In our last post, I talked about four strange versus of hope. In that post, we looked at what the Bible said about Enoch. Today, I want us to look at what God did for Noah: I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you (Gn 6:17, 18, NIV).

God provided a way for Noah and his family to escape the consequence of his flood judgment. Yet, this was not a type of judgment like we think. It was actually him expressing his love for mankind, his creation. Satan was trying to reshape mankind into his image rather than remaining in God’s image. Genesis chapter 6 alludes to this with how the Nephilim were created and infiltrated the human genome. Only Noah and his family maintained a pure genome during this time (Gn 6:9). Without God instituting the flood, humankind would have ceased to exist. God was not going to allow that.

However, God did not judge quickly. He gave time for repentance. He could have restored them into perfect health if they had believed. Yet, they did not repent despite Noah speaking to them to do so for 120 years (Gn 6:3). God started over with Noah because of his faithfulness to him.

So the ark Noah built is an archetype of how God will provide a way from future judgment via the Receiving of his Bride, the Church (also called the Rapture [caught up], 1Th 4:16, 17.). Even this future judgment is not a normal judgment as its main purpose is to drive Jews and Israelites back to their homeland (Jr 23:3).

There are two individuals that fit into this archetype of the ark. These are Moses and Elijah. These we will discuss next time. I hope you join me. Solomon told us in Ecclesiastes that there is nothing new under the sun (Ec 1:9), and Paul tells us that what things occurred in the Old Testament were for examples and warnings to us (1Co 10:11).

God is so great by giving us examples of hope that can increase our faith and increase our hope because we know what he tells us will come to pass. So, be encouraged. We have a wonderful future to look forward to if we trust in him. I hope you have. If not, there is no time like the present. Until next time. God bless.

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Visit Books & Words to Inspire by Randy C. Dockens