Righteous in this Generation
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Genesis 9:1-17
Genesis 9:1-17
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Start in Genesis 7
The Lord then said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and your whole family, because I have found you righteous in this generation.
God describes Noah as being righteous in this generation.
Noah was deemed righteous by God because Noah was willing to listen.
Noah was willing to listen for the leading of God and follow.
Because Noah was willing to follow, he was given opportunity to enter the Ark.
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Noah’s willingness to believe allowed him to find salvation from tragedy.
Same for us.
God offers us salvation through belief in our Messiah, Jesus.
Summarize the rest of chapter 7
Genesis 8
Chapter 8 picks up when Noah and his family were on the Ark.
The earth had been flooded.
All life that chose to reject God’s provision of safety perished.
Chapter 8 details events leading up to the recession of the flood waters.
By the time we get to the end of chapter 8, Noah and all the people and animals on the Ark are back on dry land.
Few things I want to highlight.
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and the livestock that were with him in the ark, and he sent a wind over the earth, and the waters receded.
God remembered
It sounds as if God forgot about Noah.
Suddenly, something happened to spark God’s memory of Noah.
The word translated as remembered in the word zakar
זָכַר (zā·ḵǎr): v.; ≡ Str 2142; TWOT 551—1. LN 29.6–29.12 (qal) remember, i.e., to recall information or events (2Ki 9:25); (nif) remembered (Eze 33:13); 2. LN 29.16–29.18 (qal) remember, i.e., to recall information or events, with a focus on responding in an appropriate manner (Ex 6:5); (qal pass.) be remembered (Ps 103:14), see also 2345; (nif) remembered, invoked (Hos 2:19); (hif) mention, remind, cause to remember (Ge 40:14); 3. LN 33.218–33.223 (hif) proclaim, tell, i.e., assert truths about one, as one speaks publicly, implying that this information has been known before (Jer 4:16); 4. LN 65.1–65.16 unit: (nif) לֹא זָכַר (lō(ʾ) zā·ḵǎr)1 worth forgetting, formally, not remember, i
When God says He remembered Noah, He is really saying that He proclaims assets and truths about Noah that have been known.
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2. God is declaring that Noah was a righteous man because he believed.
God is proclaiming the truth about who Noah is.
Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth.
Dove is a symbol of peace and hope.
The dove bearing the olive leaf symbolizes restoration or newness of life.
The dove in the N.T. symbolizes the presence of the Holy Spirit.
The message we are to gather is that God will restore us
God will be with us even in these difficult times.
He will see us through trouble.
Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.
Similar instructions that we have heard in the Garden.
God told Adam and Eve to do the same thing.
God instructed Noah and Hos family to fill the earth, not only with people but also with the knowledge of God.
Skip Verse 2 for now
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.
God is blessing Noah with the abundance of creation.
God has given stewardship and authority over this world.
God reminds Noah of his authority
This authority was originally given to Adam.
V. 4- God gives instruction on utilizing His creation.
1. Man must not prejudice his own life by eating that food which is unwholesome and prejudicial to his health (v. 4): "Flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof (that is, raw flesh), shall you not eat, as the beasts of prey do." It was necessary to add this limitation to the grant of liberty to eat flesh, lest, instead of nourishing their bodies by it, they should destroy them. God would hereby show,
(1.) That though they were lords of the creatures, yet they were subjects to the Creator, and under the restraints of his law.(2.) That they must not be greedy and hasty in taking their food, but stay the preparing of it; not like Saul's soldiers (1 Sa. 14:32), nor riotous eaters of flesh, Prov. 23:20.(3.) That they must not be barbarous and cruel to the inferior creatures. They must be lords, but not tyrants; they might kill them for their profit, but not torment them for their pleasure, nor tear away the member of a creature while it was yet alive, and eat that.(4.) That during the continuance of the law of sacrifices, in which the blood made atonement for the soul (Lev. 17:11), signifying that the life of the sacrifice was accepted for the life of the sinner, blood must not be looked upon as a common thing, but must be poured out before the Lord(2 Sa. 23:16), either upon his altar or upon his earth. But, now that the great and true sacrifice has been offered, the obligation of the law ceases with the reason of it.
God reminds all of us that we are given freedom to be stewards of Creation, but we are governed by His authority.
God reminds us that we are to not be like the beasts of prey and consume our food like riotous eaters.
Not torment for pleasure.
Last point is most important, Blood is the symbol for the atonement of sin.
Blood can never be seen as a common thing.
The sacrificial system points to Jesus.
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.
Consequences of shedding human blood.
God takes this very seriously because we are made in His image.
We have the promise of Salvation in Jesus our Lord.
It shows us the pattern of human suffering.
Because in our sinfulness we reject God’s
The pattern of human suffering is repeated.
retaliation. You hurt me and Im going to hurt you
As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.” 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 reminds Noah of the instructions to be fruitful and multiply.
God then goes on to declare that He is going to establish a covenant with Noah.
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3. Because Noah believed, God established a covenant.
The covenant specifically is found in verse 11
God will not destroy the earth by flood.
