Covenant is one of the great themes of the Bible. The word covenant is found over 300 times in the Bible. And those of you who have read through the Bible, you know you find the word from Genesis to Revelation. Now, we don't hear much about covenants today in our modern world, except when we buy a home, perhaps. In some subdivisions and neighborhoods, covenants restrict what you can do with a property. The Bible never uses the word covenant in that way. Covenants concern issues much more important than whether you can paint your house purple or puce in the Bible. For instance, scripture teaches us that marriage is a covenant. Some covenants are agreements between two equals, two individuals or two nations enter voluntarily into an agreement, like a bride and a groom. Like Jonathan and David, when they formally stated the terms of their friendship, the Old Testament calls that a covenant. Israel, under Joshua's leadership, when they made a treaty with the Gibeonites, again, the Old Testament calls that a covenant. We would call this first kind of covenant a contract or a treaty or something like that. But the most important covenants in the Bible are not covenants between two equals. There was a second type of covenant in Bible times, an arrangement imposed by a superior upon a subordinate. An arrangement imposed by a superior, normally a king, on a subordinate. For instance, archaeologists have discovered ancient documents in which a king made legally binding promises to a people that he had conquered in return for eliciting promises or forcing those people to make promises to him. So this kind of covenant was voluntary on the part of the king. It was voluntary on the part of the superior. But when he decided to establish this kind of covenant, the subordinates had no choice. It was not voluntary on their part. Now, the most important covenants mentioned in the Bible are of this second type, the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant, the new covenant, and the covenant that God made with Noah. The first time the Bible uses the word covenant, it refers to the covenant that God made with Noah. Now covenant theologians, every now and then you'll hear me mention covenant theology. Covenant theologians try to find covenants earlier in Genesis or even earlier in time, but this is the first time that the Bible mentions covenant. And so I think it's important that we study it carefully to understand this very significant biblical concept. Now God initiated His covenant with Noah before the flood. The first use of the word covenant is found here in Genesis 6 and verse 18. Genesis 6 and verse 18. But I will establish My covenant with you, God says to Noah, and you shall go into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. I want you to notice three aspects of this initial covenant that God made with Noah. Number one, it was founded on grace. It was founded on grace. Again, we must go back to the first usage of the word grace in the Bible, back in verse 8. And Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah did not earn a place on the ark by means of his righteousness. And it's easy to make that mistake because Noah's righteousness is mentioned over and over in these chapters. But the truth is that God set his love on Noah and gave Noah faith and worked righteousness into his life. Grace was the first thing, God's grace. And because of this grace, number two, God made covenant promises to Noah. That's what we see here in verse 18. Unsolicited by Noah, God promised to save him from the wrath that he planned to pour out on the entire earth. And that promise, that deliverance, It wasn't due to any prayer that Noah prayed. It wasn't due to any request that Noah made. Noah had no idea what was coming. It was all of God. It was all of grace. And God decided what form the deliverance would take. An ark. Noah didn't come up with that idea. But speaking of an ark, It reminds us that covenants entail a third element. God made demands of Noah. He gave clear commandments and God expected obedience to his covenant commandments from Noah. Once Noah believed God's covenant promise, once Noah embraced God's covenant promise, his obedience naturally followed. So Noah did not elicit the promises, and he had no choice in obeying the commandments. Remember, this covenant had been imposed by a superior, the absolute superior, Almighty God. And then Genesis 6 through 8 also record Noah's response to this initial covenant. And again, his response had three elements. First of all, we talked about the first one a few weeks ago. It's highlighted in Hebrews 11. Number one, Noah believed God's covenant promises. Faith is always an appropriate response to God's promises, to God's covenant promises. And then number two, Noah obeyed. Boy, did he obey. He obeyed for a hundred years. He obeyed in the face of any very kind of opposition you can think of. Scripture says that he did everything that God asked of him. You can write trust and obey over the life of Noah. But then Noah's response to this initial covenant took third form and it's outlined in Genesis 8 at the end of the chapter so turn over a page to the last three verses in Genesis 8 Genesis 8 reading in verse 20 then Noah built an altar to the Lord this is after he had exited from the ark after the flood was over Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease. So number one, Noah believed God. Number two, Noah obeyed God. And number three, Noah thanked God or worshiped God. I believe this sacrifice was primarily a matter of Noah thanking God for keeping his covenant promises. and saving him and his family and the animals in the ark