But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Gen 6:8

Last Tuesday the seniors went to see the Ark display.  Wow, what an experience!  If you have not been let me encourage you to go. I believe you will be spiritually enriched; I know I was.  Even though I have been before, I continue to be amazed by the experience.

The first thing you will notice, from a distance, is just how big the ark is. The dimensions of the ark, according to Gen. 6:15, are 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.  The Ark was longer than one and a half football fields, and taller than a 4 story building.  The Ark is exactly 6 times longer than it is wide, the same dimensions used by modern ship builders today!  The size and complexity makes it hard to imagine building the Ark without modern equipment.  It took Noah and his family about 120 years to build the Ark. Besides the actual construction of the ship they had to build the cages and the clay pots to store water and food. What forethought and details were managed to be able to survive not only the time on the ark but life after the flood.   Noah was a righteous man, I am sure he was preaching to the lost and the skeptics the whole time he was building the Ark.  A lesson for all of us, not to give up when proclaiming the Good News.

On this visit you get a real sense of the living conditions for Noah and his family, as well as the animals.  When you walk into the Ark, you can hear thunder and lightning, just like a summer thunder shower, and you can hear all of the different animals.  Scholars have estimated that there could have been 34,000 animals in the Ark.  Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal and two of every unclean animal, a male and its mate. Gen 7:2   Can you imagine how much food and water they would have needed to keep the animals alive for almost a year on the Ark?  

Another thing that impressed me was the size of the door entering into the Ark!  Put a door in the side of the Ark and make upper, lower and middle decks. Gen 6:16  While the ark was the means of salvation for the people, there was only one way to get in.  God provided his Son as a door to salvation for us.

Brothers and Sisters Jesus said in John 14: 6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through Me.”  God had Noah build a vessel of salvation for the animals and his family.  Noah made a decision to obey Gods instructions and to get into the Ark to be saved.  We have to make that same decision to get into the soul saving vessel who is Jesus Christ to be saved.  Just as no one was saved outside the Ark because of the flood, today no one outside God’s grace and mercy will be saved.  The Ark of Christ is the body of Christ, which is his Church.  Remember God has sent us the means of salvation through his Son, Jesus Christ, but we have to get on board.  Make it your new year’s resolution to be a part of his body and go into the watery grave of baptism.

In it (the ark) only a few people, eight in all, were saved through water, and this water symbolizes baptism that now saves you. 1 Peter 3: 20-21