901 Biblical Characters - Noah Pt.3 (Gen.9.1-29)
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- We’d all love a makeover from time to time
- We mess up a job or a task & we would just love to give it another go
- Perhaps you men & ladies alike are thinking of something you may have said that you wished you hadn’t & wished you could have taken back
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- Ever put a screen protector on your phone – you have to line it up so well and so carefully because once it attaches to the phone you can rarely lift it off & have another go
- If you drop it so that its crooked or you get the tiniest bit of lint under the screen protector & it attaches to the face of the phone, usually, that’s it – you don’t get a second chance
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- We have in this passage today, a repeat of the creation story – call it a re-creation
- You have the same themes in the first creation being repeated
- Be fruitful & multiply
- Eat of any of the fruit except what’s in the middle of the garden
- Eat any meat now except drain out the blood
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- You get the seed of the woman & the seed of the serpent
- A godly line & an ungodly line
- Godly Abel, ungodly Cain
- Now, there is godly Shem & Japheth & ungodly Ham
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- Amazing parallels, yet with this incredible caveat - after Noah came out of the Ark & made a burnt offering to the Lord...
21 The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.
- God will now start the world again with Noah & his family
1. A New Beginning (Gen. 9:1-7)
1. A New Beginning (Gen. 9:1-7)
- We usually tend to think that we can know little about God the Father & that He doesn’t reveal much about His personality or what’s on His heart
- In Jesus, we do see so much more of what God is like than what we do in the OT
- But, surprisingly, we do see quite a lot of what God is like in the pages of Genesis
- Genesis contains the foundational realities of life under God
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. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.
- We know what it is like to be grieved in the heart – to be broken-hearted
- Here we get a real insight into the pain the Lord God experienced as He views the sinfulness & the corruption of the people He has created in His own likeness – that which He said was very good
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- It says that the Lord regretted that He made man on the earth
- That word “regret” expresses “disappointment” & a wish that He had not made man
- The course of action as such would have been better to have not made man at all, but clearly, if God had changed His mind completely, then He would not have even allowed Noah & his family to survive, but He did
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- God destroyed the world because the intent of man’s heart is only evil continually
- Yet, now, after the flood, God vows that He will never again destroy the world even though the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth
- This is an amazing commitment from God
- It doesn’t change the fact that He is not happy about man’s heart leaning towards evil
- But He has given a guarantee that He will not destroy the world in like manner ever again
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- At homegroup we were talking about the blessings of life
- How we can assume that we are owed only good & not bad
- But in a world without God, without His goodness, what is good can only be a personal construct
- Why should man experience good at all – why not only bad
- If there is no God, why should people complain about bad – that is, there is no rhyme or reason why the world should be a place of blessing
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- People take for granted the blessing of the re-creation through Noah that has come from God restraining His wrath – restraining His judgement ( even though the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth)
- People are born into this blessing & they think its their’s by divine right or by whatever right you want to call it
- But its not – its all about God giving this blessing & withholding His judgement
- I so wish that more people would see that – because they might also then see that Jesus is also an avenue by which God has channeled His wrath away from man
- He is the One God has given that we might have this evil in the heart dealt with – both by divine decree & in the reality of changed lives - moving away from the evil
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- So here, we have a new creation story or a re-creation – creation 2.0 as I said to Ros “that sounds cheap, doesn’t it”
- But in essence, it is a new beginning
- Noah & his family come off the Ark on to dry ground
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- Remember the first commandment to men & women that we read in the Bible
28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” 29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;
- Populate the world & rule over all the animals – keep them in their place – subdue them
- With this new beginning, God restates that command...
1 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.
- In the Akkadian flood story, it concludes on exactly the opposite note to the Genesis account
- It says that the real problem was overpopulation & the flood was the remedy
- That man was breeding too fast & making too much noise (for the gods to handle)
- After the flood, the gods decreed that certain women should be infertile, some celibate & some infants should die soon after birth1
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- My goodness, we have people saying the same thing today
- I think over-population is one of the things that Bill Gates is so concerned about
- Genesis is indeed an argument against this position
- God is not concerned about overpopulation, but sin & man’s refusal to keep to his place under God
- We have so much wilderness/space – God says to spread out, man says to gravitate to the city
- Yet God wants mankind to bring the wilderness into order
- To create order out of chaos is one of our duties under God – that might mean spending money to build dams out in the centre of Australia, for example
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- There is a change though with the new creation because now, God is allowing us to eat meat
- Prior to the flood, men & women were vegetarian (did you know that?)
29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;
- But now….
3 “Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant.
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Q. However, Adam & Eve could not eat from every fruit bearing tree, could they?
