NOAH FOUND GRACE IN THE EYES OF THE LORD. 1 GENESIS 6.

The people rapidly increased following the Fall, when uncontrolled, multiplied conception was the harvest of sin. Men were captivated by their passion for beautiful women . (v1) The sons of God saw the fair women , whom they freely chose in marriage. The suggestion is that all restraint had gone and sexual relationships had assumed the most important factor . ( v2) ‘Of all they chose’ spoke of a damaged will, sensually disposed.

Our present media intrudes even on family programmes with suggestive scenes that are sexually explicit. They are potentially destructive to young, and a temptation to all.

‘The Lord said’, should always arrest us. ( v3) ‘My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he is also flesh: yet his days shall be 120 years.’ The Holy Spirit had hovered over God’s marvellous creation and now brooded over twisted, human desires . God said He had had enough. He would not persist drawing back man in his wilful rebellion. Furthermore, God decided to reduce the life span of every member of the human family. Man lost his everlasting life when ‘he rode his high horse’ against the Lord. His life span was formerly reduced to 900 years plus for many of the early characters in Genesis. Now the life span was curtailed to a maximum of 120 years. God allowed the ageing processes, resulting from the fall, to accelerate. Tragic! Our merciful Saviour compensated when He offered everlasting life to those who trusted Him.

The genetic pool had some genes for giants, which has been largely lost, plus sons of God fathered children who became mighty and famous. ( v4). The Bible suggests that men lifted their moral restraints God must intervene to preserve the human race.

Heaven observed all that had happened. ‘ God saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continuously.(v6) God’s noblest creation – man- was endangered. He could no longer trifle with degenerate man because of the monstrous wrong, while the thought life and lusting of man was perpetually crooked. ‘As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.’ The ‘very good’ creation of our God had slipped to the lowest.

God was cut to the core of His being, ‘for it repented the Lord, that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.’ Our friends, Alan and Jessie, deeply sorrowed when their gifted child turned away from God and them. How much more when our heavenly father saw the entire human family lustfully defying Him and destroying themselves in unbridled sexual activity.

In Noah’s family language, ‘The Lord said,’ 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; for it repents Me that I have made them’ ( v7) Disastrous!

Creation was a marvellous show of God’s eternal power. He made man out of the dust of the earth and breathed in his nostrils the breath of life, and he became a spiritual being. Then the additional, awesome creation of Eve as woman, taken from Adam’s side, and being’ bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.’ Then the added wonder of sweet fellowship with the eternal God as He walked in the garden of Eden each evening. All that had dissipated with the first momentous rebellion. Now God must end this marvellous creation of man. What did the confused angels think? How satan gleefully rejoiced at this apparent victory! Wrong! Christ would later put everything right again. He will put all things under His feet.

Exciting news! ‘ Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord’( v8). God is in perfect control of His eternal rescue plan for fallen man. One man received His grace, else the

Lord would have banished the entire family of man, which would have vanished from the face of the earth. ‘Grace’ is one of the most fragrant expressions in the Bible. It is God’s intervention in our lives doing something for man, which he could not do for himself. God confers a thoroughly-undeserved favour. Grace is God’s covenant gift and loving kindness as He lifts a fallen creature and makes great gifts through His Son. But it took Christ’s Calvary sufferings and resurrection glory to make grace effective.

Grace told us more of the nature of God than most other themes in Scripture.

See how it flowed through the whole bible as a life-purifying stream. Not only Noah, but Joseph, sold into slavery in Egypt, falsely imprisoned and later received God’s grace, becoming the Prime Minister. ( Gen 39:4). Moses led 2 ½ million through the inhospitable desert and received grace ( Exodus 33:3 ) ; Ruth the Ammonite woman, though disqualified as a Gentile, received it also ( Ruth 2:2 ) to be great grandmother to King David; Hannah also when she longed for a son ( 1 Samuel 1:18 ) received grace to bear the pure child Samuel; Queen Esther ( 2:17) risked her life to confront King Ahashuerus and plead for her endangered people received grace. Melchisedek grandson of Saul received grace at the hand of King David . ( 2 Sam 9 ) . The New Testament tells that the secret Source of grace was in our beloved Lord Jesus, for ‘grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.’ ( John 1:17) The Old and New testaments are beautifully knit as one.

Have you received God’s unbounded grace in bowing repentant before your God and

Personal Saviour, the Lord Jesus. He died for your sins and rose again for your justification? God waits to pour His grace into your life. What treasure waits for you!

‘Noah was a just man and perfect in his generation s, and Noah walked with God.

(v9) Paul pointed out that the ‘Just shall live by faith ‘, which indicated the strong personal faith Noah held with his Lord. The common usage of the Old Testament word is ‘righteous conduct and character’. It means too, that Noah was justified and vindicated before his God. The Psalms of David frequently describe the man of God with this attribute. Noah was a sinner, but saved by grace: and loved of God.

Noah was also ‘ perfect in his generation’ describing his being ‘without blemish’ as recurs more than any other translation in the Old Testament. Strong defines it as being ‘entire, a man of integrity , or of truth, complete, sound, upright, unimpaired, healthful’.

The Creator would preserve such a man and his family when they contrasted light with the hideous darkness around.

Another delightful comment about Noah was that ‘he walked with God’. He preserved the communion which Adam and Eve had fractured and thrown away. Our god longs for those who walk hand-in-hand with Him. ‘He knows our frame, and remembers that we are dust’ ( Psalm 103:14 ), but He longs for that closeness.

Do you recall that ‘Enoch walked with God, and he was not, because God took him’ ( Genesis 5:4 ), while the Lord called Abraham to ‘walk before Me and be perfect’. ( Genesis 17:1 ) One man preceded while the other followed Noah.

The Lord longed for the removal of the old, decadent, rotting mass of humanity, while he yearned for a new generation of God-fearing, just, perfect children, walking in His company.

To be continued