Genesis Chapter 8 Verse 1

• Most certainly God never forgot Noah. That’s not what is meant here. The meaning behind this statement is that God acted on behalf of Noah. And it’s completely reassuring to me in many times of many of my days to know that in accordance with His Word, God acts on my behalf as well. Well, honestly…reassuring and amazing at the same time since I am one in the midst of billions upon billions and His faithfulness to me is never to the expense of His faithfulness to you or anyone else! He is such a mighty and big God!
• Speaking of that, this flood is an insurmountable problem for Noah and his family…but the issues in my heart and mind and life…the ones that I stress over and lose sleep over and fret and fear about because I just don’t know what to do…those problems are not problems for God. He can just turn the wind this way or that…a mighty and a big God for sure!

Genesis Chapter 8 Verses 2 – 5

• Just like every storm! Please remember and consider that in the midst of the storm you are in…there will be soon ahead, the tops of the mountains. Stay the course. God is with you. He has not forgotten you. He is moving and working and conducting on your behalf…please do not lose heart. The full revelation of what God is doing in your life and in theirs IS ahead…but so often I fail and fall into faithlessness and impatience and this storm turns into yet another storm of humiliation and correction for me…many times a lesson I’ve already learned…
• And I can sometimes see what God was wanting to do…you know what I mean…I fret and lose self control or lose courage and then once the storm subsides a bit I see, because I have studied His Word and I know His heart and His ways, I can see what He was wanting to do in her life or in his life but my how I’ve tainted, clouded or blocked that most valuable revelational lesson for them with my sin…you ever do that? Sometimes I support that is the lesson…I hate that lesson…

Genesis Chapter 8 Verses 6 – 12

• I like what Noah is doing. We have no indication that God instructed this action but he is using what he has, what he has been given…God given…in order to search out practically the time to move forward in God’s plan…I just like that and I see great wisdom here…why? Because he didn’t send out an elephant! HA! I know that’s a ridiculous statement and to the extreme…but notice, he chose to use what he had astutely…smartly…and we ought to do the same.
• God had told Noah when the flood would start…when to get into the Ark…but He had not told Noah when the waters would cease and when the end of the flood would come. I like Matthew Henry’s suggestion here as to why. He writes that this is because the knowledge of the former was necessary to his preparing the ark…but the knowledge of the latter would serve only to gratify his curiosity (I’ll add here, squelch his fear – will we run out of food, will the water ever go away?) and the concealing of it from him would be the needful exercise of his faith and patience…
• One more thought here…have you tried the raven and had it fail? The raven is a large, all black bird. Long associated with death and dark omens, this larger cousin to the common crow, the raven, is one of the smarted creatures out there…clever and ranking in intelligence amongst the dolphin and chimpanzee. They can speak…imitate what they have heard and are extremely adaptable given any circumstance. And one final thing, they usually run in gangs…boy I have sent ravens into my conflicts many times.

• Logical, intelligent, clever, this will surely cause them to see it my way…and if one doesn’t work, then I pile on more…more and more points that all make sense and yet they are big and dark and scary to behold...to others. Noah sent out the raven…right into his problem…and it gave him no rest or satisfaction. Maybe that’s you in your situation…may I offer a bit of advice to you…advice that is harder to act on then the raven? Try a dove.

• The picture and symbol of grace and gracious living. A reminder of God’s anointing, His Word and His Spirit. It’s hard to deploy a dove…I mean Noah is in this conflict at no fault of his own…He was righteous before God we read in chapters past…and when we are in the right, boy it’s hard not to deploy the ravens…but let me tell you…it will be harder with each raven that goes out to follow it with a dove. Start there…if you are able. And you are…you can do all things being reliant and dependant towards Jesus Christ.
• The dove is deployed and returns with an olive branch. The international symbol of peace. An end to conflict and a beginning to hope. But notice, the dove at first just came back…and here’s the thing…if you extend peace in obedience and faith towards God…the olive branch may not be found at first…but by God’s grace and His Spirit, your peace will return to you…and in God’s perfect unforgetting sovereign timing…the olive branch WILL come…and you know what…eventually you won’t even need it…the peace that you have found with God will simply go out…continually. Just like this dove.
• Oh the depths of the riches of strength and grace and peace that is to be found in a heart and life given over to the truth and timeless efficacy of God’s Word and ways…

Genesis Chapter 8 Verses 13 – 16

• It’s an interesting point to make that although Noah looked and saw dry ground, he still waited upon the Word of God…He waited until God told him to move out of the ark…
• And so Noah was on the ark for over a year in total…and what’s interesting is that the day the ark came to rest, the seventeenth day of the seventh month – is significant, mysteriously significant. Why? Because in Exodus 12, God changed the Israelite’s calendar. What had been the 7^th month became their 1^st month. And so the ark came to rest from the flood on the 14^th day of the month of Nisan. Ring any bells yet?
• This is precisely the same day later that Israel came through the Red Sea and escaped Egypt. And this is precisely the same day recorded for us that Jesus resurrected from the grave! One thing about God that is just so wonderful and constantly reassuring for me…all the time…is that God is eternally consistent! You can set your heart, soul, mind and strength clocks to His Word and guess what…all of those things…will always be right and on time….

Genesis Chapter 8 Verses 17 – 20

• Again, we have no specific or direct commandment of God for him to do this…He just loves the Lord…He just has a heart for worship…and watch this final interaction of this chapter…

Genesis Chapter 8 Verses 21 – 22

• God has made a new covenant with Noah…the Noaic Covenant if you will…that He will never again destroy the earth by water and curse the ground in this manner…its finished…why? I submit to you that Noah’s altar is the key. Before the flood, condemnation and judgment…all had turned from the Lord and even with Noah spared, no altar upon the earth…but here, man…mankind represented in one patriarch, before anything else…builds the altar of God…and the grace and covenant of peace is born…
• Have you placed the altar of God first and foremost in your own life? I desire communion, fellowship, peace and fatherly love with God…I desire His heart and His eyes and His guiding light…I desire His approval and blessing on my life…and for who He is and what He’s done in giving me eternal life through the giving of Himself completely, my supreme desire is to love Him back…and that altar produces in my life this same assurance and love and security and a home with God in my life…
• If God is for me, who can be against me? And if God is for me, what can man do to me? Courage and confidence surges. Strength and even daily spiritual and mental and many times physical prosperity…surges!!! First thing of every first day…every day being new…building the altar of God. Beginning in prayer and in His Word…how about you?

• Is your life still flooded? Jesus has risen…the people have been set free…and the ark desires to rest…build your own life altar to God!