Sunday, April 11, 2021

GOD OPENS BUT YOU MUST GO IN

  Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. [i] God revealed truth to him and provided a way to avoid his perishing. Despite it had never rained before, God told Noah that it would rain. Noah believed God and trusted His Word as Truth. That is how Noah found grace!

  Of course, due to the curse on Adam, Adam’s kind would all die: “It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.” [ii] Noah was God’s kind!

  Noah was destined to die one time. “Judgment” is not physical death but the second death, or if people have found grace; the second life! Noah, so to speak, got his life back.

  What about the second death? Oh, that is too terrible to be talked about. Grace is all about eternal life. That is joyful and those who have found grace should be full of glee! But Noah was not. He found grace but no one else had. There was no joy in “Noahville” that day or any of the days on the Ark. Most certainly the eight people aboard the ark were thankful, but the ark was not a party vessel! They found hope, but Noah found grace and grace was given because he built the Ark, not only for himself but any who would come aboard.

  God knew who would board the Ark. The animals would come aboard freely; and so would Noah, but Noah wanted that none should perish. As patriarch, his family would board, not because they honored God so much, but because they honored their father. Again, that reminds of the Fifth Commandment; to honor thy father and mother… and what? “Thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” [iii] God would put that command to test. It had yet to be written down, but it was in God’s Mind all along.

  How about all the others? God wanted that none should perish [iv] so the door remained open for seven days for all who would enter. [v]  This time “days” (yowm) means twenty-four-hour periods, but eschatologically, it means periods of time, as is written, “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” [vi]

  Thus, seven “days” is antithetical to seven-thousand years in eschatology. Although the lifespan was reduced from one “day” (nearly one-thousand years for Noah, per sacred literature) to 120 years for those in Noah’s time, all Adam’s kind would be limited to seven-thousand years longevity on Earth.

  God would continue His work for six more “days” (6000 years) then rest on the seventh “day” (the millennial reign). Perhaps God prodded those who had not found grace for six days and rested on the seventh to see all would come in of their own volition. God would provide grace to them, because His grace is boundless and abundant. However, none but Noah found grace. For two sons: Shem and Japheth, they would find grace as well, and on dry land as Noah had! [vii] Sin took a foothold on Earth as Ham, albeit God kept him safe, found no grace on the waters.

  People take for granted, that once safely on the “Ark” of God (The Cross) that they have been saved. Ham had safety for forty days and nights, but in the end, he became a slave. [viii]

  How about Noah? He was much like Adam. “Noah began to be an husbandman, and he planted a vineyard: And he drank of the wine” (Gen 9:2). God gave Noah a new nature for the work, safety for the voyage, and a new world where he would be king! But what did Noah do? He began to be a “husbandman.” He played God but Jesus was God Himself: “I am (Jesus) the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman” (John 15:1).

  Jesus had revealed Himself. “I AM” is “EGO EIMI” in the Greek. Jesus had identified Himself as JHWH (as God) but He IS JHWH! Noah was not. Wine represents the “blood” of Jesus which Jesus shed for the remission of sins. [ix] Noah sublimely took the credit for saving mankind.

  God had not told him to plant a vineyard or to dress and keep it as He had Adam. Noah assumed the vocation of husbandman. Then Noah drank the wine. Like Adam, he partook of the fruit belonging to God and used it for pleasure. Satan had beguiled Noah without even getting his woman involved!

  Once that all who would go in had gone in, things began to happen, to wit: 

16 The Lord shut him in… 22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. 23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark (Gen 7:16. 22-23)… 18 And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him. (Gen 8:18)

  “The Lord shut him in.” That says so much! Not only did God shut Noah in the Ark but He closed the door to all others. They had been limited to seven days of decision-making. God and Noah were able to persuade them to enter… “It is going to rain and come a flood!” Noah surely ascertained. But none were wise enough to get out of the rain. Like them, mankind — Noah’s seed — have seven “days” of mercy and the time is nearer than it seems.

