Pure Faith: A Bible Discussion Podcast

Laughter and Lessons from Noah's Extraordinary Faith

Mitchell Heitkamp and Michele Waymire Episode 139

As we gathered around Michele, the merriment of her birthday celebration was just the prelude to an episode that takes a deep dive into the enduring story of Noah. Picture the scene: the glow of candles on a chocolate cake and the echoes of happy birthday songs, swiftly followed by a shift to the ancient tale of faith and obedience. We'll peel back the layers of Noah's narrative, examining his extraordinary trust in the divine amidst a world steeped in skepticism and immorality. Through laughter and reflection, we'll explore how one man's adherence to an unseen prophecy set a precedent that still echoes through time.

This conversation isn't your average Sunday school lesson. We'll talk about the silent sermon Noah may have preached with each plank he placed on the ark—a testament to his unwavering belief in God's warning. It's a fascinating juxtaposition, the joy of a birthday party against the backdrop of Noah's solemn dedication to an inconceivable task. We're not just recounting a biblical epic; we're connecting it to the core of our own beliefs and the nature of righteousness that's not just about moral uprightness, but a harbinger of eternal significance. Join us on this journey through laughter, faith, and the profound legacy of obedience.

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Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Pure Faith Podcast, a podcast where we discuss all things Bible. I am your co-host, Michelle. This is my brother, Mitchell. Hi he's younger than me, even though he's much bigger than me. Anyhow, we ask that you like this video, subscribe to our YouTube channel and don't forget to hit the notification icon to be notified when new episodes are released.

Speaker 2:

Speaking of being older than me.

Speaker 1:

Happy birthday Was yesterday, it was yesterday and it was so funny because we went out to lunch and mom brought a cake and we sang happy birthday.

Speaker 2:

You sang yourself happy birthday.

Speaker 1:

I sang happy birthday, yourself happy birthday.

Speaker 2:

Happy birthday to me as loud as you could, so everybody could hear you yeah, I know there was nobody in there.

Speaker 1:

I mean, there were four people in there, so and they all already knew me, so it was no big deal, but the cake was really good. Mom did a good job, she bought it.

Speaker 2:

It was really good cake I almost screwed up because I forgot I picked up the boys after work, okay, and I forgot it was in my back seat I think got my car. He's like dad. Where's this cake from? I'm like oh man wait, so I just want to eat it did you have to share? No, I waited till have to share it. No, I waited until they took bath time and then I got it and I ate it, and then I threw it all away.

Speaker 1:

Because it was so good. You don't want to share it. Yeah, it was a little cake, like she got this little cake from Walmart, from Walmart, but it was so good. It was so good and you know what?

Speaker 1:

The boys didn't ask about it, so it's a win-win for dad. Oh, yes, yes. And then my mother-in-law stopped and she got me a card and she got. She stopped by casey's and got this little container of these little chocolate bite things and I'm like what is this? So then I opened it today. Have you ever had a hostess? I think they're called king don's, king Dong's something. They're like round and they're a chocolate cake, and they got cream in the middle of it. Well, this is all of that, but the cream in the middle of it. And these are these little bites. There are probably maybe eight in there, and there's none in there anymore. Like I ate them. Pants on, good job, right, I'll start my diet tomorrow, so, but yeah, another birthday celebrated. So another year down, another year to look forward to.

Speaker 2:

Sure.

Speaker 1:

Yep, I gotta, I gotta keep my energy up, cause, cause. You know I have your boys again On Saturday. I actually thought about Taking them to the movies, but then I was like, yeah, ephraim wouldn't sit still.

Speaker 2:

No.

Speaker 1:

So I can't do that. I was gonna take them To see Kung Fu Panda 4.

Speaker 2:

You could take Zeke.

Speaker 1:

I know it was in. It's in Greenville, like the theater in Greenville Is now open, it's still open, it just reopened. Oh, it did, and I was like that's in Greenville, I'm like we can go to that.

Speaker 2:

I didn't know it reopened.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it did Same place. Same place. They redid it, yeah, and they said the seats are real. It's been closed. I don't know how long it's been closed. I've never seen a movie there. I've never seen a reviews on it, and it said it was really nice. The seats are really nice, the movie was really nice, so that's an option. I guess. Rather than drive all the way to Piqua, you go to Greenville and take Zeke to see Kung Fu Panda 4.

