Genesis 8:20–9:29

0:00 I've noticed over the years that one of my favorite things to do as a pastor is weddings. And I think one of the reasons that I like doing weddings, I mean there's a lot of fun that goes into a wedding, right? You got the flower girl and the little ring bearer and almost always something is going to go wrong with the flower girl and the ring bearer. They're going to do something or they're going to sprint down the aisle when they're supposed to walk. They're going to start crying. Something will go wrong. It's fun when that happens. There's the reception afterwards.

0:30 There's all kinds of fun that happens in a wedding. But I've figured out that I think one of the reasons, one of the main reasons that I like doing weddings is because it's one of the only times as a pastor that I am really and truly in charge of anything. I mean, when the bride, a lot of you were at Tim and Caroline's wedding just yesterday. And when the bride and groom, when I'm the guy that's doing it, I actually wasn't this time. But when the bride and groom are up here standing next to each other and I tell them to take the vows and he says I do and she says I do and, you know, they make the promises and all the rest.

1:06 At that moment right there, the control to change their world is in my hands. Because when I say those words now in the side of this company and all the rest of it, I pronounce you man and wife. When I say those words, reality for that couple changes forever. Right up until that moment, they can still get out of it. But when I say those words, that thing is well and truly done. I wasn't doing it yesterday for Tim and Caroline. That was Mark Jordan.

1:36 You did a great job at it, brother. Mark and I talked for about that long at the reception afterwards. He told me that was the first time that he had ever done the vows in a wedding. And I said to him, I said, it's fun, isn't it? And he said, yeah, I was really nervous. But yeah, it's fun. Mark, the reason it's so fun is because that's the first time in your life you've ever felt that kind of raw power. And it's good. Marriages are one of the only times, weddings, one of the only times in our lives that we sort of normally use the word covenant, right?

2:14 We talk about the covenant of marriage. On Tim and Caroline's bulletin yesterday, Order of Service, it said this is a celebration of the covenant being made of marriage between Tim and Caroline. It's a fairly normal time when we use the word covenant. That's about the only time we use that word. And yet, if you think about it just a little bit, our lives are essentially shaped by covenants. And we talk about a church covenant here at 3rd Avenue, if you're a member. But there's so many things, if you think about it, that are, in fact, covenants in your life.

2:46 Your mortgage is essentially a covenant between you and the bank. Your ownership of a car, if you're still paying for it anyway, is a covenant between you and another bank. The Constitution of the United States is essentially a covenant between the people of the United States and its government. Our lives are shaped in so many different ways by covenants, even when we don't recognize it. Well, what I want to talk to you about today is a covenant that is not, surprisingly, made between two people, but is made by one person and one person alone.

3:25 We're going to look at that in Genesis chapter 9. We're continuing a study of the book of Genesis that we've been in for a few weeks now. The last couple of weeks back into, say, chapter 6, we've been looking at the fairly long, you've probably noticed by now, story of Noah and the great flood, which is basically the story of God's judgment on the world for its rank wickedness in the wake of Adam's rebellion against God. So in chapter 7, we watched as the floodwaters crashed in from top and bottom on the earth, and the ark rose up high on the waves. Then in chapter 8, we looked at the floodwaters receding, and the ark finally coming to rest with Noah and his family safely inside, somewhere in the mountains of Ararat. And then at the very end, sort of, of chapter 8, where we left off last week anyway. After Noah had been in the ark for a full year by this time, God finally commanded him and his family to come out. And that's where we left off the story last time. Well, today what we're going to do, if you open up your Bible, if you're using this red pew Bible that you can find

4:26 there, you'll find the text for today on pages 6 and 7, that big chapter 9 there. We're actually going to be looking at the last little bit of chapter 8 there, so verses 20 through 22, just through the end of chapter 8, and then we're going to look at the whole section of chapter 9. As we read this in just a second, I want you to do something. I want you to not just listen to the story and let the words kind of roll over you and just enjoy kind of the action that's going on. I want you to listen actively and see if you can identify one or two words that get repeated over and over and over in this text, even sometimes obnoxiously repeated. It's just like it's said so much that by the end of it, you're just kind of thinking, you know, would you please stop saying that word? It's just too much. But I want you to notice that because once you get that word, it will help you right off the bat figure out what this chapter is really about and what the author really wants you to focus on. And my guess is, even before we read it, you can probably guess what that word is going to be at this point.

5:27 But let's read the text. Starting in Genesis chapter 8, verse 20. He's just come off the ark. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 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, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.

6:00 And God blessed 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.

6:34 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. Then God said to Noah and to 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 establish 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.

