All The Lord Commands

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

ALL THE LORD COMMANDS

Gen 7:1-5

7:1 The LORD then said to Noah, "Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. 2 Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. 4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."

5 And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.

NIV

If anyone ever had any doubt about God speaking to a man, this account must put that doubt in a steel safe and had it dropped in the Challenger Deep in the Marina Trench somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, so it would never be found. God speaks to men, and here he is giving Noah specific instructions. Of course, it had never rained before and this is the second time this Hebrew word, Matar is used. The first time is when God had not caused rain, but a mist would come up each morning to water all plants. Now God speaks of rain to Noah, which is the first time he has heard of it since God told him before he would cause a flood of water. Noah was a man of faith; he did all the LORD commanded him. So he gets his whole family and they go into this ark, all that God commanded him to, and there they waited for seven days for rain. From the genealogies we know Noah has brothers and sisters, and most likely many cousins. We cannot account for whether his father Lamech saw Noah building the Ark, but he may have died before the flood, nevertheless, we would think Noah’s siblings might thought Noah a bit crazy, for spending so much time building this Ark. What must have people thought when they saw all the animals of creation come to Noah in pairs of two so to enter the ark. Just the fact that Noah did all the LORD commanded must have caused all the wicked people, who included his siblings to either make fun of him or simply did not believe he heard God speaking to him, if they even believed that was a God. We wonder what people think of us doing all the LORD commands. Certainly, we can hear the voice of the LORD when he commands us. If we don’t then how do we know what to do, or how to live? Are we just living according to our own ideas of life and simply include faith in God and try to follow some guidelines we find in the bible, and then pick and choose which ones we will follow and which ones we will ignore? Are we living in accordance with what God has commanded, and then as with Noah, to each of us with specific instructions as to what we are to do. These instructions would be different than all others, for just as with Noah, God only gave him those instructions. Therefore, no matter what people may say about us, let us always be ready to hear the voice of God and do all that he commands.