In the sky over Mount Ararat thousands of years
ago there hovered a symbol of God's grace for all of the world to see--a
rainbow. The account is provided in Genesis 9:12-16:
God said,
“This is the sign of the covenant which I am making between Me and you and
every living creature that is with you, for all successive generations; I
set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between
Me and the earth. It shall come about, when I bring a
cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I
will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living
creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to
destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the cloud, then I
will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and
every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.
To appreciate this beautiful
symbol, one must understand how the prism of the receding storm clouds arrived
on the scene in the first place, allowing the bright light of the sun to
diffract into many luminous shades. Sometime before this technicolor spectacle,
the world was filled with sin, so much so that God was having second thoughts
about creating the people who inhabited His planet.
Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was
great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was
only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the
earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The Lord said,
“I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to
animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am
sorry that I have made them. (Gen. 6:5-7)
To deal with pervasive evil,
God opted to reboot the world and in an act of sheer grace called upon one man
and his family to continue the human race. A boat was built, animals were
gathered, a storm raged for weeks, a flood washed over the earth, and only Noah
and his family survived to see dry ground again. It was a new beginning for the
human race, another chance to make good on their freedom and honor the God who
both created and sustained them. To accompany this new beginning, God promised
to never flood the earth again and the rainbow emerged in the sky as beautiful
symbol of this even more lovely covenant. The grace of God is the only reason
mankind survived the flood and the only reason anyone has the opportunity to
live this day and use each breath to return glory back to Him. This is the
message behind the first rainbow.
However, under the colorful
banner of this promise, mankind continued to sin and use freedom for selfish
gain and the pursuit of fleshly pleasures. The freedom granted and grace
enjoyed were commandeered for all varieties of wickedness for generations.
While rainbows continue to emerge on the backside of storms to this day, their
beauty is delimited to natural phenomena and the promise they represent has
been forgotten. Instead of directing people’s attention to God’s undeserved
grace and compelling obedience, the rainbow has been hijacked by those who in
the name of freedom and love have decided to manipulate the purest human expression
of intimacy given by God. Rainbows are now waved by those who decide to pursue
the kinds of relationships that do not provide the potential for fulfilling God’s
first ever command, “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.”
Interestingly, this first-ever
command was given to both sets of the world’s charter members--Adam and Eve in the
garden (Gen. 1:28) and Noah on Mount Ararat (Gen. 9:1). In both cases, the
command was issued in an effort to populate the planet with people who in
response to the grace shown them would glorify their Father in heaven. The
God-ordained context in which this command is most appropriately accomplished
is biblical marriage.
And yet, the homosexual
movement and those belonging to their ilk are the ones who wear the banner of
the rainbow, not understanding that they are waving a symbol of God’s grace
that allows them their existence and sustains their lives. Most do not realize
to what or whom they owe this day and in no way seek to return God any glory by
living according to the precepts of His revelation. These cannot possibly
understand that the directions of God’s word were given for our benefit and
blessing. What was once a symbol of the grace of God and a compelling call to
follow Him by living rightly is now an emblem of creative license with one of
God’s sacred institutions that drives people to follow their heart (which is
deceitful and desperately wicked). This is the second rainbow.
Though God will make good on
His promise to never flood the earth again, one day He will destroy the earth
with fire and usher in a perfect heaven for all eternity. There, in heaven, will emerge yet another
rainbow!
“After these things I looked, and behold, a
door standing open in
heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking
with me, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place
after these things.” Immediately I was in the
Spirit; and behold, a throne was standing in heaven, and One sitting
on the throne. And He who was sitting was like a jasper stone and a sardius in appearance;
and there was a rainbow
around the throne, like an emerald in appearance.” (Rev. 4:1-3)
Those who live under the banner
of Noah’s rainbow, who correctly apprehend the grace of God, and in response
have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ who alone gives them the Holy Spirit who
allows them to live a life of obedience, will be those who make it to the dry
land of this very real heaven. Those who wave the second proverbial rainbow,
who use the grace of God as a license to live according to their own desires
and deny God’s authority, Jesus’ redemption, and the power of Holy Spirit, will
be lost. I speak here not only of homosexuality and all other perversions of
sexual intimacy, but of all who live lives without faith and the subsequent
desire to glorify the one true God.
As Christians, we must recognize
the original meaning of the rainbow, reclaim its true beauty, and answer its
luminous call to recognize the grace that permeates our world—the grace given
by a God that wants the best for us and from us. Don’t be discouraged by the
storm that rages on, look for the grace of God, and there, you will see the
unmistakable promise of His grace that carries us to dry land. There you will
see a rainbow.
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