Confusion
Notes
Transcript
Adam and Eve - Cain - Enoch & Noah
What do we see about man?
What do we see about man?
Self-centered, prideful, rebellious
Self-centered, prideful, rebellious
What do we see about God?
What do we see about God?
Love, Grace, Mercy, Patience, Justice
Love, Grace, Mercy, Patience, Justice
God loves, otherwise his heart would not be broken by our sinfulness
God is patient and merciful
God gives grace - teaching, punishing/disciplining
God saves through repentance & faith
God carries out justice
Where do we see hope?
Where do we see hope?
Salvation by grace through faith
Salvation by grace through faith
God’s grace
God giving a way of salvation (1 way, 1 door)
That way was entered by faith
God shut them in
Today we will pick up with what happened after the flood.
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.
The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands.
Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
“But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.
And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.
“Whoever sheds human blood, by humans shall their blood be shed; for in the image of God has God made mankind.
God’s command: Fill the earth
God’s command: Fill the earth
Also, eating meat began.
Life is in the blood
Life is in the blood
The introduction of a concept that we will see again in scripture.
Life is in the blood - without blood, there is no life. Shedding of blood is a metaphor for death.
Human Government
Human Government
Social Control… God revealing our need for Him.
Adam and Eve at Creation: Innocence
Adam and Eve at Creation: Innocence
Innocence is not enough to keep us Holy and Righteous in God’s image
After the Fall: Conscience
After the Fall: Conscience
Conscience is not enough to keep us Holy and Righteous
After the Flood: Human Government
After the Flood: Human Government
Keeping one another accountable
Will that be what we need to get back to Holiness and Righteousness?
As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”
FILL the Earth
FILL the Earth
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him:
“I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you
and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth.
I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
God’s Covenant
God’s Covenant
Covenant vs Contract
Contract - Obligations put on you to fulfill certain duties
Covenant - Responsibilities taken upon oneself
Contract - penalties
Covenant - Death
The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
“As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”
I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
God’s Covenant
God’s Covenant
And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:
I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds,
I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.
Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”
What happened next...
About 4 years after the flood...
Genesis 10 gives us a genealogy of the sons of the sons of Noah. Canaan was the fourth son of Ham.
The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.)
These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the whole earth.
Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard.
When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent.
Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside.
But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s naked body. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father naked.
When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him,
he said, “Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers.”
He also said, “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem.
May God extend Japheth’s territory; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be the slave of Japheth.”
Why curse Canaan, and not Ham?
Why curse Canaan, and not Ham?
What was the sin?
Then Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside.
‘You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, that is, the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother; you are not to uncover her nakedness.
‘You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father’s wife; it is your father’s nakedness.
‘If there is a man who lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.
Curse upon Canaan - a grossly sexually immoral line
Curse upon Canaan - a grossly sexually immoral line
Again, this was recorded by Moses as directed by God, so that the Israelites might know the Lord, mankind and the hope of the Lord. Part of knowing mankind was to know the background of the people they were about to encounter as they took the land of Canaan. The people that God said were so wicked, that they needed to be wiped out by the Israelites when they entered the land. The people with whom the Israelites were not to inter-marry.
What do we learn about man?
What do we learn about man?
how many people came off of the ark? 8
how many knew the Lord? 8
how many knew that wages of sin is death? 8
how many knew the fear of the Lord? 8
how many knew that there was now accountability to other people? 8
how long did it take for gross sin to come into the world again? not long...
Is conscience or human government enough to keep us in line with the Lord, to keep us holy and righteous? no
Now these are the generations of Shem, Ham, and Japheth, the sons of Noah; and sons were born to them after the flood.
The sons of Japheth were Gomer and Magog and Madai and Javan and Tubal and Meshech and Tiras.
The sons of Gomer were Ashkenaz and Riphath and Togarmah.
The sons of Javan were Elishah and Tarshish, Kittim and Dodanim.
From these the coastlands of the nations were separated into their lands, every one according to his tongue, according to their families, into their nations.
The sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan.
The sons of Cush were Seba and Havilah and Sabtah and Raamah and Sabteca; and the sons of Raamah were Sheba and Dedan.
Now Cush was the father of Nimrod; he began to be a mighty one on the earth.
He was a mighty hunter before Yahweh; therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before Yahweh.”
The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
From that land he went out to Assyria and built Nineveh and Rehoboth-Ir and Calah,
and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city.
Nimrod
Nimrod
A mighty one on the earth.
His name has the root of the Hebrew verb meaning, “to rebel”
He is called a mighty hunter, or a mighty one, which is a title given to Assyrian Kings, which all came from his line.
The sense is that Nimrod was an evil king, rebelling against the Lord, and was the founder of Babylon…
Let’s skip to chapter 11 to see what happened there.
Now the whole world had one language and a common speech.
As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.
They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
What do we see about man?
What do we see about man?
Babel - City of Nimrod/rebellion
Babel - City of Nimrod/rebellion
base is till able to be found today
It was huge
what was the point?
Pride: Like God - a Tower whose top will reach into heaven
++Pride: a Name for Ourselves
++Rebellion: Not be scattered
Genesis 11.5-9 Confusion
But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.
The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.
Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.
That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.
God’s Mercy & Patience
God’s Mercy & Patience
God’s covenant: Genesis 8:21 “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.” Genesis 9:11 “I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.””
God’s Grace: Discipline—Confuses and Scatters
God’s Grace: Discipline—Confuses and Scatters
Why this discipline? To slow the spread of this sin
God is not unaware of the evil that men do.
God is patient and merciful, putting up with much sin and not giving them what they deserve in the moment. Instead, God is merciful, giving grace, disciplining through instruction and consequences.
God brings about what He knows is best, and what fulfills His purpose.
He shows kindness to bring men to repentance.
Where is hope?
Where is hope?
Remember how Genesis 6 showed how bad the world was, but then we see that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord?
God shows the evil of the world at large, but He is still at work, working in the heart of Noah in particular, revealing Himself to Noah, and then Noah responding in faith and being saved.
Well, here in Genesis 9-11:9, we see how evil the world is once again. But as we move on from here, we will find that once again, God is still at work. He is at work showing mercy and grace to the whole world that they might repent and believe. But He is also at work to bring Abram on the scene, and to reveal Himself specially to Abram. We will see that next week.
So, where is the hope, even though the world at large is evil and rebellious, God is still at work!
God is at work showing kindness that people might repent and believe.
God is at work in individuals hearts to reveal Himself and save those who have faith, like Abel, Enoch and Noah.
As Peter puts it:
Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking.
I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.
Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.
They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”
But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water.
By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.
By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare.
Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives
as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.
But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells.
So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.
Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.
He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Therefore, dear friends, since you have been forewarned, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of the lawless and fall from your secure position.
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.
