God's Covenant with Noah

Revelation 12 and Genesis 3:15

Okay, Revelation 12. I thought that this would be interesting after last week. So last week, we talked about Genesis 3 and the curse and the promise. It's actually quite amazing how the beginning and the end of the Bible go together.

That's not by accident, by the way. So, Revelation 12, listen to this, beginning in verse 1,. And a great sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

She was pregnant, was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth. And another sign appeared in heaven. Behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his head seven diadems.

His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child, he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

But her child was caught up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, and which she is to be nourished for 1 ,260 days. That's probably got a lot of questions about that, but notice there's a lot of symbolism there.

Verse 1 tells us they're going to be a great sign, but do you see any connection at all between Revelation 12 and Genesis 3 .15? You should, right? What did Genesis 3 .15 promise? That there would be the seed of the woman born to crush the serpent's head.

I put this on your sheet, but G .K. Bill notes, this woman is a picture of the faithful community which existed both before and after the coming of Christ. Like, this woman doesn't just represent Mary, okay?

She is a sign, John says. She is showing us a picture of behind-the-scenes symbolism here, if you will, of the cosmic struggle between the church and the seed of the woman, ultimately Christ, but also the church with the woman and the seed of the serpent because Jesus descends from the faithful seed.

So go down to verse 17, unless you just think he's making some of this up. Look at verse 17. Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring. Okay, who's that?

On those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. And he stood on the sand of the sea. Okay, just the point here is, and we're going to go back to Genesis now, but the point here is that there is this universal ongoing battle between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of the world.

And we see the symbolism there in Revelation 12, but we see it immediately in action in Genesis 4 between who? What happens in Genesis 4? We mentioned it a little bit last week. Yeah, you have Cain and Abel.

Why are they fighting? Well, they're representative of these warring factions, if you will, the kingdom of the world and the kingdom of Christ, those who trust God and believe his promises and those who don't.

Noah, the Curse, and Messianic Anticipation

So in Genesis 5, the first place we're going to be, so just turn in your Bibles to Genesis and we'll just kind of jump around here for a little bit. In Genesis 5, we see a refrain in Genesis 5. That is, so-and-so is born, he lives X amount of years, he has a child, he lives X amount of years, and then he does what?

He dies. He dies. It's the same. Now, there's an exception with Enoch. That's not what we're talking about tonight, which is good. It's an example of God's grace. But we see the curse continuing, yet we also see God's promise continuing.

Children are being born and then people keep dying, okay? Now, that brings us to Genesis 5. So listen to this language after we covered last week. This is amazing. Genesis 5, verse 28. When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.

Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Lamech were 777 years and he died. After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

So death and toil and the reality of the curse continues to afflict mankind, but there seems to be...hopefully I'm not just pushing this on you. I hope you see it from the text. There seems to be a bit of messianic anticipation.

Okay, look at the text again in verse 29. So he's going to call his name Noah, which sounds like one of the Hebrew words for rest. It says, Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed. Who cursed the ground?

Yahweh. Why? Because man sinned. But Lamech seems to anticipate that Noah is going to be the Messiah, right? This is the one. I know that there's a promise and Noah is going to be the one foretold. Could he be the one to crush the head of the serpent?

Well, spoiler, is he going to be that one? No, he's not going to be that one, but he is in a very real sense going to be a new Adam. How many sons? We don't know for sure how many sons Adam had, but how many sons do we have of Adam named in the Bible?

Three. Cain, Abel, and Seth. Now we get to Noah. How many sons does Noah have that are at least named here? I mean, I assume this is his entire family because of the ark, but yeah, this is before the flood.

Noah was 500 years old. Noah fathered Shem, Ham, Japheth. Adam had three sons named. Noah has three sons. So there is a sense, and we'll see it a little bit more, that Adam is or that Noah is a type of Adam.

Of course, not in the same way. Yeah, the problem is with all this, Noah's going to give rest. That's what his father says. The problem is, of course, that darkness continues to reign. Now, we're not going to get into the Nephilim if that's what you're here for tonight.

