Presentation 18

Presentation 18

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?

Introduction

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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."

A Long Internment

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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 ealrlyRelease 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.

A Long Internment

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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."

A Long Internment

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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".

A Long Internment

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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?

God’s Remembrance

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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.

God’s Remembrance

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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.

God’s Remembrance

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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.

Noah’s Response

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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 thefaithfulness of a God of grace is the man who gives sacrificially to the work of God.

Noah’s Response

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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.

Noah’s Response

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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.

Noah’s Response

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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.

Conclusion

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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.

Conclusion

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