Turn in your Bibles or scroll to chapter 8.
Genesis chapter 8. We'll finish chapter 8 this
morning and then jump into Chapter 9.
Marriage is a covenant based on vows to each other.
Now, while there is a legal component to it, marriage is a
commitment before God between a man and a woman.
It's intended to be permanent and unconditional.
When we're poor, I'm going to stay right here by your side.
That hasn't changed. If you get sick, I'll be right
there helping you through it. When things are bumpy, we're
going to stick it out. God made an unconditional
covenant with humanity and creation, ensuring that despite
our propensity for evil, his grace remains active this
morning. If you would, and if you're
able, would you stand as we read from chapter 8, verses 20
through 22? Then Noah built an altar to the
Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every
clean burden, 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.
Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I
have done. While the earth remains sea,
time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and
night, shall not cease. You may be seated.
Noah and his family had been cooped up inside the ark for 378
days, roughly. They'd not felt sunshine.
They hadn't touched dry land or lived any kind of normal
existence during that time. But the first thing Noah did
after leaving the ark was build an altar to worship God.
Now, I'm sure there were other possibly more urgent matters to
tend to, like building shelters and gathering food.
But the first thing Noah, this man who walked with God, the
first thing he did was worship God.
He's, he's offering animals. That is his worship and offering
of animals. It's interesting that that Noah
is silent on on a number of counts, actually, he has yet to
speak in the text. He has no response to God's
announcement, no questions about the ark or the animals, no plea
on behalf of anyone else, no Christ or mercy, no bursts of
joy or gratitude for for being saved through the flood.
No grief that the world was destroyed, no impatience, no
prayers of Thanksgiving accompanying the the offering.
Even he could have spoken. But instead what we routinely
see from Noah so far are actions.
We've seen his obedience throughout this narrative and
his walking with God speaks to that obedience.
This offering of animals is is another God honoring act in the
life of Noah. In the Mesopotamian flood
accounts, the purpose of ancient sacrifices was to appease the
angry and volatile gods through gifts of food and drink.
And our instinct might be to say, well, Noah's purpose
actually was to make a sin offering.
But I actually think that that that's out of place for a couple
reasons. One, so far, Noah's life in the
text has been characterized by righteousness and his intimate
walk with God. And two, to assume it's a sin
offering is to import ideas into the text that aren't there.
Sure, later Moses will outline sacrifices and the protocols
around them, but we have nothing to tell us this is a sin
offering or even a vank offering.
It may be that perhaps Noah was looking for God's favor and
blessing as he embarks on this next step in the journey,
multiplying and filling the earth with his family.
The burnt offerings Moses audience were familiar with are
usually associated with petitioning God for something,
so that could possibly explain his motive.
Even in the next section we'll see that Noah receives a
blessing, so it could be that blessing is connected to the
offerings here when getting off the ark.
Now I'm curious as to how many animals came off the ark.
We can presume that more came off the ark than went into the
ark as surely some of them would have been old enough to mate and
reproduce. Of the clean animals, there
might have been more than went in, but it's highly unlikely
there there would have been a proliferation of clean animals
during that year on the ark. It was during this time of
limited availability that Noah made these offerings.
He wasn't making his offering out of out of abundance, but
rather I would say more out of scarcity.
God is pleased when we offer our gifts to Him out of a position
of scarcity or or lack as it it implies trust in His provision.
I'm reminded of of King David going up to raise an altar on
the threshing floor of a round of the Jebusite in Second Samuel
24. This offering that King David is
going up to to offer is to is to assuage the judgments that it
that it that has come this this plague that was caused because
you see, David had taken a census and he wasn't instructed
to take a census. And you say, oh, well, we take a
census all the time. What's wrong with taking a
census? Well, the problem is his motive
behind the census. You take a census in order to
set assess what kind of army you have, what is your military
power. That is what he did rather than
trusting in God. So David approaches the
threshing floor of a round of the Jebusites and Jebus is is
Jerusalem. Jerusalem.
He approaches the threshing floor and Aronis Aronis says
here, take take the the thresh. The threshing floor is yours and
here's some wood and and here's oxen.
It's all yours and David responds as second Samuel 2424.
But the king said to Arona, no, but I will buy it from you for a
price. It will not offer burnt
offerings to the Lord. My God, that cost me nothing.
So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for 50
shekels of silver. So David says I'm not going to
make a sacrifice that that cost me nothing.
And here Noah made his offering almost definitely not from a
place of abundance, but more likely from a place of scarcity
costing him something. Verse 21 says that Yahweh
smelled the pleasing aroma. This doesn't mean he literally
smelled the sacrifice. Scripture often paints God in
what we call anthropomorphic terms it describes.
