You want to turn in your Bibles
to Genesis chapter 8. I didn't think I would bring
another message about Noah, but there it is. Genesis chapter
8 and 9. We haven't gone through it. And
I couldn't help myself. So here we are. And I'm thankful
for the many truths that are here. I want to today just try
to go through this in a somewhat more expository manner. than
we normally do. Last week we focused on one verse.
This week we're going to try to cover the entire chapter of
chapter 9 plus a couple of verses in chapter 8. And we'll read
this together after we pray. Let's ask the Lord to help us.
Dear Lord, we pray that you would be with us in the person of your
own Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. By your Spirit,
Lord, Comfort us, open the Scripture to us, make Yourself known, speak
to our heart, woo us and persuade us of the truth, and bind us
fast to Yourself forever. We know, Lord, that for Your
people You have already bound them to Yourself in eternity
by the bonds of Your eternal love. And Lord, we need this
to be made known to us from the Scripture and the Gospel of of
your grace, the gospel established in your blood, help us now, dear
Lord, to be thankful in our hearts as sinners saved from their sins
by such a mighty and wonderful Savior. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. We're going to begin at verse
20. Chapter 8, verse 20. And this really feels more like
the beginning of the next chapter. And I want to pick it up here. There's many things that can
be said about Noah. I think we could spend another six sermons
on this man. He clearly was a picture, a type
of our Lord Jesus Christ in many ways. And you can see that by
all that we've talked about in the past. We're going to touch
on some of those things today. But Noah, if you remember, was
the man that God said he found grace in God's eyes. And he was
a perfect man who was just and perfect and walked with God in
all of his generations. And God made a covenant with
him, and God told him what to do, and he did it. And by what
he did in the ark, God saved him and his family and all the
animals. And actually, later after that, we're going to read
here, God made a covenant, not only with Noah, but with all
the earth, all living things, that he would no more flood the
earth, as he did then. And then we see at the end of
chapter 9, something that happened seems to be very embarrassing.
God reveals about Noah, and so we see in Noah a man, a sinful
man. So all these things teach us
a lot, and I want to look at these things with you together.
Beginning at verse 20. Chapter 8, verse 20. I've entitled
this message, God's Covenant with Noah. And Noah builded an
ark unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast and of every
clean fowl, And, I'm sorry, took a very clean beast and a very
clean fowl and offered burnt offerings on the altar. It's
very important that we start there. Noah, after coming out
of the ark, he built this altar and he offered to God of clean
animals, clean beast and clean fowl. He offered a burnt offering
to God on the altar. That's the anchor point, the
beginning point of all that follows. And the Lord smelled a sweet
savor. I mean, God was well pleased with that offering. 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. So God lifted the curse from
the ground. That's why we're able to grow crops, it seems
like, with great ease. The curse is lifted in part,
but it's not entirely lifted. But at least in the case here,
it means that God blessed the ground now so that man could
produce food and everything on the earth could multiply. But
God did that because he saw that every imagination of man's heart
was evil from his youth. What a statement of our case.
Here we have the sinfulness of our own hearts. Never let that
pass over. God looked at your heart and
He looked at mine and He concluded every imagination from His youth
is evil. Doesn't that teach you you're
in great need of a Savior? But then God says in verse 22,
You hear people all concerned about the end of the world. Asteroids
are going to hit the earth. You have to shift it off its
axis, and we're all going to die. That's not going to happen. Little green men are going to
appear in the sky, UFOs, and we won't know what they are.
They're going to take over. That's not going to happen. But man's
going to pollute the sky, and everything's going to burn up,
freezing, the ocean's going to overflow. That's not going to
happen. Because while the earth remains, God promised, seed time
and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night
shall not cease." Throughout the whole earth, God's going
to make sure the seasons continue. Psalm 104 verse 30 says that
God sends forth His Spirit and renews the face of the earth. The earth was created by God
and is upheld by God and sustained by God. It's by God's will. It's
His, even though man wants to get God out of the earth. Man
wants to get the Creator out of creation in his own heart.
