Genesis 8-9
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Before Jeff preaches, we're gonna read, sections of, Genesis 7, 8, and 9, to get bits and pieces of the story of Noah that we started last week. Listen carefully for these are the words of the lord. Genesis 7 verses 22 through chapter 8 verse 1. Everything on the dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground.
Speaker 1:Man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens. They were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left and those who were with him in the ark. And the waters prevailed in the earth a 150 days. But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark.
Speaker 1:And God made a wind blow over the earth and the water subsided. Chapter 8 verses 14 through 18. In the 2nd month, on the 27th day of the month, the earth had dried out. Then God said to Noah, go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons, and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh, birds and animals, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
Speaker 1:That they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful, and multiply on the earth. So, Noah went out, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him. Skip ahead to 20 to 22. Then Noah built an altar to the lord, and he took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And when the lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.
Speaker 1:Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. Chapter 9 verses 8 through 15. Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, behold, I established my covenant with you and your offspring after you. And with every living creature that is with you.
Speaker 1:The birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you. As many as came out of the ark. It is for every beast of the earth. I established my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you for all future generations.
Speaker 1:I have set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the Earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. And lastly, verses 20 through 24 in chapter 9. Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.
Speaker 1:He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his 2 brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness. This is the word of the Lord.
Collin Hansen:Let's pray. God, I thank you for your word. I thank you that we can spend time learning about you. And more than that, knowing you. And so that's what I ask in this time.
Collin Hansen:I I ask that you would you would teach us and that you would teach us who you are, that we might know you, that we might love you, and worship you. That we would fear you and walk with you. Father, I pray, for clarity in this time, and I pray that the name of Christ would be worshiped and honored and glorified. Speak to us now. We are desperate for your word.
Collin Hansen:We pray this in and for the name of Christ. Amen. Okay. So we are continuing our study of Genesis and, and last week, we did that by getting into the story of Noah. And so this is part 2 of Noah and the way that we got into this story of Noah, was by looking at a question asked by Moses in Deuteronomy.
Collin Hansen:Moses asked the people what God desired from them. And he asked this question and this, this is, this is what he said to them because he, he asked a question and he answers it. He says that God desires that you would fear him, walk with him, love him, and serve him. I'll go through him again. Fear him, walk with him, love him and serve him.
Collin Hansen:And we said that Noah did these things. He, he, he pursued these things and, and we can see different instances where this happens in the story of Noah. And we asked one big question that that started last week and carries into this week. Who is this God that we should fear him? That we should walk with him, that we should love him and serve him?
Collin Hansen:And so last week we looked at the first two, fearing and walking with God. Who is this God that we should fear Him? And we answered that by saying, because He is righteous and because He is sovereign. And we see that righteousness displayed in His judgment in the flood, and in His sovereignty, His authority over His creation. From the men and the women and the children that were judged in the flood, to the waters themselves, to the creation, to the birds and the animals, that God was sovereign over that.
Collin Hansen:He, he had authority over his creation. And so tonight, but well and then, then the second part of that, who is this god that we should walk with him? We should walk with him because he is supreme. He is overall and he is perfect. He is supreme over all things.
Collin Hansen:And so when we walk and we follow his commands, when we go with him, he is to be trusted because he is supreme. And so tonight, the, the, the last two questions to who is this God that we should love Him? Who is this God that we should serve Him and in serving Him that that would also be worship of Him. Who is this God that we should do these things? Who is he that he can command this of us?
Collin Hansen:That he could, he could desire this from us to love him and to serve him. So last week, when we last left Noah, he was in a boat, a very large boat, in a very large flood. And so this week begins with such promising words. See, we ended last week looking I mean, the the last few words of the sermon. I mean, it was everything died.
Collin Hansen:The end of chapter 7. And so that's where we began with our reading. Everything. All these animals, all these people have died because of the wrath of God poured out in this flood. And because of God's own sovereign desire, He has chosen a remnant, a few, in this very big, but very small boat in this big flood.
Collin Hansen:8 people remain. And chapter 8 begins with these words. And God remembered Noah and the animals. Now if you've heard me speak before, you probably knew Jeff is definitely going to harp on this word remember because there are probably, 3 or 4 sermons that I've even, given here at Redeemer where I have gone on and on and on about the theological ramifications of remembering. Us remembering who we were before Christ and who we are in Christ, and then divine remembering.
