Joseph Prince - Noah, The Real Story (Excerpt)
And one of the things that I have observed that has happened recently that I want to address because I want to bring the truth of God’s word on the matter, is this movie called Noah. Now this movie is so crazy that it makes Noah crazy; that he is hearing voices when God actually spoke to him, and worst of all, it makes God appear harsh, mean and right at the end when Noah could not do the evil task of killing his family, that is not found in the Bible, it’s as if he is more merciful than God. In the first place God never asked him to kill any of his family, this is Hollywood not Holy Word. God told him to save his entire family. Not only that, the Bible says God had him as a preacher of righteousness. All those fifty to seventy years the ark was in building, he was preaching. But the world was so wicked they didn’t respond to his preaching. God always extends chance after chance, opportunity after opportunity, and I hate the misrepresentation of my God in that movie.
So I am here to tell you, there are Christians who oppose to this, there are Christians who say this is poetic license. Let me tell you what poetic license is. Poetic license never takes away from the character, the basic essence of the character. You know the movie ‘The Passion of the Christ’? That’s par excellence. There is poetic license when you see the boy fell down, Jesus as the boy. When He fell down and His mother ran to Him, do you remember that? That is poetic license. That’s not in the Bible but that could have happened and it was so appropriate because it really tugged at our heartstrings as parents. That was one of the best scenes in the movie. Now that is poetic license but it never takes away from the character of Jesus or the mother. But this poetic license is too much. Amen.
So let me tell you the story. I'm not going to talk about that movie no more unless it comes across in my sermon or whatever but I want to tell you the truth about Noah because Jesus said, as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be in the days of the coming of the Son of Man. In other words, it’s going to be exactly the same scenario. First of all, you must understand the promise. Understand the promise. The very first promise is a prophecy and it’s the prophecy of all prophecies. It is the promise of all the promises and this is the promise in Genesis 3, verse 15. God said to Satan, who was now in the embodiment of the snake. Adam and Eve have just been tempted to sin and they sinned. They have fallen, now God is addressing Satan, God is addressing the enemy and God said this. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed, Satan’s seed, and her Seed, capital ‘S’. Who is her Seed? Our Lord Jesus.
We know that women don’t have seeds, men provide the seeds. So this is the prophecy of the virgin birth that Jesus would be born as the women’s Seed. He shall bruise, this Hebrew word for ‘bruise’ is crush. He, the Messiah, will crush your head, and you will crush His heel. Which is better? Crushed heel or crushed head? In crushing Satan’s head, He will crush His heel. And that is a picture of His dying on the cross to save all of us. So the devil heard this from the mouth of God Himself that the Messiah will come, the dragon slayer, the serpent crusher, is going to come from the woman. So straightaway Adam and Eve had children, Cain and Abel, the devil and John confirms it; the Apostle John says Cain who was of the wicked one, he was opened to the devil and his suggestions.
Cain was recruited by the devil because the devil doesn’t know, the devil is not omniscient, doesn’t know when Jesus is going to come. He thought that immediately the woman’s seed is going to be the Saviour. So when the two brothers, Cain and Abel, offered to God; one offered blood sacrifice, the other offered salad dressing, vegetables and knowing full well, both brothers knew full well that God said without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. And yet Cain’s sacrifice was a bloodless sacrifice. And then the Bible says God favoured Abel, God had respect unto Abel and his sacrifice. Remember this, when you come to God with an unblemished lamb, God has respect to you because of the lamb that you bring. God does not check you out, God checks your lamb out. It is not how good you are, it is how good your lamb is. Amen. God checks your lamb out. Our lamb is our Lord Jesus Christ. Can I have a good amen?
So obviously the devil saw the favor of God on Abel and he thought that Abel was the the woman’s seed that will crush his head. Hence the murderer’s campaign started. He had his brother Cain, jealous of his brother Abel, so the first murder is over religion. Both brothers approached God but one approached God His way, the other approached God his own way. One is God’s way, one is man’s way. And Cain killed Abel. The devil said, "Got it! God’s word cannot come to pass. I'm safe. Nobody’s going to crush my head". And then he found out later on that Abel wasn’t the one.
