Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
Then the LORD said to Noah, "Come into the ark, you and all your household, because I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this generation.
The gracious invitation of our Lord...come—the gracious gospel invitation: "Come into the ark of safety." The ark is a picture of Christ. The flood depicts judgment. The ark was the only way of salvation. When the flood came, only those who were inside were saved. Those on the outside perished. Christ is our ark. He is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Him. In Him is eternal life...outside of Him is eternal punishment and death.
Noah believed God. He had manifested this belief before God and man by being obedient in the building of the ark and in the preaching of the message of the judgment to come. Noah had done all that God had commanded. God invited him and his family to come in....the idea being that He would be in the ark with them and would keep them safe.
So those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him; and the LORD shut him in.
You know what...I love the mercy God showed Noah here and the mercy He shows us. Our job is to be obedient and leave the results to Him. Scripture tells us that God shut the door. He kept it open as long as possible but in the end it was God who shut the door. Noah was not given the responsibility of anyone's salvation. While the door was open, Noah preached. When it closed, Noah had the comfort of knowing he had been obedient. The saving of souls is not in our hands. The ark for Noah was the place of safety...of salvation. For those that remained on the outside, however, it represented condemnation. Once the door was shut, their doom was sealed. There were no second chances.
Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters subsided....
In judgment God always remembers mercy. David Guzik says this is an anthropomorphism (a non-literal picture of God in human terms we can understand). God never forgot Noah, but at this point God again turned His active attention towards Noah.
I liked what Matthew Henry says here:
"The whole race of mankind, except Noah and his family, were now dead, so that God's remembering Noah, was the return of his mercy to mankind, of whom he would not make a full end. The demands of Divine justice had been answered by the ruin of sinners. God sent his wind to dry the earth, and seal up his waters. The same hand that brings the desolation, must bring the deliverance; to that hand, therefore, we must ever look. When afflictions have done the work for which they are sent, whether killing work or curing work, they will be taken away. As the earth was not drowned in a day, so it was not dried in a day. God usually works deliverance for his people gradually, that the day of small things may not be despised, nor the day of great things despaired of."
Then the ark rested in the seventh month, the seventeenth day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
The passover took place on the fourteenth day of the seventh month on the Jewish calendar....Jesus was in the tomb three days and three nights. He rose from the dead on the seventeenth day of the seventh month on the Jewish calendar. ...the same day the ark rested on Mount Ararat...only 4500 years earlier. Jesus is our rest...He is our peace...He is our new beginning. Such a beautiful picture of God's mercy, grace, love and the sure and certain hope we have in Him.
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”--Matthew 11:28-30
Love
Mom
No comments:
Post a Comment