- One thing God said, that they shall not eat from, is the tree of the knowledge of good & evil – for in the day that they do, they shall die
- Likewise here, Noah & his family are told that they can eat all meat but with this one exception - not with blood in it
- Like the gift of the green plant, this gift of meat comes with a prohibition
Q. What is this prohibition? – not with blood in it
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- Blood is a euphemism for death – blood means the animal has life in it
- God is the One that gives life & I think that this has a lot to do with God and His place in human affairs
- Man must respect life!
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- He goes on & says that no beast & no human can take the life of a human being
- For an animal to attack & kill a person, that animal is to be destroyed
- Many would say why! Because most people today see it as the animal just wanting to eat – like a shark attack
- That may be so, but why would God insist that the animal must die?
- For example, here in the law of Israel...
28 “If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall surely be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten; but the owner of the ox shall go unpunished.
- A statement is being made here – sure, what a waste of an animal that could be eaten after it was killed (waste not, want not), but the point would not be made powerfully enough about the killing of a person made in the image of God
- Animals are not made in the image of God & are treated very differently
35 “If one man’s ox hurts another’s so that it dies, then they shall sell the live ox and divide its price equally; and also they shall divide the dead ox.
- Which means they are at liberty to eat the dead Ox
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- The distinction is in the image of God in man
Q. What about manslaughter? The accidental killing of a person
- That is different – here it is talking about intentional killing, which is murder
6 “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.
- The intentional killing of a man made in the image of God is an attack against God
- In not respecting the image of God, one does not respect who that image is in reality
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Q. Is this saying that God demands capital punishment? - Yes it does
Q. Current for today – yes it does
Q. What does this mean for societies that do not use capital punishment for murder?
- Well, they are dishonouring God in whose image we are made
- It is a slight against God & it is the same old behaviour of man deciding for himself who’s boss
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- He will do everything to save some whales, but it is not a problem to abort hundreds of thousands of unborn children - to deliberately kill them
- This is God’s world but man thinks he is equal with God & can choose to ignore what God says
- God knew this would be the case (evil in man’s heart continually) but man will continue with the blessing because God made a unilateral promise (one way promise) that seed time & harvest, summer & winter, day & night would continue
- Man will experience good from God in spite of the evil in his heart
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- Which, in a way, can be deceptive because he thinks by extension that there can’t be a God because “we do what we like & we get away with it”
- That’s why, by faith, you & I believe that a day of reckoning is actually coming & we believe God
2. Covenant of Ongoing Blessing (Gen. 9:8-17)
2. Covenant of Ongoing Blessing (Gen. 9:8-17)
- This Covenant of ongoing blessing is unilateral – one way only
- God made this promise regardless of what humanity will do
- This is why, thousands of years has passed & we still have summer & winter & the like
- God is true & faithful to His promise of continued blessing on mankind
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- We see again something of the Lord God’s personality
21 The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done. 22 “While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease.”
- “God smelled the soothing aroma & then said to Himself…”
- God experiences pleasure, hurt (grief); He can converse with Himself as we do
- There is something unique about our God that shines through
- He is eager for fellowship & for His children to love Him
- We can identify with that too, can’t we
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- God makes this Covenant & that should be enough – but God gives mankind a sign of the Covenant that will be there for all subsequent generations to come
- The sign is the rainbow that will be there in the clouds that bring the rain that He will never flood the world with again
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- However, one very important point here – the sign is not so much for us as it is for God
- For when He sees the rainbow, He will remember His promise
- All future generations will be able to witness the sign that God Himself will see
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- The word for rainbow in the Hebrew is the same for bow – as in bow & arrow
9 You uncovered your bow, you called for many arrows. Selah You split the earth with rivers;
- It seems to me that it is a fair enough observation to say that God has hung up His bow & arrows (weapons of war) in the clouds & will not resume His hostilities against mankind
- Despite the fact that the world certainly deserves judgement, God will show restraint and mercy
- We know that God won’t forget His promise & covenant, but He still leaves us with the rainbow so that we know God will see it & let us live without catastrophic judgement
3. Sin of Ham (Gen. 9:18-29)
3. Sin of Ham (Gen. 9:18-29)
- I wonder how many of you can recall the times as a child when you would run around inside the house in the nik (nikky woo woo to our grandchildren)
- I don’t want to know if you’re still doing it
- But you may remember a time when you were sprung by someone you hadn’t expected to be in your home & you were embarrassed big time
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- To a kid, it’s not a big deal to walk around in the nik freely in your own home, but its a big deal to an adult
- Admittedly, if you go to some hippy beach on the nth coast of NSW you might think otherwise
- However, the fact that we wear clothing in polite society testifies to the fact that nakedness is something we take very seriously
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- In this final point, today, we have an episode of a drunken man, a brazen, careless & disgraceful son & two sons who were sensitive to their father’s honour
- All through the first few chapters of Genesis we are confronted with two kinds of people
- The offspring of the woman & the offspring of the serpent
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- We saw that the offspring of Cain resembled the serpent who opposed God
- Abel silently – although through his blood speaks – represents the offspring of the woman
- We saw the godly line of Seth where it says that “men began to call upon the name of the Lord”
- Enoch waked with God & was taken by God to be with himself
- Noah walked with God & hung around for many years building the Ark & honouring God with his life
- That theme continues as we now see the two types of people in Noah’s sons
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- Noah has grown a vineyard & has had too much to drink
- In his drunkenness, he rolls around & the covering comes off revealing a naked Noah
- If that was one of your parents, you might freak out thinking that image has scarred me for life!
