Genesis 9:8-17: Salvation (Matthew 24:37-38. Luke 17:26-27, Hebrews 11:7, 1 Peter 3:20-22)

Presented to Swift Current community at Lenten Lunch service, 26 February 2015; the Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army 01 March 2015; and Corps 614 Regent Park, 28 June 2015 by Captain Michael Ramsay

   

Noah and his family survived that terrible flood. Our passage today takes place after the waters have subsided. But now everything is different. They have survived but nothing has returned to normal and nothing will ever return to whatever normal was before the flood – and that was some of the point of the flood – their life has been turned upside down but their life still goes on. They did not die with their neighbours, their friends, and other extended family but everyone else they knew did. They were saved and life goes on after the flood.

This can be very traumatic. In The Salvation Army we have a lot of experience with floods and recovery from floods: floods these days seeming to be an annual event. We have sent teams from Swift Current to help out during and after floods in Maple Creek, Weyburn, Melville, and other places across the province. We have sent teams from Swift Current to help out in High River and other places across the country.  Our Salvation Army has even provided disaster relief across the continent and around the world. I am one of the national trainers actually for Emergency Disaster training and we will be training and certifying people this weekend in Maple Creek so that they can help out in a disaster such as a flood.

There are many things to consider when helping out after a flood. When God was assisting Noah and his family, we remember that even after their boat had landed they didn’t get out until the waters had subsided enough for animals to graze and for food to grow. Remember a bird first bringing back the branch and then a bird not returning. Food: This is no small provision.

I remember when Hurricane Ike struck Galveston TX, September 2008: more than 1 million people were evacuated from Texas and probably more than 100 people were found dead as a result of the Hurricane and flood. I was on the first deployment with the relief team and bodies were still being found when I left.

Food and water: this was a big part of The Salvation Army mission. We had 30 food trucks from which we served around 75 000 hot meals every day, and gave people water and ice. Ice was very important. It was around 90 F. And the food: many people told me that without The Salvation Army they wouldn’t have eaten at all. Even though they lived through the flood, they wouldn’t have continued to survive.

When we were serving down there, I heard more than one account of a contemporary miracle paralleling that of the fish and the loaves. Our food trucks were instructed to make sure that they gave away all of the food before they came in for the night. They did not want food returned when people were going without. It was getting late and one truck was seeking someone to give its last container of food to. They prayed. One person then saw a line of about 12-18 tired and hungry looking construction workers so they headed over to offer them their food. They were really appreciative.

As they were feeding these men, a number of school busses filled with people pulled up. It is my understanding that they served over 800 meals at that location – no one went away hungry. Feeling blessed by what the Lord had done they started to clean up. (Now there was a non-believer, a Red Cross worker on their canteen with them that day). Someone picked up the container from which they fed the 800 meals and read from the side of it, ‘serves 90 meals’. The Lord fed more than eight times that number and no one went hungry. The Red Cross worker who was helping them on the truck that day began to cry. He said that he had never believed in God – until now.

God provided for the salvation of not only those He spared from the flood but God also provided for the Salvation of those left behind without food or anyway of making food and God also penultimately provided for the salvation of the Red Cross worker in the same way God provided for the Salvation of Noah and his family not only through the flood but also in His provisions during and after the flood.

Now we must remember as well that this was quite a traumatic event. Friends and probably extended family of Noah and his wife and children died. And the country to which they returned after the flood was nothing like the country they left. I imagine that some of them were asking themselves why their friends perished when God sent the warnings and the ark so that none need to perish.

From our time in Texas, there was a story of one 19 or 20 year-old who stood on the waterfront, intentionally defying the storm. He was swept away to his death. I met a man who lost his home and his business and praised the Lord for his insurance but this same man wondered and asked me why his brother chose to stay behind and die. How does he deal with the fact that his brother rejected the provided salvation?

This is really the same for us today here. We have the opportunity to thank God for His salvation and we can remember it every time we cast our eyes up to the heavens and see the rainbow, the symbol of God’s salvific covenant! We praise Him today also that the early warning not only for Noah and his family but also for us as it relates to the metaphorical eschatological hurricane. This warning was sounded 2 millennia ago – through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We praise the Lord, that he gave his life so that everyone can be saved.

Jesus died on the cross and rose again so that no one needs to perish in that metaphorical eschatological hurricane. The sad thing is that some refuse to call on the name of the Lord. Some ignore the early warning system. Some defy God. Some refuse to be saved. Some friends and family are like that man’s brother. Some friends and family are like that 19 or 20 year old – defying God and awaiting death this time by fire or even sooner by other means. It is sad. It is tragic.

I want to share some good news though: the story of Scott and the story of Paul. Scott was a food truck worker who had accepted the Lord not too long before coming to Galveston to help out with the flood relief and Paul was a 12 year-old boy.

Scott was working on of one of our food trucks. Paul lives in a small apartment with 10 other people and is familiar with the neighbourhood activities of gangs and drugs. This boy saw our canteen near his home and wanted to help. He approached Scott and volunteered to help. Scott welcomed him with open arms and very quickly made an impression on Paul - he kept coming back. Scott even gave him T-shirt and hat. The look on Paul’s face was worth a million dollars or more.

The evening before Scott was to return home from his deployment, I had the opportunity to give him his debriefing. During this exit interview we began speaking about Paul. Scott told me that he had prayed with Paul on a number of occasions and that Paul was asking about Jesus. I asked if Paul had asked the Lord into his heart. Scott said ‘not yet’ and asked me to help him do that.

The next day, Sunday, Scott, Paul, and a number of other volunteers working on the canteen eagerly awaited our arrival – Paul was ready to ask the Lord into his heart. We arrived and I encouraged Scott to lead Paul in the ‘sinners’ prayer’. After a simple confession of sin and profession of faith, Paul was welcomed into the family of God. We then sang a verse of Amazing Grace and Scott presented Paul with a Bible.

While we were celebrating Paul’s proclamation of salvation, two apparent ‘good-ole boys’ rolled up in a pick-up truck with their radio blaring Hank William’s “I Saw the Light.” They were angels. They were messengers of God who had come to celebrate with us, then they were gone.

In the midst of all the turmoil and all the suffering God was there just like in the midst of all Noah’s turmoil and suffering, God was there. And just like in the midst of all our troubles and all our sufferings, God is here. He offers this very same salvation to us that he offered to Galveston, Texas in 2008 and to Noah in Genesis 9-16.

Today we have the same choice as the people of Noah’s day and people of Galveston Island. We can either defy the eschatological hurricane and perish like the nineteen year-old boy or we can heed the warning; we can see the light, accept salvation, turn our eyes upon Jesus and celebrate with the Angles sent from God in Heaven. I know that I will never be able to hear Hank William’s, ‘I Saw the Light’ again without being reminded of God’s glorious Salvation through that flood. And I am sure that whatever else happened in Noah’s life that he could not ever see a rainbow again and not remember that glorious salvation the God provided for his family through the flood. And it is my hope today that if we haven’t boarded the Ark of eternal salvation yet that we do so today.

For those of us that have already experienced the salvation that Noah, that Scott, that Paul, and that so many others have experienced, it is my hope that every time we see a rainbow or even hear the song ‘I Saw the Light’, that indeed we might turn to Lord thank the Him again for His glorious Salvation.

Let us pray.

www.sheepspeak.com