The day was finally here! This devotional reading looks at how the period of the flood ended.
Nuggets
- The rain had stopped, and the earth had dried out.
- God told Noah when to exit the ark.
The flood was a thing of the past. The rain had stopped, and the water had receded.
It was now time to get off the ark and get on with life.
Let's Put It into Context
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Devotions in the Creation’s Do-Over series
The Flood Officially Over
“Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the new year, ten and a half months after the flood began, the floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth. Noah lifted back the covering of the boat and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. Two more months went by, and at last the earth was dry!” (Gen. 8: 13-14 NLT)
The rain had stopped, and the earth had dried out.
It was over. The flood that God said would come had come and gone. Before, Noah may not have even known what rain was.
Now, Noah would have heard the rain. There was most likely thunder and lightning associated with it. It may have even been a hurricane.
No, I doubt that it was a gentle summer shower.
It was a judgment. It would have been a catastrophe.
Yes, part of Noah’s heart would be hurting because of people that died. He would be mourning relationships lost.
But overall, Noah would have humbly bowed to an omnipotent God. He would have acknowledged God’s authority to judge those who refused to recognize Him as Sovereign Lord.
Still, the Homilist noted that Noah had a futuristic understanding of this calamity. It was written, “That it was only a faint type of the final judgment.”
Resource
I really doubt that Noah had any concept of the Day of the Lord. It would be thousands of years before Revelation was written by John.
But in the back of his mind, Noah had to be wondering what God would do the next time He judged the world.
Oh, come on. You think that Noah didn’t know sin would still be in the world. Stay tuned. It didn’t take long.
Sin is in human nature. If we are human, we have a sinful nature.
The flood did not take away Noah’s sinful nature.
“The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit” (Rom. 8: 3-4 NLT).
Even though Moses’ law was not given yet, we know that pieces of it had – if not all. I could see that Moses accomplished in getting it written down.
Think about it. If Noah and his ancestors only had the one law that Adam got, it didn’t have any way to restore their relationship with God. “But the Lord God warned him, ‘You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden — except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die’” (Gen. 2: 16-17 NLT).
Remember, the fruit wasn’t the only issue here. The main issue was obedience — and still is. This was more than a Garden of Eden law.
Still, Noah would have had to have felt God’s loving mercy. We have a saying, “There but by the grace of God go I.”
Ooo, baby. Noah was feeling that big time.
What is the difference between grace and mercy?
- Grace is a free and unmerited gift of love from the Heavenly Father, given through His Son, Jesus Christ, that enables salvation and spiritual healing to believers by the work of the Holy Spirit.
- Mercy is an act of sovereign will that produces an unexpected and undeserved response from God as He responds in love to our needs.
In other words, God gives us what we don’t deserve (grace) and doesn’t give us what we do deserve (mercy).
Noah would have felt both of those because he would have had the Old Testament salvation – faith and obedience.
The Time in the Ark Is Completed
“Then God said to Noah, 'Leave the boat, all of you — you and your wife, and your sons and their wives. Release all the animals — the birds, the livestock, and the small animals that scurry along the ground — so they can be fruitful and multiply throughout the earth.' So Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives left the boat. And all of the large and small animals and birds came out of the boat, pair by pair” (Gen. 8: 15-19 NLT)
God told Noah when to exit the ark.
I bet Noah and his family were more than ready to exit the ark. They had to have been cramped in the enclosed space.
It had to have been somewhat depressing. I don’t know how much sunshine – once the sun shown again – would have made its way into the ark. (It just says that there was one window – one that had to be opened. “After another forty days, Noah opened the window he had made in the boat” (Gen. 8: 6 NLT).
It would have been a really neat experience to see all of the animals tamed for the moment. But I bet it was a lot of work for the eight people to feed all of them. That must have taken most of the day.
They were probably ready to get back to whatever their occupations were preflood.
But Noah waited for God to say, “It’s time to get out.” He didn’t want to get ahead of God.
Ooo, baby. Don’t we do that at times? God is working too slowly for our liking, so we take things into our own hands and do what we want to do on our timetable.
That usually doesn’t work out real well.
We talked about God remembering the ark passengers. “But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark …” (Gen. 8: 1 NLT).
Noah would have been remembering, too. He would have been remembering about how bad it was and humbled – and probably brooding – about thinking he and his family would be responsible for repopulating the earth.
Did Noah wonder if he would ever lose his obedience to God? Did he ponder over how he could steer his family to not make the mistakes of disobedience that were made before? Did he wonder about people years after him remembering the flood and judgment that is given when we are disobedient to God?
Ooo, baby. That first step onto dry land after a year would have been exciting and scary!
Noah had to take comfort in the fact that he had his family with him. Look what Exell said. He wrote,
“He [Noah] goes forth in company with the relatives of his own family. God permitted the family of Noah to be with him in the ark, to relieve his solitude, to aid his efforts, to show the protective influence of true piety; and now they are to join him in the possession of the regenerated earth, that they may enjoy its safety and aid its cultivation.”
Resource
We can’t be stymied by sin after we have experienced God’s judgment. He doesn’t judge us to drive us away.
God judges us to correct us and bring us back to Him. We have to let Him and not let our doubts and guilt get in the way.
Making the Connections
I love what the Homilist wrote. It says, “Christianity, the great expedient for saving souls from the deluge of moral evil, is God’s plan.”
Resource
The Plan of Salvation has always been God’s plan. It was always in the plan to create the Church – a body of believers with Jesus as the Head. “God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church” (Eph. 1: 22 NLT).
God had it in place before the foundation of the universe.
- “God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days he has been revealed for your sake” (I Pet. 1: 20 NLT).
- “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes” (Eph. 1: 4 NLT).
- “And all the people who belong to this world worshiped the beast. They are the ones whose names were not written in the Book of Life that belongs to the Lamb who was slaughtered before the world was made” (Rev. 13: 8 NLT).
- “Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am. Then they can see all the glory you gave me because you loved me even before the world began!” (Jn. 17: 24 NLT).
- “The beast you saw was once alive but isn’t now. And yet he will soon come up out of the bottomless pit and go to eternal destruction. And the people who belong to this world, whose names were not written in the Book of Life before the world was made, will be amazed at the reappearance of this beast who had died” (Rev. 17: 8 NLT).
- “For God saved us and called us to live a holy life. He did this, not because we deserved it, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time—to show us his grace through Christ Jesus” (II Tim. 1: 9 NLT).
- “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world’” (Mt. 25: 34 NLT).
- “If that had been necessary, Christ would have had to die again and again, ever since the world began. But now, once for all time, he has appeared at the end of the age to remove sin by his own death as a sacrifice” (Heb. 9: 26 NLT).
We don’t know how much Noah really knew about this plan, but I bet he knew more was needed to fix our sinful nature.
How Do We Apply This?
- Wait for God’s mercy when we experience testings and trials.
- Exercise patience during those times.
- Seek mercy through patience.
- Understand that mercy is sometimes shown through what is withheld from us.
- Expect God’s providence in situations when we are following His Will.
- Wait for the completion of the testings and trials.
- Don’t turn away from God after He has judged and corrected us.
Resources
Father God. Thank You for always being with us – in the trials and during the smooth sailing. We know there is a day when the trials will end and that You have carried us through. Amen.
What do you think?
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