^{Hebrews 11:7} By faith Noah, being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen, in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household. By this he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

Julie and I occasionally enjoy watching Doomsday Preppers on NatGeo. Gaining popularity through all the recent apocalyptic, 12-21-12, Mayan prophecy hype, each show tells the story of three families and their efforts to prepare for every possible end-game scenario. Some episodes are quite entertaining and others are pretty educational. To conclude each installment, National Geographic’s “preparedness experts” critique each group’s readiness in case of an apocalyptic event. My personal favorite was a guy in Arizona who re-designed the in-ground family pool into a self-sustaining ecosystem stocked with a vegetable garden, suspended chicken coop and Tilapia pond. Several segments I found completely laughable. The couple who turn all the lights off in the house every night and practice navigating through their property carrying loaded hand guns seemed a little nuts until they revealed teaching themselves some obscure east Asian language to communicate without intruders understanding them; that officially crossed the line into psycho-crazy. Then there’s the Faraday cage guy.  He’s built multiple storage facilities and underground bunkers designed as Faraday cages. The Faraday cage, named after its inventor, 19th century scientist Michael Faraday, is composed of chain-linked metal walls that shield its contents from static electric fields and electro-magnetic radiation by redistributing electric charges around the exterior walls. The guy building these is convinced an EMP resulting from a massive solar flare will wipe out all electronic and electrically dependent aspects of  life as we know it, resulting in a world-wide apocalyptic event. The major flaw in his plan was getting to these Faraday safe-houses without today’s computerized automobiles. At least the weather radio buried in the box in the desert will be safe!

We make jokes about people preparing for the end of society as we know it, particularly those who seem to go overboard. However, as we heard in week 2 of It’s Not About You this morning, Christians should lead the preparatory charge because we know what’s coming and we know the warning signs!

I’m sure I would have been one of the skeptics talking about Noah, the crazy old fool in the Old Testament. Noah proposed building a contraption no one had ever heard of for a weather event never experienced in the history of the earth to save people who really didn’t care to listen. Add to that, the earth-encompassing flood Noah prophesied and prepared for did not occur until 120 years after he started construction on the boat! Noah had an endless list of “why not’s” to keep the ark from being constructed, but he moved forward anyway.

Last week, we were encouraged to approach that thing in our gut that seems impossible to accomplish but nags anyway with a “why not” attitude. Today, we take that attitude a step further, turning attitude into action. After we accept our passion as our call to action, true faith responds by turning the vision into reality.

What would today look like if Noah, the great-grandfather of doomsday preppers, had not followed through on his project; building the ark, convincing his family to get on board (not to mention all those animals), and continually sharing the apocalyptic motivations of his mission with the public? According to another NatGeo show, society would now be run by coyotes, but no, the coyotes wouldn’t have survived either!

The historic events of that world-wide flood and Noah’s efforts to rebuild society are both history and prophecy. Speaking prophetically, the impending flood is a coming apocalypse, the ark is Christ, Noah is the Christian.

Are you prepared?