But God takes care of it because He made it. And He made it for
a purpose and He's going to fulfill that purpose. What a blessing.
What we see here is that everything we have now, the bread we eat,
And the rising of the sun and the seasons that we experience.
When it gets summer time, it gets hot. When it's winter, we're
cold. All that is by God's design. He said it here. And it hasn't
failed all that time from Noah until this time. And it won't
fail until the end of the world. But the end will come. Jesus
said, heaven and earth shall pass away. But my words shall
not pass away. In 2 Peter 3, Peter promises
that the heavens and the earth and our now are reserved for
fire unto the day of judgment. So, the heavens and earth will
not be flooded. While the earth remains, all
the seasons will continue. God's going to see to it. He's
got a purpose. He's going to fulfill it. And
when He saves His people, then His purpose is done. And He will
then burn up the heavens and the earth and start over. And
there will be no sin then. Chapter 9. And God blessed Noah
and his sons, and he said to them, Be fruitful and multiply,
and replenish the earth. That's exactly what God told
Adam in the beginning, remember? But here God starts over with
another man and his sons, and he tells them he blessed them.
He blessed Noah and his sons, and he told them to be fruitful
and multiply. Isn't it interesting that God
commanded them to multiply? How can men multiply? Well, they
just do what God has given them to do, and God blesses that.
You see, God commands us to do what He requires of us, but unless
He does it Himself, it doesn't get done. And so we see that
even in childbearing. God has to give children. God
either withholds or He gives children according to His will
and according to His blessing. We should never take anything
for granted. The food we eat, the air we breathe, the beating
of our heart, the children that we have, all are from God's hand. If we could just understand that,
we would be thankful. We wouldn't take it for granted.
We wouldn't arrogantly presume upon God's good graces. It's
God's faithfulness that allows this earth to continue, and it's
God's mercy that He blesses even these sinful men to accomplish
His will. And verse 2 says, And the fear
of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth
and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the
earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea, and to your hand
are they delivered. Again, just as God gave to Adam
dominion over all things in the beginning, He speaks again that
same dominion here. God blesses man above all of
creation. And He puts all things under
man's dominion. And yet, sometimes bears attack
people, sometimes lions kill people, and so on. And He's even
anticipating that in the verses that follow. But on the whole,
man has dominion over the earth, doesn't he? I go outside and
sometimes a bird circle around and they try to intimidate me. All I have to do is wave my hand
and they fly away. They're afraid. They could easily come down and
swoop on me and hurt me, but they don't. That's God's fear
He put in them. And it's a good thing, isn't
it? It's a good thing, otherwise we'd be eaten up by those things
that are much stronger than us. Even the viruses and bacteria
don't dominate us. Isn't that amazing? They could
easily do it. They talk about all the germs
and stuff. And if you think about it, you wouldn't go out and do
anything. You wouldn't breathe. Just stay alive. Because there
are so many bad things. But God controls it. He subdues
it. And that's a blessing. And so He says, In verse 3, every
moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you. Now that's a
change. In Genesis, the first part of Genesis in chapter 1
and 2, God made every herb of the field for the beast and every
plant, all the vegetables and the fruit for man to eat. He
didn't tell them to eat the animals, but now he says you can eat everything.
Everything that moves is food for you. Even as the green herb
have I given you all things." And that's what Paul said later
on in scripture. He says, God has made the earth
as the Lord's and the fullness thereof and everything God has
given us is to be received with thanksgiving. In faith. Not because,
oh look, I want this and I take it without a thought of God,
but God has given it to me and I take it and I eat it in thanksgiving
to God. We should always be thankful.
