The Noahic Covenant

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I invite you to take out your Bible and turn to Genesis chapter 9 as we continue our verse by verse study of the book of Genesis.
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We've been in Genesis now for, well, for a couple of years, so we're not really going that fast, but we will move more speedily as we get to big narrative chapters.
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Last week we looked at chapter 9, verse 8 through 17, and we're going to be in the same verses today because last week we really did not exegete the passage.
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Last week we exegeted a single word from the passage.
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We looked at the word covenant.
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We asked three questions.
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What is a covenant? A covenant is more than a contract.
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A covenant establishes a relationship based upon promises which are meant to be kept and not easily broken.
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Why are covenants important? Because this is the way God has chosen to relate to us.
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God relates to us through the covenant.
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And what are the biblical covenants? The Bible names five specific covenants that God made with men.
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God made a covenant with Noah.
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God made a covenant with Abraham.
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God made a covenant with Moses, which we call the Old Covenant.
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God made a covenant with David, and God made a covenant through Christ, which we call the New Covenant.
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And so, these covenants become, as it were, like the meta-narrative of the Scripture.
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They are the structure upon which the Bible is held.
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And with the establishment of each covenant, God progresses His plan of redemption.
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The ultimate goal in all of these covenants is that they reach their zenith in Jesus Christ.
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In fact, I want to read a quote.
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This is by Stephen Wellham.
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Stephen Wellham wrote the book Kingdom Through Covenant.
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It is a massive book.
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It's very, very thick, but there are shorter versions.
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There's the Kingdom Through the Covenant, which is a shorter version.
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If you ever want to read it, I would encourage you to read the shorter one first before you try to dig through the big one.
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But this is a quote from Wellham on this subject.
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He says, Each biblical covenant contributes to the unfolding and revealing of God's unified plan.
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To grasp God's plan, we must take seriously how all of the covenants reveal God's plan.
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It is crucial to interpret each covenant in its own redemptive historical context and think through how it was related to the covenants that preceded it and the covenants that follow it.
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It is only by reading Scripture in this way that we can discern how each of the covenants unveil God's plan over time and how all of the covenants reach their fulfillment in Christ.
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We do not view the covenants as isolated units.
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Instead, we view them as organically related to each other as God's plan unfolds from creation to Christ.
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Thus, by the progression or unfolding of these covenants, God's plan is revealed.
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To apply rightly God's promises to us today and to know how we ought to live as God's covenant people today, all of Scripture must be applied in light of its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
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So my hope today is to do four things.
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As we look at the Noahic covenant, that simply is the covenant God made with Noah, I want to do four things.
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One, I want to ask who are the parties involved in the covenant? Number two, what are the promises of the covenant? Number three, not only the promises of the covenant, but the picture of the covenant, which is what we call the covenantal sign.
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And then finally, how are these things pointing to Christ? So with that said, I would like for you to stand as we give God's word, its due honor and reverence.
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And we're going to read what we're going to study, chapter 9, verses 8 to 17.
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Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, Behold, I established my covenant with you and your offspring after you and with every living creature that is with you, the birds and 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.
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I established 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.
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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.
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I have set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
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And 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.
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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.
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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.
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Our Father and our God, as we open the word together and seek to have a right understanding of it, Lord, I pray that you would keep me from error.
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For Lord, I am a fallible man and capable of preaching error.
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I pray that you would keep me from that.
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I pray also, Lord, that you would keep me from cowardice, that I would preach with both accuracy and boldness.
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Lord, for those who are here who know you, I pray that they would understand that this covenant that God made with Noah looks forward to the covenant of Christ.
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And Lord, I pray that we would see that as sure as the promises were that were made to Noah, even more sure are the promises that you have made to us through Christ.
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And I pray, Lord, for those who do not know Christ, Lord, that today may even be the day that you would remind them of what we've already read, what Brother Mike read earlier, that there is coming a day when all men everywhere will be judged, and it is appointed unto man to die and be judged.
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And Lord, to be judged outside of Christ is a terror unimaginable, so that we might run today to Christ and for the salvation that he provides by the power of the Spirit of God.
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In Jesus' name, Amen.
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In our lesson last week about the covenants, we discussed what they are, why they're important, but we didn't get into the particulars of how covenants are made.
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And since this is the first time in the Bible that a covenant is made in that language, again, we talked last week, there's argument that a covenant was made with Noah, and we could discuss that, or excuse me, with Adam, we could discuss that another time.
