A long, long time from now, when you’re a grandparent someday, you’ll understand what a great privilege it is to share Bible stories with your grandchildren. Just like Adam got to share stories with his grandchildren -- but with a couple of huge differences.
Before he died, Adam was able to teach each generation about his incredible experience with God in the Garden, right up through Lamech. But Adam wasn’t around when Lamech’s son Noah was born, so it became Lamech’s responsibility to remember what Adam had taught him … and to teach Noah. He must have done a great job! (Yay Lamech!) The Bible says that “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.” (Genesis 6:9) As a matter of fact, the Bible says that Noah was the ONLY righteous man in the whole earth at that time. We’re glad that his dad taught him to obey, aren’t you?
If Lamech hadn’t taught Noah to obey, do you think Noah would have had the courage to build an ark that took over 55 years to finish? Or to withstand all the ridicule he got from other people? Fortunately for all of us, “Noah did everything just as God commanded him.” (Genesis 6:22)
But it wasn’t easy even after he finished the boat. Think of all the food that had to be hauled onboard to keep the animals alive for over a year! Not to mention, all the food for Noah and his family, too. Once afloat, every day at sea was an enormous amount of work for Noah and his family. And it must have been really STINKY, being cooped up in a floating zoo for over a year – yikes!
Not only did Noah demonstrate obedience, but he also modeled perseverance. These are great character traits for each of us to strive for. To fully understand what both words mean, tell your parents some examples you've seen of each, and ask them to tell you some other examples, too.
The bottom line is … Through Noah’s obedience and perseverance, God gave mankind a chance to start over after the flood. Now it’s OUR turn to pass on this story … and it’s OUR turn to obey God, whatever he asks each of us to do. (Hint: It won’t have anything to do with a boat, because He'll never flood the earth again. You can remember this promise whenever you see His "battle bow" in the sky.)
We love you,
Pappy & GiGi
P.S. Do you know who lived to be the oldest man ever recorded in Genesis? Methuselah at 969 years (Genesis 5:27)
