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Is God's wrath easier to understand
than his grace? And what I mean by that is, does
it make more sense that God destroyed the world than that he would
preserve it? And last time we saw the end
of the flood and Noah and his family were instructed by God
to leave the ark and he made a sacrifice to the Lord. And
we didn't consider it in detail, but it's almost as though God
were speaking to himself at the end of chapter eight. where he was not speaking specifically
to Moses in his promise for this continuation of the world. I will never again curse the
ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is
evil from his youth, and I will never again destroy every living
thing as I have done. Now in chapter nine, we'll see
the same idea, but now expressed in covenant form to Noah and
those with him. And we'll see even to the animals,
they've received a benefit. But I think we can understand
why God would be righteously angry with the state of the world. If we just review for a moment,
why did God send the flood? And back in Genesis 6, we saw
that it was all evil all the time. That's my shorthand for
Genesis 6, verse 5. The Lord saw that the wickedness
of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. All evil, all
the time. We can understand why God would
send the flood. And the earth was filled with
violence. We read again in Genesis six,
verse 11. Now the earth was corrupt in
the sight of God and the earth was filled with violence. You may recall from our earlier
studies in Genesis that Cain murdered his brother, Abel. And then later, the descendants
of Cain grew more and more corrupt. And Cain's descendant, Lamech,
boasted about his murdering a man and a boy. for almost trivial
things. He was proud of it. And that
pattern continued in the ancient world to the extent that God
could righteously say, the earth is filled with violence. And then, Even though we don't
fully understand what was going on, it certainly seems from the
scriptures that there was demonic activity at an unprecedented
level with willing human participation. And so no wonder that God would
destroy the earth. How could he do otherwise? In
fact, if we just imagine for a moment, well, what if we were
part of a heavenly council when God was considering the flood? We might have given God counsel. I mean, it's a little ridiculous
to think of that, but for sake of illustration, imagine if we
were giving God counsel and we heard that, God was planning
to send the flood and wipe out everything. We might say, well,
that certainly makes sense. Done with that, let's not try
that again. Let's not have any more humans. This is not a good plan. And maybe even if you got wind
of God's promise, I'm never gonna flood the earth again, we might
at first think, well, sure. Because we're done with that.
We don't want anything to do with that planet ever again.
But rather, God wanted to preserve life. But why bother preserving
the earth? And perhaps I'm a bit jaded in
even asking that question. And yet, what hope could God
have righteously had that people would do any better after the
flood than before? But as I meditated on this, it
occurred to me that this is God's nature, God's gracious desire
to save a remnant of humanity. caused him to save Noah and his
family and to preserve society. We'll look at all that that means
in a few minutes, but his desire to save a remnant caused him
to save Noah and his family, and even to the present day,
preserve society so that others may be redeemed forever in Christ. It's not in hope. of a better
performing humanity, higher quality. No, it is because of his mercy,
because of his grace and kindness to people. But in the section
of text that we read, we saw references also to a bow, a rainbow. That's a sign of God's covenant. And in this text overall, we'll
see that God made some specific changes, even in the way that
the earth is governed. And he established a covenant
to preserve the earth. And the sign, the proof, the
visible element of this covenant is the rainbow. So what about
the rainbow? You know, I think for most of
the Earth's history, the rainbow was a fascinating, beautiful
phenomenon in the sky, and always associated, came after the rain,
kind of a hopeful thing, even if people didn't understand God's
intention fully for giving the rainbow But in more recent years,
people adopted the rainbow as a symbol of their quest for justice,
promoting equal treatment of all skin colors. And even that
is consistent with what we read in the scriptures in the heavenly
worship of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Revelation 5 verse 9, they
declare, you were slain, speaking of course of the Lord Jesus.
You were slain and purchased for God with your blood, men
from every tribe and people and tongue and nation. But more recently,
that rainbow symbol has been co-opted by others who want to
use it to promote sin. The so-called sexual minorities
who are rebelling against God's command to be joined, husband
and wife together, to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And it seems like it's a continuing
pattern of every provision that we see in Genesis being rejected
by modern society. Bit by bit, every single aspect
of what's declared in Genesis, God made the world, the world
society of our day says, no, he didn't, just happened. God
gave commandments. God said, I made them male and
female. And the world says, no, you can
be whatever you want. One or the other, change back
and forth or something else entirely. Every aspect, God said, a husband
shall join to his wife, there'll be one flesh. And our world says,
no, that's optional. We like other kinds of arrangements.
And even in the adoption of this rainbow symbol, which you can
see, by the way, in front of many churches. They'll have either
a bench or a flag or something indicating we're welcoming, we're
inclusive, no matter what you are viewing as God's commandments
in how to behave in the world how he has structured the world.
