I want to read a few verses for
us. I want to remind you again of
verse 15. In verse 16, God spake unto Noah,
saying, Go forth of the ark. And in the preceding verses down
through verse 19, that's what he did. And then we come here
this evening to verse 20 through verses 22. 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
savor, 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 everything living as I have done. While the earth
remaineth, see time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer
and winter, and day and night shall not cease." I wanted to
read verses 15 to you because It sort of goes along with what
we were saying last time we looked at this chapter about waiting
on the Lord until He speaks. And I love to read this verse
16. The Lord spake to Noah. Because He's still speaking today. The Lord has always spoke to
man in various ways. I have no idea how He spoke to
Noah. God is a spirit. Maybe he spoke
to his spirit. He spoke to his understanding.
Maybe he spoke in an audible voice. Maybe he spoke in a dream.
We're not told. But God spake to Noah. And he's still speaking today.
Listen to these scriptures. He calleth his own sheep by name,
and the sheep hear his voice, and he leadeth them out. Other
sheep I have which are not of this foal, them I must bring,
and they shall hear my voice." So he is still speaking today
to men's hearts. The dead shall hear the voice
of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live. He that heareth my word, and
believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life. Of course, His voice is this
Word. It's His gospel. Paul said, Our
gospel came to you in word and in power and in the Holy Ghost
and in Beth Shesherad. So the Lord Jesus Christ is speaking
today. We hear His voice. And we, like
the church of old, we pray this way, My companions, Love your
voice. Cause me to hear. The most life-giving
voice that you'll ever hear is the voice of the Son of God.
And the life that He gives, He strengthens and comforts and
upholds by His voice. He speaks and upholds the life
that He gives. But not only this spiritual life,
but there's coming a time when these bodies that have been put
back in the grave, And as far as you and I know, they're gone.
They've turned to dust. But the Lord Jesus said, there's
coming an hour when those that are in the grave shall hear the
voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall come forth.
They that have done good into eternal life, they that have
done evil. into everlasting destruction.
So His voice is being heard today, and it will be heard. Job said,
All my appointed days will I wait till my change comes. You shall
call, and I'll answer you. I'll answer you. His voice is
a mighty voice. It's an ineffectual voice. And
when He speaks to you and when He speaks to me, we'll know it's
Him. A stranger will they not follow? They know not the voice of a
stranger. When the Lord's ear spoke to
Noah and said, Noah, go forth of the ark, there was no doubt
in Noah's mind who that was. It was the Lord. It was His Lord.
It was His Lord. Now we come here to verse 20.
And what I like about this, and I guess we could say that it
was another blessing for those who wait on the Lord. What a
blessing it is to wait, and God blesses those who wait on Him.
But what Noah received here was a fuller view, a greater revelation
than had ever been given before that we're told of. There was
two things that was revealed to Noah here that had never been
revealed before that you and I know of in God's Word. When
He come out of the ark, I don't know when this was made known
to Him, but God made these two things known to Him. One, an
altar. The first time we read of an
altar is right here in this verse. If they had altars before, we're
not told of it. I don't think they did. And this
burnt offering, this sacrifice that was made by fire, Noah put
a whole animal on this altar and burn it with fire. And this
is the first time we read of these two things. Now, sometimes
you go to these commentaries, and I love commentaries. I keep saying this, and sometimes
I don't mean to be so negative about these commentaries, but
sometimes you have to be so careful of them. I was reading just this
past week about this very passage. And one commentator in particular
said, no doubt there were alters before. We just weren't told. And another one said, no doubt
they kept the Sabbath before. And another made this statement.
And he's a good commentator. He said about the ninth chapter
where we're told of the rainbow. He said, no doubt that it had
rained previous before the flood. And no doubt, he said, there
had been rainbows, many rainbows before the floods. That defeats
the whole purpose, doesn't it, of the rainbow? This was the
first time the altar was used, because it's the first time we're
told of it. It's the first time anyone knew anything about a
burnt sacrifice. It was revealed to no one. And this is what we call progressive
Is that the right word, Larry? Progressive revelation. See,
as the Lord went on in time, He kept making things known that
He revealed to nobody else before. It's sort of like when you're
a young believer, you don't know very much, do you? You're not
a theologian. But as the Lord is within you,
you begin to desire the sincere milk of the Word, and He makes
more and more known to you as you grow in grace and knowledge.
