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It's good to be with you this evening. Grateful for the opportunity for us to look at God's Word together. Just bring some greetings from John Shaw. I had opportunity to see him at Presbytery and have some time with him and it was delightful to see an old friend of yours and mine as well. I would invite you, if you have a Bible, to turn to the book of Genesis, to Genesis chapter 9. We're looking at verses 1 through 7 of this chapter. If you want to look along, reading of course from the ESV in this case, and we have these words found in Genesis 9, 1 through 7. And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you, and as I gave you green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require reckoning from every beast I will require it, and from man. From fellow man I will require reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his own blood be shed. For God has made man in his own image, and you be fruitful and multiply, team on the earth and multiply in it. May God add blessing to the reading of his holy word. We've been moving through the book of Genesis at Emmanuel. We are up to this point, as well where we are at tonight. As you look at the book of Genesis, you remember a chorus or a refrain that comes over and over again. It comes before the flood, and then it comes after the flood. And that's this chorus that every intention of man's heart was evil. You have added in when you come near this chapter to the idea that it was from man's youth. And so we know the reality is that mankind is desperately evil, not just a little bit off the mark. But we have a word of grace from God that he won't flood the earth again and he's preserving the world from worldwide judgment until the second coming of Christ. And he's preserving man from man and man from himself. He mitigates some of the effects of the common curse that are upon all mankind because of the fall here before us. The Lord puts before us some mandates or commands to protect human race and to help it to live in this interim time between the flood and the second coming of Christ. The world went greatly awry before the flood and so he makes some promises for the survival of man that man would not be swept away by the judgment of God. And then here he gives us three mandates to protect us in this world, to protect us from animals and from other men. These things restrain the effects of sin on us as individuals, on society, and on the creation as well. In Genesis 9, 1 through 7, the world is now taken under, as a new world in a sense, under the control of God. Now God doesn't simply wipe it out like he did in the flood, but he temporarily improves it by giving us three regulations for the interim period. We want to look at all three of them tonight, some in more depth, some in less depth. But first, we want to look at verses 1 and 7, and the regulation or the encouragement from our Lord to be involved in the pursuit of children. We've read it already, but let me call your attention to it in verse 1. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth And then if you look down at verse 7, you have the same thought, and you be fruitful and multiply, team on the earth and multiply in it. As we've been going through the book of Genesis, we recognize there is a sense where there is a new creation after the flood. Not a perfect creation, but if you compare the story after the flood to the story of the days of Genesis in the creation, you find many echoes from those earlier chapters with dry land, with animals, etc. And so it's in a sense God is giving a reboot to the creation as he has brought the flood and now as we come after the flood. Not of course in a technical sense at all. The Bible in a technical sense says there was the first Adam and then there was the second Adam and Jesus being that second Adam. But there is a sense, not in a technical sense, but that there was in a sense Noah as the second Adam in a sense. not accomplishing the things that Jesus did, but emerging in a new world and given mandates that were given before. Perhaps you remember Genesis 128, the Lord says, be fruitful and multiply in the earth and subdue it. What you find is those very mandates are repeated in Noah here in verse 1, and then repeated again in verse 7. and technical terms that is called inclusio, which is basically the book ends on a passage and it makes it one unit of thought and puts it apart in a sense, in some senses from chapter 8 and then some senses from later chapter 9. And so this is important when we recognize this section of scripture. What we have in a nutshell, as we've already come about, is the propagation of the race is encouraged and receives God's blessing as Noah and others go out from the ark. You might not be aware of this, but there are some pagan myths that are not true, but sometimes they have elements or little pieces of truth in them. One is a Mesopotamia myth that deals with the flood. but it's interesting to see how it departs. The biblical apologetic is different, far different, but the Mesopotamian myth of the flood says that overpopulation led to the flood and the gods took action in terms of infertility to curb this. Now you kind of laugh at that and begin to think of that as bizarre. Let me bring you up to date. New Age thinking. Many expose the idea of overpopulation on the Earth. And it begins to limit the number of children we have. And in New Age thinking, we need to take care of the planet. The planet is reeling and rocking and rolling in pain and disruption here. And we need to take care of the well-being and the harmony of the planet by controlling the number of kids that people have or will have. Interesting. I think the first is bizarre. I think you better think the second is bizarre as well. Now we don't have time to go into it, but I believe that there can be a proper doctrine and practice of birth control biblically, but the thrust of the scripture is towards having children as you go. Just think of the disruption that's come in our world for disobeying this very mandate. Think of what's happened in China for a long