Skip to content Navigating Through Difficult Times Aug 10 · 25 min ...more
Navigating Through Difficult Times
August 10, 2022 · 25 min
Genesis Marriage Series // Ep. 7 In Season 13 of the podcast, we are focusing on lessons learned from the marriages in the book of Genesis. Today's episode kicks off our look at Noah's marriage. Although his wife is never named, we take a few guesses at what her name might have been. ----- For all links mentioned and more from the Real Marriage Podcast, visit: https://linktr.ee/realmarriage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesFollow on social media!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MarkDriscollMinistries?sub_confirmation=1Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pastormarkInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/markdriscollTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pastormarkdriscollTwitter: https://linktr.ee/markdriscoll Click here for more resources: https://linktr.ee/markdriscoll
Series Real Marriage with Mark & Grace Driscoll August 10, 2022 · 25 min · Real Marriage with Mark & Grace Driscoll
Genesis Marriage Series // Ep. 7 In Season 13 of the podcast, we are focusing on lessons learned from the marriages in the book of Genesis. Today's episode kicks off our look at Noah's marriage. Although his wife is never named, we take a few guesses at what her name might have been. ----- For all links mentioned and more from the Real Marriage Podcast, visit: https://linktr.ee/realmarriage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesFollow on social media!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MarkDriscollMinistries?sub_confirmation=1Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pastormarkInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/markdriscollTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pastormarkdriscollTwitter: https://linktr.ee/markdriscoll Click here for more resources: https://linktr.ee/markdriscoll ...more Show the full description Show less Genesis Marriage Series // Ep. 7 In Season 13 of the podcast, we are focusing on lessons learned from the marriages in the book of Genesis. Today's episode kicks off our look at Noah's marriage. Although his wife is never named, we take a few guesses at what her name might have been. ----- For all links mentioned and more from the Real Marriage Podcast, visit: https://linktr.ee/realmarriage Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesFollow on social media!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MarkDriscollMinistries?sub_confirmation=1Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pastormarkInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/markdriscollTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pastormarkdriscollTwitter: https://linktr.ee/markdriscoll Click here for more resources: https://linktr.ee/markdriscoll
Series Real Marriage with Mark & Grace Driscoll
384K followers
With Pastor Mark, it’s all about Jesus! He is a spiritual leader, prolific author, and compelling speaker, but at his core, he is a family man. Mark and his
384K followers
0:00 And so what Noah and his wife did, they weren't saved from the judgment. They were saved through it. How many married couples today, if you're listening to this, you say, it feels0:12 like we're living in the days of Noah again. And then the question is, how do you be saved from it? The answer is you may need to be saved through it. They didn't get to avoid the0:24 judgment. They had to go through the judgment, but God provided them a proverbial arc to get them through it. It was get your marriage here, get your kids in here, and everything around you0:36 is gonna be insanity and judgment. But you can have a way to navigate through it so that you and your marriage and your family can survive and be healthy.0:46 Hello. I'm Grace Driscoll with my husband here, Mark Driscoll, and we are doing the XO Marriage podcast. We're taking different couples through Genesis, and we're gonna talk a little bit about Noah and his wife. She0:57 doesn't have a name, but she's an important woman.1:00 What do you wanna call her? Nancy? Noah and Nancy.1:06 I was gonna say like Zoa or something.1:09 Noah and Zoa? What? That's weird. Don't know.1:14 There's lot of Z names in the Bible.1:16 So as we're going through I'm teaching the book of Genesis, and you're teaching it at Real Women at Church. And as we go through Genesis, it's a it's a generational case study on marriage and family. Mhmm. And so early1:28 on, you've got Adam and Eve. So we looked at their marriage. And then in this season, we're gonna look at Noah and his unnamed wife, Nancy or Zoe. And then in the next season, we'll look
1:40 at, Abraham and Sarah in a lot of baby mama drama and the redneck hillbilly
1:45 Oh, yeah.
1:46 Saga Sometimes. Yeah. Kansas proportions. It's nuts. So as you think about knowing his wife, all we tend to think about is the boat and the animals.
1:57 Mhmm. And even when you're a kid, they're like, here's the arky arky and, you know, fill it up with the animals. But just think about it for a minute. We're gonna we're gonna slow down and just look at this couple. And a
2:08 couple of things. Number 1, from Adam and Eve to Noah and Zoha Zoha. Is 1600 years, which
2:20 is crazy.
2:21 That is crazy.
