Is Our Preaching In Vain?

Min. Angela Lee Price

Most people are familiar with story of Noah and the great flood.  Noah built a huge boat to house himself and his family and pairs of every species of animal during the worldwide flood.  Noah was the tenth generation from Adam.  He was a bridge between two worlds, the former world destroyed by water and the current awaiting destruction by fire.  Noah was 600 years old when the epic flood came and he was 950 when he died.  Noah stood out from his contemporaries.  He walked with God.  His great-grandfather also Enoch walked with God.
Noah preached for 120 years.  After preaching all those years, his only converts were his wife, his three sons, and his sons' wives - just seven people in all.  That's all. His ark was, in itself, a monumental message to his generation.  It was a visible monument of the coming wrath, a call to men and women to flee from sin.  The preaching of Noah fell on deaf ears.  No doubt some mocked, some vacillated, some wrote op-ed articles as to why there could never be a universal flood.  But the Bible said, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Gen. 6:5)."  He did everything God told him to do.  Noah entered the ark, free from the blood that would have otherwise been on his hands.

Was his preaching in vain?  These four confirmed his call, his commission (Gen. 6:14-16), his courage (6:22), his converts (7:13), and his conscience (2 Peter 2:5).  Noah's preaching was not in vain because God commissioned him to preach and to build an ark. Noah preached to world that had turned from God to their own way. "The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart were only evil all the time (Gen. 6:5).  The ark was God's solution to save humanity and creation from complete and utter destruction.  It was His vision to repopulate the world through Noah's family.  It was proof that God's judgment was imminent, that the coming judgment was at hand.

Noah's preaching was not in vain because he had courage. Anytime God gives you an assignment it will require courage because the vision will be too big for you.  It will require faith in God.  He built the ark to exact specifications.  The ark was enormous.  It took courage to withstand the ridicule and speculation about his mental state and reasoning for building such a thing. It took courage to built such a huge ship when there had never been a flood.  "Noah did everything just as God commanded him (Gen. 6:22)." And it took courage to step in the ark.

Not only did Noah have commission and courage, he had converts. Granted by today's standards of preaching, Noah would have been considered a complete failure.  How many of you know that one plus God equals the majority. If God be for you, who can be against you?  Keep preaching a balanced gospel and risen Savior for the bible says, "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain (1 Corinthians 15:14).   When all was said and done,  the Bible says,  "On that very day Noah and his son, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark" (Gen 7:13).
Finally, Noah had a conscience to do what was right.  The Bible states in 2 Peter 2:5, "...if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others...."

Picture Noah preaching what might well have been his last sermon to the godless people about him.  The ark is finished and stands with open door, gleaming in its final coat of pitch.  Noah is preaching Methuselah's funeral sermon.   "You all knew Methuselah," he might have said.  Methuselah was my grandfather.  His father was Enoch, a prophet of God.  His name means 'when he dies it shall come.'  And now he is dead and it is coming.  It is surely coming, the long-delayed judgment of God.  But salvation has been provided for you all.  Who will come and seek refuge in the ark?  All that is needed is one simple step of faith.  Is there one?