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[0:00] Genesis chapter 9. But flesh, with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat.

[0:36] And surely your blood of your lives will I require. At the hand of every beast will I require it. At the hand of man, at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man.

[0:48] Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. For in the image of God made he man. And you, be you fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply therein.

[1:02] And God spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, with your seed after you, and with every living creature that is with you. Of the fowl, of the cattle, of every beast of the earth with you, from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.

[1:20] And I will establish my covenant with you. Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood. Neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you, and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations.

[1:40] I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud. And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you, and every living creature of all flesh.

[1:56] And the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

[2:10] And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. And the sons of Noah that went forth of the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Ham is the father of Canaan.

[2:26] These are the three sons of Noah, and of them was the whole earth overspread. And Noah began to be a husbandman, and he planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine and was drunken, and was uncovered within his tent.

[2:38] And Ham the father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, and laid it upon both their shoulders, and went backward, and covered the nakedness of their father.

[2:53] And their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.

[3:07] And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servants.

[3:18] And Noah lived after the flood 350 years, and all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died. Lord, thank you for your word.

[3:30] As we read the word, Lord, we recognize it's so much more than just a story. Lord, these are the words of life. There's truth in them. And there's something about this scene, Lord, about this account, that is meant to edify us, that is there for our growth, and there to display more of your grace, more of your righteousness, and more of the faith that we can have in you.

[3:54] Lord, you will never leave us or forsake us. You will never let us down. You never let any one of your people down. And Lord, I pray that you would speak to each one of us the message that you have this morning.

[4:05] In Jesus' name, amen. So today, Noah has stepped off the boat. It's time to leave the ark. Remember last week, we saw where God commanded Noah to go forth, the thing that Noah had put all his time and effort into for decades of his life, the place he was comfortable, the place God had used him and called him to, the place of fruitfulness and blessing and righteousness.

[4:31] God says, now exit that and leave it, and just leave it behind and walk away from it. And so Noah today, he's entering a whole new world. And it's different than the one he left behind.

[4:43] It is something he has never seen before, but yet it's familiar. It's not completely brand new, but for him, it's something new to experience.

[4:57] And so in this whole new world, we can break down this chapter. See in verse 1, a new world. Will require a new blessing. Verse 2 through 4, a new world.

[5:10] Will require a new menu. Verses 5 through 7, a new world. Requires a new accountability. Verses 8 through 12, a new world.

[5:23] Requires a new covenant. Hallelujah. Verses 13 through 17, a new world. A new world requires a new sign. Verses 18 and 19, a new world requires a new family.

[5:38] And verses 20 through 29, a new world, but the same sin. Remember we said in Genesis, we see the beginnings, everything, but not the culmination.

[5:49] Genesis is the beginning. It's the start. We see the flavor of what's to come, but it is not the culmination. So in Noah's new world, this new world he's part of, still sin.

[6:01] But our new world, hallelujah, will not have sin. And so as we go through these, you know, I'll mention as we hit each checkpoint.

[6:12] But verse 1, a new world requires a new blessing. So if we back up in chapter 8, in verse 15, it says, And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark, thou and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons' wives with thee.

[6:32] So chapter 9, verse 1, Noah has done that. He's gone off the ark. Remember, he's sacrificed his sacrifices to God. Then at some point now, however much longer this is after that, or if this is in the moment that he's sacrificing and God is now presenting this to him.

[6:52] In chapter 1, in verse 9, God said, And God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.

[7:03] And so God speaks forth a blessing. It's a new blessing, but it's the same blessing. Right? It's a blessing we've heard, he said to Adam, to be fruitful and multiply. And that word there, replenish, as we talked about before, it means to fill up, or to refill the cup, to fill it to the top, to replenish the earth, to multiply.

[7:22] And God's blessing comes by way of his word. God's word spoke to Noah and said, Noah, I have a blessing for you. And God's blessing is also unchanged by a changing world.

[7:35] Noah's world is completely changed from what he knew it to be. But God's blessing was not changed. All of the corruption from sin, all of the demonic activity that was taking place before the flood, the absolute wreck that the flood made of the earth, that God's judgment made.

[7:52] But God's blessing didn't change. There's a judgment that's coming on this world. We won't be here for it. We'll be taken out of the rapture. Right?

[8:03] We look for our blessed hope. He who has this hope and purifies himself. We don't hope in ourselves. We hope in Christ. I hope in his word. Noah could trust his word to get on the ark.

[8:15] He can trust his word to get off the ark. And he can trust that when God said, Noah, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. Ah, wonderful. That means God's going to fulfill it. You know, Noah's alone. He's got his family.

[8:26] There's nobody else. There's a few animals he can eat. What if some of them get sick? What if someone dies off? You know, what if something happens? Well, wait, if God's telling me be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, then God's going to fulfill his word.

