Noah Wasn't Nuts

"Noah" was a good movie. I liked it, despite it deviating from the Biblical story. Sure, Noah was a bit psycho, but who wouldn't be during such a time? And the Watchers were something I didn't see coming. Not to mention- well, go see the movie.
What about the real Noah? What was he like? Did Russel Crowe accurately portray him? From what I read in the Bible, I can't really tell. Like a lot of the Bible, it is abbreviated. But we can try to get an idea about him. For one thing, he was old.

600 hundred when the world died. That's John Huston up there. He played Noah in "The Bible" from 1966, I think. Back then people lived a looooong time. Or at least the men in the direct line of Adam did. But he built an ark at 500, so he must have been pretty spry!
(Nobody ever lived that long! you say. I cannot proved they did, and you can't prove they didn't. Take it on faith for today.)
He lived another 350 years after the Flood, so he was really old when he died. Did he look like an 80-year old, or a thousand? Who knows.

Now imagine God calls you from Heaven and gives you a message, one that really sucks. One that means everyone is going to die, and the earth will be changed. This message also reveals God's heart, which He reveals is "grieved" because of man's sin. How would you feel? Imagine that no matter how much you preach, no one will listen.
And the only ones to survive will be you, your unnamed wife, your 3 sons, and their wives.

No sisters, no brothers, no parents, no friends. Just your immediate family. Now also imagine part of your message is to build a gargantuan box to house not only you, but a pair of every single animal on the earth! God has given you time to do it, but you're certainly not in a rush.
Because when you are done, so is the world.

Now that you have thought about all that, why did God choose Noah? The Bible says Noah was blameless, meaning he was "perfect in his ways". He obeyed God and lived the way He wanted him to. He was a righteous man, unlike everyone else. The term could possibly mean he was not corrupt, as in his DNA was pure. No Nephilim blood there!

I think his family lived only because they were his family, not because they were so good themselves. That should give you dads something to think about. Only Noah is called "blameless", after all. How else would the world get replenished?

Okay, so what was wrong with the pre-Flood world that God wished he had never made them? Two things:

1. Man's thoughts were evil continually
2. The earth was full of violence because of man

Sometimes the Bible understates things. The old historical narratives aren't melodramatic. So imagine what "evil continually" looks like. Every thought by every person was evil all the time. Jealousy, perversion, hatred, greed, lust, all the time. There were no redeeming qualities left on the planet. The children saw the adults wicked behavior, and did the same. Whatever one thinks, he is.

Also the world was full of violence. Much like today, wars were commonplace. People solved problems through brutality. It was in the heart of every human by this point. Men had corrupted their ways so thoroughly that God was horrified by it. Even the animals were corrupted. Maybe they were used in pit-fights, I don't know.
Poor Noah. He had to live in that world, watching it decay and knowing God had it marked for destruction. He must have been lonely. No one listened to his warning or took heed of that ark he was building. . .

But he kept God's promise and did the job. For that, he passed through the Flood unscathed.

Physically, anyway. Who knows how he felt while the Flood came and swept the world he knew away. While he and 7 others gathered around and listened to the cries of man and beast as they drowned beneath the waves. If he was a blameless man, then he must have felt sorrow over such a loss of life. And then when they got off the ark, they had to adjust to a new world, one that may have even had a changed atmosphere. Why did they average lifespan drop so much after The Flood?

Maybe that's why Noah got drunk: The fermentation process changed. Became more potent. Or maybe he was despondent about what happened and wanted to get away from the memories of babies drowning and men screaming. Who knows?

But this we know: God rewarded his obedience. He found him perfect in his generation, and saved him from death. Noah found his joy and his purpose in God, not in the fading world. He had his eyes on the prize, you see. Eternal life in the City of the Lord! Like Moses after him, he chose not the fleeting pleasures of sin, or the fellowship of the wicked, but in God Himself.
And because of that, God had favor on him.

Will God have favor on you?