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March 23/2025 | Genesis 8:20 - 9:17 | Expository Sermon by Samuel Kelm.
This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. If you would like to learn more about us, please visit us at our website at graceedmonton .ca. You can also find us on Instagram, Grace Church, Y-E-G, all one word, or on Facebook.
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If you have ever started a new job or you go to school once again after several years of being in the workforce, perhaps, as some of us have, you have moved to a different country, to a different nation, across the globe.
You're familiar with a certain level of uncertainty and not knowing when you start these new things. A new company may have different policies and ways of doing things that you have to learn and understand and get used to.
You have to get your bearings right when you go to school and understand where classrooms and labs and all that sort of stuff is so that you know where you need to be at certain times during the day. Different cultures, when we move, need to be understood and we hope to conform to them.
At times, the differences in each of these cases might be greater than others. Regardless, we don't know all of them until we actually get there and until we get to that point. There's always this level of uncertainty and things unknown.
If we were to take this experience, this feeling, and if we were to multiply it, I don't know, by an infinite number of times, really, we may be able to perhaps get a glimpse of a sense of what Noah and his companions just may have felt like after the flood.
Instead of beginning a new job or going to school, he and his family find themselves at the end of one world and at the beginning of a new one. He had, of course, believed the promises of God that he would be brought safely through the waters of judgment, but now what?
Really, how does this world operate? How do things function? Are things the same as before? In chapter 8, we'll start in verse 20, all the way to chapter 9, verse 17. I believe God answers the question for Noah of, now what?
In this Noahic covenant that we're going to look at, we'll see that God remains in control, that though the earth may have been changed, he has not in many ways, that he still cares about his creation in the general sense that even after wiping out all mankind, he still concerns himself with the preservation of human life and even gives his people hope as they arrive on these shores.
And so, I just want to look at three aspects as we look at this covenant. I want us to see the common grace of God in this covenant, and secondly, the life-giving and preserving blessings contained in this covenant, and then the promise, the real promise that it is to God's people, a promise of hope.
So, what we'll do is we'll just read sections, work our way through it, and then we'll continue reading the next section, beginning in chapter 8, verse 20 through 22. 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.
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, sea time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.
We've come to the point in the story of the flood as already mentioned where Noah sets his feet now on dry ground once again. He arrives on the shores of this of this new and desolate world. As I thought about this, a quote came to mind.
Most of you, I'm sure, are familiar with it. The words of Neil Armstrong in the year 1969 when the doors of Apollo 11 opened and man for the first time was about to set foot on the moon. And he famously said, one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
If there was ever a giant leap that mankind made, it was Noah and his companions leaving the ark alive after this great act of God's judgment on man like on anything the earth had ever seen before or since.
Having been the only righteous person on the earth at that time, remember back to chapter six, having gone through decades of building the ark, likely seeing the waters rise day by day, slowly drowning likely every creature that had breath, man and animal alike, perhaps some desperate souls we don't know with all their might banging on the side of this wooden vessel crying to be let in with no hole deep enough to crawl into, no mountain high enough to climb to escape these waters of destruction.
Then spending just over a year in this box, floating atop the waters until they one day begin to subside. The fact that any were spared at all is a wonder to behold. But unlike the famous astronaut, Noah does not plant a flag.
He does not ram a pole of gopher wood that he may have had left over with a piece of animal skin waving in the wind and the ground claiming a piece of land saying, I was here. He doesn't even build a home.
No, the first thing we read about in verse 20 is him building an altar to the Lord. No one knows why he got into as well as why he got to leave the ark. And he offers a burdened offering to his God in response.
He wasn't commanded to do so, but he freely and willingly sacrifices several of these clean animals that he'd taken with him into the ark and he worships. He gives thanks to God. He praises him for his goodness in preserving his life and that of his family.
The Lord is pleased. The Lord is pleased with Noah's heartfelt sacrifice and he accepts this and turns his previous grief and regret over having made man into compassion. His wrath has been poured out and now appeased.
And so God, we get a look into the heart of God, says that he will never again curse the ground because of man. What a statement. What a statement. I don't want us to pass over this too quickly because he goes on to say, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.
