God's promises...

As long as the earth remains...

As we approach Thanksgiving, I thought that it would be appropriate to look at the faithfulness of God. If I was to take one promise a week and speak about it, not one of us would be here to hear them all. The next one hundred years would hardly contain them.

Background to the Scripture

Today’s Scripture takes place at the end of the flood.

What was the flood?

I am coming from the premise this morning that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

There are many that believe that everything that exists today happened by chance. They believe that there is no God and that the Bible is a fairytale.

To believe this takes every bit as much faith, if not more than to believe that there is one in heaven that set the worlds into place.

Isaiah 40:12–16 NLT

Who else has held the oceans in his hand? Who has measured off the heavens with his fingers? Who else knows the weight of the earth or has weighed the mountains and hills on a scale? Who is able to advise the Spirit of the Lord? Who knows enough to give him advice or teach him? Has the Lord ever needed anyone’s advice? Does he need instruction about what is good? Did someone teach him what is right or show him the path of justice? No, for all the nations of the world are but a drop in the bucket. They are nothing more than dust on the scales. He picks up the whole earth as though it were a grain of sand. All the wood in Lebanon’s forests and all Lebanon’s animals would not be enough to make a burnt offering worthy of our God.

Many may choose to believe that there was no flood and yet, why do many ancient societies have their traditions of a great cataclysmic flood?

For forty days and forty nights God caused torrential rain to fall as well as waters that were underneath the surface of the earth let loose.

Up until this point, dew watered the earth. They hadn’t experienced rain. What happened would be like a tsunami on steroids.

Why the flood?

In Genesis 6-7, we have the story of the flood.

Genesis 6:5–13 NLT

The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. And the Lord said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them.” But Noah found favor with the Lord. This is the account of Noah and his family. Noah was a righteous man, the only blameless person living on earth at the time, and he walked in close fellowship with God. Noah was the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence. God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt. So God said to Noah, “I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence. Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!

God detests Sin

Before sin entered the world, God would go into the Garden of Eden and walk with Adam and Eve. He had fellowship with them. They didn’t even know what wrong was…but fast forward to the days of Noah, and God could see that the thoughts and imaginations of the heart were consistently and totally evil.

God wished that He had never made humans.

Maybe you’ve bought something, and after you had it, you wished that you had never seen it. You might say, “How much time do you have?”

For me it was a T300 Bobcat. After maybe forty or fifty hours, it was telling me that something was wrong, so I contacted the business that I bought it from and he told me to get ahold of a Bobcat dealer. With all the attachments, I payed about $32000. After all the parts and repairs, it cost me between $57-60000. I was sorry that I had ever bought it.

What about God?

In Genesis 1:26

Genesis 1:26–27 NLT

Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

God created us to be like Him. He is holy. He is righteous. He is kind. He is full of mercy. He is love.

When sin entered into the world, sin caused human hearts to be evil and to think evil.

Jeremiah 17:9 NLT

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?

With vehicles, we might think that we should take them to scrap dealers, but God took those that He created and punished them with a disaster that only left eight people on earth.

After 40 days and 40 nights Genesis 8:1 says,

Genesis 8:1 NLT

But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat. He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede.

Maybe you’ve been in a storm, maybe you’ve wondered where God is, just as God remembered Noah, He will remember you.

Hebrews 13:5–6 NLT

Don’t love money; be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you. I will never abandon you.” So we can say with confidence, “The Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?”

Even when God remembers us...

it still takes time to dry things up. Noah and his family were in the ark for 377 days.

We live in an instant society. We want things now. We want things instantly. I can guarantee you that I can make you a better meal than a TV dinner, but it will take a lot longer to make.

I don’t have to go to the field like Esau who Isaac sent out to kill some wild game, but if you want a steak or roast beef, it is best to thaw it out and allow the juices to marinate. I enjoy tasty tender meat. If you want shoe leather, you need to go to a shoe store, but if you want the best meat it takes time. Those that smoke their meat know exactly what I’m talking about.

