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"The Impossible Task in God's Time"
OT: Genesis 6:11 thru 7:6 August 7, 2005
Good Morning!
Can you imagine? According to the writer of Genesis, Noah lived to be 950 years old! Folks, that's 50 years less than a full millennium (1,000 years). We are told that he lived 350 years after the flood, so he was 600 years old when God told him to build an ark.
Of course if you think that is amazing, remember that Noah became a father at the age of 500. Of course none of this is amazing in the context of the story. After all, Noah came from a long line of longevity.
Noah's father, Lamech, lived for 777 years. Noah's grandfather, Methuselah, lived for 969 which turned out to be the oldest. Noah's great-grandfather had his life cut short at 365 years, but his great-great grandfather returned to the long line at 962 years old. There were only four other generations in Noah's line before we hit Noah's 7-greats grandfather, Adam, the man known as the "first man" of the Garden of Eden, lived to be 930 years old.
At age 600, Noah had a busy and involved life. He liked farming vineyards and of course he liked his wine. He was just beginning to enjoy the fruits of fatherhood and then father-in-law-hood, when God decides that God needs someone to save in a world gone mad.
You recall that one of the most perverse things recorded as being the evil of Noah's day was the marrying between human women and angelic beings. Although, since our Scripture also indicates that angelic beings are unable to copulate or procreate, we have reinforcement of the theory that these angelic beings weren't angels at all but rather visitors from another planet. After all, they were considerably taller than the human men of that day and had other unusual characteristics.
At any rate, God was not happy with all that he was seeing and decided to destroy his creation in its entirety except for Noah, his family, and animals and insects. God fully expected that Noah would put his own agenda aside to accomplish this most amazing feat. And what an amazing feat this was!
In the midst of dry land, God directs Noah to build a boat - a ship would be a better word for it. Ark was the term of the day. This ark, if you will, was to be 75 feet wide, 45 feet high, and 450 feet long. I believe that's about 1 ½ football fields long!
The displacement of this ship would be 20,000 tons and the gross tonnage would be 14,000.
Its carrying capacity would be equal to that of 522 standard railroad stock cars (each of which can hold 240 sheep). Only 188 railroad cars would be required to hold 45,000 sheep-sized animals, leaving three trains of 104 cars each for food, Noah's family, and grazing "range" for the animals.
Today it is estimated that there are 17,600 species of animals, making 45,000 a likely approximation of the number Noah might have taken into the ark. I'm not even going to try to imagine where Noah found two tropical alligators, unless they simply managed to survive the flood, but my REAL fascination is with his uncanny ability to catch wild birds. And why, oh why, couldn't he have resisted bringing mosquitoes in the ark!
The point is not how Noah accomplished this impossible task, the point is that Noah gave up any plans that he probably had for his life up that point, to begin the biggest project the world has ever known. These four men, Noah and his sons, obeyed God and accepted the daily ridicule of all who passed their way or heard about Noah's craziness, and came to stare and mock.
There are times in our own lives when we sense a duty to God to move in a different direction, or to make a different decision. God, today, seems so much more willing to let us say "no" and go about our business. God may be calling us to great and unbelievable things - but the more unbelievable they are, the more we are inclined to dismiss them-and why not, that is our human nature. Does God really expect us to go against our human nature? Well … … … YES! That's the purpose and the job of the Holy Spirit-to give us the strength, stamina, and wisdom, to go about overcoming our selfish and sometimes sinful nature. To point us toward the greater Will of God.
It happened in my life. I had a wonderful wife, four lovely children, supportive parents, a mother-in-law whom I actually loved, a good job, and a bright future. But at the age of 29, God called and asked me to build an ark of my own. That ark was a total lifestyle and purpose change which would take me into the active and full time ministry-quite a feat for one with only one year of college to my name.
I believe God has done it again … called me to a new plan of action just within the past five weeks here at Perry. I had a well mapped plan of transition for my arrival and first year at Perry-and it was a good one-time tested and proven several times over. But sometimes when God calls, God expects us to drop a whole set of our own plans in order to accomplish what God wants accomplished.
I have asked myself many times, "What could God possibly want with that that old house behind our parking lot-it's so insignificant!" or the question, "Why the parking lot now, with the arrival of a new pastor with barely a foot in the door, after so many years of delay?"
Folks, I don't have all the answers, but I surely sense the hand of God working in our midst-and God has required that I give up my plans to accomplish whatever it is that God has for us here on the corner of Covington and Short streets. Perhaps God is asking you to give up some of your plans in order to accomplish the "new thing" to which God is always referring.
If I were to venture a guess at what God might be doing, I would guess that it has something to do with making his presence known in our community with greater force and a clearly visible reality for all to see. Perhaps it's also to shore up and develop our faith, not only in ourselves, but in our trust and hope in God.
There are miracles in our midst - our own people have experienced them - perhaps God has a few more up his sleeve. Let us go with the flow and direction of God's Holy Spirit in these amazing days before us. And may God bless you richly as to seek to serve and please him. Amen!
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