Turn to Genesis chapter nine.
Genesis chapter nine. The title of the lesson is the
covenant of grace. Covenant of grace. Now it says in verse one, And
God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful
and multiply and replenish the earth. Everything we see now, this whole
human race came through Noah. Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham,
and Japheth. I said here earlier in a message
or in a lesson that Cain, he was cursed and God completely
cut that bloodline off. But you can see what it still
produced. It still produced a bunch of
sinners. Noah couldn't produce anything else but sinners. That's
all he could produce. But it says, God blessed him
and his sons And God said, the fear of you and the dread of
you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every
fowl of the air, upon all that moves upon the earth, and upon
all the fish of the sea, into your hand are they delivered.
Every moving thing that lives shall be meat for you, even as
the green herb have I given you all things. But flesh with the
life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat? And
surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of
every beast, will I require you? I was reading one, well, several
commentators on this, but they said he's making reference here
to, and about God's care of the animals. He's forbidding cruelty
to animals here. And I thought, that's interesting,
I never saw that before. And he says, surely your blood
of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast will
I require. And at the hand of man, here's he gonna set up capital
punishment, and at the hand of man, at the hand of every man,
brother, will I require the life of man. Life is precious to God. Life is precious. It's not, you know, it's not
that two men get into an argument and then one shoots the other.
God said life's more precious than that. Remember Lamech? Because
a young man had struck him, he killed the man. And here, you
know, the Lord for the first time has given this law of capital
punishment, but anything short of that, life is not to be taken.
anything short of murder and taking another man's life is
not to be taken. For whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his
blood be shed. For in the image of God made
he man. And you, be you fruitful and
multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
And God spake unto Noah and his sons with him, saying, now, from
verse eight down to verse 17, I want you to take your pencil
and mark, or circle, I did, I circled every I. When God says I, I think
it shows up 10 times in these verses. And God spake unto Noah
and his sons with him, saying, And I, behold, I, he's just stressing
this, I establish my covenant with you and with your seed after
you. and with every living creature
that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast
of the earth with you, from all that goeth out of the ark to
every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant
with you. Neither shall all flesh be cut
off any more by the waters of a flood. Neither shall there
any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, this
is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you
and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations. I do set my bow in the cloud
and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the
earth. It shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the
earth that the bow shall be seen in the cloud and I will remember
my covenant. which is between me and you,
and every living creature of all flesh. And the water shall
no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall
be in the cloud, and I will look upon it, that I may remember
the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature
of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah,
this is the token of the covenant which I have established between
me and all flesh that is upon the earth. We can see from this
that the covenant is all of God, isn't it? And we'll see this
in the covenant of grace, just as this covenant that God made
with Noah and all flesh, that he would not destroy this earth
again with a flood. God said, I'll make a covenant.
I will establish it. I will remember it. It's all
of God. It's all of God. Now, Noah has come through the
flood of God's wrath safely. God put him in the ark, put his
family in the ark, put those animals in the ark, and then
his judgment fell on the world, and when it was over with, they
came out alive. They came out alive. The ark
proved to be a sufficient savior. It proved to do just what it
was designed to do, and that was to keep Noah, his family,
and all those animals alive while God's wrath fell on this earth.
Our Lord is a sufficient Savior. If there's anything I can get
across this morning, it's this, that Jesus Christ is a sufficient
Savior for sinners. In Him, God is able to be a just
God. God is able to forgive me. God
is able to bring me into His presence through Jesus Christ. He is a sufficient Savior. Now
it says there, God blessed Noah and his son. This is the first
time we read of God blessing a man since the fall of Adam. And when did this blessing take
place? Well, it's after the burnt offering that Noah offered up
on the altar over in chapter 8, in verse 21. After that, God
blessed Noah and his sons. You know, it says over here in
verse 21, you know, let's go in verse 20 of chapter eight.
Let's read this. And Noah built an altar unto
the Lord, and he took of every clean beast and of every clean
fowl and offered burnt offerings on the Lord, I mean, on the altar.
