Mmmm Enjoyed delicious Indian Tandoori Chicken and Naan Bread last weekend Mmmm

I thank God that I live in multicultural Sydney with a huge variety of authentic Asian food!

But that’s not the only food that is mouth-watering.

I’m being nourished at Bible College with tantalising morsels of Old Testament this semester.

“So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the ark, one kind after another.Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.”

Genesis 8:18-21

Genesis sets up this incredible unfolding plan of God.

We have the tension of sin and Man’s rebellion contrasted against God’s love for his people.

We are left asking, “How will this all end?”

God knew that Man would rebel against him well before he even created anything.

The amazing thing is that God decided to go ahead and create the whole universe anyway knowing that Man would rebel against him.

He lovingly created a beautiful world knowing that we would pollute it with our sinfulness.

As a result we now have major environmental problems because we have failed to care for the world:

• We have chopped down all the trees
• We have killed all the animals
• We have thrown rubbish everywhere
• We have polluted the air with greenhouse gases.

We only have ourselves to blame for Climate Change.

As we read about Noah and the Flood, we see that God is a God of Second Chances.

He could have wiped out all Mankind but he chose to spare Noah and his family.

God knew full well that every inclination of Man’s heart is evil from childhood.

He knew that we are naturally evil from birth. It is in our nature to sin.

Inexplicably he allowed Noah to survive knowing that Man would continue to sin after the Flood.

We see a repeating pattern emerging in Genesis that will continue throughout the whole Old Testament

• Man rebels against God
• God warns Man to stop rebelling
• Man ignores God’s warning
• God rightfully judges Man for his rebellion
• God gives Man a Second Chance and lessens the punishment
• God restores Man

Then the cycle begins all over again showing that we haven’t learned anything from our mistakes.

The whole Old Testament is leading to the climax in the New Testament.

Through Jesus, God has dealt with Man’s rebellion once and for all.

Jesus has taken the punishment that we deserve upon himself.

Jesus has restored our relationship with God and stopped this pointless cycle of hopelessness.

Jesus gives us real food and real hope for the future.

mmmm Bible mmmm