Today we talk about Noah leaving the ark and God's renewed covenants with mankind!
Journey by Faith
Genesis Part 21: Noah leaves the ark
You're listening to Journey By Faith, the official podcast of Faith Bible College in Norfolk, Virginia. We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Here we go. Welcome back everybody. It is the Faith Bible College Podcast and we are excited once again to go through Genesis. We have made it to chapter 9 today. And this is a continuation from where we picked up last time. Noah has left the ark, God has made a covenant with him to never again strike down every living creature, and God continues this in chapter 9 today where he says, "And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.'" Now he said this once before in the previous chapter, but now he's zeroing in on Noah and his sons, not just all creation, but specifically on man. In a way, a new Adam, this is part of a new creation in some ways, and his sons with him, and he sends them out the same way that he said to Adam and Eve, "Be fruitful and multiply on the earth." Right. So with Adam and Eve, we find this command from God, and well, with Adam and Eve, there's just two of them, so the earth needed to be filled. Right. Well, we've got Noah, his wife, three sons, and their wives, so there's eight of them now, but still the earth needs to be filled once again. Right. And, you know, so people wonder and question, well, is this command still in effect today? Right. And there are some that say, "Absolutely it is," then there are others that say, "No, it's not for everybody." I happen to fall into that second category. Right. I agree with that. Because to me, you know, with almost eight billion people out there, the earth is pretty full. Right. I don't think we need to go out and keep populating and filling the earth, plus, you know, today, how would this command work? Does that mean that everybody has to get married and everybody has to have children? And if you don't get married and you don't have children, then you're being disobedient to God? Well, obviously no, because Paul talks about how he was single and even Jesus himself was single. Right. He was without sin, so I don't think that this is a command that we need to obey today. Right. It was for Adam and Eve. It was for no one, his family. Right. And from there, the earth has been full. But as you said, Noah is a kind of a second Adam. So as we'll see when we come later on the chapter 10, every human being alive today can trace their lineage back to Noah and his sons. Right. Yep. Absolutely. And we're going to see where the sons and their families move out and occupy the earth. But it's kind of amazing to think about that, reminding us again that there is one race, the human race, and that we are much more alike than we are different in this world today. And I think we often forget that. Right. Yep. Without a doubt. I agree. That's good. He goes on and says, "The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground, and all fish of the sea and into your hand, they are delivered." This I think, again, is an echo of God who gave dominion over all things to Adam. So again, I think more of the connection here between Adam and Noah, you know, just presented in the same way as this kind of recreation kind of idea. Yeah. I like the fact that God says, "The fear of you, not just Noah, but of mankind, is going to be upon every beast." And we often, or at least, I've often heard camping and hunting, you know, if you come across a wild animal, well, they're more afraid of you than they are, you are them. And sometimes I've found that hard to believe, but here we have it, God says it himself. He instilled a fear and a dread in animals of mankind. And in fact, even today, people will tell you that one of the most dangerous animals is one that has lost his fear for man and will come amongst people, even though they're wild and those you can't trust. That's true. No, that's right. Yeah. One of the most scared I've ever been in my life was I was with my friend at a camp in North Carolina. And at night, we went up on this mountain until it looked at stars and stuff. And he, all of a sudden, we just hear something running towards us. There's nothing more terrifying than not knowing what's running towards you. And I was hoping that that animal would have been more afraid of me. We yelled very loud and it was afraid of us, thank goodness and didn't hurt us, but yes, I would hope hopefully they are afraid of us because if not, we are in trouble because there's many, you know, creatures out there who could do a lot of harm and do frequently. And you know, we need to remember, and I know this is getting off track, but even if an animal attacks, it's not necessarily aggression in those cases, it is fear, you know, they are protecting themselves, defending themselves or their family. And so really, man is the aggressor that goes out and kills for sport. Animals don't do that. So they are acting out of fear or simple survival. Yeah. Fear or just survival. Just need something. Right. Yes. Yes. So again, you have very good, very good to remember. I don't know. I love getting off track. But a little bit off track for different things. So always fun, I think, to think about these things. Verse three, every morning, every, sorry, every moving thing that lives, shall be food for you. A lot of us said amen and as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything, but you shall not eat flesh with its life. That is its blood. So here we see the first command to not eat the blood of these creatures. Well, is it the first or I think, well, like you said, we'll get to the blood part. Okay. Sure. But I love this verse because he said, God says, as I gave you the green plants, now I give you everything. Right. Yes. And so we see that prior to the flood, man was prohibited from eating flesh. Right. From eating animals and meat. Now, does that mean that nobody ever ate a steak before the flood? No. In fact, I'm sure that they did, but now we have the permission of God. And again, for me personally, I'm a meat and potato kind of guy, you know, you give me a meal. There probably should be meat in there someplace, especially dinner, you know, I can only go so long on salads and vegetables. My wife, on the other hand, my couple of my children, you know, could very easily be vegetarians. Me now, I