It's describing him in ways that that are human in order to
understand something of God. God doesn't have literal
nostrils and olfactory nerves. In case you were curious, God
had regard for for the sacrifice Noah offered.
It was a pleasing aroma and the concept of a pleasing aroma is
routinely used in scripture to characterize sacrifices, whether
they were priestly sacrifices or or Jesus sacrifice or living
sacrifices. So when God smelled Noah's
sacrifice, it prompted him to issue a promise of restraint.
God is promising restraint. There's hope for the earth and
and humanity here as as God makes a few promises.
First, he would never again curse the ground because of
humanity. The ground had been cursed in
the aftermath of sin and then a second time after Abel was
murdered. Now some some have interpreted
this incorrectly to mean that the curse was lifted from the
ground, but that's not the case as we still live under the
curse. The curse most specifically in
view here is that of the flood. That's what he means.
God's promise was to never again do what he had done with the
deluge. God also promised to not kill
every living creature. This pertains to both animal and
human alike. God would never again bring such
wholesale destruction, in spite of the fact that verse 21
reiterates chapter 6 and instead of man's character, the
intentions of man's heart are evil.
Humanity deserves judgment, but God promised life would always
continue. In season and out of season, hot
and cold, day and night, life would continue.
This promise of restraint is God's grace on the earth and in
humanity. Society was corrupt and and past
the point of saving, yet God still chose to exhibit grace in
saving this family and the inhabitants of the ark so they
could start a new future. In the next chapter we see some
new procedures put in place. If you look at Chapter 9 at
verse one, we'll read verses one through 7.
God bless Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and
multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of
you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of
the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and
all the fish of the sea into your hand they are delivered.
Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.
And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.
But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood.
And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning.
From every beast I will require it, and from man, from his
fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed.
For God made man in his own image.
And you be fruitful and multiply.
Increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.
So as as Noah was recommissioned, God blessed him
and he reiterated what we call the cultural mandate.
The cultural mandate is simply to be fruitful and multiply and
fill the earth. The cultural mandate first
showed up in chapter 1 and then here again God twice gives the
humans the same instructions. Time will tell how good of a job
they do of this, but that's the command.
Go fill the earth. However, here in this post
diluvian world, things aren't going to be the way that they've
been for all these centuries. In post flood life.
There's there's a strained relationship between humans and
animals. There's a strained relationship
now between the humans and the animals.
Humans and animals can they can have marvelous relationships,
albeit not quite like it was back in the garden.
Back in the garden, the animals were all paraded in front of
Adam and and he named each species as they as he spent time
with them and and learned their various characteristics and
traits. And the text gives evidence that
some of those relationships remained intact until the flood.
But then after the flood things changed.
Now one of the changes that occurred was animals would fear
humans. The animals would would now fear
humans. Back in chapter 1, humans had
been been given the command to subdue and and rule the animals.
Now I'd like to remind you that this wasn't ruling and and
subduing them wasn't wasn't abuse or anything like that.
It was simply to help them be the best that they could be.
Excuse me, Animals could be used to help humans do work and and
the humans could help care for the animals ruling and so doing
was good and beneficial. But now the command to subdue
and to rule had been replaced by fear and dread.
Partnership and ruling and reigning was no longer in view
for many of the animals, and that relationship had been
replaced by fear. I suspect part of the reason why
animals fear humans is that many of them had become prey.
In verse 3 God said every moving thing that lives shall be food
for you and as I gave you the green plants, I give you
everything. There's a bit of discussion
about which animals might be referred to here, but what is
clear that there's a significant change in humanity's diet.
I believe humans were either exclusively or primarily
vegetarian before this moment, and then here God gave them
permission to eat meat. So humanity was given permission
to eat meat. Steak was finally an option.
Something good to come out of the fall I guess.
God had given humans animals for food, so a logical response to
their being hunted prey would be to fear humans.
Some theologians have surmised that when God gave humans
permission to eat this meat that it also meant animals which had
up to this point been vegetarian became carnivorous, carnivorous
carnivorous. It's going a bit too far to
suggest that the narrative is trying to make such a statement
here, and that all animals were vegetarian prior to this point,
because the text doesn't say that.
So we have to be careful with what we infer and read into the
text. Now, sadly, it's important to
state that this was not a carte blanche ticket to to needlessly
slaughter animals. This means acts like the late
18th century's slaughter of the American bison and and reducing
their numbers from 60 million down to a mere few 100 four 500
is of of a godly perspective on ecology.
