First Sunday of Lent

The Rainbow Is God's Promise to Noah

Genesis 9: 8 - 17

When Matthew refers to the story of Noah and the flood, he focuses on the destruction of sinful people.

But we see this story as evidence one more time of the grace and goodness of a God who makes solemn promises to his creation and who keeps them.

The entire story of the flood, Genesis 5: 28 - 9: 17, is fascinating. In this lesson, we read only the end of the story.

In Noah's generation, God could find only one honorable person, Noah. So God asked him to build a large boat, called an ark, and to load it with pairs of every kind of bird and animal on earth, as well as his family.

Then God sent rain for forty days and nights until the earth was covered with water in a great flood, and all the people and animals outside drowned - even the birds.

After the water dried up, Noah build an altar and worshiped God, and God spoke to Noah and his sons.

God makes this solemn promise to Noah and to all his creation long before he makes the promises to Abraham or to Jacob or to Moses and the Israelites.

And God's best promise of all is that he offers us all salvation and eternal life through Jesus.

1. To whom did God make his promise?

[God made his promise to Noah, his sons, and all the birds and animals that came out of the ark.]

2. What did God promise?

[God promised that the earth and everything living on it would never again be destroyed by a flood.]

3. What is the sign of God's promise?

[The rainbow is the sign of that solemn promise.]

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