2:22 You turn from Genesis, you know, 1, 2, 3 to chapter 6, you're 1600 years. And so the story is this. In Genesis 3, sin enters the world through our first parents,
2:34 Adam and Eve, the first married couple. And then for 1600 years, hardly anybody walks with God except for a guy named Enoch. Mhmm. And it says he walked with God and then God took him to heaven.
2:46 And
2:46 then comes Nice deal.
2:48 Then comes Noah, and as we've established, his wife, Zoe. And what happens is God says in Genesis six:three, My spirit shall not abide
3:00 in man forever. He's going to be limited to 120 years. So God says, know, in 120 years, I'm going to flood the earth. That's pretty patient. Yeah. Everybody's sinning all the
3:12 time. It says in Genesis 6, the inclination of the heart was evil all the time. And we you know, most of us who know the story, we rushed to they built the boat, the flood came, the animals got on it. Let's back it up
3:23 and ask the question, what the heck did they do for 120 years as a married couple?
3:29 Well, and to live with people doing crazy stuff for 120. I mean, are we back in the arc ages? Or
3:37 No. We're well, so what happens before the flood, it says that every generation just got more wicked and depraved. Yeah. So by the end, every day is like the perch. Yeah. I mean, it's
3:47 just Sounds awful.
3:48 Yeah. If you remember, like, the the riots and Mhmm. You know, just the anarchy in the streets.
3:54 Every day, all day for 120 years? No. Thank you.
3:58 That's what they were going through.
3:59 I'd wanna be Enoch.
4:01 Well, think about it, like what they were going through is a lot like today. Mhmm. Everybody's just rebelling, self destructing. You know? It's just mattresses on
4:12 fire and pitchforks and dead cat flinging and protests. And so every day was just anarchy, and God said, I I am not going to put up with this any longer. And God
4:24 warned, and he said 120 years. So true or false, do you think today that most married couples feel like we're kinda living in a culture that is very similar to Noah and his wife?
4:35 Like Yeah.
4:35 This can't go on forever. God's gonna have to bring an end to this.
4:38 Yeah. Absolutely. It feels like that.
4:41 So the first time God ended, you know, everything with the judgment of water, and in the end, he'll do it by judgment of fire. So, you know, to answer the question, we'll delve into this. If
4:53 all the couples, all the families, all the people are rebelling, there was only 1 couple that didn't.
5:02 And their 3 sons.
5:03 And their 3 sons and their wives.
5:05 And their wives.
5:05 So 8 people got on the boat and made it. Everybody else died. And what that means is only 1 married couple stuck together and led their family in the will of
5:17 God on the whole earth.
5:20 So they didn't have any friends.
5:22 No. It was lonely. Yeah. And let me read, maybe you can read it, honey. Second Peter 2 and first Peter 3. Just read it. Peter reflects back on kind of the days of Noah and his wife and their marriage, and
5:34 and he gives us some context as to what they were doing. First Peter and second Peter.
5:43 You want me to
5:44 go for I want you to read them from the Bible, which is the word of God written by the Holy Spirit.
5:48 Second Peter first since it's listed first, or do want
5:50 me read Read them in order right there. Welcome to the part of real marriage where we fight and make it real.
5:55 No. We're gonna edit
5:56 that part.
5:57 Well, it's also really small font, and I can't read it. So, second yeah. I can't read it without
6:02 You can't read it without glasses. Welcome to 51, kids. Not to brag and get all showy. I'll read it. And let me say this too. If you're younger, 2 things we would recommend, look at things and eat carbs
6:14 because the day is coming where you can't do either of those. Second Peter 2 5 and 9, if he did not spare the ancient world but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness So he's a preacher, with
6:26 7 others. That's his wife, their 3 sons, and their 3 wives. So everybody made it. When he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, then the lord knows how to rescue the godly from
6:38 trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment till the day of judgment. And then first Peter 3 20, I'm just gonna go next level and read again. God's patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark
6:50 was being prepared in which a few, that is 8 persons, were brought safely through the water. So 2 things that this family was doing, this couple was doing for 120 years, preaching, hey,
7:02 everybody. You really need to turn to the Lord and preparing this huge boat. Hey. We're building this boat. And what it tells us in the Bible is all they did was mocked Noah Mhmm.
7:14 For 120 years. So let let's talk about that. You're married to Noah. Why are you laughing? Or I mean, you feel like you are married to Noah?
7:24 That's why was I was like, are you telling me?