We've heard that before, haven't we? Similar statement. It's already made earlier in chapter 6 in verse 5, where it is given to us as the very reason for why God destroyed every living thing. And now we read it again.
Why? Hasn't every evil person just been purged from the earth? No one at this point in time is pursuing these evil deeds and acts of violence that we've read about prior in chapter 6. Noah just worshipped his God.
You realize that in speaking about the evil in man, God is speaking about Noah and his family. They're the only men and women walking the earth. Yes, Noah was a righteous and blameless man in his generation.
He was righteous in conduct before the Lord, but he was fallen in nature. And remember, back to Genesis 6 verse 8, what he had found in the grace. And now you see the sinfulness of man, the evil in the heart of man.
We have to understand this has not been washed away by these unyielding mighty waves of the flood. Man's nature has not changed. It remains in the fallen state, even from his very youth. Noah and his family, just like you, just like me, just like every Christian throughout history, was saved by God's grace alone.
That is, I've no doubt, one of the reasons why his first act as he leaves the ark is worshiping the Lord who saved him. I was talking with a brother a few days ago on Thursday evening. And in our conversation, we spoke about raising children and the difficulty that that comes with.
We reflected on the pervasiveness of sin and the parents and even the sin in the children. And all of you who have raised kids, who have nieces and nephews, who work with children in some fashion, or even if you have just observed other people's kids, you've seen this, you know this, right?
The evil in mankind from his very youth. Even at this very young age, it doesn't take long at all until it becomes outwardly visible and they become rebellious. They don't naturally obey and honor their parents.
Selfishness starts very early in the heart of man. You don't have to teach your children how not to share with others, or you don't sit your children down and say, listen, son, pay attention. You're old enough now.
I'm going to teach you how to lie properly and effectively to get ahead in the world. No, you have to train them up in righteousness to do the opposite. Evil, they know so well. But goodness and righteousness, they know nothing about.
And as we get older, evil most certainly doesn't decrease, and as does it, we only become much better at hiding it, covering up our evil intent to those around us. Even when people suffer the very consequences of and for their own sin, now they remain unchanged and just as evil as they were before.
From his very youth to the grave, the intent of man's heart remains evil continually. The waters of the wrath of God did not change the disposition of man's heart, neither that of Noah's family, but brothers and sisters.
The God who feels indignation every day, what does he say? He says he will never again curse the ground, will never again strike down every living creature as he has done during the time of Noah, despite man's heart remaining evil just like it was before the flood.
Mankind deserves to be wiped out daily. It's only by the common grace of God that it is not. If that wasn't enough, the common grace of God. God goes on in chapter 9, verses 1 through 7, not only allowing men to live, to live on, to continue and enjoy creation, but he bestows these life-giving and life-preserving blessings on him.
Chapter 9, verses 1 through 7, 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 on off all the fish of the sea.
Into your hand they are delivered. 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.
For your life blood, 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 and you be fruitful and multiply. Increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it. All the previous verses at the end of chapter 8 reveal to us the heart of God. Moses is giving us this behind-the-scenes look.
God now addresses Noah and his sons directly. He makes his heart now known to them. They just left the ark. They don't know the mind of God. They expect another flood maybe in a week when the skies begin to darken again and rain starts pouring down.
Is there going to be a continuous cycle of floods now? Does God still care for life after having wiped out all humanity? Did it just continue on with life as they knew it? God tells them there's now this new creation.
Noah becomes this new type of Adam with whom this re-creation begins. You can only imagine the possible comfort and encouragement this may have been to these eight men and women. He says to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
Referencing, pointing us back to chapter 1 in Genesis and verse 28 where the first words of man in the garden were the very same words of blessing. The command to multiply, fill the earth remains. Mankind is to begin again.
But things are not going to be the same as they were in the garden. We're not going back to paradise. Matthew Henry put it this way, speaking about the world after the flood. He writes, though it is not a paradise, but a wilderness rather, yet it is better than we deserve.
Blessed be God. It is not hell. As we've seen with the evil in man's heart, sin is very much going to be a part of this world. And so the relationship between man and animal has changed. We're creation.
The animals, remember, were coming to Adam to be named. There's now this level of hostility between them. So much so that God in his providence puts a fear and a dread of man into the beasts and gives them into the hands of mankind.
