Noah Part 3: The One I Didn't Want to Write

The writers of the Bible dedicated more time to the story of Noah and the flood than they did to either creation or the fall of Adam and Eve. Despite this, there is very little discussion of how the actual Ark was built or even exactly how long it took. (Side Note: there are several different defensible options for the length of time it took to build the Ark, with many being discussed in this thread. This is definitely worth a read). According to the Book of Jasher (discussed in detail here by the late Michael S. Heiser), it could have taken as few as 5 years to build the Ark and others peg it somewhere between 50-100 years. What I find fascinating is that growing up I was always told it took 120 years to build the Ark. Upon further research, it seems like that interpretation is actually based on an incorrect assumption of the meaning of the preceding verses.

Deep breath.

That was the easy part to write. The rest is more challenging. If you don’t want to be offended, stop here. Because, I’ll be totally transparent, this next part even offends me.

To introduce what I’m about to say, I’ve copied the lyrics from a song that I heard for the first time in high school on a mission trip. I can still remember a group of 30+ kids in my youth group listening to this song while most were kneeling down and sobbing. Here are some of the words:

All I've got

All I am

All my dreams and

All my plans

I'm holding back

I'm holding nothing back from you

I surrender it all

I lay it before you

For all of my days

I'll give you the glory

You caused me to see

My heart is divided

Lord , take all of me

‘Cause I have decided

All I've got

All I am

All my dreams and

All my plans

I'm holding back

I'm holding nothing back from you

We tend to reduce biblical characters to two-dimensional fairy tale figures who only existed to be in the story we read. We sometimes forget that these were real people with real lives and feelings and emotions that make them way more like us than we would like to think. This allows us to disassociate from them somewhat and not hold ourselves up to any standard that relates to them. This is a problem and one that becomes very poignant with the story of Noah.

Noah didn’t grow up knowing that he would become known for building a massive boat that would serve to both rescue his family and preserve the seed of the Messiah. As we’ve discussed before, up to the moment God assigned this task to him he was just a good guy who kept himself and his family separate from the debauchery of his culture. Like us, Noah was a person with dreams and plans. He was likely both a hunter and a farmer. A husband and a father. He had a family, a house, animals, hobbies, interests, goals, and ideas. And one day the God of the universe interrupts his daily grind and lets him know that everything he’s worked for on this earth is about to be destroyed. It’s temporary. It has an expiration date. It will not last. Because a storm is coming, and God is going to wipe out evil with a flood that will destroy the world as he knows it.

We read this and we just continue on as if it’s not even a blip on the radar. So then Noah builds a boat, he becomes the first person who has taken in more rescues than he knows what to do with, eventually sends some doves out and then, bada-bing, there’s a rainbow and it’s all over. All in 40 days’ work, right?

WHAT???

But Noah isn’t some out-of-touch-with-reality, unrelatable Biblical robot-hero who emotionlessly acts out whatever God says. He’s not a puppet. He’s a human being like you and me. How would you react if you’re sitting on your Lovesac (hypothetically) watching Real Housewives (again, totally made up) with your wife curled up beside you (metaphorically speaking) and all the kids are finally asleep because it’s been a super long day and you didn’t need the ice cream but it was taking up space in the freezer so you might as well and you’re two spoonful’s in just past the layer of freezer burn and out of nowhere CREATOR GOD SHOWS UP AND SAYS “HEY CAN I HAVE A WORD?” And He doesn’t care that it’s the reunion episode, so after you pause it and tell your wife in no uncertain terms that she cannot watch ahead, you get up and go have a talk with Him and He tells you that everything you see is about to be under water. Everyone you know outside your family is about to die. Everything you’ve worked for is about to disappear.

This is Noah on that day. He is just a normal guy who happens to be following Jesus in a world where almost no one else is. He had dreams. He had plans. And God just wrecked all of it. In this moment, He was calling Noah to give up his vision for his own life and instead live for a greater purpose.

The story of Noah building the Ark sounds pretty unique, but in reality, it echoes a theme that is interwoven throughout the Bible.

In the Old Testament book of Haggai, we read about a situation where the Israelites are back in Jerusalem after being exiled in Babylon and God has sent the prophet Haggai to communicate His frustration and disappointment that they seem to have lots of time to work on their own houses, but when it comes to rebuilding the temple, God’s House, they keep coming up with lame excuses. And finally, God tells them that He’s tired of their excuse-making, and He wants to know this – “When will it be the right time to build My house?” He proceeds to tell them that He’s tired of them being stingy with Him and, in fact, the insignificant gestures they make His way are so repugnant that the little they have brought to His temple He has simply blown away. Reading God’s message as relayed through Haggai certainly creates the impression that God would prefer you do nothing at all rather than make Him an afterthought just so you can check a box.

