As we've been looking through our series in Genesis, we've been reminded how God is faithful of his people. We've lived out in the life of Noah here many times, and we're continuing that series this evening as we look in Genesis chapter 9 tonight. Now I have to admit that I have always loved rainbows. As a kid, I remember getting excited whenever I would see a rainbow. I got especially I could see a double rainbow and if the colors were like I'm having trouble with my mic here let me try to adjust it we'll see if that works Anyway, as I got older and I came to know more about rainbows when I studied physics, I found that my fascination in rainbows continued. I learned about the complicated optics that go into the situation that creates a rainbow. Did you know rainbows can only occur when the sun is at a certain low level? If we have science nerds on the screen or watching the live stream tonight, that's 42 degrees or lower to the horizon is what's required. The sun has to be behind you and the raindrops have to be in front of you and it has to be at least that low. So that means that if you're on relatively flat land, rainbows only occur in the morning or the evening. They won't happen during the peak of the day. Rainbows require both the refraction and the reflection of light. In other words, light has to be bent as well as bounce back like a mirror. It's actually that bending of the light that spreads out the spectrum so that you see the rainbow from red all the way to violet, the visible light being spread out. Well, this evening we're looking at the passage that focuses in on God setting up the rainbow as a specific sign for a special promise that he gives to Noah. Last week, if you were with us in our evening livestream, you recall that we looked at the end of the flood as God remembered Noah. God had placed Noah and his family along with the animals on the ark, and after several days, months, for that matter, God remembered Noah. And then God, in his grace and mercy, he faithfully caused the water to stop falling from the sky, and then it started receding from the earth. And God caused the surface of the land to dry up so that vegetation could grow again. And once everything was prepared and the land was all set to once again inhabit Then God allowed Noah and his family, along with the animals, to leave the ark. I trust that you remember that the first thing Noah did, at least first thing from the Bible's record, the first thing Noah did when he and his family left the ark was he built an altar to be able to offer sacrifices to worship God. So the very first act was an act of worship after over a year on the ark. You may also recall that Moses, who is writing this down for us, he recorded this record. Moses is taking care throughout these chapters to show how there's a link between God's preservation of Noah and God's preservation of the people of Israel. Moses is concerned that Israel recognizes that God's plan of salvation is now flowing through them as God's chosen nation. At the same time, he's showing that as God's plan flows through them, it still will expand to all of humanity. By seeing God's care and God's faithfulness, Moses is leading the nation to worship God, the one true living God, not all the false gods that they left behind in Egypt, not all the false gods that are worshiped in the land they're coming to, but the one true living God who's the one who preserves life. As with the last couple chapters that we've looked at, again this evening we're looking at a rather familiar passage. It's a particularly important passage. It's a passage that has lasting implications. This passage shows us God's heart. And what we learn of God's heart and is revealed to us is that we, ourselves, must recognize and defend that human life is precious. We must both recognize and defend the precious nature of human life. That's not to say that all life is not precious in some fashion. Every living being is precious in some level, but human life is distinct. Human life rises to a different level than animal life. We saw this truth all the way back in our study when we looked at the creation account in Genesis chapter one, as God created man in his own image. And now we see it again clearly this evening that human life is distinct, and for that reason we must recognize and defend that human life is precious. Our passage this evening that we're looking at naturally breaks itself into two sections. We'll look at those separately. In the first section, that's verses 1 through 7 of chapter 9, in this section we see that life is produced by God's blessing. Let's begin by reading these verses. God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 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 fish of the sea into your hand they are given. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you. I give all to you as I gave the green plant. Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely I will require your lifeblood from every beast I will require it, and from every man and from 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. As for you, be fruitful and multiply. Populate the earth abundantly and multiply in it. Last week, we observed that Noah was silent throughout the entire account of what occurred on the ark. And now, once again, Noah remains a silent participant. God does all the speaking. God is the one who takes all the initiative. The initiative is centered on the statements that are made by God in the verses that we just read, and Noah's just a silent participant. God begins by repeating the commission that he gave to Adam in Genesis chapter one. In Genesis chapter one, God said, be fruitful and multiply. Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And now once again, that's what we find in verse 1, be fruitful and multiply. Verse 7 ends essentially the same way, be fruitful and multiply. It wraps this section with this one idea, bracketing it, that one thing stands out, they are to be fruitful, but God, this time, in verse one, speaks to Noah and his sons. In other words, God's command is now encompassing the entire family. Last week, the focus was on Noah. The week before that, the focus was on Noah. Noah is the one that was placed into the ark with his family, but now God speaks directly to Noah and his sons. as he tells them to be fruitful and multiply. The sons and their descendants, they'll be integral to God's plan of fulfillment. Noah's no longer viewed independently. Of course, the animals are part of this command as well. The animals will repopulate the earth. But the expansion of humanity is in the forefront of this verse because it's given to mankind. The idea is that all this expansion over the earth is the result of God's blessing. God blessed Noah and his sons. And the result will be they multiply. Now it doesn't say within the text, but it does almost seem an implication is that for this year plus that Noah and the family were on the ark with the animals, that procreation was put on hold during the flood. At the very least, we know that there were no more people getting off the ark than got on the ark. In other words, none of the sons of Noah and their wives had any children during that year. We can't say anything definitive about the animals, but what we see now is that this charge is given there as part of God's blessing that would allow them to have children, now that they're off the ark, to once again repopulate the earth. It's interesting that the word multiply is also used in Exodus chapter one. It's used there to describe how the Israelites flourished in Egypt. That the reason that they're now this great nation, remember they're a mighty nation walking around the wilderness, they've left Egypt, they're on the way to Mount Sinai. They're this great nation because they've multiplied, it says in Exodus chapter one. In other words, Moses is showing that you as a nation have been blessed by God. Multiplication is a blessing from God. Birth is a blessing from God and the nation has been blessed by God. Their emergence as a nation came through God's blessing. Be fruitful and multiply in verse one. The next main thing that we notice in this section is a relationship between mankind and the animal kingdom that changes. As a result of the new situation here on earth, following the flood, things between man and beast will be different. The first specific thing that God says is that animal life will now fear mankind. Think about how strange that must have been. For the past year at least, the relationship between the animals and Noah had been fairly peaceful. Now I'm not saying that all the animals on the ark were domesticated by any means, but surely there was not a vicious, dangerous environment within the ark. After all, God caused the animals to come to Noah and his family and to enter the ark with Noah and his family. There was some level of peaceful relationship, and now suddenly these very same animals who had come from the ark, had exited with Noah and his family, they are now suddenly given this instinctive fear of Noah and his family. No longer would these animals see mankind as their providers, rather now they would begin to see mankind as dangerous. They would have an instinctive fear that would cause them to run from man. This fear, though, has a purpose. This fear opened the right for mankind to be able to eat animals as part of their diet. God gives specific permission here in verse 3 for Noah and his family to begin eating animals just as previously God had given them permission to eat green plants. Mankind's given the privilege here of leaving a strictly vegetarian diet behind. Now we have steaks and bacon are on the menu. They're valid for mankind. As the nation of Israel receives the Mosaic Law, God is going to distinguish between clean and unclean animals that they're allowed to eat. But at this point, permission is simply given to eat animals in general. So we have this transition, this change in relationship. And one of the impressions that could arise, since God had destroyed all life from Earth, and that God is now allowing mankind to kill animals and eat them, one of the impressions that could have arrived is that life is not really valuable. That life is not valuable. After all, God destroyed it all in a flood. Yet nothing could be further from the truth. And for that reason, God takes special effort to ensure that it's clear following the flood here that life remains precious. He mitigates killing by setting forth very strict boundaries to demonstrate that life is precious. The precious nature of life is first of all seeing that God does not allow for animal flesh to be eaten with its life in it. He explains in verse 4 that the blood must be drained from the flesh before it can be eaten. The blood represents the life of the animal. The blood represents the animating life force that's in the animal. So, the idea is that the animals cannot be eaten alive, and that which represents their life is to be drained from them before they are consumed. And it's a way to show that even animal life remains valuable in the eyes of God. Verse five begins with the very same particle in Hebrew, the very same type of Hebrew word as verse four, and it's a word that indicates that both verse four and verse five are giving prohibitions. These are things they're not allowed