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Bro. Otis Fisher
The flood is finished. The ark has come to rest.
The animals now are coming out. Noah and his family are out. And God blessed
Noah and his sons, said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and 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, Roger, by the fact that he states here that the fear of you will be, the fear and dread of you shall be upon every beast, what does that tell us prior to this time?
Right. Bill, why didn't the animal eat up man?
Well, you're right.
They weren't ready to. They were vegetarians.
They were getting ready to. They had all the necessary equipment to eat man.
So, now that, well, let me ask you this.
Why did God establish this fear now between the beast and man? Greg? Well, but why could he not have just kept it like it was?
Everything ate vegetables. He could still do that, though, even if they didn't fear you.
Let me turn my ears up. Maybe somebody's talking. I can't hear. What has happened?
What? Well, it was cursed even before the flood.
Why now? Well, why didn't he keep it just vegetarian?
Did you put a period there? Well, the earth has changed from what it was when
Noah went in. We know that. The canopy of water, the filter of the ultraviolet has taken away.
Life is going to be shorter. It's going to be harder to live. The people that come out of the ark will have to work much harder than they did when they went in.
And in order to work harder, they have to have more protein. Their diet has to change.
This means they must eat meat. Now, the fear was established, as somebody said, to preserve the life.
And now man has to hunt his food. And he's not to live on vegetables alone unless he's not working.
So we see here now that... What was that remark?
I said amen. I don't know what to do with y 'all.
Sometimes it's a blessing to be hard of hearing. At other times it isn't.
Alright, the supremacy of man is reasserted here. But this time, it's on the basis of fear.
Man can and should now eat meat. But definitely not meat with blood in it.
Our merciful God has hid from certain animals their own power. Did you ever think of that?
How powerful is a horse? Bill ought to be able to attest to this.
How powerful is that horse that got rid of you one day? But God has hidden from certain animals their own power and strength.
If he had not, a horse could dispatch Bill with one blow of his hoof. He had a little trouble with a horse some time ago.
So he has made it possible now for man to use certain animals to work.
And the animal, even in his fear of man, he is not made in his strength to test man.
Third verse. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have
I given you all things. But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat.
In certain tribes in, well
I want to say Egypt, but that may not be exactly right. That might be one of the other countries. But to this day, they will cut off a piece of meat from the rump of a camel while it's still alive, cut it off so that it'll have meat to eat, and the camel grows it back to some extent.
You're not to do that. Also, you're to not eat meat that has the blood in it.
That must be drained totally. That's right.
So you have a question? I can see it's going to take
Bill at least a month to get back into it. He's been camping up in Colorado, I think.
Russ? Well, that's true.
These people are not Jews. That's right.
Right. Because they're not
Jew. The law is reserved for the Jew. In other words, because the
Jew cannot eat certain things according to the law does not mean that the things they don't eat is not good to eat.
Here he's, by the way, the law was given a dietary law for their health.
But here he's telling Noah, for the first time, you can eat anything.
And that has nothing to do with the law that's coming. It has nothing to do with sacrifice.
He was instructed what to sacrifice, all right. But it had nothing to do with what he was to eat.
Okay? I like those open -ended questions.
All right. Verse 5, and surely your blood of 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. We have here a forerunner to the laws of preventing cruelty to animals.
If an animal, in the first part, and surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast.
If a beast kills a man, the beast is to be killed. If a man kills a man, the man is to be killed.
Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. For in the image of God made he man.
Now, folks, I don't see where the argument is on capital punishment. There may be some of you that disagree, but to me 6 is very, very clear.
Why is God so opposed to murder? Now, we're not talking about killing for self -defense.
We're talking about premeditated murder. A war is not premeditated murder unless it's a war of aggression.
But here he makes it very clear. So why is God so opposed to murder?
All right. Because the blood is a symbol of the life that God has given.
And man is made in the image of God. Man is to not kill animals unnecessarily.
I think so many times after growing up, especially in Oklahoma, reading the history of Oklahoma and of the
West, how the Indians were treated, but primarily one of their main food of the
Plains Indians was the buffalo. The railroad companies wanted all the
Indians moved off to reservations. One way they accomplished that, they employed hunters to come in and kill all the buffalo.
And they simply went out and killed them, just let them lay. They just killed them, took away their food supply.
Well, they'll all have to answer to God for that. They may not think so now, but they will, because man is not to kill unnecessarily.
To take away the life of another is the highest offense that can be committed against an individual.
Would you agree with that? Was everybody listening? Well, you'll have to ask yourself why.
I can't answer that for you. I could answer it for me. All right, let me back up.
Is that true or false? But what's first?
He should have stayed gone longer. You're absolutely right.
But if I can regain control of the class, we're talking about the physical life, but you're right about the spiritual.
Well, since that is the highest crime against an individual, then would it not follow that the highest punishment that could be served would be to take a life of the man that took the other?
Because punishment must be in proportion to the crime. Death for any other offense.
And listen to me. To take the life of a man for any offense other than murder is injustice and cruelty.
Just because he robbed all your marbles, you can't go kill him. Only for murder.
There's lots I could say about our laws and murder, but you've all heard it before.
It takes too long. I've got to tell you this.
