When I was younger, I would sometimes be a bit confused concerning the Old Testament. Whether it was God wiping off most of the human population in a flood (Genesis 6:11-21), commanding Israel to kill every man woman and child in a city (1 Samuel 15:1-3), or smiting Uzzah simply from catching the falling Ark of the Covenant (2 Samuel 6:5-9), God seemed to be a rather grumpy, hard to please person. I knew God was love (1 John 4:8), that Jesus taught us to "love your enemies" (Matt 5:43-44) and that Jesus' burden was easy (Matthew 11:28-30), but why the personality change? God went from a grumpy old man in the Old Testament to a kind, compassionate father in the New Testament. However, as I have grown in maturity of the Word, I have come to see God's seemingly harsh holiness in the New Testament and His fatherly compassion in the Old. Noah is one example of that compassion.
Living in perhaps the most wicked time in human history. Noah was commanded to build an Ark, to escape the coming judgement of God via flood. Literally, things got so bad that angels were likely having sex with women (Genesis 6:2-4). Now, if we know that God's chosen people, the Israelite's, quickly indulged in sexual sin (Exodus 32:6) and that God had to specifically command them not to make child sacrifices (Leviticus 18:21), one can only imagine to what depths Noah's contemporaries had fallen. Beside that, if God had long ago promised that the seed, the zerah (זָ֫רַע), of Eve would crush Satan (Gen 3:15), God would have to preserve that blood line so that the Messiah could eventually arise. So God, deeply grieved by all the wickedness, responded by the destruction of wicked man that had turned from Him. While, we do read that Noah was a "righteous man, blameless in his generation," (Genesis 6:9), that the same man later got drunk after exiting the Ark (Genesis 9:20-21). Indeed, it was the compassion of God, not the worthiness of Noah, that spared Him, and that is good news for us.
We live in a day and age of exceeding wickedness. The culture is becoming increasingly flagrant with how it opposes God, from the musician Ke$ha claiming she had sex with a demon to Katty Perry performing openly occultic imagery on prime-time television. But there is hope. God preserved the seed of man, through Noah, Abraham, David and then ultimately to Jesus Christ. Jesus, being fully God and fully man, came to live in perfect obedience to the father, die the death we deserve, and was raised from the dead to demonstrate victory over the grave. Whether we stumble like Noah or are among the rebellious, Jesus calls us to believe in Him, and so be spared from the coming judgement that is coming to all mankind.
"Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?" -Ezekiel 18:23