So let’s go to the story right now of Genesis 6. Let's read what happened, why the flood, Genesis 6. Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. And the Lord said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years". There were giants on the earth, Nephilim. Nephilim in Hebrew means from the word ‘naphal’, fall, fallen ones. There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterwards. ‘And also afterwards’, I have this underlined so that you will know there were two eruptions of fallen angels coming to the daughters of men. When the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown. Mighty in the sense of mighty in size, super human in size and strength and mighty in wickedness.
Go back to verse 2, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful. Who are the sons of God and the daughters of men? Notice the division here? Daughters of men, sons of God? Let me tell you, Bible must interpret Bible. Alright, the daughters of men are just women of mankind, women just like normal women, borne from Adam’s stalk. But sons of God, who are they? In the Septuagint version, which is the Greek version of the scriptures in the Old Testament, this word here are angels, angelos, not God’s angels, angels that came from God but they fell. How did they fall? With Lucifer, who became Satan. That fall is mentioned in Isaiah and it was long before God created man. So one third of the angels followed Lucifer, Satan; so God has two thirds but these fallen angels, they did something.
Now let me prove to you real fast. They are actually, Bible interpret Bible, and they are actually angels. Some people argue that these sons of God are actually the line of Cain or things like that, they are not humans, they are angels. The question is us, can angels, do angels have bodies like men? No, don’t forget the Bible says be not forgetful to entertain strangers for some have entertained angels unaware. Angels can take the body of a man and appear like a man. In fact in terms of sex, we say they are sexless but actually they are always presented in the Bible as men. They are not supposed to abuse that position but this happened back in Noah’s time. Let me prove to you the sons of God are angels. Why sons of God? ‘Bene ha Elohim’ in Hebrew, sons of God, because anyone created directly by God is called sons of God. We are sons of God in the same way that Jesus is the Son of God. We are not the only begotten, we are sons of God. Jesus is the only Begotten, He is fully God fully Man. We are fully man. Amen. Born as sons of God into the family of God.
Now these angels don’t have the position of family sons of God. But sons of God means they are created by God directly, like Adam was called son of God, do you know that? Because he was created directly. After that, men come together with a marriage relationship and produce children so they are not like direct creation of God. Anyone direct creation is called sons of God, not in the family sense like you and I are in the family of God today. Are you with me so far? In Job 1, when the angels presented themselves to God, Job 1 says there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan also came among them. Notice that? Satan is a fallen angel. He also came. Job 38, when God talked about the creation, He says when the morning stars sang together, we have proven that stars can emit music, right? And all the sons of God shouted for joy. During creation who were the sons of God? Angels. So back to Genesis 6 again, are you all with me so far?
So what happens was that the devil was out to corrupt the woman’s Seed because if he can corrupt the woman’s Seed, he can secure his position. Are you with me so far? So what happened before Noah’s flood? Don’t forget they were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, Adam was still around because Adam died in his 930th year. Back in those days they lived long, long lives. It’s antediluvian. They live long lives so during that time, what happened was that fallen angels, Satan instigating it, came to the daughters of men, they took on the form of a man and had sex with the daughters of men producing Nephilim. Weird! Now today, we have a corrupted version handed down from Greek mythology but Greek mythology had pictures of giants.
Now we say that it’s just fables and all that but actually someone back then, even during Alexandra’s time and beyond that, they still remember there were giants on the earth. Hercules and all that kind of things, they called them demi-gods. We have a picture of one, Cyclops, weird! There were giants in those days. Nephilim from the word ‘naphal’ in Hebrew, fallen ones. Back to Genesis 6 again, there were giants in the earth in those days and also afterwards, and also afterwards. So in other words, in those days are the days before the flood came and destroyed them all. Afterwards is after the flood, after the flood there was another eruption of angels coming to the daughters of men and guess what? This time they produce the Anakims, the Raphaims, they are all from the stalk of Nephilim. And who did God raise to stop them? To exterminate these giants? Israel. Where were these giants concentrated on? The devil knew the significance of the land of Israel, they were there as the Canaanites.