And the Lord smelled a sweet savor Over my margin, it says,
a savor of rest. God smelled a savor of rest. And the Lord said in his heart,
I will not again curse the ground anymore for man's sake, for the
imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, neither
will I again smite anymore everything living as I have done. I'll not
do that again. And he said that after he smelled
this sweet savor that was offered up in the sacrifice. The burnt
offering that Noah offered up, they were symbolic of Christ,
the Lamb of God. And when God smells Christ, when
he smells Christ, it's a sweet smell of rest. It's a sweet smell
of rest. That's what it is. And the everlasting
covenant that God gave to Noah, and God called it in one place,
an everlasting covenant, it was revealed to Noah after he had
saved him from the flood, after he had brought him safely back
to dry land again. And he came out. And he came
out. And God revealed this covenant
that he'd given him here in these verses that I've read to you.
Noah would not have understood. He would not have understood
this covenant apart from the flood, would he? If God had made
this covenant with him before the flood, before it, he wouldn't
have understood what he was talking about. It would have been just
a mystery to him. but God gave it to him after
the flood. Now listen, a sinner cannot understand the covenant
of grace in the Lord Jesus Christ until God saves him by his grace. until you understand, God gives
you an understanding, gives me an understanding of Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. When you see on Calvary's cross,
God's wrath falling on His Son, on the Lamb of God, Christ, when
you see that, then you have some understanding, then you can begin
to have some understanding. of the covenant of grace. But
until then, if we don't understand Christ, we don't understand what
happened at Calvary, if we do not really understand who Jesus
Christ is, we wouldn't understand the covenant of grace. No more
than Noah would have understood it before the flood. But after
the flood, he did. After the flood, he did. Once
a sinner has been saved, or maybe I should say being saved, That
sinner understands, he understands that salvation is completely
in Jesus Christ. Once God saves him or her, you
understand that there is no salvation apart from Jesus Christ. You
understand that. You understand it. It becomes
part of you. You know that. In your heart,
you know that, that there's no way to be saved apart from Jesus
Christ. And you understand there is a covenant between the father and the son
concerning you. You understand that. You understand
that this whole matter of salvation, this whole matter of grace is
between the father and son concerning you. And he's the one responsible. And I love this thought because
it gives me much comfort. He's the one responsible to bring
me home. Isn't that comforting? That's
comforting to me. Now, the covenant that God made
with Noah was all of grace. He didn't say, Noah, I will do
this if you do that. He didn't say that. He said,
I. I established my covenant. I remember my covenant. I'm making
this covenant. No, it all depends on Him. Noah
didn't have anything to do with this covenant, making this covenant,
listen, or keeping this covenant. He didn't have anything to do
with even keeping it. He didn't have anything to do with making
this covenant effectual. It's all of grace, it was all
of God. It was by promise. When God said, I will do this,
that's a promise. If God says, I will establish
my covenant, I will not flood this earth again, that's a promise. That's a promise from God Almighty
who cannot lie. And it was made, you see there
in verse nine and 10, it was made with Noah and all that were
with him in the ark. Noah couldn't break this covenant
like Adam did. because it rested on God. It didn't rest on Noah. It rested
on God. Now, what's included? What was
included in this covenant? Everything. Everything concerning
Noah, his family, and every living thing on this earth. Everything. It covered every living thing
on this earth. God promised Noah that he would
not destroy the earth again. by a flood, and that seed time
and harvest would always come in their season. To this day, to this day, this
covenant still stands. This covenant still stands. After
a rain, now every time I see a rainbow, we're gonna see this
rainbow in a minute, every time I see one, I think of this covenant. I think of it every time I see
one. I don't just say, look at that rainbow. Isn't that a pretty
rainbow? Isn't that, that's just so, and I've seen, you've seen
it, some beautiful rainbows. They're all the same, but they're
beautiful. They're beautiful. And every time I see one, every
time, I think of this covenant. And every time, listen, now every
time you see one, you think God is remembering his covenant. That's why it stopped raining. It stopped raining because God
remembers his covenant. Now this covenant that God made
and God remembers is based upon a blood sacrifice. I just read
it to you back over in chapter eight there. It's based upon
a blood sacrifice. When Noah offered up these sacrifices
on that altar, God smelled that sweet smell of rest. That covenant's based upon Christ.
