This lesson is compatible with the "Enoch, Noah, and Babel" Flash-A-Cards from Abeka Books.
Scripture Reference: Genesis 8-9:19; Hebrews 11:7, 1 Peter 3:20, 2 Peter 2:5
“Noah, I’ve checked off today’s square on the wall. We have been on this boat for 150 days since the rain stopped. That means we are on day 197! It’s not been too bad. I’m keeping busy, that’s for sure!” said Noah’s wife.
That is over 6 months! For 6 months they took care of the animals, and cleaned up the messes, and made sure everything was going smoothly.
The rain had stopped after the first 40 days, but the earth was still covered in water. The highest mountains were even covered! All Noah and his family could do was wait. And work.
“Dad! I looked out the window today and saw the top of a mountain!!! It wasn’t much land, but there it was, sticking up out of the middle of all the water!” said Shem.
“What day are we on now, boys?” asked Noah.
Japheth replied: “It’s been 224 days now.”
“It won’t be long now, and I’ll send a raven out to see if he finds any more dry land.” Said Noah.
Noah waited 40 mores days (just over a month), and he let a raven go out the window. He knew if there was enough dry land, the bird wouldn’t come back. The raven kept coming back every day to rest, and perhaps find food if he couldn’t catch any fish to eat.
“I’m so ready to get off of this boat!” said Ham.
It had been easy to trust God before the flood came. Noah didn’t have any problems obeying God to build the ark and to preach. He was sometimes sad because people refused God. But He trusted God. Now, I imagine it must have been hard to keep waiting on God. “Noah, God said He would keep us safe, but when is He going to let us off of this BOAT?!” asked Mrs. Noah.
They didn’t know how long they were going to be on the ark, and the days kept passing, and the water was all around them. They couldn’t feel the water going down, and it was hard to see very much, as any windows were very small to keep water from coming in the ark. All they could do was to trust God. Does God break His promises? NO! But even when we know this, it is hard to wait on Him. When we are going through a hard time in our lives, we sometimes think God has forgotten about us, or doesn’t care. I imagine Noah and all of his family members struggled with this. “God forgot about us, and doesn’t love us anymore!” said Ham’s wife. “We must trust God, and wait for His timing!” replied Japheth’s wife.
Seven days after Noah sent out the raven, he sent out a dove. Everyone waited for news to see if the dove came back, or found enough dry land to live. Later that day, it came back. Noah took the dove and brought him back in the ark to eat and rest.
One week later, he sent the dove out again. Again, they all waited for news.
Shem’s heart sank when he saw the dove flying back to the ark. That meant they had to wait even more on the boat. He started back down to his work of cleaning the elephant cage, but stopped halfway there. He heard someone yelling. He paused to try to understand what they were saying. “It’s Dad!” he thought. He listened carefully…. ”It found a leaf!!! An olive leaf!!! It found a tree with leaves growing on it! The plants are beginning to grow again!!!”
There was shouting on the ark that day. Everyone was so excited! They had no idea if there were any plants above water, and now they were growing again! That meant that it wouldn’t be too long before they would find dry land.
One week later, Noah sent the dove out again, and this time it didn’t come back. It had found enough dry land to live!
After one more month, Noah took the top off of part of the ark. They all stepped out into the sunshine and took a deep breath. When they looked down, there was dry land everywhere! The waters had gone down off of the mountains. The ark was now sitting on Mount Arrarat.
The family all agreed. They had never been so happy to see a mountain.
They stayed on the ark until God told them to leave, waiting for the mud to dry up. I’m sure the ground was very soft for a while, and they would have had a hard time walking in the mud.
After one more month, God told them they could leave the ark. It had been a whole year that they were on the ark! I’m sure they rushed down to the door, and ran down the ramp to the dry ground. Oh, how nice the green grass must have felt on their toes! The flowers smelled so nice! I like to imagine they were jumping and running around, even though they were grownups. They weren’t cooped up in the boat anymore!
Now they had the job of letting all of the animals off of the ark. Those animals must have been happy themselves! I imagine the Elephants found a nice patch of dirt to roll around in. The lions must have started off running as fast as they could, using up all of that energy they saved on the ark! The birds flew around to every tree, looking for the best fruits.
Noah and his family were so thankful that God had kept His promise, that Noah built an altar, and made a sacrifice to God of every clean animal.
God saw it, and the Bible says it smelled sweet to Him. When Noah obeyed God by making a blood sacrifice, it was like a nicer perfume to God. He was happy. He made another promise that day. “I will never again destroy the earth by a flood.”
God blessed Noah and his sons. He told them to go to all the earth and populate it. God wanted them to fill all of the earth. He also said “Now, all animals are for your food. But don’t eat the blood of animals. And don’t kill anyone. If a man kills another man, he will be put to death by men.” God was telling Noah and his family to take care of one another. If they didn’t obey, and killed one another, they would also be killed by law. God wants us to respect the life of human beings.
God said one more thing: “I will send a rainbow in the sky when it rains, and it is the sign of my promise to never again flood the whole earth.” As Noah and his family looked up, they all gasped in amazement. In the sky was the prettiest thing they had ever seen. A bow of colors! The first rainbow! Every time it rained, Noah and his family remembered God’s promise. He would never again send a flood to destroy the whole earth. We see God’s promise, too! Have you ever seen a rainbow? Isn’t it beautiful?! God said He would send the rainbow for every generation to see, and remember His promise. God is good to keep His promises.
And He kept the most important promise of all! Long before the flood, He promised to send Jesus to die for our sins, and Jesus did just that! We can have forgiveness of sins when we accept Jesus, and our prayers can be like a sweet smell to God when we pray to Him!
Just like Noah’s sacrifice and obedience was a sweet smell to God. Isn’t that neat?!
Let’s pray and thank Him.