After Noah received the revelation, he believed it and practiced it (6:22). He practiced it in a way of not caring about being different from his forefathers and from his generation. Perhaps people said to him, "Noah, what are you doing? Adam never talked this way. Neither did Abel or Enosh. All the fathers lived, begat, and died, but none of them talked the way you do. Who are you? Are you greater than Adam or Enoch? We admire Enoch, for he walked with God. What are you talking about, telling us that a flood will come? What do you mean by building an ark?"
The principle is the same today. We are following God's revelation that is according to the Bible in order to practice the church life; however, most Christians lack this revelation. God's revelation will always make you different. Daniel and his three companions were different, for they refused to eat the royal food. Paul was different, and so was Martin Luther. Everyone who has seen God's revelation is different. The revelation makes him different. We must be different from our folks, our schoolmates, our neighbors, and even from our fellow Christians. Only those who are void of God's revelation are so common. Whenever we see something, it makes us different. It is good to be different.
Now we must consider Noah's work. Firstly, Noah worked in preaching righteousness (2 Pet. 2:5). If you read the whole context of the Bible, you will see that in Noah's day preaching righteousness was to protest against the evil generation. His generation was evil and filled with violence, but Noah was a man who preached righteousness and protested against all the unrighteousness, evil, and violence. He testified of the righteous way of God.
While Noah was preaching righteousness, he was building the ark. In principle, we are doing the same thing. We are preaching righteousness and we are protesting against the evil age. While we are preaching, we are building a corporate ark. Noah built the ark by faith according to God's revelation (Heb. 11:7). He did not construct it according to tradition or his own concept and invention, but absolutely according to God's revelation. This is the reason that in everything we must return to God's revelation in His holy Word. We must come back to the pure Word of God.
The building of the ark was absolutely against the tide of Noah's generation. He was against the trend of that age and "he condemned the world" (Heb. 11:7). No one besides Noah's family appreciated that work. The work of Noah and his family was unique, peculiar, and strange. In human eyes it was impractical. It was according to God's revelation and, thus, it was against the trend and tide of that generation. Do you not think that the principle is the same today? What we are preaching and doing is altogether against the tide of this generation. But we praise the Lord that we are in His flow. We are not in the tide of this generation; we are in the flow from the throne according to His revelation. Praise Him!