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This is the first time the word covenant is used, and therefore we look at this particular covenant and we learn some things from it.
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Covenants include parties, that means the ones who are participating in the covenant.
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It includes promises that are the promises that are being made in that particular covenant, and then there is a sign or a seal of the promises that are made.
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And again, last week we talked about marriage as a covenant.
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Think of that.
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Who are the parties in the marriage covenant? The husband and the wife.
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What are they doing? They're making promises or vows to one another, and what do they give one another in our culture? A ring, and the ring is a sign of the promises that were made, right? The ring that goes on the hand is a symbol, it's a sign, and so we have a good understanding of this if we think simply about the covenant of marriage of how these things work.
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Well, in a very similar way, when we look at the covenant of Noah, we see parties, we see a specific promise, and we see a sign or a picture given.
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So that's what we're going to look at today.
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We're going to look at those three specific things from this text.
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Let's look first at the parties of the covenant.
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Verse 8 says this, it says, Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you.
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And with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and the beasts of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark, it is for every beast of the earth.
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Right away, we see the first party involved in the covenant is who? God.
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God is party of this covenant because he is the one who's choosing to make a covenant.
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Noah did not reach up to God.
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God reached down to Noah.
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In fact, there's not a one of us who has ever reached up to God.
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God is the one who reaches down into the muck and the mire of our sin.
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He reaches down, he picks us up, he cleans us off, and he seats us in heavenly places with Christ.
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It is God who initiates the relationship, not me.
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And with Noah, it is God who initiates the covenant, not Noah.
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And something to recognize is that this is not an equal party covenant.
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In the ancient Near East, there were different types of covenants.
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There was one that was called the Parity Covenant.
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The Parity Covenant was a covenant that was made between two equal parties.
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So for instance, if two businesses wanted to go into business together and have a covenant relationship in that business, or two kings wanted to get together and have a covenant relationship, and those kings had equal amount of land, equal amount of authority, equal amount of power, then they had to engage in what is called a Parity Covenant, where both of them have equal standing within the covenant.
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But there is also a different type of covenant that was often made, and it was called the Suzerain Vassal Covenant.
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The Suzerain Vassal Covenant is a covenant between a lesser and a greater, someone who has more authority and someone who has lesser or no authority.
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So it was the type of covenant a king might enter into with his subjects.
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Or one king who was taking over another kingdom, and that kingdom has lost its power, so that king comes and he makes a covenant with those people, but who sets the terms? The Suzerain.
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The word Suzerain means the greater king, Vassal means the lesser.
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So who sets the terms in that relationship? The greater king.
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The Suzerain sets the terms.
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And every covenant we see between God and man is based on that simple principle of God is the one setting the terms.
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God doesn't reach down to Noah and say, hey Noah, can you tell me what you want out of this? Or hey Noah, can you tell me your desires for this? God never does that.
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He doesn't do that with Noah.
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He doesn't do that with Abraham.
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What does he say to Abraham? We're going to see this when we get to chapter 12.
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Go from your country and from your kingdom and from your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you.
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And through you all the nations of the world will be blessed, right? God didn't ask Abraham his opinion.
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He said go.
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And then a few chapters later he makes the covenant in blood by cutting the animal in half and showing that God was the one not only who sets the terms of the covenant, but who sets the stipulations and the rules that go along with it.
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So we see God is the one who is initiating this covenant with Noah.
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God is sovereign in this and the sovereign sets the terms.
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God is always greater.
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God is always the initiator.
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God sets the terms.
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But God enters into covenant relationship with his creation.
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And thus we look at the second party of the covenant, Noah and those who were with him in the ark.
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It says, God says to Noah and to his sons, behold, I established my covenant with you and your offspring after you.
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Remember, there was no other human beings on the earth.
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This is an important reality.
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I've stressed this over the last few weeks.
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Nobody survived the flood.
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There was nobody paddling around in a little boat outside the flood.
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Everybody outside the ark died.
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And the only people who survived was Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth and their wives.
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That's the only human beings on the earth right now.
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Eight people.
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In fact, if you go into the New Testament, it says only eight souls survived the flood.
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So only eight people are here alive.
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And notice what it says.
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It says that God is making this covenant with them and their offspring.
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You know what the beauty of that is? Somebody said something.
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It's us.
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Is that what you're saying, Brother Brighton? Yes.
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I'm sorry.
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You threw me off for a second.
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It's with us.
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Because it says with you and with your offspring.
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And guess what? Every one of us is an offspring of Noah.