time with the one-child policy. And what we see is after a while it had both social and economic ramifications for the society there. Think about our own country and some of the ramifications of not following this mandate. Abortion has become a means of birth control. But not only does it sin against God by taking the life of another human being, but there are social ramifications to it. Think of the problems that we have with Social Security. And one of the problems is there's not enough young workers to support the older people there. If we had 60 million more people in our country, it would be interesting. Think about as well the lack of people to do jobs in our society. You head over to Burger King and there you are in line and you're looking for a Whopper and you spend a whopper of amount of time waiting for your Whopper to come because there's not enough workers in that place and other places. So you begin to see the wake of some of the decisions that ignore God's mandates and some of the curse would be mitigated if we follow these mandates from God. And so what we have is a repeat of what was given before the fall to multiply on the earth and subdue it, Genesis 1 verse 28. Now we might wonder, well after the flood, is that taken back? Does it have a place anymore? Well, God makes it clear that it does have a place. Now we must realize the limits of these mandates. These mandates can only bring temporal benefit there they cannot reverse the fall of man. The fall of man can only be reversed in the great seed of the woman who will come, but these mandates and obedience unto them brings blessing to a fallen world. Have you noticed carefully the intro to these verses? It says, and God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply on the earth. God was blessing, and part of that blessing was giving this mandate to men and women within his world. And when you think of the blessing of God, it's not merely a wish from God, But it's a pronouncement of divine blessing on human life, even in a fallen world there. And people often rob themselves of the blessings by wanting selfish goals. They want life to be comfortable, and kids, cramped style, and flexibility, and standard of living, and moving up in one's career. And so out of selfishness and comfort, they limit the number of children. Now some in the providence of God and our heart goes to them wish they could have children and they've been unable to and our heart goes out to them. There's a great blessing when you think of this mandate. It says in Psalm 127 and 128 When you're old, your kids will contend with your enemies at the gate. Now, it might not necessarily be literally quite like that, but when your limitations begin to come into play, your natural limitations because of age, children can come alongside and help you in the midst of them. As you think about things too, you think about the joy that it comes to sit around with one's children and your grandchildren, Psalm 127 and 128. God blesses this and gives enjoyment through it. Now of course there's a need for responsible parenting and societal blessing and protection to live under God's blessing. this is one of them that the Lord grants to us. Have you thought about it that after the flood man is encouraged in his everyday cultural affairs. The flood wiped out most of mankind but here in a sense God is giving us a window of hope that man is given a little bit of relative success in our endeavors. In contrast to the killing of animals and men discussed in verses 1 through 3, or 3 through 6, it is the command here in verse 1 and verse 7 to multiply. As you look at the book of Genesis, you move from the beginning of the book of Genesis with a perfect focus in the Garden of Eden on God, a perfect focus there, but then God gives a mandate to spread out into all the earth, to have a fullness as well as a focus there. And one of the ways that we do that is by having families, and God mitigates some of human wickedness through it. The good news is, is that God does not give up his original purposes for mankind, but here they are reiterated. Let's look at the second one, and this is verses 2, 3, and 4. The call from our Lord is to exercise proper dominion. You might say, well, where do you see that in the text? You might say, what I see here is God gives plants for food, and then he gives animals for food, and then he requires the life of animals who take the life of man. Now, what you're saying is true, partially true. But I believe there's more going on than just say you can eat the animals. What is missing from that idea is the idea of dominion. And what I mean by that, we don't have time to establish it all, but if you look in the Bible, if you look at texts like Isaiah 8 verse 1, and Isaiah 8 verse 13, and Malachi 1 6, and Malachi 2 verse 5, The language of fear and dread is used in relationship of man to the Lord. That God's covenant lordship is there. And man is to have both a sense of terror because the Lord is great and holy and awesome, but he's also to have a reverential love towards God. When you take those same words and you use them in this text, it not only gives permission to eat animals for food, but it is talking as well of the lordship of man over animals there and over the creation. Now it's not an absolute lordship, there's only one real and ultimate lord, but it is more a vice-regent that man is in God's creation. man is called to exercise that in a proper and fitting way. Now it's interesting as you study the book of Genesis, let's go back to chapter 1 if you'll turn there in your Bible. We have basically the same thoughts in Genesis 1 as we have in Genesis 9, but the order is reversed in both chapters. If you look at Genesis 1 verse 26, and we'll skip some of the phrases here, but 126 says, then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them, interesting, have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And so man is created in the image of God, then he's given dominion over the creation. Then you come to verse 27, and what you have in verse 27 is again a statement that man is created in the image of God. It speaks