Noah

“ Those who followed Noah soon grew ashamed of their cowardice and desired to return to meet the Lamanites to avenge the slaughter of their wives and little ones, or perish as they had done. King Noah objected, and his unworthy priests sustained him. At this, the soldiers grew exceedingly angry; all love for him as a man was crushed out, all respect for him as a monarch was lost; they took him and burned him to death, as he had done Abinadi, and would have sacrificed the priests in the same way had they not fled from them. ”

“ Could a finer sample be conceived? was not Noah the only spark of spiritual "consolation" in the midst of earth's dark death? and was not he the best imaginable champion to stand against the wiles of the devil? Verily, reason might have guessed, that if Deity saw fit to renew the fight at all, the representative of man should have been Noah. ”

“ Noah was 120 years building the ark, we are informed in the Scriptures, and during that time he preached the Gospel. How many who were willing to believe his testimony? Only eight souls in all, including himself. He was very unpopular, I presume, and had as much derision heaped upon his head, for building an ark on dry ground, as any man that ever lived on the earth. But Noah was a prophet and a messenger of God, called to warn that generation and to build an ark, and if he had not done it he would have been held responsible for the lives of himself and family and all that generation. ”

“ Noah was a man of God, a preacher of righteousness, and found grace in the eyes of his Maker, and had power with him through faith, to obtain a revelation of his will, by which he was enabled to save himself and those that believed. Are we not warranted in saying that the destruction of the old world come upon them because of their unbelief, not in past but in present revelations. ”

“ Noah then edified an altar to our Lord and took of all the beasts that were clean and offered sacrifice unto our Lord; and our Lord smelled the sweetness of the sacrifice and said to Noah: From henceforth I shall not curse the earth for man, for he is prone and ready to fall from the beginning of his youth. I shall no more destroy man by such vengeance. And then our Lord blessed them and said: Grow ye and multiply the earth and be ye lords of all the beasts of the earth, of the fowls of the air, and of the fishes. I have given all things to you, but eat no flesh with the blood. ”

“ And Noah called upon his Lord, and said, O my Lord, verily my son is of my family, and Thou hast promised me to save them, and verily Thy promise is true, and Thou art the most just of those who exercise judgment. God replied, O Noah, verily he is not of thy family who should be saved, or of the people of thy religion. Verily it (namely, thine asking me to save him) is not a righteous act; for he was an unbeliever, and there is no safety for the unbelievers; therefore ask not of me that wherein thou hast no knowledge. ”

“ Noah had taken a great deal of pains to build the ark, and now he was himself preserved alive in it. Note, What we do in obedience to the command of God, and in faith, we ourselves shall certainly have the comfort of, first or last. (4.) Not he only, but his house also, his wife and children, are called with him into the ark. Note, It is good to belong to the family of a godly man; it is safe and comfortable to dwell under such a shadow. One of Noah's sons was Ham, who proved afterward a bad man, yet he was saved in the ark ”

“ But Noah, who comes after them, is a man of the earth again. In his day the earth re-appears as the scene of divine care and delight. God has communion with man upon it again. It has passed through the judgment of the water, and God makes a covenant with it, has the prophet, priest, and king upon it, providing for its continuance and godly government. Noah's connection with it was quite unlike that of either Cain or Seth. ”

“ And Noah smelt a sweet savour, and he said in his heart, I will call on the name of the Lord, that he will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; and that he will not smite any more every thing living, as he hath done, while the earth remaineth; and that seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night may not cease with man. ”

“ Mighty nations have worshipped Noah as a God; many heathen nations worship him under strange and confused names and traditions to this day; and the wisest and holiest men among Christians now reverence Noah, write of him, preach on him, thank God for him, look up to him as, next to Abraham, their greatest example in the Old Testament. ”

“ The names of his sons are again mentioned, (v. 18, 19.) as those from whom the whole earth was overspread. By which it appears that Noah, after the flood, had no more children: all the world came from these three. Note, God, when he pleases, can make a little one to become a thousand, and greatly increase the latter end of those whose beginning was small. Such are the power and efficacy of a divine blessing. The business Noah applied himself to, was that of a husbandman, Hebr. a man of the earth, that is, a man dealing in the earth, that kept ground in his hand, and occupied it. ”

“ And Noah becomes at once the object of fresh and multiplied blessings, blessings in glory and inheritance now, as already he had blessings in election, an acceptance of grace and the righteousness which is by faith. "God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. ”

“ Noah is seated in the new world. A new trial of man, under new circumstances, was proceeding; and, as with Adam in Eden, nothing is left undone on God's part. The oxen and fatlings were killed, and all things were ready. But where is man's sufficiency? If Adam failed before him, and lost the garden; if Israel failed after him, and lost their land of milk and honey; it may be said to Noah, "Lovest thou me more than these?" In Christ, and in Him only, are unfailing fidelity and strength. ”

