Once upon a time, Almighty God told a farmer to build a boat out of wood. For its time, it was a really H
UGE boat! God told him to build it 300 cu. x 50 cu. x 30 cu. Beautifully simple, round numbers, don’t you think? He also told him that there should be a door, three decks and a window in it and gave him about 100 years to build it…
I’m sure by now you recognize this Genesis account of Noah and the Ark- which took place over 4000 years ago in human history. What struck me recently is the fact that God told a farmer to build an Ark that would be the biggest sea-going vessel ever built out of wood and the largest ship of any kind until 1858!
What can we learn from this?
God has a “blueprint”, call it a method or plan, that makes all other methods and plans and dreams and visions OBSOLETE!
Well, maybe you think Noah and the ark and the flood are stretching the truth of what happened? Well, Jesus didn’t:
“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.” (Luke 17:26-27)
Let’s look again at this marvelous story…
Noah first appears on the pages of Scriptures as a 500 year old man. His father, Lamech, was 50 years old when Adam died. (Think of the stories Noah heard on his father’s knee.) Noah was a farmer. He planted vineyards. He had three sons. He lived around 2300 B.C. What’s more, He had never seen anything even remotely similar to what God asked him to build! Finally, this “boat” was not built to sail but to just float. It had no rudder that we know of! What a strange thing to build…
I find something wonderfully comforting when I think of Noah and his three sons laboring in the hot sun building this huge, never before seen, ship of wood and covering it inside and out with pitch: the dimensions. Thankfully it was not 293 ½ x 49 ¼ x 31 1/8. Incredibly, God’s “blueprint” was easy to read, His directions were easy to follow and His Divine Design thorough enough to last for 4 millennium!
You see, mankind, in all his God-given talent and effort, has never built a better, more perfect wooden sea-going vessel than Noah and his sons did. History tells us that we have tried but have never succeeded in building a bigger boat out of wood! Mariners the world over will tell you its “length to width ratio of 6 to 1” (300 cu. x 50 cu.) provided excellent stability on the high seas.
In fact, modern shipbuilders say the Ark would have been almost impossible to turn over. In every way, it was admirably suited for riding out the tremendous storms in the year of the flood. Moreover, the ark is 13 times as stable as the ABS (American Bureau of Shipping) Rules require for a passenger vessel. (Taken from ChristianAnswers.Net)
Noah didn’t know all that – he was a farmer remember – but God did!
The Modern Ark: The church of God
God’s vessel on earth today to rescue His people from certain death is His church, the “gathering together of called out ones”. Mark this my dear brothers and sisters, “God’s blueprint for the church is just as “other worldly” as was His blueprint for Noah’s ark!”
When Jesus called God “Daddy” and expected His disciples to do the same, He forever turned a relationship with God “right-side up”. Previously, the name of God was so Holy that the Jews never even uttered it but simply referred to God as YHWH – fearful to say his full Name! Jesus also directed His disciples to shun the large temples, filled with ritual and pomp, and, in its place, to eat and meet simply in homes with small fellowships of tightly-knitted believers. Two of the most revolutionary acts the world has ever witnessed!
Please reflect on what your “modern Ark” looks more like? The one “according to the pattern” from Above or after the pattern handed down through the centuries of time…
Yours for the least in the Kingdom,
Jeff Gilbertson