A certain level of authority and dominion over them remains. Calvin says the providence of God is a secret bridle to restrain their violence. This harmonious relationship they enjoyed that was destroyed in the garden is not restored.
Nevertheless, man is to make use of them for labor and service, as well as sustenance. They're given to man for food, to aid in the command to be fruitful and multiply. We see one prohibition that's given, though, regarding the eating of the animals.
It's similar to the prohibition in the garden. When you think back where Adam was allowed to eat of any tree except of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so in verse 4, God says, you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
It's not a mere matter of taste. And in the Hebrew, as the ESV actually translates so helpfully, blood is closely related to life. It's the foundation for why the nation of Israel, for example, was not allowed to eat blood.
In Leviticus 7, in describing how the priests are to offer the sacrifices, it says, moreover, you shall eat no blood whatever, whether of fowl or of animal, in any of your dwelling places. Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.
A few chapters later in chapter 17, verse 11, it adds, for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.
The blood of the slaughtered animal was later seen as representing the very life of the animal that was given as the substitute for the life of the one that offered it, through then which atonement was made.
Even animal life in this fallen world in the eyes of God is valuable, and it implies a stewardship from man. We are to use them for our benefit as well as for food, but as good stewards, we ought to be responsible.
We don't worship these animals. We don't make golden images of them and bow down to them. We don't deify them. We worship the God who gave them to us as part of our being fruitful and multiplying and ruling the earth.
This may seem so basic and fundamental to us and of little use. These are, of course, blessings the Lord has given to us to enjoy and preserve human life, but I was reminded this week what can happen and the worldview that we can enter into if we don't even understand these basic principles.
Allow me to show some of this to you. In a sermon I listened to this past week, a preacher commented on an organization that I knew by name, and I couldn't resist. I had to look them up a bit more. Most of you are very familiar with this by the name People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, also known as PETA.
I have no intention of debating the humane or inhumane treatment of animals here, but I confess I had no idea how anti-human this organization really was in many ways. I ended up going down some rabbit trails and some black holes of godlessness that nobody wants to go.
Right at the top of their website, at the landing page, it says in big bold letters, animals are not ours. We just read they were given into our hands. They oppose something called speciesism, a human supremacist worldview defined as, I quote, an oppressive belief system in which those with power draw boundaries to justify using or excluding their fellow beings who are less powerful.
A human supremacist line of reasoning is used to defend treating other living, feeling beings like research tools, fabric, toys, or even food ingredients, even though they share our capacity for pain, hunger, fear, thirst, love, joy, and loneliness, and have as much interest in freedom and staying alive as humans do.
End quote. The founder of this organization once claimed that the smallest form of life, even an ant or a clam, is equal to a human being. At another point, this person said, I'm not only uninterested in having children, I'm opposed to having children.
Having a purebred human baby is like having a purebred dog. It is nothing but vanity, human vanity. Now you tell me that our view of being fruitful, multiplying, and animals given into our hands does not have consequences.
If we tolerate one last quote from one of the founders of Greenpeace, commented, I got the impression that instead of going out to shoot birds, I should go out and shoot the kids who shoot birds. Now some of these quotes, I imagine, may be intended to provoke a certain reaction, to get attention, but at the basic level, they reveal a great distortion of God's intention for human life, and it's God giving dominion over the earth, and the means that God uses to preserve that human life.
Another of these blessings we're given, or means of preservation, is the very value of human life. We see this in verses five and six. I'll read them again. 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.
Not only is death a part of life between man and animal, but because of sin, it remains a reality among men as well. It had been ever since the fall. You think about Cain murdering his brother, and Lamech murdering a young man for wounding him earlier in chapter four, and so as these eight survivors begin to multiply and fill the earth again, violence will again increase as well.
Really not a great outlook, but God puts this means of restraining that kind of evil in place. You'll notice that the taking of animal life has no direct punishment attached to it, but the shedding of blood of man requires the very death of the one who shed it.
This applies universally. We have no distinction between men and women, slave or free, regardless of gender, social status, life has this transcendent value being made in the image of God. Now three times the text here says, I will require the taking of a life.
