A Word in Season: The World Remains (Genesis 8:21–22)

I have a vague recollection that when I was a child, my parents read to me a story about a character called Chicken Licken. Now, if I do get the details correct, Chicken Licken had something fall on his head and concluded that the sky was falling down and went around telling everybody else that that was the case.

I seem to remember a particularly sticky end for Chicken Licken and some of his friends, but that much I can't remember. But the constant refrain of Chicken Licken throughout this book and other characters with whom he came into contact was this, that the sky is falling down.

The World Is Not Falling Apart

It's not that far removed from the placards that sometimes you see people wearing in cities telling us that the end of the world is nigh. Now, we have to understand at least two things here. First of all, in terms of God's plan, yes, the end of the world is near.

Ever since our Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven, we've been living in what the Bible describes as the last days. We also know that, according to the Apostle Paul, that in those last days there will be particularly trying and difficult times and seasons that will be characterized by a distinct aggression against God and a turning away from all that is righteous.

And for many of us who are considering these things at the moment, we're also in an environment where everybody seems to be shouting that the sky is falling down and the world is coming to an end. That whether it's pandemics or political crises or the rise of some nation or other or the fall of a nation, that these things are indications that everything is falling apart.

Noah, the Flood, and God’s Covenant Promise

Now, we do live in a fallen world. We live in an environment that is characterized by sin and its consequences and among people who are characterized by sin and its consequences. And in that sense, it is no surprise to us to see that both in our own time and in other times, there have been great disasters and distresses, that all kinds of things have been prophesied about the coming of the end and that many people, whether or not they're religious, are in effect running around like chicken licking, saying that the sky is falling down.

And in such a context, it's vitally important for us to remember one of the covenants of the promise that God made. Now, it's the covenant that he made with Noah. When Noah came out of the ark after the flood, he made a sacrifice to the Lord of the clean animals that he had taken in.

And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. And then the Lord said in his heart, in Genesis chapter 8 and verse 21, it's recorded, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

The Stability of Creation Until Judgment

While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease. Now, you'll notice that isn't a promise that the world will go on forever. God, again, has a plan and a purpose.

And there is a day of judgment coming. But it is a promise that until that day of judgment comes, until God's covenant purposes in his son, Jesus Christ, have been accomplished, not only in the coming of the Messiah, but the gathering into the kingdom of all those who have been given to him, that this world will retain a measure of stability and certainty, that God has established a certain pattern which will remain.

And we live in dependence upon not just the stability and the certainty that we see in nature generally, but the stability and the certainty of the God of nature, the God of creation, the one who has put all these things in their places and sustains them.

Confidence in God’s Promise Amid Fear

And so it's quite likely that in the days in which we live, we'll hear many saying like chicken licking, the sky is falling down and there will be many events and many circumstances that give rise to those kinds of fears and panics.

But God has promised that he will never again curse the ground for man's sake. Although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, there's a realism about the state of the human soul. But there's also a kindness and a graciousness in God's assurance of certain realities underpinning.

God will not destroy every living thing as he did at the flood. And so whatever is taking place in the physical realm or the political realm, whatever is taking place in the natural world, we can rest upon the promises of God.

We can look up, not least, and see that rainbow in the skies. And we can be confident that while the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer and day and night shall not cease.