This covenant of grace is based upon the Lord Jesus Christ. Now,
God made this covenant, as I said. God made this covenant. He said,
I make a covenant with you. Now, for a covenant to be made,
there's gotta be two parties, right? You don't make a covenant
just by yourself. There's no need for one. There's
gotta be two parties. Here, it was Noah. He made it
with Noah, and he made it with all, everything living. Our Father, our Father made a
covenant with the Lord Jesus Christ. That covenant of grace
is between the Father, the Son, and everyone in the Son. Everyone that's in Christ, that
covenant is also made with you. What's His is mine. What is His is mine. And it's
a covenant of pure grace. We know this, we know this, we
understand this, that before God created the heavens and the
earth, God made a covenant, an agreement between Him, God the Father,
God the Son, the whole trinity's involved in this. But God made
a covenant that involved me and you. I'm
talking about the believers here, and everyone that shall believe,
everyone that ever has believed concerning us. Before the world was created,
God made that covenant. And in that covenant, the Lord
Jesus Christ stood and still stands as the surety, the mediator,
the redeemer, He stands, now listen, he stands as the covenant
itself. We're not talking about a covenant
that's just written on paper. We are talking about a person
who himself is the covenant. God said in Isaiah, I will give
you as a covenant to the people. I'll give you as a covenant to
the people. Our Lord agreed to be the surety. His blood ratified this covenant
that was shared at Calvary. It's sealed to God's elect by
the Holy Spirit. You see it over in Ephesians
1, you're sealed by the Holy Spirit. It's unconditional. Aren't you glad of that? I'm
telling you right now, if there was one condition put on it,
one, you and I'd break it. Adam was just given one. Don't
eat of that tree. That was a covenant of works
of God. Don't eat of that tree and you'll live. Eat and you'll
die. He just had one. And he did exactly what I would
have done. I broke it. I would have broke
it. He broke it. I would have broke it. It's unconditional. We cannot
break this covenant of grace. Can't do it. because it doesn't
rest on me and you. The covenant of grace does not
rest on my obedience, on your obedience. It rests on the obedience
of Jesus Christ. That's good news. That's good
news to a bunch of sinners. Now, that's good news to sinners
that you and I can't break it. David, when he committed adultery
and killed Uriah the Hittite, that didn't break it. That didn't,
when Abraham took Sarah, his wife, and gave her to the king,
he let the king take his wife. And that didn't break it. Not
one thing that you and I can do. Peter, Peter denied the Lord
three times. Three times he denied him. I
don't know the man. And a maid spoke to him, you're
one of them. No, I don't know the man. He even cursed. The man even cursed and said,
and swore, I don't know Jesus Christ, I don't know who he is.
And that didn't break that covenant. Man, I can go on and on and on
with the sins of God's elect. And all of them together can't
break that covenant. Because God made that covenant
with his son. And God's gonna honor that covenant.
And in honoring that covenant, he's honoring his son. He's honoring
his son, my soul. That's so good. God said, I will
establish, I will establish my covenant. In verse nine and verse
11. I will establish my covenant.
You can't do it. Because at the end of this chapter,
I didn't read it to you, what happened? Noah got drunk. He was drunk and his son came
in and saw him naked and just what a fiasco. That didn't break
it. That didn't break it. The reason why is because the
covenant of grace was established with God's son. It was established on his obedience,
his person. His blood, it ratified by His
blood, it can't be broken. Can't be broken. The Son promised
to bring all the sheep home. All that the Father giveth me
shall come to me. And in the coming to me, I will
no wise cast out. I'll bring every one of them
home. My Father, which is greater than me, greater than all, No
man can pluck them out of my hand or out of his hand. No man.