7:27 So just consider you're married to Noah. And for 120 years, he's preaching a message that no 1 listens to. He had outside of his family, he had 0
7:39 converts. So 120 years, Noah's like, hey. Tonight, we're doing the tent revival. If you'd like to give your life to the Lord, come forward. Hundred and 20 years, 0 people came down the aisle down the
7:51 aisle. Andy's building a gigantic boat in the middle of the desert, and many commentators think that it had not yet rained on the
8:02 entire earth. So he's telling them, hey. Water's gonna come out of the sky, and it's gonna lift up the boat in the desert, and I need you to give your life to the Lord and help me build
8:14 the boat before the rains come.
8:16 Yeah. Do people
8:17 think about it?
8:18 Extremely crazy.
8:19 If that's your husband, what do you think? What I mean, do you ever have a day where you wake up and you're like, my husband might be nuttier than a Snickers bar?
8:27 No. I mean, I can't imagine. Just he constantly was preaching the same message and building something that didn't seem to be needed.
8:36 Yeah. We live in the middle of the desert. Like, now, if our next door neighbor started building a huge boat telling us that the world was gonna flood and he was building it for
8:44 us I definitely think he was crazy.
8:46 Or, you know, that he's 1 of those guys who voted for legalized marijuana. You know? And he's definitely making the most of his vote. You know? I mean, how hard would that be as the wife every day see
8:58 your husband go preach, and every day he comes home, you're like, how did it go? He's like, yeah.
9:05 I mean, she had to have been a woman of faith. She had to have trusted
9:09 How do you know that?
9:11 Because she would have left and joined the, however, hundreds of thousands of other people at that point.
9:17 They were just mocking her husband?
9:18 Yeah. I mean, look at Job's wife. She did that very quickly. You know? I mean, I just I think it's so interesting to to actually put yourself in the story and wonder what was she doing,
9:30 saying
9:31 things their marriage like for 120 Yeah.
9:34 I mean, and they had 3 sons and, I mean, she was raising them, but I mean, just yeah. I can't imagine. I mean, she had a commitment to the Lord and trusted that God was telling her husband
9:46 and he was leading their family. She had a commitment to her husband and knew that she was supposed to stay in that commitment. And then she had her sons and they stayed committed. I
9:57 mean, gave them faith. Mhmm.
10:00 The 3 boys, all married believers. How do we know?
10:04 They all
10:04 made it on the that got on the ark, Noah and his wife, their 3 sons, their wives. So what that means is 4 couples get on the boat. Those are the only 4 believing married families
10:16 on planet Earth, and they all came from the same family. What would have happened if Noah and his wife blew up their marriage and didn't walk forward in God's will? I mean, just run
10:28 the other run the other scenario. What happens?
10:30 Would have been Noah and the animals maybe or his wife and the animals. I don't know. It depends on who who caused the split. But
10:38 Or the door shuts and their kids drown.
10:40 Yeah.
10:41 Or they fight and give up and don't build the ark and nobody makes it.
10:46 Mm-mm. No. That was a fresh start for God to start all over again with a new family. And
10:52 yeah. And so when God decided to repopulate the earth and start all over, he chose 4 believing married couples. But honestly,
11:00 the 3
11:02 believing married were led by mom and dad. Mhmm. And what's interesting too then is up until the time of the flood, there was some polygamy.
11:14 There were mainly unbelievers, later on believers, sadly, tragically, painfully, will be involved in polygamy. But at the time of Noah and his wife, God
11:26 put an end to sin and he put an end to polygamy. All the the only people that made it were 4 faithful married couples. The polygamists woman. 1 man, 1 woman as God intended.
11:36 Mhmm.
11:37 Everybody else drowned in the flood. How how important is it in light of the story of Noah and his wife that if God has a challenging,
11:49 difficult season or calling on your marriage, that the 2 of you just remain absolutely unified?
11:57 It's essential. You're in a covenant, and God expects you to stick together. The enemy wants to divide you at every corner, and there was, I'm sure, million opportunities for that with them. But God
12:09 expects us to stand by that covenant that we make and do what we need to do to stay together, stay unified. God doesn't attack Adam and Eve separately.
12:21 He, or
12:21 excuse me, Satan doesn't. He waits until they're married. And so when a couple is married and walks in the will of God together, lovingly serving each other, following God's will, there's nothing more powerful than that.
12:33 So when we get to heaven and you get to meet Noah's wife, what are some of the questions as a wife you would have? Because the story doesn't tell us a lot, like her name.