Let's bow our heads in thanksgiving to God for everything. Verse 4, So, God says later on, He put
it this way, the life of the flesh is in the blood in Leviticus. In Leviticus 17, He says the
life of the flesh is in the blood. You know that's true. When the
blood leaves your body, you're dead. You can't live without
blood. If it drops below a certain level,
you die. And if you get a sickness, it's
only by having healthy blood by which that sickness is taken
away. So the life of the flesh is in
the blood. And God places a high value on blood in Scripture. A very high value on blood because
He does. The life is in the blood. And
so He tells Noah and his children and all that follow after, don't
eat blood. Don't eat flesh with the blood
in it. So, when you kill an animal, drain the blood out first before
you eat it. That was what God is saying here.
And there's a good reason for that. Again, because God is trying
to emphasize the importance of blood. Remember when Cain killed
Abel, what did God say to Cain? He said, your brother's blood
cries to me from the ground. The blood cries. God says the
blood cries to him. God gives life, and when the
blood is spilled, the blood cries. But the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ cries also. Abel's blood cried to God for
vengeance against his murderer. But Christ's blood cries for
mercy and pardon. for those who murdered Him because
of their sins. The blood of Christ speaks better
things, but it cries to God, and God hears the blood. That's
why we're saved. God hears the blood. The life
of the flesh is in the blood. The blood makes atonement. Leviticus
17.11. And the blood is the only way
by which remission of our sins are made. The blood is what God
sees when He passes over His people. And blood is that signification
that God used in Egypt when He said the waters are going to
be turned to blood because that meant the judgment of God against
men. The wages of sin is death. The blood was shed there to indicate
that. And so God places a high regard on blood and He wants
us to recognize the blood of Christ as being very precious.
That's what the blood teaches. Don't eat the animal with his
blood. Verse 5, "...and surely your
blood of your lives will I require, at the hand of every beast will
I require it, and at the hand of man, at the hand of every
man's brother will I require the life of man." So now, God
introduces a punishment. If a beast kill a man, the beast
must die. And if a man kill a man, the
man must die. Before the flood, God was the
judge. When Cain killed Abel, God came
to Cain, and God gave his judgment and brought his punishment on
Cain. And then Lamech later, he boasted, I think it was Lamech
that he had killed a man, a young man to his wounding, and he boasted
in taking vengeance against the man who would murder him. Take
vengeance against him. God is the one who took vengeance
before the flood, but here God says He ordains the government
of men to take vengeance upon murderers. It says in Romans
chapter 13, Take a look at this. This is worth looking at. Romans
chapter 13. God is the one who has ordained
the rulers that are. If God has ordained it to oppose
the rulers, it is to oppose God's ordained rule, even though it
might be by wicked men. He says in chapter 13 of Romans,
Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there
is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained
of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth
the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. And they that resist
shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to
good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid
of the power? Do that which is good, thou shalt
have praise of the same. For he is the minister of God
to thee for good. But if thou do that which is
evil, be afraid, for he beareth not the sword in vain. And I've
said it many times before, the sword isn't used to whip people
or to bruise or to spank. It's used to kill. And here God
is saying that when a man takes another man's life, God has put
that responsibility in the hands of men to take that man's life. That's God's ordained purpose
of judgment in the earth. And he says it should cause you
to be afraid if you're an evildoer. But he goes on, he says, Wherefore
you must be subject not only for wrath, but also for conscience
sake." In other words, don't be like the horse or the mule
that have to put a bit in their mouth and be made afraid to steer
this way and that way. But in your conscience, listen
to what God wants. God has said the life is precious. He gives it. And he goes on in
verse 6 of Genesis chapter 9. He says this, "...whoso sheddeth
man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." And here's why. For in the image of God made
he man. We would think God would say,
because it's a horrible thing to take a man's life. It's so
cruel. And it is. And it is a horrible
thing. But God gives the most basic
and most important reason of all why we are not to take the
life of another. Because the man is made in God's
image. When we take the life of another
man, what are we doing? We're defacing that reflection
God has made of himself. The Lord Jesus Christ in Colossians
1.15 is said to be the image of the invisible God. The one
through whom we see the invisible God is the Lord Jesus Christ.
