COTR CG Leaders Week 11 Devotional

Will I Trust God to be God?  

Genesis 7-8

A brief warning: You might get “riled” by what follows. The biblical flood account of Genesis Chapters 6-8 will challenge us about who we believe God to be at a basic, foundational level. Do we believe God is who He says He is? Or, do we find our hearts and minds manipulated by the world and Satan’s lies? Does the world’s godless mentality, coupled with Satan’s lies, discount the literal Biblical text, prompting us to reject it and embrace a more innocuous, harmless allegorical meaning instead?  Is “The Biblical Flood” a myth or an allegory meant to teach a moral lesson or is it an accurate historical account of a real event?

Ponder this as you pray about your perspective on God: 

-       How do we reconcile a “good” God who completely annihilates His creation of people, animals and planet with torrents, upon torrents, upon TORRENTS (a DELUGE) of water intent on destroying everyone and everything to the utmost because of rampant, destructive sin?

-       Do we determine how God should or shouldn’t act based on our wisdom and human understanding, or, do we trust God to be God as He sees fit; regardless of whether we comprehend or agree with His infinite knowledge and far-seeing wisdom?

I vote for the latter, because to stand anywhere else is to stand on shifting sand; the shifting sand of limited, egocentric human wisdom.

Picking up in Genesis 6:1-22, please review verses 17-18:

And behold, I myself am bringing floodwaters on the earth, to destroy from under heaven all flesh in which is the breath of life; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall go into the ark—you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you.

In Genesis 6:22 says:

“Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.”

Despite his questions and serious mocking from neighbors and friends, Noah chose to trust God, obey Him, and build.  For 120 years he and his family obeyed through both word and deed. They built a gigantic, floating barge and waited for God’s next word. In Genesis 7:1 God called to Noah and said: “…COME thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.”

They were invited to come into the only place of safety to escape the coming flood. They came INTO GOD’S PROVISION OF SALVATION as they boarded the Ark: a gigantic, rudderless, soon to be floating, barge.  And then what? It rained, and not your ordinary “rain” experienced here in the Pacific North West, but a “geshem” or TORRENTIAL rain.  This truly “epic” flood of calamitous, extraordinary proportions “let loose” a  “deluge” or tidal wave of water from numerous directions, all at once, at God’s command.

The water supplies, both below the earth in the subterranean level and the waters above in the natural “canopy” of the earth’s outer atmosphere, burst forth with vast, voluminous amounts of water pummeling and “scouring” the earth bare of its previous features.  Remember, until now, the earth had experienced ONLY a mild, temperate, environment protected from the sun’s rays by GOD‘s ordained upper-atmospheric water canopy. The canopy, being transparent, allowed sunlight, but due to its molecular structure of water,  the harsher solar rays filtered harmlessly out. The earth enjoyed a greenhouse effect in the most positive, beneficial way possible before the flood.  Not so now- the earth faced a total land makeover.  From now on, the planet would genuinely become an aging, more hostile home to the new family of man.

No water canopy minimized solar impact.  The sun would take a harsher toll on both man and beast. The land’s surface, utterly changed by the overwhelming power of water churning in God's hands, was reshaped and refashioned into a different topography than pre-flood.  The flood gave us our Earth as we know it today.  God raised mountains to greater heights and used the inundating water to both level smaller hills and fill in the cavernous, subterranean depths-creating seas, oceans, rivers and streams. Without apology, God re-sculpted the lands’ profile.

And…not to forget ALL THE DEATH. Man and beast. But, in the wake of death came new life — a second creation of sorts. But, sadly, this creation event did not bring joy to its Maker.

Was this destruction “right?” Was God RIGHT to take such drastic steps to discipline his creation? Was God fair? Conversely, do WE have a right, as the created ones, to even ASK God these hard questions?  IS it a matter of getting answers to honest questions, or are we disrespectfully calling God OUT- to "answer" for His ways? Further, as believers facing these truths of God and His ways, do we “rush” to defend GOD and His sometimes seemingly hard ways and far-arching wisdom paths, so that He seems LESS offensive and more easily explained to our finite human minds and personal objections?

Looking at various phrases found in Genesis chapters 6-8, God clearly speaks that this Flood Destruction is FULLY HIS responsibility. God does NOT shun responsibility, nor does He seem to need defending, nor His ways made more palatable to His creation.

God says:

“ I will destroy man from the face of the earth;” “I will destroy them with the earth.”

“I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.” "Thus He blotted out every living thing that was upon the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things, the birds of the sky. They were blotted out from the earth; and only Noah was left, together with those who were with him in the ark." 

God is definitely ABOVE and BEYOND man. But will man know-submit to this biblical, eternal truth of God’s infinite “other-ness” and find safe harbor in it? Will we, as mere humans, surrender and come “under” this great God’s love, authority, and infinite wisdom?  This LORD GOD who says this of himself:

Deuteronomy. 32:39 "Now see that I, even I am He and there is NO GOD beside Me. It is I who put to death and give life. There is no one who can deliver from My hand."

And Ezekiel 33:29: “Then they will know that I am the Lord when I make the land a desolation and a waste because of all their abominations which they have committed."

In all of this destruction, God grieved that man's sin had brought Him to this point, but there is no note of sympathy. God does NOT need man's approval. God is above man. Man, unfortunately, frequently undertakes to prove God wrong. Imagine our collective audacity! In our finite, limited understanding, humans misunderstand God, assume the worst about Him, then demand answers OF Him.  We, in our infantile wisdom, try to hold the Lord God of the Universe “accountable” and in doing so, we play right into Satan’s snare: pride, SELF-INFLATED, EGOCENTRIC blindness.

We cannot see the forest for the trees.  And that, my friends, is why we get into so much trouble and turmoil. It is not God who needs “straightening” out, but rather, it is ourselves who are bent, deranged and myopic. We are the short-sighted-blind, following the even-stupider-blind. It’s no wonder we fall into snares, wander far afield, and lose our way with only ourselves as navigator. We are our own most significant problem. Our most profound sin problem, in a nutshell, is this:  We think too much of ourselves and too little of Him.

The first 11 chapters in Genesis are RICH with account after account of God's rescuing, Holy character and man's propensity to reject God and end up in trouble. If we saw ourselves clearly, we would humble ourselves before God, cover our faces and lament like Job as he confessed in Job 42:1-6:

Then Job answered the Lord and said:

 “I know that You can do everything,

And that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You.
You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
Listen, please, and let me speak;
You said, ‘I will question you, and you shall answer Me.’
But now my eye sees You.
Therefore I abhor myself,
And repent in dust and ashes.
And repent in dust and ashes.

“I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear,

The flood account is man’s history with His GOD, no matter whether man believes it, accepts it or acknowledges it. Just because man chooses NOT to agree with God doesn't make God's truth any less right or accurate.  It’s a sad history. Man doesn’t look too stellar! Fortunately, since our God is a merciful God, salvation is STILL available to those who humble themselves, repent of sin and receive God’s cleansing and gift of life through His Son’s sacrifice.

God IS STILL in the business of rescuing people. His "Ark," now, is His perfect, blameless Son, Jesus Christ. Jesus IS the ONLY door and way to the Father. I pray you have come “through” Christ and your life is now IN Him. We do not need to fear the rain. 

Your sister in our Glorious Savior, Jesus Christ,

Mary Kaye Abbott