Speaker 2:

Well, we gotta watch 2 and 3 first.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I think he's already seen them.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I haven't.

Speaker 1:

We like the Kung Fu Panda at our house.

Speaker 2:

We watched the first one at home.

Speaker 1:

I want to watch the second and third one, but they say the fourth one's the best. But of course people say that that type of thing. So but yeah, anyhow, anything else new in your world?

Speaker 2:

I don't think so, nothing really special nothing special I don't think so Okay.

Speaker 1:

That's it. Yeah, all right, I made a few words Sure, or a boring life, or just busy. Not boring but busy.

Speaker 2:

Definitely busy.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so All right so what do we got tonight?

Speaker 2:

So tonight we are covering, covering. We are covering Hebrews 11, 7.

Speaker 1:

Did you say Hebrews?

Speaker 2:

Hebrews yeah, still in Hebrews, but we will be spending some time in Genesis, though, tonight.

Speaker 1:

And just so you know, we haven't had notes for the last couple of weeks, so we just make our own notes as we go.

Speaker 2:

Just so everybody knows.

Speaker 1:

I don't even have any notes for tonight shocker so yeah, you haven't had them for a while, but that's okay. I thought our last couple episodes have gone really good without notes, so we'll see how tonight goes well, last week I had some notes. I had wait, are we doing noah tonight? Yeah, we're doing no, that is right okay.

Speaker 2:

The namesake of your oldest son.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yep.

Speaker 2:

Okay, so we'll start by reading Hebrews 11, hebrews 11, 7. By faith, noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen. In reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. And reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this, he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. So we're going to start by looking at this whole concept of you know, noah being warned of events as yet unseen, because that is the basis for everybody that is mentioned here in Hebrews.

Speaker 2:

Now, up to this point, the only people we really covered was Enoch and Abel. There wasn't a whole lot about them. No, I mean just little blips, and that was really about it. A lot of the stuff that we learned from them. We kind of had to discern from the little bit that we got from Genesis and what we get from Hebrews. Well, now, as we transfer into Noah and the rest of the characters that we will be covering throughout hebrews 11, there's a lot more detail about them. So there's not as much guessing in in speculating that has to go on. Um, in fact there's so much. We're going to not really look too much into noah's story, okay, or the story of any of the others that we will be covering, so we just need to do more of an overview and focus on what the author of Hebrews is trying to point out, which is what it said at the beginning of 11-7, by faith, noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so we're talking about the faith portion of it?

Speaker 2:

Yes, because of what Noah did. And to explain that, let's go to Genesis 6. And this is the story that the Hebrew author was referring to.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

It's Hebrews 6, 9 through 22. I'm not going to read all of it, but I'm going to read the majority of it and let's just go ahead and read that. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, shem, ham and Japheth.

Speaker 2:

Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw the earth and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is filled with the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood, make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it.

Speaker 2:

And then it goes on to kind of give all the details of the actual ark, the sizes and all that. We're not going to worry about that. We're going to jump down to verse 17, which reads For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die, but I will establish my covenant with you and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife and your sons' wives with you. And then it goes on and talks about the whole, two by two, all the animals, but I want to point out verse 22. Noah did this. He did all that God commanded him. That's what this is about. That's what this whole concept of faith is about. And why Noah is mentioned in Hebrews 11 is because, well, let's look at who Noah was. He was a man living in a very, very corrupt world.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

To the point where, back up at verse 9, it says that Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. So, a righteous man, noah was doing what was right in the eyes of God, so he was living his life the way he was. And that also pairs with blameless in his generation, because the idea of blameless this isn't saying that he was sinless or that he did everything perfect. No, by blameless it is referring more to the fact that he was honest, that he had integrity, that he was an upright man doing what was right and he wasn't following the corruption of the world. He was living his life righteously in the eyes of God. So that's who Noah was.

Speaker 2:

So he was him and his family. They were walking a different path than the rest of the world. And now you have to think about the situation that he was in At this point in time. When Noah was living, they didn't know rain, they didn't have the concept of flooding waters. Where they were Now, they had seas, because whenever God created the world, he brought the land forth and separated the waters from the land.

