Noah Pursued Righteousness
Noah did all Yahveh God commanded him. The Almighty delights in the obedience of His children. We, as parents, delight when our children obey. “Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood” (Genesis 7:7). The provision to escape is only for those who do all that our Holy God commands and are righteous and blameless in their generation. “‘Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate’ says Yahveh. ‘And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you’” (2 Corinthians 6:17).
How do you think Noah looked to the other people? There had never been rain, and yet he and his sons were building the ark. The corrupt masses were mocking them, showing hate and revelry around them to distract them. They did any and everything to defame what looked like lunacy to them. But Noah kept building for a very long time—more than 100 years.
We live in a “give me now” generation. Some say to God, “All right, I will obey You for five minutes, I will obey you for five days; but if I don’t see the desired results quickly, I’m going to say, ‘What good is this obedience, what does it profit me to go around like a mourner compared to those who are rejoicing out there in pagan revelry?’” (see Malachi 3:14) We read in Isaiah 5:20, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness …” Woe to you who say, “What good does it do to go about in righteousness when the rest of the world is having fun? I am now going to say righteousness is evil and evil is righteousness so that I do not have my conscious pricking me when I am out there having a good time.”
So, for a long time Noah pursued righteousness even though he was being heckled by everyone who was calling him a fool, saying “What are you doing? You are spending all of your time separated from the world, being peculiar and righteous, and what is it going to get you? You are just funny and weird and peculiar” But he and his sons kept building until the day came, long after the plan that came to build it, and the door closed, and judgment came. The distinction between the righteous and the wicked was made very clear.
“The patience of Yahveh kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through the water” (1 Peter 3:20).
