97. A Fresh Start: Noah and a New Creation

G' day Dave here.

Welcome to Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

Before we begin, I want to do a big shout out to the students and staff at Faith Christian School in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota in the usa.

I heard you're a small school with a big heart for Jesus.

I'm really glad you're tuning in to hear wonderful things about our great, great God.

How good is it that we can talk about Jesus in different parts of the world?

Because Jesus owns the whole world.

Also, a big shout out to Amy.

Amy lives in Brisbane, Queensland in Australia with her brothers and parents, a greyhound named Henry, Widget and Gizmo, the cats, a precious rat named Smokey and lots of fish, including an intelligent hand chosen guppy named Dave.

Amy, it was so great to hear from you.

I've never had a fish named after me before and it's such an honour and keep trusting Jesus.

Now on with the show.

Have you ever had a fresh start?

A chance to try again from the beginning, an opportunity for things to be better?

Maybe you've had a rough year at school, but then the new year starts, new class, new teacher, and suddenly it's all great.

Or maybe you've lived somewhere else.

That's been really difficult.

You move to a new town and it's like starting again, like a breath of fresh air.

Or maybe you're playing a game and everything goes wrong.

You lose horribly.

But then you start a new game.

Everyone's pieces go back to the start, everyone's at the same level and everyone has the same chance to win again.

Well, what if the whole world got a fresh start?

A chance to begin again, a chance to do things better.

Well, that is exactly what God gives the world in today's story.

Get ready for our next episode of Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

Water everywhere, over the entire surface of the planet.

At the end of our last episode, the world had become so evil, God had destroyed it with a massive flood.

The people, the animals, the plants, the dry land, all sunk under an enormous worldwide ocean.

As we fly over this vast ocean, we see wave after wave after wave.

But then suddenly, up ahead, we see something completely different.

It's a box.

A really, really big box, longer than a football field, floating on the surface of the water.

Inside this really big box, there are eight people.

And at least two of every single kind of land animal and bird.

God saved them inside this box.

He hasn't forgotten them, he remembers them.

And now through them, he's going to give the world a fresh start.

God sends a wind and the Water starts to go down.

After 150 days, the water's gone down so much that the bottom of the box scrapes against the ground.

For the first time in almost half a year, it stops bobbing around and it comes to rest in an area of mountains in a land called Ararat.

There's still heaps of water, though, two and a half months after the bobbing stopped.

Finally, the tops of the mountains can be seen above the water.

It's kind of like when God first made the world, when he brought the dry land up from under the water.

This is slower.

We need more patience.

But still, it's almost like the world is starting again.

It's like the world that's been destroyed because of all the evil is now getting a fresh start.

Noah, the man who God had told to build the box, waits another 40 days.

Then he opens a window and sends out a raven, a type of black bird.

He's kind of using it as a scout to discover if the land is dry enough yet.

Unfortunately, it doesn't do a very good job.

It doesn't come back to him.

It just kind of flies around here and there, waiting for the water to go down.

Hmm.

What to do now?

Noah tries again, this time with a dove, a white pigeon.

It takes off, flies around, but it can't find anywhere to land.

There's still too much water.

The world is not ready yet.

Thankfully, it comes back to the box.

Genesis chapter 8, verse 9 says Noah reached out his hand and took the bird and he brought it back into the boat.

Noah waits seven days, the same amount of time it took for God to make the world the first time.

Then Noah sends the dove out again.

He waits all day.

Finally, in the evening, the dove comes back.

This time, it's carrying something very, very exciting.

It has a fresh olive leaf in its beak.

In the last seven days, it's like God started to make the world again, and plants are actually growing, just like when God first made the world.

It seems like the world is starting to get a fresh start.

Noah waits another seven days and then sends out the dove again.

This time, it's so excited about its new world, and it doesn't even come back.

Noah knows now it's almost time to get out of the box.

By this time, he's 601 years old.

Finally, in verse 16, God says to him, you and your wife, your sons and their wives should go out of the boat.

Bring every animal out of the boat with you.

The birds, animals, and everything that crawls on the earth.

Let Them have many young ones and let them grow in number.

That's what God had said to the animals when he'd first made the world go and have many children.

God's giving the animals a fresh start.

So Noah, his wife, his three sons and his sons wives finally come out of the box.

Every land animal comes out of the box, every bird comes out of the box.

They come out in all their different types.

Noah wants to say thanks to God for this new start and ask for mercy for the world.

