Genesis chapter 9. Read, go back to chapter 8 first
and read with me, we're just beginning chapter 9, but read
with me verse 17, when the Lord sent the animals out of the ark. We've been looking at Noah and
the ark and what a picture of Christ They both are. Noah being our Lord Jesus Christ,
our resting place. The ark being Christ, our salvation. All in the ark are saved. All
outside the ark perish. But when they were leaving the
ark, verse 17, the Lord said, Bring forth with thee every living
thing that is with thee. of all flesh, both of fowl and
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." So the first thing he told the
animals, or the first thing for the animals to do was to be fruitful
and multiply. Now, chapter 9, look at it. directions, instructions to Noah
and his son. And God blessed Noah and his
sons and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the
earth. So the first thing that God said
concerning the animal was to be fruitful and multiply. And
they did and they do. The ox knows his owner, our Lord
said, and the ass knows his master's crib. The birds glorify God. They wake up singing, don't they,
to their Creator. The trees even clap their hands
to Him. The fish multiply and feed His
people. So the first instructions to
Noah and his sons, Noah being a type of Christ, And his sons
being all of the sons of God, is to be fruitful and multiply. And Christ is the fruitful one
in him, the fruitful vine. And he was truly fruitful to
the glory of God the Father. In chapter 1 of Genesis, let
me remind you what God said to man as soon as he created In
chapter 1, the very first thing God said to man in verse 28 of
chapter 1, God blessed them and God said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply. That's significant. And replenish the earth. That's
the first thing he said. Be fruitful and multiply. It
must be important, mustn't it? Be fruitful and multiply. It's speaking much more than
just procreating and producing children. Oh no, much more than
that. Man and beast were created by
God for God for His glory. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
firstborn among many creatures, isn't He? Oh, did he bear fruit
to the glory of God. How he bore fruit. He is the
first fruit unto the Lord. And man was created in the image
of God, which is. God has one image, right? Jesus
Christ is the express image. The fullness of God in a body. So man was created in the image
of Christ, but he fell, and he lost that image. Man in the garden
enjoyed God, and God enjoyed him. Christ enjoyed him. Christ
walked in his garden and enjoyed the fruits thereof. He enjoyed
his delights were with the sons of man. He delighted to be with
Adam and Eve as long as they were fruitful. But then they
fell. And he cast them out. He could
have no more fellowship with these unfruitful ones, with these
sinful, rebellious creatures, could he? But there's only one
way to restore them. Christ, the Substitute. And God
gave that beautiful picture of the woman's seed. and showed
them, these two sinners, how they could be restored into fellowship
with him through the blood of that lamb that he killed and
shed the blood and covered their nakedness with its skin. That's
Christ crucified. That's the substitute, the lamb
slain for sinners. And also, man's got to be made
a new creature for God to enjoy him. He's got to be fruitful
once again. God's got to put in him fruit
of the Spirit. Anybody listen to the radio messages
more? That's what it was. The fruit
of the Spirit. Look at John 15. Go over to John
chapter 15. This is what our Lord said. Now, all fruit. Life. comes from Him, from Christ,
who is the seed. We'll see this in a minute. All
fruit comes from seed. But in John 15, in verse 1, Christ
said, I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
He's the one that planted this vine. In verse 5, Christ said,
I am the vine, ye are the branches. Talking to His people. He's not
talking to the world. He's talking to his disciple.
He's elect. He said, You are the branches.
He that abideth in me and I in him, Christ in you, the same
bringeth forth much fruit. See that? And without me, though,
you can do nothing. You don't have any fruit. You're
rotten to the core, if you will, unless Christ is in you and you
in Christ. Look at verse 8. Herein is my
Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." That's how you know
you're His disciple. You bear much fruit. Let me tell
you a few things about fruit. Fruit. And this Christ in you
is the image of God, the image of Christ that God puts in His
people. Fruit now. This is the amazing
thing about fruit. Number one, God made it, and
there's nothing like it, is there? Nothing like it. All fruit comes
from seed, doesn't it? And all fruit has seed in it. Seed in it. It comes from seed,
and it has seed in it. What might that seed be, do you
think? You know what that seed is. It's
not corruptible seed, but incorruptible by the Word of God, which liveth
and abideth forever. You're born again by the Word
of God, the seed of God. And it's not just the Bible,
it's Christ. It's the Word as it speaks of
Christ, Christ the seed. And God's people are considered
holy, unblameable, unreprovable in God's sight. There's a new
creature created in them. It's not of themselves. It's
born of God, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will
of man, but of God, born of God. And in 1 John 3, it says that
person cannot sin because why? John, you know these verses.
