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1/8 Reading Portions: Genesis 8; Matthew 8; Ezra 8; Acts 8
Listen to the audio devotional above, and/or read the written devotional below.
And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. Genesis 8:1
WRATH
When the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the heavens opened with rain for forty days and nights (Gen 7:11-12), the flood covered the entire earth so that the highest mountains were submerged about twenty-six feet under water (Gen 7:19-20). This was God’s judgment upon the wickedness of mankind because “every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually” (Gen 6:5). Therefore, through the flood, God “blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground,” except for Noah, his family, and all the animals with him in the ark (Gen 7:23).
The great deluge of Noah’s day was a prophetic foreshadow of a far more severe judgment from God upon sin— in the wrath of God poured out upon the Lord Jesus Christ when He hung upon Calvary’s tree. Like the flood submerging the whole earth beneath the waves, Jesus suffered God’s holy and unhindered anger for sin just as the psalmist declares,
I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. Psalm 69:2
Jonah also prophesied of the Messiah while he was in the belly of the big fish:
For You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all Your waves and Your billows passed over me…. The waters closed in over me to take my life; the deep surrounded me. Jonah 2:3, 5
So deep, so thorough, and so overwhelming were the sufferings of Christ in God’s holy wrath that all those faithfully trusting in the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice would be blessed with the saving grace of God’s mercy, for “mercy rejoiceth against judgment” (Jas 2:13, KJV). By the grace of God in the Holy Spirit’s gospel testimony of Christ God made a wind blow over the earth, and thus, we are saved through faith (the waters subsided). Hallelujah! What a Savior!
The flood was not the greatest show
Of God’s wrath upon sin;
For Christ receiv’d the greatest blow
When on His cross was pinn’d.
Listening to the account of Jonah I could also picture what it must have been like inside the Ark for Noah’s crew..such a wonderful picture of our security and safety in Him.