It is as though the rainbow, which was God's pledge never
to flood the earth again, has become for them a symbol saying,
my sin will never be judged. I'm free to behave however I
want. The rainbow tells me that. But instead of a license to sin,
God's covenant rainbow should prompt us to marvel at his mercy
and cast ourselves upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our only
hope to escape God's ultimate judgment. God has promised through
that rainbow that he will never flood the earth again. And we
have this period of time where God is preserving the earth,
holding society together to some extent so that the gospel can
go forth. People are born and born again,
trusting in Christ, redeemed by his blood. So this morning
we'll consider again the sword and the sign, God's human government
and God's covenant. And we'll look at this in three
main sections. First, the blessings and the
requirements that God gave to Noah and his sons and through
them to all the rest of humanity. Because as we'll see later in
Genesis, every one of us is descended from Noah and one of his three
sons, or maybe more than one of his three sons. lines have
crossed and blended, but we're all traced back to this one family
and God blessed them and then laid out some requirements for
them. We'll also look at the Lord's
covenant with the whole earth. And then finally, the sign, the
visible aspect of that covenant in verses 12 through 17. So we'll first consider the blessing
and requirements that God gave to Noah and his family in Genesis
9, verses one through seven. And there's so much here, I've
broken it down even a little bit more. we will see first a
repeat of God's commandment about the dominion over all the earth
that he gave to Adam. And we'll see that he changed
their diet. And then to forestall that violence,
which filled the earth, God introduces a new deterrence. So we'll consider
dominion, diet, and deterrence, and first focus on dominion. So if you'll turn in your text
to Genesis 9, verse 1, we read here, and God blessed Noah and
his sons. And just pausing there for a
moment, God blessed them. God didn't scold them. God didn't
say, You guys got through this by the skin of your teeth. Next
time, I'm not gonna be so nice. No. Why is that? We'll keep seeing this theme,
that God is gracious and kind, and he wants people on the earth. God blessed Noah and his sons
and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And of course, That should remind
us, we've seen that before. That was God's command to Adam
and to Eve. And now with a new earth, the
command goes forth again. But notice now this command of
dominion, which is a little different than the dominion given to Adam. So God tells Noah and his sons
in Genesis 9 verse two, The fear of you and the terror of you
will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the
sky. With everything that creeps on
the ground and all the fishes of the sea into your hand, they
are given. And whatever the relationship
was between humans and animals in that time before the flood,
God seems to be introducing a change here. There's a bit of separation. There's fear on the part of those
animals. And we'll see in a moment, they
had a good reason to fear because now man is permitted to eat them. But there's also a degree of
protection for humans in this provision of fear that God institutes. Because some of those animals
are such that they could eat the humans. And so giving the
animals a sense of fear, avoiding humans is actually a protection
for humans. So we've seen this change in
the dominion, similar to what was given to Adam and Eve, but
now there's a separation, reflecting maybe even more the fall. There's fear between humans and
animals. And then we next consider God's
changes in their diet. So in verse three, Genesis nine,
God says, every moving things that is alive shall be food for
you. I give all to you as I gave the
green plant. And maybe you've heard this little
almost nursery rhyme level way to remember what's a protein
and what's a carbohydrate. And I remember hearing this Protein
walks around and carbohydrates grow in the ground. And God had
originally given to Adam and Eve all the trees of the garden
with that one little exception. Don't eat that one tree, but
otherwise all the trees, all the plants, they're all for you. And God says, You can have the
protein that walks around as well. Every moving thing that
is alive shall be food for you. Now, that doesn't mean we need
to love going out for a nice alligator steak, right? But there's no prohibition on
eating the animals. But notice broad provision, just
like at the beginning, One exception, and we see that in verse four.