12:42 I know. I'm gonna ask her what her name is, see if I'm right.
12:45 No. It's Zoe. You prophesied it.
12:47 It could be Noah and Yesa.
12:51 That was terrible.
12:56 Yeah. I mean, I would I would ask her how she knew to continue to follow. Like,
13:01 Do think she would have had to have heard from the Lord
13:03 for I don't think so.
13:05 I mean You think after 120 years, you wouldn't hang in there unless you heard from the Lord.
13:10 But it's also Noah was a stark comparison to the other men in the culture. So she had to have seen that, okay, either they're all right and they're all crazy and seem like, you
13:21 know, chaos evil or my husband's right, and that's what I wanna do no matter how hard that is. I mean, she saw the contrast very clearly. I mean, I would ask her how she raised her
13:33 kids to love the Lord. I would ask her, you know, I'm sure she's thankful she stayed steady.
13:39 Oh, yeah. Especially as it started raining, and her husband's like, just happen to have this large Oh, thank you, crazy husband. Suddenly, this all makes sense. Yeah. But how much rejection
13:52 and ridicule do you think they faced as a couple for preaching and preparing for 120 years?
14:00 A lot. A lot. Every every day, every minute, probably.
14:05 It had to be super lonely. Mhmm. I mean, everybody's like, you're the crazy people. Mhmm. Like, you're you're the you're the insane, you know, outlier, bizarre,
14:16 weirdo, hyper religious, crazy people.
14:20 Yeah, it would have been hard.
14:24 What do you think would have happened to their kids and their legacy, if no 1 and his wife were divided and weren't remaining unified for 120 years?
14:36 Well, it wouldn't have worked. We wouldn't have had I mean, it had to be both of them, and it had to be their kids and their wives because they had to then go forth and procreate from there.
14:47 The human race would've came to an end if Noah and his wife weren't unified in the purposes of God. Mhmm. Like the human race would have come to an end. Yeah. It was literally Huge
14:59 implications.
14:59 It was down to 1 couple leading 3 couples, 1 generation leading the next generation. So let me me kind of summarize it. We'll deal with Noah and his
15:11 wife in the next episode. I want you to just kind of think about it. For those of you that are like us, you're kind of Bible nerds, you know, you're like, oh, they built a boat and got on it with the animals. Like, okay,
15:19 but for 120 years. Yeah. Were telling people about the Lord and nobody cared. And they were building a boat and everybody mocked them.
15:26 Mhmm.
15:27 And Jesus says, as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the last days.
15:34 Wow.
15:35 Which is scary. Mhmm. And Jesus is saying that in the last days, he said, as it was in the days of Noah, everyone was drinking, marrying, and carousing right up
15:47 until the ark started to float. And so it feels like we're living in the days of Noah.
15:53 Mhmm. Yeah. Definitely.
15:54 Like, the wickedness on the earth the the myth of evolution is just that. It's a myth. We're not getting better. We're getting worse. We may be making external progress, but we're not making internal progress. We're
16:05 making technological progress progress, but not moral progress. And it feels like the days of Noah. Everybody is only evil doing wickedness all the time. It's all rebellion, And everybody's
16:17 just getting drunk and getting married and getting angry. That feels like the days of Noah. And and so what Noah and his wife did, they weren't saved from the judgment. They
16:29 were saved through it. How many married couples today, if you're listening to this, you say, it feels like we're living in the days of Noah again. And then the question is, how do you be saved from it?
16:41 The answer is you may need to be saved through it. Yep. They didn't get to avoid the judgment. They had to go through the judgment, but God provided them a proverbial ark to get them
16:53 through it. And it was get your marriage here, get your kids in here, and everything around you is going to be insanity and judgment. But you can have a way to navigate through it so
17:05 that you and your marriage and your family can survive and be healthy.
17:09 Yeah, it's amazing.
17:10 Yeah. And so today, couples need to be building their ark. Mhmm. A husband and wife have got to be seeking the will of God and asking, how do we build our ark?
17:22 Where is the place for our marriage?
17:24 Yeah.
17:24 Where is the place for our family? Where is the place for our legacy and our kids and our grandkids?
17:30 How do we stand steadfast, stand firm?
17:33 It's 2 things. We need to stand steadfast together, and we need to build our boat. Mhmm.
17:39 Yep.