I mean, it was just going to get us off track a little bit, but Bigfoot is the Nephilim. No. Jacob's going to teach about that in Sunday school, so start coming to that in a few weeks. But anyway, you heard it here first.

Listen to verse five, though. Even this is challenging. It's not challenging, but just listen to the language. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

I mean, you can't get more descriptive than that. Every intention, or I should say, what word am I trying to look for? Not more descriptive, but that's to the highest degree. Not some intention, not most intention, every intention of the thoughts of his heart was not mostly, but only evil.

How long? Continually. Okay? And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I've traded from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I'm sorry that I've made them.

Let me just make a comment there. It's not that God changes his mind. We understand this because the Scriptures bear this out. God doesn't repent. Numbers tell us that. God doesn't change. God doesn't have to change his mind.

But the Scriptures give God to us in such a way that he is a noble and a relatable God. He speaks to us in such a way that we can comprehend and understand and know him and see too that God really does hate sin.

And so this speaks to us, this speaks to us of God's real disposition towards sin. But also, verse 8, Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. Now what you need to know here is, this is, mankind's exceedingly wicked.

It's clear in the text that Noah doesn't procure favor. This is, verse 8 is important here before the rest of this, because it shows us that God has granted him grace, because God has a plan. And so by God's grace, he's going to, I know I'm leaving a lot out, but this is not an expositional class on Genesis.

But by, so by in his grace, he's going to establish a covenant with them. This is actually the first time we see the word covenant in the Scripture. It's down in verse 18. So God's going to bring about a flood.

He's going to wipe out the world. By the way, a literal global worldwide flood. There was some discussion recently that the language, the language technically could mean, so it's just how language is.

And depending on the context, language can mean different things. So the language might mean just grammatically, it might mean just the area, not the whole earth. There's a problem though. Contextually, it can't mean that.

It cannot mean just a specific area. Why? Because the covenant God makes is for the whole world. Otherwise, God's covenant would be broken all the time because there's localized floods all the time, right?

So anyway, that's just a side note. I don't think anybody here was struggling with that, but if you were, there it is. So what? That's right, and we'll talk more about that, but let me just mention this.

And Alex, and we can get you links to these, but Alex did a great job. Was it like four weeks or six weeks or something? Study last year on the flood and some of that. So it was good. Yeah, but let me just mention too, Christian, it's not, don't let scientists pit faith versus science.

We're not opposed to science. In fact, we love science, right? Christians should love science. Science just means knowledge, and we do love science. We don't like pseudoscience. We don't like science that rejects God.

Okay, but anyway, let's get a little off. Back to the text, verse 18, but I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you and your sons, your wife and your sons' wives with you.

The Ark, the Door, and Salvation in Christ

So God is a covenantal God. He operates, we've been talking about this, and he reigns by virtue of his covenants. So Noah becomes, according to 2 Peter 2 .5, a herald of righteousness, proclaiming the righteousness, if you want to think about it this way, proclaiming the righteousness of God as revealed in the covenant of works, right?

That God demands perfect, perpetual, personal, precise obedience. And I imagine, I don't know what his sermons were like, but an obedience that mankind has not measured up to, that you are wicked, you have failed this righteousness, and by their great disobedience, they are all deserving of God's justice, and justice is coming.

How is justice coming? In Noah's day, by a worldwide global flood. Now, let me tell you something. Just think about some parallels here. People could not imagine a worldwide global flood. They hadn't even really seen it rain, right?

They couldn't imagine. So because they couldn't imagine, they thought, well, it's just not going to happen. I see some parallels with our day today. Like, I just can't imagine the Lord coming back and judging the whole earth and destroying the earth, and I just can't imagine that.

Well, it doesn't matter if you can imagine it or not. It's the truth. So this is going to happen except for who? Those who enter the ark. Now, I imagine a little bit of imagination here, but imagine the ark being built, sitting there year after year, and it has its door wide open for any to enter, essentially, right?

