This morning in our reading, we read in the book of Job chapter
36 and chapter 37. I hope you will go
home and in the course of this week, read those wonderful verses
again. But now I'd ask you to turn in
the book of Genesis to the 8th chapter. Genesis 8. And I'll begin reading
in verse 15. The flood that God had promised
had come. The deliverance that he had promised
Noah and his family through that flood had been accomplished. Now the ark has come to rest
on dry ground. And verse 15 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. Bring forth with thee
every living thing that is with thee of all flesh, both of fowl
and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth, and be fruitful
and multiply upon the earth. And Noah went forth, and his
sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him. Every beast,
every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth
upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark. And Noah built an altar unto
the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl,
and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled
a sweet savour. And the Lord said in his heart,
I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake. For the imagination of man's
heart is evil from his youth, Neither will I again smite any
more every living thing as I have done. While the earth remaineth,
seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter,
and day and night shall not cease." The farther I go, and as long
as I am a witness to this world, I am convinced that at the heart
of all of the natural man's thinking, at the heart of it all, as it
manifests itself in the social, and in the scientific world is
rebellion and defiance against God and His sovereign rule. Just about everything you hear
and just about everything that is taught has at the center of
it This rebellion against God. And the Scriptures tell us that
the natural man receives not, cannot receive, will not receive
the things of God. And Paul, the apostle, expresses
it like this. He says, the carnal mind is enmity
against God. And he makes in his epistle a
reference to what he calls oppositions of science. or oppositions of
knowledge falsely so called. You see, men seek to disprove
the Bible by what they call scientific knowledge. But the only true
knowledge is the knowledge we find in the
Bible, which must be revealed to men by the Spirit of God. The apostles all spoke of the
Lord's people knowing some things. We know some things. We have some true knowledge. But it's not natural to us. It's
a knowledge given by God's grace, a knowledge based on His Word
and revealed by the Spirit of Truth. And man naturally rebels
against the knowledge and truth of God, because in our day, most
ascribe to the theory of evolution. They believe, not because of
evidence, but because they want to, that man evolved rather than
being created by God. Why do they do that? Because
if it is, and it is as God says in the first verse of this book,
in the beginning, God created the heavens, the earth, and then
went on to create man. And if God created us, that means
we belong to Him. And it means we're responsible
to Him and that He rules over us. And not only that, but things
like the current acceptance and a refusal to accept such things
is to fly in the face of modern thought and modern social acceptance. Things such as homosexuality. Things like men and women becoming
what they call transgender. At the heart of that is simply
a rebellion against God and the fact that male and female created
He them. That's just the way it is. And
not only that, but rebellion against God is manifested on
every hand with lies replacing truth, and especially as we find
it in religion in our day, which has abandoned the Scriptures. as our only rule of faith and
practice. It's generally taught, it's generally
preached, it's generally believed in our day that men and women
have a free will, they call it. But rebellion is what is at the
root of even such things as that. Just like the Jews said of Christ,
we will not have this man to rule over us. It doesn't matter
that the Bible has nothing to say about our having a free will,
but has everything to say about things being based on God's will. Free will is simply that old
defiance that was found first in Satan himself when he said,
I will be as the Most High. And just like all of us, all
of mankind, what we will be doesn't determine what we will be. He said, I will be, but He never
will be. And He never was. But there's
one thing, and this has been on my mind for quite a while,
there's one thing that is almost daily in the news. And they call it global warming. As a matter of fact, they had
a big conference, a big worldwide conference not very long ago,
in which most of the leaders in the world, they all got together
and they agreed on it. When will mankind learn? That no matter how many get together
and agree on it, that does not make it true. That does not make
it right. And the sad thing is, all of
these things, they create an environment and an atmosphere
in which all of our young people are growing up. Is it any wonder
that they are so full of despair? Is it any wonder that they are