It's the same way in the Bible. I just know for certain, according
to my view of this, that Enoch, the prophet of God, knew nothing
of an altar or a burnt sacrifice. He knew the Lord, but he knew
nothing of these two things. Here's the first time they were
revealed. Altar and a burnt offering. Now what do these things mean? What was revealed to Noah concerning
this altar and this burnt offering? Well, here's what they told Noah. They revealed to him the dual
natures of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the God-Man. The altar represents Christ in
His Godhead, in His deity. Now, when I say Godhead, be careful
with that word. Because I went for years, when
I used the word Godhead, or I heard it used, I always thought that
meant the triune God. We use it that way sometimes.
But you look in the Scripture, the word Godhead, and it means
deity. That's His deity. Christ's Godhead, His deity.
It don't necessarily mean His three-in-one person, like I used
to think it meant. But it's His deity. So the altar
represents Christ in His Godhead, His deity, and this burnt offering
represents Christ in His extreme suffering and His humanity, His
body and His soul. Now I want you to look at this
altar with me just for a few minutes. I want you to turn with
me over in Deuteronomy chapter 27. In chapter 27 and verse 5
and in verse 6. One of the things we're told
about the altar is that it's holy. It was holy. When the children
of Israel had made their altar there in the wilderness, they
had to sanctify it. Deuteronomy chapter 27. They
had to sanctify it. And here's what was said of it.
They sanctified it and put blood upon it and they consecrated
it. And when they did that, the Lord
said, now this altar is holy. It's holy. And everything that
touches this altar will be holy. It'll be holy. Now, that don't
tell us any more about the deity of Christ than it does about
the humanity of Christ, because He was holy. He was holy. He was the God-man holy. But it does tell us something
about that altar, doesn't it? It tells us something about that
altar. That woman that came to the Lord Jesus with that issue
of blood, you remember what she said? If I can just touch Him,
if I can just touch Him, I'll be made whole. And when the Lord
Jesus Christ touches a person, or they touch Him by faith, they're
made whole. They're made one with Him. When
you put something on that altar, or you touch that altar, you
have made it as holy as it was. Now that's the mystery, but that's
the altar. It was holy, and whatsoever touches
the altar shall be holy. But here was something else about
this altar that shows us this altar is the deity of the Lord
Jesus Christ. It is Godhood. Look here in Deuteronomy
chapter 27, and look in verse 5 and in verse 6. And there shall thou, there when
you come into the land and you've made the sanctuary and the altar
and the priesthood and everything that went along with that, and
there shall thou build an altar unto the Lord thy God, and that
altar of stones thou shalt not lift up any iron too upon them. Thou shalt build the altar of
the Lord thy God of whole stones and thou shalt offer burnt offerings
thereof unto the Lord." So here we see by this that the children
of Israel, when they built an altar, they weren't allowed to
hew the stones. They were to go out in the field
or the river bottoms or wherever they found these stones, get
the whole stone and bring it and build an altar out of those
holes. Never a tool was to be used to
shape Him. Now, Jesus Christ was both God
and man, was He not? He is both flesh and deity. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. God was made flesh. When the
fullest of time was come, God sent forth His Son, His everlasting
Son. made of a woman. So there we have both deity,
we have God, and we have man. Dual persons in one body. Humanity and God. Deity and flesh. As the man,
Christ Jesus, was related to us, and in that sense he was
identified with us in our natural infirmities. even our weaknesses
and dependency upon human elements. He had to eat. He had to drink.
He had to sleep. He was conceived in the womb
of a virgin, and there he was nourished by her, just like you
was when you was in your mother's womb. She brought him forth from
her womb. She had to wash him. She had
to wrap him in swaddling clothes. and nurse Him upon her breast?
He was protected of Joseph, took Him down into Egypt? He was ministered
unto by those women? He was one with us even in our
infirmities. He was dependent in a great sense
upon us, upon His human fellow man. Was He not? What would have
happened to Him if His mother forsook Him? He would have starved. Now you say that's impossibility,
but that proves the point. He was dependent upon others. He suffered our natural infirmity. There's the man, Christ Jesus.
