Live or Perish

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

LIVE OR PERISH

Gen 7:17-24

17 For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. 18 The waters rose and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the surface of the water. 19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. 20 The waters rose and covered the mountains to a depth of more than twenty feet.     21 Every living thing that moved on the earth perished — birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and all mankind. 22 Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died. 23 Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; men and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of the air were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. 24 The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

NIV

Although it seems the fact that everything that had the breath of life perished is repeated, God wants us to know exactly what he caused to happen. Forty solid days and nights of heavy rain constantly pouring out of the sky would certainly cause flooding. We think of the foolish thinking of some people today who think the ocean level is rising an inch because of climate change melting the icebergs. God caused the oceans to rise to cover the highest mountains in the world. That was a change in the climate of the whole earth that wiped out all living beings.  What we cannot imagine is the horror people must have gone through as they tried to climb to higher ground to escape the flooding. Then they were in competition with the animals stampeding to higher ground. But no matter how much people tried to live, they failed and perished. This could be the greatest life lesson of all time. When people turn their backs on God and the inclination of their hearts is evil all the time, no matter if they have the breath of life in them, they will perish. It is not the will of God, for he would desire that none would perish but that all would be saved through his provision of Jesus Christ on the cross. However, the fact remains when people live without accepting God’s grace, Jesus, they are living only as people whose heart is bent toward self, and the greatness of mankind and its power over the earth, which in the terms of God, is evil. We know there are only two choices a person can make, life or perish. Noah found favor with God he lived, while all others chose self and perished. Praise his holy name, he sent the Spirit, and he broke through our stubborn hearts, melting them so we could see the truth of God, and accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior and so we have found favor with God and we will live. It is sad that one day, another cause of God will happen and this earth and all who refuse God, thus refuse Jesus, will once again perish. Anyone can find favor with God and live because of Jesus. Should we not share the good news?

 

 

God's Power and Control

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

GOD’S POWER AND CONTROL

Gen 7:6-16

6 Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. 8 Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, 9 male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah. 10 And after the seven days the floodwaters came on the earth. 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month — on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On that very day Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, together with his wife and the wives of his three sons, entered the ark. 14 They had with them every wild animal according to its kind, all livestock according to their kinds, every creature that moves along the ground according to its kind and every bird according to its kind, everything with wings. 15 Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark. 16 The animals going in were male and female of every living thing, as God had commanded Noah. Then the LORD shut him in.

NIV

We should have taken these phrases in pieces, and yet it is one story, perhaps told to us in a couple of different ways. We do not know exactly how long it took to build the ark. We know that it was not until Noah was five hundred years old that he had those three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now he was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came onto the earth. The three sons had to grow old enough to marry before the beginning of the construction of the ark. God told Noah to build it and he and his wife and his three sons and their wives were to enter it. Still, we have to remember it took hundreds of years to build and to build it so solidly to be able to withstand the floodwaters for forty days and forty nights. Two keys to this narrative bring it home for us. First, it was God who caused the flood, as it is God who has all the power over all the earth. He is the one who opened up the deep on a specific day of His choice. It was the seventeenth day of the second month. This means the earth and the atmosphere are under the absolute power of God. He caused the flood, and we will see that he caused the rain to stop, and the flood waters to recede. There is this foolish thinking today that man can affect the earth, the waters, and the atmosphere. This absurd thinking has gone so far, for example, some think we caused a hole in the ozone layer. The truth is God created the ozone layer to be from eight to fifteen thousand feet thick and it is gas, just like the air we breathe. A hole cannot exist in the air, nor the ozone. Man cannot conceive that God has absolute power over all the earth, the land, water, and the atmosphere. Let us always be thankful to our Lord for all he does to sustain our lives and this earth until the day he has decided to make a new creation, a new earth, and heaven. Secondly, we notice that God shut him in the ark, God closed and sealed the door, first so no one could open it from the outside, or from the inside. This brings us to the fact God has absolute power and authority over all creation, which includes all people. Once again, if we think we are the captain of our own ship, being able to determine our own destiny, again, it is nothing more than foolish thinking. Yes, Noah found favor with God in the middle of a corrupt world. Yet it was God who decided everything and the destiny of all mankind. Let us always be, first, living so we find favor with God, that is live or remain in Jesus, which God has decided the destiny or the destination of all who do live in Christ. Second, let us always be aware of the voice of God so that we know that God has shut us in, clothed us with his righteousness, and is and will continue to keep us from the harm he is going to bring once upon this earth, however, this time it will be by fire. God has everything under his command. 

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. 

The Ark and the Cross

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

THE ARK AND THE CROSS

Gen 6:9-22

 

9 This is the account of Noah.

Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth. 11 Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. 12 God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. 13 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. 14 So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 This is how you are to build it: The ark is to be 450 feet long, 75 feet wide and 45 feet high.   16 Make a roof for it and finish the ark to within 18 inches of the top. Put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. 17 I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. 18 But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark — you and your sons and your wife and your sons' wives with you. 19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."