It's first and foremost not an offense toward the person murdered or his or her family. It is primarily an offense against God. He's the one requiring the reckoning. He has given the life and his image that remains, even though it is marred by sin, gives every human life this inherent value.
The only one allowed to take life is the life giver himself. One commentator said, this doctrine, however, is to be carefully observed, that no one can be injurious to his brother without wounding God himself.
With this doctrine deeply fixed in our minds, we should be much more reluctant than we are to inflict injuries. There was also nothing a guilty offender could possibly offer that would be worth enough to pay the price for the image bearer he murdered.
He has to pay with his own life. You see this later reiterated throughout the law in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. Every time anybody murders somebody willfully and puts somebody to death, he must pay with his own life.
Now as Noah arrives in this new world, this recreation, he enters it with his God. We saw this in him building this altar and offering worship. He sets foot in this world that is sustained and preserved by the common grace of God.
He's been given these blessings and means of preservation of being fruitful and multiplying. Really, marriage and family are the very foundation. The animal world and all plants have been given into his hands for them to use for their service and benefit.
Life is protected to be preserved by the punishment of death for those who take it. We've been told how life is to be lived now in this post-flood, despite the effects of the fall and sin remaining. And the mandates given at creation to Adam very much remain the same.
Fill the earth, rule it, use it, and protect life. Now in verses 8 through 17, we come to the covenant, the best part, the sure promise of hope. Beginning in verse 8, 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 floods 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've 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've established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.
Verse 9, behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you. This is the second time the word covenant is mentioned in the Bible, first time being in chapter 6, verse 18. But what is a covenant?
We hear and see this word all throughout scripture. It's mentioned over 280 times in the Old Testament and more than 30 times in the New. But it's a term and concept we're not often that familiar with.
Covenants are the very basic way in which God relates to his people. If you think of all the major events in the Bible, they all evolve around covenants. For example, we have the flood, now we have a covenant.
We see Abraham in Genesis 17. He's told that he'll be the father of many nations and has promised the land of Canaan. God makes that promise to him via covenants. Likewise, when Moses, your member at the Mount Sinai, receives the Ten Commandments, a covenant is made.
And there are more in addition to these. And the covenant structure throughout the scriptures structure really redemptive history. Sinclair Ferguson said it this way, indeed it is the framework within which God sets the scene for the coming of Christ and for the bringing in of his kingdom.
Endless definitions have been given of covenants from very simple to very complex. And it isn't as easy as we might think to really give one all-encompassing perfect one because the covenants are all slightly different from one to another with small differences.
Some are made between God and man, some are made between man and woman, like the marriage covenant, while others are made between David and Jonathan, between friends. Joel Beakey and Paul Smalley, in their systematic theology, give us this definition.
A covenant is a solemn promise that functions as a verbal legal instrument to define a relationship of loyalty. To put it very simply, a covenant is a binding agreement of sworn fidelity. They're generally made between two parties.
Oftentimes one of these is placed in subordination to the other, and sometimes they may include laws that must be obeyed. Think of the Mosaic covenant and how Israel is placed in subordination to God and must obey his law.
Oftentimes these covenants were made with a visible sign. For Abraham, that sign was circumcision. In the New Covenant, it is the Lord's Supper, the bread and the cup. And in the Noahic covenant here, it is the rainbow.
Now one more thing that I think might be helpful. Biblical covenants, generally speaking, they follow this pattern of ancient Near Eastern Zorian vassal treaties. I can't even say that word. Zuzarian being a powerful lord or nation, and vassals being a person or country in a position of subordination.
And these treaties were made between the superior and the inferior power or nation. And the vassals would benefit from the provision of the Zuzarian and would in turn pay loyalty and tribute. Now, what does any of this have to do with Noah's covenant here?
I hope you can begin to slowly see this. God says that he will establish a covenant with Noah and his offspring after him. In the Hebrew, the verse 9 is actually very, very emphatic. One scholar points out that it reads actually more like, now I behold, I am establishing my covenant with you.
And so we have the two parties, God, the superior party, and Noah and his descendants. And in verse 10, we see that this covenant is also including every living creature that Noah had in the ark. And so this covenant takes on a bit of an inclusive form.