7:07 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 have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is 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.

7:40 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. The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan. These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed. Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father.

8:15 Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father's nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, he said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers. He also said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. After the flood, Noah lived 350 years. All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died. All right, so what's the word that gets repeated over and over and over again through this?

8:48 You probably picked it up really quickly. It's covenant, right? It's repeated, I think, eight times, mostly in that middle section of chapter 9 there. And ultimately, that's what this portion of the story is about. In fact, this little portion of the story solidifies what the whole thing, going all the way back to chapter 6, has been about since the very beginning. This story of Noah and the flood is about God's faithfulness to Noah and his determination to save him no matter what. And what I want you to understand from this is that that determination, this chapter finally sort of locks into place.

9:21 It's not arbitrary. It's not just based on a bare act of will that God could change in a moment. It's based on covenant. So far in the story, there have not been, there's not been a lot said about that. There have only been little hints of that reality. So back in 6 verse 18, chapter 6 verse 18, there's this statement that God is going to establish, which we'll talk about this later, but it really just means reestablish a covenant with Noah. And as a reader, you're kind of supposed to go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait a second. What do you mean you're going to reestablish a covenant?

9:53 This is the first time we've heard anything about covenant. So if we're reestablishing a covenant, where was the covenant that was established in the first place? And why does it have to be reestablished? That's what your mind is supposed to do when you understand what that word is. So that's one little hint in 618. I'm going to reestablish my covenant with you, Noah. Then in chapter 8, verse 1, if you remember from last week, right smack in the center of the story, there's that statement that God remembered Noah, which we understood last week is covenantal language. That word remembering is always used of God remembering a covenant and then acting to save the person that he's in covenant with.

10:30 But again, in chapter 8, verse 1, we don't know anything about a covenant. So we're left wondering, what is this all about? Here in chapter 9, though, it all becomes explicit. And it all becomes, I think, just as clear as day. God locks himself in the covenant with Noah. And not just Noah, but he's very clear about this. It's a covenant with the whole of creation, not to ever again destroy the earth by flood. All right, structurally, if you look at it, the story breaks down, I think, into three nice little parts or nice little movements.

11:06 So first, you've got that paragraph from 820 to 970. Where God promises not to destroy the earth, and then he gives some instructions to Noah that has a particular sort of meaning to it that we're going to talk about. Then in chapter 9, verses 8 to 17, God makes it clear that what he's really doing here is reestablishing, locking himself in covenant with the earth. So that's where all that language about covenant comes from. And finally, in 9, 18 through 29, so starting in verse 18, running down through the rest of the chapter, you've got the story of Noah's own sin, which is showing that even now, Even when God has started the whole project over with the most righteous man on the planet, the problem of sin is not yet solved.

11:50 In fact, it didn't take more than a few months probably before even this brand new Adam, Noah, proved that sin was still there. So here's the main idea. Given those two things, God's covenant with the earth and Noah's ongoing sin, showing you that sin still has its claws in humanity, here's the main idea. We have no hope. We have no hope in our sin except that God is determined to save. That's it. You and I, because of our sin, have no hope except that the God who made us is determined to save.

12:25 All right, I want to work through this text this morning in three points. We're going to look at more or less those three major sections. So point number one is God's promise. Point number two is God's covenant. And point number three is Noah's sin. Really, that's simple. God's promise, God's covenant, and then Noah's sin. So let's jump into it. Point number one, God's promise. So when we left off last week, God had just given the command to Noah to come off the ark, right? Take your family, take all the animals, everybody come off the ark.

12:55 It's been exactly 365 days since I shut you into it, but come off the ark now. You can see that up in chapter 8, like verses 13 to 19. And it's remarkable that as soon as that command is given, Noah goes off the ark and what is the very first thing that he does? Verse 20 of chapter 8, then immediately Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. It's extraordinary, isn't it? Noah's been cooped up on this ship for 365 days with the animals and all the stuff.

13:36 He hasn't seen dry land or hasn't been out on dry land anyway for a year. And the first thing he does when the door of the ark opens and they come out is worship the Lord. Very first thing, it's on the front of his mind to worship the Lord. I mean, think about that. There is so much to do, right? When you come off an ark after 365 days of nothing, There is so much that you want to do. You want to run over there and smell a flower. You want to go over here, grab a rock and see how far you can throw it.

