I always enjoy reading the wonderful stories of God’s miraculous powers and the various men and women He used to bring about His plans for mankind.

Remember  our favorite heroes?   David and Goliath, Samson,  Ezekiel, Moses.  As children,  these stories fascinated us as our Bible teacher showed  pictures or put those characters on her flannel board.

But perhaps the most famous story of all is Noah and the Ark.  Who doesn’t enjoy hearing how God brought all the animals into the Ark, two by two, and how God covered the whole world with water, leaving  only Noah and his family to survive the catastrophe. I believe this to be an actual event….not simply an analogy or metaphor on how we should live our life.

The Lord gave Noah explicit instructions:”Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood: you shall make the ark with rooms, and shall cover it inside and out with pitch” (Gen 6:14).  The word for “ark” translates from the Hebrew word “tevah”. So why is this important?

The Torah (the first five books of the Bible) uses the same word for the basket in the story about baby Moses. “When she (Moses’mother) could no longer hide him she made him a “tevah” and covered it over with tar and pitch (Ex, 2:3).

So when Noah enter his tevah he would be entering a place of safety.  Just as baby Moses was protected in his tevah.

Noah probably didn’t want to go into this ark.  He had a life in his own community but at the same time the world was an evil place.  God told him that He was going to destroy the world and Noah was to save himself and his family by building this boat….designed by God himself.

God commanded Noah to place a door on the side of the ark.  Wasn’t that just to allow everyone to enter?  The rabbis teach that the door to the ark symbolizes repentance. How is that?  Jesus compared repentance to a door also.  He taught His disciples to escape the coming judgment by repenting and passing through the narrow door to enter God’s salvation.

During the decades that Noah built the ark he also preached repentance, and  anyone could have entered the ark or even to help. No, they just laughed and ridiculed.  Even after the rains began to fall, the people still had time to enter through the door and find salvation from the flood. They did not heed Noah’s warnings.  They did not seek to enter the ark because they were busy with the concerns of life, saying, “What will we eat” or what will we drink or what will we wear for clothing?”  (Matthew 6:31).  “They were busy eating and drinking and marrying until the day that Noah enter the ark” (Matthew 24:38-39)

It was God  who closed the door of the ark behind Noah and his family. So if I’m reading this correctly, then God appoints a deadline for repentance.  He does not leave the door open indefinitely.  A day comes when the time for repentance expires and it will no longer be possible to find entrance into the kingdom.  Then the judgment begins.

Jesus said the same. “Strive to enter through the narrow door, for many, I tell you will seek to enter and will not be able. ” ( Luke 13:24)

 As we look at the world around us I believe there are very similar life styles. People aren’t concerned with the future of their lives. People are living as in the days of Noah!

In God’s own time…the door to the “ark of salvation” will be closed!  Scary, right?