A Token

Today’s Passages – Genesis 7 – 9

(Second Milers also read – Matthew 5 – 6; Proverbs 3 ; Psalm 11 – 15)

“I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud: And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.” – (Genesis 9:13-15)

I love rainbows. However, in recent years the rainbow has become symbolic of many things, one of which is a very ungodly lifestyle.  Actually, the rainbow was (and still is) a token, a visual representation of the covenant that God made with Noah, and all of the other living creatures of the earth, that the earth would never again be completely destroyed by a flood. It is interesting that the rainbow wasn’t placed in the sky for our benefit, but it served as a reminder to God of His covenant. I am not sure why God needs to be reminded, but He can do what He wants. Nevertheless, when I see those beautiful rainbows in the sky, I think about the wonderful promises of God. God never breaks His Word. Unlike us, He will always do what He says He will do.

God uses a lot of other pictures, or symbols, in the Bible that serve as reminders for us. The Lord’s Supper is a reminder, a memorial, of the shed blood and broken body of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. Whenever I partake of the Lord’s Supper, I am reminded that all of my sin debt was completely paid for by the Lord, and that I no longer am under judgment for the bad things that I have done. What a wonderful reminder. God says that because He remembers what Jesus did on the cross, He no longer remembers my sin. What an awesome thought.

There are other tokens in my life as well. My wedding band is a token. It reminds me (and everybody else) of the fact that I belong to only one woman – Cindy Erickson. I once had a friend that said that he would never think about cheating on his wife because he believed that his wedding ring somehow had some sort of spy chip in it that let his wife know everything that he was doing. I don’t know about that, but I do know that my wedding band reminds me often of my wonderful wife and the covenant that she and I have made before God to love each other, be faithful and serve one another until God takes one of us home to Heaven.

There have been many different kinds of tokens throughout man’s history; but the rainbow was the first. I love a God that never, ever, goes back on his Word. I have let a lot of people down in my life, but God has always been faithful to do what He says He will do; and the rainbow is a reminder of that. It’s been many thousands of years since the Great Flood, and it hasn’t happened since. It won’t either, because God said it won’t, and the rainbow is our assurance that it won’t. God will someday destroy this earth, and then create a new one, but He will not destroy it with a flood.