abandoned to do anything that they would? Is it any wonder
that they grow up without any kind of hope in the face of so
many false notions and such defiance against God and His truth? And this goes on because men
by nature rather believe man than to believe God. And their lives, they go on just
like in this matter of global warming, they grow on and they
become so blatantly obvious that they have to kind of back up
and call it now climate change. Hello? Is climate change something new? Well, the history of the world
shows that the climate has changed many times. Many times. More than you and I will ever
understand. And that it has constantly changed
over all the years of this earth in various cycles. Just change,
change, change, change. And more than that, It changes
four times every year. You ever think about that? Four
times every year it changes, the climate changes, and it does
so because that's the way God said it would be. That's exactly
the way He said it would be. Distinct seasons. Distinct seasons. all the days of the earth." That's
what I call this, all the days of the earth. Because that is
basically what is being said here in this 22nd verse. of Genesis
8, when God is speaking, and He is speaking in light of what
He has just brought to pass at what has taken place on this
earth, the most cataclysmic event of all history in the natural
realm, a worldwide flood whereby everything was destroyed except
that which was in the ark." And so in that 22nd verse, he
says, while the earth remains, or as it kind of literally is,
all the days of the earth, not just Noah's day, not just in
the Old Testament days, but also in the New Testament days, and
all the days of our world history, and even to this day and beyond. All the days of the earth. Seed
time, and harvest, and cold, and heat, and summer, and winter,
and day, and night, shall not cease." Did you hear that? On the one hand over here, or
I should say all around here in this world, are all of these
voices, learned voices. Most of which, by the way, get
a profit from saying this. They're saying, this is going
to cease. That's going to cease, but here's the Lord God our Creator,
and He says it shall not cease. They shall not cease. And you see, this was a part
of God's covenant pledge concerning this earth and His promise that
He would never destroy it again by flood. I'll tell you, there
have been a few times lately With all the rain we've gotten,
you could almost begin to wonder. But when he spoke these words,
a worldwide flood had just taken place that he had brought about. You see, man has a short attention
span. And you and I, we've just kind
of gone through this period of time in which it just was so
warm and so rainy and so everything. How was it this morning, January
the 3rd? It wasn't raining, was it? It was clear, wasn't it? It was cold, wasn't it? Just like he said it would be. You see, God gave this promise
in connection with this covenant promise that He made to Noah,
and if the promise fails, everything's off. But more so, if this isn't
what happens, then God lied, and it's really all off. But the thing of it is, what
I want us to see, is that this covenant that he makes with Noah
is representative of the everlasting covenant. And not only that,
but oftentimes in Scripture, Even more than he's talking about
in the natural realm, he uses these very things to assure his
people and remind them of those promises in the everlasting covenant. There's an everlasting covenant. And it doesn't have so much to
do with rain or cold or climate or any of these things. It has
to do with the salvation of His people. It has to do with His
grace. It has to do with Christ. You
see, Christ is the one that's typified in His salvation through
the ark by which Noah and his family were safely delivered. And it's that one which is represented
when Noah takes of those very clean animals, the only ones
left in the world, and he slays them and offers them a sacrifice
to God. Somebody said, what a waste of
good, nearly extinct animals. No. If he had slayed every one
of them, had God wanted to, He could have created a million
more of them. But all these things show the basis of this promise. All these things have to do with
what God does spiritually to that people that are in Christ. And time and recorded history
have stamped the seal of truth on this for thousands of years. And what men and women do, They
say on the one hand that the earth is all this long length
in its making, and yet over here they isolate
a little piece of history that they have record of, and they
say this, well if it's been like this for this little teensy-tiny
period of time, we've got record. that it must have been this way
all that time. But what they don't want to own
up to is that what God says in verse
22, all of history, all of time on this earth, has stamped the seal to what
God says. It's true. It's true. It's been just like He said it
would be. And it will be just like He said
it will be. And God's promise to this man
Noah and his family, did it prove true to them? Have these seasons changed and
continued for all these many years since that time? You see, rather than trying to