Notice, only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is,
its blood. And if you think about, if you
watch nature films, you notice some of the carnivores, they'll
just take a bite out of something, flesh and blood and everything,
they'll just eat it. And God says, no, you don't,
you're not to be that way. You're to show some honor and
respect for the life of that animal. And you're not to consume
its blood with it. And many people feel this is
a prohibition against eating food raw, eating meat raw. And I have just no desire to
eat raw meat. Some people love this dish called
steak tartare. Have you heard of it? It is essentially
seasoned raw meat. And it doesn't appeal to me. And we won't have any of that
at our pastor's office party. All the meat is cooked. But there's
something God is portraying here, that the blood is a sign of life. And you may remember from Leviticus
17, verse 11, it's the blood by reason of the life that makes
atonement. The blood contains the life,
And that was not understood until many centuries later, as scientists
began to understand the blood carries the oxygen that's needed
to all the cells in your body. In fact, I learned also that
our blood circulates about once a minute. It's amazing, this
body that the Lord has given us and yet, There's a better
one coming. But God gives this prohibition. You're not to eat the blood because
it represents the life. There's something sacred about
that. And of course, Noah and his family couldn't have fully
understood, but the Lord Jesus Christ was to come many centuries
later and give his blood, give his life to redeem us. What a marvelous thing. So we've
seen the changes in the dominion given to humans and their diet,
and finally a deterrence to this violence. So continuing on that
theme of blood and life, notice in verse five, God says, surely
I will require your lifeblood. From every beast, I will require
it. And God is saying, I want to
give you such a high regard for life, that even if an animal
kills someone, that animal must die. From every beast, I will require
it. And from every man, from every man's brother, I will require
the life of man. And maybe there's a bit of an
echo from Cain killing Abel and saying, am I my brother's keeper? So everyone who kills another
person is guilty before God. And God says, almost in a poetic
style in the typeset Bibles that I've tried to reproduce here,
whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God, he made
man. So here's the important point. We are made in the image of God. And that is why we're not to
kill one another. But you notice here that the
way this is carried out is, in fact, by humans. There's a requirement for humans
to execute justice on murderers. A murderer will lose his life
under God's justice. But it's not to be retribution,
like if someone kills your brother, well, I gotta go kill that guy.
No, this is a collective response under God's authority. that we
must execute those who murder. And of course, this is known
as capital punishment. And that's not punishment with
a capital P. It actually comes from a Latin
word, caput, that means head. So under capital punishment,
you lose your head. And of course, that was the most
common form of execution in the ancient world. But many people feel like we're
so past that. We are way more sophisticated. Does God still intend for us
to put murderers to death? That's so primitive. And yet, we need to take God
at His word. And the main thing is simply
to remember the why. God insists on protecting those
made in his image. And I want to just consider very
briefly some objections to capital punishment. And again, we must
remember that God is protecting those made in his image. He does
not want violence to fill the earth the same way that it did
before the flood. He wants to preserve life so
that he can grant eternal life in Christ. But someone may say,
well, there's no righteous government to execute wrongdoers. So we really shouldn't have capital
punishment until we have a perfect government. And then, all right,
we'll do it. But we understand God has already
given his assessment. He said, I will never again flood
the earth. Notice in Genesis 8, 21, I will
never again curse the ground on account of man for the intent
of man's heart is evil. from his youth. God knows what
we are like. God knows what kind of governments
we will create which are filled with sinners and yet God still
commands that we execute murderers. The Apostle Paul affirmed the
duty of the government to execute wrongdoers in Romans 13 verses
1-4. In fact, He uses the phrase, it does not
bear the sword for nothing. And that's, of course, where
I get the idea of the sword in the sword and the sign. But someone may also say, well,
an innocent person might be killed. What if you make a mistake? You
think this person is guilty, but they're not. I mean, just
to prevent that, shouldn't we just not execute any criminals? And of course, every reasonable
precaution, good defense provided examining all the facts, every
reasonable precaution must be taken, but we must obey God's
command. And we know in a situation where
there has been a murder, one innocent person, if you can say
that anyone is actually innocent, but one person has already been
killed, and perhaps many more will die if justice is not done. If we create an environment where
people literally get away with murder, what happens to the rate
of Murder, it goes up. And we're seeing that in our
society. And there's a tension you can
feel between those who say, no, we must have justice. We must
execute those who murder. And others, no, we'll never do
that. We want to let everyone be somehow
rehabilitated. Even if we have to incarcerate
people for the rest of their life, we'll never obey God's
command to execute them. And some might say, well, it's
really not a deterrent to murder. But of course, executing a murderer
will absolutely permanently deter that person from ever murdering
again. And we are not authorized. This is above our pay grade to
use the common language of our day. We're not authorized to
question God's commands, how effective they are, how appropriate
they are, or how timely they are. Have we outgrown them? That's
not ours to do. God has said, the one who sheds
blood, the one who kills another by man, his blood must be shed. And so we see this tension again
and again. Every aspect of life that God
has put forth in Genesis, modern society is questioning or trying
to do the opposite, including capital punishment. But God then
repeats his command, his blessing to Noah and his sons in verse
seven. kind of bracketing this whole
little section. As for you, be fruitful and multiply,
populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it. So we've seen these blessings
and the new requirements of life in the new world. And then we
