Noah's Exit, Obedience and God's Eternal Ways

And then Heshvan 27, which is next Shabbat, I believe, 10 days from now, is the concluding day of reflection, drawing from Genesis 8:14-22. So, the most beautiful part of the story is God calls Noah out after He seals Him in and protects Him for a year and 10 days, He and His family and all of the animals that He required. God calls Noah out in Genesis 8:15-16. "Then God spoke to Noah, saying, 'Go out of the ark, you and your wife, your sons, and your sons' wives with you.'" Excuse me.

So, God directed Noah in the ark, and God directed Noah out of the ark. Excuse me again. Noah didn't determine the appropriate moment to leave simply because he wanted to return to ordinary life. He waited for God's instruction. He waited. We often ask God to direct our steps, but are we willing to wait for His direction? Are we willing to remain faithful when the next step is not so clear? In Genesis 8:20, "Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar." So, notice that Noah's response after leaving the ark. It was about worship. All about worship. Noah's first reported action after exiting is building an altar. The goal isn't merely to emerge with more information or prophetic whatever it may be. The goal is to emerge with a heart increasingly surrendered to Yahweh and His commandments. So, the question for all of us to answer during these next 10 days, and really for our lifetime, is: What altar of worship, or gratitude, or obedience are we building in this next season of life?

That's a question for all of us: What altar of worship, gratitude, and obedience are we building for the next season of our life? One point I'd like to make before we continue is in Genesis 8:20, it does say, "Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took up every clean animal and of every clean bird." So, even before the Torah was given in Exodus 20, Moses, even in Noah's day, Noah knew what clean and unclean was. He was not going to put a bunch of unclean animals on the altar for Yah. So, that goes to all of our Christian friends out there. If no one knew what was clean and unclean before the Torah was given, the law was given, that means His ways are His ways, all forever, infinity in the past, infinity in the future, and He wrote them on stones, but they're really should be on the tablets of our hearts instead of on stone tablets. So, again, that's for all the Christian friends out there that yes, always clean and unclean, light or dark, good or evil.

That's the way God is. So, what is clean in the beginning is always clean. What is always unclean is unclean. So, again, Noah knew what was clean and unclean before Moses was even born. So, we've got to understand that, my Christian friends, that His ways are His ways. That's it. His ways are His ways, and then He put them on tablets so that mankind could understand them, and on letters and all this so that we can always follow them and understand those. But they again, they should be on the tablets of our hearts instead of on tablets of stone, or both. So, now abiding in Yeshua, John 15:4: "Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me." So, Noah was preserved in the ark. The wise virgins were prepared for the bridegroom. Psalm 91 describes dwelling in the secret place. Isaiah 26 speaks of entering the chambers, and Yeshua tells His disciples to abide in Him.

The central message is very consistent: our lives must be rooted in fellowship with God, expressed through faith, obedience, and spiritual readiness. And my friends, this is the month of rooting. Just like I said before, with the rains coming and things like this. So, the personal invitation that we all have right now, in my personal opinion, just for our channel, is an invitation to enter these 10 days. Imagine Noah standing before the ark. He had spent 120 years preparing and warning the people, building the ark, etc. He had obeyed Yah's instructions, and eventually the moment came when preparation gave way to entrance. In Genesis 7:6, it tells us, "The Lord shut him in." There's a lesson in that for every one of us. We cannot control the future. We cannot control the nations. We cannot control every circumstance surrounding our families, our ministries, and our personal lives. But we can choose to draw near, intimately, to Yahweh and be shut in the ark of Yahweh.