[8:38] He's going to give the ability to do that. We are also to be fruitful. John 15, 8. Jesus tells us that our Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit.

[8:52] So shall you be my disciples. Be fruitful. We're to be fruitful. Well, if Jesus says that God is glorified this way, that we be fruitful, well, then he's going to supply everything we need to be fruitful.

[9:05] And we can go forth and we can be fruitful in confidence that this blessing that God gives, God will fulfill. And so Noah did, he heard the voice of the Lord telling him, be fruitful and multiply.

[9:20] And then God says in verse 2, And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moves upon the earth and upon all the fishes of the sea into your hand.

[9:34] Are they delivered? Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all things.

[9:45] The fear of you and the dread of you. So up until this point, animals were friends. Right? I was talking before church about the animals that are our friends, our pets, and then those that aren't, the ones that will hunt you down and eat you for lunch.

[10:00] Right? Well, this is God's mercy here because he says he's put the dread of you and the fear of you upon every beast of the earth. There are many beasts of the earth out there that have no place being afraid of us.

[10:12] You know, a male elephant, a bull elephant, has fear of man. A man can go chase after them and they're going to run away. That's just how it is.

[10:24] They are not the aggressor. Man is the aggressor. We see God's purpose contains God's protection and God's provision. God has a new purpose now for animals that he did not have before the flood.

[10:36] As we said, a new world requires a new menu. Well, here's a new menu. This is new. Two new things for Noah. His relationship with the animals is changing and how they relate with him. And now God is telling them every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you.

[10:48] Even as the green herb have I given you all things. And so now there's this system which is no longer the plants that they will get all of their sustainability from.

[11:00] It's now through animal flesh. And, you know, we live in a world that right now is trying to do away with the consumption of meat, of animals.

[11:11] Everything is being replaced by plant products or man-made products. We can sit around and talk about which is healthier and which is not. That's not the point. Timothy tells us, Paul tells us, that in the last days, on the signs of the last days, there will be doctrines of demons.

[11:26] One is forbidding to marry. Obviously, look around you. You know, we're almost to the point where it will be forbidden to have a Christian marriage, to have a man and a woman married.

[11:37] We're about there. You are forbidden to marry and that we are forbidden to eat meat, which, then Paul says, which God has given us, which God has given for our, I can't remember the word, but anyway, to take delight in and is not to be called unclean.

[11:55] So the fact that God establishes this and never removes it, and then all through the Old Testament, you're going to see, you know, sacrificing and eating of animals. This is God's plan, not mine.

[12:06] I'm not making this up. I'm not trying to get political. This is God's plan. So to go against God's plan is never a good idea. Right? It's the same with marriage. People think, well, how do you know that's the one?

[12:19] You need to live with them first and try it out because they might not be the one. And you don't want to get stuck in a marriage because you can't get divorced once you're in a marriage. You're stuck, right? Well, that's not how the way God does it.

[12:31] That's not his plan. And if we follow his plan, then we also know that we have his protection and his provision. It's the same with God's plan to sustain mankind.

[12:43] Their food is through animals. And so God has instituted this new menu. Well, it's the same for us, isn't it? I'm going to have you turn over to John chapter 6.

[12:57] There's a big section to read. Proverbs 12, verse 10, tells us, the righteous man regards the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. The righteous man regards the life of his beast.

[13:08] So God is saying to Noah, I have delivered every creature into your hand. They're yours. Now take care of them. If they're going to be for food, imagine if there was no animosity or no, what's he call it, dread between animals and man.

[13:24] And think of the sinfulness of man. Think how man has so mishandled and mismanaged the animal kingdom in the world we're in. Imagine if the animals had no fear of us.

[13:35] We'd wipe them out in an instant to make a buck. You know? And so God is protecting us and the animals through this. But a righteous man should regard the life of his beast.

[13:48] So we are to regard the things that God gives us for provision. But John chapter 6, you know, a new world requires a new menu. And we're in a new world. We're in Christ.

[13:59] We have a new life in Christ. And he tells us in John chapter 6, verse 48, I'll read a chunk of verses here. I am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead.

[14:13] This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.

[14:24] And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world. The Jews, therefore, strove among themselves, saying, how can this man give us his flesh to eat?

[14:38] Then Jesus said unto them, Truly, truly, I say unto you, except you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoso eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.

[14:51] And I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed. He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him. As the living Father has sent me and I live by the Father, so he that eats me, even he shall live by me.

[15:09] This is that bread which came down from heaven, not as your fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eats of this bread shall live forever. So we have a new menu in our new world, which has a new covenant, which we'll look at in a little bit.