That's not good stewardship. They are alive and well today.
You can go see them and and don't get close to them like
stupid people that you see online.
They are still wild. Giving humanity the freedom to
eat meat wasn't a license to human savagery.
Proper orientation to the earth and the animal Kingdom means
understanding that we are allowed to eat meat and should
also care for animal life. With this new allowance there is
a restriction though. No eating blood.
That rare steak. It's kind of on the border.
No, I just no eating blood. Humanity was prohibited from
eating the blood of animals. By the way, the the well done
steak. That's a sin.
Also, just so just just to be clear, confession, if we go out
to a steak place, one of us likes to order a medium well.
I think that's like perfect. Somebody, somebody else, if she
had the opportunity would order well.
Now there's 2 problems with that.
One, it takes longer for my steak to come out now, right
because she ordered well done and you just ruined it.
So she has she has agreed she often will order medium well so
it comes out more quickly and she gets more of the flavor.
So that is very thoughtful of her.
Quite, quite the sacrifice, but I digress.
Eating blood, though, actually eating blood, is on a different
level than simply eating meat. Animals eat blood, and by
restricting humans from eating blood, God is limiting the
extent of humanity's wildness here in our Western culture.
Someone could look at the laws and regulations and scripture
regarding blood and and might see them as as weird or archaic
or possibly even misogynistic in some cases.
But you see, blood is important tonight and I think it would be
difficult for me to overstate the importance of blood in the
Bible. First of all, life is in the
blood. Life is in the blood.
Verse 4 God said you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is
its blood. Blood is life we can't live
without. It's not.
Eating the blood of an animal demonstrates respect for the
sanctity of life. In chapter 4, Abel's blood cried
out from the ground, meaning that his life had been taken at
a still future moment from Noah. Blood would form the center
points of the sacrificial system, and it becomes the only
means to atone for sin. So blood atones and covers sin.
Blood atones and covers sin in the law.
Atonement was only affected by by the shedding of the blood of
a guiltless substitute. And then when Jesus died, it was
his innocent blood that atone for our sins.
Hebrews 10. You'll see it on the screen
there, verses 10 through 12. We've been sanctified through
the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, And
every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the
same sacrifices which can never take away sins.
But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for
sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.
When Jesus came and offered up his life, pouring out his blood
on the cross, the perfect sacrifice had finally been made.
No longer would would priests need to go through their
routines of offering sacrifices for sin to further the point in
value of blood and the value of image bearers.
In verse 6, God said whoever sheds the blood of man by man
shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
Now essentially this is the law of retribution.
This is what's called the law of retribution.
This is life for life. The basic premise here is is
that of proportional punishments.
If someone takes someone's life, then that person's life will be
taken from them. The taking of someone's life is
such an insult to God that it warrants the murderer losing his
own life. Now the law of retribution is
detailed more in Leviticus 24, and that's where we get the eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
But this this is the first introduction to the law of
retribution. Every image bearer of God should
be treated with dignity and respect, and the act of murder
is an attack on the very image of God.
Those who take the life of another human are to know that
their lives will be demanded of them, of God's words in this
passage tell us God expects the violence that began with Cain
and and that was prevalent before the flood to continue.
So violence will continue. This new restart still includes
humans with a sin nature right and left to their own devices.
Humans will still give in to that sin that is crouching at
the door to rule over them, and they will give in to the way of
Cain and turn to violence. Reading now that verses 8 in
Chapter 9, verses 8 through 17, we see the no way covenants is
is formally established. Verse 8 And God said to no unto
his sons with him. Behold, I establish my covenant
with you and your offspring after you, and with every living
creature that is with you, 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. I've 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 was seen in the clouds.
I will remember my covenant that is between me and you, and every
living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again
become a flood to destroy all flesh.
When the bow was in the clouds, I will see it and remember the
everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all
flesh that is on the earth. God said to Noah, This is the
sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all
flesh that is on the earth. I'm curious, did anybody go home
last week and do a deep dive on trying to find where the ark is?
No, I figured somebody would go home and start Googling.
OK, where is the ark? Really trying to figure out all
the options. OK that's fine.
I was just just wondering years ago.
Years ago. There is a plethora of
information out there to sift through now.
So as God spoke to Noah and his sons, he first made it clear
that that this covenant is for everyone and everything.
So this covenant is for everyone and everything.
Never again would God destroy all living things and never
again will He destroy the earth. In the Hebrew God is saying I
behold, I am establishing my covenant.
The emphasis is on God and his responsibility in the covenant.
He is the initiator of it and and the obligation is his.
We, we have no parts in this contract.