It's not like the door is hard to get to. It's right there. It's in plain sight. There it is. You have Noah, the herald of righteousness. There's the ark he's building. The door's open. Go in. Be saved from the wrath to come, but does anybody do that?

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Connell's always out studying me and getting ahead of me, but amen. Amen. You're right. Now, look down in chapter 7, verse 16. And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him, and this is important, Yahweh shut him in.

The door was shut from the outside, and Noah and his family are safe. When the door's shut, that's a wrap. Here comes judgment. Now, as Connell said, do we not see a pointing to Christ? As we heard at the nursing home the other day, Gunnar was preaching, but Jesus is the what, John 10?

The door. He is the way, the truth, the life. He is the promised one of Genesis 3 .15. He fulfilled what Adam failed to do, and he is not only the herald of righteousness, the greater herald of righteousness.

Noah heralded righteousness, but he didn't fulfill it. Jesus preached righteousness and fulfilled it. His life is full of perfect righteousness, and then he bears God's wrath on Calvary, God's judgment against his people, perfectly atoned for, perfectly propitiated, and then he rises again in victory over death and hell and the grave.

He is the door. So listen, all that enter by him and him alone will be saved. Like the door on the ark, he's not hard to find. He's here in his word being proclaimed, but like the door on the ark, many ridicule and laugh and ignore and reject and forsake him and try another day.

But listen, too, one day God will shut the door of mercy. Be shut, and he will rain down his judgment. This happened in Noah's day in a worldwide flood. Men, women, listen, children drowned in the waters of God's holy judgment.

It will happen again when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. But it's important tonight to consider God's promises with Noah and his covenant with Noah after the flood. So let's turn now to Genesis 8, and I'm going to read a lengthier passage, but I'm just going to take this all together, then we'll kind of walk through some things.

So we're going to start in verse 20. So this class is Baptist covenant theology, and we're trying to understand the big picture of the Bible, and we're now we've set this the stage and the garden, and we've kind of give some introductory comments, but now we're trying to walk through the covenants as they are revealed in Scripture.

And so here we are with the Noahic covenant, God's covenant with Noah. So let's start in Genesis chapter 8, verse 20. Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal, this is after the flood, 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. 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, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. 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 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. And 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, team on the earth and multiply in it.

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, behold, I established my covenant with you and your offspring after you. By the way, who's that? Well, that's us, right? Like, but yeah, I know like the answer is always Jesus, but in a sense, yes, but never wanted to tell someone, no, but wrong on that.

And with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark, it is for every beast of the earth. 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. And God said, this is the sign of the covenant that I made between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations.

I have 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 water 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 have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.

This is quite beautiful. What you kind of feel here is things are moving forward, but there's still some pain. You know, like the fear of man upon animals. Like one time there should have been this happy relationship between man and animal, but now it's man ruling over animal in a fearsome way, even able to eat animal.

I mean, it's just, it's just, it's right, but it's not right. There's something different now. We're not in Eden anymore, Toto, right? You knew that was coming. Sam Renahan gives a great summary quote.

He says, the covenant of works curses mankind. The Noahic covenant stabilizes that cursed world so that redemptive history can play out and God's promises can be fulfilled. So without the Noahic covenant, we don't have the stability.

How does things continue on? So here's the big picture. The big picture of the rainbow is it's God's covenantal promise to bring a sense of stability to the world, right? Seed time, harvest, these things will continue and he will preserve the world so that he can bring about what?

The promise of Genesis 3 .15. That is what the big picture tonight of what the Noahic covenant about. So listen, it's not just a random out there. It's not just a cute little nursery thing. It's not just a, it's not just a, a, a nice little symbol or whatever.

It is essential because it gives us God's idea about mankind's continued purpose and his condition and God's plan to save a people for himself by his own gracious covenant in Christ, which we will get to that.

Government, Family, and the Church in Noah's Covenant

So let's break this down a little bit more. One thing you need to know is this, God destroys the earth because mankind's evil, but it doesn't fix mankind. Look at verse 21 of chapter eight. He says, I will never again curse the ground because of man for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.