[15:27] We have this menu where Jesus says, you must partake of my flesh. We're going to see here in verse 4 where we're told, he says, do not eat of animals with the blood in them because he says, the blood contains the life thereof.

[15:42] Looking ahead to a time when there would be one who would say, you must now partake of the blood. Specifically, of my blood, Jesus says, because the blood contains the life.

[15:54] The body contains the nourishment. The blood contains the life. And so, verse 4, but the flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood, therefore you shall not eat.

[16:08] And surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will I require it. At the hand of man and at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man.

[16:21] So a new world requires a new accountability. There is a relationship between man and man that God expects. That there is responsibility.

[16:33] That there is respect. God is telling Noah right from the beginning, I am requiring this accountability of every man. Because God's commands are for all and all are for God's commands.

[16:44] What does that mean? It means God's command is for anybody who would receive it. But whether you receive it or not, we all fall under God's commands. Whether we want to receive them or not. Remember we looked at last week, judgment and mercy.

[16:59] They all go under God's judgment. It just depends on whether you pass through in mercy or in wrath. Well in the same way here, he is saying, I am going to require the blood of a man at the hand of every man and every man's brother will I require the life thereof.

[17:15] Whoso sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. For in the image of God made he man. Ah, so now we're going back to that image again.

[17:26] We're going back to the fact that God says there's something unique about man which sets him apart from the animals and that requires accountability. And whosoever sheds his blood, then by man shall his blood be shed.

[17:40] So God is making a way for that accountability to be in society. Making a way for government. What is the purpose of government? Well, right here in the beginning, in this new world, God lays it out for Noah.

[17:54] Romans 13, 3 says, For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power or the authority or the government? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same.

[18:07] For he is the minister, the servant of God, to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid, for he bears not the sword in vain. For he is the minister of God, a revenger, to execute wrath upon him that does evil.

[18:22] That's the purpose of government. The purpose of government is not to pave my roads. It's not. It's not to take all my money without my permission and use it in ways they please.

[18:34] It's also not to give me a bunch of money when I don't work. The purpose of government, as God sees it, is to uphold righteousness within society. And this is what God is laying out here for Noah.

[18:46] It's sad because Noah, not even within a generation, how quickly it will devolve. By the time the law is given many generations later, and God has to again institute, you shall not eat the flesh with the blood in it.

[19:00] How quickly they moved away from God's commands. This is for the whole world. How quickly they moved away from God's commands as well to be ministers of righteousness and to execute judgment.

[19:14] Numbers 35, 31 says, Moreover, you shall take no satisfaction for the life of a murderer, this is in the law, which is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death.

[19:27] So shall you not pollute the land wherein you are, for blood, it defiles the land. And the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that it is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.

[19:39] In other words, when blood is shed, murder. murder, the only thing that cleanses the land, the land is now defiled. We're going to find out here, God says, I will no longer curse the land for the sin of man.

[19:50] The land can be defiled by sin on its own. And so when a murder takes place, when an innocent life is killed, then the blood requires accountability. God says right here, I require accountability.

[20:02] If we do not bring that accountability, then it says the land is defiled and it cannot be cleansed. Think of the blood that's been shed in this nation. It's just thinking of every little baby.

[20:14] You know, every life God is saying, you're accountable for that one. You're accountable for that one. Think of the, it's horrible to think of, the practitioners who run these abortion mills.

[20:30] The blood that's on their hands. The life after life after life. We look at someone who would break into a home and murder someone or someone who like manslaughter is fighting with someone or someone just indiscriminately pulls out a gun and shoots someone.

[20:47] There's a lot more effort involved in murdering an adult than there is in just lining them up and killing these little babies that have no ability to defend themselves.

[20:59] And God says that life is required of another life. Right here in the beginning of this new world. And in our new world, it's the same. Your life and my life, it requires another life.

[21:12] Either I pay it myself, because nobody can pay it for me. Anybody here have no sin that they can step in and take my place? Well, you've got to pay the penalty for your life. You can't pay for my life.

[21:24] I have to pay the penalty for my life. God says I require it of you. Because you shed innocent blood on a cross over 2,000 years ago. I shed that blood. And it's required now.

[21:37] Of me. And then, but God steps in and says, well, I'll be the life. I'll take it. I'm myself. So that that payment is made. But God is giving Noah this new order of provision, and of how to do society, how to live life.

[21:55] Noah's passing this on to his sons. And then he says, and you be fruitful and multiply and bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply therein.

[22:06] Interesting verse to tag right onto the end of that whole section about blood and life and death and being required. I think what he's saying is, Noah, don't be afraid to go forth and multiply.

[22:17] You just came from a world where murder, it was kind of like passed off. It's like, hey, God didn't take care of Canaan when he murdered Abel, then God's not going to do anything to me.

