“And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged;
   The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;” Gen. 8:1-2

 “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
   And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” Matt. 24:21-22

While writing another piece based on Amos 3:7 I was overwhelmed at God’s great mercy in His plan of the ages. That plan consists of seven thousand years, out of that seven thousand years only seven years will be filled with judgment on the Earth and its inhabitants. And out of that seven years, it is my opinion that only 45 days will be full of completeness of God’s own personal wrath being poured out. (I base my belief of the 45 day time period on this passage from Daniel;) “And from the time that the daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days. Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.” Dan. 12:11-12

ONLY 7 YEARS OUT OF 7 THOUSAND!
ONLY 45 DAYS OF COMPLETELY PERFECT GODLY ANGER!
In this section, even though there are still similarities, I feel I must point out one of the differences between the judgment of the flood and the judgment by fire and the reasons why it will be so. Let us first read chapter 8:1 & 2 of Genesis; “And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged; The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;” Look at this likeness. Here is the key; “and God remembered Noah,”! It was the way God regarding Noah we remembered him. “He cared about him“, God loved Noah and because of this He stopped the rain, closed the very window of heaven, and sent a wind to dry the Earth out so Noah and his family and the innocent animals could once more inhabit the earth. The Scriptures also tell us that God will once more remember his elect. “Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord.” (Amos 9:8)  “And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.” (Zech. 12:9)  “And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God.” (Zech. 13:9) Then, in Matthew 24:21 & 22, Jesus makes it unmistakably clear; “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” The thing that is the same as with Noah is that God will remember His elect as He remembered Noah, and because of His love for them, He will stop the horrors that will have been going on, and the outpouring of His own wrath. He will also remember Noah again and the covenant He made with him, which we will cover a little later. So God has given His word that for His “elect’s” sake, both Noah and those who come at the very end, He will not allow the entire world and those upon it at the time to be completely destroyed. That is the difference between the flood and judgment to come. All life not in the Ark was destroyed by the flood. This is a paradox, though, that some on the earth will be saved, but they also will be under the Ark of God… His spiritual Ark, and that’s what makes them His elect, both the Jew and Gentile alike. We know we can depend on these promises, because God has always kept His word. Prophecy and its fulfillment is the one thing that proves this to us, and assures us we can count on God to fulfill those things that have not yet come to pass, down to the most minute details.

9. THANKSGIVING AND PRAISE

“And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” Gen 8:20

“And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;” Rev 5:9

“And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne and the beasts and the elders: and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands;
   Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.” Rev 5:11-12

The next thing we see is Noah testing to see if the time is right to leave the Ark. Because I’m not sure how this portion of the account of Noah fits into this piece I am only mentioning it so as not to leave out any part of the pageant and sequence of things. One suggestion I find here is that we should be led by the Holy Spirit symbolized by the dove, not by the raven representing Satan.

God did give the command for Noah, the family, and all the living things to go forth out of the Ark, and so they did. The first thing Noah did was build an altar that he might thank God for what He had done for him. We see a parallel to this in heaven after the bride is “caught up” to meet her bridegroom. In the fifth chapter of Revelation we see this heavenly gathering. “And they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;” Then in verse 12 we hear; “Saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.”

The next thing we read from Genesis is this; “And the Lord smelled a sweet savour; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done. While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” Gen 8:21 & 22

In a later chapter I will go into more detail about why I believe the group that “sung a new song” are a relatively small number compared to all who will be saved, just as Noah and his family were a small group to be saved out of all who were living at their time.

10. GOD’S COVENANT WITH MAN

“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 I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
   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.
   And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.” Gen 9:12-17

“And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened.” Matt 24:22

As I said in the introduction, chapter 9 opens with God blessing Noah and his sons and getting them dominion over the animals, He gave some instructions and then comes the wonderful promise which we can also inherit. “And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you; And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.  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 I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.  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. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.” Gen. 9:8-17 So through Noah and his righteousness in God’s eyes, because he had been obedient to the things God had required of him, all of mankind as in the past, and will in the future reap the benefits of God’s covenant with Noah.

God, in his usual way, has given those willing to search the Scriptures, such a beautiful bridge between Genesis and Revelation through the bow. Each time we see a rainbow it can serve as a reminder to us of God’s covenant with Noah, who was representing all mankind. The sign of the bow is used as a bridge in Ezekiel to connect the Old Testament covenant which started between God and Noah and ends with the fulfillment and completion of the new covenant in the person of Jesus. (Hebrews 12:24) Then the bridge is completed in revelation when Jesus appears with a rainbow upon his head. So in Genesis God tells Noah the bow will be a sign that God will never destroy the earth and all mankind by a flood again. In Ezekiel we clearly see the bridge between Genesis and Revelation through the presence of the bow. Jesus made an appearance in this heavenly vision and the accompanying rainbow makes that marvelous bridge between Noah in Genesis and Jesus in revelation as you will see.

