Weekly Devotion

Last week I talked about the prophecy Noah made over his three sons. You will remember that I said that he cursed Canaan, the son of Ham and said that he will become the lowest of servants to the descendants of Shem and Japheth. And this did indeed happen. I don't think I even need to tell you, but the Canaanites settled in Canaan and lived there for several years, until their wickedness had become so awful that it was time for the Lord to punish them. And you all know the story of how the Israelites invaded Canaan after their exodus from Egypt. They eliminated most of the Canaanites and used those that were left as their slaves.

Also in later years the Canaanites were dominated by the Greeks and later totally demolished by the Romans in the Punic wars. So that prophecy was fulfilled.

And what did Noah say about his other two sons?

Genesis 9:26 "Then Noah said: May Shem be blessed by the Lord my God; and may Canaan be his servant."

And Shem was indeed blessed. Amongst other nations, the Jews were descendants of Shem. And this blessing on them was repeated to Abraham in Genesis 12. They were God's special nation and they were His Witness to the world that He is a loving God. They were and are indeed until today a very blessed nation.

And what did Noah say about Japheth?

Genesis 9:27 "May God enlarge the territory of Japheth, and may he share the prosperity of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant."

Did this happen? Yes it did. The descendants of Japheth settled for the most part in Europe and Asia Minor. And God did indeed help them to enlarge their territory. The Europeans were largely the ones who ventured out and discovered new continents and new lands. Today the descendants of Japheth are evident in every continent.

Plus Japheth today shares in the blessing of Shem. Why? Because when the Jews rejected Jesus, God rose up a new witness for Him on this earth and it was the Church. The Church at the start was predominantly Jewish, but as time passed on more and more Gentiles started to fill the church and today the Church is predominantly non-Jewish believers. And predominantly descendants of Japheth. God therefore allowed Japheth's descendant into a covenant with Him and allowed them to share the blessings He intended to bestow on the Jewish nation.

Of course today the members of the church consist of every nation and tribe, but it is just interesting to see how this prophecy of Noah largely came to pass. I think it will make a very interesting study to look at all the nations of the world through God's perspective. We tend to look at our world around us and we don't understand certain things, but maybe once in a while we should look at the bigger picture, not just concerning Noah's prophecy, but how God sees the world. He is working with a plan and it will all come to pass and one day when we are with Him we will understand everything and marvel in His goodness. He is so good and He works for the good of every believer. We need to trust in Him.

Thank you Father that You are working with a plan in this world. Thank you that we can trust in You. We will never understand everything here, but one day we will and we will marvel at Your everlasting goodness. In Jesus' Name. Amen

I learned about the amazing prophecy that Noah made this week from the teachings of Roger Price and I thought that you will find it as interesting as I did. And seeing that I am discussing Noah, this might be a good time to share it with you.

I am sure you all know the story of Noah, how he and his family survived the flood with which God judged the earth. Only Noah, his wife, three sons and three daughter in-laws survived. These eight people repopulated the earth and from these eight people came all the nations of the world. And yes, you also descended from one of them. They must have been a mixture of all the genes in the world, as all races came from them.

Now after they came out of the boat they started to repopulate the earth and also to cultivate the land. It was not long before Noah planted a vineyard and made his beloved drink, wine. One day he got drunk with the wine and lay naked in his tent. One of his sons, Ham came and saw his father in his drunken stupor. Now in those days they had the right to privacy when they were in their tents, but Ham didn't respect that. He didn't have reverence for his father, but betrayed his father by going over to tell his two brothers what he saw. They had more respect for their father and revered him enough to cover him and not let him lie there in shame. When Noah awoke, he learned what had happened and spoke the most fascinating prophecy over his three sons. And seeing that all the nations of the world came from these three, this prophecy still affects all the nations even today. The first part of the prophecy was:

Genesis 9:25 "Then he cursed the descendants of Canaan, the son of Ham: 'A curse on the Canaanites! May they be the lowest of servants to the descendants of Shem and Japheth."

