Today's Scripture
Genesis 6:5-9:29
As I read this scripture, I first thought about how God hates sin and punishes harshly. In the Old Testament, He did this in this life. Thank God for Jesus because I would have been washed away in the flood! I thought about the movie Evan Almighty. The dimensions of the ark make it a daunting task to build in private and could you imagine the amounts of faith required to take on a task such as that! I mean, the ridicule of your peers could be enough to slow you down, but Noah kept on. He worked hard, built the ark. I mean he was so faithful and obedient, but such was his character as one righteous man, blameless among men.
Noah did everything that God told him to do and then it started raining. Now, lets be clear that this was a long ordeal for Noah. So much more than the 30 days we usually talk about when we recount the story of Noah and the flood! First, he had to build the ark. Second, he had to gather the animals. Then they waited on the ship for about a week before it started raining. ONLY THEN DID IT RAIN FOR FORTY DAYS AND FORTY NIGHTS! And it's still not over!
Now the rain has stopped and the earth is flooded. Flooded! Can't get off the boat in 20 feet of water, now can we? After 150 days, God remembered! He remembered His covenant with Noah. And blew a breath so that the waters would recede. But this took nearly half a year-- 150 days. And that is just when the mountaintops became visible. After 40 more days, Noah sent out that raven and it just flew back and forth and back and forth until the water dried up. Then, Noah sent out the dove that we all know about. Nothing! So a week later, he sent the dove back out and he brought back the olive branch we know about, but still the water was too high to leave the boat. A week later, when Noah sent out the dove, it stayed gone. So Noah opened up the top of the ark. But he still waited for God's word that it was ok to leave the ark.
So how long did all this take? Genesis 6:11 says, "In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." And Genesis 8:13-14 says, "13 And it came to pass in the six hundredth and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, the waters were dried up from off the earth: and Noah removed the covering of the ark, and looked, and, behold, the face of the ground was dry. 14 And in the second month, on the seven and twentieth day of the month, was the earth dried."
Noah was on that boat for just over a year! Would you have had the faith to build the ark? Would your faith have been steadfast as you were hold up on that ark with no sign of dry land even after the 40 days you had discussed with God? Would you have been as grateful as Noah to build an alter after all that? I don't know if I would. I like to think that I would, but I think I would have been a bit ticked off.
But after all of that, God promised to never destroy the earth like that again. And good thing for us too! Look at this mess. We need to be reminded of God' mercy every time we see a rainbow and thank Him and ask for forgiveness. (I mean, sinners can never stop asking for forgiveness.). We could even take this a step further and do the same when it rains for rain precedes rainbows.
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