Rainbows

            Last evening, just after a rain storm passed and as the sun was setting, I saw a beautiful double rainbow. The clouds behind it were gray, but it was the colors of the rainbow that made the difference. It was drizzling with intermittent showers almost all day long. The somber plainness of a day like this can feel a bit depressing. The promise of the rainbow that God created gives mankind hope. Hope for a better life and hope for eternal life. Noah didn’t know this, but his faith in building an ark saved him. His family had faith as well. They helped him build this massive ship, collect the provisions, and stood by him as the community around them surely teased them, thinking the whole family a bit crazy.

            After all, it had never rained before. The area where he built the ark was nowhere near an ocean or a sea. With a boat so immense, how could the family move it and why would they want something so large? But God gave Noah the dimensions of the ship, what wood to use, and to coat it so that it wouldn’t leak. He gave Noah the plans for only one door in the ark and one window.

            The one door pointed ahead when God would offer the one way for salvation and the redemption of the world, the one sinless being that would take away the sins of the faithful who believe, that one way to escape the punishment of a sinful life. God said that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. He sent His Son, Jesus Christ to be beaten, scourged, spat upon and die hanging on a cross to offer that “ark” of safety for those who have the faith to believe and accept this “ark” of protection.

When the storms prevailed in Noah’s time, God closed the ark, filled with animals and Noah’s family. Those outside of the ark were drowned, lost by their refusal to hear the evangelism of Noah. They refused to hear that God’s heavy hand was near. Just as in the times of Noah, man has hardened their hearts. Genesis 6:5-8 “And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

6:6  And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

6:7  And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

6:8  But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.

God promised that He would never destroy the earth with a flood, He set the rainbow to remind us that sin will be punished, unless you have accepted that “ark” of safety and that is repentance and acceptance of Jesus as Savior.