of the dignity, of the responsibility as an image bearer that man has before God. Now come over to chapter 9, and it's the same kind of thoughts but in a different order. Verse 2, you have the fear of you and the dread of you shall be over every beast of the earth, over the birds of the heaven, and so on and so forth. then you come down to verse 6, here's the statement about man being made in the image of God there. And so part of the image responsibility that we have as image bearers of God is is to rule over the creation. To do it in the right way because we're not ultimate, only the Lord is ultimate. It is not a cruel dominion that's given to us. We're always a covenant servant under a wonderful and awesome Lord. We are not masters to rape and misuse the creation, and we have a limited domain and a limited dominion under the sovereign Lord there. And so man has a kingship again in chapter 9, a kingship over the plant and animal realms. And such the animals of the day of Noah would serve for food and they would serve in that day for transportation as well. But the calling we have from the Lord is one of compassion and wisdom towards our world. We realize that we stand underneath the great covenant Lord, the sovereign Lord there, and we find our place underneath that. It's interesting, again, how these mandates get all distorted in a sinful world. In the day and age that we live in, and in some new age movement, animals are given dignity and rights as high as human beings at times. Not only that, sometimes plants are given dignity and rights as high as human beings. You might wonder if that's so. Well, when I was in California, I was part of a Toastmasters Club. And there we had to give speeches as part of it. I was a Christian. I gave my testimony and gave the gospel as one of my speeches. I did some other things sometimes, just regular things there. But there was a woman within my Toastmasters Club who was very well educated, but very liberal in her perspective, and she used to push me on certain things, and she would make the statement that plants were as important as human beings. I was in the grocery store. I don't remember what grocery store. I was in the produce section, outside of Toastmasters, and guess who I ran into? My friend, that lady. And she started in on it. And she said, you know, plants are as valuable as human beings. And this is one time where I had a brilliant thought. It came to me. I want you to be proud of my one brilliant thought. I took a green pepper, pulled it out of the rack, and I said, are you saying that I'm no more valuable than this green pepper? You've insulted me. And I slammed the green pepper down because I wanted to make a point. Mankind is only the image of God. Only mankind is. Plants and animals are under the dominion of man. But God calls for preserving them and doing right by them. You'll notice in the text there, as it goes on, God says basically, if a beast kills a man, in verse 5, the beast is to die. It says, and for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning from every beast. I will require it. And then it goes on from man. There it sees that sometimes there are violent beasts, and basically the mandate is saying if a beast is violent, kills a man, you should put it to death. Later that gets codified further in the Mosaic Law in Exodus 21-28. It says, when an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox will not be liable. But what you find here is a respect for human life. Three times in the text in our verses it talks about requiring, reckoning from, if a man's life is taken because it values human life as such as image bearers of God. Now many think that in the original creation story we might have eaten only plants. I'm not sure. We don't have time to consider that. But we know from this God expanded our diet. Some of you would have been very pleased with just plants. You might have more of a vegan tendency or the vegetarian. For any of us who are real carnivores, you recognize you couldn't live on that diet. You needed meat as part of it. And here God gives permission to eat both there. Now, what's this stuff about not eating the blood? How does that come into play? Well, there are about five different possibilities, and I know you want to get home and eat dinner, so I'm not going to thrust, go through the five possibilities that are here, but let me say something. That there's nothing magical about the blood. Some groups tend to look at the blood as somewhat magical. For instance, in Jehovah Witness, which is a cult, definitely a cult, they believe that you should not have blood transfusions because they have more of a magical view of the blood. What you have to do is back away from it a minute and think about what the blood stood for. The blood stood for a life of an animal given. It stood for atonement, and it assumes this mandate here, it assumes the sacrificial system, and it gives us a healthy respect for the sacrificial system which would later be further developed and lead to Christ's great sacrifice. So maybe we need to think in those terms. It reminds us that we are redeemed, not with perishable things, such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or defect." Praise God. 1 Peter 1, 18 and 19. Well, let's go to the third one, and that is the need to value human life. In those middle verses, it says that animals might be killed. You might eat sprouts and shoots. You're welcome to eat them, and I may eat them too. But even though they may be killed, people cannot only in a case of murder or other cases that the Lord dictates are men to die. Interesting, as we noted before, three times God talks about requiring a reckoning for the life of man. He values it as such because we have a dignity made in God's image, even though we're a fallen image of God. Now, he sees this law is given to preserve life. And so he says in verse 6, how it goes, whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed for God made man in his image in certain ways like God and to relate to God. Now the Lord, interesting, seems to imply here that capital punishment is appropriate at the right