Genesis 8

In every era of the history of salvation, men have needed to know that God was watching over them, and especially when they were in need, that God remembered them. Noah and the floating sanctuary needed God. The waters of God's judgment had prevailed over the entire earth. Thousands of people had died. But God remembered Noah.

He also remembered all the beasts that would provide the new beginnings of the world that we live in today. God caused a wind to blow over the earth. As the dry land eventually reappeared, it was day three of creation all over again. God set the limits on the seas. They were once again put in their place. They could go so far, but no further.

Eventually the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. Then the tops of other mountains could be seen. This was not instantaneous, but a natural process of a fresh start emerging for the new earth, and for the people in God's ark who would be recommissioned as His servants.

The story of the receding waters is told to us with the Lord's gentleness and with the wonder of the fullness of the created order under the dominion of God and His servant Noah. Ravens and doves are Noah's scouts. He reads their coming and going as messengers of a new day until the land is once again ready for mankind.

As there was a specific day when the rain had come upon the earth, and a specific duration when the waters prevailed upon the dry land, there is a day for Noah and all within the ark to come out again, and to feel the freshness of a new beginning. In the six hundred and first year of Noah's life, at just the right time, the Word of God came to Noah. “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.”

So Noah did this. What a wonderful moment! Noah and his family could reflect on many things. God's Word was true. His holiness demanded our response of righteousness. God was able to deliver a remnant upon whom the Lord's favor rested. God had judged the wicked, and had given a new beginning to the man who heard the voice of the Lord. Noah went out, with all his family, and with all the families of the beasts that would repopulate the globe.

At God's command Noah had built a holy ark. It had carried his household safely and delivered them to a cleansed world. It was time to forget what was behind and to stretch forward to make the whole earth a holy sanctuary for God. It was time to hear the Word again that God had once spoken to Adam. “Be fruitful and multiply.”

Never again would God ask Noah to build an ark. This great man would instead build an altar to the Lord. Why a place of animal sacrifice? Sin and death continued to be a part of life. A more permanent and fuller cleansing would have to come through blood.

The demands of God could not be satisfied by the death of thousands of wicked men and women in the flood. A righteous substitute would have to give His blood for us and win for us a better world than even the fresh new earth that Noah found when he came out of the ark.

Noah took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird, and he offered burnt offerings on the altar. Noah knew that there would be forgiveness of sins through the shedding of blood. He knew that we still needed a savior. God was pleased with the testimony of that sacrifice which Noah offered. This was the way for fallen man to start again; to plead again for the mercy of the Almighty through the offering of a sacrifice.

The Lord would not destroy the earth again by a flood. To judge man every day according to what he deserved would have meant continual turmoil. God knew about the evil in the heart of mankind. The Lord wanted the environment that He had created to continue. He wanted all kinds of creatures to fill the earth. He wanted seedtime and harvest for mankind, and seasons upon the earth.

One day there will be a new heavens and a new earth. That world is reserved for us even now in the present heavens. The King of creation and redemption has given His life as a pleasing sacrifice to God. He sits at the right hand of the Father, and He is coming again.

For now we find our safety in the ark of Christ and His church. A day will come when the covering of this ark will be rolled back, and we will walk out into the perfect Paradise of God. What no eye has seen and no ear has heard, these are the things that God has for His beloved people. Saved by His grace, we offer up our lives to Him every day as a living sacrifice, knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is ours in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Lord God knows us. He will remember us on the day when Christ returns. We will walk upon a completely renewed earth.