  That applies to modern times. In Anno Mundi 5783 (2021 AD) the door is open. It is the sixth “day” from Adam to now. The sixth day is upon Adam’s kind and most still do not fear the rain of fire enough to depend on the Cross. Those dead in Christ, even Noah and Japheth, are under the “tent” of God. [x] They are safe from the rain, but Shem still stands in the rain, as Jews left the safety of God’s Big Tent that He has enlarged enough for Jews and Gentiles. They are now more like the lost who have not sense enough to get under the large “tent” (The Temple that God built — Jesus Christ!)

  For them, God will wait another day. He will reign on the seventh “day” for one-thousand years and give more grace to the Jews. 144,000 will find grace during the last day before judgment. [xi] Before God seals the door for the Jews, they will have that one last day before He closes the door to safety.

  All those shut out perished. Only Noah and those on board with him did not perish; they remained alive: but the end had not come, but a new beginning. They were about to enter a new world and God, them willing, would provide a new nature for them.

  Noah took on Adam’s nature, and “now all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23) again. After a second creation — a rebirth — those born again failed God immediately. He had grace on Shem and Japheth because they honored their father, but disgrace on Ham whose son Canaan was made a slave to sin.

  Because one is “born again” does provide safety and security, but it is dependent whether the Father is honored or not. Canaan was cast out because he had the nature of Ham. The DNA of the Beast was concealed on the Ark with Ham. As before, by one man sin entered into the world [xii] and by one man sin reentered the world. Noah sinned but he had grace covering him. He was the new “Adam,” but Ham was the new Cain. Is it coincidence that his son was named Canaan? That name means “purple die” (Abarim Publications) and Canaan receive a mark of the curse. (Qyn is Hebrew from which “Cain” is derived. Qanan is the verb form of that same name. Qanan means “spearing” and Qyn “spear;” ibid). It should be obvious, therefore, that Cain and Canaan are closely related and “spearing” clearly describes the Canaanites.

  On a sidenote, tattoos are forbidden in scripture. [xiii] Why would God do that? Because that is what pagans do: “Thus saith the Lord, ‘Learn not the way of the heathen’” (Jer 10:2). Perhaps that is because the “heathen” are spiritual Canaanites. Also, since men are likened unto trees, tattoos are adorning the “trees” and not the Tree of Life. Perhaps the mark of Canaan, the “Beast” in the New World, is a tattoo on either the right hand or forehead. Jeremiah added, “For the customs of the people are vain” (Jer 10:3). Taking marks is vanity. No one can argue that.

  On a personal note, I am not judging because I once tattooed myself. It was an exercise in vanity, but lo and behold, the mark of Canaan did not take. Rather than a mark, I had found grace. Although I decorated my body, it is not there. Rather, I have the mark of God on my heart and forehead the same as Noah.

  God closed the door so that the unrighteous could not enter into the Ark. Just like in the Garden, God allowed one “devil” in. Ham, like Cain before, was of the Wicked One and his son the seed of the Wicked One who would be planted in the New Garden wherein there had been no tares. Soon that one tare smothered many good seed, and here we are today.

  The ship found land. God floated hope to them. He landed them somewhere in the Ararat Mountain range. Thereon, Noah took on the role of God. He planted a Garden himself. That was a presumptuous sin; the same type of sin of which Jesus was accused when He claimed to be the “Husbandman.” Jesus was… Noah was not. He presumed “to be” God.

  Sin, from ancient Danish is es, meaning “to be.” (Etymology Online). Like Adam, Noah did the forbidden sin, and like Adam, God covered Noah. His righteous sons did the covering on behalf of God: “Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness.” (Gen 9:23).

  You might ask, “From whence came the garment?” A guess is from an animal that God provided on the Ark. Well, when Noah built an altar, he “took of every clean beast.” [xiv] The best guess is that the cleanest of the “clean beasts” were lambs. Again, God covered Noah with a “coat of skin” likely from a lamb in both cases, as He had for Adam. [xv]

  God had closed the door to keep any others from the “Way to the Tree of Life” as He had with the Garden. [xvi] Perhaps God closed the door with cherubim as His “Hands” or perhaps it was the Hand of God Himself (aka, Jesus). Or perhaps, as the Nephilim years later, maybe the cherubim were preventing their new kind from entering the Ark… the Way to the Tree of Life.