And man was created in the image of Christ. And so to kill a man
Because Christ walked this earth as a man and in our nature bore
the sins of His people and endured God's wrath of punishment for
us against our sins. Therefore, to kill a man is to
reflect negatively, is to deface what God has done in His Son.
Don't kill. Don't think it in your heart.
To be angry with your brother, to hate your brother in your
heart, is what Cain did. And so he goes on in verse 7
of chapter 9. He says, "...to you, be ye fruitful,
and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein."
Bring it forth. Like I said, God commanded men
to do what He Himself must do in them. That's the principle
here. Never miss it. What God requires
of us, we must go to Him in order to do. He says, confess your
sins. Oh, we have to go to the Lord
and ask Him to give us a heart to come to Him to confess even
our sins. Call upon me. We have to say,
Lord, incline my heart to call upon You. All those things. If God draws us to Christ and
it's only by His drawing that we are saved, then Lord, draw
me. If God chooses us, Lord, choose
me. Deal with me according to the
favor that you have with your people. We go to Him in dependence
when He tells us that it's all of Him, don't we? And then we're
thankful when we understand that it's all of His grace. In verse
8, God spoke to Noah and said to his sons with him, saying,
and behold, he says, and I Behold, 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 field of the earth with you, from all that go 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 anymore by the waters of a flood. Neither shall there
anymore be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, this
is the token of the covenant that 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,
the rainbow. I do set my bow in the clouds
and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the
earth. And it shall come to pass when
I bring a cloud over the earth that the bow shall be seen in
the cloud and I will remember my covenant which is between
me and you and every living creature of all flesh and the waters shall
no more become a flood to destroy all flesh. And the bow shall
be in the cloud and I will look upon it that I may remember the
everlasting covenant between God and every living creature
of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said to Noah,
this is the token of the covenant which I have established between
me and all flesh that is upon the earth. Here we have the covenant
God made with Noah, with his sons, with all their children
after them, and with all living things on the earth. And that
covenant, it's important we see this, in all of God's covenants,
God established the covenant. He initiated it, and he established
it as a covenant. Remember in Genesis 6.18, God
said to Noah, with thee have I established my covenant. So
in this covenant, Noah is the representative head. He's the
one with whom God made the covenant and he made it with Noah. And
on behalf of Noah, he made it with Noah on behalf of all of
his sons and all living things. So God established it. God made
it. He established the terms, what
He would do. Because there was no conditions,
He placed on men here. He named those that were in it,
which was all flesh on the earth. And He made promises that He
would not destroy the earth and all things on it by a flood.
And He Himself, in faithfulness and in His power, kept that promise. Here all the oceans are around
us. You walk to the beach, you see the waves coming in. If a
tsunami comes, you're completely overwhelmed. If God were to do
that, He could easily overwhelm the earth with a flood again.
But He holds it back. He says, "...hitherto shalt thou
thy proud waves go, and no further." God is the one who restrains
the waters from flooding the earth. He made that covenant. He determined how long that covenant
would endure, the duration of it, which was as long as the
earth. endures until God destroys the earth with fire and brings
this world to an end. And God placed all the conditions
on Himself so that He would fulfill it. And that covenant has never
failed. But there are several covenants
in scripture and they all have the same underlying theme. They
all point to the Lord Jesus Christ. Here it's a covenant of grace. Do you see it? God made it. Men
were sinners. He even said, I'm not gonna curse
the ground anymore for man's sake because every imagination
of his heart is evil from his youth. And yet God made this
promise, a covenant. He obligated himself to keep
this and he told us what it was. He made it with Noah as our representative
so that God teaches us that he makes covenants with all men
or with some whoever he names in that covenant, in their representative
head. And it was a covenant of grace.