see God's covenant with the earth in Genesis nine, verses eight
through 11. So here we see again, four times
in this passage, God said, and God said, and God said, it's
all God. Every speech is by God. Noah
says, not a word. God is saying here, verse eight,
God spoke to Noah and his sons with him saying, now behold,
I myself, to establish my covenant with you and with your descendants
after you." Now, who are they? Well, that's us. We are those descendants from
Noah and his three sons, every one of us. If we had perfect
genealogical records, we could trace all the way back. But they were the only survivors
of the flood Noah, his wife, his three sons, their wives,
and from them, every one of us has descended. But God emphasizes
here, I myself to establish my covenant with you. And we'll
think in just a moment about the nature of covenants, but
I just wanna jump ahead and focus on the fact that God is making
this covenant unilaterally by himself. He's not saying, hey,
can we agree? You know, if you will do this,
I'll do that. No, it's one-sided. God says,
I'm gonna do this, period. There's no thing that you must
do. I'm gonna make a formal agreement. I'm gonna bind myself. I'm gonna cut off some of my
options. I'm gonna require myself. Can
God do that? Can God restrict himself? Yes, when he makes a covenant,
he's saying, I'm voluntarily restricting my behavior. So this is with Noah, his sons
and their descendants, which is us. but it's bigger. Look at this, verse 10. And with
every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle,
and every beast of the earth with you, of all that comes out
of the ark, even every beast of the earth. So, if you have
a pet dog, or a pet snake, or a salamander, or a hamster, you
can go speak to that animal and say, you, even you, dear animal,
have a covenant from God. He's promised to protect you
from a worldwide flood. Isn't that marvelous? And of
course, the dog might just kind of look at you thoughtfully.
The snake might stick out its tongue and you know, they won't
understand, but I find this fascinating. Of all God's covenants, this
is the only one that includes all the animals, all the creatures
of the earth, all the birds, the bumblebees, the everything,
they're all included. in God's promise and what is
it? Verse 11, here it is. I establish my covenant with
you and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water
of the flood. Neither shall there again be
a flood to destroy the earth. Of course, we notice God isn't
saying there's never gonna be any flood anywhere on the earth,
no. He's saying there won't be a
flood of judgment that wipes out the entire earth. That's
a marvelous promise. We don't have to worry about
that. God is restraining himself, if
you will. Like could God righteously flood
the earth again? Like tomorrow? Yes, except he's
made a covenant. And God cannot lie, he cannot
break his word, he has made his covenant with us and even with
all the animals, he'll never flood the earth again. There's
a certain preservation of life on the earth because God likes
life. Because where there is life,
there is hope, there is hope for redemption. Not just a better
life, a longer life, but hope for redemption in Christ. So we've seen the blessings and
the requirements of this new arrangement in their dominion,
their diet, the deterrence of the death penalty, capital punishment. We've seen the covenant itself. But then finally, God gives the
sign of the covenant in Genesis 9, verses 12 through 17, the
sign of the covenant. And what is a sign, particularly
in this context? We know sign tells you something,
points to something. Don't go this direction, go that
direction, one way, you know, that sort of thing. But also
we saw that the shepherds, remember in that marvelous Christmas story
in Luke, The angel said, I've got great news. That's for all
the people. The savior has been born. But
of course, the shepherds wouldn't see him as the savior for some
time. He had just been born and no
one expects a baby to start ruling or conquering or whatever. But
the angel said, I'm gonna give you a sign. And the sign is something
that you can see right away so that you'll know that this larger
promise, this further away promise will also come true. So God has
made this big promise. The end of chapter eight, he
said, I'm never gonna flood the earth. The seasons will continue.
Here in covenantal language, I'm never gonna flood the earth
again. So we read verse 12, God said, this is the sign of the
covenant, which I'm making between me and you and every living creature
that is with you for all successive generations. We already had a
sense that it was for your descendants after you. God reiterates here,
repeats again, for all successive generations. And just a note
on repetition. There's purposeful repetition
in this passage. You may have even said, didn't
you preach this sermon last week? Cause it was about not flooding
the earth again. There's a purposeful, forceful
repetition that God has introduced. And I hesitate to mention it,
because I don't want you to do it right now. But if you look
on the back of your bulletin, sometime later, after the party
in the pastor's office, you'll see an excerpt from James Montgomery
Boyce with a meditation on why this repetition that I think
is very helpful. And of course, also notice Maya's
marvelous illustration with that perfectly done rainbow, just
kind of faint the way rainbows are, and the Greek word for bow
there on the rainbow. So here God is saying, I'm making
this sign of the covenant for all successive generations, and
verse 13, explicitly now, here's the sign, I set my bow in the
cloud. You may wonder, why didn't he
say rainbow? Well, in Hebrew, And in Greek,
the word for bow, like bow and arrows, like you shoot arrows,
that word for bow and rainbow, same word. So God is saying,
instead of being a warrior with my bow and arrow coming after
you in judgment, I'm putting the bow in the clouds. You can
see it's hung up. It's not coming after you for
judgment now. You have time to come to faith,
to repent of your sins. I set my bow in the cloud, verse
13, and it shall be for a sign of a covenant between me and
the earth. Notice again how inclusive, me
and the earth, the whole planet in a sense is the recipient of
this covenant. Verse 14, it shall come about
when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow will be seen
in the cloud and I will remember my covenant. Not that God is
ever gonna forget his covenant, but he's using human language
to reassure us of his faithfulness. I will remember my covenant,
which is between me and you and every living creature of all
flesh. and never again shall the water
become a flood to destroy all flesh." Again, purposeful repetition
to make the point God is faithful to his word, to his covenant.
