But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.”

What would it have looked like for Noah, back in his time, to follow God? What would having the faithfulness of Noah look like today?

In looking back, in the context around Noah’s time there was some serious pleasure-driven activities. If you read the genealogies of Seth through Enoch, you find that men typically lived to be roughly 900 years old and they started having children at the earliest at 65 but many times after 100 years old. There was a pattern and plan to populate the earth. Marriage is clearly implied here.

Then men turned evil and began to take women at will. The implication here is that they took them for sex outside of marriage, for the mere pleasure of it, not to build healthy marriages and family relationships. And the sons of God, the Nephilim, married women and had children by them. The interpretation on this is a bit obscure, and could be any of the following possibilities: 1) The “sons of God” could refer to male angels who were having intercourse with women and producing children. The hard part of this to fathom would be that the angelic and the human are really different species, operating in different realms of the universe. 2) “Sons of God” could have referred to godly men from a godly lineage. This could be Seth’s line. And “Daughters of men” could refer to women who came from a sinful lineage. This could be the lineage of Cain. This would be like the forbidden intermixing of Jews and Gentiles in marriage later in scripture. Those who follow God and those who do not. 3) Another possibility is that this is referring to kings of renown (the passage references them later) who were mighty in battle. It could be referring to them setting up harems for themselves.

Given the unlikelihood of two different species mating together outside of God’s design, I think options two or three are more likely here. With the regulation of the span of life of men being reduced to 120 years, this seems to indicate God thought this would help the situation. This makes me think the third option is the most likely. If these rulers who lived to 900 likely built harems for themselves over that time and were not honoring marriage and having kids without taking an active fathering role, then sinful chaos would be a clear result of this activity. And an age restriction would limit this evil, in essence.

Regardless of which option (including ones not presented) we may think is most likely, the sanctity of marriage was not honored, and children were born and not nurtured or trained in the ways of the Lord. This resulted in mankind becoming evil in the sight of God.

Along comes Noah. And he, in the story, is now living in a world full of violence, infidelity, and godless people. But God saw that he was faithful to him. He was separate from the sinful lifestyles of the men around him. And so God made a covenant with him and told him if he built an ark, he would not destroy him and his family with the rest of mankind. He also told him to gather animals and plants to use for food but also to repopulate the earth.

It took Noah 100+ years to build the ark. Noah had not ever seen rain on the earth, as until then, water only came up from the ground. The flood changed this as the heavens opened up and rain came down. So surely he was probably being teased a lot, ridiculed. But he was also living a life of truth in a sinful world, shining a light in the darkness. We don’t hear much about it, but I know there must have been many attacks on Noah during this time. We are told in John 3:19-21: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

Applying this principle to Noah’s time, it is clear Noah, the one righteous man in a world of evil, violent men, would have been persecuted and attacked for his faith. But Noah faithfully obeyed God in spite of these challenges. And God rewarded him.

Today, we find our world trending towards sinful behavior more and more. The sanctity of life is questioned and dismissed by some leaders. This is evidenced by abortion and assisted suicides being condoned. The sanctity of the marriage covenant is being ridiculed in our media. Adultery, sex outside of marriage, homosexuality, beastiality, pedophila, multiple sexual partners, and grooming children as sex workers … are all happening in our world today. The Uhger people in China are being raised like cattle and killed to harvest their organs — so horrible.

We are fast approaching a time like Noah was in. And so, the sinful pull of this world is strong. The isolation and selfish focus of people is increasing. It is becoming a “take what you can get by any means necessary” world. And in the middle of it all, amidst the attacks and persecution, God calls on us to stand and be faithful. He also calls us to listen for his call on our lives and to do his will in obedience. The easy path would be to just go with the flow of the evil world. This path leads to certain eternal death, however. The other path is much harder, but it leads to true freedom and power in this life and to eternal life.

“But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” (‭‭Romans‬ ‭3‬:‭21‬-‭24‬)

What will you choose? I choose life!

Lord, thank you for having mercy on Noah and saving the human race from your judgment in his day, and for having mercy on us later by sending your son, Jesus, to die on a cross. We are living in an evil-accelerated world. May I shine brightly the word of truth and in so doing may some turn from their wicked ways and be saved.