The Rainbow Connection

Last Sunday evening after a brief rain shower just about sundown, a beautiful rainbow appeared right in our back yard! Many times over the years I have marveled at this miraculous display of God’s handiwork as he repeatedly offers His credentials as a “promise–keeper,” but this time I saw something that I have never seen before. In fact I thought that it wasn’t even possible! (Of course, isn’t that kind of the definition of a miracle?) I saw the end of the rainbow! You know, that place where the pot of gold is supposed to be! Right there in my back yard the end the rainbow came down and I got to see the very bottom where it touched down! You could actually look right through the translucent colors and see the trees on the other side! So that got me thinking about rainbows. How many colors? Seven. Hmmm. God is light. In Him is no darkness at all and He dwells in unapproachable light! The apostle John saw the throne of God in heaven and he described it in Rev. 4:3 as being encircled by a rainbow! Normally, all the visible colors are contained invisibly cloaked in what we call “white light.” Sometimes, after a rain shower the light breaks apart in the prisms of suspended atmospheric water vapor and we can see all the beauty of a rainbow - beauty that is always there, just unseen until there is a storm. Faith is being sure of what we can’t see... God’s invisible qualities can be clearly seen through his creation… Lots of sermons in rainbows!

When did the first rainbow appear? God set his rainbow in the sky as the sign of his covenant with Noah (and with all life on earth) to never again destroy the earth with a flood. (Gen. 8:11-17) Why did the flood come? Death and destruction came because of man’s wickedness. (Gen 6:5-7) But God made a way of escape, an ark of deliverance which would save all who were inside. The day came when God himself shut the door and afterward, His wrath and judgment were poured out. Was God looking forward to this punishment of evil-doers? No! The Word says he was “grieved.” God is not willing that any should perish but that all come to repentance! (2Pet. 3:9) Noah’s grandfather was a man named Methuselah. Remember him? He was the oldest man who ever lived. Why do you suppose he lived so long? When Methuselah was born God told his father Enoch, a man who truly walked with God, to give him that name which means: “After him, judgment!” So God already knew what he was going to have to do, yet he allowed Methuselah to live 969 years and the year he died the flood came! Can you see the mercy and grace and long-suffering patience of God? He gives chance after chance for men to turn from their wickedness… but eventually he will always bring judgment on sin. God’s rainbow reminds us that he will never again destroy the earth … by flood. But the earth is slated for demolition, although the next time won’t be with water but with fire! (2Pet. 3:10) Man’s wickedness must be dealt with once again. And once again, God has made a way of escape, an ark of deliverance – Jesus Christ! There is no other name under heaven by which man may be saved! For He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me!” All who are “in Him” will be saved, but those outside will be lost forever. Today, the door to the ark stands wide open! Whosoever will may come! But there is coming a day when God will shut the door and what God shuts, no man can open! The Day of Grace will soon be over and when grace comes to an end, the Day of Judgment will be violently upon the earth.

Some people scoff at God’s coming wrath and judgment. Others wonder, why is it taking God so long? God is not slow in keeping his promise - He keeps them all! Remember the rainbow? God is patient with us, just like he was in Methuselah’s time. He is giving people (maybe you?) a chance to get right before they get left. “Because of our stubbornness and our unrepentant hearts, we are storing up judgment against ourselves for the Day of God’s wrath.” (Rom. 2:5) “Since everything will be destroyed in this way…. What kind of people ought we be?” (2Pet. 3:11) Ark- dwellers with a rainbow connection. Saved covenant people who are trying as best we can to get more folks in the ark before the door shuts.