Thursday, March 8, 2018
Then God
told Noah and his sons, “I hereby confirm my covenant with you and your
descendants, and with all the animals that were on the boat with you—the
birds, the livestock, and all the wild animals—every living creature on earth. Yes, I am confirming my covenant with you. Never again will floodwaters kill all living
creatures; never again will a flood destroy the earth.” Then God said, “I am giving you a sign of my
covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come. I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and
with all the earth. When I send clouds
over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and I will remember
my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all
life. When I see the rainbow in the
clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living
creature on earth.” Then God said to
Noah, “Yes, this rainbow is the sign of the covenant I am confirming with all
the creatures on earth.” Genesis 9:8-17(NLT)
Noah needed
this! After a year like he’d just had he
needed
a rainbow! The beginning was bad enough;
through years of struggle to build the ark he’d endured the insults of the
whole community referring to him as that crazy old man building a boat the
size of Kansas…and not even a pond nearby. His wife and three sons helped, but, in the
backs of their minds even they must have wondered if the community naysayers
were right; had their father lost it?
Was Noah deranged? And then God
brought all those animals…messy, smelly, loud, and some dangerous. If this was going to be a fun cruise, Mrs.
Noah and the boys didn’t recall seeing anything like that in the
brochures!
And then it
started raining! And God shut them in
the dark ark! And they could hear the
screams, people begging to let them come aboard; and then it was silent.
A year later it
was silent again as they stepped off their floating houseboat onto dry,
uninhabited, silent earth.
Although I cannot
say for certain, my guess is one of two conditions existed:
·
Planet earth was the smelliest place
in the universe with all the corpses of animals and humans rotting everywhere,
the devastation of the mother of all tsunamis worse
than the path of a midwest twister.
·
Planet earth was new and pristine,
God having miraculously restored some order to what man managed to mess-up
since the time of Adam and Eve.
Either way, there
is one thing you couldn’t mistake: once
all those animals, snakes, birds and mosquitoes disembarked the ark and
dispersed into the surrounding mountainous areas, Noah began to take-in just
how very alone he and his family were.
And it was quiet…very quiet.
And at that moment
came the words Noah needed: Never
Again! With that short,
powerful promise God spoke comfort to the whole human race – all 8 people – it
was assurance that God would never again let the floodwaters destroy everything.
You don’t have to
fast-forward very far to see who broke the covenant; Noah laying drunk in his
tent, and his family’s fear and disobedience, evidence that we forget very
quickly…even when God has led us through the worst storms.
We also need those
words, never again. I
believe these are the same words we hear echoing from heaven after the cross,
God having endured the pain of forgiving our sins at the cost of His own dear
son: Never again; this sacrifice is
sufficient and permanent!
These are the
words we hear about our forgiven sins when the enemy tries to bring them up, to
trip us up: Never again; those sins are
under the blood!
These are words we
need from time to time in our walk through a season of Lent; these are the
words we need in our walk through life.
For You Today
Keeping the right
perspective on the promises of God is vital.
When God says never again, His nature and
character have the power to sustain such a promise. We, on the other hand, must remember when we
say never
again, to include: with
God’s help!
You chew on that as you hit the
Rocky Road; have a blessed day.
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