No one. Can't be done. What can separate
us from the love of God, Paul said over in Romans? He said
nothing. Absolutely nothing can separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. It can't
do it. Can't do it. In this covenant,
the Lord Jesus Christ is our prophet. He's the one who reveals
the Father to us. He's our priest. He's the one
who represents us before God. He's our king. He's our king. We are under a theocracy. Jesus
Christ is the king. And his obedience to the law
was part of that covenant, is part of the requirements. And
brethren, he kept every jot and tittle of that law. I mean right
down to the period at the end of a sentence. He kept it. He
kept it. Our God, our God is faithful
to this covenant. He's faithful to this covenant. Like Peter, we may deny him,
but he won't deny us. Not if He's made a covenant with
us in Christ. He won't deny us. He's faithful. The reason this
world is standing today is because God made a covenant that He'll
not destroy it by flood. Now, He's going to destroy this
world one more time by fire, but not by flood. Not by flood. When the last sinner is saved,
it'll be over, but not until then. Not until then. That's when it'll be over. Now
all the blessings that this earth enjoys right now, and all the
spiritual blessings that the church enjoys, is because of
this covenant of grace. Because of this covenant of grace.
Now God says in verse 12, here in verse 12, and God said,
This is the token of the covenant that I will make between me and
you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual
generation, generation after generation after generation. I, I do set my bow in the cloud.
It shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. Every time I see it, I think
of this scripture. Every time I see it. This bow
is a token, the rainbow is a token of God's grace, it's a token
of God's favor. It is, it's a token of his favor.
It's a token of peace, it's a token of satisfaction based on a blood
sacrifice. Jesus Christ is the rainbow in
the covenant of grace. He is that beautiful rainbow. All those many colors, all the
many blessings we have in Christ, He's the rainbow in the covenant
of grace. When we see him, when we see him, if God enables us
to see him, we see God's favor. We see God's grace. He's a symbol
of God's covenant of grace to sinners. That's what he is. The
scripture says he gave his only begotten son. He is that rainbow in the covenant
of grace. He's our promise of security.
My security is not because of a decision I made years ago. That's not my security. My security
is in my surety, who stands for me in heaven. That's my security. And God gave this symbol to Noah
as a promise that he would not destroy the world again by flood.
You know, I'm sure every time it rained, If Noah had not had this promise,
he would be fearful that it was gonna happen again. He would
be fearful it was gonna happen again, but God says, I give you
a promise, a covenant, this will not happen again. Brethren, we
have in Christ, we have in Christ a promise, a promise that God's
judgment will not fall on us. I have in Christ a promise that
God will not punish me, that I will not have to deal with
the wrath of God. It's over. It's over. It's over. When sinners feel the weight
of sin, and they hear the thunderings of the law in their heart, and
they're frightened, they have strong convictions
of sin, and they are frightened, then the sun shines. It's like
after a storm and a cloud starts to part and a ray of sun comes
through and all of a sudden that light hitting upon the mist in
the air, you get this beautiful rainbow. You hear the thundering
of the law, a real conviction of sin, and then God set you
under the gospel, gives you an ear to hear, and then the sun
shines through. The sun shines through. And you
see God's promise of salvation in the face, the person of Jesus
Christ. Something else about this rainbow.
You and I see it after a storm, listen, after a storm goes, you
don't see it on a clear day, do you? You see a rainbow after
a storm goes through, after it's been raining and there's a storm
and then that sun comes through the clouds shining. That's when
you see it. But you know what, over in Revelations
4 and 3, we don't have time to be turning to these, but it says
that the rainbow surrounded the throne. Well, you gotta look,
go ahead. Revelation, you gotta look at
this. Revelation chapter four. In verse three, it says, and
he that sat, that is, he was sitting upon the throne, he that
sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone. And there
was a rainbow round about the throne in sight, like unto an
emerald. You and I are not the only ones
that see it. God sees it. God sees it. God is ever mindful of his covenant. That's what he's telling us here.
