Noah

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Genesis 9:9 An Established Contract

I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you Genesis 9:9

The term of covenant is not something that is commonly used in today’s society. It is now called a ‘contract’. Contracts are used on a regular basis all over the world by both individuals and groups and businesses.

It is an agreement between two groups as to what can and cannot be done and what is expected of both. Included is also what occurs if something wrong is done according to the contract. It provides protection for both groups that agree to the contract.

After the flood God made a covenant with Noah that would be for all his descendants after him. This would be to never destroy the earth by a flood again.

The contract God made with Noah is one that stands to this day with each and every person that walks on this planet. It is not the only contract that God has made, nor did He make ones only with the whole of mankind, but He makes contracts with individuals.

Although the contract of not flooding the earth is great, there is one that God is willing to make with each and every person that is even greater. Any person who has chosen to believe in Jesus and repent of his sins, is given a new contract with God.

This new contract has things that the individual believer must do or not do and things that God must do, and results of not doing those things. Every believer is expected to begin to leave his life of sin, to flee sin and turn towards God in all that he does.

It breaks the contract when a believer claims to believe, but purposefully continues to live in sin and not repent. He does not love Jesus, if he does not obey Jesus. When he does his part, God will have grace and mercy and do His part of saving the person.

Ask yourself if you have signed the contract with God?

Believe in the work that Jesus did dying on the cross and raising from the dead to take away your sins. Now be willing to repent of your sins and flee all sin. Turn towards God and what He has for you.

God is ready to forgive you and give you life according to the contract, but you must believe and follow Jesus to get it all.

Today I pray that you will know Jesus as your Lord and Savior; that you will be in agreement with God for your life; that you will flee all sin and turn towards God; and that you will trust God with all of your life.

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Genesis 8:1 God Remembers You

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded. Genesis 8:1

Being remembered is something that most people like. No one likes it when they go up to someone that they know and the person does not remember them.

Not being remembered will often give a person a sense of worthlessness or no value. Many people fall into great depression because they feel that no one remembers them or recognizes them as a person.

After being on being on the ark, in a storm, for forty days, as the earth was flooded, God remembered Noah and all the animals with him. God then began to dry up the earth and remove the flooded water.

One of the greatest feelings that a person feels when going through a bad situation is that he is all alone, and no one remembers him. Often it is the feeling that no one else knows or understands what he is going through.

Some believers tend to feel this way. They feel as though God has forgotten them and is out helping someone else. All that can be seen and felt is the tough situation that is in their immediate world.

God never leaves a person completely alone. He never leaves or forsakes a person, even when in the most difficult of times. However, He does allow trials and tribulations to come into one’s life that may appear as though He abandoned him.

Once the trial has done its work, God remembers the person and sets things right again. It may not be back to what it was, but it is in a new place on the journey of life towards heaven. The believer needs to trust God through the trial in life and know that God remembers him.

At some point you will have a flood of trials and tribulations in your life that may appear to go for forty days and nights. Do not lose hope in God. He will not abandon or forsake you.

Lean on the promises of God, knowing that He loves you and works all things for your good. You are not forgotten by God but are being held in the palm of His hand, being conformed into the image of Jesus through these trials and tribulations.

Today I pray that you will know Jesus as your Lord and Savior; that you will know God’s promises to you; that you will know God’s presence in your life each day; that you will trust God’s work in your life; and that God will strengthen you during every trail that comes your way.

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Genesis 7:5 Do What God Tells You To Do

And Noah did all that the Lord commanded him. Genesis 7:5

Every person on the earth has someone who is over him that he needs to obey. It begins with little children needing to obey their parents, going all the way up through adults needing to obey their bosses and those in authority.

While most people generally obey all of the laws, there are also many who refuse to obey everything. They will purposefully push the limits of the law, trying to get away with as much as possible. A few will openly rebel against all authority.

God had asked Noah to something crazy and Noah obeyed God in everything that He commanded.

It is very easy to obey someone when it is completely understood what was commanded, why it was commanded and the full results of obedience. In these cases, trust in self-knowledge is attained, giving the drive to be obedient.

Obedience is much more difficult when the reason for doing something is not fully understood or believed.

It had never rained before on the earth, nor had it ever flooded, so the concept of flooding and total destruction was foreign to Noah. He had to trust God in order to be fully obedient in what God commanded him to do.

Following God and obeying Him may not always appear to be the most sensible thing to do in the eyes of the world. Things will be commanded to do that go against all human logic and understanding.

As the believer chooses to obey God and do what He says, he may be the one who brings salvation to the entire world. Most believers will not be used in such a great way, but God will use each one to touch lives around them in great ways. Obedience will build God’s kingdom.

God may be asking you to do something that appears to be insane or at least out of the ordinary. Instead of questioning God and refusing to obey, choose to obey God. Trust that God knows what He is asking of you to do is the best thing to be done.

Take a step of faith and obey God. See what God can do in and through you to touch the world. It may be that because of your obedience whole cities or nations may come to the Lord and be saved. At a minimum it shows your love for and trust in God.

Today I pray that you will know Jesus as your Lord and Savior; that you will trust God’s commands to you; that you will obey God’s commands to you; that you will not fear obeying God; and that God’s kingdom will be built greater through your obedience.

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Genesis 6:13 Destruction Will Come

So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. I am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.” Genesis 6:13

Living on this earth, the majority of people believe they can live as they want and there will be no consequences. Very few people live in a way of being aware of the consequences of their actions. Living in the moment for self pleasure is all that counts.