Collin Hansen:We saw that when we were looking at the thief on the cross and he called out, remember me. What happens when God remembers? And so here, at the beginning of chapter 8, another one of my favorite things in all of scripture, God remembers. And like I've said before, that's not just calling to mind, but God is active when He remembers. 150 days have gone by.
Collin Hansen:The rain, 40 days of rain, and now 110 days where the waters are prevailing, around 5 months. And then God, in His remembrance of Noah and those who are with him, he starts to restrain the water. The water that obeyed his call and command, the water that yielded to the sovereign creator, he starts to pull back. The fountains of water pushed back. The windows closed.
Collin Hansen:And he restrains the heavens. I mean, when we see the water as representing god's wrath being poured out on creation, to see him withhold. See that? That's how he's remembering Noah. He he's remembering the fact that I mean, Noah's not just gonna stay on this boat forever.
Collin Hansen:And he begins to restrain the water. The fountains of the earth, the windows of the heavens, the rain is stopped. And then about three and a half months later, Noah opens a window and he sends out a raven. And the Raven goes to and fro. And then he opens the window and he sends out a dove.
Collin Hansen:And the dove goes out and comes back because there's no place for her to put her foot. And so he reaches out his hand and he takes the dove back in and he waits a week. Wouldn't you? I mean, we wait he waits a week and he opens the window again. He sends the dove out.
Collin Hansen:And this time the dove comes back with an olive branch. Which means that the waters are slowly making their way. And dry land is emerging, an image that we saw in creation itself. The waters were over the earth and then land was created. The water went back and the land came up and God is recreating here.
Collin Hansen:And then he sends out, he waits another week as one would, and another month. And then god tells him, it's time to leave the ark. Now I think, you know, I probably would have, as soon as I saw an olive branch, would be like, okay. Seems like things are pretty good. Trees are making it.
Collin Hansen:Let's get out of here. It's been 370 days. It's time to get out of this boat. But it's interesting to see that it's, it's not until God says it's time to leave. Noah gathers his family and he gathers the animals and they leave.
Collin Hansen:Roughly 370 days since they entered this big boat. Look at verse 16. Go out from the ark, you and your wife and your sons and your sons' wives with you. Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth that they may swarm on the earth and be fruitful and multiply on the earth. Words in places, verbatim, to the call to Adam and Eve.
Collin Hansen:For the animals to go out and to be fruitful and to multiply. And so Noah and his family, they leave the boat and the animals leave the boat as they're commanded to multiply and fill the earth. And then Noah gets to work again, building yet again. And this time he's building an altar. And the altar is a place where Noah would sacrifice.
Collin Hansen:And of all the things to sacrifice, Some of the clean animals that he has spent the last year protecting and taking care of, but it shows his dependence upon God. That God is the one that called them to make the ark that would save their lives. The one that kept them alive in the ark. And then the one who restrained the waters of judgment That pulled back the rain. And so Noah builds an altar to sacrifice, to worship his God.
Collin Hansen:Verse 21, and when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, remember how he had said in his heart before, how, how he had grieved in his heart? How he had had anger and rage in his heart because of the sin of man? Because the wickedness that was in the heart of man, his heart was grieved. Now he says, in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man. For the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.
Collin Hansen:Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. Verse 22, while the earth remains seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. And then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, this is in verse 9 chapter 8, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and your offspring after you. With you and your offspring after you. God's provision of safety, of rescue, of salvation is met with the only sensible thing from Noah.
Collin Hansen:Worship. And then that worship is met by God's covenant promise. Never to do this again. Never to flood the earth again and destroy all flesh again. He offers this covenant of protection.
Collin Hansen:He renews His blessing in verse 21 and we see that kind of mirrored again in chapter 9, 1 through 7. And then he promises that he'll never do this again. We see this in verse 22 of chapter 8 and then mirrored in the lengthier passage of chapter 9, 8 through 17. We get this repetition a lot, in, in the Pentateuch and just in, in Jewish writings. The, this repetition, repetition, repetition.
Collin Hansen:That's why we had to kind of go from different segments of the story in our reading of the text, because there's so much repetition in their literature. But, but this is the promise that he's making that he will never again do this. This pouring out of his wrath on all of humanity. And so again, we are faced with this question of who is this God? Who is this God that we should love him?
