Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Genesis 7:17-24

Good morning, dear friends!

I am so blessed by today's reading, which may surprise you since it's all about the world drowning in judgment! However, there are several things about this reading that encouraged me.

First, God does what He says He's going to do! He faithfully keeps His promises - all of them - even those that promise destruction. As a teacher, it drives me crazy to see inconsistent discipline - because it is NOT discipline at all. If a teacher, principal, or parent sets a standard with a consequence, then does not follow through with the consequence, the children learn that this adult can't be trusted. A just God must keep His Word - and ours does. He told Noah to build the ark, because He was about to judge the earth with a flood. And He did what He said He would do! Verses 11 and 12 tell us:

In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights.

So the flood came not just from above with the rains, but from the depths of the earth, springs burst forth! After forty days and nights, we read in verses 19 and 20 that the water rose to such heights that it covered the highest mountains to a depth of more than 20 feet! This was a global flood - a cataclysmic event. Had it merely been a local flood, as some want to suggest, God would have just told Noah to move! Cultures all over the world have stories about a flood. It was so monumental that Noah's family never forget it and told and retold this story. I was thinking this morning how, even though less than 100 years have passed since WWII, there are people committed to denying the Holocaust. So a worldwide story that persists about the flood surely lends credence to it. Now, of course, I KNOW it's true, because God's Word says it - I don't need eyewitness accounts. There is plenty of geological, paleontological, and cultural evidence. But I just need to know that God said so!

Verse 23 sums it all up: Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. 

Now, here is the VERY cool part. The word for "wiped out" used here, is the same word used in Isaiah 43:25 for "blot out": I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more. Just as God wiped out every living thing on the face of the earth, until they were no more, He has wiped out our sin on the cross!!! It is GONE! How encouraging is that?

Two last encouraging things for today: Noah, his family, and all of the creatures in the ark were left. They had been shut in, sealed in salvation, just as we have been. And don't forget verse 24: The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days. The earth was flooded for a total of five months! However, note that it had an ending! No matter what trial you are in the midst of right now, it will have an ending. We know, because we've read the end of the Book, that our ending is a happy one. I read a devotional this morning that spoke to this very thing. The writer had just completed reading a long novel about the Middle Ages (I'm guessing one of Ken Follett's from her description), and she talked about how hard it was to read the book (lots of graphic stuff, very evil antagonists), but that she was glad she did not put the book down, because in with the bad there was some good, and the ending had a just and happy resolution. It reminded her that our life stories have many pages - and if we just look at one we might get discouraged. But God is still writing our stories. Hang on until the glorious ending! Our faithful God keeps His promises!

Have a great morning!

No comments:

Post a Comment