Noah and His Big Boat

Dr. Larry Thorson
June 17, 2007

Genesis 6:9-14

9 This is the account of Noah and his family.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 So God said to Noah, "I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.

7By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He was warned about something he couldn't see, and acted on what he was told. The result? His family was saved. His act of faith drew a sharp line between the evil of the unbelieving world and the rightness of the believing world. As a result, Noah became intimate with God. Hebrews 11:7 in The Message

Well our story today is about a father, his three sons and a boat. How many “boat families” do we have here today, that is how many of you have had or have a boat in your family when either you or your kids were growing up?

We never had a boat when I was growing up. My dad didn’t like to fish and I get seasick easy so boats weren’t a big thing for us. But they are for a lot of people. Boats were such a big thing in Chino Hills when we lived there that every year they had a boat parade. Unfortunately there isn’t any body of water in Chino Hills so they had to pull them on trailers.

The father in our story today had but one boat but this wasn’t just any old boat. This was an ark. The Bible says it was 450 feet long by 75 feet wide and 45 feet high. In comparison the Titanic, the largest ship in the world in 1913 was twice that length at 882’ but only a little wider at 92’.

But unlike the Titanic the Ark wasn’t built of steel in a shipyard by hundreds of trained workers. It was a backyard project of one man. Now do you know what a Backyard Project is? My sprinkler system in the back yard, two years in the works is a Backyard Project. “Dad can we go to the beach today?” “No, I have to work on our sprinklers.” “Dad, do you want to go hiking today?” “No, I’m almost finished with the sprinklers and then we’ll have time to go hiking in a few weeks.” “Give me just a few more days”.

The Ark was a backyard project. It was a hundred year backyard project by a 500 year old man. Now that’s a backyard project. “Dad, do we have to work on this stupid boat everyday”, I can imagine at least one of his sons saying. “Dad, why are we building this thing anyway?” “There’s no water to float it in and there’s never going to be.” “In case you’ve forgotten, we live in a desert!”

So here he is, hammering away for a hundred years with no hope in sight. None. Now some people would call this dad crazy. If he was building a big new house then it might make some sense. If he was restoring a 1928 Duisenberg roadster that he could sell for a million dollars, ok now we’re talking. But a boat in the middle of the desert? What’s wrong with this man?

Well I’d like to offer that what was wrong with Noah was that he was a good dad. For one thing it says that he was a “righteous man who walked faithfully with God”. It doesn’t say that he was a rich man. It says that he was a righteous man.

A good dad in God’s eyes is not necessarily a rich dad. Last week the San Antonio Spurs won another basketball championship. I read an article recently about one of the stars on that team, Tony Parker. This was his third championship with San Antonio, he was named MVP of the series, the first European to be so named and next month he marries Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria who plays Gabrielle Solis in the nighttime soap opera. All of that and he just turned 25 last month. But none of that will necessarily make Tony Parker a good dad in God’s eyes if he has children.

It’s also not necessarily being an educated dad or having employees report to him that makes him a good dad. A good dad in God’s eyes is one who walks faithfully with God.

“Faithfully walks” means he doesn’t quit when the going gets tough. The good dads are the dads who don’t quit. The good dads are the dads who don’t run away when the romantic feelings end with their children’s mother. The good dads are the ones who come home after work when their friends are luring them to go do something else. Those are the good dads.

Noah was a good dad. But beware funny things sometimes happen to good dads. Like getting an unusual assignment from God. How unusual? Building a boat half the size of the Titanic in a desert that had never seen more than a mist is kind of the equivalent of building an air conditioning unit for all the igloos at the North Pole.

When Simon Rodia decided to build some towers in Watts with scrap material it took him 33 years from 1921 to 1954 to complete the project now called Watts Towers. During those 33 years Rodia didn’t get along with some of his neighbors who sometimes vandalized his work. During WWII a rumor was started that the towers contained a secret antenna to send messages to the Japanese. So disgusted was he that in 1954 he gave the towers away and moved north never to visit them again.

If Rodia had that much trouble with art work you can imagine the ridicule Noah experienced after 75 years of construction and not a drop of rain had fallen. You can imagine his prayers “Ok God you’re having me build this thing, it better rain or all of this is going to be a big waste of time”. What if it never rains? What if you misunderstood God’s command to build a boat. A hundred years and all of your savings wasted if God doesn’t come through.

That’s a hard place to be. Let’s say he’s been working on this boat for 80 years and he’s getting tired. So he starts to pray for rain. Everyday he gets up and prays for rain but nothing but blue skies and hot sun. One day he awakes to a dark cloud in the sky and he jumps for joy. “This is it, I was right, God is going to send a flood”. “God has heard my prayers”. But then the cloud blows away.

That may be how some of your prayers feel. You’ve been doing the right thing day after day, doing what you think God is calling you to do. Everyday you pray to God for him to do his part. Sometimes it looks like he’s coming through but then it blows away.

For you in that situation the story of Noah and his big boat was written. A hundred years with no sign that God was going to do what God said he was going to do. Then one day the rain started and it didn’t stop for forty days. God is always a good father. He always does what he says he’s going to do. If he says he forgave you in Jesus Christ, he forgave you. Noah waited a hundred years for his promise from God to be fulfilled. How long have you waited for God?

Everything I need to know about life, I learned from Noah's Ark*

One: Don't miss the boat.

Two: Remember that we are all in the same boat.

Three : Plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the Ark

Four : Stay fit. When you're 600 years old, someone may ask you to do something really big.

Five: Don't listen to critics; just get on with the job that needs to be done.

Six : Build your future on high ground.

Seven : For safety's sake, travel in pairs.

Eight: Speed isn't always an advantage. The snails were on board with the cheetahs.

Nine : When you're stressed, float a while.

Ten : Remember, the Ark was built by amateurs; the Titanic by professionals.

Eleven: No matter the storm, when you are with God, there's always a rainbow waiting...and make someone else smile, too .

*Source unknown