So if you just think to yourself what God said about the people before the flood, that was just for the people before the flood. No, it's not. It's still, it's still intact today. People's hearts are far from God.

So mankind still has a problem. The flood is a bit of a recreation, if you will, but it doesn't fix man's heart. It washes away the wickedness on the outside of the ark, if you will, in a sense, but now man is going to be fruitful and multiply again, and what is going to happen?

What is going to happen as they start having babies and multiply? Here comes the wickedness again, right? And so the question is, every time the clouds get dark, the sky gets dark, you hear thunder, the rain starts falling from the sky, are we to just fear that God is going to wipe us all out again and he's going to destroy the world again by a flood?

And that's the point of the rainbow, is to remind you when you see that rainbow, people should remember God's promise that he's not going to do that. He will demonstrate patience with sinners to get us to the promised Messiah, okay?

Now in our text, check our time here, in our text we see at least in seed form, if not explicit, three institutions in society, at least two more explicit, one more seed form, and I say all societies because Noah here is a representative.

He's not a federal head like Adam and Christ, but all mankind has descended, like we're all related, you know? Yeah, because we're all from Adam and Eve. Well, that's true, but we even go back not as far as Adam and Eve, because we all go back to Noah, and so all mankind has descended from Noah, and these promises to Noah apply to all mankind.

So three institutions. First, we see at least in seed form, maybe a little bit more explicit, the institution of government. Look at verse five and six. He says, and for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning, from every beast I will require, and from man, from his fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

Then here's the sword, verse six. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. A side note, the image of God remains even after the fall, but government, I know this might not be popular to say, but hear me out.

Government is a gift of God for the good of society. We're not against government just for the sake of, we don't like the government. No, government is supposed to be a good, and I'll talk more about its purposes in a minute, but one purpose here is to bear the sword, capital punishment, to punish the evildoer.

Okay, another institution, family. Verse seven, and you be fruitful and multiply. And by the way, the word you there, if it's in the Perry County translation, it would be y 'all, because it's plural. So he's not just talking to, no, he's talking to this whole family.

What does that sound like, be fruitful and multiply? That sounds like back in Genesis 1, right? Be fruitful, multiply, team on the earth, multiply in it. Now technically, family has already been introduced, and in a sense, you might say government had already been introduced, because Adam was to be a king, you know, before the fall, but it's important to note here that God is reestablishing, or maybe I should say, reinforcing His purpose to see mankind flourish, to see families do what?

Get married, have babies, spread out over all the earth. So God's design for fruitfulness and multiplication is husbands and wives and marriages and children. This is all part of God's good design. Again, Sam Rinehan, all mankind is called to raise up and establish structured and successful societies, pursuing cultural achievement and growth.

Man is not called to sit in the dirt and mope. We are called to work. Though the ground may sprout thorns and our brows may pour forth sweat, despite resistance and setback, curse and difficulty, God has called all mankind, men and women, to be workers.

We are to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and master it. This is a great reminder in March in Arkansas, because you're going to walk outside, and very soon your grass is going to want to take over, right?

And I say to us, well, I don't say to me, but to my boys, get out there, right? Have dominion, right? Have dominion over the grass. You should do that, right? This is good. We're to spread abroad, have dominion.

This is all part of God's work with Noah or God's covenant with Noah. So what's going on with this rainbow and Noahic covenant is it's not removing the curse, but it's providing stability by God's common grace and also our mandate.

So again, there are two kingdoms, the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of this world, or the kingdom of Satan. Yet even notice that the kingdom of Satan, the kingdom of the world, is not entirely in Satan's hands.

Satan can't do whatever he wants. Why? Because God's common grace still reigns. So think about this for a moment. Even over the centuries before Christ, in places that had never heard of these promises, God allowed humanity to continue, and part of the reason that it did so is because of these institutions of government and family.

