Good morning, all!
Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives." (verses 15-16)
Yesterday we talked about the patience of Noah as he waited for God to tell him is was time to come out of the ark. Anyone who has been on a long car ride with children knows how anxious everyone is to reach their destination after being cooped up together for hours in a car. Siblings have been poking and bugging each other and whining, "Mom, make Bobby stop touching me!" or "Mom, Susie's copying me!" Everyone wants out! Well, the sons of Noah were grown and married, so I doubt they had been bugging each other in quite that way, but I would not be surprised if there had been some wrangling over other issues: "Hey, Shem, it's your turn to clean the elephant pen! I did it yesterday!" or "Dad, tell Ham to get over here and help with the cows!" Possibly there were some issues between their wives. It would be nearly impossible for four women to be together for all that time without some hurt feelings! They had been closed in there together for a LONG time! At any rate, the time had finally come for them to leave the ark! Yippee! Party time! What would they do first? They worshiped God!
Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. (verse 20)
Jon Courson says that all that time in the ark had "altared" Noah, so the first thing he did was build an altar to worship God. There are many things he could have done: he could have partied, or he could have gotten busy building a shelter, or he could have taken a hike to scout things out and get a lay of the land. Instead, even though he had many tasks ahead of him, he took the time to thank God and offer sacrifices of worship. There will always be much to do until the day we die. We will never run out of reasons why we're too busy to go to church or to take time for prayer and Bible study. It's a matter of attitude and priorities. Believe me, after having been saved from the utter destruction that had just taken place, Noah and his family had enormous reasons for gratitude. I believe that they were in such awe of what God had done that they probably fell to their knees the minute they got off that boat!
Courson points out that Jesus said (in a response to Satan at the temptation in the wilderness, Matt 4:10), "Worship the LORD your God, and serve him only." Courson tells us to note the order. Worship comes before service. In fact, worship IS our highest service. Worship blesses God and it encourages us. Look at God's response to Noah's sacrifice of worship:
The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” [Are you singing "Great is Thy Faithfulness" yet? :) ]
The flood had not wiped out the evil inclination of our sinful hearts. But the sweet-smelling sacrifice of Noah's offering covered over the stench. In the same way, Jesus' sacrifice covers over our sin, and God looks on us with favor because of it.
There is so much more to say! We can never thank Him enough for all of the ways in which He has saved us - not just from Hell, but from bad relationships, horrid decisions, devastating health problems, financial disasters... He is so good!
Have a great weekend!
Showing posts with label Genesis 8. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Genesis 8. Show all posts
Friday, February 11, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Genesis 8:1-15
Good morning, all!
The first verse of chapter 8 is wonderful! But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark... These verses that start with conjunctions are interesting. I had a friend who once studied all of the "buts" of the Bible, because they always indicate some kind of contrast. This "but" refers us back to the complete destruction and the fact that the flood lasted so long. So, while Noah and his family and the animals were floating along in the darkness of the ark, not knowing what was happening outside of the ark (they had no Internet or Fox News Alerts), God had never forgotten them. He had been thinking of them constantly (Psalm 139: 17-18). Jon Courson writes in his commentary here that in times of darkness, when we feel like God is silent, we need to trust in the fact that He sees and remembers us - and WE need to remember that, even if He seems silent now, "He spoke loudly and clearly for all eternity when He laid down His life for me."
What really struck me this morning as I read this section was the fact that Noah so completely waited on God! Look at the slow process of waiting while the earth was drying out. Verses 3-5 say:
The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.
Just reading these verses makes me antsy. Verse 6 says he waited another 40 days and sent forth first a raven, then the first dove. No luck. He waited seven more days, then sent out the dove that had the olive branch, our symbol of peace ever since. I'm imagining by this time they all were soooooo wanting off that boat! But look at verses 12-14:
He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
So, Noah and his family ran skipping an jumping out of the ark, right? No! Oh my goodness! He WAITED! It's not until verses 15 & 16 that we finally read, Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives."
AMAZING!!! We always hear about the patience of Job, but I'm flabbergasted by the patience of Noah here. What an example to us of complete obedience and trust! He did not take a step out of that ark until the LORD called Him out! How often do we mess things up by running ahead of God??? God's timing is certainly not ours, His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. God is God and we are not! He could have sent any number of judgments to destroy the earth within seconds, yet He took what seems to be a very long time to accomplish this one. God had a reason for keeping Noah and His family in that ark for so long. God was doing something in them. He needed to make sure that they learned to trust in Him alone, because He was starting over with mankind. Noah and his family would be the ones to lead. Oh, that we would trust Him in our dark times; that we would wait patiently for His call; that we would allow Him to do the work He wants to do in us for His purposes in HIS time.
I will never again look at a picture of Noah and the ark, with the two giraffes sticking their heads out of the window, in the same way again! :)
Love you all!
The first verse of chapter 8 is wonderful! But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark... These verses that start with conjunctions are interesting. I had a friend who once studied all of the "buts" of the Bible, because they always indicate some kind of contrast. This "but" refers us back to the complete destruction and the fact that the flood lasted so long. So, while Noah and his family and the animals were floating along in the darkness of the ark, not knowing what was happening outside of the ark (they had no Internet or Fox News Alerts), God had never forgotten them. He had been thinking of them constantly (Psalm 139: 17-18). Jon Courson writes in his commentary here that in times of darkness, when we feel like God is silent, we need to trust in the fact that He sees and remembers us - and WE need to remember that, even if He seems silent now, "He spoke loudly and clearly for all eternity when He laid down His life for me."
What really struck me this morning as I read this section was the fact that Noah so completely waited on God! Look at the slow process of waiting while the earth was drying out. Verses 3-5 say:
The water receded steadily from the earth. At the end of the hundred and fifty days the water had gone down, and on the seventeenth day of the seventh month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. The waters continued to recede until the tenth month, and on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains became visible.
Just reading these verses makes me antsy. Verse 6 says he waited another 40 days and sent forth first a raven, then the first dove. No luck. He waited seven more days, then sent out the dove that had the olive branch, our symbol of peace ever since. I'm imagining by this time they all were soooooo wanting off that boat! But look at verses 12-14:
He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. By the first day of the first month of Noah’s six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry.
So, Noah and his family ran skipping an jumping out of the ark, right? No! Oh my goodness! He WAITED! It's not until verses 15 & 16 that we finally read, Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives."
AMAZING!!! We always hear about the patience of Job, but I'm flabbergasted by the patience of Noah here. What an example to us of complete obedience and trust! He did not take a step out of that ark until the LORD called Him out! How often do we mess things up by running ahead of God??? God's timing is certainly not ours, His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts. God is God and we are not! He could have sent any number of judgments to destroy the earth within seconds, yet He took what seems to be a very long time to accomplish this one. God had a reason for keeping Noah and His family in that ark for so long. God was doing something in them. He needed to make sure that they learned to trust in Him alone, because He was starting over with mankind. Noah and his family would be the ones to lead. Oh, that we would trust Him in our dark times; that we would wait patiently for His call; that we would allow Him to do the work He wants to do in us for His purposes in HIS time.
I will never again look at a picture of Noah and the ark, with the two giraffes sticking their heads out of the window, in the same way again! :)
Love you all!
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