toward it, when it was already set. Now, Noah was asked to do something
more. Enoch walked with God, the personal life was the one thing. Noah
walked with God, _and_ did something more.

He was asked to believe something unusual. It was something that could be
believed only by accepting God's word against every other circumstance and
probability; that is, that a flood was coming to cover the whole earth,
and destroy the race. And he was asked further to put his belief into the
shape of an immense house-boat probably built where it wouldn't float
except such a flood did come. That huge boat was his confession of faith.
He acted his faith. It would be a costly thing, perhaps taking all Noah's
wealth, and taking some years to build. That belief was about the
unlikeliest thing imaginable from every natural standpoint, _with God left
out_. And God is _practically_ left out, except as a very last
questionable consideration, then, and ever since, and to-day. Probably
Noah was the butt of gossip and ridicule, quite possibly of scandal and
reproach, year after year, by the whole race; and he would feel it, and
feel it for his family's sake. That boat and its dreaming builder were the
standing joke of the time. He was regarded as a fool, a fanatic, a poor,
unbalanced enthusiast, building his gigantic boat on dry land! Perhaps
some regretted that he brought the cause of religion into reproach by
being such an extremist.

Yet the only thing he did was to believe God's word, and to shape his
conduct accordingly. He simply did as God asked. He heard God correctly.
His ears were trained to hear. He did what God wanted, regardless of what
people thought. That was how he helped God in His need. The race was saved
through this fresh start, else it had burned out long ago. Following meant
a true life lived, _and faith in God expressed in wood and nails, and in
good money paid out_, while men met him coldly on the road, or jeered.

Befriending God.

Long years afterward there was another man who helped God so decidedly
that he became known as "the friend of God." And the word "friend" is used
this time in the emergency sense. He did the thing God asked him to do,
and this helped God in a plan He was working out for the whole race. God
had to have a man. Abraham was willing to be the man. And in that he
became God's helpful friend. The thing God asked him to do seems very
simple, and yet it was a radical thing for this man to do. He