Chapter Two / He "Walked With the True God" /

NOAH straightened his back and stretched his aching muscles. Picture him seated on a broad wooden beam, taking a moment's rest from his work as he looked out over the immense structures of the ark.  The pungent smell of hot tar was in the air, the sounds of woodworking tools reverberated, from where he sat, Noah could see his sons hard at work on various parts of timbers.  His sons, their wives, and his own dear wife had all been laboring with on this project for decades now.  They had come a long way, but they had a ing way to go!

The people of the region thought of them all as fools.  The more the ark took shape, the more the people laughed at the very thought of a deluge that would cover the whole earth.  The disaster that Noah kept warning them  about seemed so far-fetched , so preposterous! They  could hardly believe that  a man would waste his life-and the lives of his family -in such a foolish endeavor. However, Noah's God, Jehovah, saw  the man in a very different light.

God's Word says:  "Noah walked with the true God." (Read Genesis 6:9) What did that mean?  Not that God walked on earth, nor that Noah somehow went to heaven. Rather, Noah obeyed his God so closely and loved him so dearly that it was as if he and Jehovah walked together as friends.  Thousands of years later, the Bible said of Noah: "Through [his] faith he condemned the world." (Hebrews 11:7) How was that so? What can we learn todayt from his faith?  

Next time: A Faultless Man in a Twisted World

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