Because his seed is in you. The Holy One. as in God's people. That's not you. It's that new
creature. You get no credit whatsoever for this new creature. It's born
of God for the glory of God in the image of Christ. So all fruit
comes from seed, and all fruit has seed in it. Did you hear
that? That's what this is talking about. All fruit blooms before it bears
fruit. It blooms. And the thing about
flowers are what? The fragrance. That's a sweet
smell. But then the fruit comes forth,
and what is it? Taste. A sweet-smelling savor. We are of God, he said, a sweet-smelling
savor. Fragrant because Christ is. He's that rose of Sharon, is
He not? And a taste of the grace of God. As grace poured from
His lips, so it does God's people. Now, don't be thinking about
yourself. Don't be thinking about yourself. Because you look to
yourself and you won't find any. You won't think there's anything
in you of any of this. But look at your brethren, okay? Those who you know bear the image
of Christ. And does not grace pour from
their lips? Huh? Does it not? Do they not
bear the image of the Lord Jesus Christ? You look at yourself
in the mirror of God's Word, and you don't see that image.
All you see is blemishes. All you see is sin. And that's
the way it's supposed to be. You're not supposed to think
well of yourself. If you take a right look at God's Word, you're
not going to see yourself as anything but corrupt through
and through. This is to look at Christ and
to show us our true selves. But when you look at your brethren,
you see the image of Christ, don't you? Reflected in them. You graze spores from their lips.
So it blooms. It bears fruit. It's healthy.
It's beneficial. Fruit. I don't know of anything
I love more than fruit. When I was preparing this, I
had a little refrigerator in the study down there, and I was
a little bit peckish, as the British would say. I went a little
hungry, and I walked over to the refrigerator and opened it
up, and there was grapefruit and oranges. And there's nothing
I love more than grapefruit and oranges, unless it's peaches
or mangoes. Is there anything like fruit?
Nothing. Nothing. It's no wonder that
the Lord is compared to fruit and His people. He said, to the
enjoyment of God, he enjoys his people and others. It's beneficial. It's good for you. It's good
for you. Fruit makes, well, God takes a bad
apple that's worthless to everybody and to themselves and makes a
good one out of it. Makes them worth something. And
how he does that is puts Christ in you. You can't do it. No matter
what you do, you can't produce any fruit. You cannot sanctify
yourself. Jesus Christ has made unto us
sanctification. He said, For their sakes I sanctify
myself that they also might be sanctified. How? Through the
truth. Without me, you can't do nothing. Fruit doesn't produce itself.
Fruit doesn't make itself grow. It comes from the vine, the root. Right? Let's get that straight.
For His glory. Fruit is not for itself. Fruit
is not for itself. If it's left alone, it will do
what? Rot. Fruit is for others to enjoy.
The husbandman first. The husbandman first who planted
it, and others to partake of it. What is this fruit? Well, we heard it this morning,
didn't we? And so we'll not deal with all of those things, but
love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
meekness, temperance, all these things. That's the fruit of the
Spirit. And herein is the Father glorified. And that's what Christ is. He's
all those things to perfection, is He not? Alright, go back to
our text in Genesis 9. So how significant is that? Be
fruitful and multiply. What's that mean? Why did Christ
come into this world? The safe center. Seed was sown. Why? If he didn't, if the grain
of wheat doesn't fall into the ground, it will abide alone. But if it dies, it brings forth
much fruit. So we're not our own. We're not
for ourselves. We're not, you know, go, bear much fruit, multiply. How? We can't do it. We can't
make anybody blue. We can't win one soul. We can't
save any soul. Christ has to do that. How does
He do it? The same way He did it to you. Seed. Go forth. He that goeth forth weeping,
bearing precious seed, shall no doubt come again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him. That's what we're for. My pastor
used to say this, he said, I'll fill the pulpit, you fill the
pew. In other words, I'll prepare
a message. You go out in the highways and the hedges and you
compel them to come in. He also said this, if the preacher
tries to fill the pew, he won't fill the pulpit. In other words,
if he does whatever he can just to bring people in, he won't
be preaching the truth. And that's what false religion
does. That's all they're concerned with is numbers, numbers, numbers.
So they change the message. Back to Genesis 9. Genesis 9. Verse 2. And the fear of you,
the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and
every fowl of the air, and upon all that moves on the earth,
the fishes and so forth. Fear and dread. Thank God for
the fear of man and animals. Right? Right, Kelly? Kelly deals with his 1,200 and
Catherine's 1,200, 1,500 pound animals that could kill you in
a heartbeat. A horse can scratch its ear with
its hind leg. You ever seen it do that? It
could kill you in a moment. It's been done many times. Thank
God for the fear of man in animals. All of them are afraid of man.
Snakes. My wife has a fear of snakes.
Women do. I wonder where that came from.