Collin Hansen:And we answer it by this. We should love Him because He is gracious. He is gracious to Noah by God's grace, unmerited on the part of Noah, God mercifully and successfully saves him and his family. Last week, as we read the verse, Noah found favor, found grace in the eyes of the lord. That was not based upon His goodness, although He was a righteous man who walked with God.
Collin Hansen:But it's unmerited. You know, even as we see later, this bizarre scene of Noah getting drunk and then laying naked in a tent and and his son finding him and and all all that happens there. God is not surprised by the coming sin and shame of Noah. He knew that when he decided that he would save this man and his family. It wasn't he he picked a really good one and then it just it just kinda turns bad at the end, but let's just move on from that.
Collin Hansen:Let's get to Abraham or some other guy. No. Noah walked with god but was a sinner, in need of salvation. Who is this God? He is the gracious God of Noah.
Collin Hansen:And this grace of God displayed in Noah should remind us. Just as the water and the storm and the flood reminded us of the severity of God's righteous judgment. We are reminded in just the sheer existence of the ark, but then in the 8 lives, the humans inside of the severity of God's mercy. You see there, there's no half mercy of God. No mild grace.
Collin Hansen:There's the fullness of our gracious God. Just as He did in the flood and the ark, God on the cross displays both His judgment and His mercy. You see this is the thing that, that, that we just can't wrap our heads around. The cross, the supreme place of His severe judgment and His severe mercy. And we cannot turn our eyes from that.
Collin Hansen:The second reason that God should be loved is because He is faithful. God made a covenant to Adam. Chapter 3 verse 16. This covenant that, that was a promise that one would come, an offspring would come, that would crush the head of the serpent. Yes.
Collin Hansen:His heel would be bruised, but he would crush the head of the serpent. If he had executed supreme judgment, which he was righteous and and could do as creator to wipe out all of humanity, He could have done that and would have been righteous to do so, but he would have gone against his word, His promise of an offspring. See, God exhibits His faithfulness to all of humanity. In this faithfulness to Noah and his family. See, we need God to be faithful.
Collin Hansen:See, in this church today, as time goes on, as suffering continues, as people get cancer and wars rage, and as people lose their jobs and become homeless, and as marriages fall apart and children die, we must believe that God is faithful. We must believe that his covenants stand still. We need a God who is faithful because ultimately, no one else is. And so we have to lean upon His covenants. Why should we love Him?
Collin Hansen:Because He is gracious and because he is faithful. And the last part of the question based on, on that verse in Deuteronomy, it's it's chapter 10 verses 12 and 13. The last part of the question, who is this god that he should be served, That He should be worshiped? And we'll look to this answer. There are many.
Collin Hansen:But we will say, because He is holy. God is the one who can call the waters to rise, to judge the hearts of man, to make covenant promises to His people. Because He is uncommon. He is other. He stands alone.
Collin Hansen:He is unrivaled. In the story of Noah, we see that He is creator, judge, covenant maker, and receiver of worship and sacrifice. He is the Holy one. HaKadosh is the, is the Hebrew word. The, the, he is the other.
Collin Hansen:There's none next to him. He stands alone. There are no other gods beside him. Who is this God that we should serve Him and worship Him? He is the Holy one.
Collin Hansen:He is the only one. He is other. And Noah responded to the holiness of God. His gracious love extended to him in his salvation and his faithfulness in the only reasonable manner. He served him.
Collin Hansen:He worshiped him. And the sacrifices of Noah representing his dependence upon God for everything, for food. Later, the, these clean animals are marked as the only food for the people of Israel. And he sacrificed that because he knew that the only reason he was on dry land and breathing air was because of God's faithfulness. Because of God's sovereignty, His supremacy, His righteousness, His holiness.
Collin Hansen:And Noah sacrificed to worship Him. A small foreshadowing of a pleasing aroma that would reach God when it pleased Him to crush his son. It pleased Him to do that. The cross was no mistake. It was no martyrdom.
Collin Hansen:It pleased the father to crush his son. He sacrificed. Again, we can look to 1st John chapter 4 like we did last week in God's love casting out all fear because fear has to do with punishment. It doesn't simply do that in theory that we could just agree with the concept that we shouldn't be afraid of God, But God's love is active through the work of Jesus on the cross and in His resurrection in casting out the fear of judgment. Because judgment has been confirmed and completed in Christ.