But how can we be so hard on these Israelites? They’ve been gone from their homes for so long. It’s only natural that they’d want to settle back in and get back to some semblance of normalcy, right? After all, they’re just people like us. They have dreams. They have plans. Of course they love God. He rescued them from the enemy. Of course they want to build His house. Just not today. Not yet. But if they have some extra lumber or bricks, they’ll certainly drop those off as they get time. Because God is important to them. They love Him. They just need to finish their own houses first. After all, they have dreams. They have plans.

In Matthew 7, we read about how Jesus gets in front of a large crowd and starts telling them

stories. He tells them about two builders who both build houses. One builds on sand and the other builds on rock. A storm comes and wipes out the house built on sand. The one built on the rock weathers the storm. The storm Jesus is describing isn’t all that different from the storm of Noah’s day – it is the judgement of God against those who have rejected Him.

But interestingly enough, right before He tells this story, He utters what are for me some of the hardest words in the whole Bible. I am not going to paraphrase:

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and, in your name, perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

 – Matthew 7:21-23

It’s hard to wrap my head around the idea that someone could perform some pretty spectacular feats in the name of Jesus and not make the cut. That’s a very tough pill to swallow for me. But when I think back on Haggai, it starts to become clearer.

There are people who claim Jesus but are stingy with Him. They proclaim Him and give Him pieces of their lives, but all the while they’re building their own houses. The little they are truly dedicating to Him has been blown away. It’s worthless. It’s worthless because following Jesus looks radically different than most of us would like to believe.

This is hard and uncomfortable to type.  There is a storm coming. Those of us who know Jesus have to believe that. We have to. But if we really believe that, how can we be spending so much time building our own houses? Where are the Noah’s of this generation? The heroes of his day, the “men of renown” as they were called, these great men of that time were building wealth. Noah was building a boat in the sunshine. God told Noah a storm was coming, and he believed it so fiercely that he changed the course of his entire life. We read it now and it seems so obvious, but Noah spent years faithfully following Jesus without so much as a sprinkle to validate his mission. But the very lives of his family depended on him taking God seriously and engaging his calling.

Just like in Noah’s day, Jesus has said that a storm is coming. And just like Noah, the very lives of your friends and family depend on your taking that calling seriously. And yet, many of us spend more time on our own houses than on God’s house. We’re stingy with God. We don’t think it’s the right time. We’ll get serious tomorrow. We’ll do more when we retire. We’ll be more focused when our kids are grown. We can’t move to Africa. We don’t know our neighbors that well. We don’t want to look like fanatics. We don’t want to seem pushy. Maybe Jesus just wants us to be good people.

I’d submit to you that, to the world, living for Jesus is going to look a lot like building a boat in the sunshine. And if it doesn’t, are you really living for Jesus? I can’t answer that for you. You can’t answer that for me.

I will say that, in my opinion, never has a generation tried so hard to intertwine building our own houses with building God’s house. We have lowered the bar so far. We have become so enamored with spiritual mediocrity that we don’t even believe Noah’s can exist. And in a world with no Noah’s, all you have is a storm with no boats. No one is saved.

The same hand that shut the door to the ark rolled the stone away. Just like in Noah’s day, God has orchestrated an epic rescue plan. The full ark has been replaced by an empty tomb. How are we not shouting in the streets? How are we not pleading with our friends and neighbors? How are we being so stingy with God that we’ve replaced God’s calling with the American dream? Offended? I warned you. Candidly, this is a gut punch that I’ve been reeling from since I read Haggai and felt God asking me “When will it be the right time to build My house?!”

What do you think following Jesus looks like for you? Do you believe a storm is coming?

Jim Elliot abandoned his own house in a reckless pursuit of Jesus’ calling on his life. He ultimately died at the hands of primitive people that he was trying to reach with the gospel. Jim Elliot was a modern-day Noah. Jim Elliot had dreams. He had plans. But ultimately, he abandoned his own house, his own kingdom, in pursuit of God’s calling. I think it’s fitting to end this discussion with some of his wisdom:

To be clear, you will look like a fool to the world when you pursue Jesus with reckless abandon. Noah looked like crazy person to the culture around him. You think people didn’t gossip about crazy Noah with the weird boat? This is the choice you must make. The world will never question you for building your own house. But abandoning worldly pursuits to answer God’s calling will certainly lead to some conversations. When will it be the right time for you to build God’s house?

I know, I know. You have dreams. You have plans. So do I. Will you let God interrupt them?