GENESIS 8: Devotion

The flood abated. Noah sent out a raven and two doves. When the earth was dry God called them all out of the ark. Noah built an altar.

"Noah was now gone out into a desolate world, where, one might have thought, his first care would have been to build a house for himself, but he begins with an altar for God. He begins well, that begins with God."

(Matthew Henry)

GENESIS 7: Devotion

Noah and his family went into the ark with two of each creature. And God shut the door. It rained for 40 days, the earth was covered. All creatures with the breath of the spirit of life outside the ark were destroyed.

"Noah did not have to shut the door on anyone’s salvation; God did it. After the same pattern, it is never our job to disqualify people from salvation. We let God shut the door."

(David Guzik)

GENESIS 5&6:

Family history of the line of sons from Adam to Noah. Humankind corrupted the earth with evil. God decided to destroy them. But Noah found grace and God had him build an ark to be saved from the flood. 

"God’s saints are the salt of the earth (Matthew 5:13), and little as the world realizes or appreciates it, the fact remains that it is the presence of God’s people here which prevents the mystery of iniquity coming to a head and preserves mankind from an outpouring of God’s wrath."

(AW Pink)

GENESIS 4:

Eve's sons made offerings to God. Only Abel's was acceptable, so Cain killed him. Abel's blood cried out and God sent Cain away. Cain complains of the severity of God’s judgment.

 “One of the clearest marks of sin is our almost innate desire to excuse ourselves and complain if we are judged in any way.”

(James Boice)

GENESIS 3:

The serpent deceived the woman; "For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." she and Adam ate from the tree. The earth became cursed, and God sent Adam and Eve out of the garden.

"Notice how Satan puts a wall between holiness and happiness. He in effect says your adherence to God's standards is going to keep you from true fulfillment, true happiness, true satisfaction. If you will reject God's standards you will find happiness and satisfaction. That is Satan's strategy always. He's always saying, if you follow those rules that God gave you, it's going to ruin your life. Whereas God tells us that there is an inseparable connection between holiness and happiness, between obedience and satisfaction, between doing the will of God and receiving a blessed eternal reward. Never forget that Satan will always work against you by trying to get you to buy the lie, that holiness will keep you from happiness. The truth could not be further from that. Only in holiness do we find perfect happiness."

(J. Ligon Duncan)

GENESIS 2:

God formed a man and gave him the garden in Eden, except for the tree of knowledge. Adam was alone so God made a woman as his partner.

"The tree was prohibited so that man might not trust in his own understanding, cast off the yoke of God, and make himself the judge of good and evil. Therefore, abstinence from the fruit of one tree was a kind of first lesson in obedience, that man might know he had a Director and Lord of his life, on whose will he ought to depend, and in whose commands he ought to acquiesce. And this, truly, is the only rule of living well and rationally, that men should exercise themselves in obeying God. So by eating of this fruit, man substituted his own finite self as the standard of right and wrong, replacing God’s perfect Being as the standard."(John Calvin)

GENESIS 1:

God created the heavens, the earth and everything that lives. He made humankind in his image, and gave them charge over the earth.

Each of us must come to terms with the God who made the universe and who made us in His image. Either you submit to Him or you must believe what Darwinist George Gaylord Simpson said: “Man is the result of a purposeless and natural process that did not have him in mind.” But believing that God doesn’t exist does not make Him cease to exist. He is the living God who, in the beginning, created the heavens and the earth. Perhaps you’re afraid to come to Him. There is sin in your life, and like Adam and Eve after they sinned, you’d rather hide from Him. Listen to the words of Jesus Christ, who claimed to be sent by God to die for our sins and that someday He will judge every person: “He who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John 5:24). 

(Steven J. Cole)