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The Story of Redemption
Noah and his family. Here a lesson is taught all who should live
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upon the earth, that for every manifestation of God’s mercy and love
toward them the first act of all should be to render to Him grateful
thanks and humble worship.
And lest man should be terrified with gathering clouds and falling
rains, and should be in continual dread, fearing another flood, God
graciously encourages the family of Noah by a promise. “And I will
establish My covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any
more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood
to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant
which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is
with you, for perpetual generations: I do set My bow in the cloud,
and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth.
And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that
the bow shall be seen in the cloud.... And the bow shall be in the
cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting
covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is
upon the earth.”
What a condescension on the part of God! What compassion for
erring man, to place the beautiful, variegated rainbow in the clouds,
a token of the covenant of the great God with man! This rainbow
was to evidence the fact to all generations that God destroyed the
inhabitants of the earth by a flood, because of their great wickedness.
It was His design that as the children of aftergenerations should see
the bow in the cloud and should inquire the reason of this glorious
arch that spanned the heavens, their parents could explain to them
the destruction of the old world by a flood, because the people gave
themselves up to all manner of wickedness, and that the hands of the
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Most High had bent the bow and placed it in the clouds as a token
that He would never again bring a flood of waters on the earth.
This symbol in the clouds is to confirm the belief of all, and
establish their confidence in God, for it is a token of divine mercy
and goodness to man; that although God had been provoked to
destroy the earth by the Flood, yet His mercy still encompasseth the
earth. God says when He looketh upon the bow in the cloud He will
remember. He would not have us understand that He would ever
forget, but He speaks to man in his own language, that man may
better understand Him.
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