I haven't always listed the music I'm listening to at the office, like hardcore band All In, Copeland, Showbread, and Viva Voce; but this morning I'm playing a new arrival from yesterday's mail -- Amy Grant Live. I have to admit, it sounds good. Almost too good for a live album. Great sonics on her voice.
"The Lord then said to Noah, 'Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation. Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth. Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.'"
It's cool to note that (in verse 15 of Genesis 7) "Pairs of all creatures that have the breath of life in them came to Noah and entered the ark." They didn't have to scavange the earth and capture these animals, God brought them to him and inside the ark. I don't know if animals have any sort of thoughts or emotions beyond fear and hunger, but if they could think like us, imagine them talking as they ate leaves: "Where is Doomba going ... with Sheba in tow?" Or, "Haven't you heard? Our creator has chosen them to be escorted into a boat, while we will perish."
For 150 days the waters flooded the earth. I don't know how long it took Noah to build the ark, but in the time between God's remembering of Noah, His covenant with him and his command to build the ark and the commencement of the flood, I wonder if God reconsidered what He was going to do. Was there time for the wicked people around Noah to repent of their ways and find God's favor? If it took a year or more for Noah to build this ark, I wonder what that year was like. If I was an angel or something looking on (and having knowlege of what was to come), I would perceive everything I saw with a sense of doom.
The second coming of Christ has been refered to as being like the story of the ark, where God's chosen people will be saved from His judgment. But the period between His pronouncement of His coming and His actual return has a different feel to it. We have been commanded to make disciples of all nations and be "witnesses" for Jesus and His story in the interim. Wicked people do have a chance to repent and change. In essence, perhaps, we can invite others to join us in the "Ark."
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at September 21, 2006 10:08 AM