It's not only between God and man, but animals as well. And then in verse 11, we see that this relationship, this sign is ratified in this covenant. The promise that God will never again send the waters to destroy the earth as he just done.
And then sorry, in verse 12 and 14, we have the sign of the covenant, just like the circumcision was given to Abraham, the Lord's supper, and the new covenant, God gives the rainbow as a sign of this covenant, this visual reminder.
And so when the rainbow is seen and the clouds, it brings to mind this verbal promise that was made. It signifies God's unwavering commitment to keep the promise of not destroying the earth again. And so this Noahic covenant between God and Noah, as well as all the living creatures, the promise that God will never again destroy the earth by water, and that promise, the sure commitment that God will hold himself to being ratified, signified by the rainbow.
Now this all comes together now. I hope we can see this. God is descending. He's making his heart known to man, his decision to never again strike down every creature is made known to Noah, as well as all of us.
Verse 10, verse 12 tells us the covenant is for all living beings and all future generation. And so when, as he stoops down to us in this sense now, he affirms and confirms that a relationship between the creator and the creature remains, including by the common grace, even the unbeliever, and that it is by his good providence, he sustains and supplies everything necessary for human flourishing.
And not like it was in the garden when man was good, but now despite man's being evil. When we see that rainbow, do you ever at all think about any of these things? I have to confess that I don't. On a good day, to be honest, it might remind me or you that God won't kill all of us by drowning.
That's about it. Usually we're too busy doing other things. If we notice it, then we might barely acknowledge it with saying how nice it is. It's got solid colors today and how excited we are to be at the end of it.
And we move on. We take the Lord's Supper every week, the sign of the new covenant. We have a sign given to us of God's common grace for all to see a sign of the promise by God, promise given by God that will not fail.
How often do we take it for granted that creation as we know it continues day by day? That sea time and harvest seasons of summer and winter is verse 28, 22 in chapter eight said that the earth continues in this actually very specific and orderly way of traveling around the sun, rotating on its own axis once every 24 hours so predictable that we can know the time of the sun rising and setting that the farmer knows when to plant his seed and when to harvest that you can plant even your vegetables in your garden and that will bear fruit.
That every year it is warm in summer, cold in winter, that we can go to bed at night, put our heads to rest without fear that the vast amount of waters will cross their appointed borders, laying the entire earth to waste again.
That unless our Lord returns today, we know that the sun will rise again tomorrow, paint the horizon with all the red, yellow, and orange that no artist could ever copy, displaying the glory of God for us to behold, causing the leaves and flowers to eventually grow again and give us color that we can hear the singing of the birds as they return from their winter travels, all that is part of God's common grace that the rainbow reminds us of.
But don't forget about the redemptive aspect of it as well, that this covenant points us to, the command to be fruitful and multiply, filling the earth to preserve and protect life. These are the very means by which the promised offspring in chapter 315 would eventually enter the world, present himself as a fragrant offering, pleasing to God in order to redeem his people and satisfy the very wrath of God.
And beyond even that, the Lord is not finished yet. The world will not be destroyed again by water, but on the great day of the Lord's, the heavens will be set on fire and dissolve, the heavenly bodies melting as they burn.
Nevertheless, those who are in Christ will be safely brought into the new heavens and the new earth, for which is 2 Peter 3 .13 says, we are waiting and are we waiting eagerly, waiting to enter the place in which righteousness dwells, where the evil intent of man's heart is no more, where the common grace of God that we get to experience and enjoy now, this foretaste really will be surpassed by the fullest expression of his complete grace for all eternity.
Brothers and sisters, we're in this world but this world does not exist apart from God. It does not sustain itself. It is by God's common grace that believer and unbeliever alike in the Noahic covenant get to enjoy God's creation.
Christians, let us enjoy it. And after the next rainfall, when the clouds begin to dissolve, the sun breaking through once again and the rainbow appears, remember our God's hand that upholds the earth, his common grace that keeps the waters at bay, the preservation of human life that brought the Messiah and that all of this, as good, as enjoyable as it is now, is but a foretaste of what's to come when we enter into his presence and enjoy him forever.
Let's pray.
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