figure out how many years this has been, we can just know this
and rest in it. It's been just like God said
it would be. If it was 4,000 years ago, If it was 400 years ago, seed
time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night,
it has not ceased. And so will all God's promises in the everlasting covenant. So will all of God's promises
in the covenant of grace which is altogether in Christ." This
is the way the Apostle stated it. He said, for all the promises. That was a promise God gave to
Noah and his family. More than that, it was a promise
to his people. Yeah, even to all people. But here it says, "...all the
promises of God in Him," that is, in Christ, "...are yea, and
in Him, Amen, unto the glory of God by us." You see, the truth
of the gospel doesn't really have to do with all these external
things, even to climate. But all these external things
bear witness, though man be blind and not see it, to the truth
of those covenant promises." All the promises of God in Christ
are yes and amen to God's glory by us. In other words, God, is
getting glory and shall get all the glory in a demonstration
of His faithfulness to His promises that He has made to us, those
who are in Christ Jesus. And all God's promises to His
covenant people in Christ, they are sure. And these obvious season
changes are just simply a testament to them, a witness to God's faithfulness. Now, let me say this. True faith believes God without
any outward signs in the earth. But even as we believe the promises
of God to our souls in the Lord Jesus Christ, all the creation
around us says, Amen, Amen, Amen. I read an article of a man by
the name of Charles Pierce. who lived in Philadelphia. When he lived there, George Washington
was, I think, in his days as the president, 1790. And he was, I'm sure, a kind
of a remarkable man because for many years he kept a daily record
of the temperatures in Philadelphia. This is what he said about January
1790. He said, the average or medium
temperature of this month was 44 degrees. This is the mildest
month of January on record. Fogs prevailed very much in the
morning, But a hot sun soon dispersed them, and the mercury often ran
up to 70 in the shade at midday." Boys were often seen swimming
in the Delaware and Shukla rivers. There were frequent showers as
in April, some of which were accompanied by thunder and lightning.
But the uncommon mildness of the weather continued until the
7th of February. 1790. And when you go farther and you
compare that temperature in that day to January in a year like
2009, that's not all that far back is it? With an average temperature of
27. Where's your logic? Where's your logic? The truth
of the matter is, the climate does change. But the even greater
truth is, man doesn't change it, God does. And the fact that
He has tied His covenant promises to even that which takes place
in the natural realm, He's going to make sure. He's going to make
sure that the very things that He has set up in His creation
to show as a witness to that fact and that promise, He's going
to make sure that they're always there. In Isaiah 54, this is what he
says, "'For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed,
but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the
covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy
on thee.'" He said, as long as you look out there and you see
that the climate changes, that we have all these things. Let
it be a reminder to you that those covenant promises that
He makes to you as a believer, they are always yea, and amen,
and true, and they will never fail. Because He'll never fail. He'll never fail. And the amazing
thing is, these things continue even in spite of man's rebellion. And what a witness that is to
the mercies of God in Christ, which depend on His faithfulness,
on His blood, on His righteousness, and not ours. Isn't it amazing? that as unbelieving men and women,
claiming knowledge that reveals nothing but ignorance, even as
they do this and cry out against God and show this defiance and
rebellion, even as they do that, His mercies continue. Why? Because He has a people. And
the living God has pledged Himself. All the divine persons of the
Godhead, they've pledged themselves to the faithful salvation and
deliverance of His elect. Absolutely. And that means that
climate control, just like covenant control, is in the hands of God. He still sits in the heavens,
laughs at the foolishness of men, forbears all of their claims
and their rebellion, and He abides faithful that He might do so
to His people. Turn over to Jeremiah chapter
31. Jeremiah chapter 31. Look down
at verse 35. I'm telling you this is the language
of the Bible. Jeremiah 31 and verse 35, it
says, "...Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light
by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for
a light by night, which divideth the seas when the waves thereof
roar, the LORD of hosts is His name." He says, if those ordinances
depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel
also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. He's talking about spiritual
Israel. And he said, if you see these
things that I've established, which demonstrate not only my