God's ever mindful of his covenant, whichever way he turns. Now listen,
whichever way he turns, He sees that covenant of grace. He sees,
he remembers that covenant of grace that he's made with us
in Christ. Whichever way he turns, he sees
the rainbow. It surrounded the throne. It
surrounded the throne. Everywhere he turns, he sees
the covenant of grace that he made with us in Christ. And everything
that comes from the throne comes by way of fulfillment of this
covenant, this covenant of grace. And it passes through the rainbow,
the Lord Jesus Christ, to us. And you and I are just recipients
of the blessings of this covenant of grace. We're just recipients
of it. That rainbow surrounded the throne. It surrounded his head. Go over
in Revelations 10-1. I wrote this down. I can't remember
exactly the quote of it. And I saw, verse one, and I saw
another mighty angel come down from heaven clothed with a cloud,
and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the
sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. First the rainbow surrounded
the throne. Now it surrounds the head of
this person. Because this person is the covenant. He is the covenant. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
covenant. He is the one that the covenant
was made with. He is the one through whom all
the blessings of the covenant flow. He's the one. And you and
I are beneficiaries of it. Beneficiaries of it. And the
rainbow, now something else about a rainbow. When you see it, it
touches the earth on both ends. You see now, you always talk
about that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I'll tell
you what there is at the end of that rainbow, a pot of grace.
There's a pot of grace. Guess what's there? It's a pot
of grace. But the rainbow touches the earth
on both ends. God's grace is to all people. God's grace is to all people.
You and I have seen a rainbow here. I saw one in Ashland. They
see it in Africa. They see it in China. You take
any place on this earth, any place on this earth, you'll see
God's rainbow after a storm. You can see it. It's to all people. It's to all people. And you know
the rainbow has, as I said, many colors. Rich in colors, isn't
it? Beautiful, rich in colors. In
Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. In Christ
dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In Christ, all the promises
of God are yes and amen. Yes and amen. Who was this token for? Who was
it given to? Well, it was given to Noah and
the earth. Not God, it didn't have to be
given to God. God does not have the problem
of remembering, does he? No, God never forgets, we do.
This is why we need the gospel preached to us every week. This
is why we meet here every week. Because we need to be reminded.
We need to be reminded of what we have in Christ. We need to
be reminded of Christ, not just what we have in Christ, but of
Christ. Every time Christ is preached,
the bow is seen in the cloud. It's seen in the cloud. And where
was this said? In the cloud after the storm.
The rainbow was seen in the cloud after the storm. Christ is seen
in all his beauty. When we undergo strong conviction
of sin, when we undergo some heavy trial, God enables us to
look one more time and see him, and see him. How do I know that God will not
change? How do I know this? But over in verses 18 through
29, Noah sinned shortly after and nothing happened. Nothing
happened. Nothing happened to him. Flood
did not come again because God had established a covenant that
he would not do that again. He would not do it again. And
brother, we have confidence in, by, and through Jesus Christ
that God's wrath will not fall upon those who believe. It will
not fall upon His children. It will not happen again. I mean,
I sin far more than I want to. Do you? I sin far more than I
want to. I don't want to sin at all. I
wish I didn't. I wish I didn't. But I know this. I know this. And this is my confidence.
And I feel more confident about it now than I did 20 years ago
or 40 years ago. I know that that covenant of
grace was made with Christ. It's established with Christ.
It's given to me in Christ. And I can't break it. I can't
break it. And it's the grace of God, Paul
said, that teaches us to deny ungodliness. Because I know this
doesn't mean I'm gonna go out here and say, well, I'm gonna
do what I wanna do. I'm gonna live like I want to. You are
living like you want to now, aren't you? I'd live without sin if I could.
I would, I would live if the Lord would enable me to do it.
But I know what this life is. And I know, I know that I have
a surety, I have a redeemer, And my whole salvation rests
on that man, Jesus Christ, and him alone. God said, I will establish
my covenant with you. And he has in the Lord Jesus
Christ. All right.