Speaker 2:

So there was like water bodies of water there, but it had never rained. They didn't have the concept of water falling from the sky. And there's a lot of things that we could talk about when it comes to this flood and and how the flood happened and how much area it covered, and but that's not what we're focusing on. We're focusing on the fact that in Noah's time, this idea of a flood it was unthinkable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And the fact, the idea of of building a boat out in the middle of a desert, a lot of people assume that he was in the middle of a desert, no water around, and he just starts building a boat, a giant a giant boat, huge boat, nowhere close to water.

Speaker 2:

Boat, a giant boat, huge boat, nowhere close to water. And then, on top of that, something else that we don't see here in this text is from the time Noah was told to build this boat to the time the floods actually started. It was somewhere between 100 and 120 years.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I did not know that.

Speaker 2:

So there is a long period of time where Noah is just building a boat.

Speaker 1:

One piece of wood by it. Yes, by one piece of wood by one piece of wood by one piece of wood.

Speaker 2:

Yep, and that may seem like okay, that's weird. But when we go back to Hebrews 11, 7, why did he build this boat? Why was he spending all this time constructing a boat in the middle of nowhere? And in Hebrews it says that he did this for events yet unseen.

Speaker 2:

So, he's preparing for a flood, for rains that nobody has ever seen before, but he did this out of reverent fear. So what does this idea of reverent fear mean? Well, we talked about fear in the past. In the past episode, we talked about the fear of God. We talked about the fear of God. Somebody has the fear of God and we, back then, we compared that to having like the fear of your father, like it's not a scared fear, it's not like a terror, it is you want to please him, you want to please him, so you want to please god, and that is where that fear comes in. But reverent fear, reverent.

Speaker 2:

Another way to say reverent fear would be um, or just another way of saying reverent would be like respect okay so if you have a great amount of respect, so to have a reverent fear for God, that is saying that you have a huge amount of respect for God. So when somebody that you greatly respect, and you could picture somebody that you know that you just have a lot of respect for, if that person would come to you and say, hey, can you do this for me? You would want to do that out of that respect for that person.

Speaker 2:

And you'd want to do a good job because you have respect for that person. Well, that's the situation Noah's in. Noah knew God and I don't know if I actually it actually says that Noah walked with God. I don't know if I actually read that.

Speaker 1:

I don't remember.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it was after Back in Genesis, whenever we talked about being blameless in his generation, it said that Noah walked with God. So, remember, we talked about being blameless in his generation. It said that Noah walked with God. So, remember, we talked about this whole concept of walking with God whenever we talked about Enoch and about how there's that close relationship whenever you talk about that. So Noah had a close relationship with God. So Noah had a close relationship with God. And with that being said, there is also respect that came with that relationship. So Noah had a great respect for God. And so just kind of imagine this God or somebody whoever that is that you greatly respect, comes to you and says, hey, can you do this for me? But what they're asking you to do is kind of beyond your realm of understanding.

Speaker 1:

It's very questionable.

Speaker 2:

Cause, get to remember, like Noah's never seen rain and he's far from water, but he is told to build a boat, a giant boat, and so, like we looked at in verse 22, noah did what God commanded.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

So he built a boat because he had great respect for God Right, and it says continue on in hebrews 11 7 by this he condemned the world. Now, when you first see that, it's like okay, well one, how does noah have the power to condemn the world?

Speaker 2:

right noah isn't the one who's going to be sending the flood. God is one sending the flood. God is the one sending the flood. God is the one actually condemning the world for all the evil and corruption that is in it. So how is Noah, what's his role in condemning the world? Well, I already mentioned it that it's like 100, 120 years that Noah spent building this boat, this ark. Well, nobody knows exactly what happened in that time, because that time has just kind of jumped over in the Bible, but there's two main possibilities that are often mentioned whenever we're talking about this. The first is that, okay, so God told Noah to build this boat. So Noah is telling everybody why he is building this boat out in the middle of nowhere, so he's being a very vocal you know you almost have to.