God is just saying I am going to do this.
In spite of humanity's sinfulness.
God is determined to never again devastate humanity in such a
manner. So God placed the rainbow in the
sky to serve as a sign. And this rainbow is a reminder.
The rainbow serves as a reminder.
It's a reminder to both God and to us.
First of all, in verses 14 and 15, God said when I bring clouds
over the earth and the bow was seen in the clouds, I will
remember my covenants. God has made a promise and He's
going to uphold His part because that's what He does.
He's God and He can be counted on.
He'll always remember this promise.
Second, the rainbow serves as a reminder to us of God's
covenant. The point here is that the
people of God we are to remember that God remembers Noah and his
descendants are are to notice rainbows appearing naturally in
the sky and know that God chooses to keep his covenant to
never again destroy the earth with a flood.
So how do we apply this? You can go home, you can eat
that steak. For those who are capable, you
could have many children. There's some other things we can
do though. First of all, live as a pleasing
aroma. Live as a pleasing aroma.
Our lives carry an odor. Is the odor like a junior high
boy? No offense to any junior high
boys we may have in the room. Or do you smell sweet and fresh
like roses? 2nd Corinthians 2 versus 14 and
15 For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who
are being saved and among those who are perishing to. 1A
fragrance from death to death to the other, a fragrance from life
to life. Our goal is to live a life of
worship that is a sweet smelling sacrifice to God.
Now the ramifications of this are that for those who are in
the body of Christ, your life lived in worship will be a
wonderful fragrance to believers.
But for those who are outside of the church and who are hostile
to the things of God, our lives actually stink to them and are
an offence. They can't fathom the ways in
which the people of God live, but our desire is to live in
such a way that we are a pleasing aroma as much as
possible, both within the body as well as to those outside the
body, our lives pointing to God. Next, remember God's promises.
Remember His promises, if God said it, He can be counted on.
He's promised provision, care, His presence, protection,
guidance, purpose, peace, joy, forgiveness, and salvation.
And there's like something like 12 passages there that I listed
that you can look up just to encourage you and your faith if
you're struggling with any of these things.
Trust what He said and live by it.
Don't discount it or or excuse it.
Oh, but that doesn't apply to me.
If God made a promise, then you can take it to the bank.
Lastly, live in the atonement Christ purchased.
Live in the atonement that Christ purchased.
Christ died on the cross as a willing and innocent sacrifice
so that so that we can be made right with a holy God.
He died, He paid the price, and our own righteousness could
never cut it for the believer in Christ's sacrifice.
Sometimes we can. We fall into this habit of
trying to prove our worth, our value.
Quit trying to prove your worth or, or trying to prove that
you're good enough. In case you didn't know, you'll
never be. We'll never be good enough.
Live from a posture of grace rather than a foundation of
works. Christ paid it all, and nothing
we can do will make God love you more.
So let your life be lived out of the overflow of your
relationship with Him, not working to to earn His favor,
but receiving His favor through the grace that He gives to us.
And then choosing to live and and to show works as a response
out of thankfulness and worship for what He has done in our
lives. And for anyone in this room who
may not have yet stepped over the line of faith, surrender it
all to Him. Jesus paid the ultimate price so
so that you can have abundant life.
He offered to cover to cover over your sins if you'll only
accept the free gift He offers. Surrender your will and your
ways to God, trusting only in Jesus.
Sacrifice for your here and now, as well As for your future.
He purchased your freedom from sin, so place your trust in Him
and receive the free gift of grace that God wants to give
you. Then, when you receive Him, He
will empower you to live the life that He intends for you to
live. Let's bow our heads and close
our eyes. As we prepare to close this
morning, just take a moment to meditate upon God's grace.
Often we come to these points and in a service and and our
attention is drawn to sin. But let's flip that a bit and
meditate upon God's grace so the quietness of your hearts.
Thank God for His grace. Have a conversation with Him
about that and how grateful you are for that.
God, we thank you for your grace, that though we deserve
judgment, punishment, separation, God, you have poured
out your grace as a free gift. You've promised provision, care,
your presence, protection, peace, joy, guidance,
forgiveness, and salvation in you.
Thank you for your promise. As we remind ourselves of these
things this morning, may they inspire us to to live in the
atonement, to live in the fact that Christ has covered our
sins. When you look at us, you don't
see us as dirty and sinful, but you look through the blood of
Jesus Christ, that precious blood.
You look through his blood shed and you see us as though we have
no sin of our own. What marvelous grace we thank
you and may our lives reflect the grace that has been poured
out abundantly. It's in Jesus name we pray,
Amen.