Genesis 8:20-9:17

Hey, hey, good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome to Coffee and Devotions. This is where every day you and I, we get together. We have a little bit of coffee. We get into God's word and we grow in our love for the Lord together. And this year, 2023, Lord willing, nothing is guaranteed. We'll make it from the book of Genesis to the book of Leviticus. I'm so glad to be with you this morning. Why don't we have some coffee?

We'll pray and we'll get into God's word. Let's pray. Well, Father, we thank you so much for the great and rich blessing it is to get to come to your word. Father, we pray that as we read your word that you would bless us. Father, we pray that you would instruct our souls, turn us to yourself, teach us what it means to be your people.

Let us know the depth of your love and walk in your ways in Jesus' name. Amen. All right. So we are at Genesis. It's kind of an odd breakup, but it's the way that I think the scriptures roll. So we're going to go from Genesis chapter eight, verse 20, Genesis chapter eight, verse 20. And we'll go all the way through chapter nine, verse 17. So 820 through 917. Let's go ahead and read God's word. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

And the Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake. Although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, nor will I again destroy every living thing that as I have done. while the earth remains seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease." So God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, and on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea.

They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning. From the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man. From the hand of every man's brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds man blood, by man his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God he made man. And as for you, be fruitful and multiply. bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply in it.'

Then God spoke to Noah and to his sons with him, saying, And as for me, behold, I will establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you. And, with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth with you, of all that goes out of the ark, every beast of the earth, thus I will establish my covenant with you. Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."

And God said, This is the sign of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations. I set my rainbow in the cloud and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. It shall be when I bring a cloud over the earth that the rainbow 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. The waters shall never again become a flood to destroy flesh. The Rainbow shall be in the cloud.

And I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. And God said to Noah, this is the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.

Well, we need to ask ourselves, A, what's this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do in response to these words? So, A, what's this about? Noah is getting off the ark. He's been on there a long time. And the Lord is the one who starts the narrative here. The Lord comes into covenant with Noah. What's going to happen after they get out of the ark? What are the rules? What are their jobs? And how is God going to interact with people? Well, as we first come in here, we realize that the ark is done, right? It's this, verse 20 is this recap, right?

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and he took every clean animal and every clean bird and offered a burnt offering on the altar. And the Lord smelled the soothing aroma. So it's pretty remarkable isn't the first thing that Noah wants to do when he gets off the ark is to make an offering To bring animals to God and so that he can express both his thanks and confession. He brings us in as a sweet smelling, a soothing aroma to the Lord.

The Lord sees this sacrifice and we're taken back to able sacrifice. We realize, oh, there is still sin, but there is still there is to be thanksgiving as well. And here we have a window into God's own mind or heart. Verse 21, Then the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, though the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done." We hear from God himself what's going on in his heart. And as he smells the soothing aroma, as he sees Noah there making the sacrifice, There's a problem.

Sin still exists. Corruption is still there. Man is still sinful. Notice this is after the flood. After God has wiped out the vast majority of people. And yet Noah, for some reason, the Lord still says that the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. The flood didn't change anything. Noah was not a perfect man. Noah still had a sinful heart, but the Lord is gracious. And after this flood has wiped away the vast amount of humanity and creation.

The Lord says, OK, now we're going to do that again. And he promises the seasons. So every time we're just going to jump into I think I'm not going to separate actually about versus calling today every time. The seasons change. When it's winter right now. Do you look forward to the spring? Do you look forward to the time when you'll see the green grass, when you see the leaves come up again? Pardon me. Do you long for the days of summer when it'll be warm once again? We don't have that guarantee except for God's promise here.

Every time the seasons change, we ought to be reminded of God's graciousness, of his mercy, that he does not deal with us according to our transgressions, but he continues to bring about the seasons. While earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.

Every time you see a sunset, it is a declaration of God's mercy. Every time the sun rises in the east. We ought to be on our face thanking God. Because though our hearts are evil, the imagination of our hearts are evil from our youth. The Lord's mercy is new morning after morning. And so God blesses Noah in chapter nine, verse one. And he says to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

This is a duplication of the dominion mandate, right? He's okay. I don't know. Now, now humanity's gone. Now you got work to do, right? There's babies to be made. There's families to be built. There's, there's the earth to be filled. And so he's giving him the earth again.

And he says, And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, and on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea they are given into your hand. This is part of the dominion as well is that they are allowed to rule over the animals in the air, on the land and in the sea. And they're all given into Noah's hand. And here we also find the first time God commands or allows man to kill animals and eat them. This is of ongoing debate, whether before this people were allowed to eat animals or not. But here it's explicitly allowed. But just because everything has been given to them to eat. He says a few things here, right? They shall not eat that which has the life in it, that is its blood. They're not to be eating the blood of the animal. There are certain cultures even now that still eat blood broth or blood soup. I'm not a fan of these things.

