He planted a vineyard

“And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread. And Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard”

The Lord’s command was still the same: be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. There was not a great deal of value in an earth that was empty God had created the earth so that it might belong to the people who were created in His own image. If the earth was to remain empty then there would no one to act as stewards and use the abundant resources that the Lord had made. However, all this had to come from Noah’s three children and their wives. Having fulfilled his duty to save the earth Noah got on with his life and cultivated grapes in a vineyard. There are times in our lives when we may need to pray and think carefully about decisions that we have to make but there are other times when we have to just go ahead and do what God has given us to do. In some ways Noah was the same as Abraham in Gen 15: 6 where “he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness.” Heb 11: 7 reminds us that Noah was a man of faith but we are reminded here that faith always shows itself in action, that is, in obedience.

God is consistent

“And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.”

There is an old question that people ask and it goes like this:

“Can God do anything?”

Most people would say “Yes” in answer to this question.

“Well then, can God create a rock that is too big for Him to lift?”

Now there is a paradox! The answer to the first question is “No, God cannot be inconsistent.” This means that the second question can be reworded as “Can God be inconsistent?” Well the proper answer to the first question precludes the second question. The section of the Bible (Gen 9: 16, 17) above talks about God being consistent. When God sees a rainbow today He knows that He is consistent and He is reminding us that He is consistent as well. However, we have to remember that He is consistent as well. He said, “suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.” (Luke 12: 51-53) When we follow the Lord Jesus Christ as our Saviour we follow His footsteps and not necessarily fame and fortune.

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(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

God remembered.

“And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations: I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.”

Rainbows are formed when the sun shines into raindrops. These raindrops refract the white light going in and then reflect it off the back of the drop before refracting it again on the way out. A rainbow always occurs when we look away from the sun. This means that we won’t be blinded by looking into the sun to see the rainbow. It is very hard to hide a rainbow because it is in the sky above us and it doesn’t form till the sun comes out after rain. We are inclined to look up after rain to see if there will be more rain and we tend to look away from the sun so we will see the rainbow. This means that everyone can see that God has made a promise not to destroy all flesh. This is the second time that God remembered something in the Bible. In the first case, He remembered Noah and the waters of the Flood began to abate but in this case God made a promise to remember His promise every time there was a rainbow in the sky. There is probably a rainbow visible somewhere on the earth at every moment of time. God does not forget, in fact, when He says that He remembers He is actually reminding us to remember as well because we do forget. Our God is the active God and the fact that He remembers reminds us that He is acting all the time and He always acts for good (see Rom 8: 28).

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(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

As long as the earth remains

“And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.  And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.”

Earlier the Lord promised that He would never again kill all the animals on the earth with a flood. He also said that as long as the earth remained He would make sure that there was summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, day and night. The Lord confirmed that promise. Some people suggest that these two promises mean that this a combination of two separate traditions so this must mean that there were two documents in existence and some, very clever, editor sewed these stories together to make sure that his priorities were met in the form of the text we see today. There is a much better explanation than that. Hebrew poetry is full of parallelism, that is, the same message is repeated in various ways. This allows us to get a better meaning of the text. Now if “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” Then God must have been the first Person to use parallelism and He made sure that Noah understood the message properly. This does not preclude the possibility that God will bring local flooding as part of the chaotic world in which we live but it does mean the whole earth will never again be flooded. God is always consistent and, as such, can always be trusted.

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(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

The life is in the blood

“But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man. And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.”

William Harvey lived from 1578 till 1657. He was the first doctor to describe how blood circulates around the body and is pumped by the heart. He qualified as a medical doctor in 1602 and worked in London, he was even the royal physician to King James 1. Before that time people believed that Galen, who lived in the second century AD was correct. He said that the body made new blood as it used the old blood up. He was unpopular at the time because many doctors would make their patients bleed so that they could get rid of the extra bad blood and cure the patient. William Harvey actually proved that God was correct when He told Noah that the life was in the blood. Blood carries oxygen and nutrients around the body and brings life to every cell. Shedding a person’s blood is the same as taking their life away and eating blood is the same as eating an animal’s life. God required that any person who took one person’s life would be forced to give up their own life as a penalty. We live in a different era where people have been affected by nearly two thousand years of Christianity and we see the value of a person’s life and we live under grace not the Law. However, it is interesting to remember that the Creator knew the way that the human body worked long before any scientist was able to discover that He is correct.

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(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

The fear of you

“And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.”

In Romans 8: 22 we read that whole of creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. This is a consequence of sin in the world. The perfect world that God made was invaded by death and everything became chaotic, random and arbitrary. The relationship between man and the other creatures was also damaged and God told Noah that the world was still damaged by sin even though He had saved Noah and his family from the Flood. There are always consequences to every action we take and we can never avoid the consequences even though God is slow to anger (Psalm 103: 8). The consequence that we have to be most concerned about is the one discussed in Matthew 10: 28. The final consequence of sin is suffering all the eternal torments of hell. It is okay to believe whatever you want to believe but if you don’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as your own personal Saviour you are taking a great risk. He is the door for the sheep and He is the only way for people to find eternal security without any fear of the eternal torments of hell.

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(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)

Consistent and Secure

“And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.”

The Lord had not forgot His purpose in creating the world and He had not changed His plan. When animals were first made they were told to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and the same command was given to Adam and Eve. They actually did what they were commanded to do in this case. When the earth was essentially empty again the Lord gave the same command and they followed His instructions again. God chose to make the earth so that is could belong to world, that is, the people whom he had made in His own image. He still wanted the world to be at rest on the earth and to enjoy all His goodness. However, God had also determined that everyone would have the consequences of the choices that they made and He had not changed His mind on that matter either. Everyone wants to have security in life and we know that God is completely consistent. Without God, there is nothing but chaos, we have no secure way of predicting anythings and being completely secure of satisfying that prediction unless we are relying on something that God has promised. If you want to have some security in your life you can also be sure if you submit to God and comply entirely with His predestined plan. That is you must believe on the Only Begotten Son of God (see John 3: 16)

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(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)