to do. They're not allowed to eat the animals with life in, but they're also not allowed to do what's given in verse five. The prohibition here is they're not allowed to take life indiscriminately. Three times in this verse we find the words, I will require. Those words show that the God is giving an express command. God is the absolute Lord over life and God demands that life be not taken indiscriminately, specifically human life. God shows that He will demand that an animal who takes the life of a person must die. All life is precious, but human life remains unique. Human life remains at a different level of value than animal life. Whenever a human life is taken, even If it's by an animal, the one that took that life, their life is now required. Even an animal who takes human life is guilty in God's eyes and God says, I will require its life. God also makes this principle explicit in the case of a human taking the life of another human. He requires the life of a man's brother for the life of a man. That word brother there at the end of verse five, that harkens back to Cain and Abel, the incident that we saw where Cain took the life of his brother. But that word also is linked to this idea now that all humanity is connected. They all descend from Noah and Noah's sons, they're all brothers with one another. There's a common ancestry that unites mankind. Verse six specifically lays out the requirement that whenever a man sheds the blood of another man, in other words, when he murders him, that murderer's life is forfeit. Because of his actions where he's taken the life of an image bearer of God, his life is forfeit. And the focus is on the image of God. The image of God has not been erased by sin. The image of God is still in man. It's been corrupted because of sin, as some will say it's been defaced but not erased. Man still has the image of God. And for that reason, man's life is to be treated with special caution. And the harshest of punishments falls on one who does not treat human life as precious. There is some debate regarding the translation in verse 6 where we have in the New American Standard Bible the two words, by man, where it says, whoever sheds man's blood by man, his blood shall be shed. The debate is whether this should be translated as by man, indicating that mankind is to take the life of a murder, or it should be translated for man. Because if you translate it for man, that would indicate that God will take the life of a murderer for the sake of man or on man's behalf. Now the most natural way to translate the Hebrew that's used is the translation by man. That is by far the normal way to translate it. The reason for the debate is because if you translate this as by man, in other words meaning that the life of murderers be taken by mankind, then this becomes the foundation for capital punishment. Obviously, those who would want to hold to scripture, yet do not want to subscribe to capital punishment, they must deal with this verse. And the most common approach that if taken, I've tried to argue that this should be translated in an unusual way as for man. As I said, the most natural way to translate the verse is by man. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed. Here what we have is God prescribing capital punishment as the proper punishment for murder. And he does that because murder takes the life of an image bearer of God. I believe it does a disservice to God's revelation as well as a disservice to the value of human life if we try to cause this verse to say anything other than what it says at face value. So this first section, verses one through seven, this section teaches us that life is produced by God's blessing. And for that reason, it has enormous value. God has given us the responsibility to recognize the value of life as well as to defend the value of human life. The implications to that truth are extensive. For example, we could spend the rest of the evening discussing how this principle applies to our involvement in the political spectrum. It's one thing to say that we should advocate for capital punishment. It's an entirely different thing to integrate the rest of scripture and derive principles by which that should be applied in our particular context here of America. For instance, the Bible leaves no room, as we go through the rest of scripture, for personal vengeance. Also, the Bible recognizes that we live in a world with imperfect knowledge, and for that reason, the Bible sets up principles of due process, and it sets up principles of appeal. There are a lot of factors to consider with how to implement this principle that says capital punishment is the proper punishment And because of the complexity, believers will come to different conclusions regarding the how of capital punishment, even when we're able to agree on the what, that God prescribes capital punishment. One area, though, that should not be up for debate should be our opposition to abortion. We must oppose abortion. We must oppose it in order to recognize and defend human life as precious. Of course, even in opposition to abortion, the means by which we oppose it will vary, but our commitment to abortion should be uniform. We may vary in how we engage ourselves, but we must be opposed to it. We must recognize and defend that human life is precious. That is the main idea overall tonight that comes from our passage. And in the first seven verses, what we recognize is that life is produced by God. And that makes it precious. In the second portion of our text this evening, verses eight through 17, we see that life is preserved by God's covenant. It's preserved by God's covenant. In these verses we have, for the very first time in human history, God forming a covenant with mankind. From this point on, as I mentioned this morning, God becomes known as a covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. That's our God. But this is where it begins. Let's read these verses together. Picking up in verse 8. Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, Now behold, I myself do establish 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 comes out of the ark, even every beast of the earth. 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. God said, this is the sign of covenant that I'm making between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all successive generations. I set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of a covenant between me and the earth. It shall come about when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow will be seen in the cloud. 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. When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon 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. Life here is preserved by God's covenant. That's the main idea that we see in these verses that we just read. And you may have missed it as I read through them very quickly, but God actually speaks three times. I said everything in our passage is God speaking, but in three different times we have an introduction that says something along the lines of God spoke, and then we're told what he said. So we have three separate speeches, if you would, from God, and each of these statements by God teaches us something about how God preserves life through this covenant that he establishes with Noah. Back in chapter six, verse 18, God had promised Noah that he would establish a covenant with Noah and with his family. God told Noah this even before Noah began building the ark. Now we're on the other side of the flood. The ark was built, it was used, and now God formally states the covenant that he had promised Noah way back before. He states the covenant that he is establishing. It's an unconditional covenant. In other words, this covenant is not contingent on anything that Noah or his descendants do in far as obeying various laws that are given. If mankind obeys the laws of the covenant, then that will allow man to enjoy the blessings that come along. They'll be able to enjoy the covenant, but the covenant itself is not contingent on obedient. The covenant cannot be erased. It will continue whether individuals obey or not, which is great news because if you remember last week, God recognized that that mankind remains desperately wicked. The good news that's wrapped up in this covenant is that man's wickedness will not destroy the covenant that God is forming here in these verses. One thing that's worth noting is that God is the one who initiates the covenant. Throughout the entire story of Noah, all the way through, the focus has been on God initiating the activity. Noah has been seen as the one who's carried along as God does what God is going to do. And the same thing's true here. God is never seen as a responder to his people. He's never seen as a reactor to a situation. God is a God who moves when and as he chooses. And now he chooses to initiate this covenant with Noah. This point is made emphatically in verse 9. If we were to translate the beginning of verse 9 literally from the Hebrew, it would be something along the lines of this. It is very broken. It would be like, now I, behold, I am establishing my covenant. Very emphatic. God is the one who's doing it. The next thing that we should observe about the covenant is that God includes all who entered the ark in the scope of the covenant. The covenant's not just with Noah and his son. It encompasses all of the creatures that went into the ark and now that came off the ark. It's with all of the earth that God is making this covenant. That means that not only will mankind benefit from the covenant, but all of the life that was preserved from the flood will benefit alongside man with this covenant. The third thing to observe is the specific promise that's contained within the covenant. The promise that God will never again destroy the earth with a flood. In fact, the word that God uses for destroy is the exact same word that He used back in chapter 6, verse 16, when He announced He was going to destroy the earth. He was going to destroy it with a flood. Now God says, I will never again, in verse 11, destroy the earth with a flood. Two times in verse 11, God repeats, never again. Never again. This is God's assurance that he will not reset the earth again. Even though he knows that the man will continue to be wicked and that that wickedness will advance and will expand and cover the earth again as man covers the earth, God is not going to reset things and destroy the earth like he did through the flood. In verses 12 through 16, God speaks for a second time, and he adds now a sign to the covenant, the sign of the rainbow that's in the sky. This is the first time that there's a covenant sign given in the Bible, which again shouldn't be surprising because it's the first time we have a covenant. But God ties a sign to the covenant. And from these verses, we do not necessarily have to conclude that rainbows are new to the earth. In fact, I would believe that rain existed before the flood, assuming that was the case, and I believe it was. Then with the laws of physics being consistent from creation, rainbows existed before the flood. But what we see now is God is likely using an existing phenomenon to point to something brand new. The rainbow itself does not have to be new, what is new is the meaning that God gives