When the bow is in the cloud, God says, then I will look upon
it to remember the everlasting covenant. Everlasting covenant. This is a long-term, Deal. We saw in chapter eight, God
said, while the earth remains, you're gonna have seasons. You're
gonna have dependable patterns. I'm gonna maintain it. I'll look
upon it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every
living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. And if Noah hadn't gotten it
by now, God says one more time in verse 17, and God said to
Noah, this is the sign of the covenant which I've established
between me and all flesh that is on the earth. Now think of
the covenants that God has given We, I hinted earlier that this
is a unilateral covenant. The other kind of covenant is
a bilateral covenant. When we get married generally,
if it's in a Christian setting, there's an acknowledgement of
a marriage covenant. It's an agreement and both parties
agree to be bound by the terms of this covenant, you're covenanting
together. It's a bilateral or perhaps if
we include God in it, a trilateral covenant. But in this case, God's
not asking for humans to merit participation in the blessings
of this covenant. It is unilateral on his part. And some of God's covenants are
conditional. If you'll do this, I'll do that.
Very common in ancient treaties between kings and their subjects. But God often makes unconditional
promises, unconditional covenants. What's the best one of those?
It's that new covenant that I'm so fond of. I can't stop talking
about it. Almost every Sunday, these blessings
of forgiveness of sin and relationship with God and a transforming power
from the inside out. These are the blessings of the
new covenant. And that's an unconditional covenant. God doesn't say, you know, if
you measure up, you work pretty hard, you might attain to this. Look at what's waiting if you'll
behave. No, God just says, I'm gonna
do this. Nor is it a bilateral. It is
unilateral. God says, I will do this. I will forgive. I will not remember
your sins. God promises unilaterally, unconditionally,
he's gonna do that. God gave David a promise of a
descendant who would rule forever. And did he say, and you know,
if you measure up, no, he didn't say that because we know David
didn't measure up, he failed. but God was gracious and gave
him a unilateral, unconditional covenant. You're gonna have a
son who reigns forever, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ. And here with the whole earth,
you can go up to any person, any skeptic, any scoffer, any
person in another religion or no religion, and you can tell
them, Did you know God has made a covenant to you? You're included. I don't wanna be included. No, you're included. You don't
have any choice because it was God's idea. And he made it so
everybody can see it. What? Like it's written in the
sky? Yes, it's written in the sky. It's this rainbow. And the rainbow,
is there to remind us of God's promise to never flood the earth
again. It doesn't mean he'll never judge
sin. It means we know we have time
to repent. Instead of a license to sin,
God's covenant rainbow should prompt us to marvel at his mercy. and cast ourselves upon the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is our only hope to escape God's ultimate
judgment, not just of the earth, but of all people everywhere,
eternity. He is our hope. Please pray with me. Father,
we thank you for these promises, this covenant that you have given
us. We thank you that your rainbow
sign in the covenant is a perpetual reminder of your common grace,
which should lead us to your saving grace in Christ. Well, may we be faithful to use
this time that we have to declare your glory, to revel in your
marvelous mercy, and to tell whoever will listen of your goodness
that you so desire to redeem that you have voluntarily restrained
yourself from judgment for a period of time that people may be born
and born again to your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.
The Sword and the Sign: Human Government and God's Covenant
Series Genesis
God's covenant rainbow is a reminder of His promise to never flood the earth again. Instead of a license to sin, as though God will never judge evil again, it should prompt us to marvel at His mercy and cast ourselves upon the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our only hope to escape God's ultimate judgment.
| Sermon ID | 1525131331985 |
| Duration | 47:55 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Genesis 9:1-17 |
| Language | English |
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