Now what is very interesting is that Noah didn't curse Ham, while the Bible clearly states that it was Ham that betrayed his father. Noah cursed one of Ham's sons Canaan. Why? I don't know. We can only make guesses. Maybe Canaan was with his father when he saw Noah, and maybe he laughed at his grandfather and maybe even made fun of him in his drunken state. We will never know. But what we do know is that Canaan's descendants were one of the most wicked nations the world has ever seen. Amongst other cities, Sodom and Gomorrah were full of Canaanites and we know how wicked they were. Archeologists are still stunned today as they uncover some of the horrific things that the Canaanites had done. So it is a reasonable guess to say that their great great grandfather, Canaan was inherently wicked too.

Now did this prophecy come true? I think most of you know the answer, but I will elaborate further next week, including the prophecies of Shem and Japheth.

But for now I would just like to leave you with one thought. The Bible is full of prophecies and it is such an amazing study to do to see how all of them came to pass. Of course some will still come true and relates to future events, but those that have come to pass, have come to pass to the letter. In short what I would like to say is this, if you have time, go and study some of the prophecies and if anyone ever asks you for proof that there is a God, you can tell them some of these prophecies. He is the only One who can predict the future and can predict it so accurately. Some Bible critics even say that some of the events predicted must have been written after it happened so accurate in detail is it. We can therefore trust in Him implicitly and know that the prophecies He made about the future will also come true and that should give us assurance that the promises He made that we will be with Him for all eternity one day will most definitely come to pass! Hallelujah!

Lord You are amazing. You are the only One who knows the beginning from the end. Our future is in Your Hands and we are so grateful for it. In Jesus Name. Amen

Why was Noah safe in the ark?

We have looked at three reasons in answer to our question:

1. God shut him in.
2. God designed the ark in such a way to withstand all the pressure and
3. The whole ark was covered with pitch. No water could come in.

Today we will look at the last reason why he was safe. He was safe because God was there with him.

Genesis 7:1 "And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation."

God was inside the ark with Noah. This is illustrated by the word 'Come'. If He wasn't there with them He would have said 'Go in', but no, He said 'Come in'. One only says 'come in' if you are already inside. We typically tell visitors to come in when they arrive at our house. We open the door, step back and let them inside with us. Or we tell people to 'Come', we summon them and walk with them. Jesus Himself told his disciples to come and follow Him. And here God tells Noah to come in. He was therefore with him inside.

The same goes for Jesus today. He is always with us. No trouble can come to us, because Jesus is there with us. Don't even bother with the problems on the outside. Jesus is mightier than anything we can ever encounter. Nothing can separate us from Him or draw us away from His Presence. He is there with us and will always be there for us, no matter what happens!

Jesus shuts us in, He covers us and He is always with us. The plan of salvation is so perfect, that we can weather any storm, nothing can take our salvation from us. It is safe in God's Hands. We are safe and we will be with God forever and ever due to the gift of salvation we received.

Romans 8:1 - 4 "So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses could not save us, because of our sinful nature. But God put into effect a different plan to save us. He sent His own Son in a human body like ours, except that ours are sinful. God destroyed sin's control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the requirement of the law would be fully accomplished for us who no longer follow our sinful nature, but instead follow the Spirit."

Yes, follow the Spirit. He knows best and will guide you where you need to be. But know always, your salvation is safe, Jesus covers you.

Thank you God that we can look forward to spending eternity with You. We cannot wait. Thank you that we can experience a part of You here on earth already. In Jesus Name. Amen

Why was Noah safe in the ark? We have been pondering this question over the past two weeks and have come up with the following two answers:

1. Because God shut him in and
2. Because God designed the ark to withstand all the pressure.

Today we will look at the third reason why Noah was safe. He was safe because the ark was covered with pitch.