it. A very similar thing happens with the sign of circumcision that God gives to Abraham. Circumcision was not isolated to the nation of Israel. History has shown that it was used in many nations around at that time. But God took that and made a sign of the covenant when he formed his covenant with Abraham, giving it special significance. That's what God does here with the rainbow. He uses it as a sign, giving us a new special significance. One thing that God makes clear is that the sign of the rainbow affects all future generations. All future generations. It's not just for this generation that comes through the flood. This covenant with the associated sign, this is for all times. God says that he is the one who will see the rainbow. He is the one who will remember the covenant that he has formed with the earth. He is the one that will do this for all future generations. We should also recognize that the covenant sign was designed here to be a promise of peace for the earth. The Hebrew word that is used is the word bow, the rainbow. Bow is just a common word in Hebrew for a battle bow, the kind of bow that a soldier would use when he goes off to war. The picture that God seems to be creating is He's taking this bow that would have been used for war and He's hanging it up, setting it up in the clouds. He hung it up because he's now finished with it. He's no longer at war with the earth. His bow hangs in the sky where all can see. It is no longer pointed toward the earth. At the same time, the third thing that we should recognize from the rainbow is that it serves as a reminder of both grace and judgment. Grace and judgment. Every time a rainbow forms, it comes with a storm. The storm clouds come, and the storm clouds should remind us that God judged the earth. He brought this flood through this great storm. He judged it for its wickedness through the flood. Yet God saved mankind and the other living creatures by his grace in the ark. Following the judgment, now he sets the rainbow in place as a sign that he would never again destroy the earth. In fact, it's God's grace and mercy that keeps God from repeating the destruction even now. God has unilaterally obligated himself to stave off a second flood, and that's displayed by the rainbow in the sky. Grace and mercy. Verse 17 contains God's third speech, very short speech. It's the shortest of all three and in this speech that really summarizes everything we see about God's covenant in the entire section. The main idea that we find though through the repetition is that God's covenant turns his fierce judgment into divine grace for the future. It's God's covenant that does this transformation, that turns His judgment into grace. God tells Noah that this is the sign of the covenant, that that points to the covenant as the evidence that God's promise abides. He says, I have established it. And that echoes the idea that God is the one who takes the divine initiative, acting in a gracious manner. He points out that His covenant stands between Himself and all flesh that is on the earth. That shows the inclusive nature of this covenant. God's covenant turns judgment into grace. Life is preserved by God's covenant. That's the overall point of verses 9 through 17. And what a precious point it is. We should look at the sky with great joy in our hearts whenever we see a rainbow. We should look at that rainbow and we should thank God for the grace and mercy that he's showing by not judging man the way man deserves. He's showing grace and mercy, not judging mankind again through a flood. We know that mankind remains desperately wicked. God knows that even more fully than we know it. So we should thank God that His promise remains in effect. As God takes this initiative, as long as mankind exists, He will no longer destroy, but rather He will extend grace and mercy. We should also see that rainbow, though, and remember the wrath of God always brings judgment when it comes. Even though God has promised to never again destroy through the flood, it doesn't mean that God's wrath is not building against sin. So when we see the rainbow, that reminder should spur us to share the means that God has given to avoid the judgment that he's promised is yet to come. History will end and judgment will fall. It won't be a reset of the earth, it will be the end of this earth when it comes. And when that comes, it will be too late to turn and accept the grace and mercy that's being extended. So every time we see the rainbow, that should be a reminder to us that we should be telling people they can avoid the judgment of God before the return of Christ simply by turning to Christ now. In other words, the rainbow should remind us that there's a gospel message for us to share. We must recognize and defend that life is precious. It is so precious that God has preserved life through His covenant, a unilateral covenant, an unconditional covenant, a covenant whose sign we see with every rainbow that forms in the sky. Now before we end this evening, I want to take a few additional minutes tonight and make one theological point that comes out of our passage. That is the point that human life is protected through human government by God's design. Human's life is protected through human government by God's design. I think it's important for us to park on this passage and make this observation this evening. Human life is valuable because as we saw in this passage, all human life carries the image of God and that makes human life sacred even. It's of infinite value. God has assigned the role of human government to protect human life. I hope you all know by this time that we are committed dispensationalists in