“Noah” came out in the cinema on Friday. How true to life it is, we don’t know but what we do know about Noah is what God tells us in the Bible.
Noah was a just man, perfect in his generations and he walked with God. He lived in a time when the earth was corrupt before God and filled with violence. God looked upon the earth and saw that mankind had broken the commandments of God. God wanted to save those who followed His way and destroy the violence and wickedness. Noah was told to make an ark to His specifications in order to fit both people and animals. God told Noah to come into the ark with his household because he was righteous before God of all in his generation. It rained for 40 days and 40 nights and all living things that He had made were destroyed from off the face of the earth. At this stage, they had never seen rain in this form as a mist went up from the ground in order to water the earth. God’s desire was not to destroy the earth but for it to be fruitful and multiply. Noah and his family went out of the ark and re-populated the earth. God has promised that He will never flood the earth again and gave the rainbow as the sign of his promise. Noah had to build the ark in order to demonstrate his faith. God also calls us to demonstrate our faith through baptism and He will do the rest.
In the New Testament of the Bible, God tells us that the ancient world (in the time of Noah) was judged by water (see 2 Peter 2:5). However, we are also told that God patiently waited in the days of Noah and that the water which destroyed the wicked also brought salvation to the God-fearing. The saving of Noah and his household in the ark prefigures baptism, which now saves YOU – “not the washing off of physical dirt but the pledge of a good conscience to God – through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 3:21).
Water was used as a judgment on the earth, but water will also save us if we believe and are baptised. Do we see resemblance between the world Noah lived in and the world we live in?
“But as the days of Noah were so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” Matthew 24:37-39
The world today is in the same state of corruption as it was in the days of Noah, which tells us that Jesus will be coming soon. Turn away from walking in the darkness, seek after righteousness and come into the ark!