22 Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

NIV

We are told in very detail this account of Noah and the building of the ark in exactly the way God instructed him. We also know from previous verses that after Noah was 500 years old he had three sons. We would think by the time God told Noah to build this ark, his sons were at least in their twenties or old enough to help in the construction. This was a big undertaking, and it took years and years, and a lot of lumber had to be hand-cut from thousands of trees. We also are not told where or how Noah found or made a pitch. However, here is the most interesting truth in this whole account. We should note that Noah did everything just as God commanded him. This serves as an example that we should live by, doing everything the Lord commands. But back to this most excellent truth. The Hebrew word translated as pitch is kaphar. Its most direct meaning is to cover, to purge, also to make an atonement, to reconciliation, to cover over with pitch. We have always seen the ark as the prime example of the cross. All who were in the ark, Noah and his three sons, and their wives, eight people in all, were saved from the destruction of all life on this earth because it was filled with corruption and violence, basically, sin. The Ark was made from the tree, and it was covered with the atonement for sin, the safety of God. Jesus hung on the tree to make be an atonement for all our sins. There is no coincidence between the ark of safety and the cross of safety. Those in that ark were saved, and those who are in the cross of Jesus are saved from the same thing, the destruction of all life that is filled with corruption and violence or filled with sin. How grateful we are that God was able to get through to us and bring us to the cross and show us salvation. We do wonder, for we are not told if the same wood that Noah used to build the ark of safety for his family was what was used to build the cross. We think that would be just like God to do something like that. Nevertheless, here we are in the cross that is covered with atonement for our sins. We live in this safety knowing that when God takes aim on this earth the next time it will be consumed by fire, and all life that is not in the cross will perish. Thank you, Lord, for the truth that you have revealed to us and we entered the cross of life. It is also noteworthy to see that Noah was a righteous man and blameless and he walked with God. As we are now in the cross of Jesus, we also are righteous and blameless in the eyes of God, and hopefully, God can say that we walk with him. This is the story of the ark and the cross. 

Evil or Favor

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

EVIL OR FAVOR

Gen 6:5-8

5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth — men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air — for I am grieved that I have made them." 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

NIV

How sad that man grieved the heart of God. We cannot imagine what the world was like when all of mankind had become so wicked that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was evil all the time. This would have meant no one ever had a good thought. This would have meant everyone was always thinking only about satisfying their own desires and those desires being evil, their own agendas, never being concerned about others. We wonder if it was a culture of murder and chaos, sort of like what it was thought the period of the Wild West was like, where every man carried a gun and life was cheap, or that time of the gold rush, where every man was for himself. We wonder what it really was like during the inquisitions. There have been periods throughout the history of man after the flood, that surely must have grieved the heart of God, and yet he did wipe them off the face of the earth. The evil had to have been so extreme, and so intense, that mankind was worse than it had ever been after the flood. We know evil still exists in the world today and as we do not know the heart of others we cannot know if every inclination of someone’s heart is always evil. Surely, we have some good thoughts too. When we examine our own hearts, we know that good thoughts are in our hearts, at least most of the time, for we are not always thinking of something evil. We also are living in a period of God’s grace. Because He sent Jesus to be that grace, and now he has given each person on earth the choice of whether they want life, or to perish. Because, we have chosen life, accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we have life, but that still does not mean that we never ever have an evil thought. We are not as pure as we will be someday, but at least we can be assured God is not going to wipe all mankind from the face of their earth again. But, what about those thoughts of ours? How do we handle it when jealousy, greed, pride, anger, hurt feelings, envy, or some other selfish thoughts creep into our minds? We have to go to Jesus. Hopefully, we do not grieve God with our lives now that we are in Christ. Prayerfully, we seek the wisdom of the Spirit, and the desire to live rightly before our Lord, yet without the ability to achieve this perfect state, we still have some thoughts that are not righteous, which would have to be considered evil. Praise God, we are living in his grace, and not in a world that existed before the flood, yet there was one man who found the favor of God. This gives us the knowledge that no matter how evil the world becomes, we can find the favor of God because we are in Christ.

                                                                                                                            

Sons of God

 DEVOTION

Sons of God

Gen 6:1-4

6:1 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years." 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days — and also afterward — when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

