Expression of Almighty God | Chapter 2. God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself I (part3)
2. God’s Blessing to Noah After the Flood
(Gen 9:1-6) And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, and on every fowl of the air, on all that moves on the earth, and on all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man. Whoever sheds man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
What do you see in this passage? Why have I chosen this passage? Have we chosen a passage about the life of Noah and his family of eight aboard the ark? (No.) Why not? This has little to do with the topic we are fellowshiping today, and the thing we are concerned with is God’s disposition. If you wish to read about that then you can read it in your own time, but we’re not talking about that today. Today we are primarily fellowshiping God’s deeds. Noah accepted God’s commands, and following that he lived through the days of the world being destroyed by God with flood and his family of eight lived on. Apart from the eight people in Noah’s family, everyone else was destroyed, as were all living creatures on the earth. God gave blessings to Noah, and He spoke to Noah and his sons. These words were a blessing to Noah and they were that which God bestowed on him. These words were the blessing and the promise from God to someone who was capable of obeying God’s words and of accepting His commands; it can be said that they were God’s reward to Noah. That is, regardless of whether Noah was a perfect man or a just man in the eyes of God, Noah and his three sons survived the flood because they heeded the words of God, and God blessed Noah because of his actions. Today, people may see this story very simply, and they may say,[e] “Noah didn’t do anything. God determined that Noah would be left, so he was left. That he was left wasn’t down to his own efforts; it was what God wanted to achieve, and man was passive.” Some people will think like this, but God doesn’t think this way. No matter if someone is so very great or so very insignificant, so long as they heed God’s commands, obey God’s commands and commission, cooperate with God’s will and God’s plans, cooperate with God’s work and heed God’s words, so that God’s will and His plans can be achieved, then, to God, this kind of behavior is worthy of remembrance and worthy of blessings, and God cherishes this kind of behavior, He cherishes this sentiment and this heart that man has for God—this is God’s attitude. Why, therefore, did God bless Noah? Because this is how God looks upon this kind of behavior and obedience in man. Continue reading “Expression of Almighty God | Chapter 2. God’s Work, God’s Disposition, and God Himself I (part3)” →