God promises, requires & allows

Good morning. As we move into this passage here, a few things to bring to your attention. We're going to be shifting back now to our kind of long-term course going through the book of Genesis. And so out of the Bible bookcase, we're going to grab the first book here, the book of Genesis. When we last taught Genesis at the end of March, we offered a couple of supplements. We ran out of them.

So additional copies are available. And if we still run out, we have a place where you can sign up for more. And this is a kind of a on one legal size sheet Bible timeline. And so that's available. And also this one here on kind of charting the flood legends and So feel free to take that as well. Both of those are in the cabinet to the right as you exit the room.

Now, one of the things we said right off, and we want you to kind of get this in your head here, and this is that you have eight words. And if you get those down, you've got Genesis memorized, right? So let's fling a Fig Newton at this, right? No. Let's step our way through this and say this together, okay? Creation, Fall, Flood, Nations, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph. You got those eight? You got Genesis just halfway done. Okay. Now, we went through the last two times we looked at Genesis.

We kind of stepped through the timeline here of the flood going through chapter 7 and chapter 8 in order to hit each of these points. And we went through the events of the flood and how it was initiated by, here's Noah building this ark, preaching to the people, giving them a last chance to come in and join him in this ark, this 120 year long carpentry project. And then the flood began and we went through the steps and the sequence in that. And finally, the ark landing on Mount Ararat. In chapter 8 that we looked at last time, it ended up with everyone has exited the ark, and so now the Lord has begun to tell them some things. Noah began to do some things. And that continues here in chapter 9. Chapters 6-9 is a big chiasm. And if you haven't been here before, that's not a disease.

It's a big chiasm. What is it? It is a mirror image in writing. Isn't that interesting? Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9 are all one big mirror image in written form. And we have this in a supplement form along with the other two I mentioned on the cabinet to the right. So if you'd like, certainly take hold of that. What's interesting about this Large chiasm, this mirror image in writing, is not only a mirror image in writing, but the numbers in it are also mirror image, and those are placed within a pattern. So it's very interesting. Feel free to take advantage of that supplement and study that on your own if you'd like.

Okay, now, as we get into chapter 9 of the book of Genesis, one of the things that becomes Very clear is the Lord is laying some things out after having gone through this momentous pivotal event called the flood. And the Lord is establishing a covenant with Noah, and as we'll find, even on down to the animals. Alright? And so as we look through chapter 9, I'd invite you, because we'll kind of keep the passage posted, go ahead and open your Bibles to chapter 9 and we'll step our way through it, just a verse or two at a time.

You have on page 1 of your handout this chart, right at the start, and this Noach Covenant, as it's called, is the third covenant there on the chart, and it is right in the first 17 verses of this chapter. It is the covenant, as we'll see exactly what that is, that the Lord made with Noah and with the rest of those on the ark, as well as even down to the animals that were on the earth. So, what's a covenant? What's a covenant?

We'd better ask that question. It's not a convent. It's not the thing that if you join a homeowner's association that they have you sign. Although, yeah, that I suppose applies. But that's not what we're talking about here. What we are talking about here, a covenant was a promise with a sacred character. And it was sacred either because it was made by God himself or God was called upon as a witness to the covenant.

So a covenant is a sacred promise, is one way to say it briefly and shortly. Now a covenant could be a few different ways. A covenant could be unilateral, that is one person promises another, that's it, I promise to you, that kind of a covenant. Or bilateral, each makes promises to the other. What we find in Scripture, especially in this section of Genesis that we go through, is generally speaking we're going to find these covenants to be unilateral, God-making promises. God is the one who makes and God is the one who keeps the promises.

Next, there's a couple other aspects of a covenant. A covenant can be unconditional, where God promises no matter what. or conditional, I promise as long as, or I promise if. And in this case here, we're going to find that the covenant that the Lord is making is unconditional. And we'll see why in a bit here.

The making of a covenant, typically in the times of the patriarchs, and this time with Noah on to the end of the book of Genesis, is this way. Three parts. There was an oath, that is some kind of a promise made. Part one. Second thing, a swearing by a deity. And that was the typical thing, even for the pagan people living at that time, to swear by a deity. And thirdly, a physical gesture or sign of some kind. So those three parts were typical of a covenant.

We're going to see covenants not only here, but as we continue through the book of Genesis. And here in chapter 9, God actually swears by himself. He doesn't use those words, but he says, I myself make this covenant, and I don't need to swear by a deity because I am one, right? And then we're going to see that as we continue on in the chapters that are ahead of us here in the book of Genesis.