He fulfilled all conditions, and he kept it always. God never
lies. He cannot lie. And these are
meant to instill within us an assurance, and a rest, and a
peace, and thankfulness to God. Not only for this covenant, but
for every covenant God has made. Think of the covenants God has
made. This isn't actually the first
covenant, remember? In Hosea chapter 6 it says God
made a covenant with Adam, but Adam broke that covenant. Because
it was a two-way, a two-party covenant. It depended on man's
obedience. And anytime there's conditions
placed on man, the covenant fails. So the covenant God made with
Adam was to bless him and his children with life as long as
they didn't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. But they ate. Adam ate and his wife. And God passed
the curse of that covenant upon Adam and all of his children
all died in Adam. And then there's this covenant
with Noah. God made it with Noah and all of his sons and all living
things because of Noah. What was the ground of this covenant
that God made with Noah? What was the basis, the foundation
of it? It's found in chapter 8, verse
20. That was the basis of it. That was the ground of it. The ground of this covenant that
God made with Noah and all living things was the offering that
Noah made. It was the offering of blood
in which God was well pleased. Remember the ark? The ark was
the picture of our salvation in Christ. What was it made of? Gopher wood? What does that signify? It signifies a tree that was
cut down in order that we might have salvation. That was the
cross. The Lord Jesus Christ was cursed
on the cross. And it was pitched within and
without. And the pitch was the atonement.
And all the things about the ark pointed us to salvation in
Christ from the judgment, the wrath of God. And then immediately
after the atonement was made in picture of the ark and them
coming out, the offering was made in order to reinforce the
fact that they were delivered from judgment because of the
offering. Because of the blood of the animal.
And God smelled that offering, that burnt offering, and said,
it's a sweet smelling savor to me. And so in Ephesians chapter
5, listen to what this says. Ephesians chapter 5 about the
Lord Jesus Christ. He says this, Be ye therefore,
in verse 1 of Ephesians 5, be ye therefore followers of God
as dear children, and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved
us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice
to God for a sweet-smelling savor. Exactly the same words. Christ
is the sweet-smelling savor, and it was the blood of Christ
that made the covenant It was the ground of the covenant. It
was what established the covenant God made. Look at Matthew, chapter
26. This is what Jesus told his disciples
in Matthew 26, 28. He says, He holds up the cup
to give to his disciples, that cup of wine, and in an emblematic
way, this cup Signified this, he said, for
this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the
remission of sins. Matthew 26, 28. The blood of
Christ was shed for the remission of the sins of many. And the
blood was what established that covenant God made. Hebrews 13,
20 says, the blood of the everlasting covenant. The covenant of Noah
was established on the basis, the ground of the blood of the
offering, the atonement made in the ark. by the pitch, by
the ark itself, in the human nature of Christ. He suffered
for us and we're delivered from the wrath of God because of that.
So the ground of this covenant God made with Noah was the blood
of Christ in foreshadow. He says it here, he speaks of
it here as the burnt offering of an animal, but he looks forward
to the blood of Christ. All of the covenants always pointed
to Christ. The next covenant in history
was the covenant God made with Abraham. And what did God promise
in that covenant? He blessed Abraham, He says,
"...in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed." And
that's explained in Romans chapter 4 as showing that God was going
to save His people from among Jews and Gentiles. And when Abraham
believed God, God told him after he believed, he said, now I want
you to be circumcised. That's the sign of this covenant.