sovereignty as a creator, but as the sustainer. If you see
them cease, then the seed of Israel also
shall cease from being a nation before me forever." You see,
this is that one nation before God. That holy nation the Apostle
Peter talks about. That spiritual Israel that Paul
describes again and again, saying, they are not all Israel, that
are of Israel. He said, if you don't see these
things, they don't carry on, then that nation, the seed of
Israel, will cease to be such before me forever. Look over
in chapter 33 of Jeremiah. chapter 33 and verse 19. And the word of the Lord came
unto Jeremiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord, If you can break my
covenant of the day and my covenant of the night, and that there
should not be day and night in their season, Then may also my
covenant be broken with David my servant, that he should not
have a son to reign upon his throne, and with the Levites
the priests my ministers." He's talking about that greater than
David here. David's son and David's Lord. And he said, if you can do this,
if you can break my covenant with the day and of the night,
All of which is so closely connected to all the weather and things
such as that. If you can break that covenant,
then my covenant with my servant David is no good. He's talking about the covenant
made with David's son and David's Lord, which is none other than
Christ. Turn back to Psalm 74. Psalm 74. Look down in verse
16. Psalm 74. He says, "...the day
is Thine, the night also is Thine. Thou hast prepared the light
and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders
of the earth." All the borders of the earth. You see, man can't
ascribe that to God apart from grace. That God has set all the
borders. He set the day of our lives so
that we cannot pass beyond that. He set all the borders of the
earth, and thou hast made summer and winter. They say, well, if
it keeps on, it'll be just summer all the time. Oh no, it won't.
Because God, set the border, and He made summer and winter."
Look over in Psalm 89. Psalm 89 at verse 27. All of this has to do with Christ. In other words, all these covenant
promises in this everlasting covenant, they're all connected
to The Lord Jesus Christ. So the psalmist is led to write
in Psalm 89 and verse 27, "...also I will make Him my firstborn
higher than the kings of the earth." Who has to be talking
there? God Himself. Who is He talking
about? The Lord Jesus Christ who is
the King of kings. My mercy I will keep for him
forever, and my covenant shall stand fast with him. His seed
also will I make to endure forever, and his throne as the days of
heaven, if his children forsake my law." and walk not in my judgments? If they break my statues and
keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression
with the rod and their iniquity with stripes? I'll chase them
there. Nevertheless, my loving kindness,
will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness
to fail? My covenant will I not break,
nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips? Once have I sworn
by my holiness that I will not lie unto David. His seed shall
endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall
be established forever as the moon, and as a faithful witness
in heaven." You see, Christ, though everything
else change, He's unchangeable. Somebody said, well, preacher,
seems like to me you put your eggs all in one basket. That's
absolutely right. Absolutely right. all of my hope
of the forgiveness of my sins, all of my prospect for eternal
glory, all in the Lord Jesus Christ." Because he said, I've
made a covenant to my servant's seed. You see, God made a covenant. The everlasting covenant is that
covenant within the Godhead. And although it includes us,
It doesn't depend on us. He said, I'll not lie unto David.
His seed shall endure forever in his throne as the sun before
me. It shall be established forever
as the moon all the days of the earth. And as a faithful witness in
heaven. There's two things. that these things are a reminder
of. Number one, God is faithful. And number two, God is truthful. Where are all the foolish men
and women and their oppositions of science falsely so-called
for the last hundred years prior and the last hundred years before
that and the last hundred years before that? Where are they now? But when I got up this morning,
the sun still came up. And I'll guarantee the moon will
still shine tonight. And just like we've experienced
in the last few days, although it seemed to be, as we say, unseasonably
warm, it didn't last, did it? Had to put on coats this morning,
turn on the heater, do all these things. And if it continues like
this, sometime about the end of February, we're thinking to
ourselves, boy, this is the coldest time I ever remember. Just like
it is where we live. You may get up the next morning,
it may be 65 or 70. All these things show the faithfulness
of God. Because it's all in Christ. Not dependent on us, but on Him,
because He's the angel and the messenger of the covenant. Did
you notice, before God made this announcement to Noah, He'd already
delivered him. He'd already, in a picture, saved
His people. He had already revealed to them