Collin Hansen:Why are we not afraid of God's judgment now? Because it has been completed in Christ. Noah loved his God and he served his God because the Lord was willing to make a promise to him. The promise of redemption, the promise of salvation. And the Lord would keep His promises because He is faithful and He is Holy.
Collin Hansen:Who is this God that we should serve Him? That we should worship Him? He is the Holy one. He is alone. He is other.
Collin Hansen:So those are the, all together in summary, the four answers to the question, who is this God that He should be feared because He is righteous and He is sovereign? Who is this God that He should be walked with? It's because He is supreme and over all things and in all things supreme. He is to be loved because He is gracious and He is faithful. And He is to be served and worshiped because He is holy.
Collin Hansen:But is this how the story ends? The story of Noah. God remembered Noah, the land dries, Noah sacrifices to god, god makes a covenant, Noah ends up drunk and naked. The end, kids. Like that's that's the that's the end of the Noah story.
Collin Hansen:Sorry sorry that that we had the high point with the with the rainbow and then it just really gets pretty twisted towards the end. You know, if god wanted to wipe off wickedness remember that? That's when we said blot it out to wipe off wickedness from the earth. If that's what his objective was in the flood, he didn't really do a good job. Right?
Collin Hansen:Sin still exists. Wickedness. He even says in verse 21 that He's not going to he's not going to curse the land again. Why? Because, because man is wicked from his youth.
Collin Hansen:That's why, like, you're you're not going to curse because man is wicked from his youth? Like, that doesn't follow. Like, I'm not going to curse the ground because you guys are behaving a lot better. That makes sense. I'm not going to curse the ground because you are wicked and sinful from your youth.
Collin Hansen:See, God demonstrates in the flood that judgment alone doesn't change the hearts of men. See, if you were in the boat and you got out on the dry land, things would have still gone badly. You see, we had this idea that somehow, like, as the church, like, we we just have we have all this, like, moral strength and authority. And and if if if we just got rid of all these non believers, if we just bombed out everyone that didn't believe in Jesus, somehow this world would be better. It wouldn't.
Collin Hansen:Because you are wicked and evil from your youth. You see what happens when we stop and we actually listen to the stories of the Bible? Tough things to hear. See, God is demonstrating that He will not curse the ground because we are wicked from our youth. We must have someone become the curse for us.
Collin Hansen:We need recreation. Not just some solitude, if we can just get the bad people away. We have to be recreated. Like David, we need a new heart. Corrupt and wicked from our youth, as children.
Collin Hansen:See, we need Christ to become the curse that we might be justified. See, this is where the importance of the covenant comes up. In the, in the covenant, God promises to preserve the earth and that covenant of preservation paves the way for the cross. See, the covenant made with Noah is true today because we're not underwater. See, it's still holding true That there would be a lineage, a history for Christ to come into this world.
Collin Hansen:Emmanuel, God with us, and then for Him to suffer on the cross, to be raised from the dead, and then to ascend to His seat. And on that throne, in Revelation 21, he says, Behold, I am making all things new. Recreation. This is our hope. The hope that all things can be made new.
Collin Hansen:Not that we would just get cleaned up and behave better or, or try our best and try and deal with this judgment that's gonna come one day. If we can just stack up enough good to kinda weigh out all of our bad. We are in desperate need today of recreation. And that is the hope promised to us in this covenant of redemption. This new covenant.
Collin Hansen:The covenant made in the blood of Christ. The, the flood was a part of this history. This history of God's promises fulfilled in Jesus. Today, the covenant made with Noah is active and alive because we are preserved to even hear this gospel, to even hear this good news. He is to be feared.
Collin Hansen:He is to be walked with. He is to be loved. And He is to be served. This is our God displayed in the life of Noah. Let's pray.
Collin Hansen:God, sometimes it's difficult to go from talking about you, to talking to you. You are the God Who sent the flood and who restrains it right now, who restrains wrath that we are due, But you poured out your wrath upon the cross that we might be justified. We've been justified by His blood and much more shall we be saved by Him from your wrath. And you have not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus, who died for us that we might live in Him. So I ask that in this time, we would, as Noah did, and as he saw your goodness, as he saw your faithfulness, as he saw your graciousness, as he saw your holiness, he worshipped you.
Collin Hansen:May we do that now in both spirit and in truth. For you have dealt with us, not according to our iniquities, but according to the righteousness of Christ. We pray these things in his name. Amen.