NIV

Some confusion and misunderstanding accompany these verses, and we hope we see the truth here. Our scholars of old give us some clues, but they are not all in agreement and so we must seek the guidance of the Spirit to gain some clarity. This phrase, “the sons of God” is at the core of one issue that we need to understand. We find there were two general people groups, those who were the descendants of Cain, and those who were the descendants of Seth. We know the Canaanites, as the latter were called were not of moral character as evil was growing in the land. However, the descendants of Seth may still have called on the name of the Lord, being of a more moral character. However, they intermarried with women of the descendants of Cain because they could. We also find as we look into the Hebrew that the Nephilim were simply great warriors, men of strength, the Hebrew does not refer in any sense as men of God, as angels, but more as sons of God, in the sense they were men who still called upon the name of the Lord, these warrior class of men fathered heroes, mighty men of renown. However, the real issue is when God said his "Spirit will not contend with man forever for, he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years”. This is not how many years we might expect to live now, but if our counting is accurate, this is the number of years from the time he told Noah to start the ark to the time of the flood. We also know that all that time Noah warned the people, but to no avail. We wonder how many times people have been warned to include up to and including our lifetime with no success. The question that now is before us, because we are sons of God, men or people of renown, who call upon the name of the Lord, is whether we have warned anyone regarding the next coming doom to this world. We wonder if we have become stuck within the walls of our church and are not reaching out into the world with our warning. Are we simply building our own ark from the wood of the cross, so to speak, making sure we are saved from our sins, and not voicing any warning to those outside the cross. Just a thought, not a condemnation. Yet, we cannot escape that feeling we are missing something. We wonder if we should not be more like those heroes of old, and go forth and conquer the land, warning the people of their pending doom. On the other hand, although God said his Spirit would not contend with man, and the flood came, we now live in a period of grace, with the Spirit of God not only contending with us but dwelling within us. Let us see what is coming, and maybe, just maybe we might warn a few people, after all, we are sons of God. 

Is That Possible?

 DEVOTION

IS THAT POSSIBLE?

Gen 5

5:1 This is the written account of Adam's line.

When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 He created them male and female and blessed them. And when they were created, he called them "man." 3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth. 4 After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 5 Altogether, Adam lived 930 years, and then he died. 6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh. 7 And after he became the father of Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had other sons and daughters. 8 Altogether, Seth lived 912 years, and then he died. 9 When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan. 10 And after he became the father of Kenan, Enosh lived 815 years and had other sons and daughters. 11 Altogether, Enosh lived 905 years, and then he died. 12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel. 13 And after he became the father of Mahalalel, Kenan lived 840 years and had other sons and daughters. 14 Altogether, Kenan lived 910 years, and then he died. 15 When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared. 16 And after he became the father of Jared, Mahalalel lived 830 years and had other sons and daughters. 17 Altogether, Mahalalel lived 895 years, and then he died. 18 When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch. 19 And after he became the father of Enoch, Jared lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 Altogether, Jared lived 962 years, and then he died. 21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah. 22 And after he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Altogether, Enoch lived 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. 25 When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech. 26 And after he became the father of Lamech, Methuselah lived 782 years and had other sons and daughters. 27 Altogether, Methuselah lived 969 years, and then he died. 28 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son. 29 He named him Noah and said, "He will comfort us in the labor and painful toil of our hands caused by the ground the LORD has cursed." 30 After Noah was born, Lamech lived 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31 Altogether, Lamech lived 777 years, and then he died. 32 After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham and Japheth.

NIV

This is the lineage from Adam to Noah, and what has this to do with anything that will instruct, teach, correct, or train us in righteousness. Of course, we could spend some more time on the fact that we are in the same likeness as Adam the first man, and so we are in the likeness of God, or we bear the image of God and we should be therefore living as image bearers, representing God. Then as we work through all this line of men we come to Enoch and we see a testimony of a man who walked with God, and then he was no more because God took him away. Two truths are revealed to us here. First, Enoch walked with God. The Hebrew word translated as walked has a more direct meaning of nearness, among, or with and this gives us a clue as to how it would be good for us to walk. Maybe if we formed it as a question, we would have to answer. Do we walk with God? What does it mean to walk with, near, among God? Perhaps we should add the second truth that might muddy the waters for us. As or because Enoch walked with God, he was no more for God took him away. Again, looking to the Hebrew we find this word no more meaning to not exist, to be nothing, a non-entity. This means Enoch did not die, he was not buried somewhere for he simply disappeared from the earth when he was alive, for God took him away. We are not sure we can even wrap our heads around the idea of being so close to God that someday God would just take us away, that we would not die, or have to go through that process before entering his presence. Jesus told us that because we believe in him, we will live even though we die and that whoever lives and believes in him will never die. Then Jesus asks the question, “Do you believe this?” We have the evidence of Enoch as a man who walked with God and was no more because he lived and believed and he did not die, for God simply took him away. How wonderful it would be for God to just take us away, but then the key here is that we must first walk with God. This takes us back to the question as to what exactly does walk with God look like? Secondly, we think we have many more distractions in life than Enoch did, however, is that an excuse for not walking with God? Enoch did live 365 years and had at 65 fathered Methuselah who was the man who lived longer than any other and Enoch had other sons and daughters throughout the rest of his 300 years before God took him. This means we still have the chance that we will not die, but that God will take us, we will no longer exist as an entity, but just gone. That sort of is similar to what we call the rapture, but it isn’t anything like it, as we just disappear, God takes us away. But first, we must walk with him as Enoch did. Is that possible?