Evangel
High School Class

Series: Biblical Lives to Live By
Genesis-II Samuel

  • Noah
  • Abraham & Sarah
  • Rebekah
  • Jacob
  • Joseph
  • Moses
  • Joshua
  • Deborah & Jael
  • Gideon
  • Samson
  • Hannah
  • Samuel
  • Naomi & Ruth
  • David
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    Series written and published to the Web by Dale Sullivan
    Noah

    This lesson is based on the following passages:
    |Genesis 6 |Genesis 7:1-5 |Genesis 8:15ff |Genesis 9|

    Also see
    |Luke 17:26| |Hebrews 11:7|


    Discuss the follwoing questions:

    1. How were the social conditions at the time of Noah's call like our own or different from our own?
    2. What was God's opinion of human culture at that time? Why?
    3. What was God's opinion of Noah? Why?
    4. In what ways did Noah show his faith? Why did these actions require faith on Noah's part?
    5. How did God respond to Noah's faith and obedience?
    6. What are the good things in Noah's life that we should try to imitate?
    7. Are there any failures in his life that we should try to avoid? If so, how can we live our lives in ways that will help us avoid the failures?
    8. In the history of God's work with human kind, why is Noah an important figure?
    9. In summary, what does the study of Noah's life teach us about God and about human beings?
    Life Summary: Noah
    As we read about Noah's life, we discover that he lived in a decadent society. The Bible says that all the imaginations of peoples' hearts were continually wicked--they were always thinking about things that God finds detestable. However, even when things seemed so bad, God picked out Noah because he was a person who tried to do what was right. He chose Noah to do a very special work in his day.

    As we read in chapter 6 of Genesis, God asked Noah to do some pretty odd things--he was to build a huge boat in the middle of dry land simply because God told him to do it! It took many years, and we can imagine that the people of that time thought Noah and his family were a bit off their rockers. They probably became the object of ridicule. Not only that, some how or other, Noah was supposed to round up representative samples of every living creature and get them to board the boat when it was done. If he was at all like most people, he must have worried about how he was going to get that job done.

    Eventually, Noah completed the immense task of building the ark, and then God stepped in to complete the rest of the plan. He sent animals to Noah so that he didn't have to do the rounding up; He shut Noah and his family inside the ark; He sent the flood on the earth; and He finally made the waters subside. When Noah, his family and the animals left the ark, they offered sacrifices to God, and God made a covenant with them. He promised that he would never again destroy the earth with water.

    It sounds like the story is about to end with "and they lived happily ever after," but then we get the last episode. Noah plants a vineyard, harvests grapes, makes wine, and gets drunk. During his drunken stooper he falls asleep in the tent, naked. One of his sons, Ham, walks in and sees him, and goes back out to tell the other sons. Evidently, he thought it was a big joke. The other sons, however, took a blanket and walked backwards into the tent to cover Noah without looking at his nakedness.

    As a result of this incident, Noah cursed Ham's son. We see that human nature has not changed just because most of the race was wiped out. It takes more than a new world to create a new man.

    The New Testament warns us that we should not be like the people in Noah's day who lived only to party. They became so dull that the flood came on them by surprise and they were destroyed. It also tells us that Noah is a model of a faithful and righteous life in the midst of a decadent world (See Hebrews 11).