Now, the time after the flood was in some ways a fresh start Here in Genesis 128, God had said to Adam and Eve, this is back in the very first chapter that we studied in Genesis, God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. Well, very interesting. We step forward now into Genesis 9 and we read this. And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. It's a fresh start and much the same wordings. God blessed and God said be fruitful and multiply.

In some ways the time was a fresh start and a new beginning and in some ways it wasn't. Because there was really a whole lot of kind of pain and agony behind them as well, which wasn't the case in the Garden of Eden. Plus there were things now still to be careful of. Things still to watch out for.

Now, be fruitful and multiply. You know that I would, well, I've said before plenty of times, I just love little kids and I would be glad to fulfill that all by myself. But, no, I have to have all of us help with that. Okay. Creation of Adam and Eve. Nancy would have had a hard time with that. Okay. Creation of Adam and Eve. Be fruitful and multiply.

What do we have at this This sort of fresh start, Genesis 9.1, the preservation. Notice it's not creation, but the preservation of Noah and his three sons and their wives. Be fruitful, multiply again. There were similarities certainly between this time in the garden where Adam and Eve were told, be fruitful, multiply, and the time where Noah and his sons and their wives were told, be fruitful, multiply.

But there are also some things that were very different. One thing is that death had entered the world. They'd just been through a flood that was a massive set of deaths. Death had entered the world when Adam sinned. And that was different, quite different. And sin, which had continued, brought upon further death upon the earth. So that would bring really big changes, things that would not be the case there when Adam and Eve were first created in innocence in the garden.

There was a change in relationship between mankind and the animals. This comes out in verse 2. Animals would have a fear of and an alienation from man that was not present before the flood. there would be, in the case of smaller animals, a fear of runaway. In the case of larger animals, perhaps a fear of attack. And so, however it was expressed, there was this alienation there that was not there before. Additionally, before the flood, man and animals were given plants for food.

That's what we see pretty clearly in Genesis chapter 1 at the very ending verses there. And that was God's provision. The Lord said to Adam, you can eat from every tree in the garden, right? But with this new ecology, because the whole global atmosphere and environment and climate and ecology had now changed, with that, mankind was permitted to eat animals for food, but not with the blood. And it also seemed at this point also animals became carnivores. There was also at this point in time, and this comes out in verses 5 and 6, an institution of capital punishment.

Now, one of the things that you may have noticed is that I rarely speak of anything political up here. And a number of you may be thinking, oh, thank heaven. Okay. I rarely speak of anything impacting political things. And there's a good reason for that. One of those reasons is, though I am very opinionated about things political, I have very strong opinions. It doesn't matter how strong those opinions are. What God's Word said is so much more important, I don't want any of my political opinions to get in the way. But this is one where the Lord had instituted something that was to be universal and continuing.

Capital punishment and why? A life was to be taken for a life in the case of murder. Why? Because the image of God was in mankind. Take the image of God in mankind seriously. Life is not to be cheapened. But there's another reason for it. It's actually a merciful thing for God to require. Some might say, what? But it was a merciful thing for God to require. Why would that be?

Because one of the things we find evidenced right in the pages of Scripture in the early chapters was that people began escalating revenge. And one of the things that this did is it said, a life taken means one more life taken. but you don't go one-upmanship on revenge. So this sets a limit on revenge and the escalation that had been cleared. This you have also as a slide on page 2 of your handout there in Genesis 4 that we looked at some weeks back.

Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, Listen to my voice, you wives of Lamech. Give heed to my speech, for I have killed a man For what? For wounding me. There's the one-upmanship. For I have killed a man for wounding me and a boy for striking me. See?

There is the escalating revenge. You wounded me, but I'll do worse to you. What this does is it begins to set a limit on this revenge escalation that seemed to be the pattern already established in the early years of mankind. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech 77-fold. He says, I'll do it even worse.

I'll get you. You know, this revenge thing is deep-seated in people. There is a book on how to get revenge. And it sold so well that they had volume 2 to add to it. Why? Because it is within human nature to just keep escalating the revenge. This sets a limit on it.

The Noahic Covenant was with the people and even the animals. Interesting, the various kinds of animals in broad category were listed here in this passage in verses 8 through 11. Even the animals were included in this promise of God. An unconditional promise, this is one that he just simply says, I will never again cause a flood upon the earth.

So it was unconditional. It was also unilateral. God promised it and didn't require anything. There was no counter promise on the other side from Noah. Obviously the animals can't promise, right? So God made this covenant with the people and also the animals. He made it unilaterally and unconditionally, swearing by himself. Remember we said there was in a covenant a promise? There was a swearing by a deity. He made it by himself. And the third thing was a sign. He gave the rainbow as a sign. His sign that he would never again flood the earth.