[22:29] Take him very lightly. Look at the payment that came. Look at the reckoning that happened to that old world. The whole world was destroyed because of the blood that was shed.

[22:42] And at the time, they didn't think that death was coming. Think of the people that were 800 years old, 700 years old, thinking they had so much of their life ahead of them, and the flood came and death came.

[22:53] They were not ready for that. So there was a reckoning. And so after this kind of societal blueprint, we could say, for Noah, God then says to him, hey, Noah, but be fruitful and multiply.

[23:08] God is commanding population. God is desiring this. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth. It's part of the blessing, Noah. Don't be afraid of sin and what it requires.

[23:22] Don't let that keep you back from a blessing and walking in the blessing that I have for you. And then verse 8, And God spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, with your seed after you.

[23:37] As we said, a new world requires a new covenant. Interesting, though, about that covenant. That covenant was given back over in chapter 6, 18.

[23:52] It says, but with thee, speaking of Noah, this is after he commands him to build the ark, he then talks this, God talks this in there because he says, Behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh. Wherein is the breath of life from under heaven and everything that's in the earth shall die?

[24:06] But with thee will I establish my covenant that thou shalt come into the ark, thou and thy sons and thy wife, thy son's wife with thee. But he never tells us what the covenant is. And now we're told the covenant.

[24:18] And we're going to look at that later of how God establishes his covenant in the order that he does it in. But notice that the covenant was established before judgment. It was only after judgment that it was ratified.

[24:34] And so God spake unto Noah and to his sons with him and said, Behold, I established with you my covenant and with your seed after you. The word there establish means to be firm, but it has within it the idea of arising, like standing up to arise.

[24:49] I like that because this is the first covenant that we're seeing. We see the first use of the word covenant was in chapter 6 and now we're seeing the first covenant fleshed out here. And then there's a covenant we're part of, the new covenant, the new testament.

[25:03] And it is established when a man arose, when he stood and he arose and he established that covenant when he came out of the grave. And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl of the cattle and of every beast of the earth with you, from all that go out of the ark, every beast of the earth.

[25:22] And so Isaiah 63, 5 says, the Lord is speaking to Israel. He says, And I looked, and there is none to help. And I wondered that there was none to uphold. Therefore, my own arm brought salvation unto me, and my fury, it upheld me.

[25:38] God doesn't need any help to establish his covenant. If you see the word there, he says, I establish my covenant with you and with your seed afterward. And with every living creature that's with you, I will establish my covenant with you.

[25:49] And God's insistence, God is the one establishing this. Noah has no part in establishing this covenant. But Noah has a part in the covenant, doesn't he? You and I have no part in establishing the covenant we're part of.

[26:02] But yet we have a part that we must partake of to enter into that covenant. And so with Noah. And here it's saying that with every living creature that is with you as well.

[26:13] And so, faithfulness, the fruit of faithfulness, will always result in a blessing for many. It's never just for one. Now, our faithfulness is never just for our relationship with the Lord.

[26:26] Of course your faithfulness will help your relationship with the Lord grow. Of course it's going to draw you nearer to the Lord and give opportunity for the Lord to work in your life. Of course. But it's never just meant for that.

[26:38] It's always going to result in a blessing and fruitfulness for others. You don't have to look for it or figure it out. God's going to do that. As we are faithful and we abide, God does that.

[26:49] Noah didn't know this covenant was coming and this blessing. He was just faithful to take him and his house, eight people, into the ark and the animals that God brought.

[26:59] And then from this, the entire world will be populated by Noah, essentially. One man's faithfulness affected the whole world. Where were we?

[27:12] Verse 11. Isaiah 54, 8 and 9.

[27:27] The Lord is referencing back to the flood. He uses Noah as an example of how his wrath towards Israel will not be repeated. He says, In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment.

[27:40] But with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me. For as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with you, nor rebuke you.

[27:57] So he's saying, just as this covenant that I made with Noah that never again will there be a flood upon the earth. Well, you can be just as assured that what he's talking about here, the wrath towards his people, once it's passed, it's never coming back.

[28:11] That God's covenant is once established. They are not changed. Neither shall there any more be a flood that shall destroy the earth. And God said, this is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations.

[28:29] So God desires that we would embrace his covenant, understand his covenant, and recognize his covenant. And he tells us in John 15, 16, he says, you've not chosen me, but I've chosen you, ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit, that your fruit should remain.

[28:49] So as God establishes us in his covenant, his desire is fruitfulness, which comes by way of faithfulness, as we're seeing here with our friend Noah. And so God has established this covenant.

[29:02] It's perpetual. That word means everlasting, never ending. When God establishes something, he doesn't establish anything temporarily. You think, well, what about the law? The law was temporary. The law wasn't temporary.