don't think I'd last too long at all. So thankfully, God says, I'm giving you now the animals to eat and you can eat them. And then as you mentioned in verse four, but don't eat the flesh with the life, which is its blood, right. And once again, we look at this and say, well, wait a minute, does that mean if I have a steak and it's a rare or medium rare that I'm disobeying God, well, I hope not. That's the way I like my steak. But no, here, what we find is the importance of blood and also, you know, blood carries with it certain components that, you know, can make one sick or even be lethal, sometimes even more so than the flesh itself. But the point here is not so much the blood of the animals, but it comes in verse five. Right. And for your life blood, I will require a reckoning. Right. From every beast, I will require it and from man, from his fellow man, I'll require a reckoning for the life of man. And so here we find God taking the blood of animals and saying, listen, blood is your life. Right. You know, which is really kind of interesting because a lot of times for us today, you know, we say, oh, it was a very bloody situation. We think of death. Right. Well, yeah, the body without blood is going to die, but the blood is the life. And notice here this, what some have referred to as a scarlet thread of redemption in that the importance of the blood and how often we find in the New Testament, the blood of Christ, right, you know, we even sing nothing but the blood of Jesus. And God is setting that stage to the life and the power that is in blood. And I like the terminology that the ESV uses here. You know, I will require a reckoning. Right. In other words, there's going to be consequences. Yes. Yeah. I hear reckoning and I think back to the old westerns, you know, a reckoning is coming. But, you know, and he says I'm going to require that not only of animals, but from people. Right. So from his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Right. So verse six is where this reckoning, yeah, this is kind of a, I don't know what to call it. It looks like a pop out whenever there's a poet poetic phrase of some kind, the ESV in particular and many others too, will kind of indent and set it apart. So this verse is set apart as something, something to look at. And it says, whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed for God made man in his own image. So again, this is what that reckoning is when it comes to what is required of man when it regards the life of his fellow man. Yeah. And here we come to a big debate amongst believers. And that is does this passage infer capital punishment? Right. In other words, is God giving not only permission, but saying, Hey, if you kill somebody, you deserve to die. Now we know in general, one sin, whatever that sin might be has the consequence of spiritual death. Right. But this goes deeper, you know, whoever sheds the blood of man murders by man shall his blood be shed. He will die. Now, I, obviously there are Christians out there that say, I don't believe in the death penalty. Right. It shouldn't be and give all kinds of reasons. I got to tell you, honestly, from my own perspective, from this passage, I do support it. Right. And I know there's a lot of arguments against it, but to me, this is a passage that God allows it and even encourages it as a means of, well, we'll just use the word that God used reckoning. Yes. Right. And again, we would not look at a single verse and infer something from it, but we also look at the law of Moses. There are very similar laws that follow in line directly with this. So when you look for biblical consistency like that, that's being a good biblical reader. You know, in the law of Moses, there are plenty of places where there's an equal reckoning, you might say, for a sin committed against another human. Right. And the fact is that in ancient cultures, and we're talking about from this time on, for many, many thousands of years, the law of the land was what was known as Lex Talianos, which basically translates to mean the law of revenge. Okay. And so it was revenge was expected. We know that later on in the law, God provides cities of refuge. Yes. That's right. Yep. You know, an accidental death a person could flee there and not suffer the consequences of that revenge. Right. You know, to us, we say, well, that's, that's kind of barbaric. You know, that's a vengeful, you know, it's even a vigilante type of thing. And yeah, that's exactly what it was today. We have police forces. We have armed services. We have governments. And in fact, in Romans 13, Paul even tells us that the government wields the sword, which could be a reference to capital punishment, the death penalty. So whatever your thoughts may be on it and say, well, it's not effective or, you know, innocent people may die. Here God says, and He sets this ball in motion of the law of revenge, man's life is precious. And I will hold a caliber, anybody who takes that life, whether it be another human being or even an animal will suffer the consequences. And so once again, we come back and we see man being the pinnacle of God's creation and man being valuable. Why? Because even now, after the flood, and even today, we are all made in the Amagua Day, in the image and likeness of God, and that gives us a value that we often forget. Absolutely. Yes. And that is the value that all mankind has. Now, something I've heard about this covenant also is there are many covenants that might be specific like the law of Moses is a covenant specific for Israel. This is one that's all encompassing for all mankind, right? Yeah. In fact, as I mentioned, every ancient culture, whether it was Mesopotamia, Egypt, Canaan, Persia, Babylon, and even into the Greeks and the Romans, more so the Greeks believed in Lexitalianos, the law of revenge. Absolutely. And it was only the Romans that began to dissipate it a little bit, but really wasn't until the time in the Middle Ages and after that, that concept subsided, and governments tended to take the lead. Gotcha. So, again, yes, like we see, you see this evidence, you know, this is something that we see all throughout history, like Dr. Newman said. So this is where just God's providence in creating the world is that he's over that, and that we can trust what he says. And this is something that is true, right? So whatever you believe on, you know, capital