for over a year. Some commentaries emphasize that Noah's offering was an offering for sin, but that is foreign to this context. I believe those commentaries are mistaken. Verse 20 calls Noah's offering a burnt offering. The old King James Version used to call it a whole offering because the whole sacrifice was burned up. And it symbolized giving oneself wholly to the Lord. And so, Noah here symbolically was sacrificing his life saying, God, I'm all yours. And that's an act of gratitude in thanksgiving. for the great salvation from the watery judgment of the flood. Now, you may wonder why this covenant concept is so important, and I'll tell you. It's because you and I are saved. You and I become God's people by means of a covenant. What did Jesus say the night before His crucifixion at the Last Supper? This is the new covenant in My blood. And every element that I just mentioned to you in regard to this first covenant that God made initially with Noah, we find in the covenant by which we are saved. It's a covenant based on God's grace. It doesn't start with us. It starts with God. We're not saved by anything that we have done. All is of God. God set His love upon us when we didn't know Him and we didn't want to know Him. And then number two, because of His great grace, God made covenant promises to us. We find those promises by the dozens in the New Testament. And by the way, the words that are translated New Testament can also be translated New Covenant. And I lost my place. God decided what form those promises would take. How could any of us have imagined that God would send His own Son, the God-Man, 100% God, 100% flesh, to shed His blood in order to save us from our sins? We didn't come up with that plan, God did. And then another part of that covenant are the commandments that God has given to us as His people. The New Testament is filled with them. Covenant is not just promise, it's also precept. Now, if we are one of God's people, if we have truly been saved, then we have responded to this covenant. We have responded by believing God's promise to save us through the blood of Jesus Christ. As I said, faith is always the appropriate response to God's covenant promises. But once we have believed, there's a second response, and that's the response of obedience. Now we need to be careful here. This is where people get confused, have been confused about this for centuries. We do not obey in order to obtain the promises. We obey because we have already believed the promises. We already have obtained the promises. That obedience flows out of that genuine faith that we have in the covenant promises of God. And then finally, as God's people, we worship, we thank God for what He has done for us in the covenant. We offer ourselves a living sacrifice. We offer all that we have and all that we are, not to buy anything from God, but because of what God has already done for us through the Lord Jesus Christ. So normally I give the invitation at the end of the sermon, but this morning I'm going to give it right now. Are you one of God's covenant people today? Have you embraced the covenant promise that God has given us through the Lord Jesus Christ, what he did on the cross? If you haven't, I encourage you to decide right now. Yes. I want to be part of that covenant. I want the covenant promise that God offers. And if you still have questions about this, then let's talk after the service. Nothing is more important than making sure that you have been saved. You are a part of God's covenant people today. So maybe now you see the story of Noah in a little bit different light. But after the flood, God expanded this covenant. He restated this covenant. So we want to read the record now of this expanded, restated version of God's covenant with Noah, beginning in Genesis 9 and verse 1. Reading in Genesis 9 and verse 1. So God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, and on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning. From the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man, from the hand of every man's brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood By man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God he made man. And as for you, be fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it. Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, And as for me, behold, I established my covenant with you and with your descendants after you. And with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth, thus I establish my covenant with you. Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, this is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations. I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. It shall be when I bring a cloud over the earth that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. The water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. And God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth. Now, I call this an expanded covenant because of the participants. in this covenant we see outlined here in Genesis chapter 9. According to verse 10, the participants include Noah and all his descendants after him. How many of you descended from Noah? Okay, that's a trick question. We're all descendants of Noah, one of Noah's sons. And so this covenant is with all of us. It includes you. It includes me. In fact, that's one of the things that makes this a very unusual covenant. Most of God's covenants do not include all humanity. what this covenant does. And in fact, this covenant is even more expansive. In verse 15, God says that this covenant is between Himself and Noah and every living creature of all flesh. Cattle