Protective Judgments (3) - New Way

Noah and his family represented a new start on earth, but God realised that if he allowed things to carry on as before, the same result would eventually occur. He did two things to limit the expansion of evil on earth.

1. God locked up some of the evil spirits that had been free to work on earth. When the people they worked through died God shut them away where they could do no harm (1 Peter 3:19; 2 Pet 2:4-5).

2. God began a program of protective judgments to knock back evil before it gets out of hand in the way it did before.

The second change was the basis for the rainbow covenant with Noah. God did not just promise not to send another flood. He was actually promising that he would not need to send another flood, because he would not let conditions get so bad on earth that it needed to be destroyed. This is the promise of the covenant of Noah.

God will never let evil get so bad on earth again. He promised to prevent evil from getting so strong that it has potential to destroy the entire earth. When an evil nation or evil empire gets too powerful, God will send judgments against it to prevent evil from growing too strong. The judgments of God will prevent evil from dominating the earth again. He sometimes uses a natural disaster to accomplish his purposes. At other times, he raises up another nation to pull down the one that has got too big for its boots.