our church. That means, when we say that we're dispensationalists, that means that we believe that God has revealed himself to mankind at different times in history through a progressive fashion, that God's revelation progresses from Genesis all the way to Revelation, that God continues to reveal himself. But that progress has not been uniform in history. When you look at history overall, God's revelation comes in chunks, if you will. That God reveals himself in these chunks of revelation that come at different points in history. Each of these chunks of revelation creates a new way by which God relates to mankind and by which mankind is to respond to God. And we call these time periods where a chunk of revelation is governing this relationship between God and man, we call that a dispensation. Our passage this evening begins what is commonly called the dispensation of government. This dispensation runs here from the time of the flood that we're right at now with Noah coming off the ark until the time of Abraham when this dispensation is replaced by the dispensation of promise. That's all built around the Abrahamic covenant. Each dispensation, each of these time frames begins with this new revelation that God gives in a sudden burst. And then each dispensation ends when mankind fails to live up to the responsibility that's been revealed by God. Mankind ends always in a cataclysmic failure of some portion. The previous dispensation before the flood was the time of conscience. When man was to live by their conscience and talk about cataclysmic failure, man's conscience allowed them to be wicked throughout the whole earth and we had a cataclysmic judgment. Well, God provides new revelation here again and that forms a new type of relationship with mankind under a new dispensation. Now this understanding of how these dispensations work does not mean that when the dispensation ends that everything that went with that dispensation ends as well. There are often continuing elements that are ongoing. They function in future dispensations as they're introduced to mankind. And that's true of civil government. We find civil government introduced in this dispensation but that institution of civil government that it continues on even now we live in what we call the dispensation of grace that began with Christ and we still have the institution of government in place. This is the beginning here of the institution of civil government. That's why it makes sense to spend a little time talking about it. It begins here as God announces this concept of capital punishment. Remember I mentioned when we were looking at verse six that the Bible does not leave any room for personal vengeance. It is clear as we go through scripture that God does not intend for mankind to avenge themselves on those who they believe have wronged them. In fact, it was that independent use of vengeance that led to the downfall ultimately of the previous dispensation because mankind became so wicked that when they seemed to do that which was right to themselves, God had destroyed the world because what was right to man was totally corrupted. Do you remember Lamech back in Genesis chapter 4 who boasted about killing a man because that man struck him? No, the right to exercise capital punishment was given to mankind collectively, not to men as individuals. And it's from this idea that the concept of civil government comes into existence now in human history. But there are, as you can see on the slide, some implications that come along with this understanding. There's implications that come. Of course, all of these are supported further by revelation that comes throughout. Most fully, we would point to Paul, that there's implications. But the first implication is the obvious one. Government is to protect the sanctity of human life. After all, if government exists to exercise capital punishment on those who have taken human life, then it most certainly must have as its goal the protection of human life. That's why it takes the life of one who takes the human life. Protecting life is government's primary God-given responsibility. Protecting life, because human life is sacred, it's valuable, it bears the image of God. Secondly, and nearly as obvious, government must punish the wicked. That's inherent in the right of government to exercise capital punishment. Murder is the extreme form of wickedness, and government is called out specifically to punish it. But by implication, government should punish that which is of a less wicked nature than murder. It's up to society through the institution of civil government to punish the wickedness between people. When people do wicked things to one another, government is to be the institution that God brings in place to deal with that, to punish it. And by doing so, government becomes God's means of constraining evil upon the earth. And then thirdly, government should seek to cause righteousness to prevail upon the earth. If government is to punish wicked, then it should, on the flip side, promote righteousness. It should promote righteousness because that is what allows the society to flourish and what allows the image of God to find its fullest display as society flourishes and man achieves that which God has enabled man to do. These really are the three general functions of civil government as the Bible defines it. Now, you probably recall from various classes that we've had here in the church that God has instituted three institutions or three sources of authority, if you will. We have, first of all, the family that's instituted in Genesis chapter two. Then we have this one, the institution of civil government that comes now in