So let me also say this about government. Not only should government punish the evildoer, government should also promote the family. The government should be the promoter of the family. By the way, the government is not the family.

You understand? The government is not the family. We have to keep this separated. Government is not your dad. Your dad's your dad, not the government. It's not the government's responsibility to be the family.

It is the government's responsibility to promote the family, because wherever the family is under attack, all society is under attack. Society cannot continue. It certainly cannot flourish without the institution of the family.

Now I find this fascinating. Maybe that's not the right word. Maybe I should say appalling, because the symbol of God's preservation of the world is what? The rainbow. And yet the rainbow today has become a symbol actually of the destruction of the family and of the desecration of marriage.

And technically, the rainbow is not a symbol of abortion, I don't guess, but it certainly does all tie in together, right? So we see an absolute attack from the evil one upon all that God is calling good and establishing.

So we see government, family, and then the third institution, you might say it's a bit of a stretch, but just hear me out. We see at least the seedbed here, the seed form of the church. Now I'm talking more big picture seed form, but the point here is God is going to have a people who will worship Him according to His specific rules and under His covenant.

I'm going to get back to the text in a moment, but before I do, let me mention another God-ordained purpose of government, and that is to protect the church. And here's what I mean by that. It's the government's job to wield the physical sword, to stave off invaders, to have a just society whereby the church can flourish.

The church doesn't require that to exist. The church is existing all over the world today in the face of evil governments, but I'm just talking about God's good design. The government is not over the church.

These different, the government, the family, the church, these are separate institutions, but the government should work to make the church free from outside tyranny or corruption. Now this makes it all the more appalling when the government attempts to exercise tyranny over the church.

So when the government steps in and says, we get to dictate your worship, we get to dictate your laws, you're saying you are not fulfilling your God-ordained purpose for the preservation and flourishing of society.

It's not your role to be over the church, and it makes it appalling when the government tries to be a tyrant over God's glorious church. But anyway, in chapter 8 verse 18, listen to this. Now think about, this isn't symbolism, this really happened, but think about something here.

Verse 18 chapter 8. So Noah went out and his sons and his wife and his son's wives with him, and he goes out. Where is he going out from? High or low? Valley or mountain? Mountain. Why? Because that's where the ark rests.

Where else have we seen a mountain so far in scripture? Well, we ascertain that Eden is high because rivers are flowing out of it. So we kind of have a re-creation, if you will. But this is what Jeff Johnson says.

He says, from the mountain upon which the ark of God had rested, Noah was to spread the divine presence of God to the uttermost parts of the world by filling the earth with the children of God. So here's what I mean by the church is that Noah is to go not only to spread, not only to build society, not only to build culture and to build structure and all that, but to spread the fame of God.

So this is not about human flourishing just for the sake of human flourishing. We know that because if you flip over a couple chapters real quick, Genesis chapter 11. In Genesis chapter 11 verse 4, this is the tower of Babel, which we're not really going to talk about.

We'll just kind of mention here, Genesis 11 verse 4. Then they said this is the people not doing what God says. So they say, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name.

For who? For ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. This is mankind's quest. Human flourishing for the sake of human flourishing would be about man making a name for himself.

That's man's purpose. But God's purpose is to make a name for himself. And he will do this through the people that he is redeeming through the work of Christ, because ultimately, you know, now you can hear me.

Okay. How long was that going for? Like a couple minutes, like two minutes. Oh, man. Okay, that's fine. Well, you missed the best part. Nothing else in the class is going to make sense. No, I'm just joking.

So, the rainbow is the point. The point of the rainbow is that God is faithful to his promises. He's good. He's patient. He does not forget his steadfast love. He does not forget his promises. For some 2 ,400 years, depending on the time, for some 2 ,400 years, the Old Testament saints saw the rainbow.

They remembered God is faithful. They remembered God is not going to forget his people. He is going to bring about the serpent-crushing Messiah, who, of course, ultimately is Christ. Now, I do want to say this, and we're going to look at a New Testament text.

