The Solution Is Not in Us

A View From the Lower Story

As the population on earth grew, it became clear that when given a choice, men and women choose evil over good. According to the Bible, God saw that mankind had become so wicked that “every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (Genesis 6:5). Reformed theologians call this the doctrine of total depravity—a doctrine suggesting that human beings inherently will choose evil over good, that we are unable to “be good” all the time on our own, leaving us unfit for God’s community.

Here is the most mind-boggling thought contained in the pages of the Bible: Even in our state of blatant selfishness, God wants us back! Plan A is obvious. Start over with the best guy the human race had to offer. His name? Noah. It is one of the few times in the Bible that the most likely candidate is chosen. A tsunami from the sky fell for forty days and forty nights. Noah and his family, along with two of every kind of animal, boarded the massive ark on dry land.

In the Lower Story, this is all about faith. Hebrews 11:7 says this about Noah, “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith, he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith” (NIV).

Some suggest from this verse and Genesis 2:4–6 that there had never been rain falling from the sky before. And yet he built an ark in the middle of dry ground. It’s hard to act on something you have never seen . . . and when you do, people think you are crazy.

The ark was a football field and a half long and four and a half stories high. It was roughly half the length of the Titanic. The Titanic held 3,547 passengers; the ark contained over fifty thousand animals and eight people.

Simply put, this is crazy faith.

A View From the Upper Story

The Upper Story sends us another important message. After one hundred and fifty days, the water was gone. Only Noah and the residents of the ark survived. One of the first things Noah did was to plant a vineyard. Probably at the first harvest, Noah drank too much and passed out in his tent. One of Noah’s sons disgraced him by not only looking at his nakedness but bringing his brothers back in to see it. Maybe you do, or don’t, see this as a federal offense. One thing we know for sure is that the problem had not been resolved. Plan A failed. Even though Noah was a “good” man (our very best man), he and his children were carriers of the sin virus.

You would think that this would be the end of the story—that God would finally give up on us—but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Regardless of what Adam and Eve and Cain and Noah did—regardless of anything we have done—God still loves us and wants to be with us. God’s Upper Story has not changed. He still wants to do life with us in a perfect, loving community of unified fellowship.

If the “start over plan” wasn’t successful, then there must be another way. This leads us to our Upper Story clue: The solution to getting us back will not come from even the best of us; it must come from another.

H2: A Moment to Reflect

1. Why do you think God instructed Noah to bring seven pairs of clean animals and only one pair of unclean animals? (There is a hint in Genesis 8:20)
2. Why do you think God said he would never flood the earth again?
3. Put yourself in Noah’s sandals. Do you think you would have had the faith to build the ark?