Noah’s Ark

When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. After many years, the Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God. Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham and Japheth.

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. So God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. So make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out. Make a roof for it, put a door in the side of the ark and make lower, middle and upper decks. I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens. Everything on earth will perish. But I will establish my covenant with you, and you will enter the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you. You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. They will come to you to be kept alive. You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.” Noah did everything just as God commanded him.

The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark. Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.” Noah was six hundred years old when the floodwaters came on the earth. And Noah and his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives entered the ark to escape the waters of the flood. They had with them every wild animal, all livestock, every creature that moves along the ground, every bird, and everything with wings. Then the Lord shut him in.

For forty days the flood kept coming on the earth, and as the waters increased they lifted the ark high above the earth. and the ark floated on the surface of the water. All the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered. Every living thing on the face of the earth was wiped out; people and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds were wiped from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those with him in the ark. The waters flooded the earth for a hundred and fifty days.

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded, and the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. After forty days Noah opened a window he had made in the ark and sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. Noah then removed the covering from the ark and saw that the surface of the ground was dry.

God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark.” So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands.

“I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you. Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood. This is the sign of the covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

excerpts and edited passages taken from Genesis 5:1-9:17 (click to read the full account)

 

Sunday School at Living Hope

Our fall session of Sunday School has begun!

9:30 on Sunday mornings

Adult and Teen Bible study groups have also begun their fall session  This is a chance for everyone to learn and grow in God’s Word.  Visitors welcome!  Our Worship Service begins at 10:30 a.m.

 

We all need a Savior

Adam & Eve are tempted

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the Eve, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The Eve said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

The first sin

When Eve saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, Adam, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Guilt followed sin

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

Adam answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

God said, “Who told you that you were naked?  Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

Adam blamed Eve for his sin

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Eve blamed the serpent for her sin

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

God punished the serpent, and promised a Savior for all people

So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.

And I will put enmity (hostility) between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he (Jesus) will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

God punished Eve

To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

God punished Adam

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

God still loved Adam and Eve even after they sinned

The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

God protected Adam and Eve from living forever in their sinful bodies

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”  So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Edited verses & excerpts taken from Genesis 3

Sin and salvation:

Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned.

Through the disobedience of the one man, Adam, the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man, Jesus Christ, the many will be made righteous.

Edited verses & excerpts taken from Romans 5:12-25

Prayers for the start of school

Bless the start of the school year
Lord Jesus, bless the start of this new school year. Bless students and teachers. As you sat at the feet of teachers in the temple when you were a 12-year old boy, so may our children sit at the feet of their teachers and grow in wisdom and love. Let your word be a lamp to their feet and a light for their path now and for the rest of their lives. Amen.

Thank you for our teachers
Lord, we thank you for our teachers. You yourself were a teacher. You know what a difficult task it can be. Use our teachers as your mouthpiece. Give them joy in their labors. Help their students to respect and obey them. Help parents to show their appreciation. Give our teachers extra strength, love, and patience as they begin this new school year. Amen.

A garden, a command, and a wife for Adam

God plants a garden

Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. The Lord God took the man he had made and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

God gives Adam a command

In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

God makes a wife for Adam

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” The Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.  Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.

Excerpts and edited verses taken from Genesis 2 & 3

Labor Day prayer

Gracious heavenly Father, as the United States pauses to rest, and contemplate the freedom to work and the employment opportunities that are available to us, may we never lose sight of the fact that it is only because of your grace and favor that we are able to work. Thank you, Lord, for all your blessings, past and present. Thank you for the joy of relaxation. May all that I do at work and school give glory to you and your precious name. I pray in the name of Jesus Christ, whom I love and serve. Amen.

Creation of man & woman

The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.”

The LORD God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” So the LORD God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.

The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.  The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.

Edited verses from Genesis 2:4-25