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Every one of us is either a Shemite, a Hamite or a Japhethite.
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Every one of us comes from one of those three forefathers.
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And therefore every one of us is made part of this covenant from God.
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But not only did Noah and not only did his descendants get included, but notice the animals are also included.
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It says every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, every beast of the earth.
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This is not only for Noah and his family.
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This is for all the beasts that were with him in the ark.
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Therefore this is what we might term a universal covenant.
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This covenant includes everybody and everything.
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In fact, you could even go as far as to go down to verse 13.
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It says this is a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
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God says it even includes the earth.
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Now the earth is not a person through which a relationship can be made, but the earth in that sense is personified as God is making this promise even to the earth.
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Even the ground that we walk on.
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So the covenant promises is going to be made to Noah and to his family and to the animals and even to the very earth upon which we tread.
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And what's interesting about this covenant compared to all the other covenants, this is the only one that is universal.
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Universal.
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If you follow the rest of the covenants down, Abraham's covenants are with who? With him and his descendants.
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Which limits the amount of people that participate in that covenant.
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And then you go later to the covenant that God makes with Moses and it's with the nation of Israel, right? And then you go later to the Davidic covenant which is only the ones who sit on the throne.
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Then you get to the new covenant.
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And who is the new covenant? Believers.
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Who is in the new covenant? From every nation, tribe and tongue.
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That's right.
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That's right.
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But it's only believers from every nation, tribe and tongue.
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This is my point.
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Some people believe there are people in the new covenant who don't believe.
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They believe that you're in the new covenant by birth.
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And I understand I have some people who come from maybe some Presbyterian backgrounds and the idea, well my children are in the covenant.
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No they're not.
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They are not part of the covenant until they believe.
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That's the distinction of being Baptist by the way.
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One of the big differences between the Baptists and the Presbyterians was understanding that you are not part of the covenant unless you are a believer.
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You don't join the covenant by birth, you join the covenant by new birth.
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So this covenant with Noah is the only literally universal covenant.
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But as Brother Mike did point out, the new covenant looks toward a worldwide covenant because it's every tribe, tongue and nation will have believers.
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The Bible says that in Revelation.
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It says, behold I saw people from every tribe, tongue and nation bowing down before the Lamb.
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That's the beauty of it, right? So we have Genesis 9, 8 and 10.
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It tells us who's participating in this covenant.
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It tells us that who participates in this covenant is Noah and his descendants and the animals and even the earth.
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And think about that.
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God had decimated the earth.
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The earth at this point was torn apart.
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It was, as the waters receded, it was tearing into the earth and it was creating canals and canyons and caverns in the earth.
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And God promises that's not ever going to happen again.
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In fact, if you look back just for a moment into chapter 8, you have your Bibles open, I hope.
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Turn back into chapter 8 and look at verse 22.
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Now this is not part of the Noahic covenant, but this precedes the Noahic covenant and therefore it is in a sense in the same context.
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So look at verse 22 of chapter 8.
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While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.
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That's a promise from God.
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The earth will continue to spin.
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The earth will continue to have times of cold and hot.
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The earth will continue to have times of day and night until the final day.
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For those who are so concerned about these save the earth campaigns, I want to just remind you that often we exaggerate the ability of man to violate the promise of God.
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The Noahic covenant is sometimes called the covenant of preservation.
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God is promising to preserve the earth until the end.
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And that leads us to our next part, the promise of the covenant.
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We've seen the parties of the covenant.
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God is making the covenant with Noah and all of his descendants and the animals and even the earth.
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And now the promise of the covenant comes in verse 11.
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I establish my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood.
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But never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.
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I want you to notice something right away.
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This covenant is also unique.
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I said it was unique in that it was universal.
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It's also unique in that it carries no stipulations.
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God is making a promise that does not require man's response.
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This is not based on Noah and what he will do.
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This is not based on Noah's obedience or lack thereof.
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In a sense, this covenant is an expression of God's mere grace.
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I will not destroy the earth with water again.
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God didn't have to make that promise.
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In fact, that fear and dread of that deluge could have hung over the heads of men forever.
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God could have always pointed back and said, you see what I did before? I can do it again.
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If I had the power to bring the waters from the great deep last time, don't you think I can do it again? But he doesn't do that.
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Instead, he makes a promise that that will never happen again.
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And by the way, it isn't because man got better.
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That's an important truth.
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The Bible says before the flood, man was only evil continually and guess what it says after the flood? Same.
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After the flood, it says he is evil from his youth still.
