Multiply

DEVOTION

GENESIS

MULTIPLY

Gen 8:13-19

13 By the first day of the first month of Noah's six hundred and first year, the water had dried up from the earth. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry. 14 By the twenty-seventh day of the second month the earth was completely dry. 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 "Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 17 Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you — the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground — so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number upon it." 18 So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives. 19 All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds — everything that moves on the earth — came out of the ark, one kind after another.

NIV

Here we are at the moment God tells Noah it is safe to leave the ark and go about increasing in number, both the people and the animals. One of the questions which we have no absolute answer for is about the covering on the ark. Was the roof not made of wood? He had a window, but there must not have been an upper deck open to walk upon. What was the covering made of that Noah could remove it in order to observe the surrounding area? It had to have been solid enough to weather forty days and nights of constant rain. Yet he was able to remove it. But even though he saw the earth was completely dry he did not make the move to leave until he heard from God. So God tells him, everybody out, and so a new beginning for all of mankind. There is a difference, however then the very first beginning. Adam was created in the resemblance of God, pure and holy, blameless, yet he disobeyed. Here we have Noah, who is now the father of all who will be born after him. A man who has the knowledge of good and evil before like what Adam did, but a man who found favor in the eyes of God. God had declared that Noah was righteous or just in his generation, which is the reason he was selected to build the ark and be the one who would father the rest of mankind. Noah had made the right choices in life, he had determined not to be like the rest of the society he lived among. We are going to see a different type of world in which Noah and his sons and their wives are going to multiply and refill the earth. But it will be filled with people who know the difference between good and evil. Those who come after Noah will have to make the choice that Noah made to live differently than those of their generation. Noah was chosen because of the choice he had made. We are chosen because of the choice we make. When all others perished, Noah was saved to start a new life in a new world. We too, because of the choice we made, will be saved to start a new life in a whole new world someday. As Noah was in the ark, we are in the cross, the safety of Jesus Christ. Someday God will say it is time to come out and begin our new life in the new world, the new place Christ has prepared for us. Of course this could also mean as we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are not only saved, but we have already begun a new life in him, we are already citizens of the kingdom of God rather than of this world. This new life Noah was to begin could very well represent the new life we begin when we enter the safety of the cross, when we are covered or flooded by the blood of Jesus. We have been allowed, not to leave the cross, but to live in this world but not of the world, but of the cross. Unlike Noah we are to remain in the ark, the cross, but also we are to live upon the earth and multiply, bringing forth more of our kind. This brings us to the question. What is our kind? Are we just to have children and let them be whoever they desire to be? Or are we to raise our children in the ways of God? If we are the kind who find favor in the eyes of God then should we not have offspring who find favor in the eyes of God? Yet it would seem we, at some degree, do not control the mind or heart of our children. They must each make that choice for themselves, but we certainly should make every effort to influence their choice. That would be truly multiplying after our own kind. As we or the animals cannot multiply being passive, but must be proactive in the physical sense, we also cannot multiply in the spiritual sense being passive. We need to be proactive in bringing more people to the kingdom of God, both with our own children and those who we live among. This is true evangelism at its finest. We must multiply and be fruitful. Yes, we must be fruitful, bearing much fruit. This surely could mean that as we multiply more after our own kind, those who love the Lord, we are being the fruit of the Spirit. The point is of course we should be bringing forth more of our kind, the kind of people who have made the choice to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and thus found favor in the eyes of God. Let us continue to multiply