[29:13] The law is eternal. The law comes from heaven. It's just the law was fulfilled in Christ. Christ is the fulfillment of the law. The law is completely contained in Christ and fulfilled so that it's no longer something we have to live under.

[29:25] But it is still eternal. It's not temporary. Now we move on to 13, where a new world will require a new sign. This new world had a new blessing, had a new menu, a new accountability, and a new covenant.

[29:43] And it's funny, isn't it? All of those things are contained in the old one, before the flood. The blessing, the accountability, the covenant, even the menu, it's changed, but God is still providing for his people through creation.

[29:56] And yet it's very different. And now we have this new world, and this new covenant has with it a new sign. God said, this is the token, or the sign, that you will see.

[30:09] Verse 13, I do set my bow. Whose bow? His. Mm-hmm. This is, the world calls it Pride Month, right?

[30:21] It is. I am proud that that rainbow belongs to my God. Very proud to own that rainbow. The enemy can attempt to redefine God's covenant, but he can never alter it.

[30:34] And he will. He will attempt to redefine every covenant, marriage, salvation, the covenant with the rainbow. He will attempt to redefine all of them.

[30:44] But he can't alter them. Not one covenant of God's has changed. You have just as much opportunity to walk in the truth of God's covenant and be under God's covenant and receive the blessing and the fruitfulness of God's covenant now as you ever had.

[30:57] It doesn't matter if the enemy says, the whole world does come to the point where they say, I forbid you to marry, you cannot get married. Who cares? Go get married. Because God's covenant is going to stand.

[31:09] It's going to supersede that. You know, they say, well, the rainbow. Who cares what they say? The rainbow is a sign. Isn't it funny? They can just make rainbow colors. They can't alter that rainbow in the clouds, can they?

[31:20] They can do nothing to alter that. After the rain and there's a rainbow, they don't own that. They can't touch that. That's the Lord's. He says, it's my bow in the cloud. And I set it there.

[31:31] And it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow shall be seen in the cloud.

[31:43] There are those who would like to try and control the weather. Who is it who brings a cloud? The Lord brings the cloud. He says, then I'm going to set my bow there. And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you.

[31:57] Remember we talked last week when he said God remembered Noah and the ark. He didn't forget him. It just means he had him in mind. He had him pinned there, fixated there. Because I will remember my covenant.

[32:08] My covenant, it is fixated before me, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the water shall no more become a flood to destroy all the earth.

[32:24] In Ezekiel chapter 1, he's given a vision of the throne room of God. And there he sees a bow. Verse 26 says, And above the firmament that was over their heads, the heads of the cherubims, was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone.

[32:43] And upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness of the appearance of a man above upon it. As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so is the appearance of the brightness round about.

[32:56] This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. Revelation 4, verse 3, And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone.

[33:08] And there was a rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto an emerald. How close does God keep his covenant? He says, I will remember my covenant when I look upon it.

[33:18] How often does God see that rainbow? We only see it when it's set in the clouds. God has it surrounding his throne. He keeps it very near to him. So if God is looking upon remembering his covenant at all times, it surrounds his throne.

[33:32] And so should we. We should as well. God's covenants are best appropriated through remembrance. This would have been a great Sunday for communion.

[33:42] I'm learning that every Sunday is a good Sunday for communion. I understand why in Acts it says, and they broke bread from house to house, like they were always having communion, just remembering the Lord. Maybe we'll start doing that.

[33:53] But God's covenants are best appropriated through remembrance. This do in remembrance of me. We bring them near through remembrance. We bring them near because we fixate them just like the Lord does.

[34:04] We pin them to our hearts and in our lives. And it's through remembrance. It's not through ritual. The ritual that we do, the token, the sign is just for the sake of remembrance.

[34:21] You know, I've been going through the book that I've been reading on church history. Church history in plain English. And it's really good.

[34:32] It was talking about the difference between the East and the West Orthodox Church, Catholicism, and then the Greek Orthodox East. And they're saying, we don't understand at all when we think of how they venerate their figurines, their statues, and their imagery.

[34:51] That that is their goal. Our goal is kind of one of knowledge, to understand more. Theirs is more of a likeness. They want to be conformed into image of God, into the likeness.

[35:04] And they feel that by having these images, it better helps them to do that. But they first came about, originally, to help remember. When the saints would be martyred, you know, they were the heroes of the faith.

[35:17] And they wanted to remember them. We kind of do that through books. You know, we're talking about Oswald Chambers, or whether it's Tozer or Spurgeon. That's kind of the way we remember the heroes of our faith, in a sense. You know, I got a collection of books by this guy.

[35:31] The books I have and read are pretty much the heroes of my faith. That's how I remember them. But if you had a day before there was a lot of books, and you wanted to kind of pass on the remembrance to someone, well, they would have, like, image of their Christians who were martyred.

