A Brief Meditation for the Month
July 2024
Throughout the Bible, we read remarkable things about several notable people, some of them very ordinary people regarding status and standing in their society. One such individual is Noah, renowned for building the ark in preparation for the flood of divine judgment that God warned him was approaching. In the book of Hebrews, we read: “By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house…” Although Noah persevered until the mammoth project was completed, the apostle Peter reminds us that it was due to God’s longsuffering towards the world of the ungodly that he waited until Noah finished the task, 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:5. A harmonious relationship existed between God and Noah. Noah cared for his family, and God cared for Noah. The remarkable thing about Noah is not so much his amazing skill or his patient toil to do what no one before him had ever attempted, but rather his steadfast faith in God. There was nothing in Noah’s experience or history to persuade him that what God said was a possibility. No previous flood had drowned the earth; no such project had ever been attempted before, yet Noah received and believed the bare word of God. His confidence in God was sufficient that he took seriously what was told him. This is exactly what true faith does. We are reminded that it is impossible to please God without exercising faith in him, Hebrews 11:6. This verse tells us that “he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” One who did so please God was Enoch, an ancestor of Noah. In the same chapter of the book of Hebrews, in verse 5, we read concerning Enoch: “He had this testimony, that he pleased God.” Noah followed the godly example of Enoch, for we read about Enoch’s walking with God in Genesis 5:22. Later, we read that “Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord…and Noah walked with God.” Genesis 6:8–9. It is astounding to read that God was pleased with Enoch, and he and God walked together. While we are aware of angels and archangels serving God, we do not read of them walking with God. Such a privilege is reserved for guilty men of Adam’s fallen race who find grace in the eyes of the Lord. If God’s word did not record this amazing fact, we would find it incomprehensible and so hard to take in—God pleased and experiencing pleasure while walking with men.
Of God incarnate, the Lord Jesus Christ, it is recorded that he voluntarily joined the company of two downcast disciples on one occasion. Jesus discerned that they were sad as they walked and talked together, Luke 24:17. The blessed Saviour was not the “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” for no reason. He could quite naturally empathize with those who were grieving when he encountered them. The words recorded in the Gospel of Luke are very remarkable: “Jesus himself drew near, and went with them,” Luke 24:15. Our compassionate Saviour, without any invitation whatever, voluntarily joined these sorrowing souls and walked with them. Because he was God manifest in the flesh, he found pleasure in not only walking in their company, but in listening to them. Jesus did rebuke them but not until he had first listened to them. We often forget that there is a difference between talking to God and talking with God. Talking to God is a one-way conversation, but talking with God is a two-way conversation. When we walk with God, he speaks and we listen; and when we speak, God is pleased to listen to us. Walking with God—what a shared experience of divine and human pleasure! What sweet and hallowed communion!
G. G. Hutton.