times and places. You'll remember the Apostle Paul as he was recounting something in the book of Acts, as he was giving a speech, recounting a speech that he'd given before the governor, said this, if I've done something deserving of death, I do not refuse it. Basically, he implies by his statement that there are times and places where capital punishment is proper and fitting. Now the ordinance is really protective of society. Now you might say there's studies on capital punishment and how deterrent it really is. But it's more, there's more reasons for it than merely deterrence there. Deterrence is a helpful thing at times. But if you think about the dignity of man, made in the image of God, made as the pinnacle of God's creation there, and to snuff out the life of man, really brings in the judgment of God and capital punishment is part of the judgment of God. Interesting enough that this statement in 9.6 is made not in a perfect world before the fall, we had that already in chapter 1, but it's made in a sinful and fallen world there, and it stresses that the image of God is still there in some sense, even in a sinful and violent world. The character of God calls for it at times. Now, if you study the book of Genesis, you'll remember where things got out of hand, where there was vigilante justice. There was a good Lamech in the book of Genesis in the early chapters. There was a bad Lamech. And the bad Lamech said, if a man hurts me or strikes me, I will demand his life of 77-fold justice to that man. In other words, Lamech was full of vigilante justice. He wanted to enact it himself and he didn't want to be just in doing it. He just wanted to murder and take care of and totally eliminate anything that was done to him. Prior to the flood, it was a problem there. But now, remember, the flood came. One of the reasons was the great wickedness of man, but secondly, the great violence of man was a reason for the flood. And so God puts in place this mandate of the tool of justice that would be brought, and implied, which would be filled out later, is the tool of government. Not our own personal action of revenge that would be taken, but if we go over to Romans chapter 13 and 1 Peter 2, 13 through 14, the state is given the power of the sword. It is to reward the good and punish the evildoer. Something we must not take lightly. Not to be handled carelessly. And why do we get that idea? Well, if you go fast forward into the Mosaic administration and the time during that, remember the cities of refuge. If there was doubt about someone and whether they were guilty of murder or guilty of manslaughter, there were the places that they would go until the high priest died and they would be safe in that place if they committed no crime, and so there's a need to be very careful as we go about this. But chapter 9 again stresses image of God not in a perfect world, but in a sinful and a violent world. Welcome to today. There might be implications in this image of God too, that mankind is given a judicial capacity. Again, we don't have time to develop it. You might look a little bit at Psalm 82. It's not only showing the image and the value and dignity of man, but it may be as well telling us about man's right and duty to judge the wrongdoing. That in a sense, man is invested with a judicial authority because of his God-likeness. And this is helpful as you think of the function of the state in our world. These things are very helpful. And so what do you have? You have basic ordinances set forth by God and they're given to restrain the effects of sin on ourselves personally, on society, on the creation order. And the great news is God refuses to give his world up and to give up on his original purposes for mankind. They are re-established and he puts boundaries on some things. The Noahic administration does not eliminate evil, but it mitigates some of the effects so relative order can be maintained in our world. Do we praise God when we have that relative order? Because it is really a gift from God. It puts a check on of the curse on the Czech, the curse on mankind. It provides an interim situation between the flood and the second coming of Jesus. And what's also running, a thread that runs at the same time there, is that great promise in Genesis 3.15, I will put enmity between the woman and you, between her seed and your seed. See, God has maintained this environment so that the gospel might go forward and Jesus the dragon crusher might crush sin and death and hell and Satan in his cross and rise from the dead. God has determined that he will act. He will put enmity between the two seeds, culminating in those wonderful promises that are in Christ Jesus, where he brings some of the world back to himself. What a grace. What a gift. that God would do that for people such as you and I. Because we have nothing to commend ourselves to God. But God in his great love, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And God loved us from all eternity and set his love on us and determined, determined that he would rescue us. from our world, from our sin, and from ourselves. Praise God for the good news of the gospel. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for these words from you. Use them in our hearts and lives, O Lord. Thank you for the things of regularity in our world. Sometimes when you take them away for a season, Lord, we realize how much we take them for granted. Help us as believers, O Lord, to guard these things and help our society to guard these things. Ultimately, not for our comfort, Lord, but for the progress of the gospel. that it might go out in our society, in our city, in our cities, Lord, in our state, in our nation, in our world, that it would go out and that you would be drawing people to yourself. Lord, grant that, we pray, by your Son, in the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.
Regulations for the Interim
Series Guest Preachers
Sermon ID | 101221439335765 |
Duration | 33:59 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday - PM |
Bible Text | Genesis 9:1-7 |
Language | English |
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