Man and angels ministered unto Him. But there was that part
of Jesus Christ that could not relate to human infirmities or
the natural weaknesses of man. There was that part of him that
was not supported, that was not protected or laid hold on or
handled, and that was his deity. He was God. He was God. As a man, he grew up, he increased,
he needed help. He needed to be ministered unto
by men and angels, but as God, he was whole and untouched and
independent of any human or angelic instrumentality. He was God,
he was whole, and had need of no man or angel. As a man, he
hungered and had to eat, but as God, he said, if I was hungry,
I wouldn't ask you. He was both God and man. As man,
He was helped by man. He was dependent upon man. But
as God, He was dependent upon nobody. He came into this world
to hold the eternal God. Deuteronomy chapter 27 and 6
again says this, and it tells us something else about this
altar, is this. It said this, Thou shalt build
the altar of the Lord thy God of whole stones, and Thou shalt
offer burnt offerings thereon unto the Lord thy God. We are told here that this altar
supported the sacrifice that was offered upon it. Now what
do we get out of that? There is a most definite sense.
in regard to the sufferings of Christ on the cross, in which
you cannot separate His humanity from His deity. Somebody was
talking not long ago, and someone made the statement, God died
on the cross. And sometimes your conscience
checks you when you hear something like that, doesn't it? But there
is that most definite sense in which you and I cannot, we cannot
divide or separate Christ's humanity from His deity even upon that
cross. And it's this sense that His
deity upheld His humanity in that extreme suffering. Noah's sacrifice consisted of
these two things. You cannot remove either one
of them. That is, the altar and then that sacrifice of the burnt
offering which was upon that altar. You had a sacrifice and
you had an altar to support the weight of that sacrifice that
was upon it. If it was possible that a man
could come into this world wholly I mean, born of a woman, but
yet He was holy, without any sin. And if He could live that
way, and you put Him on a cross and put just one sin on Him,
and let God charge Him with that sin, and the wrath of God fall
upon Him, it would crush Him down to hell, and He could never
recover. But here was Jesus Christ in His humanity, took not one
sin, but an innumerable number of sins in his own body, and
the wrath of God fell upon him, and yet he did not die until
justice was satisfied and all the wrath of God had been swallowed
up. And then and only then did he give up the ghost and die.
Now how could he have did that? In His humanity, how could He
have borne our sins and the wrath of God in His body? What held
Him up? What supported His weight? And
that's where His Godhead comes in. That's where His divinity
comes in. That's what held Him up. If He
had been a mere man, or even a holy man, that wouldn't have
held Him up under such extreme suffering. When we talk about
a burnt offering, that denotes to us the fire of God's jealousy,
the fire of God's wrath, consuming the sacrifice. What held Him
up? His deity. And that's what this
altar is. That's why it was made of whole
stones. It had nothing to do with man.
You weren't allowed to cut on it or shape it. God's eternal,
and He's whole. You don't shape Him. You don't
need our help. He needs nothing from us. And
that's what supported Jesus Christ and His humanity, the weight
of that burnt sacrifice on the cross. Listen to Hebrews chapter
9, verse 13 and 14. If the blood of bulls and of
goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling the unclean sanctify
to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood
of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without
spot to God. What does that mean? Through
the eternal Spirit offered himself. Through the help of the Spirit. Through the aid, through the
support of the eternal Spirit. God upholding God, Luther said. What a mystery. Luther sat down
one day to read Psalms 22. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? And they said Luther sat there
for a couple of hours, silent, reading that verse of Scripture.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And he said finally
he got up and slapped the table. And he said, my soul who can
understand this, God forsaken God, what a mystery that is. And here you have the man suffering
upon that cross, a burnt offering to atone for our sin. And what
was it that supported Him there? His deity. That altar that He
was upon. Something else about it is this.
What did the Lord say about the altar? What did He say sanctified
the gift? You bought a gift and you put
it on the altar. And he said, the altar sanctifies the gifted. What is it that made the death
of the man Christ Jesus effectual? What was it? He was God. No mere man can atone for sin. We often say this, that Jesus
Christ the man can suffer and die. But only God can atone for sin.
And He was both God and man. Man can suffer and man can die.
God can't die. But God can atone in His Son,
in the death of His Son. So the burnt offering speaks
of Jesus Christ in His extreme sufferings, thereupon the cross,
in His humanity. And the altar speaks of His deity. And nobody else but the God-man
can suffer and die, and in his death atone for sin. And that's
what Noah saw. That's what he saw. God revealed
that to him. He saw the humanity and the deity
of the Lord Jesus Christ, those dual natures. I think probably
as we look at these things, We don't realize it very much, but
I imagine they saw more in this than you and I see it. They saw
more in these sacrifices than you and I see it. When Noah built
that altar, laid those whole stones together, he said, now
there's God. There's God. You don't shape
Him. There He is. He's just there. That's His nature.