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If you ever want proof of total depravity, and by the way, the doctrine of total depravity is that every man carries the sin nature of Adam and therefore we do not desire the things of God, neither do we desire to submit to him, but rather we desire to go our own way and to be our own masters.
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If you want proof of that, you can go to later in Genesis where you see all of the sinfulness of man just continuing to grow and grow and grow, but then you go down through the books of the Bible to the book of Romans and what does Romans chapter 3 says? There is none good, no not one.
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There's none who understands.
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There's none who seeks after God.
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All have gone astray.
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All have turned everyone to his own way.
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The venom of asps is under their lips and the fear of God is not before their eyes.
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We see that throughout the Bible and all Paul is doing there is quoting the Old Testament over and over and over again.
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The sinful nature of man is throughout the Bible, but if you don't believe that, turn on your television at night.
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Ten shot dead in this city.
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Fourteen shot dead in this city.
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This person raped this person.
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This person molested this child.
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This person did this and that and the other.
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You don't need to be proved total depravity.
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The world teaches us that truth every day.
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So the fact that God is not destroying the world by water again is very gracious.
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In fact, we could say it's an example of his common grace.
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Theologically speaking, the term common grace should be understood by all of us because when we talk about grace, we talk about God's common grace and God's special grace.
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Common grace is the grace that is given to every man under the sun.
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The Bible says in Matthew chapter 5, Jesus preaching.
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He says God makes the rain to fall on who? The just and the unjust, right? He says the sun shines on the good and the evil.
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Why? Why is it that when I'm planting my new garden in my yard and I plant my garden, right, and my neighbor down the street who doesn't love the Lord and doesn't love Jesus and he plants his garden, why do both of our gardens have the same potential to grow? Because we're both living under the same amount of common grace.
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What if he has a greener thumb than me? His might grow even better, right? Because we're all living under the same rain and the same sun and we're all benefiting from the same common grace of God.
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The Bible says in Psalm 145 verse 9, the Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made.
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You realize he doesn't have to be good to all? He doesn't have to show mercy to anyone and yet he does.
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And so the promise is made.
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The flood will not happen again.
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This doesn't mean that local floods won't happen.
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We've talked about that over the last few weeks.
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Local floods do happen.
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We have seen massive floods in places like Louisiana and over in India and other places where there have been massive floods and people have been killed sometimes in the thousands and even hundreds of thousands.
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These things do happen, which is why, by the way, if somebody ever tells you that Noah's flood was a local flood, you can tell them that they're wrong.
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You don't have to be ugly about it.
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You don't have to point your finger or be nasty, but you can say a proper reading of the text does not allow Noah's flood to be a local flood because if so, God is a liar.
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God said I'm not doing this again like this.
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Local floods happen all the time.
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God makes a promise.
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He will not flood the whole earth again.
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Not going to do this again.
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We previously discussed the cultural mandate.
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God commanded Noah and his family to be fruitful and multiply.
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He gave them an expanded diet.
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He told them they could eat the meat of the animals.
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He even established the law of retributive justice where he included even the death penalty and all of that is based on the promise that he's about to make.
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When he gives them all of those mandates from verses 1 to 7, all of that is based on the promise because the promise is a promise of preservation.
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God is telling Noah the world will survive this great catastrophe.
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The world will go on and keep spinning.
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There will still be a world for you to be fruitful and multiply in.
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Never again will God bring a complete and total judgment upon the earth until the final day.
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And guess what? When the final day comes, we won't need more preservation of the earth because the earth will be completely renewed.
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New heaven and new earth.
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But from now until then, we have the promise of preservation.
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You guys remember the Peanuts cartoons? Charlie Brown.
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I know you young people don't know who Charlie Brown is but maybe some of you older folks know who Charlie Brown is.
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Charlie Brown and Lucy and Linus and all those characters.
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There was a comic strip where Lucy is sitting in front of her window and she looks out the window and it's raining cats and dogs outside, you know, it's just pouring down rain.
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And Lucy looks at Linus and she says, I'm afraid the whole earth is going to flood.
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And Linus said, you don't have to worry about that.
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The Bible says God's not going to flood the earth again.
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And she goes, oh wow, that's a relief.
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And Linus said, yeah, good theology will do that.
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Good theology is a relief.
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Right theology helps us to understand the world around us.
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We live in a world that is constantly in fear of great catastrophe.
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Always talking about climate change this and pollution that.
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Always concerned that somehow we're going to bring the end.
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There's only one who will bring the end and he will bring it in his time whether we like it or not and whether we're prepared or not.
