"As It Was in the Days of Noah," Part I

The Ark Encounter

Two years ago, I got to visit the Ark Encounter in Williamstown, Kentucky. I had wanted to go for a long time, and it finally worked out. The entire experience surpassed my expectations. The late-June day was overcast and cool, so it was easy to imagine a looming storm. If you have been there, you remember your very first impression. Mine was fear wrapped in safety. You enter semi-darkness amid ominous thunderbooms as you inch your way through the crowded hull. I found it impossible to hold back a thrill of tears as I imagined myself entering the actual Ark of safety God provided for those few escaping His judgment. I think that's the thought that grips you most--how much care God took to save just a handful of people. The thought right behind that one is the immense space of the Ark in relation to how few people actually found shelter in it. Built to size according to the Bible cubit, the Ark measures 510 feet long, 51 feet high, and 85 feet across. Actually experiencing this sense of space overwhelmed my spirit with the poignant, unspoken reality of lost chances and unheeded warnings!

Everywhere, the detailed exhibits and placards supplemented explicit Biblical facts with historical conjecture. I was utterly amazed at the sophistication of the Ark's organization and period-appropriate technology. The images that stayed with me most were those that triggered my own senses. It wasn't the animals or the still-life scenes or even the separate floors of the Ark that riveted my attention the most. It was the dioramas of the idolatrous depravity of Noah's day that made me see just what God's Word was talking about when it said, "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Genesis 6:5). Without exception, Noah's world was evil. But knowing that God was willing to save not only Noah but the very people He had promised to destroy gave me the feeling of being wrapped in the justice of God when He finally eradicates the evil of our world.

We sometimes forget that God delivers His warnings in a promise, and He gives us a choice. But His warnings eventually run out, and when they do, His promises expire. When God finally shut Noah in the Ark, it is difficult to imagine just how awful was the judgment that came next. How many hundreds and thousands of people reached for the Ark as they were drowning, only to slip back helpless into the raging currents of the mounting sea? But the man who was "moved with godly fear" (Hebrews 11:7) now was unmoved by any fear, amid distant cries of demand, defiance, desperation, and, finally, despair. I wonder if Noah and his family started singing when they felt the Ark lifting and tilting and tossing upon the sea of God's fury released upon His lost world?

I can't speak to every aspect of the videos that depicted the Flood in miniature, but if we take the Ark's dimensions and appearance as given and the Biblical text as recorded, one thing becomes overwhelmingly obvious: the Ark survived a global flood. Period. The images showed the Ark at times rising almost vertically in the cataclysmic waves. And when you think that the RMS Titanic--nearly twice the Ark's size--sank in a perfectly calm sea--split in half, even--that says it all. Noah heard God's warnings, and Captain Smith did not.

Heeding God's Warnings

For those who doubt the truth of Noah's Flood, Jesus establishes its historicity in a few succinct words: "And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all" (Luke 17:26-30). Noah was prepared, and he prepared his family, but no one else believed him. Can there be a greater tragedy than that? We are no different today--for Jesus directly compares us to Noah's day. The same God who is not willing that any should perish (II Peter 3:9) has also appointed a Day of Wrath (Revelation 6:17; 11:18; 15:1; 18:10) for the ungodly. Paul writes in I Thessalonians 5:9 that the believer is not appointed to this wrath, but Peter's warning is sobering indeed when he writes, "For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" (I Peter 4:17-18).

Clearly, warnings apply not only to those who are not ready but also to those who think they are. Warnings even apply to those who are already ready. Readiness is one of those words that exists only in the present tense. To be ready at all is to be ready always. And we are either ready or we are not. There is no in between. How blessed we are that our Lord cares so much for us that He tells us over and over how to be ready. "Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come" (Matthew 24:42). What does it mean to watch? This word in the Greek is gregoreuo--to be awake, alert, and vigilant. The word carries a sense of urgency as a command as if to a soldier equipped for battle. But we do more than watch. Jesus says in Mark 13:33, "Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is." Do we know how to pray? I wonder. Watch. Watch and pray. Jesus also says, "Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man" (Luke 21:36).