14:09 You want to go sit under the shade of a tree or, you know, maybe just lay down in the dirt and go like this, right? Like dirt angels. Something. You want to lay down and kiss the ground. There's so much you want to do. You want to go find an apple tree or an olive tree. We know those were already blooming. You want to go do stuff. And yet, front of Noah's mind, top of his list, was none of that stuff except worshiping the Lord for bringing him through the flood. There's a good lesson in that, isn't there, for us. I mean, friends, I cannot even wake up in the morning without my mind being flooded by all the things I'm going to do today.

14:47 I got to look at my phone. I got to check the news. I got to get a cup of coffee. I got to look at my calendar for the day and figure things out. Are you the same way? I mean, if God has blessed you such that your first thought in the morning is, man, I have been brought through another night. When I was helpless, asleep, couldn't do anything for myself, God preserved me through the flood of the night, so to speak. If the first thing that comes into your mind is praise God for that, then, friend, you should thank God for making you that kind of a person.

15:22 That's God's grace to you. But if that's not what floods your mind, you may want to take Noah as an example here. You may want to ask God to cause your heart and mind to think of him, to remember him first in the morning. As soon as Noah came off the ark, top of his mind was to remember the Lord just as the Lord remembered him. And that's a good thing for Christians to cultivate. Well, in verses 21-22, you really get the heart of God's promise that kind of forms the core of this story.

15:54 It starts here as a promise, and eventually it's going to be made into a covenant when God reestablishes that covenant a little bit later. But look down at verses 21 and 22, what's said there. The basic content of 21 and 22 is that God promises never to strike down all life as he's just done in the flood. He's not going to do that again. So if Noah was worried coming off the ark, like, my goodness, in a few generations, if sin is still with us, And if my descendants become sinful, is this just going to be kind of the pattern that we have to go through every few generations?

16:27 That we get wicked and God judges us. We get wicked and God judges us. We get wicked and God judges us. And God's promise here is no, that's not going to be the pattern. I'm not going to do that again. Now, you notice there that he doesn't necessarily promise never to destroy the world again because that is going to happen at the last day. The world's going to be burned up and remade, sort of resurrected into the new heavens and new earth. But what he's saying is this isn't going to be a normal pattern. We're not going to have restarts over and over and over again with the wiping out of the human race.

16:58 Rather, he says, as long as the earth remains, you can see that little nuance there, as long as it's here, it's going to stay in its rhythm of regular days, regular years, regular seasons. So, several details about this that I want you to notice. For one thing, I want you to notice that God did not have to make this promise. He was under no obligation to promise to never again wipe out the entire human race except for a handful.

17:29 No obligation at all. In fact, he would have been well within his rights as creator and judge and king to say, no, Noah, that is going to be the pattern. You guys are going to spread around the earth for a little bit, and your wickedness is going to rise up just as bad as it did in the days before the flood, and I'm going to wipe you all out again. And then I'm going to do it again and then I'm going to do it again. Your existence on this earth is basically going to be miserable because I'm going to wipe you all out over and over and over again. He was well within his rights to do that and yet he doesn't. He just, all of his own accord, promises that he's not going to do that ever again.

18:02 That's the first thing. I want you to notice that he didn't have to do it and even that promise is an act of grace by God. Also, I want you to notice that God makes this promise knowing full well that human beings are still sinful and sin is still going to pervade the world. Look down at verse 21. Look what he says there. When the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man. And then you've got this sort of explanatory phrase there, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. What that's doing is just explaining a little bit more about what he means by because of man. So the way you ought to read that is when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground because of man, by which I mean because of the fact that every intention of his heart is evil from his youth.

18:58 So he's saying essentially, look, even though that's still true, sin still has its claws in human beings. Sin is going to prove to have its claws in Noah and his sons not too long from now. But even though the intentions of his heart are evil, I'm not going to wipe out life again because of that. It's really just an extraordinarily gracious response to all of this, isn't it? When you think about God as the king who's been rebelled against by his creatures, when you think about his creatures high-handedly saying, we don't want your authority over us, And then you think that he laid down the right to destroy them over and over again.

19:36 Even knowing that they're still evil, it's an extraordinarily gracious thing to do. Also, I want you to think about what an amazing thing it is. What a heavy thing it is for God to say that something will never happen again. Look at it. Verse 21. He smells the pleasing aroma and then he said in his heart, not saying it to Noah yet, but he says in his own heart, I will never again do this. It is an extraordinary thing for God to say never.

20:11 It is a weighty thing for God to say never. Friend, it's not very weighty for you and I to say never. That's why we have that cliche, never say never, right? Because you don't have the power or the authority to ensure that something is never ever going to happen again. You can't even have that kind of authority in your own life. You can look at your spouse and you can say that will never happen again, I promise, and yet you can almost take it to the bank that it will happen again because you're sinful. You don't have the authority, you don't have the power to ensure that something is never going to happen. Again, we just can't do it, but it's different with God. When God says that something will never happen again. We can know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it will never happen, which is glorious for us as Christians. Because do you know, do you know who in all the story of the Bible, of all the characters in the Bible, do you know who says the word never the most?