And that circumcision pointed to the fact that Abraham, by
his faith, would be the father of all those who believed who
both were uncircumcised and circumcised, because he believed before he
was circumcised, and the sign of the covenant was his circumcision,
which pointed to the fact that he, being circumcised, was the
father of all those that believed, whether they be circumcised or
uncircumcised. That's what Paul said in Romans
chapter 4. And then there was the covenant
God made with David. Remember, I'm going to set After
the flesh, your son on the throne forever. And that was the basis
of Peter's preaching in the book of Acts, that God promised to
David he was going to raise up his son after the flesh to sit
on his throne. That was Christ. So he promised
this to the Lord Jesus Christ in David. And then there was
the new covenant, which the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled. All the
covenants in scripture point to Christ. Even the Old Testament
covenant of works pointed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember
Romans 10.4? Christ is the end of the law,
the fulfillment and the perfection of the law. to everyone that
believeth, he fulfilled the law. He took away its curse, and satisfied
its justice, and fulfilled every precept. The Lord Jesus Christ
is the message of every covenant. He's the one with whom God established
an everlasting covenant, and His covenant with Christ was
a covenant for us of grace, but for Him of works, because He
had to fulfill its conditions. And it's everlasting because
there's no end and there's no beginning. God made it from eternity. That's an amazing thing, isn't
it? God named His people, called His elect in that covenant. They're
called the sheep, they're given to Christ, and all those given
to the Lord Jesus are saved by His blood. So we learn this about
this covenant. It's an amazing thing, isn't
it? That God would make such a covenant with us. For someone
else's sake. That's an amazing thing. And
now look at verse 18. Well actually, let me say something
a little bit about this rainbow. There was a token to this covenant
that God made with Noah too. We know God made it, but he also
gave a token or a sign of this covenant. And what was that sign?
The rainbow. We look at the rainbow and scientists
say, well that's the light passing through the water droplets and
the white light that we see from the sunshine is divided as like
through a prism so we see the colors and then that creates
this nice round arch across the sky. Very beautiful, isn't it?
Usually in the afternoon when the sun's behind you and the
clouds are in the east and the sun is in the west, you usually
see that rainbow appear. I saw one the other day. It was
a clear day otherwise, but there was kind of a little short prismatic
display of colors in the sky and I pointed it out to Denise.
I said, look at that. There's a little rainbow over there in
the sky. It's not even raining. But the Lord said this about
this token. He says, In verse 14, Genesis
9.14, it shall come to pass, listen very carefully, when I
bring a cloud over the earth, they don't just magically appear,
God does everything by purpose, it's all his work. When I bring
a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the
cloud. There's so much that can be said
about that. What does a cloud normally represent?
It usually represents an omen. foreshadowing of dark things
to come, of trouble, doesn't it? A cloud appeared in the sky. It's going to be a storm, and
people hide for cover. Remember when Jesus, in John
chapter 12, said to his father, he said, Father, glorify thy
name. And his father spoke from heaven,
and he says, I have both glorified it, and I will glorify it again.
And what did the people say when they heard that voice from heaven?
They said, it thundered. There was a sense of ominousness
there, wasn't there? Because the cloud, God brought
the cloud. The cloud is a sign of rain and
thunder and storm. And it's usually not seen as
a sign of blessing, although we need the water. That was the
thing, that was why they would be so afraid, is because when
the clouds formed and God emptied the clouds, the whole earth was
flooded. And God said, no, when I bring a cloud, which was in
the days of Noah a cloud of judgment, when I bring that cloud upon
the earth, then you're going to see my rainbow in the cloud.
And then that's going to be a token. A promise, I mean a token of
the promise I've made that I will not destroy the earth with flood.