He builds an altar and he makes a burnt offering to God on it.

God smells the offering and he makes a promise, A wonderful promise, an amazing promise.

He promises not to destroy the world again in the way he's just done.

I'm going to read the promise out to you as I do, I wonder if you can hear something very strange in the promise.

Let's see.

In verse 21, the Lord says to himself, I will never again curse the ground because of human beings.

Their thoughts are evil even when they are young.

But I will never again destroy every living thing on the earth as I did this time.

As long as the earth continues, there will be planting and harvest, cold and hot, summer and winter, day and night will not stop.

That's a wonderful promise.

And because God's faithful, because he always does what he says he'll do, he's kept that promise now for thousands of years.

But did you hear the strange thing about the promise?

What's strange is that humans haven't changed.

God says he's not going to curse the ground again because of humans, even though their thoughts are evil even when they're young.

God's not saying he's not going to destroy the world because in this fresh start, humans have suddenly become really, really good.

No, we're just as evil as before.

But God's decided to show mercy, kindness that we don't deserve.

And God's kept that promise for thousands of years, even though humans have been just as evil for thousands of years.

Then God blesses humans just like he blessed them back when he first made the world.

In chapter nine, verse one, he says, have many children, grow in number and fill the earth.

God even adds new blessings.

He wants to make this fresh start even better in some ways than when he first made the world.

He says that he'll make animals afraid of humans.

They'll respect humans.

That's why most of the time animals don't attack humans.

He also adds more food for people to eat.

Before he said they could only eat plants.

Now he says we can eat meat as well.

We don't have to, but we're allowed to.

God also shows how important humans still are to him, despite the fact that we sin.

He said, you can kill and eat animals, but we must not murder humans.

In verse five, he says, I will demand your blood for your lives.

That is, I will demand the life of any animal that kills a person.

And I will demand the life of anyone who takes another person's life.

Whoever kills a human being will be killed by a human being.

This is because God made humans in his own image.

How amazing that God's saying that again.

It isn't because we deserve it, but because God's really kind.

And finally, just to really lock in his promise, God gives a sign to every living creature, to animals and humans, that he'll keep his promise.

A sign that we'll all be able to see.

A sign you've probably seen at some time.

The sign will be a reminder to God that he'll never destroy the world with a flood again.

In verse 11, God says to Noah, I make this agreement with you.

I will never again destroy all living things by floodwaters.

A flood will never again destroy the earth.

And God said, I am making an agreement between me and you and every living creature that is with you.

It will continue from now on.

This is the sign.

I am putting my rainbow in the clouds.

It is the sign of the agreement between me and the Earth.

When I bring clouds over the earth, a rainbow appears in the clouds.

Then I'll remember my agreement.

It is between me and you and every living thing.

Floodwaters will never again destroy all life on the earth.

When the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it.

Then I will remember the agreement that continues forever.

It is between me and every living thing on the Earth.

When you see a rainbow in the clouds, remember.

Remember that God's kept that promise for thousands of years.

Remember that he'll never break that promise.

Remember that, that he's faithful.

But what about the problem of sin?

God's given humans a fresh start with Noah.

Noah was literally the best man in the world.

Everything started again with him and his family.

But even though it was a great fresh start, it still wasn't good enough to stop people from being evil.

Noah wasn't good enough to stop us all from sinning.

We need a better saviour than Noah.

We need a greater fresh start than what we had after the flood.

Thankfully, that's why God sent Jesus.

When Jesus came, he came to give us the best fresh start.

When he died on the cross.

It was like he was putting to death the power of sin inside his people.

When he came back to life, he gave us new life, a new life where we actually want to do the right thing.

He gives us a fresh start that's even better than what happened after the flood.

Jesus gives the best fresh start in the universe back at the box as all the people and all the animals start having families and spreading over the earth as they begin their fresh start.

Unfortunately, things aren't going to go much better than the first time around.

But that's a story for next time.

Thanks everyone for listening.

Don't forget there are colouring sheets on the website for each new episode.

You can Download them@faithfulgod.net if you send me a photo of it, I'll put it on the website.

I still need to raise lots of financial support to keep this ministry going.

If you donate, you'll not only make me really excited, you'll make my wife very, very happy.

So if you're able, please consider becoming an ongoing financial supporter.

Just go to the donate page at faithfulgod.

Net.

Keep trusting Jesus.

Bye for now.