punishment or anything else, we always start with, I say, not what culture says. What does God say? What does God say? So as you think about... Yes, exactly. As you think about your beliefs on subjects, start with the word of God and then go from there. So that's the thing that we would absolutely encourage all believers to do. Absolutely. Verse seven, again, repeats. You know, this is about the third time in the last, you know, last several verses where God says, "You be fruitful and multiply and increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it." And why is it repeated? Just God wants it to be heard. That's the best we can say, I think. So... Yeah. Yep. He just... This is the command that I have for you is be fruitful and multiply. After this, God said, it said, "Then's God said to Noah, 'And to his sons with him, 'Behold, I establish my covenant with you, and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out from the ark. It is for every beast of the earth, I establish my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." Yeah. So God makes a promise here. And notice the wording specifically. You know, God says, "I establish my covenant with you and your offspring, and every living creature." So that's all of humanity. And he says, "It is for every beast of the earth," and he says in verse 11, "Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth." And what we notice here is that this does not preclude flooding, you know, local floods. Yeah. There have been local floods, you know, ever since the time of Noah. And some of them have caused death and destruction, but never again has God destroyed all flesh and the entire earth, which again is a very strong argument in my mind for the universes – universality of Noah's flood, because if Noah's flood was only local, well, God didn't keep his word. He lied. Yeah, that's right. And we know that our God is incapable of that. I had a very temporary crisis when I was a kid, and I heard about a flood on the news. And I was like, "But God said," and my parents explained it to me very quickly, so I got over that. But you're right. There is a difference. Yes. There have been local floods. There are local floods. But if the flood of Noah was universal, God promised never to do that again. And it hasn't happened again. So like you said, God says what he says and means it and never lies. He never goes against what he said he would do. So absolutely. Verse 12. And then God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make. Between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations, I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth." So we have a sign of the covenant, and God does this in other places, but here specifically, he mentions one. Any significance to signs or this sign in particular you want to point out? Well, again, notice he says, "This is between me and you and every living creature, and for all future generations." And the sign is not for God. God doesn't need to be remembered. He doesn't need to be remembered. He doesn't need to remind you, right. Yeah. But it is for us. God sets the rainbow, and I find it interesting because you say, "Okay, a rainbow. Why a rainbow?" Well, as far as I know, I'm not a scientist or a meteorologist, but the only time I've seen rainbows is when there's been rain or humidity or something along that line, and that rain reminds us back again of the flood, 40 days and 40 nights. And God says, "Not doing that anymore." So, as a sign for us, then every time we see that, we remember the great promise of God. And let me just say something, and I'm going to say this, even recognizing the danger of offending some people, but it's kind of sad, at least in my mind, that the rainbow, which is God's covenant to man of patience and forgiveness, has been incorporated by other groups as a symbol of who they identify as. And this is what God created, not what man has developed. Right, and you wonder if that could be on purpose, taking something from God. It always is. The New Testament tells us that Satan is a counterfeiter. He's an angel of light. He duplicates everything, so he takes what's good that God made and makes it, in some cases, evil, and I think we see that for sure. So, like you said, it's a sign for us to remember. He says, "When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. The water shall never again become floods to destroy all flesh." So, I do think, you know, this is a sign that's put for us that says, "Hey, look, it's raining, but don't worry, it's not going to rain too much in a way." Right, and again, as we mentioned in a previous podcast, the word "remember here" is not God saying, "Oh, I forgot," but God's saying, "Okay, now I'm going to act," or in this case, "not act" by not flooding the entire earth. Yes. So, the end of this passage, it says, "God said to Noah, 'This is the sign of the covenant that I've established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.'" So, he says what it is, he declares, "This is the sign that I've established, and it is established, and you can trust it," I believe is what he's saying. You don't have to worry about, "Am I going to keep my word? I'm God, I keep my word." Right, and just further emphasis again, this is an unconditional covenant. Right. This does not require any obligation on man, so that if man becomes evil again, which obviously he has and still is and always will be, does not mean that God is going to break his end of the bargain and say, "Well, you know, you blew it, so I'm going to destroy you anyway." Now, here the obligation, the burden is completely upon God. Yes. And as we are about to see, it didn't take us long for mankind to become evil again. So, we see a story coming up where, you know, some might wonder, you know, and I think this is some of the tension we see in Genesis. Is this descendant of Eve, the snake crusher? Is this? And we see, over and over again, it is not. And so right away, truthfully, we see where Noah is clearly not the one who's going to crush the snake and defeat evil. So that is what we will talk about in our next episode. We'll see what becomes of Noah and his sons and where mankind goes from there. All right. So once again, thank you for joining us. We're so glad that you're part of this with us and going through Genesis, and we will see you next time. of the day. of the day. (upbeat music)