How good are you at heeding warnings? I’m not always the greatest. Sometimes we don’t take warnings seriously because we’ve never had anything bad happen to us. We can ignore warning signs by think that it’s no big deal. It wont happen to me. I’ll be fine. We don’t trust the warnings. We don’t change anything because nothing has happened before. It isn’t until after we have experienced a bad happening that we then take those warnings seriously and try to warn others as well. We could say that it takes ‘faith’ to trust the warning signs even though we’ve never experienced it or seen it.
It was faith that saved Noah and his family. Noah had never seen a flood. As a matter of fact, Noah had never seen a single rain drop as it hadn’t rained on earth yet. But when God Almighty came to him in Genesis 6 and said that He was going to destroy the world with a flood, Noah took it very seriously and acted accordingly. The Hebrew writer said of Noah, “By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith” (Hebrews 11:7). Noah was ready to listen to God. He believed God without doubt. By his faith in God he got busy building the ark. By faith he heeded the warning of God. By faith he saw the unseen. He knew it was coming because God said it was. Reverent fear is what fueled his faith. By his obedient faith he was saved. By his obedient faith he condemned the world of faithless men.
Have you ever seen Hell? Me either. Have you ever felt its horrible heat? Me either. Have you been to Heaven and felt its glory? Me either. We haven’t experienced death. We haven’t seen Jesus come back. But God has told us it is all real. It will happen. The question for us, like Noah, is do we believe Him and will we live in reverent fear? By faith we know that there is a Hell and we don’t want to go there. By faith we know there’s a Heaven and it is where we want to be. By faith I am going to live the righteous life God has called me to live so that I can be at home with Him in Heaven for eternity. If I really believe what God has told me about Heaven and Hell then it isn’t going to be hard for me to live a righteous life. By faith we need to get busy. Let’s live in godly fear. Let’s live in hope. Let’s live by faith and be pleasing to God. If we do, we will get to be with Noah in Heaven.
A Cord of Blue 