the one way He could be worshipped, all of these things pointing
to Christ, the ark being a type of Christ, the judgment of God
falling on it so that it did not fall on Noah and his family,
those animals, the clean ones sacrificed, their blood shed
as a burnt offering to God. On that basis, God said, I'm
going to promise you something. This world will never again be
destroyed by a flood. And as long as the world stands,
there will be cold and heat, winter and summer, seed time
and harvest, night and day, they shall never cease. And in this covenant, this everlasting
covenant of grace, God has taken a people from among men, and
it says He blessed them with all spiritual blessings in Christ,
and assured them of the free and full forgiveness of their
sin through Christ's justice-satisfying blood. And so several times in
the Scripture, God says of that, chosen appointed stone that He
lays in Zion. He said, whosoever believes in
Him, rests only on Him. They'll never be ashamed. They'll
never be disappointed. They'll never be confounded,
I believe it is, in one place. Because He has based this covenant
and all these promises on satisfied justice in the matter of our
sin. If he didn't pardon, if he didn't
set free, if he didn't give full forgiveness, if he didn't take
to heaven these that Christ died for, well, maybe the sun would fall
out of the sky. Maybe it would be sub-zero in
July. But because He won't, it won't. It absolutely won't. And all the promises of life,
all the promise of an eternal inheritance, all the gift of
a righteousness that He imputes to us of the Lord Jesus Christ,
all these things are sure. And even the seasons, and the
sun and the moon, and even the tides bear witness to it." That's
what he says. He said, I've set the bounds.
I've separated the land from the sea. And if you can go down
some day and you don't see the tide change," he said, my covenant
promise would fail. But you know what? We're very
blessed. In about 15 minutes or so, we
can be right on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean And the last time I was there,
the tide still came in, the tide still went out. And if you drove
from here to there today, the tide would still be coming in
and the tide would still be going out. And with every time a wave
breaks on that beach, God says, I'm faithful. Every time the
sea rushes back out and leaves that island strand almost bare,
It says God's truthful. Every time the sun comes up,
I'm a faithful God. Every time the moon shines, I've
told you the truth. Every time it's warm, every time
it's cold, and the very few times we think it's just right, it says God is still God. He's still on the throne. He
still upholds all things by the Word of His power and all His promises in Christ. All of His covenant mercies,
they're true. They're true. Jeremiah said,
it's the Lord's mercies. They're new every day. It's the
Lord's mercies that we're not consumed. And isn't it amazing
that even some that defy Him in all these ways, maybe even
some of these know-it-all scientists, weather people, weather people. Turn on your TV tomorrow morning,
somebody's going to say, this is what we're giving you today.
Right. No. You're just observers of
a changing climate that you can't even predict. I read one time
where it said that the National Weather Service, and I appreciate
early warnings from hurricanes and things that can be seen. They're not predicted, they're
just seen by new tools to observe them with, by the way. But they
said the rate of Accuracy and prediction was 50%. 50%? And my thought immediately was
this, I've known many an old farmer who could do that good. But these things outside of Christ,
they're a reminder to a lost world of a coming judgment. Not
by flood, but by fire. He has reserved it unto the day
of judgment by fire. When the elements will melt with
a fervent heat unto the Lord's believing people, He says, I
give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish,
and neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. If you don't
believe that promise, Just go outside and look up in the sky.
Just tonight, go outside. Just remember what it was a week
ago and how it feels today. God is still God. And He carries all this on just
as a little extra witness of His faithfulness and His truthfulness. If He has given unto me eternal
life, that life that He says is in His Son, I'll never perish. Never perish. May the Lord give
us eyes to behold everything and see in them the glory of
God and the faithfulness of God and the truth of God, most especially
and savingly as it is in Christ and Him crucified. Father, we
thank You this day and praise You for such unimaginable mercies
to us. A bunch of rebel sinners who
deserve only Your wrath, but You've pleased to give us Your
grace. Pour out Your wrath that we deserve
on Your Son. We thank You for that free salvation. We thank you for your faithfulness. We thank you for your truth in
Him who is the truth. Bless your word ever to our understanding
and to our comfort and consolation of mind and heart, that we might
rest in your promises while the world around us frets. We thank
you and we pray in our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.