What is a Covenant?
Is it a promise?
From our perspective, promises are often broken.
If God is just making a promise, it does not sound very permanent in our ears.
Genesis 15
Turn to Genesis 15:1-18
After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.” Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?” So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—
A covenant is not simply a promise with good intent.
I found a definition
The biblical words most often translated "covenant" are berit in the Old Testament (appearing about 280 times) and diatheke in the New Testament (at least 33 times). The origin of the Old Testament word has been debated; some have said it comes from a custom of eating together ( Gen 26:30 ; 31:54 ); others have emphasized the idea of cutting an animal (an animal was cut in half [ 15:18 ]). The preferred meaning of this Old Testament word is bond; a covenant refers to two or more parties bound together.
the Hebrew word for covenant is B’rit
It means covenant but it also means to cut.
We can see an illustration of this concept with the verses regarding the covenant with Abram.
The animals were to be cut in two.
this practice symbolized the severity of breaking the covenant
In essence God was saying, if I break my covenant with you, let me be like on of the animals.
We will talk more about this when we get to Genesis 15
The point I want you to understand is that a covenant is not just a promise.
it is a bond.
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4. A Covenant is a bond.
it is a bond that is held with severity.
God made a covenant with Noah.
I will not destroy the earth by flood.
Implied in this covenant is the fact that God delivered Noah from destruction.
This covenant is foundational to the covenant we share.
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5. We share this same covenant bond with God in our faith.
Our faith in Jesus assures us of the promise that we are not subject to wrath.
God delivered Noah through the flood by making a way for him to find salvation on the ark.
God delivers us from the deception of this world.
The flood of deception if you will through the saving power of Jesus.
God does not leave us without recourse.
He delivers us to safety under His authority.
He delivers us from wrath.
There is a promise that God makes.
When He returns, the world will be judged.
The wrath of God will be poured out on those who reject his covenant.
We who have faith in Jesus are not subject to that wrath.
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.”
A sign of the covenant is the Rainbow.
The Rainbow serves a a sign of God’s covenant to not destroy the earth by flood.
The text states that when clouds form and the rainbow appears, God will remember Hos covenant.
Again, not that God forgot.
The word translated remember is the same word used when God said He will remember Noah.
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6. God will proclaim His covenant through the symbol of the rainbow.
He will declare His mercy.
He will assert the truth of His Word.
The rainbow serves as a reminder to us of God’s promise.
The rainbow reminds us of the fact that God will give a way to find salvation in times of trouble.
As God demonstrated through Noah.
The world turned to wickedness.
God declared that judgement will be poured out because the hearts of humanity have turned against God.
Yet God offered hope in this situation.
He offered the door of the ark for those who choose to be saved.
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7. The rainbow reminds us of the promise that Jesus is the door.
There is a display at the Ark encounter that demonstrates this truth. Don’t want to ruin it for those going this summer.
The purpose of the rainbow is to remind us of the fact that we are in covenant with God.
I did not intend to talk about this chapter during the month of June.
When we started the book of Genesis in January, I did not plan on being here at this time.
Yet here we are.
June is known as pride month.
To those in that community this is a month of celebration.
The symbol of pride month and this community is the rainbow flag.
They will wave the rainbow flag during the various parades and events of this month.
The pride community took the symbol of the rainbow and they have twisted its meaning.
They chose this symbol to represent a community that is directly in opposition to the inspired word of God intentionally.
This is an intentional act of rebellion by this community.
As we have seen the rainbow represents a sign of the covenant God had established with Noah.
The rainbow serves as a reminder to all those who look upon it that God.
There are those on our world who have taken this symbol of hope and they are attempting to pervert
The intention of the rainbow was a declaration of God’s mercy.
The devil has enticed people to take this flag and eave it before the very eyes of God.
The devil is saying, what are you gonna do?
What are you gonna do, remember your covenant?
Remember the promise you made to never destroy the world by flood?
Talk about the difficulty of this situation.
Our job is never to condemn, but to lift up.
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8. Allow the love of Jesus to shine through us in the hope deliverance form sin and restoration unto God.
Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Dwell on these things.
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9. Dwell on the fact that God still delivers.
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10. Dwell on the fact that Jesus will guard our hearts.
If we look at the course of this world it can be discouraging.
It can be frustrating.
It can be friegtening if we consider the next generation having to grow up into it.
But take heart, Jesus has overcome.
We stand on the precipice of an opportunity to speak words of hope into this world.
We have the opportunity to cling to all that is noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.
We can speak these words of hope into our children. We can claim these promises for ourselves.
He has overcome.
Jesus still delivers.
Jesus still calls people out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Find hope in this.
Pray for those who are lost.
Pray for those who reject His truth.
Jesus is a deliverer and a healer.
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11. Jesus has overcome.
The battle is won.
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12. We stand in His victory.
How can we be rightous in this generation back to verse 2
lead into next week communion 1 john verses about being united with Jesus
Remember God stated that Noah was a man of righteousness
Talk about 1 john then connect back to Geness 9:2 then to the communion verese in 1 cor