Noah waited, and he waited some more. He sent out a raven, and he sent out a dove until the dove didn’t return.

Now for today’s scripture:

Genesis 8:13–22 NLT

Noah was now 601 years old. On the first day of the new year, ten and a half months after the flood began, the floodwaters had almost dried up from the earth. Noah lifted back the covering of the boat and saw that the surface of the ground was drying. Two more months went by, and at last the earth was dry! Then God said to Noah, “Leave the boat, all of you—you and your wife, and your sons and their wives. Release all the animals—the birds, the livestock, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—so they can be fruitful and multiply throughout the earth.” So Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives left the boat. And all of the large and small animals and birds came out of the boat, pair by pair. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose. And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things. As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”

After Noah and his family came off of the ark, two things happened: Noah built an altar and sacrificed to the Lord

Noah built an altar and sacrificed to the Lord

I want you to notice what verse 20 says.

Genesis 8:20 NLT

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose.

The first thing that Noah did was that

he built an altar.

God deserves first place in our lives. We need to have no other gods before us.

Matthew 6:33 NLT

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

It can be so easy to get our eyes on the other things and totally forget God. Noah could have looked at the world that was in front of him, but he chose to put God first in his life. Can you imagine how much there would be to do after a flood?

So often we look at all we have to do and think, I don’t have time to spend with God. I promise you this, that as you spend time with the Lord, He will go before you and He will bless you.

He sacrificed what God had approved

How many animals were on the ark?

Two of every kind of unclean animals, and seven pairs of the ones that would be sacrificed.

Genesis 7:2 NLT

Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others.

Noah sacrificed what God approved.

What has God approved for us to offer Him? (BKC)

Our praise

Hebrews 13:15 NIV

Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.

The best of our possessions

Proverbs 3:9 NLT

Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce.

I think that the difference between Cain and Abel was this. Abel gave his best and Cain offered some of his crops, but I don’t think that he offered the best of his crops.

Anything that we give to God should be our best.

Colossians 3:23–24 NIV

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

God made a promise

As Noah was offering this sacrifice, God could smell it. The smell was pleasing to the Lord.

When you offer an approved sacrifice to the Lord, it is a pleasing aroma.

If Noah had offered a sacrifice that was unclean, God wouldn’t have accepted it.

King David said in Psalm 51:16-17

Psalm 51:16–17 NLT

You do not desire a sacrifice, or I would offer one. You do not want a burnt offering. The sacrifice you desire is a broken spirit. You will not reject a broken and repentant heart, O God.

After Noah had offered a sacrifice, Here’s God’s promise.

Genesis 8:21 NLT

And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things.

God knows that the hearts of humans are desperately evil, and yet He promised that He would never destroy all life again.

The flood was a picture of God’s wrath and yet the ark was a picture of His great mercy.

Here’s how the promise of God’s faithfulness has been shown from generation to generation.

Genesis 8:22 NIV

“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”

Every spring when you go to your field or to your garden, it is a picture of the faithfulness of God.

As long as the earth remains...

There will be

seedtime

...and harvest

every fall, when we go to the field, we see the faithfulness of God. When you are digging up your potatoes, and pickling your cucumbers, God is fulfilling His promise to Noah.

Cold & Heat

Summer & Winter

Day & Night

We don’t like the cold, and we don’t like the scorching heat.

The older I get, I like winter less and less, but in each season, God is showing Himself faithful.

Every 24 hours when we experience daybreak and nightfall, God is showing Himself to be faithful to His promises.

He is faithful. He is trustworthy. He is our soon and coming king.

Lamentations 3:22–24 NLT

The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. I say to myself, “The Lord is my inheritance; therefore, I will hope in him!”

Let’s make it a practice to offer a sacrifice of praise to the Lord each and every day. Because God is faithful to His promises, we can trust that there are new mercies each and every morning.

Let’s pray!