Friday, January 28, 2022

31 Day Daily Devotional SERIES for the Garden of the Heart: DAY 29

 DAY 29
 ....when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.
1 Peter 3:20
 I. The Raven
And he sent forth a raven,
which went forth to and fro,
until the waters were dried up from off the earth.
Genesis 8:7
The Raven was sent out & never returned to the ark.
The Raven represents Lucifer, sent out first to the earth where he would stay.
The Raven is a scavenger bird
as Lucifer scavenges for the souls of earth.
And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent,
called the Devil, and Satan,
which deceiveth the whole world:
he was cast out into the earth,
Revelation 12:9
 
II. The Dove
a) First Trip / 1st Advent
Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground; But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.
Genesis 8:8,9
The Dove represents Christ. Notice on its first trip it found no place to rest the foot
---as Christ found no place to rest His head.... .
And it was Noah (God) who reached out and the pulled the Dove (Christ)
 back into the ark (Heaven).
...but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.
Luke 9:58
b) Second Trip / 2nd Advent
 ....and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark; And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf pluckt off:
Genesis 8:10,11
After the 2nd Advent of Christ, He returns to heaven
 with His people...
represented by an olive branch... for Paul compares
 the people of God to an olive branch.
 ...how much more shall these,
which be the natural branches,
 be graffed into their own olive tree?
Romans 11:23
C) Third Trip / 3rd Advent
 ....and sent forth the dove; which returned not again unto him any more.
Genesis 8:12
The dove didn't return from the 3rd trip. 
The 3rd time Christ leaves Heaven for earth,
He stays here. For He brings down the City of the New Jerusalem.
And he carried me away
in the spirit to a great and high mountain,
and shewed me that great city,
the holy Jerusalem,
descending out of heaven from God,
Revelation 21:10
 
 DAILY REMINDER
Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, 
and have not LOVE, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. 
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, 
and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, 
and have not LOVE, I am nothing. 
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not LOVE, it profiteth me nothing.
LOVE suffereth long, and is kind; 
LOVE envieth not; 
LOVE vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 
Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, 
is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 
And now abideth faith, hope, LOVE, these three; 
but the greatest of these is LOVE.
And from Jesus Christ, .... Unto him that loved us, 
and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
 1 Corinthians 13:1-5,13/Revelation 1:5

"Universal was the doom,
neither rich nor poor escaped:
the learned and the illiterate,
the admired and the abhorred,
the religious and the profane,
the old and the young,
all sank in one common ruin.

Some had doubtless ridiculed the patriarch--where now their merry jests? ... The critic who judged the old man's work is drowned in the same sea which covers his sneering companions. 
 
How marvellous the general apathy! they were all eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, till the awful morning dawned. 
All are safe in Jesus. My soul, art thou in him?"
Charles Spurgeon 
 
Closing Thought for the Day
For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
Matthew 24:38,39