[35:47] And they would celebrate. They would have holidays when a Christian was martyred that next year or whatever. Like, remember this day when so-and-so faced down the line. So it was a good start. It was a good idea.

[35:58] But unfortunately, it became something that God never intended. It became this idea of worshiping. But God uses symbology. He uses signs and He uses tokens to emphasize His covenant.

[36:12] It's not for us, though, to worship those things or to think that they are, in a sense, important to His covenant. Like, if I never saw a rainbow, and if I never took communion, I have just as much opportunity to be part of God's covenant.

[36:24] But those things God puts there because He knows how He made us. Remember in the garden, He said, oh, I made everything that was delightful to the taste and delightful to the eye. So He gives us these things. I love communion.

[36:35] I love holding, or I like it when it's a little bigger bread and cup. You know, those little ones. But I like it. You know, we'll do sometimes, we haven't done it in a while, but in dinner time, I'm just like, let's do communion. I like passing around the bread and breaking it.

[36:47] I think of Jesus just handing the bread to His disciples. I'm like, drink this cup. And knowing that He can't wait to drink that cup with me in the kingdom. I like symbology.

[36:59] I don't like religiosity, but I like symbology. And so here God claims His rainbow. He keeps it near to Him. And then so much more should we keep it near to us. In verse 16, And the bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.

[37:20] Isn't it interesting? Rainbows are so elusive. You know, it's like, oh, oh, there's one. You kind of got to just get around the corner of the house and see, oh, there it is. God says He looks upon each one. He says, I'm going to look upon it, and I'm going to remember.

[37:31] So we think it's put there for us. It is. But there's two sides to it. Just like there's two sides to the covenant. We look on one side of the covenant, God looks on the other side of the covenant. We don't always see the side He does, but see the completion like He does.

[37:45] He's experienced the rainbow around the throne. We've just seen that little piece, a little sliver. And then verse 17, And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant which I have established, that I have arisen to stand between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

[38:00] So what do we see about God's covenant? We see that God's covenant was established by God. God alone can establish His covenant. It is kept by God.

[38:11] God doesn't need my help to keep His covenant. That rainbow's around the throne. God has put it in the clouds. Nobody's taking it out of the clouds, and ain't nobody pulling it down from His throne. Anybody, you know, the world can try and claim it.

[38:21] It's too late. It's already taken. It's mine. It's ours. It's perpetual. It's established forever. It does not stop. It's unchanging. No amount of corruption can change God's covenant.

[38:36] This covenant will last through Sodom and Gomorrah. It will last through the crucifixion of God Himself when the world should have been dissolved for that offense. God's covenant is unchanging.

[38:48] It's intended for all. This is a covenant He made with all flesh, all of humanity. This is His covenant for all of them. Whether they accept it or not, it affects them. It affects all.

[39:00] God's covenant is fruitful. Be fruitful. Multiply. Replenish the earth. We are to be fruitful and bear much fruit for the kingdom. It's visible.

[39:11] Not to be hidden. Something to see. It's to be visible. You know, let your good works so shine before men that they may see, or let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

[39:27] needs to be seen. How shall they hear? Last one, preach. To be remembered. God desires us to have times of remembrance.

[39:41] It's to be established. And then these last two I thought were interesting. It was established before deliverance. As we saw in chapter 6, God said, I established my covenant with you. But He never spelled it out. But God said, I'm establishing it now before the judgment, before deliverance.

[39:55] And it was only for those in the ark, wasn't it? Nobody else could partake this covenant. Noah and his sons and his family, they come off the ark and they now are partaking in this covenant.

[40:08] And we are going to quickly move through this section. It's not a very fun section. There's some application, but we'll wrap this up. A new world requires a new family.

[40:18] And so Noah and his sons, we'll look at that next week goes through the genealogies and generations. We'll look at how the families of the earth have split, all that God does with that. It's a new family, but it's the same sin.

[40:32] Sin is still here. It came with Noah in the ark. Thankfully, in our ark, Genesis is the beginning, not the fulfillment. Our fulfillment, sin does not come through that ark in Christ.

[40:44] It's a new world, but it's the same sin. And here we see something very sad happening with Noah. And these are the three sons of Noah, and of them was the whole earth overspread. We have this interesting account.

[40:55] Why does God show it? Well, I think it's for two reasons. Because God said that despite the fact that man's heart is sinful all the time, I know that. I'm not going to curse the ground anymore because of man's sinfulness.

[41:10] And even though God has established his covenant in this new world, I think he's wanting to show us that man is still sinful, but my covenant still stands. And I can still work through man's sinfulness. And Noah began to be a husbandman.