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We will not hasten it, neither will we slow it down.
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God has promised to preserve his earth until he is finished with it.
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Number three is the picture of the covenant.
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And what's interesting, this gets the lion's share of the verses.
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The verse that talked about the promise was one verse.
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The verses that talked about the parties was two verses.
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But the verses that give us the picture of the covenant is verses 12 to 17.
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Notice it says in verse 12, 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.
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I have set my bow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.
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Now we just stop right there, I'm not going to read the rest for now, I just want to just think of that.
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The sign given to Noah is a bow in the sky.
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Most of us have seen a rainbow and most of us understand at least somewhat of the science behind what makes rainbows appear.
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But because I needed to, I actually looked it up.
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So this is what it says.
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A rainbow is a meteorological phenomenon that is caused by reflection, refraction, and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a spectrum of light appearing in the sky and it takes the form of a multicolored circular arc.
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That's the textbook scientific definition of what makes a rainbow a rainbow.
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And yesterday I was spraying my garden, that's two times I mention my new hobby, I was spraying my garden with water and it was hot outside and the sun was beating down on the water that I was spraying and I could see a rainbow in the water.
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It was very neat to see that little miniature rainbow.
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And one thing we have to understand is the Bible is not denying the scientific method of producing rainbows.
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There is a science behind refraction and reflection and dissipation of water droplets.
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There is science behind that, but what it's telling us is God uses this thing, this natural thing to paint a picture of His promise.
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In fact, one of the most interesting things is if you look at the Hebrew language, there is no Hebrew word for rainbow.
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The Hebrew word is simply the word bow and it's the same word used for the archer's bow.
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You know, like a bow and arrow? That's how the rainbow gets its name.
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It's shaped like an archer's bow.
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And as Kingdom Through Covenant, the book as I mentioned earlier, mentioned this, the bow is a weapon of war.
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And in God's covenant with Noah, He sets the bow down.
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And it's pointed up, not down at us, but rather it's set aside.
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His judgment and wrath with water is set aside and the promise is He has laid down the bow.
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That sign symbolizes God's promise of preservation.
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But the sad reality is that sign has been stolen.
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Most of us realize that the sign of the rainbow has been stolen through the gay agenda and through the LGBT group.
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And it is the height of irony, the height of irony, that the sign which God placed to show His grace after judgment is being used to promote sin.
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But just because the sign has been misused does not mean it is theirs.
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It belongs to God.
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That sign belongs to God.
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And the signing of covenants is a practice that God does through the Bible.
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Why does God sign His covenants? By the way, we sign contracts, don't we? We sign things.
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What's the root of the word signature? Sign.
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We are putting a sign on something, making the statement that we promise to do this.
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So the sign is God's picture of His promise.
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The bow in the clouds.
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God promises, I'm not going to flood the earth again.
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Here's my promise.
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Here's the sign.
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Here's my signature in the cloud.
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I'm not doing this again.
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Later on, He gives a promise to Abraham.
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And what does He say? You circumcise your children because that will be the sign of the covenant that I've made with you.
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Later, with Moses in the desert, He says, You will rest on the seventh day and the Sabbath will be a sign for you that you are in covenant with Me.
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Most people don't know that.
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The sign of the Mosaic covenant is the Sabbath given to them in the time during their wilderness wanderings.
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And later we have the Davidic covenant.
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Now the Davidic covenant is never tied to a specific sign.
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I tend to believe the throne itself is the sign because it says the throne will last forever.
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The throne will go on and the throne is upon which the Lord Jesus will sit upon the throne of David.
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So I think if there is a sign in the Davidic covenant, it's the throne itself.
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Because that will last forever and it's a picture of the royalty of Christ.
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But then we come to the New Covenant.
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And guess what? The New Covenant has signs, doesn't it? The New Covenant has a sign, a seal, a picture.
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And what is it? It's right here.
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The Lord's table.
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The Lord's table.
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The bread.
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Jesus picked up the bread.
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And by the way, it's normal bread made by the same normal qualifications of bread that's made.
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You know, you take flour and water and you mix it together and you make bread.
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Just like the rainbow has a scientific explanation, bread has a scientific explanation.
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But God sets it apart as the sign of His promise.
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Jesus held up the bread and He said, what? This bread is My body given for you.
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Now I realize that has been absconded with by Rome and others who want to make the bread physically the body of Jesus.
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But no, that is not what Jesus said.
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Jesus says, every time you eat of this, you remember Me.