“ Believe that, and let the faith of it sink more and more deeply into your spirit, and you will find that you are saved from your sin.
What remains to be told of Noah is full of moral significance. Rare indeed is a wholly good man; and happy indeed is he who throughout his youth, his manhood, and his age lets principle govern all his actions. The righteous and rescued Noah lying drunk on his tent-floor is a sorrowful spectacle. ”

“ When the devil saw that his plan had failed, he ran away and left Noah’s ark in peace and all those who were in it. As soon as the Flood had passed away, Noah brought a thanksgiving sacrifice to God for having been miraculously saved. In the midst of these rejoicings the snake took courage and came up to Noah, asking for the human being of which he had promised to give her one every day to be eaten by her and her seed. When Noah heard it, he got very angry, for he said to himself, “There are so few human beings now in the world, if I give her one every day, the world will soon come to an end.” ”

“ Therefore, Noah is a brilliant and admirable example of faith, who opposed the judgments of the world with an heroic steadfastness of mind in the assurance that he was righteous while all the rest of the world was wicked. ”

“ As all the wicked were destroyed from the earth, the Lord made a new start with the family of faithful Noah, to raise up a people that would obey Him and be finally redeemed, or brought back to the first dominion.
Jesus said, "As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." ”

“ The name Noah is explained in Gen. v. 29 as connected with the root nhm “comfort,” but this is etymologically impossible. As a Hebrew word it might connect with nûah, “rest”; and the Septuagint has, “he will give us rest,” instead of “he will comfort us”; and this is sometimes accepted as the original reading.
As the tenth patriarch Noah corresponds to the tenth prehistoric Babylonian king, Xisuthros in Berossus, Ut-napistim or Atrahasis in the cuneiform tablets, the hero of the Babylonian flood story. ”

“ The fable of Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha is manifestly drawn from the history of Noah. The rabbins pretend that God gave Noah and his sons certain general precepts, which contain, according to them, the natural duties which are common to all men indifferently, and the observation of which alone will be sufficient to save them. After the law of Moses was given, the Hebrews would not suffer any stranger to dwell in their country, unless he would conform to the precepts of Noah. In war, they put to death without quarter all who were ignorant of them. ”

“ Let us read what it says in the Bible about the things that Noah was to do before the flood came (Genesis 6:19-21) . Do you suppose that Noah did all that just as God had told him to do? Let us read that next verse very carefully together: “Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.” Is not that a splendid thing to be said about any man? Let us read the words again and then close our books and say them, for that is our memory text this week, and it is one that we would like always to remember, I am sure.
The Bible says that God told Noah what he wanted him to do. ”

“ The whole race of mankind, except Noah and his family, was now extinguished, and driven into the land of forgetfulness, to be remembered no more; so that God's remembering Noah was the return of his mercy to mankind, of whom he would not make a full end. ”

“ His history is briefly related in the Koran, in the chapter entitled "Hud."
"Noah built the ark with our assistance and that of the angels, following the knowledge we revealed to him, and we said to him: Speak no more in behalf of the sinners; they shall all be drowned.
"Whilst Noah was building his ark, all those who passed by mocked him; but he said to them: Though you rail at me now, the time will come when I shall rail at you; for you will learn to your cost, Who it is that punishes the wicked in this world, and reserves for them a further punishment in the world to come." ”

“ Noah, an acknowledged authority on lions, was at her best, and became the centre of an admiring audience, to whom she described, as one with experience, the power of the human eye, the influence of kindness. ”

“ Now, in good time, Noah grew to lusty youth, and although he was, on the whole, a joy to his grandsire Methuselah, he developed certain traits and predilections that occasioned the old gentleman much uneasiness. At the tender age of 265 Noah exhibited a strange passion for aquatics, and while it was common for other boys of that time to divert themselves with the flocks and herds, with slingshots and spears, with music and dancing, Noah preferred to spend his hours floating toy-ships in the bayous of the Euphrates. ”

“ As Noah continued his obedience to God, so God continued his care of Noah: and here it appeared to be a very distinguishing care; for the shutting of this door set up a partition wall between him and all the world besides. God shut the door, 1. To secure him, and keep him safe in the ark. The door must be shut very close, lest the waters should break in and sink the ark, and very fast, lest any without should break it down. Thus God made up Noah, as he makes up his jewels, Mal. iii. 17. 2. To exclude all others, and keep them for ever out. ”

“ The presence of God was the only comfort of Noah in his dreary confinement, and in witnessing the dire devastation of the earth and its inhabitants, and especially of the human species—of his companions, his neighbors, his relatives—all those to whom he had preached, for whom he had prayed and over whom he had wept, and even of many who had helped to build the ark. ”