[41:21] He planted a vineyard. No longer a builder. Spent his whole life building. A preacher of righteousness and a builder. Got a lot of time on his hands. What do I do now? He begins to be a husbandman. And he drank of the, and he planted a vineyard and he drank of the wine and was drunk.

[41:36] He was uncovered within his tent. Now, whether this is accidental or on purpose, I don't know and nobody knows for sure. But the wording there, you know, that he was uncovered, it's never used in a good light in Scripture that is very indecent.

[41:53] So, whether there was no fermentation before the flood, I don't know. Or, after the fact, either way, this has happened to him. And alcohol reveals what propriety and decency would conceal.

[42:06] Alcohol always does that. whether it is, in this case, you know, over 50% of all forced indecencies among people, if you know what I mean, come about by alcohol or drugs or involved.

[42:23] Proverbs tells us that wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging. Whoever is deceived thereby is not wise. Wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging. Period. Whether you're deceived thereby or not, if you are, you're not wise, but wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging.

[42:36] This is the first instance of the use of the word wine. It's not in the best of context. And so Noah finds himself in this situation. And then it said, And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without.

[42:51] And Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father. And their faces were backward and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done unto him.

[43:07] And he said, Cursed be Canaan. A couple things to note as we hit this part here. In verse 18, it tells us that his three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, and it points out to us, Ham is the father of Canaan.

[43:21] Verse 22, And Ham, the father of Canaan. And then in verse 25, Cursed be Canaan. So they want us to know that Canaan is a main player, a main character in this.

[43:34] This is going to be where the Canaanites come from. We're going to see the beginning here, right? But the word where it says there that Ham, he saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without, that word is always used in a connotation of impropriety between men and women.

[43:54] Like in Leviticus, they'll talk about do not uncover the nakedness of your father's wife, your father's daughter, that kind of thing. And then Noah wakes up and knows something very wrong had happened to him.

[44:08] Ham goes in and kind of laughs at the situation. Verse 24, I want to look at it. It says, Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his younger son had done to him.

[44:21] And then he says, Cursed be Canaan. Ezekiel 18 tells us that the soul that sins shall die, that the sons are not responsible for the sins of the fathers. So why is God, why is Noah pronouncing a judgment on Canaan when it's Ham who sinned?

[44:33] Well, I think it was Canaan who sinned. Because I think if you look at where he's pointing out to us the Ham, the father of Canaan, father of Canaan, and then down here it says, and when Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his, Ham's younger son, had done unto him to Noah.

[44:48] That's what I think the wording is. So when Noah awoke from his wine and knew what Ham's younger son had done unto himself, Noah, he said, Cursed be Canaan.

[45:00] So Ham goes in and sees, Ho, ho, ho, my word! And he goes and tells his brothers, You won't believe what just happened to dad. Ho, ho, ho, ho! Like father, like son.

[45:12] The sin that you tolerate today may be the sin in which your children participate tomorrow. The things that we laugh at, the things that we think are entertaining, the things that we think we can handle, that, well, I wouldn't do that, but, oh, it's kind of funny.

[45:26] Those are the things that we're essentially saying, giving our stamp of approval to our children. Like, oh, dad doesn't do that, but he doesn't actually have a problem with that. Oh, I'm going to try it.

[45:36] You know? I can tell you multiple instances of friends I grew up with. I grew up in the homeschool movement, conservative Christians, where their parents drank.

[45:49] I'm not passing a judgment if you do or don't drink. I'm just saying where their parents did handle it and handle it correctly, alcohol. And then I saw where some of their children could handle it and where some could not.

[46:00] And they, at young ages, thought, oh, well, my mom and dad do this. And I have a good friend who was like a younger brother when I was younger, and he's just a mess.

[46:12] So, you know, we were talking about I don't want to die at sea. That scares me, dying at sea. Dying at a plane crash, eh, whatever. Boom, it's over. Dying at sea, you know, the Titanic goes down and you're floating in the ocean and the sharks are around and oh, days without water.

[46:27] If I don't go on an ocean voyage, I'm not going to die at sea. I don't have to worry about it. If I don't drink alcohol, I don't have to worry about it affecting me.

[46:38] In a negative way. I don't have to have an incident like Noah where it's like, whoops. That's going to be embarrassing and affect my kids for generations. So, for me, it's just like, I'm not going on an ocean voyage.

[46:50] I'm not drinking alcohol. So, anyway, if you invite me to the bar, I'm not going to go. If you invite me on a cruise, I'm not going. Otherwise, I'm there. So, that's kind of what I think is happening here that I think, you know, Ham has seen this and his other two sons with respect and honor for their father go in.

[47:09] I don't think Noah is in sin here because of what he says afterwards. And Noah awoke and knew what was done unto him and he said, Cursed be Canaan, servant of servants shall he be done to his brethren.