21:15 Jesus. Nobody else in all the Bible says never as often as Jesus. Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death. My sheep listen to my voice. I know them. They follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. I will never leave you or forsake you. Friends, those are glorious promises that you can stake your future and your life on because when the king of kings says never, he means it.

22:03 That's the heart of this promise here. God says, I'll never wipe out all life on the earth and we can take it to the bank that that is true. Well, in chapter 9 verses 1 to 7, you're still in this kind of promise sort of idea here. We're not to covenant yet, but in 9, 1 through 7, you've got God here giving Noah some instructions on what life is going to be like in this new post-flood world. He's just telling him, this is what life is going to be like for you. So you've got instructions there if you look down through it about animals and about food and even what to do when one human murders another human. But all of this kind of has a specific character to it that in the wording ought to be familiar to you.

22:47 If you've, you know, been along with us in Genesis for more than a few weeks, you're probably kind of getting used to this, that Moses, when he writes this, loves to use language that hearkens back to some other story that he's already told because he wants you to think about it in those terms. He does that literally all the time, right? We saw some of it last week in the way, you know, as the waters are receding, you actually get language from each of the six days of creation because, you know, the idea is that After God has decreated the world with the waters, now the world is being recreated as the waters recedes.

23:18 He does this kind of thing. And this kind of thing happens in chapter 9, verses 1 to 7. So look at verse 1. God says there, be fruitful and multiply. Verse 2, the animals are going to live in fear and dread of you. Verse 6, humans are created in God's image. Verse 7, be fruitful and multiply again. What does all that language remind you of? Yeah, with that language, be fruitful and multiply.

23:53 The animals will live in fear and dread of you. You're made in God's image. Be fruitful and multiply. All of that language is coming from Genesis 1 and 2. Moses is using the exact same language to make you remember what God said to Adam. So you see what he's doing here? essentially, now that the waters have receded in the six days of creation, have kind of recapitulated themselves, right? They've replayed through the receding of the waters. Now we're starting over. Noah is being declared here to be a new Adam. And so God here is restating the instructions that he gave to the first Adam. What do you notice about it? Think about what God said to Adam, the kinds of things that he said to Adam, and look at what he's saying to Noah, and what do you notice about what he's saying to Noah what's different it's reminiscent but it's not the same what's different about it I mean the the mandate's still there the language is still there but there's something wrong it's like it's like the instructions given to Adam have been shattered

24:57 now like something is slightly wrong with all of it so so look at verse 2 you still have this old idea from genesis 1 and 2 of of humans holding dominion over the animals right but now it's a dominion not of benevolent rule it's a domination of the animals based on fear and dread it's the same thing it's just shattered now it's under sin look at 5 and 6 you have the restatement that humans are created in god's image but now it's not a glorious declaration of the dignity of man Now it's in the context of establishing the principle of capital punishment in case one image bearer murders another one.

25:38 It's the same declaration. You're all made in the image of God, and yet it's shattered because it's in the context of protecting that against murder. And we don't have time to consider all the aspects and realities of capital punishment here. It's an endlessly complex topic to try to get into. But it is worth, right here in Genesis 9, it's worth seeing that in an evil, fallen world, God considers the lives of human beings to be paramount. He considers the lives of human beings to be paramount because we are created in his image.

26:15 Animals are not. You see the difference? Animals can and will be killed for food. But when the life of a human being is deliberately taken and destroyed, that life is so sacrosanct that God declares that the one who took that life is himself to be put to death. Now, that's not to say that this is sanctioning every imaginable form of capital punishment. Much less is it saying that a capital punishment that is unjust or uncareful or lazy in its pursuit of justice is okay.

26:51 And those are all questions that a society has to answer for itself. But it is to say, it is to say that God is here establishing the principle that capital punishment is right and just and even necessary when the life of an image bearer is taken. Now, why is that true? Why is that true? Well, it's because even now, even in this world we live in, after the fall, even after the flood, even now, despite all that's happened, the image of God in you and in me is still there.

27:27 It's broken. It's marred. It's messed up. It's shattered. But it is still present. I think one could say that one of Satan's main strategies in the United States of America for about the last 60 years has been to attack the reality that every single human being is made in the image of God. That has led to almost 100% of our problems as a society.

