Reading
SAA Notes
The flood is one of the most persistent stories over the face of the earth. The ancient Chinese script has an ideogram for a boat made up of three characters – a vessel, eight, mouth. A boat is a vessel holding 8 people. Belief in Noah’s flood is not about religion versus science. The ancient deluge is rejected because it upholds belief in a Creator. The earth gives witness to several great catastrophes in our past.
SJA Notes
* Creator God, Sustainer of all life – Please teach us from Your word to us today.
“And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the LORD shut him in.”
God closes out the sealing of those whom He saves, those who will escape His wrath.
And they did as He commanded them.
We see a similar event at the end of the plagues sent upon Pharoah and Egypt.
The blood of a lamb was to be put on the doorposts and lintel of the house (Exodus 12), a seal for those inside to escape from the judgement the Lord was bringing upon Egypt.
As we worked through in yesterday’s passage the ark was the vehicle of salvation.
In Egypt they were to stay together within the houses with the lamb’s blood sealing them in (keeping them safe).
We God’s people today are kept safe through the shed blood of our Lord Jesus, the Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world.
His blood rescues us, cleanses us – A strange truth to grapple with, being cleansed through blood shed.
His sacrifice at Calvary on the cross took on the wrath of God that was meant for us – And His coming back to life on the third day broke apart the hold of death, for us.
As God sealed in Noah and his family, as the families of Israel were sealed through the lamb’s blood on their doors, so we all of us are sealed through Jesus.
We can escape the wrath to come!
This is a message of great hope and rejoicing for us – And a message of calling and warning to those outside the fold, for them to come to Jesus!
* Dear God Above,
You are the great creator, who could send so much water on the earth as to cover the mountaintops, the globe entirely flooded.
And You are the rescuer of Your people, sealing up Noah and his family, Israel in Egypt – And through Jesus, all of us from Adam through till the last.
How good a God You are!
Amen.