Thank you to Mark R for this message

This week as we come to Genesis 8, the chapter opens in quietness, with the Ark floating over a still world waiting for the floodwaters to recede.

The world has been judged by God. We saw in Genesis 6:5-7 that:

“The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

And we then read the following verse:

“But Noah found favour in the eyes of the LORD.”(Genesis 6:8)

Genesis 8:1 opens with these words:

“But God remembered Noah…”

In the midst of the cataclysmic judgement that was over the whole world, one man and his family were safe.(And the animals inside).

We know from the preceding chapters that this one man had trusted God’s Word. He had run for safety to the only place that would keep him safe, the Ark, which he had built according to God’s instructions in a dry desert.

In the New Testament, in Romans 3, Paul talks about humanity in the same terms that we’ve been thinking about here in these chapters on the flood.

Paul says in Romans 3:10: “There is no one righteous, not even one”

We might think that after God had “cleansed” the world of sinful humanity through eradicating every living thing through the flood, there would be no more evil in the world.

And yet, even as Noah steps out from the Ark into the brave new world, we read in Genesis 8 that after Noah had built (the first ever) altar to the Lord:

“And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”

It was a new world that Noah, his family, and the animals step out onto after a year in the Ark, but the human heart hadn’t changed, just as Paul shows us in Romans 3.

“None righteous, no not one”

Yet just as God remembered Noah and His promise to Him even when the flood covered the earth in Judgement, Romans 3:21says this:

“But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.”

Even in the midst of judgment there is one place we can run to for safety.

Noah’s Ark rested on top of the floodwaters. Noah was safe, through the Ark that God provided.

But like so many passages in the Old Testament, the story of Noah and the Ark look forward to a much greater rescue, to the coming of God’s own Son, to save all who would run to Him for safety.

2000 years ago, a cross on a hill became the means by which God would save all those who come to Him.

We may think it’s the good things we do that save us.

God’s diagnosis of our hearts is that because of sin in the human heart we all need saving: “ There is no one righteous, not even one”.

And yet in His grace, mercy, and kindness, God has sent His own Son into the world to save us.

I was reflecting recently on the idea: “What if God had never sent Jesus?”

After all, no one forced God to send Him.

It was God’s love and kindness that sent Jesus to save us from our sins.

Noah’s Ark looks to a much greater rescue…it points us to the cross of Jesus.

As we’ll soon be remembering on Good Friday, His death for us is the means by which we can run to God and be safe.

When we put our faith and trust in Jesus, we are given His righteousness…not trusting our own goodness, because our own righteousness always falls short, because of the problem of sin in the human heart.

Romans 3:22 says: “This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe”.

As we pause for a moment of prayer, let’s reflect on that Ark floating quietly above the waters. Let’s reflect on Noah and his family safe inside.

And let’s ask ourselves:

“Have I come to that one place where I can KNOW I am safe, forever?”

“Have I come and taken refuge in what God has provided for me through His Son Jesus Christ and His death on the cross?”


Category: The Bridge

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