Spreading God's Warnings

Watch. Watch and pray. Watch and pray always. These aren't the words of some legalistic alarmist. These are the words of Jesus. But is anyone preaching this today? Noah did. "As it was in the days of Noah" makes us think of all those wicked people, but what about Noah himself? How did he keep his sanity in such a cesspool of iniquity? One thing is certain: he didn't get along with very many people. He couldn't. But that doesn't mean he wrote people off. He cared about them as much as God did, and he preached against sin at the risk of his life. Perhaps angels surrounded him as he built the ark, but he didn't play it safe. Peter calls Noah a "preacher of righteousness," and we all know how much ungodly people love a fiery sermon.

What did Noah preach? He told people the same unvarnished truth that God had told him: He was "bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly" (II Peter 2:5)--a flood, when no one had experienced one before. How do you make people believe something like that? But Noah's very act of obedience in the face of worldwide complacency condemned the world, as Hebrews 11:7 says. Noah's object lesson was the ark itself, but it wouldn't surprise me if he gave plenty of lessons on the history of the world. Perhaps his starting point was God's Word right there in the Genesis text: "And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.  So the Lord said, 'I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them'" (Genesis 6:6-7).

No doubt, Noah rehearsed what happened when Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The effect of this occult knowledge was felt immediately and was compounded in their offspring. In one generation, Cain was cursed. In ten generations--Noah's generation--mankind would be cursed. Bible scholars say Noah's Flood occurred a mere 1656 years after Creation. Think about it: Adam lived 930 years, and his life overlapped Methuselah's by 243 years. Methuselah lived 969 years, and his life overlapped Noah's by 600 years. Talk about passing the torch--Methuselah knew both Adam and Noah, and we can be sure Noah knew all he needed to know about the beginning of time--and about the ending of the old world that was coming soon. Some Bible scholars conjecture that the population of that "old world" may have been nearly three billion, taking into account extremely long lifespans with higher birthrates and fewer diseases. That's a big audience to reach, that's for sure, especially if nobody's listening!

Waiting for God's Warnings

The same Jesus who warned that "as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man" also said, "Behold, I come quickly" (Revelation 22:7, 12, and 20). Jesus did not say, "I come soon," but "I come quickly." That means "suddenly." Centuries of warning will be fulfilled in a day, and to those scoffers in the last days who, walking "after their own lusts" will say, "Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation" (II Peter 3:4), Peter says "for this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished" (II Peter 3:5-6). In other words, that's a big lie--things have not continued as they were "from the beginning of creation," for the Flood came and "swept them all away" (Matthew 24:39). It doesn't do to cancel out God's future warnings by denying the reality of His past judgment.

The longer the Lord waits, the more "quickly"--suddenly--will seem His return. If Noah preached 120 years before the Flood, that may seem like a long sermon indeed, but I'm sure there were those who wanted it to be even longer, once the quickness of flood waters swept them away! Time is nothing to flood waters; nor is time anything to God. In this same passage in which Peter warns of scoffers, he reminds us that "one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day" (II Peter 3:8). Now subtract one thousand years from 2025. What was the world like in 1025? Now subtract 1656 from 2025 and arrive at the year 369, during the Romans' wars with the Gothic tribes. A little over 100 years later, Rome would fall into complete ruin. On the timeline of history, that's really not that terribly long ago. And by God's clock, 1656 years is not very much time at all. By God's timetable, Jesus gave His warning, "Behold, I come quickly!" roughly 48 hours ago.

Now add to the passage of time the rapidity of moral decay. What shows the passing of time any more clearly than the process of decay itself? I remember watching a nest of Carolina wrens in the hanging basket by my backdoor in North Carolina. Sadly, one of the baby birds died. One day I saw it barely moving, and as I peered in the next day to see what had happened, only maggots filled the baby bird's place. It amazed me how quickly the struggling bird disappeared. Or think of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center that took a minimum of four years to build and mere seconds to fall. Where did all that time go? The South Tower fell in roughly ten seconds, and the North Tower fell in twelve seconds. Both Towers stood 110 stories high, with the North Tower standing at 1,368 feet tall and the South Tower standing at 1,362 feet tall. How is such utter devastation even possible in so short a time?

Ready for Jesus' Return

But the decay caused by evil had spread over the entire earth in Noah's day. Suppose it is correct that there were three billion people on the earth at that time: what is eight people divided by three billion? A mere speck of dust, or so AI tells me, 0.000000002667. "But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord" (Genesis 6:8). Hebrews 11:7 tells us, "By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith." Why did Noah find grace? He walked by faith amid evil days. And so must we, for there is no other way to be ready for Christ's return. How hauntingly poignant is Jesus' question, "But when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8).