Beyond the Rainbow By Andrea Marino
“Look, I have laid a stone in Zion, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation.” (Isaiah 28:16 HCSB) When Jesus presented Himself alive to the disciples after His crucifixion, the church was set in motion to spread Good News across the globe. Indeed, from the days of John the Baptist, God’s Kingdom has been advancing; but it has also been met with fierce opposition–violent people, it says in Mathew 11:12. From those worshipping pagan gods to those clinging to laws, deception is the work of Lucifer, who first rebelled against The Creator of everything. There is only one God whose laws will never be done away with. How to be in right standing before Him is entirely up to each of us. God is holy and will not dwell with evil. (Psalm 5:4b) A world full of evil was the reason an entire generation of people were destroyed in a great flood. Except for Noah, who ‘walked with God’. Genesis 6 recounts the story of the Ark, which saved him, his family, and pairs of every living creature God had made. Noah made a choice who to listen to and who not to listen to. After many days, when the waters subsided, God blessed Noah and told him to be fruitful and to repopulate the earth. Then, placing a rainbow in the clouds, God made a covenant promise to Noah and all future generations that never again would life be destroyed in a flood. (Genesis 9:13) God was definitely not finished with man.
While we do read Old Testament accounts of God ‘deserting His people’, hiding His face from them in a ‘surge of anger’ (Isaiah 54:7,8), the promise He made He would keep. All of God’s promises are kept. Even though we live in the ‘evil days of Noah’, when we feel the disconnect in our world from all that is good and we witness the corruption of sin consuming the hearts of many, and even with overwhelming understanding that man has the capability of obliterating human life and our planet, we can be sure of God’s long-suffering faithfulness to us who walk with Him. The rainbow across the sky tells us so. Rainbows are God’s covenant sign. Webster’s dictionary defines ‘rainbow’ as an arc of concentric colored bands that develop when sunlight interacts with raindrops. Rainbows do not end. “Just as I swore in the time of Noah that I would never again let a flood cover the earth, so now I swear that I will never again be angry and punish you. For the mountains may move and the hills disappear, but even my faithful love for you will remain. My covenant of blessing will never be broken, says the Lord, who has mercy on you.” (Isaiah 54:9,10 NLT) We dare not miss the merciful grace of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We dare not miss what God has done that we cannot. Beyond the rainbow is Jesus. In the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son. (Galatians 4:4) “This is My blood which confirms the covenant between God
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