He's whole. And then he took that lamb, took
those clean beasts, and he laid them upon the altered, and He
set it ablaze. And you know what He said is
that smoke rose up. There's my Savior. There He is
in His humanity. And He gave them something to
look at that their faith could get a hold of. In verse 21 of our text in Genesis
8, how does God feel about this? How does God feel about this
offering, this sacrifice? And He said there in verse 21,
And the Lord smelled a sweet savor. You know God does not have a
nose. This was not said for God's sake. He was a spirit, eternal
spirit. He did not have a nose. Then
why did He say God smelled? He says this for our sakes, brothers
and sisters. He comes to us and He says, I
want you to enter in what I've entered into. I want you to know
what I know. I want you to feel what I feel
about this sacrifice that I'm making. It's a sweet Savior to
me. This is somewhat amazing. If
you ever smelt burning flesh, you know it's not a sweet smell
per se. It's awful, ain't it? Nothing stinks any worse than
flesh burning. And yet when God smelled it,
He said it's a sweet thing. What does that tell us? God don't
look as you and I look, does He? He doesn't see as you and
I see. When the world looks at the cross,
the bloody cross, what does it see? They don't see anything
that's attractive. They don't see anything that's
sweet. As a matter of fact, it's offensive to them. Just as offensive
to the natural man as burning flesh is. But when God looks
at the cross, what does He say? Oh, sweet. What a sweet Savior. What a sweet Savior. That's what
He thinks of the gospel. That's what He thinks of His
Son. He's a sweet perfume to the Father. Christ has loved
us, Ephesians 5-2 says, and gave himself for us in an offering
and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savior. God smells him and he
smells sweet. And you know what else he says?
We are unto God a sweet savior of Christ. You're in him, you're
one with him, and you smell just like he smells. It smelled just
like he smelled. And something else here in verse
21 is this, God said in his heart. Did you ever wonder how Moses
knew that God said in his heart? How did Moses know what was in
the heart of God? Did you ever wonder that? Don't
this teach us that this Bible is inspired? Because men didn't
write their opinions. They wrote what was in the heart
of God. And how can a man know what's in the heart of God unless
God make it known to him? God came down and said, Moses,
here's what's in my heart. The sacrifice, the atonement,
the gospel is to me a sweet-smelling savor. The Word of God is inspired. That's what this teaches us. And in the last portion of verse
21, God said, 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 smite again
every living thing that I have made. There seems to be two reasons
given here why the Lord said He would never smite the world
again. One, it's obviously connected to this sacrifice, because He
made it when He smelt this sacrifice. He smelt this sacrifice and He
said, I'll never smite again. I'll never smile again. You know,
I think sometimes that you and I, I think we understand the
death of Christ when we do as far as the redemption of His
people is concerned. But brothers and sisters, I just
wonder really how far reaching the death of Christ is. How far
reaching is it? What would happen to this world
if it wasn't for the death of Christ? I just wonder that sometimes. How many blessings has this world
received because of the death of Christ? How many gifts has
God given to lost men who finally perish because of the death of
Christ? How far reaching is it? I have
no idea. But I just about guessed this,
that one of the reasons this world continues today is because
Jesus Christ died upon that cross. And God smells this sweet savor
and spares and blesses. And secondly, the reason here
given for God not destroying ever again as He did this, is
His long suffering. His long suffering. We look at
our nation sometimes and we think, and it's so in a sense, I realize
that, that our nation is getting so evil and so left the knowledge
of God that God may destroy us. But you know something? This
world doesn't exist in the first place because it's good. God ain't never spared any nation
because it's been a good nation. He spares it in spite of its
evil. He says, I'm not going to ever
destroy man as I have done this time, because I know what man
did. He wasn't good before the flood,
and the natural man is not good after the flood, and he never
will be good. But I'm not going to destroy
him anyway. It's almost, Spurgeon said, like he's looking for an
excuse not to destroy somebody. That man is so evil, you ought
to destroy him. I know he's evil. I know what
he is. Look at that nation, how ungodly.
Why don't you just destroy them? I know more than you do how ungodly
they are. I ain't going to destroy him.
Why? Because he's God. He's long-suffering. He's good. It has nothing to
do with us, has it? It's Him. He's not destroyed
this nation because He's God. He's eternally different than
you and I are. That's the reason. And look what He says here in
verse 22. And I have found this so comforting.