We have briefly looked at it, but basically the whole ark was covered with pitch. It was a total covering. No drop of water could enter through it. You have most probably seen water that has fallen on a tar road? It doesn't go through the tar, like it would through ground. No, it stays there until the sun causes the water to evaporate, or it flows off the tar into the ground. It never goes through tar. There is therefore no way that the water could have entered the ark, it was totally covered with pitch.

And so we are too. Jesus covers us completely. All of us are covered with His blood. There is not a single part of you that were not atoned for. He did it once and for all. We don't have to atone for our sins every time we sin like the Israelites had to do with all their offerings they had to bring. No, we don't have to bring offerings. We have absolute liberty and freedom.

However we sometimes still think we do need to bring some sort of offering. I have heard Christians speak that way. They feel that they have to help someone to obtain favor from God, or they have to give their money to obtain their salvation or they feel that they have to attend church to be able to be reconciled with God or they have to be part of the churches' activities otherwise God might be angry with them. The list of modern day offerings can go on and on. And though all these things are good things to do, at the end of the day you would most probably want to do them because of your love for God, but you don't have to. Christ's blood is enough. His blood is enough to obtain salvation and reconciliation with God. There is nothing you can do to earn it, He covers you completely. Nothing you can do will ever be good enough.

Incidentally, when the Israelites brought their offerings to the priests, the priests examined the offering to make sure that it was according to the requirement, perfect and without blemish or fault. The priests didn't examine the people and asked what they did and examined their hearts. No, they examined the offering. And today the offering, the perfect offering was Jesus Himself. He was faultless, sinless and without any blemish. And today when God 'examines' the Blood Offering, He finds that it is perfect, He doesn't look to us and examines us, because we are covered with Christ's blood. He doesn't see us, but He sees Christ, because we are totally covered by Him.

What a wonderful plan of salvation You designed Lord. Thank you for covering us with the blood of Jesus. We are grateful for it and accept it in our lives. We will never be good enough on our own, but thank you that we can be good enough with Jesus covering us. In Jesus Name. Amen

We are continuing with the theme of drawing parallels between Christ's atonement for us and Noah's ark. We have asked the question last week: Why was Noah safe in the ark? We discussed the first reason why he was safe and it was because God shut him in.

Today we will continue with the second reason. Noah was safe because God designed the ark. Noah didn't get an architect to design it or tried to design it himself. No. No one would have been able to design it anyway, because there had never been a flood like that ever in the history of the world. If they had designed it I am sure that the ark would not have been able to endure 40 days of torrential rain and basically a year out on the open water. The ark would most probably have sank within the first couple of hours.

No, God designed the ark. He gave very specific details of how big the ark should be and how they should build it. He knew exactly how much rain was going to pour down, He knew exactly how strong the water pressure was going to be, He knew exactly the weather conditions that was going to attack the ark and He knew exactly for how long they were going to be inside the ark. He knew everything and He designed the ark to be perfect. And to Noah's credit, he followed the specifications to the letter and because he did, he was safe along with his family.

In much the same way God designed the plan of salvation. He designed the plan in such a manner that you would be able to withstand the pressure that the world is going to put on it. God knew of every force that would come against you, He knew of every sin that would try and come to lure you away, He knew exactly who you were going to be and He designed salvation in such a way that nothing can separate us from Him ever again. If we accept Christ in our lives, we would be able to weather the storm raging. We would be safe in the knowledge that we are saved and that nothing can come between us.

Thank you God for designing Your plan of salvation in such a way that we are safe. Thank you that we can relax in Your strong arms and know that we will be with You forever and ever. Amen

We spoke last week of the similarity between the tar used by Noah to cover the ark and the word 'atonement' used to symbolize the effects which flowed from the death of Christ. Both of them mean 'to cover'. Noah covered the ark and Jesus' blood covered us.

