Noah Builds an Ark Genesis 6

Have you ever seen a rainbow? I love rainbows. Noah and his family were the first people to ever see a rainbow. God made a promise to Noah and to us and he put the rainbow in the sky as His signature. For the next couple weeks we are going to join Noah and his family on an amazing adventure and find out about the promise of God.

God was very upset because all men on the earth had turned away from Him. All except one man named Noah and his family. Noah loved God and he showed God how much he loved Him by obeying Him. It's hard to obey God when everyone around you is not. Have you ever done the right thing when all your friends were doing the wrong thing? Good for you. God sees what we do and he is pleased when we choose to do the right thing. I like to make God smile.

God wanted to clean up the world by removing all the bad people, but He wanted to reward Noah and his family for their obedience and love. God had a plan, but it required a lot of hard work by Noah and his family.

One day God said to Noah, "I am going to wipe the earth clean of all the evil men, so make an ark for yourself and your family because I am going to flood the earth." God gave Noah instructions for building the boat and Noah followed them exactly. If Noah was lazy and didn't make the ark exactly as God had said, it would have sunk or flipped over. If we only obey God sometimes or in some things, we are really not obeying Him. What if Noah said that he'll do it later?

God told Noah to make the ark so big, because Noah was going to keep 2 of every kind of animal in the boat during the flood. Imagine being on a boat with elephants and zebras and snakes and raccoons and monkeys! Noah had a wife and three sons. His son's were married.

So there was a total of 8 people to take care of all those animals. That must have been a lot of work!

Noah believed God and began building the ark right away. Noah didn't live anywhere near water, so all his neighbors would tease him. They thought he was crazy. Sometimes when we do the right thing when no one else is, people tease us and call us names, but God calls us His children. Remember how we talked about how God gave us the ability to make choices? Noah chose God's way and so should we. Noah believed God and so should we.

Here are a few interesting facts.

1. The ark was as long as 1 1/2 football fields and a tall as a 4 story building!

2. It took Noah 100 years to build the ark!

3. It rained for 40 days but Noah had to wait for the ground to dry, so he was in the ark for one year and 10 days!

4. Noah was 600 years old when it started to rain.

5. It had never rained before the flood.

6. The ark was big enough to hold 45,000 animals!

Here is a modern ship the same size as Noah's Ark!

Next week Noah fills up the ark with animals and God fills the earth with water.