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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him.
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. By the twenty-seventh day of the second month, the earth was completely dry.
Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 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 on it.”
So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.
The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart:
“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
Genesis 8:12-22
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
In the opening verses of Genesis, chapter 8, we saw where the flood waters began to recede from the earth, an event that wasn’t a fast process.
First, the waters dropped below the mountain tops, allowing Noah’s ark to come to rest “on the mountains of Ararat (v.5). There was then a long period of time before Noah could check to see if it was safe to exit the ark and return to the earth safely.
How long?
Well, we know that Noah was 600 years old when “the floodwaters came on the earth” (Genesis 7:6) and as we see in today’s passage, he was in the first month of his 601st year when the water had finally “dried up from the earth”. We read where he sent the same dove out who had returned to the ark with an olive leaf seven days earlier, a sign that life had once again begun coming to life on the earth, but this time it “did not return to him”.
And so knowing it was now safe for everyone and everything to soon exit the ark, Noah “removed the covering” and indeed “saw that the surface of the ground was dry”. The scriptures tell us that “the earth” became “completely dry” by the “twenty-seventh day of the second month”.
It was at that time that we read where God gave the following command to Noah:
“Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. 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 on it.”
It’s important to note that it was God who appointed the time for Noah, his family, and all the prescribed living creatures to enter the ark and then appointed the time for them to disembark so to “multiply on the earth” and “be fruitful and increase in number on it”. When we stay connected to the Lord God Almighty and commit to Him with full obedience, we will move in accordance with His perfect will, always in the place He wants us to be, at the time He wants us to be there, to carry out the purposes that He wants us to accomplish.
With God’s blessing, the scriptures tell us that “Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives” as well as “all the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds”, transiting “one kind after another”.
Note the first thing that Noah did. He didn’t get to work building a home for his wife so they could have shelter. Nor did he immediately go looking for food so to have a good meal after so many months at sea. No, the first thing we find Noah doing is constructing “an altar to the Lord” before “taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds” he loaded on the ark and placing them on the altar as “burnt offerings” to the Lord.
God had saved Noah and his family as well as the animals on the ark. Through all of them, He would start to populate the earth anew. And so Noah, with a heart full of gratitude and thanksgiving, brought burnt offerings to honor his Lord. Of interest, this was the very first burnt offering in the Bible and it was a definite forerunner of what was to come in the Law.
For when we fast forward in the Old Testament to the first chapter of the Book of Leviticus, we find this in verse 9:
“It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the Lord.”
Now, the Hebrew word for burnt offering means to ascend and in the case of the burnt offering, this referred to the smoke that would rise up from the altar. We read in the Leviticus verse where this smoke rising up would be “an aroma pleasing to the Lord”.
With that, we come back to our passage and read where the smoke from Noah’s burnt offerings rose from the altar and was “smelled” by “the Lord” who spoke these words out of His pleasure:
“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
We serve a God who never goes back on a promise and here, we vowed to never “destroy all living creatures” as He had just done before. It’s important to note here that all creatures of the earth were destined to destruction and the penalty of Hell before God sent His Son Jesus out of love so that whosoever would believe in Him wouldn’t perish but have eternal life (John 3:16). I can’t but help but think that some of God’s desire to save people from everlasting death and damnation was born out of this promise He made to Noah, a promise that we will soon see marked by the visual sign of the rainbow.
That’s coming up but let’s not leave this message today without a critical takeaway.
For we have a lot to learn from Noah and his actions in this passage. Without hesitation, he built an altar and immediately brought worship and tribute to God through the burnt offerings. All this was born out of a spirit of thanks and praise for all that God had done.
Question: How well do we show God our thanks for the things He does for us every day?
I wonder if we’re not guilty more times than not of forgetting to give the Lord our praise, taking for granted all the little things He blesses us with.
For every breath is a gift. We should give thanks.
Every heartbeat is a gift. We should give thanks.
Every time we take a step or our brain allows us to think or we can use our hands to work, eat, perform personal hygiene, and/or serve others. We should give thanks.
The truth of the matter is that we have reasons to express gratitude to God each and every day. Let’s not miss one opportunity to let Him know how much we appreciate His goodness and provision.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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