So that people would not fear another flood, the Lord encouraged the family of Noah through a promise: “I establish My covenant with you ... never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. ... I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. ... When I bring a cloud over the earth, ... the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud; ... and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature.”
How great the condescension of God, and His compassion for His wayward creatures!
This does not imply that God would ever forget, but He speaks to us in terms that we can understand. When the children would ask the meaning of the arch that spans the heavens, their parents were to repeat the story of the Flood and tell them that the Most High had placed it in the clouds as a promise that the waters would never again overflow the earth. It would testify of divine love for humanity and strengthen their confidence in God.
In heaven a likeness of the rainbow encircles the throne and arches over the head of Christ (Ezekiel 1:28; Revelation 4:2, 3). When humanity’s great wickedness invites divine judgments, the Savior, interceding with the Father, points to the bow in the clouds, to the rainbow around the throne, as a token of mercy toward the repentant sinner.
“‘As I have sworn that the waters of Noah would no longer cover the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be angry with you, nor rebuke you. ... My kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has mercy on you” (Isaiah 54:9, 10).
As Noah looked at the powerful beasts of prey as they came out of the ark, the Lord sent an angel with the assuring message: “The fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move upon the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs.” Before this time God had not given permission to eat animals for food; but now that every green thing had been destroyed, He allowed them to eat the flesh of the clean animals that had been preserved in the ark.
The entire surface of the earth was changed at the Flood. Dead bodies lay on the ground everywhere. The Lord would not permit these to remain to decompose and pollute the air. A violent wind, which was caused to dry up the waters, moved them with great force., In some instances it even carried away the tops of mountains and heaped up trees, rocks, and earth above the bodies of the dead. By the same means the silver and gold, choice wood and precious stones, which had enriched the world before the Flood, were concealed. The violent action of the waters piled earth and rocks upon these treasures and even formed mountains above them. God saw that the more He enriched and prospered sinners, the more they would corrupt their ways before Him.
The mountains, once beautiful, had become broken and irregular. Ledges and ragged rocks were now scattered on the surface of the earth. Where once earth’s richest treasures of gold, silver, and precious stones had been, the heaviest marks of the curse were seen. And on countries not inhabited and those where there had been the least crime, the curse rested more lightly.
More terrible manifestations than the world has yet seen will be witnessed at the second coming of Christ. As lightnings from heaven unite with the fire in the earth, the mountains will burn like a furnace and pour forth terrific streams of lava, overwhelming gardens and fields, villages and cities. Dreadful earthquakes and eruptions will be everywhere.
So God will destroy the wicked from off the earth, but the righteous will be preserved, as Noah was preserved in the ark. Says the psalmist: “Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you” (Psalm 91:9, 10; see also verse 14 and Psalm 27:5).
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