When God told Abraham to go to the land, the Bible says this very appropriately, the Canaanites were already in the land. They were squatters on God’s promise land to Abraham. They were there to stop the promise from coming to pass. So there was an eruption of these angels coming to the daughters of men before the flood. The flood took them all away and there was another one, another eruption after the flood. This one God used Israel. David killed Goliath, Goliath was a giant of the Philistines. Many a time, Bible will describe things like they are strong, enormous in size and height, some of them have eleven fingers, eleven toes, don’t look around ok, there are no giants around us today. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. But they were there in those days and God raised Israel to exterminate them. Why didn’t God send another flood? Because you all know the story, God promised Noah no more flood. Right?
So when the devil heard that, the devil was rejoicing because he said, "I can have another eruption of my angels coming on the daughters of men and this time there will be no flood". But then God raised Israel. Are you with me so far? Alright, let's go back to Genesis 6. I love you all, you all understand. Verse 5, then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. By the way, the angels didn’t help Noah build the ark. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. Verse 7, so the Lord said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them". You must understand, by now, the eruption was such that it covered the entire world.
After hundreds and hundreds of years, all the world were men who were actually, they are men still but they are perverted men, half angels half humans. And their thoughts are evil continually. Alright, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. I said Noah found grace. This is the first mention of grace in the Bible and it says Noah found grace. So when you dig deeper, what finds grace in the eyes of the Lord? Noah. What’s the meaning of Noah? Rest. Noah means rest. Rest finds grace in the eyes of the Lord. Some people have this idea, grace can only be there on someone when they are full of sin. Even though the truth is there that where sin increase grace superabounds. Someone who never sin like Jesus can be full of grace, why? He is full of rest. When you are full of rest, you are full of grace. Are you with me so far?
I thought I’ll throw that in. Look at verse 9, this is the genealogy of Noah. I must show you this, 2 Peter, chapter 2, about the fallen angels. 2 Peter 2, he talks about this, for if God did not spare the angels who sinned… Some people say Pastor Prince, these are the angels that sinned when Lucifer fell. Well keep on reading, but God cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; and did not spare the ancient world. Ah context! Context is king! The context here is not talking about Lucifer’s fall in those early days, in the beginning; it’s talking about Noah’s time. These angels that are bound in hell today are bound in chains of everlasting chains of darkness and the word ‘hell’ here is used only one time in the entire New Testament.
Every time you see ‘hell’, it is Sheol, Gehenna, but this one here is Tartaros which is only used one time. That means the fallen angels they were judged early, compared to all those. There are fallen angels right now who are demons, you can't see them, they are the ones instigating to do wrong, they are the ones bringing problems in your marriage, they are the ones bringing afflictions to your body, disease and sickness. That’s why when you use the name of Jesus, many a time you find that the disease leaves. Can I have a good amen?
So here is very clear, and did not spare the ancient world but saved Noah, one of eight people. Noah and Noah’s wife, his three sons and their three wives! Movie says only one wife, Noah and his older son. Why don’t just stick to the Bible? I don’t understand! You know the Chinese language is a very old language. The Chinese annals of history talk about the flood. In fact when they developed their language, the word ‘chuan’ (船) for boat, look up here. It has a ‘zhou’ (舟), it has a ‘ba’ ㈧, and ‘kou’ (口) which make up ‘boat’. Notice eight people, eight mouths, they describe people as mouths, ‘ren kou’ (人口) right? Eight mouths in a boat! So eight - Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives – eight. Amen.
Back to Genesis again. No, back to 2 Peter, excuse me. So God did not spare the ancient world but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness. He wasn’t just building. One hand was holding the hammer, the other hand was proclaiming the Word of God, telling the people, save yourselves, judgment is coming. They will laugh at him. It’s not like Noah was cruel, Noah said, "Hee hee hee hee… I'm going to clear". Noah was preaching to the people and none of them repented. And God bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly. Go back to Genesis 6, are you all learning this so far? Are you enjoying it? Alright, praise God. This is the genealogy of Noah. Noah was a just man, righteous man. Now listen, he was a righteous man, he wasn’t righteous because of his character. He was righteous because of the blood of the Lamb.