[47:19] He said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem and Canaan shall be his servant. He's right away. His heart's with the Lord. God shall enlarge Japheth and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem and Canaan shall be his servant.

[47:32] The people of the Near East Israel, the Israelites, the Jews, the Arabs, they come through Shem.

[47:43] Japheth is kind of the northern region, what we call Europeans. And then through Ham, through Canaan, you have down to Africa and possibly into Asia, either Shem or Ham is where like the Far East peoples came from.

[48:01] But he says, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem. Canaan shall be his servant. And he says the same about Japheth. Canaan shall be his servant. It's interesting. Through the descendants of Canaan, they have done much to serve mankind.

[48:15] You see God's grace in this judgment as well. Yes, the Canaanites served Israel, but you look at the people that came by way of Ham, you know, whether it's the Chinese or those in the East or in Africa, so many developments and so much good has come to mankind to serve them.

[48:32] And I love the part in 27, And God shall enlarge Japheth and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem. By way of the Messiah, we dwell in the tents of Shem. And Noah lived after the flood 350 years, and all the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

[48:49] He died two years before Abraham was born. He would have been alive right up to that point. Shem will live up past Abraham, but Noah would have been alive. You know, it's not always how we start.

[49:02] Scripture talks a lot about how we end. 1 Corinthians 15, 58 says, Therefore, my beloved brethren, be you steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

[49:19] Noah's labor was not in vain, but we want to end well. I don't want it written of me. Even if after this fact, you know, Noah pronounces these prophecies, that's great. I don't want it written down to me, oh, and this happened.

[49:31] You know, because of a stupid moment of indiscretion. Because I decided to drink something. Because I decided to click on something. Because I decided to go somewhere. I don't want that to be written of me.

[49:44] I don't want my ministry, the Lord's ability to use me as a vessel, to be disqualified. I don't want, where he says, I'm going to require of you. Man, I don't want it to be my end.

[49:57] So let's end well. Like Noah. We're going to end well with Noah. We're going to look briefly at Father's Day. Noah as a dad. He had some good things we can take away.

[50:08] Noah took a stand for the truth as a dad. As a dad, he stood alone for that truth. As a dad, he walked by faith before his sons. He allowed his life to be directed by the Word.

[50:20] Very important. His directions, his activities, his occupation all came by way of the Word, giving him direction. He gave himself to the work of the Lord. He was not perfect, but he was willing to call his kids out for their sin.

[50:35] Ooh. That's a touchy one in the church today. Well, I think they love the Lord, but you know, they're just doing their thing. Well, have you confronted them in any way?

[50:45] Oh, no. No. He spoke the Word of God over his kids' lives, no matter how old they were. Here's his kids, you know, when they get off the ark, we're going to find out that Shem was 102 years old when he gets off the boat.

[51:01] He has Arphaxad when we get through the genealogies. And so, Ham has had, who's the youngest, has had Canaan, who's at an age now that he can be cursed and is doing a curse of things. So, this is years afterwards and Noah is speaking the truth of God's Word over the life of his kids.

[51:21] So, we want to end on a good note with Noah. We want to remember him, remember on this side of the cross. Genesis is on the, kind of the, the pre-flood side, right?

[51:32] Before judgment, before the ark. Well, we're on this side of the cross. And on this side of the cross, God looks and he sees Noah and he says, ah, Noah, by faith. By faith, Noah being warned of God, of things not seen as yet moved, of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house, by the which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness, which is by faith.

[51:57] Isn't that cool to realize that? I wonder if Noah realized that at one point. I become heir of the righteousness. Like, if God would entrust that to me.

[52:08] God's entrusted that to each of us. We are heirs of righteousness, which is by faith. But Noah was a just man. He was warned of God and he acted in faith. He had a lot of failures.

[52:19] One of them we're looking at here wasn't a perfect man. If you live 950 years and you're a sinner, whew, there's going to be a lot you can chalk up. But God looked at him and saw a life of faith.

[52:33] So Father, we thank you for your covenant, Lord. You've established it. It's unending. It's unchangeable. It cannot be corrupted. And what a perfect picture this month.

[52:44] The rainbow. It cannot be touched. Men of the earth, they think they can touch it. They can't. They can't reach out and touch it. They're so below it. And Lord, this world is so below your covenants, but they're also so in need of your covenants because it is your covenant which is still enacted today.

[53:04] Without Noah's covenant, the covenant that you gave to Noah, surely you would have overthrown the world again because of its sinfulness. But we still today live by the mercy and grace of that covenant.

[53:15] And we thank you, Jesus, that in you our covenant is secure. And so I pray that you would just minister to our hearts as we prepare to go back out into the world and to live as covenant people.

[53:26]  In Jesus' name, Amen.