Characters of CreationSample

We tend to think of Noah’s ark as big—and it was. Scholars disagree, but generally believe it was around 500 feet long and 50 feet high. It was 1.5 million cubic feet, the equivalent of 250 single-deck railroad cars. Yet it wasn’t built quickly. It’s not like Noah had power tools and cranes. So he and his sons had to build it slowly, board by board and nail by nail and window by window. Day by day, year by year.

Noah’s was not an easy obedience, but the life of faith never is. The single mom who brings her children to church, raising them one verse, one car ride, one dinner at a time. The church planter who builds a movement, one conversation at a time. The doctor who tends to terminal cancer patients, one treatment, one surgery, one grieving family at a time.

We look at the big boat, but the way Noah trusted God was by picking up his hammer every morning and hammering in another nail. By engaging in conversations that warned his neighbors of coming judgment and opportunity for grace. By resisting the spirit of the age.

Noah could live this way because he feared the eternal judgment of God rather than the temporary judgment of his peers. His heart was tuned toward what he could not see, toward the invisible God who ordered his steps. In doing so, Noah joined himself to a long line of the faithful. Generations before, Abel sought the approval of the Lord rather than the safety of his own life. Generations later, Abraham left his home and his family to go to a place he didn’t know, following a God he couldn’t see. Still later, Joseph believed in a God who allowed him to be sold by his brothers and be wrongly convicted of a heinous crime. Daniel prayed to God and was willing to face slaughter by lions. The apostles would face Nero’s sword. The early church would rather burn at the stake than deny Christ. And today, martyrs around the world, even as you read this page, are demonstrating the courage to meet in closets and caves, to be imprisoned and sometimes beheaded for their faith. This kind of courage is the hallmark of God’s people throughout the ages.

The writer of Hebrews says that Noah’s faith actually “condemned the world”—an obedience to God so rare, so unique, so different that he stood out. Albert Mohler says it this way: “Whenever an individual lives in obedience to God against the immorality of the world, that individual condemns the rest of the world in its unrighteousness . . . the light stands out from the darkness and what had previously been unseen is revealed for what it truly is.”

Jesus would urge His followers to be this kind of light. Resist the temptation to hide the light of our witness “under a bushel”.

For more insight on some of the topics discussed in this plan, check out this free download by author Daniel Darling, The 7 Lies of the Serpent .