Let me prove that to you. Alright, go back to Hebrews 11. He prepared, he was divinely warned, Noah, by faith, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. Not according to works. So Noah, why did God save Noah and his family? Because they are the only ones who are fully human left after hundreds and hundreds of years. The eruption was almost complete and God had to send the flood, listen carefully, because of His grace and His mercy, so that God can preserve the human race and God can bring forth the faithfulness of His Word that the Messiah will come and crush Satan’s head. He who has oppressed and bullied mankind, Jesus is going to come and crush him. Are you with me so far? When you understand that, you see the mercy of God. You see the love of God.
Go back to Genesis, so he was a righteous man. Righteous by how? By faith. But you say, "Pastor, is he perfect in his generation"? Haha, the word ‘perfect’ unfortunate it says ‘perfect’ here, in the New King James, the word ‘perfect’ here is the word ‘tamiym’ in Hebrew which is always used for a lamb to be sacrificed. It means the lamb is without blemish. The lamb has no blemish. It refers to the physical body of Noah, there was no taint of the fallen angels in his body. In other words, Noah was the only family – pure human race. They are the only hope left and God saved them all in the ark. Can you understand that now? Can you understand the grace of God? Thank God, God preserved the human race. Amen. Let's go on. Noah walked with God. And Noah begot three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. And from Shem, Ham, and Japheth, came all the races of the world.
Just let you know something, this is scientifically proven. All races come from one pair of man and woman. Whether you are Chinese, Indian, or whatever, the Bible says God made everyone from one pair, Adam and Eve. And that’s why all the dogs varieties in the world, I do not know, maybe over two hundred varieties of dogs in the world, plus the jackal, plus the wolf; all dogs come from one pair of dogs originally in Noah’s ark. God brought them to Noah, read carefully, they came to Noah in the ark. There is something about animals that science cannot explain until today.
Two things about animals that we know happened in Noah’s ark. Number one, their migratory instinct. Science cannot explain how come an arctic tern, the birds, especially the birds; as well as butterflies. There's a butterfly called Painted Lady Butterfly. It flies from even Iceland when it gets really cold or Europe during the winter months. It will fly thousands and thousands of miles all the way to Africa. In a certain place you can see all of them collected there during the winter months, they will spend its warm days in Africa, North Africa. After which, listen, they will fly back. Not the original butterflies, their young will fly back; the parent died, the parents’ days are quite numbered. The young will fly back, exactly back to the location where the parent flew from. Do butterflies have brains? Yet God leads them.
Now people will say migratory instinct, they don’t like to acknowledge God. They will say Mother Nature; what Mother Nature?! Father God! They will say anything but God. Like when Hollywood produce the movie, it’s always glorifying man, never glorifying God. That’s why when you want to watch your Bible movies, make sure it is done by people who are born again. It’s what river, it’s not just the water you drink, its from which source? Okay, come on, the earth was also corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. Next, So God looked upon the earth and indeed it was corrupt. This word corrupt is the same word destroy, later on, same Greek word, sorry, Hebrew- Shachat. All flesh had destroyed their way on the earth, and God said to Noah, the end of all flesh has come before me, for the earth is filled with violence through them and behold I will shachat, I will corrupt, I will destroy them with the earth.
Next verse- Make yourself an ark of gopher wood. So God told Noah, this is the grace and the mercy part. God always, God always prepares His people before the crisis. Alright, don’t forget, Noah’s Ark is God’s idea, not Noah’s idea. Noah said "Mmmm, I think I’ll build my ark". No, no, it was God’s idea. I’m sending the flood, make yourself (that’s grace), an ark of gopher wood. Make rooms in the ark and cover it inside and outside with pitch. Cover it inside and outside with pitch. Now, in Hebrew it is very interesting. Pitch by the way is asphalt, the same thing that you use for your roads, you know the tar. It’s very sticky, and that’s the super glue of the wood that was used for the ark, ok, asphalt. Now, in the Hebrew, literally, the word cover is kafar it inside and outside with kopher. It’s a play on words, and do you know that pitch in the Hebrew is called zepheth, it is not called kafar. Kafar is the word used for atonement, the word used for covering your sins.