When was the greatest and darkest cloud ever brought over this
earth? It wasn't when God flooded the
earth. It was when God brought the cloud
of his judgment upon the Lord Jesus Christ. In his own person. When he said in Psalm 88 verse
7, Thy wrath lieth hard upon me. It was when Jesus cried in
the Garden of Gethsemane, let this cup pass from me. And when
he cried on the cross, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? That was the darkest cloud of
all history. And it was in that cloud of judgment
upon Christ For the sins of his people, and they were there with
him in that judgment, because his death was their death, and
the judgment poured out on him was the satisfaction of God's
wrath against them, So God brought that cloud of judgment, but he
says in Isaiah 54 verses 7-9 that for a little moment I've
hid my face from thee. With a little wrath have I been
angry with you, but now with everlasting kindness have I saved
thee, have I drawn thee. So the wrath of God that was
pointed to by Noah's flood was fulfilled in the wrath poured
out on the Lord Jesus Christ. And it was in that cloud God
brought it. God destroyed the whole earth
in Noah's day and God poured out his wrath on his son. Even
though he exposed the wickedness of man in using man's wickedness
to do it. Yet it was God's cloud, and in
that cloud there was the brightest shining, a token of God's mercy
and grace. And God saw that rainbow, and
He remembered His everlasting covenant that He had made with
His Son. That when He laid His life down
for His people, all of His people would be received to everlasting
glory. For His sake, for Christ's sake,
with whom God made that covenant, That's the covenant God's speaking
about here. When the white light hits the prism of the water droplets
and the clouds, we see the colors. Red, yellow, blue. All the colors
of the rainbow, as we say. And when the bright light of
God's justice poured out His holy wrath on Christ, we see
the whole spectrum of God's perfections of His glory. We see His grace
and His wisdom and His power and His faithfulness and His
justice and His mercy to sinners. We see the heart of God and the
purpose of God for all eternity. All that God is, is seen in Christ. The rainbow is seen in the judgment
God brought against His Son. The humility of our Lord Jesus
Christ that He would lay His life down for sinners. The Son
of God, the Holy One, harmless and undefiled, would make Himself
an offering for sin. That's the brightness of God's
glory and it's seen in Christ. But verse 18 of Genesis chapter
9 says this, Now we see a turn in things.
We see something here that's quite amazing. We see the fall
of Noah in this thing. It says, "...and the sons of
Noah that went forth from the ark were Shem and Ham and Japheth,
and Ham is the father of Canaan." He mentions that here. I had
pointed it out to you before. He says, "...these are the three
sons of Noah, and of them was the whole earth overspread."
And Noah began to be a husbandman, that means a farmer, and he planted
a vineyard. And he drank of the wine, and
was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent. That's a strange
thing, I don't know exactly what it was, but whatever it was,
it was a shameful thing. I want you to understand what's
happened here. Noah is in his tent, he got drunk,
and he's shamefully uncovered in his tent. And whatever that was, it was
wrong what Ham, one of his sons did. Three sons, one of them's
name was Ham. Ham, it says in verse 22, "...the
father of Canaan saw the nakedness of his father, and what did he
do? He told his two brethren without." Now think about, why would Ham
do that? Why would Ham do that? Remember what it says in Ephesians
chapter 6? Children, obey your parents in the Lord. Honor your father and your mother. Did Ham honor his father here?
If he wasn't even related to his dad, was it an honor what
he did? He went out, he saw something that his dad had done wrong,
and he went out and he told his brothers about it. Children always
will have an inside track on the sins of their parents. It's easy to say, oh, you should
know my mom and dad. They're really not as good as
they appear to be as children. Why do we do that? Why do children
do that? Why did Ham do it? Why would we do something like
that? There's two reasons I can think of immediately. One is
that he somehow relished in the perversity of what he was seeing
there. And he wanted to make boast of it. Does that ever remind
you of men boasting in wickedness? Do men do that nowadays? I think
they do. Have you ever heard of these
things called parades? Where people go out naked in
their shame and perversity, or they have these marches for abortion,
or they march, you know, the feminist march against the rule
of men over women or something like that. All those things are
exposing man's sinfulness and shame. That's what Ham did. And so, in that one sense, it
could be just, look at this. It's horrible. Man, this is so
bad. Come look at this. Ten cents
a look. Or, I think probably more to
the point here, one of the reasons Ham would do this was because
he himself was somehow lifting himself up in the eyes of his
brothers by pointing out the wickedness of his father. And
that is spiritual pride. That is pride in the heart. To want to appear better because
of the sins of someone else. And that's what I would do. I
know that's the motive because I find both motives in my own
heart so I can identify with them easily. Both of them are horribly wrong.
