Gen. vi. 17.—1 Peter iii. 20.
In the two thousand years after that promise in the Garden of Eden,
there came to be a great many people on the earth, but most of them
were very wicked, and at last God said that He would destroy the wicked
people by a great Flood, in one hundred and twenty years.
But there was one man who loved God, and his name was Noah.
So God told Noah He was going to send a Flood, and He instructed him
to prepare an Ark, so that he and his family should be saved from the
Flood.
But though it was such a long time that the Ark was being built, and
God was very long-suffering, at last the day came when He told Noah to
come into the Ark with his wife and children, and to take two, and in
some cases seven pairs, of every living creature into the Ark with him.
Then "the Lord shut them in" safely, and the rain began, and never
ceased till even the highest mountains were covered right up.
Thus the Word of the Lord, spoken one hundred and twenty years before,
was fulfilled.
At length the rain stopped and the waters began to go down, and at last
the Lord told Noah to come out of the Ark. So he and his family and all
the living creatures came out; and Noah built an Altar, and the Lord
accepted his sacrifice.
Then God gave a beautiful Promise and a beautiful Prophecy, and of both
we see the constant fulfilment now.
The Promise was, that He would never send a Flood again: and the
Prophecy was—"While the earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest, and
cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not
cease."
And then God gave them the Token of His Promise, in putting His rainbow
in the cloud whenever there is rain and the sun shines at the same time.
God said He would look upon the rainbow and remember His covenant not
to send another Flood; and when we turn our eyes to that beautiful
coloured arch above us, we can say reverently: "God is looking on that
bow too."
The rain reminds us of the Flood; but the sunshine reminds us of God's
love: and the rainbow itself reminds us that in that great love He gave
His beloved Son. He is our rainbow of Promise.