Speaker 1:

You're delusional.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so. So there's the one belief that he's just very vocal about what he's doing, why he's doing it, trying to convince the world that, hey, a flood is coming because of your corruption and and basically being a prophet. But then the other coin, or the other side of the coin, is like the complete opposite, where he's not talking to anybody. He's just building a boat, but no matter which side you believe, or no matter where it's at on that spectrum, even if he is being silent, he's not telling anybody why he's building this boat. People have to be looking at him and wondering and talking amongst themselves what's he doing? You know, it's probably starting out. This guy's crazy. He's right, he's just building something out in the middle of nowhere and but eventually, you know, the day is going to come when the floodwaters come, when people are going to realize that, okay, this guy that we thought was crazy.

Speaker 1:

Right, not quite so crazy, not so crazy.

Speaker 2:

Maybe he had it right. We all had it wrong. So, yeah, this idea of condemning the world, whether it be through preaching or through silence. He is condemning the world by his actions because he is following the word of God. You know, god told him to build a boat. That's what he's doing. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And I lean more towards the side that he's actually. Somebody comes up to him hey, what are you doing? I'm building a boat.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I lean more towards the side that he's actually somebody comes up to him hey, what are you doing?

Speaker 2:

I'm building a boat Right, like why God told me to Floods are coming. So I would lean towards the part that he is vocal. I don't know if he'd be out trying to find people to tell, but anybody who would come to him I'm sure he'd be like, hey, yeah, this is what I'm doing, this is why. But in that process of conversation, the why is he building it? Because God says the world is corrupt and he is sending a flood to destroy it. So repent, because you're not going to have a choice.

Speaker 2:

You're going to be baptized with a bunch of water a bunch of water a bunch of water, so you may come up, but you're not going to stay up. So that is this whole idea of condemning the world is. So that is this whole idea of condemning the world. Is through the ministry that Noah is living throughout the process of building the ark and then, after that, condemn the world and become an heir of the righteousness that comes with faith. So back in Genesis we've seen that Noah was a righteous man, so he was living right in the eyes of God. But this is not talking about Noah's righteousness. This is the righteousness that comes by faith. So this righteousness that they're referring to most likely is referring to the fact of eternal life, everlasting life, so in other words, heaven. About this is the fact that Noah is doing something that for that entire world, as far as they knew, made no sense at all mm-hmm it was completely absurd that somebody would build a giant ark in the middle of nowhere.

Speaker 2:

But the whole concept of faith is believing without seeing right right so, even though noah had no concept of waters of rain, coming down to the point that it's going to cover all of his known world with water With water. He still does it. It doesn't matter what he thought of this whole idea of floods. The fact is that he still did it. He still went through the process. Like I said, this wasn't a short process Right Up to 120 years worth of work to build an ark Like that's crazy.

Speaker 1:

It's so crazy.

Speaker 2:

But he did it because he had faith. He trusted God Right. He put his faith in God.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

I mean, he didn't have to know that you know what a flood was. He didn't have to know what a flood was. He didn't have to know what rain was exactly. All he had to know was God said do this. And he said okay, Right, I will do that. Right, Thank you for giving me the dimensions.

Speaker 1:

Right, I was going to say, the dimensions are listed. You didn't read them. I didn't. No, there's a lot of detail.

Speaker 2:

There is, and covering things with pitch, and this was just the opening part of the story. There's a lot more to the Noah story and the flood story. I just read kind of what was pertinent to Hebrews 11, seven. So, um, so yeah, so this, this righteousness that comes by faith, is is referring to eternal life and by becoming an heir h-e-i-r so he is inheriting that.

Speaker 2:

He's inheriting heaven, the right to be in heaven, and he is inheriting that through trusting God and doing what he believes is the right thing to do. So how much time we got.

Speaker 1:

You got about four and a half minutes.

Speaker 2:

So I'm going to say we'll stop there, because next we'll get into Abraham. There's a lot more with Abraham, but once again, I'm going to try to keep it. My goal is one episode per person.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's a good goal.

Speaker 2:

Everybody can have goals.

Speaker 1:

Everybody can.

Speaker 2:

It's like New Year's resolutions. Yeah, I'm one for one. We'll see how long it lasts. Alright, so we thank you for joining us. Please leave a comment on this video or go to.

Speaker 1:

We'll see how long it lasts, all right, so we thank you for joining us. Please leave a comment on this video or go to our contact page on purefaithlivingcom to send us a message. And, as always, if you like what you hear, then we ask that you share this show with others to help us spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Don't forget to subscribe and we will talk to you again next time.

Speaker 2:

Have a blessed day.