So in the covenant, God himself made the promise. It was God's own promise. It wasn't even something that was asked for, so far as we can tell. But God himself said, I will never do this again. God required things of mankind, not as a condition of keeping his promise, but he required that this capital punishment be instituted. And thirdly, God allowed the eating of meat in these verses here. As we look at this covenant, God promised never again to send a flood upon the whole earth. Never again.

Many local floods, and we've seen some even here. When Nancy and I were living in Carson City, I can remember calling up Nancy. I said, bring the boys over. We're filling sandbags. So local floods, but that's not the same as flooding the whole earth.

God swore by Himself that He made this promise. He witnessed it Himself. And God pointed to the rainbow as this sign, this indication on His part that, yes, I will keep my promise. Now, some time passed from this first passage we looked at, verses 1 through 17, on to then into verse 18 to the end of the chapter.

The time between these sections here, this dividing line, was some years, probably even decades, would be pretty safe to say. And one reason is because Canaan, the grandson of Noah, son of Ham, was mentioned there. So a new generation had come about. So that's one indication that decades have come to pass. But there's another here.

Noah had also planted a vineyard and that took time to plant and establish. Now among the various things that I did when I was on the farm, I also worked for other farmers. And one of the things I did, I worked in the vineyards. Just to tell you how long ago that was, that was for a dollar and a quarter an hour. I worked alongside guys we called Braceros at the time.

At any rate, the vineyards take typically somewhere between five and ten years to get established. Usually about eight years will be their prime. Then the vines become fully mature at about 15 years. Well that would be another indication that Some years had passed and again assuming that he planted a vineyard immediately after he got off the ark, which may not be a good assumption, it would still take some years for things to come to a place where he could actually get grapes off there. Whether by generations or by the vineyard, obviously some time has passed here.

Now we got a real head-scratcher. It says in this passage that Noah got drunk. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Didn't I read earlier there in Genesis? Noah walked with God. Is this puzzling to you? Didn't I read in there that Noah was a preacher of righteousness? He did exactly what God said?

How did this happen? Well, the Bible doesn't say how he came about doing it. Some have posed the idea that possibly a climate change took place here that allowed for this to be maybe an accident. And I suppose that's possible, but the Bible doesn't say, and we're not really aware of any reason why he would be drunk by accident.

So it looks like the appearance here is that Noah actually just had a huge lapse in judgment. Yeah. Amazing. That's the appearance of it. He just had a huge lapse in judgment. So, as you read this passage, you find that Noah is very upset with his son Ham, even to the point of making a negative prophecy about Ham's son. So, what had Ham done? Okay? All right. No, that's not right. What had Ham done here? Ham had not just kind of come along and said, oh, there's my father Noah, and oh look, he just doesn't have any clothes on. That's not what happened.

If he had done just that and maybe walked away, it would have been one thing. But instead, we have some indication that something else went on. There was a sinful attitude in his doing it. There's even the implication in the Hebrew that he actually took some delight in catching his father in his moment of drunkenness and nakedness. So the problem was not that he came along and found his father in this condition, which in that culture would have been very shameful. But beyond that, beyond that, there was also the issue of what's his heart condition. There appeared to be even a sense of rebelliousness and not looking after his father's honor. He even wanted to include his brothers in the open chain.

Did you notice that? They're in the passage. Hey! Hey! Shem! Japheth! Hey! Get over here! Look at this! Look what Dad did! Okay? His brothers, in sharp contrast, say, uh, Am, you're off on the wrong track. So what they do instead is cover their father discreetly and respectfully. As a matter of fact, it says they kind of backed in. So we have this artist's depiction there of what that might have been like. They backed in instead and said, no, we have to deal with this lapse honorably and not dishonorably.

So, what's Canaan's problem? How come we have here Noah becomes aware of what's taken place and all of a sudden he starts talking about Canaan? Why Canaan? It wasn't Canaan who was there, at least as far as we know. Why does Canaan get hauled into this? Canaan, who was the son of Ham, was mentioned earlier. Matter of fact, by this time there were a number of grandsons and likely granddaughters as well. And yet, Canaan is the one who was mentioned early in this account and then here again.

His name was not mentioned as some sort of an undeserved curse like, Canaan, you just happened to get this curse and it's just too bad for you. No. It was actually a prophecy. And it goes like this. Ham, you have some problems in your attitude. You have problems about our family's honor. You have problems even sexually. And that's going to come back to haunt your whole family. There will be recourse.

Canaan would end up being the father of the people who lived in what would ultimately become the land of Israel. They were so morally disgusting that even all the pagan countries around them, who had horrible practices themselves, were disgusted with how really, really awful the Canaanites were. In the book of Numbers, verse 33, and you have this on page three of your handout there, "...speak to the sons of Israel and say to them, when you cross over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you." All those Canaanites. The Canaanites were spiritually and morally corrupt in the extreme. Very corrupt.

