The scripture for today, September 12 (9/12), is found in Genesis 9:12f in the Old Testament of the Bible:

“And God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come. I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”

On the technical side, how can it be that there was never a rainbow before Noah’s time? Genesis 2:5b-6 explains, “The Lord God had not sent rain on the earth, and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground.”

Up until the time of Noah, people lived to be several hundred years old. Christian scientists have said that before the flood the earth had a constant cloud covering like Venus with a thick ozone layer that created the greenhouse effect of vapors, and protected man from the aging process.

So, rainbows were not possible when the sun could never break through the ever-present clouds. It was because of a terrible worldwide cataclysm that the beauty of the rainbow was made possible.

On the spiritual side of this story, we see a man who had such faith in God that, although he probably had never seen rain, believed it would happen. Such amazing faith! Later, after being rewarded with the lives of his family members being saved, God gave him one more reward ~ the rainbow ~ that he could not only enjoy himself, but he could share with the world and all of us, Noah’s descendants.

Out of disaster came beauty.