Seedtime And Harvest

"there wouldn't be a next time"

THE DEVIL filled the earth with violence (chamas, Genesis 6:13), and God waited until there were only 8 righteous people left. Read that again. THE DEVIL FILLED THE EARTH WITH VIOLENCE. Not God. He is not violent. He is longsuffering, and He waited until there was no one who would repent. Just Noah’s family still worshipped Him. Noah preached righteousness, holiness (2 Peter 2:5). No one listened.

So God cleansed the earth with a flood.

GOD DID NOT in His anger, destroy His creation. HE DID NOT grow tired of it all and decide to just do away with mankind. HE DID NOT allow the violence until the earth was full and then drown everyone to start over. He saved the eight people who loved him. But only after, He’d given every man alive a chance to live.

Then after the flood, after God designed the boat and closed Noah in it (Genesis 7:16), after the waters receded and life returned, trees that had been underwater for months sprouted leaves. The dove Noah released didn’t return (Genesis 8:12). God’s life remained. After the flood, when Noah offered a sacrifice to God and continued his faithful worship, God made the earth a promise.

He gave promise to Noah. He gave a promise to the earth.

He said there would always be seedtime and harvest (Genesis 8:22). He said He would never more cleanse the earth with a flood (Isaiah 54:9). Not because He’d destroy us another way. Not because next time there’d be raging fire.

But because there wouldn’t be a next time. God promised that righteousness, that godliness, would far outweigh sin, that there wouldn’t be a whole world of violence like that. He promised to cleanse the souls of men and rescue them from sin and death by sending a Messiah.

“And the LORD God said unto the serpent … And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” (Genesis 3:14-15)

There’d be seedtime and harvest. The goodness of God. Creation’s beauty as He’d originally set it in motion. And a permanent supernatural solution.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

The predicted war of John’s Revelation won’t happen. The explosion which men think will come to wipe out the earth is not what’s written (Revelation 21:1). God is peace (Luke 2:14). The GOD OF PEACE sent the PRINCE OF PEACE with the GOSPEL OF PEACE to send the SPIRIT OF PEACE so there’d be PEACE ON EARTH goodwill to men.

The GOD OF ALL COMFORT came to comfort us so that we could comfort others with His comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

What happened wasn’t a natural flood, wasn’t a war, wasn’t a battle between Israel and Rome, wasn’t a clash of supernatural forces like no one had ever seen. Nor thousands of angels called down from heaven (Matthew 26:53). How God cleansed the world was the death of His Son, who laid down His life (no one could take it from Him), and without complaint, without defense, as the Lamb of God, He took away the sins of the world and gave us eternal life.

The flood this time is an ocean of love without a shoreline, without a depth. It is the healing of people’s hearts, the mending of lives, the cleansing of minds. God came to live with us, and seedtime and harvest remains.

“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. 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.” (Genesis 8:20-22)

“Who, then, shall ever separate us from the love of Christ? Shall problems, or hardships, or criticism, or persecution, or hunger, or disease, or homelessness, or nakedness, or imprisonment, or financial ruin, or terrorists, or war? … In all things—no matter what we face—we are more than conquerors through trust in him who loved us.” (Romans 8:35,37, Remedy)

“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.” (Revelation 21:1)

Photo by Naja Bertolt Jensen on Unsplash


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com