(Genesis) Genesis 9:1-5 — J. Vernon McGee

Genesis 9 and the New Beginning After the Flood

Now today, friends, we come to the 9th chapter of the book of Genesis, and we have come through the flood, I trust, and that we came through dry shod, but we have attempted to lift out of this tremendous incident some great spiritual truths that we believe are for us.

Noah’s Altar and the Burnt Offering

Now, we have found out that when Noah came out of the ark, the first thing that he did was to build an altar to the Lord and offer a sacrifice to him, which was a burnt offering, as we are told here, and that burnt offering speaks of the person of Christ.

It was offered on the basis of acceptance before God and of praise to God and a recognition of him. May I say to you that this was without doubt one of the things that caused God to be pleased with Noah at this particular time.

Rebellion, Revelation, and Repentance Before the Flood

Because we've seen in the flood, actually, man there learned the three R's. First was rebellion of God realized. It came right out in the open. And then there was the revelation from God, which was rejected.

Noah's witness did not reach them. And then their repentance was absolutely repudiated, no return to God at all. And they refused the refuge that God had provided, and for 120 years Noah had no converts.

And so we have rebellion, revelation, and repentance. Those were the three R's, and they led in that first. But the other two, they rejected the revelation, and there was no repentance on their part. Now this man Noah comes forth from the ark, and actually, friends, he stands in a most unique position.

He stands in the position of being the head of the human race again, just in the same position Adam is. A great many people say, well, we're all related to Adam. May I say to you, we're closer kin than that.

All of us are related in Noah. Noah is the father in one sense of all of us today. Now we have here in chapter 9 the new beginning, and you can imagine what a revolutionary beginning it is. The dispensation of human conscience is over with.

Now God is putting man down now under government. He's to govern himself, and that is something we'll see now in this covenant that God made with Noah, and when he made it with Noah he made it with you and me, for he made it with all mankind, and we all have a stake in it.

The Propagation of the Human Race

Now he said to Noah, first of all, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. And again, the word replenish is meaningful here because we know there was a civilization before the flood. Now there is to be a civilization after the flood.

But Adam was told to replenish the earth also. So obviously there must have been here on the earth before Adam creatures, I don't know what to call them, but creatures on this earth, living creatures, God's creation.

And anything I say beyond that is speculation to be sure. Now will you notice he says, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. That's number one that God tells him to do. This is the propagation of the race.

Now there comes a time when God does not give that. I think we're living in that period right now because of the fact that we see in our day that there's overpopulation. We have a regular population explosion in our day that actually is quite dangerous.

Noah’s Solitary World After the Flood

But again, let me come back to Noah and say he's in a unique position. He's the only one around. Just imagine one day driving out on the freeway going to work of a morning and there are cars in the front of you, cars to the right of you, cars to the left of you, and cars behind you honking, and you're just in a traffic snarl.

And then it's not but about a year later, you drive out on the freeway and there's nobody there. You are the only one on the freeway and you just, well, take down all the streetlights because you won't need them because you're the only one driving through.

Human Dominion and Protection of Animals

May I say that would be quite an unusual experience, would it not? Well Noah had an experience like that for his day. Now notice the second thing God says to him, and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea into your hand are they delivered.

Now we have man's protection and rulership of animals given. That's part of the covenant. And I take it before this that there were several things man, as we're going to see, did not eat meat before, and now he's able to eat meat.

But before he couldn't because all animals were tame, and you just don't like to eat tame animals, that is, those that you become attached to. And so we find that the animals came to Noah, there was no problem there at all.

And man, therefore, today is responsible for the animal world. And man's treatment of the animal world, it's a brutal story. The way that they've attempted to exterminate, well, you take the whale out around the Hawaiian Islands.

They had to stop while man was going to slaughter all of them, of course, for money. The buffalo had been largely killed out in the West, and one time they went in great herds. Why? Well, man, and they have game refuges today in order to protect animal and bird life, and they do well to do that.

The animals of Africa would all be exterminated. Man's a pretty brutal creature himself. And then the third thing, every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all things.

Permission to Eat Animal Flesh

Now before, God gave to man the green herb, plant life to eat. Now he tells him that he'll be able to eat animal life. And this is something that you need to take in consideration. I've told the story many times about this woman who was a faddist on diet and was in a religion, of course, and that generally becomes a religion.

And she made a great deal of the fact when I told her one day that the Anadoluvians were all vegetarians. And that's what she was advocating and propagating was that we should just eat vegetables. She had one of her assistants to take it down, but I think it was a race later.

I told her, I said, I wouldn't make too much of it because you must remember it was a bunch of vegetarians that were destroyed in the flood. And if diet had anything to do with it, then certainly they would not have been destroyed.

The Blood Represents the Life of the Animal

But now man is permitted to eat flesh. Now verse 4, but flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat. In other words, the blood should be drained out. That speaks of life and that would indicate that the animal was dead, indicates something else that the animal might be killed in a merciful way rather than prolonging its suffering.

That is one of the reasons that I hate to hunt, and I ought not to put it like that. But I love to hunt, and I haven't been able to now for a couple of years. I've been so busy at the fall season and was this year.

But the fact of the matter is that the reason you don't like to shoot certain birds, quail for instance, is that sometimes you merely wound the little fella and he just crawls away and you can't find him.

Now you don't like to do that. God says when you are going to eat animals, why, the thing to do is to make sure you don't eat them with the blood. The blood should be drained out. In other words, the animal should be killed in a merciful manner.

God’s Requirement for Human Life

And he says, surely your blood, your lives, will I require. At the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man, at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man. Now that's an interesting statement and not meaningful for us today because we do not live on a frontier, and most of the frontiers are gone today.

But up to the present hour, animals have been a danger to man. They still are a danger to man. They're certain animals that you do well to beware of. Fact of the matter is, if there's a possum in your neighborhood or a skunk, you'll do well to beware of it.

Chances are it has rabies, and animals are those that man is to beware of.