You know, you and I hear so much today, and I just read. Our paper
yesterday that was talking about so many churches now getting
off on the environmental issues, the global warming issues and
all of that. And brothers and sisters, I am
not for destroying our environment, putting things in our water that
would poison the water. I'm not for any of that. But
I think man's getting pretty proud. when he thinks that the
continuance of this environment and the continuance of this earth
is dependent upon us. Don't you think that? And I find
this so comforting here, while the earth remaineth, there will
be seed time and harvest. Now there may be a drought somewhere,
in certain parts of the world, and they'll not be able to grow
any harvest. They won't even plant seed, but
they'll just plant in some other part. There's always going to
be seed time in harvest. There has been from this time,
and it hasn't changed. We're still planting seed. We're
still eating. Don't that prove this is God's
Word? And He said this, there'll be cold and there'll be heat. There may be periods when it's
colder. There may be periods when it's
warmer. Call it global cooling. Call it global warming. But God
said it will be that way. And a thousand years ago, two
thousand years ago, it may have been a freezing down in Orlando,
Florida, where they couldn't grow peaches. I don't know. And
it may change in certain parts of the country. But I assure
you this much, there's always going to be cold, and there's
always going to be heat, because God said it. And it's been, and
it's been up to now, and it will be until the end of time. Not
only that, but there'll be summer, and there'll be winter. Some
fellow told me one day, he said, boy, it's getting to the place,
and I believe it's going to reach the time where you can't tell
summer from winter. It'll never happen. It'll never happen. We're so silly, aren't we? We
look, I've been on this earth for thirty-seven years. Fifty-seven
years. Fifty-seven years. And I don't
have much history to judge things by. And I look back and say,
boy, the weather's a lot different than it was when I was a kid.
Things ain't changing. They're not changing at all.
It was summer and winter when I was a kid. We just got finished
with summer, and now it's winter. And God's will, we'll come back
in the spring, we'll plow up our gardens and we'll sow because
it'll be summer. And it hasn't ceased since this
time. And there'll be night and there'll be day. They shall never
cease. And you remember what Peter said,
the ungodly said, and they would say, in the latter days, Where
is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep,
everything continued just like it was. Even the ungodly proves
His Word, don't they? Go right down to the very last
days, the very last days of the existence of this earth as we
know it, and everything is going to be just like it is today.
And who is it that rules these things? It's God our Savior. The very
one who redeemed our souls out of great love. Jesus of Nazareth. He's the one that holds these
things. What precious promises. Don't take a load off of us.
Let our politicians try to get us all stirred up about these
things. I don't care what the scientists say. I can't help
it. But when they come to me and say the oceans is going to
flood over the earth, I ain't going to believe them.
This takes a good load off of me, don't it, you? God, our Savior,
rules these things. And I'm not going to fret about
it. I'm going to enjoy this world and God's creatures as long as
He'll give me grace to do. And trust Him. Trust Him. Oh, Father, gracious and kind
and tender Father. What a tender Father You are.
given us these precious promises, confidence. Let us know how you
feel in your heart of hearts about your dear son. What a mystery
you are. And our hope of salvation is
that you're eternally different than we are. Thank you for your
sovereign rule over this earth, over this universe. even giving
us these precious promises beforehand so our hearts wouldn't fret,
would not fear about what the world fears about. Their hearts
fell on them for what they fear is coming upon this earth. You're
our sovereign, Lord. You're sovereign in your providence.
This earth is yours. The sun is yours. And everything
that's in this universe belongs to you, and you rule over it.
And our hearts are so comforted to know this. And to thank such
a God as our Savior, and He's our Father, is more than our
poor hearts could ever know or believe if you hadn't have made
us do so. Thank you for this, dear people
that's gathered here. Thank you for those who have
come and driven a long way to worship, to hear your Word preached.
Thank you for these little children. Oh, Lord, bless them. You love
the little children. Would you take these little children
that's here up in your arms and bless them, pronounce a blessing
upon them, and they'll be blessed if you'll bless them. Bless them
as they practice their program. and help the dear sisters as
they labor to know how to teach them. Oh, our Father, bless us
as a congregation. Let us fear you and love you
and worship you. Spread abroad the fame of our
dear Lord and Savior. Bless us this coming week. Bless
and keep these dear people. Forgive us of our sin and keep
us from evil. Oh, how soon we'll fall. Just
let our desires and our opportunities meet together, and we'll fall
and bring shame on Your name and discourage one another. Oh,
keep us, our Father. Deliver us from evil. Help the
dear husbands and wives to love one another here. Help them to
know how to be good parents, and help the children to obey
their parents and to love them. For the Lord Jesus' sake, Amen.