F O O T H O L D
READING
17 THE GREAT RESCUE
PRAY Please help me
understand important lessons in this chapter,
heavenly Father.
READ Genesis 7:124.
THINK Does the flood story
describe society at all? What does it tell us
about God's mercy?
FOCUS The early chapters of
Genesis set the scene. The themes which
appear here are the themes
we meet again and again in the Bible.
We have seen that the world
is God's world, and that he loves and
cares for it; that man has
rebelled against God and brought
judgement on himself; and
that despite this God still longs to
have a relationship with men
and women. In today's reading we
learn just how terrible the
results of going against God can be.
The story of the flood
doesn't make pleasant reading but we can't
avoid the truths it teaches.
No one can reject God and get away
with it.
But there is another
important truth: God does not want people to
suffer (see 2 Peter 3:9).
The flood gives us a picture of what
salvation involves.
IT INVOLVES RESCUE being
taken out of danger by someone
stronger; God. It wasn't
Noah who decided to build a boat; it was
God who started it off.
IT INVOLVES SAFETY. In the
middle of all this upheaval God kept
Noah and his family safe (16).
God has rescued us from our sin
and its results and he
will keep us safe. But that doesn't
happen automatically.
SALVATION DEMANDS TRUST.
Noah had to believe that God was able to
do what he had said. We must
take God at his word.
SALVATION DEMANDS OBEDIENCE.
It is not enough to believe. Noah had
to build hard work, and
probably opposition. But that was the
only way to be safe. We do
not have to build a boat but we do have
to trust Jesus and that
involves obeying his commands.
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