And so all manner of sport was made of Noah and his ark. And the business men went on buying and selling, while Noah went on preaching and toiling. They perhaps had some astronomers, and they were gazing up at the stars, and saying, “Don’t you be concerned. There is no sign of a coming storm in the heavens. We are very wise men, and if there was a storm coming, we should read it in the heavens.” And they had geologists digging away, and they said, “There is no sign in the earth.” Even the carpenters who helped build the ark might have made fun of him, but they were like lots of people at the present day, who will help build a church, and perhaps give money for its support, but will never enter it themselves.
Well, things went on as usual. Little lambs skipped on the hillsides each spring. Men sought after wealth, and if they had leases, I expect they ran for longer periods than ours do. We think ninety-nine years a long time, but I don’t doubt but that theirs ran for nine hundred and ninety nine years. And when they came to sign a lease they would say with a twinkle in their eyes:
“Why, this old Noah says the world is coming to an end in one hundred and twenty years, and it’s twenty years since he started the story. But I guess I will sign the lease and risk it.”
Someone has said that Noah must have been deaf, or he could not have stood the jeers and sneers of his countrymen. But if he was deaf to the voice of men, he heard the voice of God when He told him to build the ark.
I can imagine one hundred years have rolled away, and the work on the ark ceases. Men say, “What has he stopped work for?” He has gone on a preaching tour, to tell the people of the coming storm—that God is going to sweep every man from the face of the earth unless he is in the ark. But he cannot get a man to believe him except his own family. Some of the old men have passed away, and they died saying: “Noah is wrong.” Poor Noah! He must have had a hard time of it. I don’t think I should have had the grace to work for one hundred and twenty years without a convert. But he just toiled on, believing the word of God.
And now the hundred and twenty years are up. In the spring of the year Noah did not plant anything, for he knew the flood was coming, and the people say: “Every year before he has planted, but this year he thinks the world is going to be destroyed, and he hasn’t planted anything.”
Moving in.
But I can imagine one beautiful morning, not a cloud to be seen, Noah has got his communication. He has heard the voice that he heard one hundred and twenty years before—the same old voice. Perhaps there had been silence for one hundred and twenty years. But the voice rang through his soul once again, “Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark.”
The word “come” occurs about nineteen hundred times in the Bible, it is said, and this is the first time. It meant salvation. You can see Noah and all his family moving into the ark. They are bringing the household furniture.
Some of his neighbors say, “Noah, what is your hurry? you will have plenty of time to get into that old ark. What is your hurry? There are no windows and you cannot look out to see when the storm is coming.” But he heard the voice and obeyed.