28:01 That we as a society are no longer convinced that the lives of human beings are paramount. We're no longer convinced that the lives of the unborn are made in the image of God, and so we kill them by the billions. Canada is no longer convinced that the lives of the old and infirm are still in the image of God, and therefore they offer them options for committing suicide. And if you think they're too far ahead of us on that, you're wrong. We as a society are convinced that human beings are really nothing more than educated animals.

28:40 And so Satan has been slowly digging out the heart of the nation. One of the greatest lessons that our society could relearn for itself is that you and I and every single human being you will encounter, no matter what their stage, no matter what their state, is made in the image of God and therefore is of paramount value. That's what God is teaching here. So you can see the point. This is essentially all of this together.

29:13 It's a restatement of what God gave to Adam, right? He gave him dominion. He said he's an image bearer. He told him to be fruitful and multiply. It's the same kind of instruction, but it's also different. It's also marred. It's also shattered. It's also broken. One more thing about this. There's one big component of the original mandate given to Adam, the original instructions given to Adam. There's one big component of it that is completely missing from what God says to Noah over here. What is it? It's the command to subdue the earth.

29:48 It's not there. The command to subdue the earth is not there in Noah. For Adam, the whole idea was that Adam was in a covenant with God, and God said, if you will do all these things, exercise dominion, be fruitful and multiply, if you will do all that, then eventually you will fill the earth, and there's a reward at the end of it, right? You will bring the earth into subjection under your benevolent dominion, and therefore under my good rule. That was the reward at the end. Had Adam done everything right, that's what would have happened. We would have just slid without a problem into the new heavens and new earth, basically.

30:21 The reward of the end of that work was that the world will be brought into subjection to you, Adam, and ultimately to me. Here there's no reward. Here there's no reward at the end of it. It's be fruitful, fill the earth, make sure that you bring justice on those who kill image bearers. You can eat the animals for food, but there's no subduing at the end of it. This is not a covenant of gold and glory. What God is giving to Noah looks like what was given to Adam, but it's not.

30:52 This is a mandate of iron and blood. It's God creating structures in human society, not for the purpose of going from one triumph to another until the world is brought into subjection to us and God. It's just of holding things together. It's just a mandate of holding things together in a world full of fallen, evil people. Now that's important for you to understand. It's important for us as Christians to understand, because recognizing this will save us from thinking in utopian terms about what we can accomplish as human beings.

31:26 If you think you're still under the instructions to Adam, what you're going to think is, my job here is, we call it the cultural mandate sometimes in theology. You're going to think that my job under the cultural mandate is to improve our neighborhoods and improve our societies and improve our country until we've brought the world into subjection to us. But friends, you're not under the Adamic mandate that was a covenant between God and Adam with a reward of subduing the earth at the end of it, and that is broken. It's in tatters.

31:57 It no longer exists except when the last Adam comes and picks it up and brings the world into subjection. But that's his job, not ours. We live under the Adamic, or sorry, the Noahic, the one with Noah mandate of iron and blood. We live in a broken, fallen world. And our great hope as Christians is not that we'll finally get the world to some utopian place. Our great hope is for the last day when our king is going to come and do what Adam failed to do and sets it all right.

32:38 And God's promise, in the meantime, is that he won't destroy it again until that day. But still, how do we know he'll keep that promise? Well, that's point number two, God's covenant. God's covenant. At the end of verse 7, everything God has said here is just kind of in the form of bare statements from God, right? He hasn't even really told his promise to Noah yet. He just said it in his heart. But starting in verse 8, the stakes rise considerably because God takes those statements that I'm never going to destroy the world by flood.

33:10 This will not be the pattern that we have to go through throughout history. He takes that promise and puts it in the form of a covenant. In fact, you look down throughout this paragraph in verses 8 through 17, he uses the word covenant eight different times. Now, to understand what's going on here and why this one is so really extraordinary, you've got to understand a little bit about what covenants are. It's not a difficult thing. Like I said in the introduction, your life is, whether you recognize it or not, shaped by covenants in all kinds of ways. A covenant, just to define it really quickly, a covenant is a set of promises publicly bound by an oath.

33:48 It's a set of promises that are made and then publicly bound by an oath. So that's what happens in a marriage, right, at a wedding ceremony. You have two people. They both make promises. They both make those promises in front of a congregation that's there. And they make those promises under an oath to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, right? I do in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen, right? Also, just by the way, just a little, you know, free application here. Here you go. When you go to a wedding and you sit in that ceremony and watch those vows being made, you are not just there as a celebration.