and birds and fish, you name it. Everything that moves, it says. Verse 16 puts it this way. Every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. And in fact, verse 13 makes it completely universal. God says, it shall be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. God covenants with the entire earth. And we'll see why in a few minutes. Now, I call this a restated covenant. because the promises of this covenant are completely different after the flood than they were before the flood. When God covenanted with Noah back there in Genesis chapter 6, what were the promises that he made? He said, I'm going to save you by means of an ark. I'm going to take you through the flood. That's all happened. God kept his promise. And so now he has to restate the promises of this covenant. And the promises of this covenant, again, they're different because, as opposed to many covenants, the focus of this covenant is not spiritual. It's physical. The promise of this covenant is not internal. It's external. First, God promises to never destroy every living thing in a flood. And he restates this four or five times. I'm not going to go back and read them all, but starting back there at the end of chapter 8 and on through verse 17 here in chapter 9, I think he restates that five or six times. This is the central promise of the Noahic covenant. And we know it's the central promise of this covenant because God attached a sign to that promise. And what was that sign? The rainbow. Now, this is normal. God often attaches a sign or a symbol to a covenant. What was the sign of the Mosaic covenant? Circumcision. What's the sign of the New Covenant? I hope you know this one. I'm not pointing at the flowers. The Lord's Supper. But God said there's something different about this sign, the sign of the rainbow. Many signs of covenants are for the sake of mankind. circumcision was used to set apart the nation of Israel from all the other nations so that everyone would know it. God said this sign was for whose purpose? He says for Him. He says every time I see this sign, I will remember my promise. And what promise is that? It's the central promise of this covenant, which is the promise never to destroy the earth by water again. Then there's a second set of promises, if you will. God promises seasons and harvests in verse 22 back in chapter 8. And more than that, God promises never to interrupt the normal cycles of nature again like he did in the flood. And that's the basis for modern science. Since the Genesis flood, the cycles of nature, the processes of nature have never been interrupted again by any type of catastrophe. Now, God has done miracles. We know that from Scripture. Moses, Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, the apostles, we know that God has done them. But those are very extraordinary. And so today, when a scientist looks at how nature behaves and he says, nature behaves like this on March 10th, 2024, he can predict that nature will behave the same way on July 12th, 2025. That predictability is the basis for what we call the scientific Method. Some of you remember what you learned back in physical science survey back in high school? It's the basis for the scientific method. Now, modern science has done a lot for us. It's given us cell phones so that we can't do anything else. You know what I'm talking about. I mean, we have a lot of wonderful things because of modern science. But scientists get in trouble when they say things that they can't prove in a laboratory. See, what many scientists have done is they've said, well, this is how nature has behaved for the last 200 or 300 years. And therefore, nature has always behaved that way. It's always behaved that way, clear back to the beginning. And it always will behave that way, clear into the future. And they leave the realm of science, and they get into the realm of theology and epistemology. And I'll share a secret with you. Scientists don't have a clue what they're talking about when they talk about theology. But we need to move on to the most important part of this expanded, restated covenant, and that's its precepts. its precepts. And what's interesting about this covenant is that the precepts here are an expansion of the precepts that God laid down in the garden with Adam and Eve. Okay, so first of all, God restates the creation mandate, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. In fact, God repeats that precept twice in verse 1 and in verse 7. And as the descendants of Noah, this precept applies to all of us. God enjoins us to have children. God enjoins us to multiply and to fill the earth. And I feel the need to emphasize this precept. Because many in our younger generations are abandoning marriage, and they're abandoning the idea of having and raising children. I looked it up. The US birth rate has dropped 30% in the last 15 years. Now, we're used to our, and this is free. You don't have to pay for this. We're used to our economy continuing to grow every year. I'll tell you what, as we do not even replenish our population, our economy will not continue to grow. That's just a pure economic factor. If you think it's bad here, you should see what's happening in China. I mean, China had a one-child policy for many years. So this mandate, this precept is still in place for mankind. And we move away from this mandate, we move away from what God has laid down here to our own peril as human beings. You know who the most fulfilled human beings are? They've done studies. You know who the most fulfilled human beings are? begins with a P and ends with errants. The most fulfilled human beings are parents. And today, that's