The First Covenant

Introduction

What we have just completed in the storyline of Genesis is that Noah and his family has just survived the flood with all of the animals. The great judgment of the earth has taken place and now is finished.

So tonight we see the first things that happen in the re-created world. This all centers around what is called a covenant. A covenant is a special set of promises that define a relationship with people and it comes with privileges and responsibilities. So in this story we will see God make promises to all flesh and it comes with the privilege that we know he will not do this thing again. Covenants are important in the storyline of the Bible, they move it along and structure it. With covenants and genealogies the Bible becomes far more clear. This covenant is the first one explicitly mentioned in the Bible.

This passage ends with sin though. We wondered if Noah was the savior, we know he is just a type of savior and this sin proves that to us.

So lets pray and then we can look at the story of what happened right after the flood.

The Story

Genesis 8:20 ESV

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

As soon as he exited the ark Noah began to worship God. He did not hesitate in this for one moment. This is something that we can learn from, when we go through trying times and circumstances let them drive us to worship.

Genesis 8:21–22 ESV

And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

After receiving Noah’s acceptable worship the Lord says that he will not bring a great event on earth like this again while earth remains. He does this because man is evil from their youth. This reminds us of Genesis 6:5 “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” and this is true even still today, for instance you have passages like Romans 3:10 “as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one;”. We are all set on evil from our youth so it is good that God makes this promise here because we deserve what the world got in the flood.

God also promises that natures patterns will be predictable. There will not be another major disruption of these patterns so we can trust in them to provide for us.

Genesis 9:1–2 ESV

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 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 the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered.

This sounds a lot like Genesis 2. Noah is given dominion over everything and he is again given the command to be fruitful and multiply. This further puts Noah in the place of a new Adam, and further solidifies what God is doing. He is re-creating everything. In this re-creation we are given some laws and commands to get started with.

Genesis 9:3–6 ESV

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. 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. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.

This first part is awesome, we can eat meat! The only stipulation is that they are not to eat anything that has the blood in it. This shows honor for life from God.

There is also a protection law for fellow humans. We are not to kill one another. This is all based on the image of God. Since we are all made in his image we should respect each other on that basis. The image of God defines who we are and how we should treat one another. Think about that before you go to do something you shouldn’t to someone else, this is a person made in the image of God. We see so much about ourselves and how we should act grounded in creation. The man being made in the image of God is a major part of that.

Genesis 9:7–17 ESV

And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.” Then 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 of 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, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” And 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. 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. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.”

This covenant is established with all flesh. There will never again be a flood to wipe out all life. This is the promise of God that comes with the privlage of not having to be fearful every time it rains. Think about it, if we did not have this there would be good reason to be afraid every time it rained, especially for Noah and his family.

Another part of covenants is that they usually come with a sign. Later we will see the covenant with Abraham and the sign for this covenant will be circumcision, the sign for this covenant is that God will set his bow in the sky. This bow in the sky serves as a reminder to us that God will not bring a flood again. We refer to this bow as a rainbow. After the rain ceases there is this rainbow as a reminder that God will not flood us again.

Think about this next time it is raining and you see a rainbow, think of the judgment that came and thing of the mercy of God. This always brings good reflections into real life. Also think whether or not you are living a life worth preserving or a life worth wiping out.

Genesis 9:18–19 ESV

The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) These three were the sons of Noah, and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.

From these three men the whole world came. We will see more of this in the next chapter but think how crazy this is. There is a bit of an ominous note here though, Ham was the father of Canaan. Why was this included? The answer can be found in what this would have signaled for the original audience. The people of Canaan were the people that occupied the promised land, they were the people that were evil and Israel had to go in and clear out. This would have been a signal that something bad is about to go down with Ham.

With this in mind lets continue.

Genesis 9:20–24 ESV

Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him,

So Noah does something good and productive by planting a vineyard and becoming a man of the soil. The problem comes when this leads to drunkenness. This is the great sin of Noah that we see. Noah gets drunk and goes and lays in his tent naked. This sin resembles the sin of Adam; he is in the garden, he consumes the fruit of the garden, this leads to sin which reveals nakedness. So in this re-creation there is another fall.

Ham comes in and sees this, he does not toss something over his father or get away as soon as he can. He goes out to his brothers and starts talking about it to his brothers, this brings shame on his father. He is not honoring his father.

Shem and Japheth get a cloth and walk backwards and toss it over their father to cover his shame. Remember from earlier in Genesis that now nakedness is associated with shame. There are some other theories about the sin of Ham but they only get worse from this one.

Genesis 9:25–27 ESV

he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.” He also said, “Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.”

This leads to Ham being cursed by his father and Shem and Japheth being blessed by him. His blessing is that they would become a great people and the descendants of Ham would be their servants.

The passage then closes with the end of Noah's life

Genesis 9:28–29 ESV

After the flood Noah lived 350 years. All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

This concludes this toledot section of Genesis and ties it in with the genealogy of Genesis 5 which introduced Noah. Now we are prepared for some more genealogical information that will lead us to the next main character or hero of Genesis.

Covenant

The covenants in the Bible are an important aspect that we should always take note of. This covenant is the first one explicitly mentioned but it is believed that there was a covenant between God and Adan and Eve. The next covenant will be the Abrahamic covenant, this will be the most important covenant in the Old Testament.

These covenants give us a lens by which we can view God’s interaction with his people. Later there will be the Mosaic covenant and part of that will be the law. Under that covenant God will interact with the people of Israel through the law.

So how does God interact with us today? It is through what we call the new covenant. This is where Jesus came and fulfilled the Old Testament and now we have the covenant of grace which is the new covenant.

What this covenant gives us is that we are saved by faith in Jesus and in this we receive the Holy Sprit. Because of our sin we need salvation, through faith we can obtain this salvation. Last week at the revival we had many walk from death to life and make Jesus the boss, they put their faith in Jesus and were forgiven for their sins. They became apart of the new covenant.

It is important to see these covenants in the Old Testament but this shows us why we do not live in them, we have the new covenant.

Now when it comes to this covenant it still stands, this is because it is for all flesh. It is not a conditional one for the people of God.

Sin

Sin is the reason that we need salvation. Sin was introduced in Genesis 3 and is still the biggest problem we face today.

Here we see the sin of Noah is drunkenness and the sin of Ham is not honoring his father. So sin is more than just eating the thing that God said not to eat.

Sin is anything that we think, say, do, or don't do that displeases God. So any action that does not please God and any inaction that does not please him.

Maybe there is something that you know you should do, or you have the opportunity to do something good but you don’t. This is sin.

On the flip we know when we do something that is not pleasing to God. That is sin. The hardest part is when you see just how far it goes, it goes all the way down to your thoughts. Something that never leaves your mind can be sin.

When we have a full understanding we can see just how sinful that we truly are. This shows us just how much we need salvation, and it shows us just how grateful we can be for salvation.

Conclusion

If you have never put your faith in Jesus as your Lord and savior do that tonight. Maybe you were thinking about it last week at the revival but you didn’t act on it. We are all sinners that need salvation. We all need to give our lives to Jesus and make him the boss. We live in a time where we can do just that. There is no special laws or sacrifices that we have to make, it is as simple as putting your faith in him.

If you want to do this tonight then come to me or one of the other adults and we would love to talk with you more about this.