34:26 You are not just there to celebrate and have a party with the people who are getting married. You are there in an official capacity as a witness to the covenant. It's got to be public. You are the public when you go to a wedding like that. You're a witness. That's why I just, again, by the way, eloping isn't an option. If you elope, you're not really married because there's been no public oath. There have been no vows. There have been no witnesses. There's been no ceremony of any kind. It's not a covenant, at least biblically speaking.

35:00 But there's something, once you kind of understand what it is, it's a set of promises bound by oath. There's something important to see about covenants. Covenants can be made by multiple people, like a wedding or a church covenant, right? We all look at each other and we make these promises, and that's a church covenant. Bride and groom look at each other, they make these promises, right? It can be made between multiple people. Covenants can also be made unilaterally by a single person binding himself by oath to a promise. And what I want you to see here is that that is exactly what God does.

35:34 So look down. I want to give you three reasons for why this is a covenant that God makes unilaterally. Look at how God refers to this covenant in verse 8, verse 11, and verse 15. 8, 11, and 15. Look at how he refers to it. He says that it is my covenant. This is not our covenant that we are establishing over and over again. It's my covenant that I am establishing with you.

36:06 It's a unilateral action by God. Here's another reason. Look in verse 8. See that word establish there? It's an interesting word. I've already kind of alluded to it, but it's interesting because that's not the usual word that the Bible will use when it's talking about a new covenant being made. Normally, when a new covenant is being made, whether it's a covenant with Abraham or David or whoever, this is kind of theological talk, but it won't last long. When a new covenant is being made, you don't use the word establish, you use the word cut.

36:37 I'm going to cut a covenant. It has to do with cutting the animals in half and the curses and all the rest of it. That's the word you'll use. When you use a word like establish, what it means is reestablish. You reestablish a covenant that was already made. Okay, so then if God is reestablishing a covenant with Noah to not destroy the world and all the rest of it, he's reestablishing that. Well, when was the covenant made in the first place? Well, it was with Adam.

37:10 It was with Adam. In the Garden of Eden, I think the best way to think about what's going on there is that you have a covenant, and it's a mutual covenant. You have, on the one hand, Adam's responsibilities and the reward that comes at the end of them, right? That's what you've got. You've got, if Adam will fill the earth and multiply and all the rest of it, the end of that whole thing is going to be that the earth becomes subdued to him and ultimately to God. That's the great reward. The new heavens and the new earth. That part of the covenant got shattered. And the result was that part of God's responsibility in the covenant was to bring judgment on Adam because of that.

37:46 In the day that you eat of this, you will surely die. So that covenant in the garden, Adam will do this and God will give a reward or punishment is in tatters at the end of Genesis chapter 3. Because Adam broke it and the judgment came and the flood is part of that. Okay, so what's being reestablished? What's being reestablished? What you need to see here is that God is now, without Adam doing anything or Noah doing anything, God is just picking up his part of the covenant and saying, you know what?

38:16 even though you guys messed that up, even though that part of the covenant is broken, even though you betrayed me and rebelled against me. I'm going to unilaterally pick up my end of that covenant and reestablish it with you, Noah. I'm going to do my part, even though you didn't do yours. I'm going to reestablish this covenant, even though you broke it. Here's the third thing that shows us it's unilateral. Even the sign of the covenant here speaks to this reality. So just from the description of the sign, and look down at 13 to 15.

38:51 13 to 15, you have this description of the sign of the covenant, right? That God is going to see and remember what he's promised. And you can tell just from the description of it that it's what we call a rainbow, right? That's what it is. But what's interesting is that in Hebrew, there's no word for rainbow. And we have a specialized word for it, right? That's a rainbow, right? There is no such word in Hebrew. That word in 13 and 14, bow, is just the regular word for the weapon that we call bow and arrow.

39:24 It's just the word for the weapon. So people have seen all kinds of symbolism in this. And if you think about it, you can see it very clearly. When God says that he's going to set his bow in the clouds, that is the same exact kind of thing that a warrior might say when his battle is done. I'm going to set my bow down. I'm going to set it in the closet. and I'm going to set it on the wall because my battle is over. So what God is saying here is that he's laying down his weapons of war against humans. He's no longer going to go to war against people as he just has in the flood.

39:57 That's not going to be the pattern anymore. I'm setting down my bow. Also, think about the shape of a bow and arrow. And think about the shape of a rainbow, right? So a bow and arrow, right, it's got just this big, this curved part, right? And you grab the curved part, and then you pull back on the string, right? And which way does the arrow shoot? It sort of shoots through the curved part, right, or along the curved part. So if you imagine a rainbow as a weapon of war, which direction is the arrow pointed?