Genesis chapter nine. Then thirdly, we have the church. The church doesn't come until Acts chapter Two, I drew a blank there for a moment, it doesn't come until then in Acts. But those were the three institutions that God has given authority to. It's this last one, the church, that actually has the responsibility now of defining the scope and the goals of the other two, because the church has been given the responsibility for keeping and teaching God's revelation. That's why we look to the Bible to determine what is the proper function of civil government. That's also, though, why the church submits to civil government, when the government is within the role that God has designed for it to fill. The church defines what that role is according to God's revelation. When the civil government plays that role, the church submits to the government as the proper authority. But at the same time, the church calls out the civil government when it goes beyond that role, when it operates outside the boundaries that God has given for civil government to do these three primary functions. We, of course, know that the government will never fulfill its functions perfectly because government is comprised of men and women who are inherently sinful. The same is true for family. Now that we have been corrupted by sin, we'll never exercise ourselves the way that the family should through Christ. These are being restored. The church, again, we have sinful people within the church, so sin presents difficulty, but it doesn't remove the function. In fact, government instituted after sin is in place. The church is instituted after sin is in place. And Paul specifically tells us the family is being restored by Christ. So Christ is doing this work as God works. He uses sinful men, and women for that matter, he uses sinful people to accomplish his purpose. And he does that through civil government for its purposes. In general, governments do these three things that we see on the screen. Even bad governments throughout history have served at some level to constrain evil and execute these three things. We must recognize that our particular civil government at this time is honestly failing in many ways to protect the sanctity of human life. We recognize that whenever we find aspects of our civil government supporting abortion. We must stand against that. We must call out our government for its failure. And we do that by taking action when we go to the voting booth every election. We should be standing against our government when they are no longer standing for the sanctity of life. We must do that when we engage at various opportunities that God gives us with various levels of government. When opportunities are there, we must stand opposed to abortion because we are called out to protect and defend human life, and we're called by God as the church to promote our government to do that, because that is government's proper role, to promote the sanctity of human life. Now this past week within our state, we saw several significant demonstrations against our state government. We may personally feel that those protests are valid because we may think that our government has not been standing up for righteousness in some of the decisions that have been made of late. My only encouragement to us all is that we remember the main role of government is to protect the sanctity of life. We may politely disagree with how our government is going about the protection of human life now when it comes to dealing with COVID-19. And that's fine. We may disagree, but we need to do it politely. As long as we disagree in a respectful manner that acknowledges that God has placed government over us. And as long as we don't resort to sinful behavior ourselves in the process of disagreeing with the authority God has placed. There should, however, be no disagreement when it comes to our government supporting abortion. That is a black and white issue for us. God has clearly stated the value of human life that bears his image. Our main principle this evening, we must recognize and defend that human life is precious. It's precious. And for that reason, we must recognize it and defend it. That's the main idea that comes from our passage this evening. We've seen it as God interacts here with Noah. He shows us that life is produced by God's blessing and life is preserved by God's covenant. And then we can see theologically that all of human life is protected through human government by God's design. We must recognize and defend that human life is precious. Let's pray. Father, again, we thank you for the time we've been able to spend in your word. Father, I pray that you would help us to be men and women who love you, and because we love you, we love the life that is in your image. Father, may we see human life in bigger and broader fashion than we have before, recognizing that humanity bears the image of God. And that makes it precious. So Father, we pray that you would give us wisdom as we live in a darkened world. Give us wisdom how we are to be lights shining in defense of that which we recognize. Father, as we've seen the institution of government begin here this evening, we do want to take time to pray for our government, that you would give them wisdom, that you would cause our government to see the role that they properly hold before you, the preservation of life, the constraining of evil, the rewarding of righteousness. and that our government at all levels, federal, state, city, would make decisions that support those three goals. And in the process of doing that, they would allow us to live peaceable lives serving you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.