We're just not going to have time. But listen very carefully to this, and this kind of goes back to something Kelsey mentioned earlier. It is fascinating to me, in the history of the world, all of the stories about dragons and floods and legends that you hear about a child born to kill a great enemy, all these kind of legends that exist around the world and myths.

And so, it's a big kind of thing for scholars to say, you see? You see, these things disprove Christianity. It's just borrowed from these other things. But actually, if you think about it, where did these stories come from?

Where did these stories come from? They just all happened simultaneously around the world to come up with these stories. No, it's the opposite. Flood stories in South America, dragons in China, the serpent mound.

There's a big serpent mound in Ohio. Ziggurats, is that how you say it? Ziggurats, however, I don't know. Cigarettes, no, not that. They're called vapes, no. They're called those, you know, the step pyramids.

You can find them in Korea and in Mexico and in places in between. Why is that? Well, have you ever heard of the Tower of Babel, right? Where did all that stuff come from? I'm arguing tonight that if we take the Bible seriously, there's your answer.

As Noah's family had babies, they told these stories about God. They told these things that happened. These things around the world began to be twisted in sinful hearts to create the legends and the stories and the myths of other religions.

Really, it's fascinating to show us that the Bible really is amazing. I guess my watch died, so I can go as long as I need to now. Okay, I've got a couple minutes. I got a couple minutes, so let's go ahead and do this because I was going to jump into this real quick.

God's Patience, Repentance, and the Rainbow as Gospel Sign

2 Peter 3, just real quick. I want to talk about this because, and we'll tie it all up here, and we'll run hard and finish this. So, if you can listen fast, I can talk fast. 2 Peter 3, 9. 2 Peter 3, 9.

So, the text says, the Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. Okay, who is God patient toward in this text?

Verse 9. Who is God being patient toward in the text? What does the text say? 2 Peter 3, 9. Patient toward who? The Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you or us.

Who is that? Patient towards you. Well, if you read the context of 1 Peter, that's God's people. He's not wishing that any of who should perish. Any of you should perish. Who? His people. But judgment is coming.

Look at verse 10. The day of the Lord will come like a thief. But what is happening right now in our world today is God is demonstrating patience towards sinners as He's executing the plan that He made in eternity past.

To triune God, covenanting to redeem an unworthy people for Himself. The Father giving a people to His Son. The Son accepting, becoming their surety. The Holy Spirit guaranteeing to apply Christ's redemption to His people in time.

We live in a day of patience, and every time today that you see a rainbow, I'm starting to preach a little bit, you should be reminded of the patience of God. But you must never presume upon God's patience.

God's kindness is meant to lead us to what? Romans 2. Repentance. How foolish to see a rainbow. How foolish to walk by the ark, see the door open, and think, you know what, some other time. No, my friends, the Bible says today is the day of salvation.

Today is the day that you respond to God. Today is the day if you hear His voice, you do not harden your hearts. And church, when we see the rainbow, we need to think about God's goodness, His faithfulness.

It really is a travesty that we're scared of the rainbow today. We're scared of the rainbow today because we've let a group of people co-opt it and corrupt it and turn it into something abominable and wicked.

We need to take it back because it reminds us of God's greatness, His common grace, His plans and purposes for society, His plans for the church, the greatness of the promised one, the greatness of His gospel, the glory of His holy patience toward us.

And also I'll just mention this and then we'll close. Might this not make us a little more patient with others? If you see the rainbow and then snap at your kids, right, what I'm saying is, if God is patient with us, can we exercise patience with one another?

Can we exercise patience in the church with our brothers and sisters? And listen, can we exercise patience with lost sinners, preaching the gospel to them, sharing? In a sense, the rainbow is preaching the gospel to those who know the promise.

So can we, when we see the rainbow, be reminded that we should be patient with sinners by sharing Christ with them, proclaiming the righteousness of God like Noah did, while the door in our day remains open?

Can we be heralds of righteousness? Okay. That's it. Questions? Comments? And I know that...