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The bread is a memorial to the body of Christ.
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The cup is a memorial to His blood.
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Because His body and blood do not need to be broken over and over and over again.
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The Bible says His body and blood need be broken only once.
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His blood shed only once for all time.
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Therefore, this table becomes a sign, a memorial to what we receive in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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But in the New Covenant, we could also talk about regeneration.
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Because the Bible says what is the real sign of being in the New Covenant is circumcision of the heart.
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Abraham's children were circumcised in the flesh.
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But we are circumcised, how? In the heart.
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And it's symbolized in what? Baptism.
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When we are baptized, that's the picture of what has happened in our heart.
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Last week we watched as Trinity was baptized.
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What did she do? She received the sign of baptism.
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The sign of union between her and her King.
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Buried with Him in baptism.
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Raised to new life.
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And you know what? Then every week she comes to the table.
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And she gets the opportunity to be reminded.
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Just like the rainbow reminds us God's not going to flood the earth again.
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Just like circumcision reminds us God set apart Abraham's people.
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Just like the Sabbath reminded the people of Israel that they had a special relationship with God.
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Just like the throne represents David's special relationship with God.
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This table represents our relationship with Christ.
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It's a sign of His promise to us.
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And that's where I want to draw to a close.
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Because I want you to see something.
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If you go to Isaiah 54.
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Isaiah 54 talks about Noah.
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And it tells us something.
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We're going to begin in verse 8 and read to verse 10.
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Isaiah chapter 9.
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I'm sorry, 54, sorry.
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Isaiah 54, verse 8.
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In flowing anger for a moment I hid my face from you.
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But with everlasting love I will have compassion on you, says the Lord your Redeemer.
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This is like the days of Noah to me.
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As I swore that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth, so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you and will not rebuke you.
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For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord who has compassion on you.
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What is this saying? Well, we could get into a long conversation about what is meant by the covenant of peace.
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I think it points to the new covenant, to be honest with you.
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John Gill would agree with me on that.
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He says the covenant spoken of here by Isaiah is speaking of the covenant with Christ.
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But here's the point of this.
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God is saying something about the Noahic covenant.
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He says in the same way I made a covenant with Noah to preserve Noah and his family and the earth, so too I make a covenant to preserve those who are in my covenant of peace forever.
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So can I say something to you today that may come across somewhat difficult, but I want you to hear this.
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In the same way that you can rest assured that God will never again bring a flood upon the earth because of his promise to Noah, you too can also rest assured, if you are a believer, that God's wrath will never fall upon you because of his promise made to you in Jesus Christ.
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Let me say it again.
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Maybe say it a little simpler.
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God will never withdraw his preserving grace that he gave in the Noahic covenant and God will never withdraw his preserving grace that he gives us in the new covenant.
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You see, we have a promise of preservation in Noah's covenant.
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The earth is going to last until the end.
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We have a promise of preservation in the new covenant.
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You know what Jesus tells us in the new covenant? He says they are in my hand and no one will snatch them out.
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And I am in my Father's hand and I and my Father are one.
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I think every one of us is pretty confident that the earth is not going to flood again because we trust in the promise of God.
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Are you equally as confident that God's wrath is not going to befall you because you're in Jesus Christ? That's the connection.
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The promise...
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See, we talk about the P in the Tulip, Calvinism, you know, T-U-L-I-P.
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The P is often perseverance of the saints.
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We're going to be talking about this in our conference coming up.
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Perseverance.
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But you know what also comes with perseverance? Preservation.
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God preserves us and that's why we persevere.
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God preserves us by his Spirit and by the power of the Spirit we persevere.
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We would not persevere one day if it were not for the power of the Spirit of God within us.
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And because the Spirit of God is within us, we shall not fail to persevere.
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Because we are preserved by him and there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ.
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And never shall there be.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your Word.
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I thank you that even now we have the opportunity to be reminded of your preserving grace.
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And Lord, as we are preserved, we thank you for that.
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For Lord, we have nothing in ourselves that deserves it.
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We do not deserve to be saved.
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We do not deserve to persevere.
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We do not deserve to be preserved.
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But your Word tells us that you are the one doing the work.
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As much as you initiated the covenant, you will see it through.
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So Lord, we place all of our trust in you.
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For those who are believers, Lord, may we find our confidence and hope in your steadfast love and your persevering grace.
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And Lord, for those who do not know you, may today be the day that you remove their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.
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Father in heaven, we pray all this in Jesus' name.
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Amen.