Genesis 8

v1-5: God will remember His people. “However desolate and despairing [our] condition may be,” He will not forget about us, and at right time, the time of His choosing, He will “remember us to save us.”

v6-12: Faith expects salvation, and patience waits for it. Yet that does not stop us from wanting to know when it will come. “Desires of release from trouble, earnest expectations of it, and inquiries concerning its advances toward us, will exist very well alongside sincere faith and patience.”

v13-14: God knows what is good for us better than we do ourselves. We might have been tempted to “leave the ark before ground is completely dried,” or “if the door is shut… climb out some other way.” Let’s “be satisfied that God’s time of showing his mercy is certainly the best time.”

v15-19: God went with Noah into the ark, “stayed with him all the time,” and brought “him out safely.” When God saves us, He stays with us, and will bring us safely into the new creation.

v20-22: We express our thankfulness to God today for His grace and mercy to us, “not by burnt offerings, but by the sacrifice of praise and the sacrifice of righteousness, by godly devotion and godly behaviour.”

Genesis 9

v1-4: The post-flood world we live in “is not a paradise, but rather a wilderness,” and yet “it is still better than we deserve. Blessed be God that it is not hell.” God continues to be good to all, providing “not only for necessity, but also for delight.”

v5-7: Even in our fallen state, God’s image is still on us, so that harming another human being “defaces the image of God and dishonours him.” Because human beings “are so dear to our Creator,” they “should be to” us.

v8-17: The bow “is directed upward, not toward the earth,” for the purpose of this covenant that God made with Noah was to “keep the world safe from another” universal and destructive flood. The reason that God has not acted in judgment in this way again is “not because of any reformation of the world,” but because of “God’s goodness and faithfulness” to this promise of preservation that ensured both the coming of the serpent-crushing Saviour and the salvation of all His people.

v18-29: Noah was blameless but not sinless. For many years he “had kept sober in drunken company,” but now finds himself “drunk in sober company.” This warns us that we must not get complacent about our walk with the Lord.