This seems to be creation mandate, or not creation mandate, but Noah mandate. there's a whole lot of really good resources to wrestle with. And think about maybe next time you want to get that stick. Rare, rare, rare. I don't want to be legalistic here, but it's do we honor and recognize the reality of blood and of an animal dying and of the Lord's creation of those animals. But just because man is allowed to now kill animals and eat them does not it does not mean that man is allowed now to start killing each other. No, this is actually where we find before the Ten Commandments.

That at the hand of man, If you kill someone, God will require your own blood. This is capital punishment. Whoever sheds man blood by man, his blood shall be shed. For in the image of God, he made man. And as for you, be fruitful, multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply in it. God's desire, God's plan, what the Lord wants is for men to multiply, to go out, to fill the earth, to take dominion over it, not to start killing each other.

So he tells them this is capital punishment. If a man is to shed someone's blood, another man is to put him to death. There are raging debates in our country about the death penalty and whether it's moral or not. The Lord himself is the one who instituted capital punishment.

That doesn't mean we take these things gleefully or lightly. But what is the underlying purpose of it? The underlying reasoning of it is that man was made in the image of God, a reasonable soul with dignity and honor. And that to wipe out, to slaughter another person, is to defame God himself. Chaim Potok, in one of his novels he writes about, to kill a man is to kill all humanity. This is a Jewish philosopher and writer. And that's essentially what this is. It's an attack on the image of God. So the Lord says in this life, he's going to require that that person be put to death himself. It should give us pause and we should teach our children about the dignity of human beings and the sacredness of life.

And then God spoke to Noah. And He establishes a covenant with him. But it's not just a covenant with Noah. It's a covenant with every living thing. He says that this is going to be for him, for his descendants, for every living creature, birds, cattle, beasts, everything on the ark. And He's going to establish this covenant with him. He says, never again, verse 11, Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.

So the Lord makes this covenant with him for the perpetual generations is what verse 12 says. And then he gives a sign of that covenant. The Lord loves to make covenants and then give signs of that covenant. And verse 13, the sign of the covenant, 13 through 14 is the rainbow. Every time you see a rainbow, This is what the Lord did.

He created that to remind us of his mercy. I remember going to Hawaii and when Olivia was living there and we weren't married yet and I was going to go visit her as she was a nanny in Hawaii and I remember just driving around the island and I was amazed. I had never seen so many rainbows in my life and just being awestruck. Every one of these vibrant, colorful, amazing sites was a sign of God's mercy.

Every time you go out with your kids and you're playing with them in the sprinklers and you spray the water and you see the rainbow, this is a sign of God's covenant mercy. Every time we see water falling from the sky, we know that the prismatic effect that the water makes the Lord created to tell us that His mercy is new, even in this season of our life.

But notice in verse 15, yes, we see the covenant and we remember God's mercy, but it's also the Lord. When he puts that rainbow in the sky, verse 15, I will remember my covenant, which is between me and every living creature of all flesh. It's the Lord. It's the Lord who remembers his covenant. The Lord gives a visible sign of his grace. And he reminds himself. It's like, you know, in the old days when they used to tie a piece of string around their fingers to remember different things. This is the Lord reminding himself every time the rain is going.

I promise mercy. I promise mercy. I promised mercy. And what the Lord promises he does. He's good to his word. So what is this whole section about? This is the Lord showing mercy. to mankind, even after the flood, establishing a covenant and giving a sign of that covenant in the rainbow. What's the best verse to summarize this?

Well, in my Bible, I have underlined verse 21. And then I also have underlined verse 15. But if I might be pressed and I might underline 13 through 15 But i'm just telling you what I actually have underlined in my bible. What would you have underlined in your bible? Well, I told you we're going to skip over c calling i'm going to cheat maybe we'll just recap Do you take comfort in god's promise I'm going to encourage you do not take for granted his mercy cling to His promises, take comfort in His grace.

He is a merciful and loving God. And the sacrifice that we offer to Him now is a living sacrifice, that we present our bodies wholly and blameless before Him, and that we bring to Him the sacrifice of praise, the service of worship. Do you worship him for his holiness? Do you come to him and marvel at his grace? I pray you do this day and every day. Let's pray.

Father, you are great and merciful, powerful and mighty and gracious and kind. Lord, we thank you for the generosity and kindness you show to us. Father, we pray that you would please open our eyes to see your mercy every morning. Though our hearts are evil, you are a great God. Lord, we pray that you would turn us more and more to you. May we love you. In Jesus's name we pray. Amen. May the Lord bless you today. May you walk in the joy and peace that could only come from Jesus Christ. And I'll see you tomorrow. Bye.

Thanks for listening to this week's message from God's Word for You, a ministry of Sharon R.P. Church in rural southeast Iowa. We pray that the message would be used by God to transform your faith and your life this week. If you'd like to get more information about us, feel free to go to the website, SharonRPC.org. We'd love to invite you to worship with us. Our worship time is 10 a.m. every Sunday at 25204 160th Avenue. Morning Sun, Iowa, 52640. May God richly bless you this week.