"While the earth remaineth, seedtime, and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease."
Genesis 8:22
“While the earth remaineth.”
For as long as the earth shall last… It is not eternal, this world does have an “expiration date” that only the LORD knows. These words that promised no more universal floods, the Lord gave to Noah, and to mankind after He judged the inhabitants of the earth for the first time. Noah’s flood, as we call it, was God’s chosen method of judging the people of the earth for their sin. Now Noah and his children are starting over and rebuilding a place for mankind to live, and they are filling up the earth’s population. The animals, being released from the ark, were free to roam and repopulate the world.
Without the great flood, these words “while the earth remaineth” have no meaning. But in the context of the Genesis flood, these words are a great and comforting promise. For as long as God chooses to let this world exist, these things can be counted on…
“Seedtime and harvest.”
There will always be a time to plant seeds and later gather the harvest. And this has been so for millennia until now.
“And cold and heat, and summer and winter.”
Before the flood, the earth had never seen the cold and heat of the seasons. Depending on where you are on the planet, you will observe two or four seasons annually as steady as clockwork through the years. The seasons have been counted on by mankind year after year for his sustenance.
“And day and night.”
Ever since Noah and his family and the animals left the ark, there has been generally twelve hours of the day for a man to work, and twelve hours of the night for a man to rest, night and day, time moving on just as God said.
“Shall not cease.”
These words ought to cause us to pause and think. God, who made time for man, and started His creation into motion, is the only one who may end time. And surely as He began time for man, there will come a time when He will stop the clock and “time will be no more!” And even as God said that the time for Daniel’s image would end, so will this earth finally come to an end.
“And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be” (Daniel 8:19).
God judged the antediluvian race with water, He will judge the earth the next time by fire.
“But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:7).
And until God’s appointed time, life on earth as we know it will not change! That is God’s promise to mankind.
These thoughts should both encourage our hearts to know that God is in control of even time itself and challenge us to win this lost world to Christ before time runs out!
Dear Lord, thank you for your mercy, and your promise to never again flood the earth to destroy it.