like just totally non-intuitive. Nobody believes that anymore, but that's what the studies will tell you. Second, God also revised the dominion that he gave to mankind, that he gave to Adam and Eve in the garden. God gave man dominion over all of the animals in the garden, and He gave them of the herbs and the trees to eat. God changes that dominion now. He says, now, look with me in verse 3, every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things even as, in other words, I've already given you the green herbs, the plants and the trees, now I'm giving you the animals to eat as well. I shared with you this idea last week. I believe that before the worldwide flood, there was very little difference in the seasonal cycle. And so it supported multiple crops per year. But now after the flood, after that water vapor canopy fell in rain, providing enough food through plants, through trees, this was a little more difficult. This was a little bit more difficult and iffy. And so God provided meat from animals as well. We don't know for certain if men ate meat before the flood. It seems to me there would have been no reason for them to do that. There would have been an abundance of food compared with the kind of harvests that we have even today. But what we do know from this passage is that God gave men the right to eat meat freely. So go ahead and eat chicken and ham and barbecue at lunch today. No problem. But in tandem with this change, God changed the relationship between animals and human beings. I find this very interesting. Look what it says in verse 2. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, on all the fish of the sea. Try catching a squirrel or a fox or a bird with your bare hands. Let me know how that comes out for you. It's just about impossible. Even the largest creatures, even creatures that we would naturally fear, they stay away from us normally. They don't venture into our towns and our cities. And I'm not sure that it was that way before the flood. Man's dominion in the garden may have included a much freer intercourse with the animals. Eve found it natural to pal around with a serpent. And perhaps the kind of enjoyment that we get today In a dog or a cat, they may have found that kind of enjoyment with many different animals before the flood. But now, that's gone. God has built a natural defense mechanism into animals so that by and large, animals don't simply walk up to us and say, eat me. Doesn't happen. But by far, the most important precept The most important way that this dominion was expanded is human government. Human government. Now, we don't find the word government anywhere here in Genesis 9. It's easy to miss this concept if you're not looking for it. Rather, God talks about blood. Verse 4 indicates that life is in the blood. Now today we know this is a scientific fact. You sever a major artery and in about 30 seconds your life will be gone. Your life is literally in your blood. Blood equals life. And so first of all here, God requires that man not eat the blood of animals that he has given them for food. And later on in the book of Leviticus, we learn why. God intended that men eat the meat of animals, but that they offer the blood, the life of the animal, as a sacrifice. But then in verses 5 and 6, God puts the blood of human beings in a completely different category. Notice what it says in verses 5 and 6. Surely for your lifeblood, he means man's lifeblood, I will demand a reckoning from the hand of every beast I will require. In other words, if a beast takes a man's life, I will require it. From the hand of man, I will require it. From the hand of every man's brother, I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. That's almost a mantra. It's actually in Hebrew poetry. It's meant to be memorable. Whoever sheds man's blood, by my man his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God, he made man. So what happens here in these verses is God takes man's dominion to the next level. Mankind will now have dominion over the man who sheds another man's blood. And this expansion of man's dominion is the basis for human government. If you don't see the big picture in the context here, you'll miss why. Why God took the step of instituting human government at this point. Notice again, Genesis chapter 8 and verse 21. And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma Then the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, nor will I destroy every living thing as I have done. Now you need to understand that God is making a concession here. He foresees that even after God has carried out this worldwide judgment and wiped out all of mankind except for Noah's family, he foresees that the same conditions remain. Man's nature has not changed. Man's propensity for violence remains unchanged. God foresees that the violence that characterized the generation of Noah is going to continue to shock him and grieve him. And yet he concedes that he is not going to wipe out all mankind again, at least until the end. And so what can God do to restrain this violence that seems to be part of our nature? He institutes human government. The basic purpose of human government is to restrain the evil that is in the heart of men. It's also telling that it is murder that drives the institution of human government. Murder is like no other crime because no other being is created in the image of God. And so God says, when you take a human life, it's not just that human life has value. Let me ask you, why does human life have value? Because we are created in the image of God. This is something that those who do not believe scripture, they do not get. They just don't understand it. This is why they have no problem with abortion. That unborn human being literally has no value to them. They do not understand that even that unborn child was created in the image of God. So here in Genesis, in this covenant that God made with Noah, God plants the seed of human government as it were. And that seed comes to fruition in the New Testament in Romans chapter 13. So I want you to turn with me now to Romans chapter 13. Romans chapter 13 and beginning in verse 1. Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God. And the authorities, that's, he's talking about human authorities here. He's talking about governmental authorities here. And the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore, whoever resists the authority, resists the ordinance of God. And those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid. For he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is God's minister and avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore, you must be subject, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience' sake. Now, for a few minutes ago, I used the word dominion to describe how God established human government. In this passage, Paul uses some other words. He uses the word authority. He uses the word minister. Paul makes clear what Genesis 9 only implies. The authority of Almighty God stands behind human government. and the human beings who are the face of human government, policemen, judges, prosecutors, This passage calls them the ministers of God. They actually carry out God's vengeance. At the end of Romans chapter 12, we find those words that we all know. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. And one of the ways that God takes vengeance is through human governmental authorities. Also, we see that this passage expands on Genesis chapter 9. Genesis chapter 9, only concerned murder. Here, Paul expands the role of human government to include protection from evildoers of every kind. That is the primary function of human government. This passage also reveals another truth that's easy for us to overlook. Government uses force to accomplish its function. Notice verse 4. The governmental minister does not bear the sword in vain. The sword is a metaphor for the punishment that government uses to force men to do what it mandates. How many of you have paid your taxes this year? Did you do it voluntarily? You know the IRS tax code says that paying taxes is a matter of voluntary compliance. Did you know that? Now what it means is that you must voluntarily complete the 1040 and submit it. But let me ask you, if you decided not to do that, If you decided for conscience's sake, I'm not going to pay that little part of my taxes that goes to Planned Parenthood. I'm not paying that this year. I object. What would happen? Believe you me, the government would force you to pay. They'd garnish your wages. They'd seize your assets. And eventually, they would seize you. government uses force to accomplish its purposes. And because the government can only use external force to get what it wants, that means that government has no way to develop morality or righteousness within a human being. And that is really important. Sometimes you hear the motto, you can't legislate morality. How many of you agree with that, you can't legislate morality? How many of you agree? How many of you disagree? How many of you are unwilling to vote because you think it's a trick question? You're right, because there is a sense in which you can't legislate morality, and there is a sense in which you can legislate morality. All legislation is a mandate of someone's morality. I mean, often that phrase is used to counter Christians, to say, you can't legislate your morality. Well, guess what? That person is trying to legislate their morality. All laws legislate somebody's morality or immorality. So in that sense, that's not true. But in this sense, it is true. Law can never force somebody to be moral. Law cannot develop morality in someone's heart. Whose job is that? It's a parent's job. It's the church's job. But ultimately, the only person who can do that is the Holy Spirit. Let me tell you a secret. We have a government today that's trying to take God's place. And a lot of people think that's what it ought to do. But you are not going to change people from the inside out by law. by force, can't be done. And that's why in our day so many people want to see the government get bigger and bigger and bigger. They think the bigger and bigger the government gets that somehow it's going to be able to do what it was never designed to do. You cannot by force make someone moral or make someone righteous. That's the job of Jesus Christ and God the Holy Spirit. So as I close, let me ask, there may be somebody here today, you need to be changed. You need to be transformed from a criminal, a sinner, And to an upright human being, there's only one person who can do that, and that's Jesus Christ. And so I urge you to run to Him. Don't think that anything else can do it. Education can't do it. The internet can't do it. Only Jesus Christ can do that. Run to Him. He'll save you. He'll change you. Ultimately, He'll conform you to the image of Christ and glorify you. Run to Christ. Would you bow your heads, please? Just for a few moments, ponder that promise, the promise of salvation, the promise of change that comes only through Jesus Christ. Have you embraced that change? Have you embraced God's covenant promise? Are you one of God's covenant people? If you're uncertain, make certain today. Put your trust in Jesus Christ. Determine to be one of God's covenant people.