“And there was a voice from the firmament that was over their heads, when they stood, and had let down their wings. And above the firmament that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone: and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness as the appearance of a man above upon it.” (In the description of Jesus in Revelation 1:13 He is said to be like unto the son of man.) “And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the rain of day, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake. And he said unto me, Son of man, stand upon thy feet, and I will speak unto thee. And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me.” Ezek 1:25-2:2 So we see there is little doubt that this has to be Jesus and about Him is the sign of the covenant God had made with Noah. This speaks to me that he, Jesus, is the hope of the fulfillment of a covenant, (the new covenant) the only hope of salvation, and the redemption of man. He is the only one who can give us that righteousness and holiness without which we are told, no man can see God! Hebrews tells us that Jesus is the mediator of the “new covenant”, and that through him we can be made perfect, (Heb. 12:23) righteous and holy that we may see God. “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin. Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having an high priest over the house of God;” Heb. 10:16-21 “And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.  And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which cannot be shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire.” Heb. 12:24-29

This was God’s plan even then, when He made that covenant with Noah. We are even told of this in Colossians 1:26 & 27; “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:” I especially like the way this same passage is put in the living Bible; “He has kept this secret for centuries and generations past, but now at last it has pleased Him to tell it to those who love Him and live for Him, and the riches and glory of His plan are for you Gentiles too. And this is the secret: that Christ in your hearts is your only hope of glory.” So, God had promised Noah that in spite of the wretchedness of man, He would ultimately save some to have Fellowship with Him for eternity. As I had shown before, and as is always the case with God, it must be on His terms! He did provide a way to save and redeem man, but they must be found righteous in His sight, and He also provided His only Son as our redeemer, our means of righteousness. He took all our sins upon Himself at the cross and by accepting this in a personal way we are covered by His righteousness. This means we must give our lives to Him, just as surely and completely as He gave his life for us. We will leave that exciting link in Ezekiel where the Lord Jesus is shown with a rainbow round about Him and move on to revelation where He is shown twice with the rainbow. 

First in Revelation 4 verses 2 & 3 we read; “And immediately I was in the spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.” Then in chapter 10 verse 1 we find; “And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon His head, and His face was as it were the sun, and His feet as pillars of fire:” So we see the beginning and the end, Genesis and Revelation tied together in Ezekiel by the bow, or sign of God’s covenant, His promise to Noah to save mankind and Jesus is the way. This was God’s plan, His provision, His gift to bring salvation and redemption to men.

“O Praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people. For his merciful kindness is great toward us: and the truth of the Lord endureth for ever. Praise ye the Lord.” Psalm 117

Yes, there will be judgment and tribulation as never before and will never be again, but God will remember Noah and all the rest of His elect, and the covenant that He made with Noah, and He will put a stop to the catastrophes, before all flesh is destroyed, as He has promised. Judgment is coming, you can be sure of that; but we can look up, and know that our redemption draws nigh, in the clouds. To remind us, we have the bow in the clouds to cling to.