  But Noah did something without God: “Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him” out of the Ark. God did not open the door. Noah did so by his own hands. Surely his sons helped with the door without waiting on God to open it.

  The lesson there is that God closes the door to preservation, but men are free to open the door and leave safety. There was no sin on the Ark, but when Noah and family left the Ark, although they were on the Holy Mountain, sin found them… even Noah who had found grace.

  If only they had waited until God opened the door, Ham would have been cleansed from sin. They left the security of the Ark, on their own, without God pushing them away. He would never leave nor forsake them, but they immediately forsook God; except two: Shem and Japheth. It was their “tent” that would be enlarged, and the Gentiles from Japheth finally entered the tents of Shem when the Holy Ghost came on all but the Canaanites.

  The latter (Palestinians) still have the spirit of Satan in them, they intermarried with Jews and Gentiles, and to this day, all have sinned because of Ham’s spirit of Satan who sneaked onto the boat… by another way than the Way to the door of the Ark!

  Few endured to the end. When is the end? When Jesus comes for Shem on the seventh “day.” Japheth endured the safety in the turbulence of the sea. He continued in safety in the tents of Shem after the “not so Great Tribulation!” Ham endured while safe but when he re-entered the world, he was in sin again. To be safe again, God would need to provide another “Ark.” He did that with the Cross. Hope floats to this day. The door is open, and all that will can get in!

  The door to heaven is reached by Jacob’s Ladder. It is symbolic of the Cross. Perhaps the animals had a gangplank, but the others a ladder of some sort. I can just see Noah and his family climbing a cross to get on board? But I can see Ham entering the way of the beasts! That would not work as it was soon revealed.

  Once out of the Ark, they again had to endure the world. Noah was not there to see God face to Face at the Transfiguration. Neither was Adam. However, Moses and Elijah were there. Moses finally saw the face of God. Noah, perhaps, already had. Elijah had gone to Heaven carried by a Whirlwind (aka, the Holy Spirit). Noah was carried by the Cross. He need not see Jesus until the General Resurrection because Noah had been with Jesus on the Ark. Scripture does not say so, but they were safe on the Ark because the Spirit of God was on board as well. If not, they would not have been safe.

  Throughout the exodus from Egypt God appeared to the Hebrews as a cloud by day and a fire by night. [xvii] Elijah was taken up by God in a whirlwind. [xviii]  At Pentecost God came with the sound as of rushing mighty wind again [xix] and cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. [xx] With Noah, God showed Himself brilliantly — as a peaceful rainbow: [xxi] Right now, God sits on His throne in Paradise and there is a rainbow about the throne. [xxii]

  Many have seen God in many ways, but the humblest way of all is as Flesh with the Name called “Jesus.” To be safe requires on thing, and the Greeks said it best to Philip, “Sir, we would see Jesus” (John 12:21). Noah found grace; he saw Jesus. Then Jesus, full of grace, preserved those who would be saved.

  The colors of the bows are there all the time, but it takes rain and the sun to manifest them. Likewise, Jesus is there all the time, and all that is necessary is to be willing to see Jesus.

  The psalmist saw Jesus, and at an early age, I did as well. I could have written this psalm myself: “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him” (Psalm 8:3-4)? Then when I understood more fully, God visited me, and I found grace.

(picture credit: 123RF; "Marine Sunset with Rainbow Over Water")


 



[i] Gen 6:8

[ii] Heb 9:27

[iii] Exod 20:12)

[iv] John 3:16

[v] Gen 7:4

[vi] 2 Pet 3:8

[vii] Gen 9:23, 27

[viii] Gen 9:26

[ix] Mat 27:28

[x] Gen 9:27

[xi] Rev 7

[xii] Rom 5:12

[xiii] Lev 19:28

[xiv] Gen 8:20

[xv] Gen 3:21

[xvi] Gen 3:24

[xvii] Exod 13:21

[xviii] 2 Kings 2:1

[xix] Acts 2:2

[xx] Acts 2:3

[xxi] Gen 9:13

[xxii] Rev 4:3

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