Today’s thought “God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark” (January 04)

Today’s thought
“God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark”

(January 04)

Yesterday we came to read the history of Noah where the Divine Creator gave the people a period of 120 years, in which they could repent of their sinful ways. There we got to see for a first time how God has patience for man and gives them the opportunity to turn their ways. The preaching of Noah, like the preaching today by God-loving people, gave the people on earth the opportunity to turn the tide and thus not fall victim to what God would bring about to mankind, a tremendous flood.

In Genesis chapter 6 we saw that “humankind began to multiply on the face of the ground” and Jehovah God came to see how wickedness of humankind was great on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of men their heart was only evil all the time. It was even so bad that the

Adonai regretted that He made humankind on the earth, and His heart was deeply pained. So Adonai said,

“I will wipe out humankind, whom I have created, from the face of the ground, from humankind to livestock, crawling things and the flying creatures of the sky, because I regret that I made them.” {Genesis 6:6-7Tree of Life Version (TLV)}

God wanted to make a clean sweep: people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds — the works. Yesterday we started to read the story of Noah who was a good man, a man of integrity in his community and who walked with God.
As far as God was concerned, the Earth had become a sewer; there was violence everywhere. God took one look and saw how bad it was, everyone corrupt and corrupting — life itself corrupt to the core. (Genesis 6:11-12)

The animals each according to their kind enter into Noah’s ark

From teakwood Noah had to make a huge ship, 450 feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high. God warned him that He was going to bring a flood on the earth that will destroy everything alive under heaven. Total destruction. For forty days and forty nights the Divine Creator dumped rain on earth. Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters covered the earth. Noah and his wife and sons and their wives boarded the ship to escape the flood. Clean and unclean animals, birds, and all the crawling creatures came in pairs to Noah and to the ship, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. In seven days the floodwaters came.

¹¹In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the sources of the watery depths burst open, the floodgates of the sky were opened, ¹²and the rain fell on the earth 40 days and 40 nights. {Genesis 7:11-12Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)}

We are told that the waters kept rising, the flood deepened on the earth, the ship floated on the surface. The flood got worse until all the highest mountains were covered — the high-water mark reached twenty feet above the crest of the mountains. Nothing out of the ark could stay alive; everything died. Imagine, anything that moved — dead. Birds, farm animals, wild animals, the entire teeming exuberance of life — dead. And all people — dead. Every living, breathing creature that lived on dry land died. Like Jehovah God had warned, the Adonai wiped out the whole works — people and animals, crawling creatures and flying birds, every last one of them, gone. Only Noah and his company on the ship lived.

It was only after 150 days that the worst was over and that God caused the wind to blow and the floodwaters began to go down. On the seventeenth day of the seventh month, the ship landed on the Ararat mountain range. The water kept going down until the tenth month. On the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains came into view. After forty days of patience, Noah opened the window that he had built into the ship, sent out a raven which flew back and forth waiting for the floodwaters to dry up. Then he sent a dove to check on the flood conditions, but it couldn’t even find a place to perch — water still covered the earth. Noah reached out and caught it, brought it back into the ship.

Can you imagine how patient those people in the ark must have been. Such a long time on such a limited space, surrounded all the time with water and not much to see.

Can you imagine yourself living more than a year in a limited space with just a few people and animals, without any radio, television or without any modern gadget? They had to design the entertainment equipment themselves and they had to take care that they could keep each other busy while it was raining outside, while only plain water was visible. They must at least have had a lot of patience and found a way not to get bored.

In the six-hundred-first year of Noah’s life, on the first day of the first month, the flood had dried up. Noah opened the hatch of the ship and saw dry ground. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was completely dry.

¹⁵Then God spoke to Noah,

¹⁶“Come out of the ark, you, your wife, your sons, and your sons’ wives with you. ¹⁷Bring out all the living creatures^{[Lit creatures of all flesh]} that are with you—birds, livestock, those that crawl on the ground — and they will spread over the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” {Genesis 8:15-17Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)}

Listening to God Noah disembarked with his sons and wife and his sons’ wives. Then all the animals, crawling creatures, birds — every creature on the face of the earth — left the ship family by family.

Noah knew what it meant to have survived this worldwide flood. To show his thankfulness to God he built an altar to Jehovah. He selected clean animals and birds from every species and offered them as burnt offerings on the altar. God smelled the sweet fragrance and thought to himself never again to curse the ground because of people, though He knows they have this bent toward evil from an early age.

²¹When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, He said to Himself,

“I will never again curse the ground because of man, even though man’s inclination is evil from his youth. And I will never again strike down every living thing as I have done.

²²As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, and day and night
will not cease.” {Genesis 8:21-22Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)}

From the story of Noah we should remember that God has an eye on His creatures and is willing to save those who are living as it should. Those who walk with God are the ones who shall be saved. Those who stand with their faith.

When knowing that Jehovah God is not inconsistent we should remember that it are the righteous ones who shall find salvation. Repentance and faith are the attributes which are required from man. Like Enoch and Noah had a good relationship with God, (“living with God”) we too have to try to live according God His Wishes and have to build at our relationship with Him.

Today there is an other ark of safety, the one prepared by God His son (Jesus) We have to enter Jesus his vessel so that we shall be in a safe place when the next flood (of fire) comes, so that we shall be in a safe haven when the endtimes shall bring all the horror and destroy the wicked.

Preceding

Today’s thought “A Damaged and Wicked World” (January 03)

The flood, floods and mythic flood stories 3 Mythic theme 2 Hebrew story of the flood

The flood, floods and mythic flood stories 6 European myths

The flood, floods and mythic flood stories 12 Corrupted earth

The flood, floods and mythic flood stories 13 Noah’s ark and the flood

The flood, floods and mythic flood stories 14 Flooding rain stopped

The flood, floods and mythic flood stories 15 A ground never cursed in such way anymore

The flood, floods and mythic flood stories 16 Sign of the Covenant with Noah

Memorizing wonderfully 22 Jealous God not heaving pleasure in the wicked

Being in isolation #5 Isolated Biblical figures and Confessional isolation