Here I would like to share a truly beautiful thing the Lord did for our family this past summer (1982). We had just finished eating outside. That day in the mail we had received (how we got on that mailing lists, we don’t know.) a sort of prophecy newsletter, from a “so-called” Christian group. It was entitled ‘Saints alive!’ On the inside it said; “The Saints and the little horn” and was going to deal with the book of Daniel. Since we are students of this book ourselves, we were eager to hear what they had to say. Terry, my son, began to read the piece aloud to us. I must confess I was a little suspicious of the “Saints Alive” since we had been exposed to the “Super-Saint” or “kingdom now” concept on quite a few occasions. Another group with similar beliefs call themselves “Historists”. For quite some time the writing went along right on target, everything they were saying seemed be what the Holy Spirit had taught us, then came the bomb. “The widespread teaching that the Saints will be taken out before this time arrives, is causing many to take lightly the need for preparation.” The piece went on to try to prove that the Saints would all remain on the Earth during the tribulation. Then we knew at once that they were the modern day Sadducees, “… which say that there is no resurrection…” We also knew by our own experience and because the Scriptures tell us this that all who have the hope of seeing Him face to face when He appears, and knowing that we shall be like Him when we see Him as He is, the man who has this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure. Just the opposite of what this man was saying is true. One with this hope of being “caught up” to meet the Lord in the air, will not take holiness lightly, but rather seek righteousness. It is the hope of being in his presence that makes us better able to achieve holiness, not by trying to run an endurance race, or working too hard in ourselves, or make ourselves righteous that makes us holy. It is allowing Him to prepare us to be “caught up” to meet Him in the air or dying to ourselves that is the key. Soon after we knew where the author of this “Saints alive!” teaching was coming from, not Saints “caught up” the remaining “alive” during the tribulation, we stopped reading it. We were discussing how timely the arrival of this mailing had been since we had, on several occasions recently seen strong signs and had heard a number of groups teaching this very doctrine, too many for me to go into now. Some were among those who used to strongly teach about the pre-tribulation “Rapture” of the church, but now have abandoned their belief in it. During the time we were discussing those signs Jeffrey who was seven at the time started yelling to us to come see the rainbow. His dad, Terry, thought he was kidding or saw something else. Perhaps partly because he was looking almost overhead, but slightly to the west, and we had never seen one to the west or overhead, and Jeff had been known to exaggerate. I felt I should check it out just in case. I never want to miss seeing one of God’s tokens of his covenant with man. I could hardly believe what I saw, up over our house was the brightest and most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen. Not only was it the brightest and in an unheard of place but, it was upside down and had rays of light shafts shining through it. I called the others and they came, so we all saw it. I called to the woman across the street, but she never could see it, it seemed to be just over our house. We knew at once it was a very special gift to us to increase our faith, and so perfectly timed, right after reading something sent to our house, in an attempt by Satan, to weaken our faith for the resurrection, the “catching up” of the bride of Christ, that she might escape all the things that are coming on the world to try men. (Rev. 3:10) We also felt that one part of the message was that men, (ones like the author of that writing) turn God’s covenant with His people upside down. They completely turn things around, but that the light from Him will shine through all that, and He will keep His covenant with those who believe all that He has said. The bow was also seen first by a child, and we are to come to Him and continue to trust Him as children. Jeffrey was seven at the time, and that is God’s number of perfection.

So we have seen that God made a covenant with Noah who is representing all men willing to be obedient to the commands of God their father. He promises Noah that he would leave the bow in the clouds as a token to remind not only men, but Himself of the inheritance He would give those willing to forsake all else, in favor of His plans for them. He has kept that promise throughout these thousands of years, not only as we saw mentioned in the Scriptures, but all of us at some time in our lives, have beheld this beautiful sign God has been faithful to show us. Even before I knew and understood all these things about rainbows from God’s point of view, it was such a thrilling thing, even an indescribable feeling to see one, surely my spirit must have been giving me hints that there was a lot more to them, then just the beauty that met the eye. I can now express the feeling as one of supernatural ecstasy. As a reminder unto the edifying of the reader, I have shared the photograph and our most unusual sighting.

 11. AS IT WAS, SO SHALL IT BE!

“The Nephalim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.
   And the Lord 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.
  And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the Earth, and it grieved Him at His heart.
  And the Lord said: “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both men, and beast, and creeping thing, and fowl of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them.”
  But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.” (Gen. 6:4-8… The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic text.)“But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Matt 24:37

Having gone over some of the main events of the Biblical account of the life of Noah, we will return to our title Scripture from Matthew 24:37. As I mentioned in the introduction this is the teaching of Jesus when those closest to Him asked; “When shall these things be and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world? [or age]”. In this section then, we will compare the days just before the flood with the prophecies about the last days before the “rapture of the bride” and the conditions of today.

Usually in God’s prophetic word, we get a clearer picture of things to come, by looking back to pageants God has had acted out for us. While working on this segment I saw just the opposite happening, with one exception. I realized there was little written describing the details and specifics of the wicked conditions in the time of Noah. I saw that this forced us to look forward, (for there are numerous details of the wickedness in the “last days”), thus helping us to look back. We will do just that after exploring that one exception.

Through the Scriptures, God leaves little doubt that He saw man so evil that He was sorry He had made him, and decided to destroy him altogether. The one word picture we do have to the conditions is in the introduction to the account of Noah and it fits perfectly into part of our theme, “marrying and giving in marriage.” After the genealogy in chapter five of Genesis we see chapter six begin in this way; “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the Earth, the daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives, whom so ever they chose. And the Lord said: “My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for that he also is flesh; therefore shall his days be a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of man and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. And the Lord 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. And it repented the Lord that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the Lord said: “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast and creeping thing, and fowl of the air; for it repenteth Me that I have made them.” Gen. 6:7 T.H.S

Part Four: Our Redemption Draweth Nigh