40:33 It's not pointed at the earth. If that bow ever fires again, it's going to go upward right into the heart of God. I mean, it's cloudy, right? It's misty, but you can already see the contours of the gospel of Jesus Christ starting to be formed here. God's judgment, he's indicating it's going to get a lot more clear in the rest of the Bible, but he's already indicating that judgment is going to fall on him next time, not on us.

41:04 And he does this unilaterally. Friends, that's critical to see. The initiative here to establish this covenant, to reestablish this covenant, is all of God. And he proves it in all the different ways that he talks about. This is my covenant that I will establish. I'm picking up my part and reestablishing it with you, even though yours is still broken. And then he puts the bow in the clouds with the arrow pointing up and says, I will remember this covenant. It's all unilateral. Noah doesn't have anything to do with it.

41:37 He's a spectator. He's just a beneficiary of what God himself decides to do. He didn't even have to make any promises back to God. God just says, I am going to do this. We've had occasion to talk about this a few times over the last few weeks. But, friends, the covenant that you are in with God as a Christian is also 100% God's initiative. Listen, when you get to heaven and somebody asks you the question, I don't know if this will actually happen, but if somebody asks you the question, hey, how'd you get here?

42:12 Why are you here? If your answer to that question begins with, well, I, you're answering badly. Your answer to that question, why are you here in heaven? Why are you here in the new heavens and the new earth? Your answer to that question needs to be because God did it. It's not a cooperation between you and God. It's not a synergy between you and God. It's unilaterally his work to pluck you out of death and make you alive.

42:49 And all of this, all of this is in spite of the fact that God knows exactly what's coming next. Point number three, Noah's sin. So at the end of verse 17, everything is looking good, right? You get to the end of 17, it's all cool. Noah and his family have survived the flood. They've come out of the ark. God has put himself in a unilateral covenant with the earth, never to destroy it by flood again. He's put his bow in the clouds because his warfare is ended.

43:20 But even so, there have already at this point been some signals. There have been some hints that all is not entirely well. And you've noticed those, right? They've kind of been scattered throughout these paragraphs. There's the fact, first of all, that death apparently is now going to be a regular and close part of human life. Humans are going to kill animals for food. And as a result, the animals are going to live in fear and dread of humans. That's nothing like the Garden of Eden. All is not back to Edenic perfection.

43:52 And there's also, obviously, the establishment of capital punishment for taking the life of a fellow image bearer. which implies that murder is going to be a feature of this new post-flood world. And then in 920, it's said that Noah became a man of the soil. Now, what does that mean? Noah became a man of the soil. And why is it ominous? Well, the ESV over-translates a little bit what's actually said there.

44:26 Because I think what it's doing is trying to get you to think that there's really nothing more going on here than that Noah became a farmer, right? It's just information. Noah became a farmer, he became a tenderer of vines, and eventually he made some wine, right? But there's more to that phrase than that. When it says that Noah became a man of the soil, it's not just telling you that he became a farmer and a worker of vines. What it actually says there is that Noah became a man of the Adama. The earth, or to put it a different way, the dust.

45:02 He became a man of the dust. Now what does that remind you of? What does that remind you of? It reminds you of God saying to Adam, you are dust, and to dust you shall return. And now Moses is saying, you know who else is a man of dust? Noah. The most righteous person on the face of the earth, the second Adam that God is starting the whole human race over with, is still a man of the dust. just like Adam, just like all of us. Well, what happens next is that the next few verses work that out.

45:38 It's been stated that Noah's a man of the dust. He's a man of the earth, just like Adam, just like us. To dust he's going to return. Sin is still in him, and that's what begins to work out over the next few verses. So look first at verse 21. He began to be a man of the dust, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. Now, people have tried all kinds of sort of thought experiments to make Noah less guilty for this than he actually is.

46:09 So, for example, they've said, well, maybe in the post-flood world, when the firmament of water has come down and all the rest of it, maybe the atmosphere changed. Maybe there was more oxygen or less oxygen in the air than there used to be. And so it was just a lot easier to get drunk, and Noah was caught off guard. He drank the normal amount of wine that would not get him drunk, but it got him drunk anyway because of the new atmosphere. So he's not guilty. Other people have said, no, the fault here seems to be really with Ham, not Noah. Noah didn't really do anything that wrong. It's Ham that comes in and sees him in his nakedness, and he's the one that the text is really focused on.

46:40 But none of those explanations really work. None of those attempts to sort of maintain Noah's innocence as a hero of the Bible. They don't really work, and they miss the point anyway. These are different circumstances. here with Noah. But when you read this story, you're supposed to yet again see resonances with Adam's sin. So it's not that hard if you think about it. What essentially does Noah do? Noah partakes of some fruit and he winds up naked, exposed, and guilty.