At any rate, she was walking in the woods one day and saw
a copperhead and came running back to me. Go kill that snake. Now, we had several acres. Where
is it? It's down there in the woods.
Well, okay, I'll go look. But you know
how many snakes there are in the woods? That one just happened
to be out. The fact is, that snake is more
afraid of her than we are of it. Thank God. But that's not what this is about. None of this is chiefly about.
Oh, the depth of the wisdom of God, the riches, His ways past
finding out. God's Word is spiritual. God's
Word has primarily a spiritual meaning. It points to Christ.
The fear of you. God, in Psalm 8, the Lord preached
this through Peter at Pentecost. He made Christ a little lower
than the angels from Psalm 8, but crowned him with glory and
honor and made him to have dominion over the works of God's hand,
put all things under his feet. beginning with the serpent. And sheep, oxen, beasts, fowl
of the air, fish of the sea, whatever the Lord, everything,
he's over all things. And he is the angel of the Lord. And I was going to have you turn
to Exodus 23, which is an amazing picture of how God sent these
unarmed Jews out into a hostile world. unarmed and everybody
hated him and wanted to kill him. But they couldn't touch
him. They couldn't touch him. Why?
Were they tougher than everybody else? No. He said he sent his
angel before them. He would go before them. And
nobody's going to touch my anointing. And so it is with God's people
still. Satan complained to God about
Job. He said, you put a hedge about
him, I can't touch him. That's true of all of God's people.
He goeth before us. And nobody can touch him. Put
the fear on. Don't touch my people. Like that
king. Remember that he found out Abraham's
wife was Abraham's wife, and God said, You touch her and I'm
going to kill you. And that's true of all of God's
people until He swung with them. Psalm 91. That's true of all
of God's people. The fear of you. Israel was hated
by all generations, but they couldn't wipe them out. God put the Pharaoh, even still
now today, a little old nation over there that can't, every
Arab on this planet wants them gone, wiped out, creating bombs
to wipe them out. They can't do it. Why? God said, as long as I live,
you'll be a nation to show forth my power. And it's a picture
of God's people. That's what Israel is all about,
God's elect. that nothing and no one can touch
him. The reformers of old were feared. Martin Luther stood alone
against the whole wicked religious world. He stood alone. He said,
Here I stand. I can do no other. They wanted
him dead. I've been reading that story.
And they couldn't touch him. John Knox, one of the reformers
from Switzerland, an evil queen, Bloody Mary, wanted him But she
said, Ty, you've read this story, she said she feared the prayers
of John Knox more than all the armies of the world. I put my fear in you and everybody
because of you. I'm not going to touch you. Now
look at the next few verses. Every moving thing that liveth
shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you
all thing." All meat. These commands were to Noah and
his sons as a picture of Christ, the Son. Every living thing belongs
to you. He's talking to Christ. Did not
John preach that? The Father loveth the Son, hath
given all things into his hand. Everything. And what's His is
ours. Rejoice with Christ, His Son. But here he's talking about meat.
Now, is this just talking about Jewish dietary laws? No. Come
on. And if you're listening carefully,
this was before the law. This was given before the law.
And what he's saying is there are no restrictions. You can
eat anything, couldn't you? Eat anything. Then the law came. Then they were restricted, weren't
they? You could only eat a certain thing. And then Christ came,
fulfilled the law, and he told Peter, eat everything. Eat everything. Oh, my. The wisdom
of God's Word. No law, then there's law, then
there's no law. Why? No law. Sin is not imputed where there's
no law. Then the law came because of
sin. That's why the law came. Because of sin. And then Christ
came and was the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believed. He put it away. All things. And Paul even wrote
about this, about false religion abstains from meats, but he said
everything is to be taken with thankfulness. Everything. And
certainly a picture of Peter and that sheep with the animals
was a picture of how God has a people out of every tribe,
kindred, nation and tongue on the earth, Jew and Gentile. But
this speaks of Christ, our life, living things. You see what we're
going to eat? Living things, not dead things.
The new creature in Christ feeds on living things, not dead things. Like the raven and the dove,
remember? All right, now look at the next verse. But flesh
with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye
not eat. Scripture speaks often of blood. What's the first mention of blood?
or right after sin. And the Lord speaks often of
blood. He speaks often of bloody men. Why did God destroy the world?
because all flesh had corrupted his way, and he said it was violence. Loving bloodshed. Their feet
were swift to shed blood, he said. As is in the days of Noah,
so shall the coming of the Son of Man be. We are in the very
last days, and nothing signifies that more than the violence that's
spread over this earth. And religion has corrupted his
way. In the name of God, have a form
of godliness, but have denied the power thereof. Religion in
the name of God that has never been further from the truth.
