense, awe is the antithesis of fear. To feel “The Lord is my light and my salvation” is to feel “Whom shall I fear?” {Psalms 27:1). “God is my refuge and my strength. A very present help in trouble. Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change, and though the mountains be moved into the heart of the seas” (Psalms 46:2-3).
Wow! From God in Search of Man, p 77-78
Puritan Thomas Adams emphasizes this type of fear when he says, “No man more truly loves God than he that is most fearful to offend Him.” Sinclair Ferguson adds, “[A proper fear of God] is that indefinable mixture of reverence and pleasure, joy and awe which fills our hearts when we realize who God is and what He has done for us. It is a love for God which is so great that we would be ashamed to do anything which would displease or grieve Him, and makes us happiest when we are doing what pleases Him” (Grow in Grace, p. 29). And another recent contemporary Jerry Bridges has said, “I can know if I truly fear God by determining if I have a genuine hatred of evil and an earnest desire to obey His commands”(The Practice of Godliness, p. 52).
Ultimately those outside the ark would feel the terror of having made the wrong decision, while reverence from seeing the mighty acts of God would lead to reverence for Noah and his family. When that kind of fear is coupled with faith, it motivates a powerful obedience, despite the unreasonableness of the mission, despite the ridicule of his neighbors, despite the length of time it took.
The Puritan Thomas Watson wrote:
God in great wisdom couples these two graces of faith and fear. Fear preserves seriousness, faith preserves cheerfulness. Fear is as lead to the net—to keep a Christian from floating in presumption and faith is as cork in the net—to keep him from sinking from despair.
Spurgeon adds…
Faith and fear are very sweet companions, when the fear is filial fear, a holy dread of disobeying, God. When we are moved with that fear, our faith becomes practical.
This particular term seems to place more of an emphasis upon the quality of reverence toward God. And that tells me something significant about Noah. It tells me that the construction of the Ark was viewed as an act of WORSHIP.
Fourth, Noah’s obedience results in both condemnation and salvation (Hebrews 11:7).
Noah’s preaching and building the ark in obedience to God’s warning, “condemned the world,” which means that he “put the world in the wrong” (NEB), showing that it was in the wrong. He was a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5) for 120 years! And remember that he had no Bible to preach from and it resulted in no church growth. That could have been totally demoralizing. Noah’s life (being blameless and righteous, proving it by his obedience) and his preaching (1 Pet. 3:20; 2 Pet. 2:5) brought condemnation to the many. Noah stayed true to the message of impending judgment for 120 years, despite no sign of rain and no conversions.
So Noah faithfully preached righteousness for twelve decades—one long pastorate! But along with this was the witness of his life. His continual preparation of the ark was a constant visual witness that judgment was coming. But there was also the powerful witness of the way he lived his life, because Noah was a profoundly righteous man. Noah was called to trust and obey, to preach and to build and to live a righteous life. He left the results to God.
Noah stood alone in the midst of a hostile world. Apart from the immediate members of his family, he could not find any support. To believe in God amid fellow believers is relatively easy. But to have no one to lean on except God is the true test of faith. Noah believed and “in holy fear built an ark to save his family.” On the one hand he expressed deep reverence to God, and on the other hand he was terrified because of the coming destruction. He was filled with holy fear at the prospect of God’s judgment on the sinful world. For if he had not believed God’s warning, he would not have been afraid. His faith drove him to fear and to build. Obediently he followed the instructions God gave him. He constructed the ark and by doing so demonstrated his firm confidence in God. His faith became his testimony that condemned the unbelieving world around him. Noah’s faith stood diametrically opposed to the unbelief of the world. (William Hendriksen & Simon J. Kistemaker, NT Commentary: Hebrews, 318-9)
The choice comes to every man either to listen to or to disregard the message of God. He may live as if that message is of no importance or as if it is the most important thing in the world. We may put it in another way–Noah was the man who heeded the warning of God; and because he heeded he was saved from disaster. God’s warning comes to us in many ways. It may come from conscience; it may come from some direct word of God to our souls; it may come from the advice or the rebuke of some good and godly man; it may leap out at us from God’s Book or challenge us in some sermon. Wherever it comes from, we neglect it at our peril. (William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, Hebrews, 141)
Do you think Noah felt like a failure? No! He saved his family—the most important thing any husband and faith could do! Without his faithfulness he knew that his own children could perish too. We don’t read much about his boys until after the flood, and then there is little to be impressed with. We don’t read about them taking up the preaching ministry with their father, though it was likely that they helped build the ark. But the fact that they joined Noah on the ark shows that they had responded in faith and trust to Noah’s preaching.
Grace Still Amazes 