Read Genesis 6:17-18

God informed Noah of His plan: He was going to destroy the world with a flood. 

So for 120 years, by faith, Noah followed the Lord's leading. He gathered the materials; he built the ark, probably to the ridicule of everyone around him. After all, this was a world that had never known rain; the earth was watered from beneath. 

And while Noah was building this ark, he was preaching righteousness to those around him. Surrounded and mocked by his depraved contemporaries, this preacher of righteousness, by faith, stood against the tide of his culture. 

Sometimes our faith is such a rebuke to our peers that we suffer persecution because of it. 

No extra charge for [Noah's] simple warning: Don't expect overwhelming approval and affirmation just because you've chosen to walk by faith.

Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll, Wisdom for the Way (Nashville: J. Countryman, a division of Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.