And then violence. These things clearly show us
that Christ is at the door. Bloody men, violent men, feet
swift to shed blood, the blood of both men and animals. And
our Lord magnifies this blood, what blood is all about. Turn
with me quickly. Leviticus 17. I've got to quit. I'm trying to keep these down
to about 30 minutes. But Leviticus 17, over here. He said, flesh with the blood
thereof." In other words, raw flesh, uncooked flesh, don't
drink the blood, don't take a heart out of a beast and eat it. Like
wild beasts do. Right? Like heathen do. They show their manhood. What
they do is show their beasts, the wild beasts. These are new
people. These are new creatures. They're
going out into a world that God destroyed because of these things.
He said, you're going to be new. You're not going to be like them.
You're not going to shed blood. You're going to be a peacemaker.
You're not going to be bloodthirsty. You're going to appreciate that
blood. You're not going to be violent. You're going to be a peacemaker.
You're going to be fruitful, not worthless. Leviticus 17. How significant. This was an
eye-opener to me. Leviticus 17.10, whatever man is in the house
of Israel of the strangers that sojourn among you that eateth
any manner of blood, I will set my face against that soul that
eateth blood and will cut him off from among his people. For
the life of the flesh is in the blood. This is what gives life
to all flesh, animal and man, human. The life of the flesh
is in the blood. Read on. I have given it to you
upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls. For it is the
blood that maketh atonement for the soul. The reason God made
blood was as a picture of the blood of Jesus Christ. That's the only reason He made
it. He said, I have given blood to show you that it's the most
precious thing on earth. It's life. There's nothing like
it. There's nothing more amazing.
Oh, what's in the blood. Oh, how God has created blood.
There's nothing like it. There's nothing that smells like
it. Nothing looks like it. You're afraid of it when you
see it. When you see it going, life is leaving. Everybody fears
losing it. What's it a picture of? Christ. That's why God made it. And it's
a precious thing. It's a life-giving thing. It's
a life-sustaining thing. It's a thing to be honored and
cared for and not shed without discretion, not trod underfoot. What does Hebrews say about men
that take the blood of Christ, the blood of the covenant, the
story of the Gospel, and just trod it underfoot? God said,
I'm going to trod you under my foot. Do you see this? What's blood all about? Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. I've given you the blood on the
altar to do what? To make an atonement for your
soul. When you lose your blood, you
die. You can't live without it. And Christ died that we might
live. He shed His blood. He shed His
blood. I'm convinced of that. I've never
seen it like that. The dietary law? Oh, yes, it's
practical. Yes, it's practical. Don't eat
raw meat. But that's not why God said that. Admit it. Do you
see that? Look at this. He goes on in chapter
9 of Genesis. He says in the next verse, he
talks about murder, self-murder, suicide. Verse 5, your blood
of your lives. will I require. Don't kill yourself. Self-murder. At the hand of every
beast will I require. An animal kills a man. To kill
that animal. Verse 5, at the hand of every
man's brother will I require. Whoever shed, verse 6, man's
blood, by man shall his blood be shed. Capital punishment. God said it. It's the only real
justice there is. What is it? A picture of God's
justice. And it's the only deterrent to
that, to murder. It's the only deterrent. God
created an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That stopped
a great deal of that then. If it was still in existence,
we'd have more justice with it. Oh no, we can't do that. Well,
God said it. But more than anything, this
was an amazing, amazing, amazing, in God's wisdom, picture of God's
mercy and grace that the only thing that would cover or forgive
or atone for even the sin of murder is for God to murder. He says, this is the indictment
that God has made against this human race. You with wicked hands
have taken and crucified the Lord of glory. His blood is on
your hands. You said so. Didn't they say,
let his blood be on us and our children? It is. But God, rich in mercy, the only
thing that will wipe out that blood off your hands is the blood
that came from this. I'm graving you on the palms
of my hands with a nail. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that
amazing? So you take that message. Christ
and Him crucified. And the last verse says, now
go, be fruitful and multiply. It started with that and ended
with that. On the seventh verse, perfection. Be fruitful. Multiply. This blood, you see,
is a precious thing. To you that believe, He's precious.
That blood wasn't shed for every human being. Jesus Christ didn't
die for all mankind. God doesn't treat His Son's blood
like that. No, sir, would you? I wouldn't
sacrifice my child for anybody in here. God did. But you can be sure
that whoever he shed his son's blood for is saved. Because there's
not one drop of that blood that was shed in vain, needlessly. It's too precious. It's too powerful. And God said, when I see the
blood, Whoever Christ's blood, whoever
is in the house where the blood is over the doorpost and the
lintel, Christ said, I will pass over you. See, it's the blood.
It's the blood.