To be a gossip is to point out other people's sin in order to
make myself look better and make them look worse. And that's what
Ham did. He went out and told his brothers.
Who else would he tell? He picked the big guys on campus,
Shem and Japheth, and he says, you know what, I saw Dad. You
guys, it's really bad what he's doing there. But notice in verse
23, That's a wonderful thing, isn't
it? It says in Proverbs, hatred stirs up strife, but love covereth
all sins. And in another place in Proverbs,
he that covereth a transgression seeketh love, but he that repeateth
a matter separateth very friends. So to advertise sin is to promote
godlessness and lawlessness, but to hide the shame of a loved
one is to seek reconciliation. It's to take the humble place
of someone you love to try to hide their shame. Look at Galatians
chapter 6. This is explicitly brought out
there. This is the law of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what
He did when He saw our shame. He covered it at the cost of
His own blood. Galatians chapter 6 verse 1,
If a man be overtaken in a fault, you which are spiritual, restore
such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou
also be tempted. Isn't that what Jesus told us
to pray? Lead us not into temptation, because if we're led to temptation,
we will fall. bear ye one another's burdens,
and so fulfill the law of Christ." And that burden is that burden
of our own sin, isn't it? There's nothing more shameful
than our sin. Fools make a mock of it. Righteousness
exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people." Proverbs 14,
34. And so, God teaches us this.
Why would God do this? Why would God expose to us what
Noah did? Why wouldn't He just simply not
mention it? Wouldn't that have been better? Just leave it quiet. Noah was really, he was our hero
up to this point. And now, in the 601st year of
his life, he makes himself shameful. And his sons, his son goes around
telling people about it. And he lived another 350 years.
We don't know anything that he did of any value. I'm sure he
did. God used him in whatever way.
But why would God speak this way about those people in scripture
that he loves? Those people who are his saints?
Those people we admire? Maybe even tempted to revere? I think it's because if God only
told us the good things about people and didn't tell us the
whole truth about man, how could we believe He's telling us the
whole truth about our salvation? How could we believe God's Word
if He didn't just tell us the truth about all these things? He points out the truth about
ourselves to show that there's no reason for man to boast. And there's every reason for
sinners to flee to Christ, and there's every reason to expect
mercy from God in Christ. Oh, how this lesson, this short
little lesson here, teaches us so much about ourselves and about
the goodness of God and His glory alone. His scriptures are true
because He tells us the truth about ourselves. and we can trust
Him, therefore, to tell the truth about Himself and the glories
of our Savior. and therefore we can flee to
Him in confidence that for Christ's sake He receives sinners. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses
us from all sin. That's our only hope. We would
have no reason to have confidence in God if He didn't tell us the
truth and our need for His mercy. Thank God for the truth of Scripture.
Thank God that He saves sinners. Thank God that He gets all the
glory in doing so. Let's be thankful in our hearts
and worship Him. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we pray
that You would help us to understand Your Word in Scripture and humble
ourselves. We are so prone to pride, so
prone to perversity, so prone to hiding But let us come to
you, Lord, as the one who knows our souls. Our imaginations are
evil from our youth, and we need your salvation at all times.
Help us to find it in Christ, our Savior, our ark, our offering,
the one whose sufferings you saw, and in seeing your perfections,
they're manifested, are satisfied. And therefore you remember your
covenant, and you don't visit us with the wrath we deserve
for our sins, but you visit us with your salvation and your
spirit that we might believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. We
pray, Lord, for this mercy. Help us, dear Lord, not to go
from this place in unbelief. Help us, dear Lord, to go to
you at all times to be saved from our sin, from every temptation,
and help us to be thankful and live to your glory. In Jesus'
name we pray, amen.