And these practices are targeted and mentioned in the rest of this passage here in Numbers. As Moses is getting the Israelites ready to go into Canaan, the Promised Land, he gives them warnings. Don't do the things that those Canaanites are doing. Don't do them. You're not to do that.

The Canaanite religious rituals included child sacrifice, some of it in fire. They would take the firstborn and put them in the hands of this molten hot hands of Molech. Burn the firstborn live. Awful, terrible. Incest was quite common. Bestiality. Homosexuality, very common. Male and female cultic prostitution.

And these things are not simply mentioned in the Bible, they're confirmed by what archaeologists have excavated. A major portion of the Mosaic Law was aimed at keeping the Israelites from falling into the practices and beliefs and worship that the Canaanites were involved in. So I'll let you peruse that on your own there. The Canaanites, just like Noah said, did become subjugated. They became, as Noah put it, servants of servants. They became subjugated to countries at different times.

One of those we're going to see in just a few chapters, Genesis 14. Joshua, when Joshua goes into the Promised Land, and we begin to see that in the book of Joshua, they were defeated other times militarily, including in the time between the Old and New Testaments, 146 B.C. But in the end, the grace and mercy of the Lord is what will prevail. The New Testament has multiple accounts of the Lord's grace and mercy towards the Canaanites and towards us as well.

A couple of years back, I was emailing with a fellow that I had come across who He had a website and had lots of interesting information. And as I got talking to him, and he was a believer, I found out he was a Canaanite. And he said, you know, he says, I'm well aware of what my long-term history is, but I've put my trust in the Lord.

The Lord's grace and mercy was available there. And so it would be modern case in point. The Lord didn't simply wipe out the Canaanites. He could have, when they were evil. Instead, God was often merciful, even though Noah's prophecy came true multiple times over. He gave them lots of time, centuries, to repent.

One of the things that we're going to see when we get to Genesis 15 It says that the wickedness of the Amorites is not yet full. Well, you say, Amorites? Well, wait a minute. Amorites were one of the tribes within the Canaanites. When the Jews went into the Promised Land, they had these different tribal names. Only some of the people were called Canaanites, because most of the other groups were actually tribes within the Canaanites, so that they're really all Canaanites, or nearly all Canaanites. And so as you go through the groups in the Old Testament, you'll run across names like the Amorites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, and the Termites, and the Mosquitobites. Right? Okay. Anyway, there's all these tribal names. And if you look behind the tribal names, what are they? They're Canaanites. Just the tribal name is what comes across there. All right.

In the end, Noah blessed Shem and Japheth, the brothers of Ham. And he ended that chapter by blessing each of them. Each of them had done the right thing. Each of them had caught their father, as Ham had pointed to it, caught their father in a place that was certainly a lapse of judgment. on Noah's part. And yet, what did they do? They didn't say, oh, this is our chance to show our dad to be a fool. No. Instead, they acted honorably. They acted mercifully and graciously in that instance.

And we have the opportunity to do the same. Some months back when we studied in Galatians chapter 6, It says, when one of you is caught in a trespass, and that word trespass means to fall alongside the path, what do you do? Do you take up the opportunity? Ha! We caught you! Got you now! Oh, are you going to pay?

No. You who are spiritual, restore such a one. The lapse is an opportunity for God's grace. The lapse is an opportunity for God's mercy. The lapse is an opportunity to be living out the very life of Christ. The other thing that shows forth as we look at this passage, here the Lord made a promise. The Lord was faithful to the end.

And you know what's amazing? As we go through these promises that God makes in the book of Genesis, what we're going to find is that the Lord is faithful to those promises even now, thousands of years later after these events were recorded. The Lord is faithful to those promises to everyone he made the promise to even up till today. And we can count on his faithfulness to those promises that he's made all the way to the very end. We can count upon His character. We can count upon the Lord to be faithful to everything that He said He's going to do, including conforming us to the image of His Son, Jesus Christ.

The Lord is faithful. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this passage, we see Your faithfulness. We see Your mercy. We see Your grace. As we look at this passage, we see that here Noah, a man that acted in faith, a man that walked with you, had this moment in which he had a great lapse. And we see the contrast between his sons.

The one that wanted to take advantage of it, the one that wanted to maintain a sinful and rebellious and dishonorable attitude, And yet those who showed mercy and grace and honor in the midst of that. And we just pray, Lord, that you would be working in our hearts to teach us, that we would learn from you and that you would be showing us your amazing grace in each and every day. In Jesus name, Amen.