Presentation 18
Presentation 18
Introduction
Some time ago I heard a young mum describe her most embarrassing
moment. She'd taken her baby shopping, returned home exhausted, put her
feet only to be confronted by a mother-in-law who couldn't find the baby! He
had been left at the shops! The baby was recovered quite oblivious to the
fact that he had been abandoned. The feeling that we have been forgotten,
abandoned by others is one of the most difficult emotions to cope with.
Especially if those who've forgotten us are particularly close. An aged parent
receives no birthday card from their grown up children, a husband forgets a
wife's anniversary, a close friend forgets to reply to your letters.
The feeling of worthlessness, which being forgotten produces
is a desperately sore thing to come to terms with. This is
particularly true of the man or woman of faith who
feels abandoned by God. Was that an emotion Noah
wrestled with?
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A Long Internment
Noah was in the ark for over a year cf 7.6 with 8.14-15. For 40 days and
nights there'd been a torrential downpour. The water lay on the earth for150
days before the flood waters began to recede, followed by a long drying out
period. For a great part of that time it must have seemed to Noah that he
was living in a floating tomb. He'd obeyed God, when he told him to enter
the ark. God had not told him how long he would be there. Would Noah
become an insignificant statistic in the great cosmos that God had called
into being? How long does it take for the temptation,
that one has been forsaken by God, to creep into the
soul? Did Noah think, "God has abandoned me”?
Now look at 7.24-8.1 "The waters flooded
the earth for 150 days
BUT GOD REMEMBERED NOAH."
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A Long Internment
Are you familiar with the early life of Joseph? He'd been given a dream by
God, which seemed to promise a significant future but he was sold as a slave
by his brothers. Sold into Egypt, he was then framed for a crime he didn’t
commit. As a result he was cast into prison. Where was the bright future God
had promised him? His sense of worth and self-esteem suffered one body
blow after another. Then a means of deliverance seemed to appear on the
horizon after he had successfully interpreted the
dream of the king’s steward he hoped for an ealrly
Release but in Gen 40v 23 we read:
“The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember
Joseph; he forgot him.”
Where was God in all this? But, GOD remembered
Joseph in prison and two years later Pharaoh
received a disturbing dream, which in turn
brought Joseph to Pharaoh’s attention.
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A Long Internment
Or think of the life of David. As a young man he'd been anointed king of
Israel. But he was outlawed by Saul and forced to live in deserts and caves.
He was under constant pressure from Saul, who wanted to kill him. And in
Ps13.1 David cries out, “How long oh Lord. Will you forget me forever? How
long will you hide your face from me. How long must I wrestle with my
thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy
triumph over me?”
Many Christians have wrestled with the temptation
that they are "God forsaken". It happens as we
allow our circumstances to shape our thinking
about God. We reason, "Because of this great
difficulty, and its unrelenting pressure
God must have forgotten me."
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A Long Internment
What are we to do when we feel like that? We need to learn to rest upon our
knowledge of God's great faithfulness. On one occasion God was wanting to
impress upon his people that he was not the kind of God who would
abandon them and he used the very graphic description which is found in
Is 49.15-16;
Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child
she has borne? Though she may forget,
I WILL NOT FORGET YOU!
See I've engraved you on the
palms of my hands".
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God’s Remembrance
God doesn't simply remember his people in their distress and then do
nothing. Or say, "Isn't it a pity that your struggling". God's remembrance
involves ACTIVITY. In what way is God actively involved on behalf of Noah?
First, he dealt with the sore circumstances GRADUALLY. God sent a wind to
dry up the waters enabling the ark to come to rest on Mt Ararat.
The whole process took time! God did not pull
the equivalent of a large bathplug to allow the
water to drain away. Deliverance came by
degrees and not instantly. Scripture warns
against "despising the day of small things”
Zech 4.10. What is this slow process designed
to teach? What characteristic does God intend
to build into our characters? A patient
dependency upon himself. Do we need to
learn to preserve our souls in patience?
