Author: words and signs

6 “on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the sky’s windows opened.”

 Genesis 7:11

 What an incredible day that was which Noah and his family watched unfold. God’s judgement on sinful humankind was poured out. God did not spare any of them but plunged them into eternity. Only eight people were saved from that deluge and every living thing was destroyed- such is the wrath of God. God will not tolerate sin but will certainly judge it all. We need the refuge of Christ to protect us and the Ark of His lovingkindness to rescue us for the wrath to come.

 We turn our eyes to the man on the cross who suffered so greatly for the sake of His people. He bore their punishment in His own body on the tree. All the waves and billows of God’s righteous judgement passed on Him and He bore the guilt and shame so that we might not do so.

“Deep calls to deep at the noise of your waterfalls. All your waves and your billows have swept over me.”

 Psalm 42:7

 Such is the magnificence of the love of God. We are safe in the eternal arms of our Saviour as those eight people were safe in God’s provision of the Ark.

 Let us daily hide our life in Christ that we will walk worthily and be found safe in Him.

 

5 “The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.”

 Genesis 6:6

 Oh how hurt is our loving God when we turn away from Him and indulge ourselves in sin. How neglected He is that we don’t draw near to Him every day and pray to Him at every opportunity.

“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

 James 4:8

 He has given up all for us and yet we are so slow and reticent to be in His quiet presence. We love the clamour and the things that feed our emotions and fail to see the beauty of the Lord. The Lord was grieved at the sin of humankind, and His heart was broken for us. Why should He love us? This we will never understand but we rejoice to know that it is true.

 Let us examine our own lives and see if there are things in our behaviour which should not be there. Sins that infest us that we have gotten so used to that we don’t see them anymore. Ask God to show you His holiness as you read the Scripture and show you how to purify your heart before Him. We have all sinned so this is relevant to all of us. Let us give our loving God all our heart and walk in step with Him as we obey and trust in Him.

 Let us not grieve the heart of our Beloved, but seek His well done.  He daily waits for us to come to Him afresh and make our daily walk to be overshadowed with His presence. May we be fully satisfied with Him.

4 “Enoch walked with God, and he was not found, for God took him.”

 Genesis 5:24

 Such was the simplicity and faithful walk of the believer Enoch that he did not die but was translated straight to heaven by God. He did not have to experience the cold hand of death but was glorified straight in his body to the presence of God. We wonder at the kind of life he must have led to be blessed in such an unusual way. We can think of many worthy believers that we have read about and yet they went down into the experience of death as we all must do, except this faithful saint in early Bible times who walked with God.

 Enoch lived his whole life and Christian walk in the felt presence of Christ for he expected a Saviour promised from the beginning of the history of time. He never wavered in his obedience to the holy Word and knew the way of God and walked daily in it. He prayed in the presence of God at all times and never thought or went anywhere that would cause him to deviate from that holy place.

His whole day was spent in prayer even as he involved himself in activities, yet God was always there with him. His conscious life enabled him to always be God-centered and ever present in the Word of God. His life was conscious thought of God and to be obedient every moment to the truth he knew.

 What do we spend our days thinking about and involving ourselves in? Do we have desire after the presence of God in our life, motivating us to obedience and love? Such is the daily walk of the true-hearted believer who loves the Lord with all their body, soul and spirit and all their strength is involved in keeping close to their loving God.

3 “In the day that God created man, he made him in God’s likeness.”

 Genesis 5:1

 This verse demonstrates to us the precious nature that belongs to women and men. We are not mere lumps of flesh or a conglomeration of cells, but creatures created by God to be His friends. This elevates our psyche beyond and above the animals for we are not like them.

 We may be superficially like animals in some respects and the powers that be in the scientific community have tried to downplay the human and raise up the animal to try and make them equal and alike, but we are not. Human beings have a spiritual facility that animals do not have for we have living souls that allow us to relate to the eternal God and we can know Him and commune with Him.

 Too many people do not value this facility and therefore do not know God nor do they draw close to Him. This underplays our spiritual life and indeed if we do not know God we have no spiritual life. Because in our natural life we do not perceive God or our need of Him, we think there is nothing else outside our own experience. It is only when God awakens our mind and heart that we can see our need of Him and purposefully seek him out. We find Him when we come to the end of ourselves and realise our deep need of moral forgiveness and the new life in Christ.

 We were made for God and therefore made in His image and have His eternal mark in our psyche. We have the propensity for eternity and we find life when we bow our knees to the Father God and repent and believe.

 

2 “The Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel, your brother?” He said, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

 Genesis 4:9

 The two brother Cain and Abel had made sacrifices to the Lord their God and God had accepted Abel’s sacrifice, but Cain’s sacrifice was not holy. Cain was aggrieved about the rejection and instead of repenting he murdered his brother in a fit of rage. God asks him the searching question, and he replies with a terse and abrupt answer.

 This is a very searching response for it shows the heart of Cain which was not in tune with God and was not repentant. He was full of pride and would not accept the judgment of the Lord and change his ways. He was stubborn and selfish and would not accept the grace of God but sought to please God with his own ideas and good works.

 God is very clear in His word, what He expects from us. Without faith it is impossible to please God and there is no forgiveness of sin without blood sacrifice, as Abel had offered. This is why Jesus had to come to pay the dreadful debt of sin that we could never pay. We must accept it in faith and repentance and find peace with God.

 Cain had not been a keeper of his brother but had poured out his own anger on the life of his brother. We must be careful we do not tread the same pathway and have no regard for those who are following God. We are to listen to rebuke and bend our knees to correction and not rise up against the Lord and sin before Him.

 

1 “He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel.”

 Genesis 3:15

 This is the first of the amazing promises of God to provide a Saviour for the sin of the people of planet earth. He makes the promise to the enemy, Satan, that his head and life will be destroyed by the coming man, born to be our Saviour – the Messiah.

God makes the promise to humankind that they will not always be under the enemy but will be set free from the tyranny of Satan and sin.

 Through the work of the coming Saviour we are set free to have the victory over our sinful, selves and the sin that infests our nature.  God was going to send the person of His only beloved and begotten Son to be the sin-bearer and sovereign over the lives of His chosen people.

 God was not caught unawares by the fall of Adam and Eve, but had agreed a rescue plan with the other members of the Godhead, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that they would carry out a plan of redemption for the lost soul of humankind. There was no plan quite like this one and no covenant was its equal. God made the covenant with Himself and therefore it was binding and could never fail. This is the confidence that we can have with our God that he will bring us safely to heaven through the shed blood of the Redeemer. Satan is conquered and His head is destroyed on the cross, so that sinful people could find forgiveness and a new life in Christ.