I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
Genesis 9:13
The rainbow – Hope in God’s commitment.
On our daily walk, we’ve seen more and more children’s pictures of a rainbow appearing in windows. This is true throughout Britain. It’s also true throughout Europe and the U.S.A. As the schools closed for the majority recently, children were urged to draw a picture of a rainbow to lift our spirits, as it is a colourful sign of hope. Some see the colours as a mood-lifter, while others think of the song, “Over the rainbow” with the thought that ‘the land that I dreamt of”, a land without Covid-19, is over the rainbow, as it were.
It’s obvious that people are searching for a hopeful message amid the Coronavirus lockdown that we’re facing at this time. This made me think of the original significance of the rainbow in Genesis with the account of Noah and the flood.
God gave the rainbow as a sign of his promise not to flood the whole world again. Mankind’s iniquity had reached such extremes by Noah’s days that God administered a severe judgement and destroyed almost everything that He himself had created.
Yet, Noah and his family were spared, along with animals of each kind, in order to start afresh. God made a covenant with Noah, and the human race, not to send a worldwide deluge again.
“Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood…. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
This shows God’s willingness to commit Himself to hold back from a final judgement until the end of time. This means that he is very patient in giving people time to turn from their sin and come to Jesus Christ. As Noah and his family went into the ark to be safe from the flood, we can be safe from God’s judgement by turning from our sin and trusting Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour.
God promises to be a (perfect) Father, Husband and King to us as we receive His Son as our Redeemer. He’s calling us to come to a covenant with Him, where He commits fully to care, to love, to keep, to lead and to make us holy in the end.“If God is for us, who can be against us?” No enemy can destroy the one that has God on their side.
So we Christians should have sure confidence in these times; if your not a Christian – what about coming into this contract with God by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour!
John Treharne, Tabernacl Llwynhendy