In Genesis, mankind had grown corrupt and was living in extreme sin and violence on the earth. God tells Noah that He is going to destroy the earth and all the people.

The majority of people around the world are familiar with the story of Noah and the flood. Most do not believe that is actually occurred, but that it is a made-up story.

Since the majority of people do not believe it happened, they also believe that they can live however they choose to live. There are no absolute standards to live by.

As a result of this type of thinking, the world is getting more and more corrupt. There are things that are being allowed and promoted more and more all the time. Nations that were once known as being ‘Christian’ are no longer Christian as a whole. Sin and violence are spreading like a rapid, raging fire across the lands. God is being rejected and believers are being persecuted.

It appears as if God will never do anything, and that the world is winning. Yet, there is coming a day when Jesus will return and destroy this world and all that are in it that are disobeying God. Judgment is coming for all who do not follow Jesus.

God loves you and does not want to have to destroy you when Jesus returns. He sent Jesus to pay for your sins and make you right before God. This was done so that you can have eternal life with Him in heaven.

Choose today to repent and turn from all of your sins and follow God with all of your heart. If you do not do so, then when you die or when Jesus returns you will be included in the destruction for eternity in hell.

Although it looks as if the world is winning, God will win in the end and destroy all sin and this earth. Will you be destroyed?

Today I pray that you will know Jesus as your Lord and Savior; that God will strengthen you to turn from all sin; that you will live your life serving and obeying God; that God will not have to destroy you in the end; and that you will tell others about Jesus returning someday.

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Noah: Building By Faith

Noah ark

By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that is in keeping with faith. Hebrews 11:7

This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Genesis 6:9 

Noah is the first among many of the men and women of great faith that are recorded in the Bible. His story begins in Genesis 6 and ends in Genesis 9. He is probably one of the more famous or well known people in the bible. There are very few people, churched and unchurched, who have not heard of Noah.

Recently there has been a movie made about Noah and his ark. I have not seen it, so I cannot answer to how accurate it may or may not be. However, this shows that there is some knowledge of Noah to most of the world.

During the time of Noah people had become so corrupt and refusing to follow God, that God chose to destroy all of mankind from the face of the earth. God was choosing to do something that was completely unheard of up until that time. He was going to cause the world to be flooded. The process of this flooding was to be done by rains and water coming up from the ground.

Until this time, rain had never fallen on the earth. The ground was watered by dew and springs in the earth. It was a new concept.

Noah had been faithfully walking with God. He lived his life according to God’s commands and always did what God had said to do. Because of this, God chose to save him, his family and the animals from the flooding.

The process of saving Noah would be by an ark–a very large boat. God gave him the directions on how to build the ark and what size it would be. Immediately Noah began to build the ark and it took him about one hundred years to complete it.

Now think about this for a moment. Think about what God has told Noah and what Noah had to do.

Earth destroyed

First: God said He would destroy all mankind. Wait a minute! Doesn’t God love man? Didn’t He create man to populate the earth? Why would God do this?

This took faith on Noah’s part. It went against everything that he knew about God up to this point. He had to trust that he had heard God correctly in what He had said. Noah had to believe that God would actually destroy the entire world in order for him to take the next step and actually build the ark. He trusted God’s word to him.

There may be times when God speaks to you about something that is new or different from anything else. You have to know that you have heard from God. Match it up against the word of God and see if it lines up with what God has recorded in His word. Then trust the word of God and act upon it. Do what God says to do. This is faith in action.

High water flood

Second: What is a flood? What is rain?

As long as Noah had already lived, he had never seen rain. Having never seen rain, there had never been a flood either. Yet, God was saying this was going to happen.

God was about to break the ‘rules’ of science. It had never rained, but now it would happen. God is the God of the universe, which means He can control the weather. Along with controlling the weather, He can control things in your life. He can break the ‘rules’ of science to accomplish what He needs done.

Remember that all the ‘rules’ are man-made. God did put them in place. Man is constantly learning new things. What were rules at one time, according to science, is now wrong. God can overcome the things of this world.

Trust that God is in control as Noah did and can make new things happen that have never occurred before. This is faith!

Lumber pile

Last: It took nearly 100 years to build the ark. Where did Noah get the materials from? Who paid for it? Who did the work? Why did it take so long to build? Did Noah get discouraged?

Take a moment now to think about what Noah had to do. How big was this project that God had given him to do? Think about how long it would take to get the materials to build a boat that is several hundred feet long and very tall. Then how long it would take to assemble it. Especially in a time of manual labor. There were no machines or factories. There were no automated robots to do the building. There were no computers to generate the details of how to build the boat.

Many people have visions and dreams to accomplish something great. They begin to work on it, but run into problems or it takes a long time to accomplish. As they continually hit problems or it takes too long, many give up on their dream. When they keep running into walls or barriers, they quit out of failure and give up. 

Along with those that start and never finish, there are many who never start because all they can see are the problems or challenges. They cannot see how to make the dream possible.

Believers sometimes run into this problem also. They get a vision from God for something. They don’t know how it is possible, forgetting that God is the God of impossibilities. He makes the impossible possible.

This is what faith is. It is believing that you heard what you heard God said would be possible. It is not giving up when things get tough. It is not turning down a different road when you do not understand the path. It is going forward when it does not make any sense to move forward. It is doing things that the world will ridicule and not understand. It is doing things that even many in the church will not understand or believe.

This is faith in God.