Isn’t it interesting from here God is telling us that Noah’s Ark is a type of His son Jesus Christ. We see the word, atone- cover. Cover what? Not just outside, from the attacks outside, within, even your own sins. You are covered all around. So Noah’s Ark, is a picture of Jesus Christ. I’m sure Jesus, when He rose from the dead in the Emmaus walk, where He opened up the Bible concerning himself to the two disciples, I’m sure when He came to Noah’s ark He smiled and said, "I am that ark". The ark suffered the divine, the ferocious divine anger against all lawlessness, and the wickedness that these fallen angels had brought about on man, and man’s wickedness in yielding to them. The ferociousness and the divine fierceness of God’s anger hit the ark, but not one wave of judgement reached Noah. Can you understand?
There’s a verse in Psalms 42 that says, the Messiah saying, Jesus on the cross saying, "All thy waves and thy billows roll over me". It rolled, came on Him, but it never touched us. He took it for us. Come on, give Him praise, come on, Hallelujah! Look at the picture of Noah’s Ark up here, that’s what happened, and then God says, a window, all around above. Alright, you shall make a window for the ark and you shall finish it to a cubit from above, and all around is the window. Look at the picture of the ark again, can you see the windows all around. Ok, so in other words, God says the ventilation and the light comes in from the windows, ok. Why didn’t God put windows on the side. All normal vessels do that!
By the way, the shape, the length, the height and all that is almost akin to the Titanic, which is considered the largest ship ever built. Shipbuilders say it’s very much like the titanic. Man builds it, it sank. When God builds it, you can rest. Who is building your house. So why didn’t He put windows around? God doesn’t want you occupied with all the destruction and the corruption of the world, He wants you looking up to Him all the time. Just like the children of Israel in the wilderness, during the 40 years, they marched, every time they marched, you know we think they were marching in the hot sun. No, there was air conditioning going on, pillar of cloud that covered the sun. They only had to keep their eyes on Jehovah. They only had to keep their eyes on God. God will keep His eyes on their enemies, on the serpents and all the vicissitudes of that journey. At night, when it gets really cold in the desert, God appears as a pillar of fire, a heater. They were always kept cool.
So we only have to keep our eyes on Him, and He provides for us. The devil wants you "look around, look around, look around". No friend, don’t look around, you look around, you will be distressed. Then the devil says, "Don’t look around, look inside, look inside you, look at your thoughts, look at your emotions, call yourself a Christian"! No, don’t look within and be depressed, don’t look around and be distressed. Look to Jesus and be at rest. The devil will make you look around or within you, except to look up. And by the way, do you know who shut the door when the time came? The movie says, Noah was fighting up till the last moment and Noah shut the door.
But my Bible says, look here in Genesis 7, alright, drop down, drop down, verse 15, they went into the ark to Noah, two by two, of all flesh in which is the breath of life. So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; (God is Elohim in Hebrew, Elohim is the Creator, your friend’s your colleagues don’t know Him, if they believe in Him, they say God, they say God, they do not know him as) and the Lord shut him in. The Lord shut him in. The door wasn’t closed by Noah or his sons, God closed the door.
When God close the door, you are safe inside, when God close the door, no one can unclose, you are safe, no one can drag you out into the waters of judgement, no one. No preacher, no demon, no deacon. You are eternally secure in Christ. Sometimes the waves get a bit, a bit bumpy, just like when you are in the plane, alright, fasten your seatbelts, we are in for a bumpy ride, it will last for about 10 minutes, alright. So I’m sure, maybe some parts of the journey, it got a but bumpy and Noah fell. When Noah fell, Noah fell where? Outside the ark or in the ark? Listen you’re in Christ, even when you fall, you fall in the ark. You don’t fall out of the ark.