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God’s Remembrance
Secondly, patience needs encouragement. It is hard to walk through dark
valleys without it cf. Psalm 23.4. How was Noah encouraged? Although the
raven had failed to return with any useful intelligence, the dove sent out from
the ark brought back an olive branch. Imagine how thrilled Noah must have
been. He knew not only that the waters had receded to the lower plains,
where the olives grew but that the flood had not killed off vegetable life.
A minister was in great need of
encouragement because of the sore
circumstances of life when an elderly
Christian lady reminded him of 1Pet.1.6
"though now for a LITTLE while you may
have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials".
She said the word “little” was the most
important one in the text.
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God’s Remembrance
Finally, God provided Noah with ASSURANCE. Imagine some of the fears
lurking in Noah's heart. Was it safe to leave? Would more rain fall? A massive
flood would have been enough to undermine anyone's confidence. God
spoke words of reassurance in v16, "Come out of the ark". Come into a new
world with confidence for it is God, who calls you. This was the first time he
had heard God's voice for over a year. At God’s command he had no
hesitation to venture into uncertain territory.
God knows how to encourage us to step out
into the unknown. He also knows best
how to speak words of assurance to
our hearts, when he wants us to step
out confidently into a new situation
which he has prepared for us.
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Noah’s Response
How then does Noah respond to the God, who remembered and delivered
him? You might think that the first thing Noah would have done after release
from the timber tomb would be to build a shelter for his own comfort. But
the very first thing he did was build an altar! By doing so he was saying that
God came first in his life. That was how Noah responded to the faithfulness of
God, who remembered him. Do we give God that kind of priority?
Many people cry to God for deliverance from difficult
situations and when deliverance comes, God is
forgotten. If we belong to Christ and enjoy the
deliverance from sin’s punishment and power,
should God not be the priority of our lives?
We often try to squeeze him into some
convenient cupboard and it is he who
is forgotten.
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Noah’s Response
Secondly, Noah sacrificed on the altar he had built. He expressed his
gratitude in kind with a sacrifice of thanksgiving for deliverance. It cost him to
do that! The animals, which were to be sacrificed, were those the Bible calls
clean, i.e. domestic animals of which 7 males and females were taken into
the ark. Noah depleted the stock that was to form the basis of a new
domestic herd. He didn’t say, "I'll wait until the herd increases in number and
then give to God, it will be too costly to give at this stage."
The man whose heart has been gripped by the
faithfulness of a God of grace is the man who
gives sacrificially to the work of God.
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Noah’s Response
Finally, he petitioned God to withhold judgement. Implicit in his act of
worship, was intercessory prayer. Some very interesting light is thrown on this
incident in Ez.14.14…
It is a passage that deals with the restraining of the
judgement of God and the restoration of God's favour.
We are told of 3 great intercessors, who at different
times in history cried to God in the context of
judgement, they are Daniel, Job and Noah.
Noah is cited as an example of a great
intercessor in the context of judgement.
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Noah’s Response
What was the prayer that Noah made. What was the effective intercession
inspired in the heart of the man by God's Spirit? What was the plea made by
the man, who had sailed through the most awesome judgement of God? I
believe it was that God would not judge his world in a similar fashion again.
That was the petition, which associated with the sacrifice appeared as a
sweet aroma to God. That God might restrain his hand from wringing out his
judgement upon the earth in a similar fashion in future.
And of course that was exactly
what God wanted for never
again would he act in this way.
God works through the
prayers of his people.
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Conclusion
What challenge does this bring to bear in our own lives. Surely the person
who has experienced God's faithfulness and the grace of God's deliverance
will not only give God the place of priority in his life. They will give sacrificially
to the one who has delivered them. Burly they will also devote themselves to
pray that God would withhold his hand of judgement in order that others
would also experience his great mercy.
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Conclusion
The story is told of John Welch, a Scottish Covenanting minister, who gave
himself much to prayer for those under his care. It was his practise to get out
of bed and pray for the people in his parish. His petitions wakened his wife,
who scolded him for praying at such an unreasonable time. He replied, with
tears in his eyes, "I have 3,000 souls under my care and I do not know how
they stand with Christ."
He himself had tasted the grace of God's salvation
and his response to the God who had
remembered him was to pray that
God would remember and be
merciful to others.
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