17:40 So maybe I didn't know if we would go this direction, but, first and foremost, for the men, Noah led his family. He had to
17:51 have some leadership ability because his wife and his kids follow him onto the boat. Nobody else does. So he does lead his family. Somehow he remains completely unified with his wife. They're
18:03 together. So they're holding hands going on the ark. He's not dragging her. You know, it's not like she's hanging out of the window trying to escape. I mean, they're together. And what's interesting then, their kids
18:14 follow their example and have believing healthy marriages that are saved. And honey, maybe just whatever you want to share in closing, you know, every
18:26 couple's got to figure out how do we build our boat? You know, what, what are we building for our family to make it through the days of Noah? So maybe share with them
18:38 just, you know, some years ago we moved to Arizona and we literally started over in our forties and it literally was, okay, we gotta build our boat.
18:48 Yeah. I mean, was a brand new journey and God, in our process, you felt called
18:59 first and we felt called together. We heard the Lord say we were released. So we knew that that was certainly from the Lord. Then in that, we had different timeframes of what
19:11 that looked like. And for me, it just took me a little bit longer to to hear from the Lord, what that looked like and where we were gonna be. But you were,
19:23 patiently waiting for me to come along in what the Lord was having both of us come to, which was to move to Arizona ultimately. And so we had to be unified on that. That's a huge
19:35 decision. We were starting all I'll take
19:37 care of what boat we're gonna build.
19:38 Mhmm. And the kids were gonna be on it with us. So we needed to make sure that we were unified so that when we got here, then our kids in the wrestling, you know, with the Lord that they did and
19:49 ultimately trusting God's plan for them as well. We were able to be unified in our discussions with them. We weren't like, yeah, well, dad made us do this, or mom said we should do this, or, you know, yeah, they're
20:01 saying God said, it was very, you and I were certain, we were unified, we held hands on the journey and stayed that way. I mean, we had to talk it through. We had different things we had to
20:13 articulate to each other, but we did that. And, and coming here, God has absolutely been faithful to us and, and to our kids and bringing them along in that process. Cause they did. They struggled at
20:24 first, but they came to the conclusion that the Lord definitely brought us here and they're totally I'm sure those
20:31 kids had days. They're like
20:33 Why are we still on this boat
20:35 and what's planned? Before, like, lord, could you give me another dad who's not so crazy? Mhmm.
20:40 Mhmm.
20:40 You know, could I be part of the family that doesn't have the big boat in the backyard in the desert? I mean
20:44 Yeah.
20:45 There are going to be times along the way that, first and foremost, think you're right. The husband and the wife gotta figure out what boat has god asked us to build. Mhmm. And god told Noah and his wife specifically,
20:56 here's literally
20:57 the The plans.
20:58 The plans for the building of your boat. Yeah. Mhmm. So he gotta ask the lord again, what boat do you want us to build? And then I'm sure there were days that he, his wife, his kids were like, what are we
21:09 doing? Yeah. There had to be some second guessing. Mhmm. And there's gonna be some fears and doubts and anxieties along the way. But the husband and the wife did agree, this is the boat the Lord wants us to build.
21:21 And they kept working on it. And then their kids start working on it. And then eventually they all climb in it and it becomes the vehicle through which they're all saved through judgment. And, you know, the
21:33 life that we're living now, I mean, it's crazy. I mean, we kind of built our boat
21:39 and
21:41 we made it through And our kids love the Lord and they're marrying believers. And so our encouragement to you would be, we're not saying that things are good in the world. They're not.
21:53 We're not saying that they're going to get better. I don't think that they will. We're not saying that you may be saved from it.
22:01 Yeah. May or may not.
22:03 You may need to, like Noah and his wife, go through the wickedness and the evil and the darkness and the corruption and the collapse of Western culture, which feels like what we're in.
22:16 And just because of that doesn't mean that the same fate that befalls everyone else needs to befall your marriage and family. Yep. There's a way for God's people to
22:28 be saved through judgment in the days of Noah. And the question is, what boat are you guys gonna build? And are you gonna build it together? And when you build it, are you gonna
22:40 live in it with your kids? And for us, that's Trinity Church, that's Real Faith Ministries, that's the life that God has architected for us and that we've worked very hard to build as a family. Yeah. It's our version of
22:51 the boat and we're all in it and it's floating and we're having a great season. And I would say the last few years in the culture have been the worst, but the last few
23:03 years in our life have been the best.
23:06 Amazing. Yes.
23:07 You know, because there's a lot of water around us, but our boat still floats.
23:11 Amen.Show more
Comments No comments yet. Start the conversation.
Mark Driscoll
Comments
Keep it kind. Comments are public.