- But Ham didn’t do something like that
- Not only did he not cover his eyes, but went out & told his brothers
- We might not think this is so serious, but to these people it was very serious
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- The brothers, Shem & Japheth, were conscious enough, not only of the shame that Ham was happy to spread around, but also the further embarrassing situation for their father
- So they go in backwards with the sheet & cover their naked father’s body without looking
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- Even in traditional societies today, the notion of honouring your father & mother is very strong
- Many of you haven’t heard this story yet, so I will tell it again
- Our son Josh was teaching English to Korean students in Korea
- He would tell us how the students would bow to him before they sat down to begin their lesson
- Ros & I were sitting in front of our computer one night talking with Josh over Skype
- He had his computer set up to talk with us while he was doing the dishes
- So we were chatting away watching him do dishes when we hear a knock on the door & Josh goes off to answer it
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- In comes two Korean guys rattling off to Josh & then Josh says that he is just talking to his parents on Skype
- The two guys were rather stunned – “your parents”! - because they hadn’t shown us respect but, of course, they were unaware
- But all of a sudden, both of them stood erect & then very deliberately bowed to Ros & me
- We were stunned ourselves & looked at each other wondering if we are suppose to bow back
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- But here we see a very high view of parents in the deep respect held of parents in the Korean culture
- Josh says that contact with the West is losing that respect among young people
- That is very sad – particularly when you think of the fact that western culture was largely formed off the back of Christianity
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- The 5th commandment of the 10 commandments says...
12 “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.
16 ‘Cursed is he who dishonors his father or mother.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’
- If Ham had honoured his father he would have, tactfully, covered up his father like his brothers did & then keep quite about it rather than what he seems to have done, gloat or scoff about it
15 “Woe to you who make your neighbors drink, Who mix in your venom even to make them drunk So as to look on their nakedness!
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- Well, Dad (Noah) then found out & he was not happy
- Shem & Japheth acted in a godly way & Ham in the way of the serpent
- You know that the 5th commandment – to honour your father & mother - actually reflects on how we honour God
- As a person learns to honour their parents when they are young, it is an easy transition to honour God when you are older
- The two are linked together
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Q. Finally, what are we to make of the curse that Ham’s son Canaan receives?
25 So he said, “Cursed be Canaan; A servant of servants He shall be to his brothers.”
- It may seem harsh but it is true that we do suffer for the sins of others
- It was Adam & Eve’s sin that brought in death & the knowledge of good & evil we were never intended to possess
- We & the rest of humanity now die as a result
- The flood came off the back of the wicked behaviour of the “Sons of God” whoever they were
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- But I think this is probably a prophetic projection, of what would ultimately be, the evil sins of the Canaanites whom Israel drove out
- Shem is the line that would be Israel & Japheth is more the Gentiles
- From Ham descended Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan
6 The sons of Ham were Cush and Mizraim and Put and Canaan.
- Ham’s behaviour became a pattern of behaviour that would flow through his descendants
- Noah’s curse on Canaan seems to represent God’s sentence on the sins of the Canaanites
3 ‘You shall not do what is done in the land of Egypt where you lived, nor are you to do what is done in the land of Canaan where I am bringing you; you shall not walk in their statutes.
- Egypt also came from the line of Ham
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- In another flood story – one I mentioned last week – Utnapishtim, the man who corresponded to Noah, was granted everlasting life
- Noah, however, lived to a ripe old age of 950 yrs – not bad, but he – a man who even walked with God – also received the ...“and he died”
- The glossy other flood stories are quite reflective of sinful human ideology & aspirations
- Yet, the Bible’s account is very sober & real
- Because of sin, death will continue
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- Next week, we’ll look at what happened at Babel & why
- Then, we’ll move into the specific beginning of the ultimate rival between the seed of the woman & the seed of the serpent
- This plan will start through a man named Abraham & will traverse history until this prophecy comes to pass – with the seed of the woman dealing a fatal blow to the seed of the serpent
- God’s plan of salvation blessing will begin with Abraham & move through history until that seed literally appears in history
- This one we know as Jesus Christ
- God is a God, not only of history, but the One who controls it
1Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, Word Biblical Commentary, (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1987), 1:166.