Look Up, Not Out

 

 

   And God said unto Noah…make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

Genesis 6: 13-14

 

 

Sometimes when I read that verse I think, “That’s kind of funny that he repeated himself.  Pitch it within and without with pitch.  Just say, “Pitch the ark within and without.”  😀   But God never wastes words. It turns out they are two different (but closely related) words.   One is a substance, the other is an action.  I didn’t realize that ‘pitch’ could be so exciting, either!

And shalt pitch it: Pitch (the verb)  means “to cover, especially with bitumen, to condone, forgive, pardon, purge away, reconcile.”

(I looked up ‘bitumen’ in Websters 1812 dictionary: ‘There are several varieties…proceeding from Naptha, the most fluid, to Petroleum, a viscid (sticky) fluid, to Maltha, more or less cohesive, elastic bitumen…and Asphalt, which is sometimes too hard to be scratched by the nail.’)

…within and without with pitch: Pitch (the noun) means, ‘a redemption price, ransom, satisfaction, sum of money.’

Soooo….we know that the ark is a picture of our salvation.  God saved Noah and his family from judgement.  And then I saw this and it was like seeing more puzzle pieces that God put into the story that point to our redemption!   Jesus has forgiven us, covered us inside and out with His blood, and paid the redemption price for us 😀

 

A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; [with] lower, second, and third [stories] shalt thou make it.
Genesis 6:16

And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the LORD shut him in.
Genesis 7:16

 

Joseph Prince points out that God had Noah make a window at the top, to look up to God, and not out at the destruction, sin, and judgement that was happening around him.  On top of that I noticed that God shut Noah in.    Not only did He want Noah to look up to Him, He also shut Noah in, away from the chaos. We as Christians do not need to keep tabs on the world.  We don’t need to concern ourselves with or fret about the evil they seem to be getting away with, or with the things they are trying to do to us, or threaten to do.  Of course, we do not stick our heads in the sand, our fingers in our ears and say ‘blah-blah-blah-I-can’t-hear-you’ 😀   But we ARE  focused on the One Who loves us and is way bigger (that means extremely, infinitely, awe-striking bigger) than anything that  can threaten to harm us here 😀

This has been very encouraging to me recently as I hear of more laws that take away my liberties, of more foods being contaminated, of wars, of sicknesses.  Jesus is so much bigger than all of it.  “He that sits in the heavens shall laugh at the bad guys.”  [JPV-Jessica’s Paraphrased Version].

 

God does the work:

God commanded Noah to bring two of every animal, then God brought the animals to Noah.  That’s what God’s grace does.  Jesus does for us what God commanded us to do!

 

Food:  I looked up the word for food…and it means…food 😀   “an eatable; includes provender, flesh and fruit”  it comes from another word which means ” to consume, burn up, dine, feed freely, plenty”.   So Noah’s family had plenty in the midst of world chaos.  They were not rationing!

“Shem, I told you, we’re only each allowed one ice cream cone a day!  Now don’t ask me again for a second one!”

 

And the ark went upon the face of the waters:  ‘Went’ means “to carry, to bear, bring, lead, prosper, take away, vanish.”  God carried them through the world chaos and caused them to ‘vanish’ or ‘took them away’ from the havoc that was going on around them.  They were definitely IN the chaos, but they were looking up, and inside there was peace!  They were prospering while the world was in some major upheaval. 🙂

 

How amazing is our God?!!!   Very amazing.  Very, very amazing!

You’ll hear the winds, the floods, the storm, but don’t look out…look up!

 

 

 

 

 

Subscribe to get our blog posts in your inbox!