Fingernails on the Wood.

If you heard him, you would think he sounded much like Jesus. He kept on asking and telling the people the time for change had come. They would not listen. After many years, like Jeremiah, he had not changed a single life. But he continued to do what the Master said.

Like quality scientists, like me (this is where you are to laugh.), he collected samples everywhere, making notes, and gathering life-sustaining information and supplies. Like Darwin on his round-the-world trip of the 1830s, he observed as much as possible and collected what he could. Besides, he himself was going to take a long trip soon. 

Over the years he had traveled so many places and met so many people. Many of them worked with him, but did not comprehend his mission. He was considered goofy, and was always the blunt of their jokes and insults. But he supported them when their family members died. Though they ridiculed him, the community remembered how he and his sons helped them when the earthquake hit six years ago. He was always trying to do right in a town gone wrong.

Then, 15 days ago, he boarded the ship for his journey, doing what the Captain said. The Captain shut the door. He and his wife, his three boys and their wives, were the only ones on board. All the supplies were in place. It was time to set sail.

And then, almost immediately, for the first time in earth's history, it began to rain. And it kept raining in the desert. After 15 days the water was getting dangerously deep. His friends, who had thought he was 'nuts' for building a boat in the desert, had come to the boat looking for the help he always so ready to give.

But no help this time. He, nor his sons, had the strength to open the door and save them. It was getting deeper every moment. His heart ached as he listened to their weakening voices calling for help. They just kept holding on to the boat, their life-raft. He could do nothing.

And then he heard the most horrifying sound ever. It would sear his ears and singe his heart. It was like a scene from the movie Titanic. His neighbors and friends, the very people he had grown to love, the ones he had helped so freely, those who wouldn't listen to his pleadings to change all those years, had been holding on to the side of the boat. It was the sound just before everything went quiet. He heard their fingernails scraping the wood down the side of the boat as they drown, sinking into the deep.

He slide down in a heap on the floor. He sobbed uncontrollably for hours. The sound would not go away. He couldn't get that sound out of his ears. It would be remembered forever.

Yet, Noah never questioned God. It was The Captain who had given him the message of repentance to preach. It was The Captain who sent him all over the world looking for that special wood and gathering supplies for the animals. It was The Captain who had shut the massive door separating Noah and his righteous family from all the sin-filled ways of men.

I'm not Noah. But I will remind you about a time is coming when this world will NOT be destroyed by water, but a time when it will "melt" with fire. And God is collecting 'reservations' for that final trip of mankind.

Please, confirm your reservation as soon as possible. Unlike Noah, I don't know when The Captain is going to shut the door.