47:18 Same thing that Adam did. He part took of some fruit and he wound up naked, exposed, and guilty. And the point of it is that sin has still got its claws in the human heart. Look, if you're going to insist on making Noah a hero of the Bible with no flaws at all, if you're going to say, oh, the atmosphere changed him, he wasn't really guilty, Ham was guilty, you're missing the point. The whole point is that even after God has started over, sin is deep. Which is to say, friend, that your problem with sin, your problem with your rebellion against God is not a small one.

47:55 You're not going to be able to get rid of it in any way whatsoever. You're not going to be able to get rid of sin in the human race. You're not going to be able to get rid of sin in your own heart. God has to do that through Christ and through the work of the Holy Spirit. Look, maybe today you've just now become aware. My goodness, I'm part of this human race. I'm a sinner. And your thought is, well, I got to do this and I got to do that to try to solve it. I have to quit doing those things and start doing these things. And I'll just turn over a new leaf and I'll be better.

48:28 Friend, you might as well be saying, I have cancer deep in my body and I'm going to take a shower to get rid of it. It doesn't work like that. If you're going to be saved from your sin, it's got to be because God himself, by the power of his word and spirit, reaches into your heart and brings you to life. And then glorifies you at the last day. It's not a small problem.

49:02 You need a savior. You need Christ. If you're seeing your sin. Next couple of verses show us really two different responses to sin. So look first at verse 22. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Now look at 23. That's one response to seeing Noah's sin. Here's another one, 23. Shem and Japheth took a garment.

49:33 It actually says the garment. They took the garment. So probably what happened even is that Ham exacerbated his father's nakedness by even bringing his clothes out to say to his brothers, look at this. And they took the garment and then they did what they did. Laid it on both their shoulders and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward and they did not see their father's nakedness. Then in the next few verses, Noah wakes up, realized what's happened, and he curses the descendants of Ham, right? That's why Canaan gets brought into this, because when a curse falls, it falls on descendants.

50:06 It falls on an entire line, and he blesses those of Shem and Japheth because of what they did. What did they do? What's the difference between what the two of them did? Well, think about it. Ham's response to seeing sin in this new post-flood world, the thing that he does when he sees it, when he sees his father's guilt and exposure and nakedness, is really to think not much about it at all, except probably that it's funny. That's probably what he does. He mocks his father. When he goes out in 22 and tells his brothers, it's probably with, go look at that.

50:41 He's got no sense of sin. He makes very little of it. He has no shame. He's got no sense that this is something to be avoided and ashamed of. Shem and Japheth are different. They understand that sin is something to be ashamed of. And so they cover their father's nakedness, much like Adam and Eve covered their own nakedness. They understood that sin was wrong. Friends, that's a mirror for you to look into. When you see sin in others or in yourself, how do you respond?

51:18 And does your heart respond kind of like hams did? This really doesn't matter. And in fact, I think it's kind of funny. It's entertaining. Or does your heart recoil from sin like Shem's and Japheth's did? I love that old quote by some Puritan, I forget which one it was. But he said, look, the difference between a non-Christian man and a Christian man is not that the one continues sinning and the other does not.

51:50 The difference between a non-Christian man and a Christian man is that the one takes the side of his sin against his God and the other takes the side of his God against his sin. It's incredibly insightful, isn't it? When you see sin, what happens? What happens? Do you take the side of sin and say, this is no big deal. This is even funny. This deserves just to be mocked and maybe even defend it against God. Or when you see sin, do you take God's side and say, no, that's evil.

52:23 That's wrong and shameful and to be avoided. That's the difference. Maybe this is the first time in your life that your heart's kind of woken up and you've noticed that you're a sinner and you're a rebel against God. Friend, if that's true, then what you need to do is take the side of God against your sin. And what does God tell you to do? Go to Jesus, run to Jesus, put your faith in him and be forgiven.

52:59 Let's pray. Our Lord, we thank you and honor you today because you are the great forgiver of sins. You are the one who has put yourself in covenant with us to save us and to bring us safely into the new heavens and the new earth. Oh God, we pray that you would take these truths and these realities that we've seen in Genesis chapter 9 and apply them to our hearts. Help us to see them and exult in them. To know that you are a God who unilaterally acts to save people who are dead in their sins.

53:35 Oh God, we pray that you would help us to see that in all of its glory, in all of its clarity, and help us to live in its light. We pray that in Jesus' name. Amen.