GOD DELIVERED NOAH
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
Genesis chapters
5-10; Num.26:33; 27:1; 36:11; Jos.17:3; 1Chron.1:4; Isa.54:9; Eze.14:14, 20;
Heb.11:7; 1Pet.3:20; 2Pet.2:5
Matthew [ESV] 6:9-15 [Jesus taught] Pray then like
this: "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be
your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day
our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we
also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not
into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For
if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive
you, but if you do not forgive others their
trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
James 4:1-10
What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that
your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder.
You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because
you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend
it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship
with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of
the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He
yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? But he
gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives
grace to the humble." Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil,
and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.
Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be
wretched and mourn and weep. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your
joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.
1Peter 5:6-8
Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the
proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties [distracting
solicitudes] on him, because he cares for you. Be sober-minded; be watchful.
Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to
devour.
God can deliver
us. The problem for many Christians is the expectation of an unusual skyfall miracle apart from their disagreeable
noncompliant resistance. Indeed He does such miracles, but in the record of His
Word they are on the short list. We must never assume that our will and purpose
trumps His will in purpose. God’s only begotten Son, Jesus, is our ultimate
example of this. (Jn.5:30; 6:38; Act 13:22; Lk.22:39-46)
Noah is a prime human
example to study, learn from, and to definitely imitate.
·
God’s cataclysmic destroying flood was never
seen before or since.
·
God gave Noah practical instructions for his and
family deliverance.
·
God’s deliverance instructions required 120
years of patient compliant expensive labor. Noah, though he understood little or
nothing of it, agreed with God’s overarching plan of restarting civilization.
·
The same waters that drown the many lifted God’s
select few.
Moving forward in
time to the New Testament record, let us not think Jesus was only teaching a
prayer, how to pray. He was very much teaching how to live, including on the
question of deliverance: If we are not compliant in humbling ourselves to
forgive others, the Father will not forgive us. James and Peter later make
comment that pertains to deliverance.
God’s deliverance
may be at the end of a staff, but it is seldom so. God’s deliverance typically
involves Matthew 16:24 compliance with humility, risk (leaving comfort zones
for one), labor and investment on our part as individual, family, community, or
nation. The local congregation that we claim membership in is not above this
requirement. Tragically they are too
often below it.
EBB4
PS. Could there have been more delivered hands on deck of
the ark? If so, give proof verses in your response.