Now let me continue to draw the similarities between them by asking this one question: Why was Noah safe in the ark? What made that he didn't have to fear the forces of the flood crashing into his boat? I mean think about it, It was just a boat made out of wood after all, it could easily have let in water and sunk to the bottom of it all. He could have crashed into a mountain simply with the fierce force of the water. So many things could have gone wrong, but it didn't, why?

I am going to discuss the first reason today and the others in the coming weeks. The first reason why he was safe was because God shut him in.

Genesis 7:15,16 "Two by two they came into the boat, male and female, just as God had commanded. Then the Lord shut them in."

I don't know about you, but I have read and heard this story many times before, but I always thought that they simply shut the door from inside, like a submarine today and that was that. In our modern society it is easy to shut a door from the inside, and if it is designed to go underwater there are extra measures taken to ensure that no water will filter in. But it was only now when I carefully read this verse that I realized that that would not have been possible in those days.

They couldn't shut themselves in. The door was made out of wood, and water could easily have come in through the small openings between the door and the ark itself. They covered the whole boat with tar, but they couldn't cover those openings from the outside, because they were all inside. God therefore covered the entrance with tar once they were all inside. God ensured that they were safe and that not a drop of water will filter in.

The same is true with Christ. Once you accepted Him in your life you are covered by Him. You are shut in and Jesus closes the door. You are inside His safe haven and you cannot get out. You are protected by Him and He would keep you in His loving embrace. No matter what sin you commit, He will not let you go. You are His. He has died for very sin that you have committed and will ever commit and has reconciled you with God. You are part of His family now.

Thank you so much Father that we can know that we are shut in. We are being kept safe from harm, no evil can prosper against us, for at the end of the day we will be with You forever and ever. Amen

I currently have the privilege of attending a bible study where we are listening to the teachings of Roger Price, a late bible teacher from England. Now for the next month I would like to discuss one of the topics that he explained to us. It stood out for me and I would like to share it with you. I am going to add some of my own teachings, but the main message was delivered by God through him.

He spoke about atonement and how Jesus came to provide unlimited atonement once and for all time for all people. He provided atonement for each and every sin. Yes, even for the sins of unbelievers, if they would accept Him in their lives and accept what He has done for them. Listen to this:

1 John 2:2 "He (Jesus) is the sacrifice for our sins. He takes away not only our sins, but the sins of all the world."

1 Timothy 4:10 "We work hard and suffer much in order that people will believe the truth, for our hope is in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and particularly of those who believe."

So Jesus came for us all, every single one of us, no one is excluded from accepting His saving power.

Now the word atonement means 'kaphar' in Hebrew. And according to the Easton's Bible Dictionary it means 'at-one-ment', making us one with God through reconciliation. It is used therefore to refer to the effect which flowed from the death of Christ.

And according to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia the word 'kaphar' means to 'cover', 'condone' or 'effect reconciliation.'

Interestingly almost the same word is used to describe the tar with which Noah had to cover the ark.

Genesis 6:14 "Make a boat from resinous wood and seal it with tar, inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior."

Now the word 'tar' or 'pitch' as they use in the King James Version, is 'kopher' in Hebrew, which according to the King James Dictionary means a thick, dark, sticky substance.

However the Hebrew word is almost the same as that used for 'atonement'. And this Hebrew word according to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, means covering or to cover.

In other words the ark was covered with tar to protect it from the onslaught of the water. In the same way Jesus came to cover us and provide reconciliation for us with God. He is our covering, the One providing protection for us when the onslaughts of life come. He is our shield and He pleads our case with the Father. He covers us in totality so that when the Father looks at us, He doesn't see us as sinful people, but He sees Jesus, the absolute Righteous covering us like a soft blanket.

Over the next few weeks we will continue this discussion, but for now know, you are covered with Jesus' blood in totality and you are reconciled with the almighty Father by what Jesus did on the cross.

Father God, thank you that Jesus came to cover us, to protect us and to lead us on the path to reconciliation with You. It is truly amazing and help us to make the most of it and grow closer to You each day. In Jesus' Name. Amen