This actually happened in a little town in southern Texas back in the early 1800s.
A town had sprung up. They got so large they thought they needed some kind of a peace officer, so they elected a town constable or sheriff or whatever.
And he had to have a jail because he was going to arrest somebody. So he built a jail himself, but it was just big enough for one person.
And everybody just kicked the life out of him. And sure enough, next
Saturday night he had to arrest somebody. And he put him in jail. All that week he really got ribbed about what he was going to do next
Saturday night. Since you built a jail so small, he never did answer.
But he had to arrest another man next Saturday night. He tied him to the hitching post, took the one out of jail, took him outside the town and shot him.
Then he put the latest one that he'd arrested in jail. He didn't have to arrest anybody after that.
That actually happened. I know it did,
I think. Verse 7.
And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply, bringing forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
And God spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying, And behold, or and I, behold
I, notice the I, establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you.
Who does the seed after you refer to? That's right, everybody comes from Noah.
I don't know what he said, but here's a solemn promise that the
Lord God makes, a voluntary promise that there shall be no more flood.
Doesn't mean it's not going to flood, just no more worldwide flood. And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, of every beast of the earth with you, from all that go out of the ark to every beast of the earth, and I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood.
Neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. God did not promise that there would be no more flooding.
There just will not be any more worldwide flooding. God said this is the token of my covenant, which
I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations.
Clarence, what's the word perpetual mean? What powers it?
To the answer, stop. But what powers, what makes it keep going?
Oh, no, no. Does everybody understand what perpetual means?
You think you really do. We get a word from the same root and we call it breathing.
You never have to think about it. It just does it. And I set my bow in the cloud, and this shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
Now, David, what is a token? That's amazing.
To do what?
Well, you get about an 80. Were any of you living in Oklahoma during the war, the last world war?
David, how old are you? When I was your age,
I was already 55. 55. Oklahoma established a token currency.
It wasn't paper. It was what was called mills, a little round about the size of a quarter nickel, probably bigger than a penny.
They had a hole in the middle of them. That's about all it was worth. But what it was was the tenth of a penny.
And you had one token that was half a penny. And then, of course, the penny.
I never did really understand the purpose behind it, but it was something to get more money for the state.
That's the only state that did that that I know of. All right.
A token is an object to bring to mind something or someone. In this case, there'd be no more worldwide destruction by water.
And it came to pass, and it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud.
What kind of bow is he talking about? Rainbow. And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh, and the water shall no more become a flood to destroy flesh.
Can the rainbow then, as long as it exists, can the rainbow itself prevent a flood?
Well, what good is the rainbow? All right.
And the bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
Now, Russ, did God have to have something to cause him to remember? No. Every covenant has to have a token.
That's right. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant which
I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. Notice it is a voluntary covenant on the part of God.
Man has nothing to do with it. I'd like to share something with you now that a very, very fine student wrote to me one time.
And it deals with this period in history. So I'd ask you to listen. I'll have to read it because I have not committed it to memory.
When the ark came to rest, it was high in the mountains. Noah had a long walk down, and all the animals who, for over a year, had experienced very little exercise.
Suddenly, they were required to descend a huge high mountain, thus establishing the mountaintop experiences which are followed by great valleys in life.
Don't you know that every animal knew they had been spared by God himself? That it had to be the most awesome year of each ark's occupant life.
Even amongst the constant rocking, the noise, the smell, the hard work, lack of privacy,
God was with them, and they knew it. Then it came to an end, and they were released into the free world, where they would soon wonder, or perhaps forget, if God were indeed in control of all things.
Why is it the larger the crawlspace, the more trouble we find?
There is something in the thought of coming down the mountain, for God will protect us and supply all of our needs.
Still, we have to exercise the faith that he has given us and put forth effort toward using all that is provided in order to have a fruitful and a productive life.
Now, I reprinted this without the permission of that person, so if I get any repercussions,
I'll pass them on to you. I thought it was wonderful.
Verse 18. And the sons of Noah that went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
Ham is the father of Canaan. Now, there must be something coming, or that would not be pointed out.
These are the three sons of Noah, and of them was the whole earth overspread. Noah began to be a husband.
Now, the scene changes now. Time has gone by. We don't know how much, but he became a husbandman, a farmer, a tiller of the ground, and he planted a vineyard.
How long does it take? Some of you horticulturists tell me how long to take from planting a grapevine until it produces.
Nobody knows. I don't either. He planted a vineyard, and he drank of the wine and was drunken, and he was uncovered within his tent.
Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without.
Now, just in case you thought that everybody on the ark was of the character that they should be, we're going to see that they were not.
And I'll urge you to listen to me close, because I will not repeat this but once.
I'm not saying but once. Canaan saw the nakedness of his father, and the word nakedness here means nudity, shame, indecent, improper behavior.
To contemplate sin is sin. Is that right? To brag about your sin is also sin.
Is that right? Noah became drunk.
Now, why, I don't know, nor I will not speculate.
There have been lots of theories. It's enough to know the fact. And here's where you must listen.
When Ham saw his naked father lying in the tent, he engaged in a homosexual act.
At the time, Noah did not respond, but he certainly did later, which we will see when we get to verse 24.
Ham bragged about it to his brothers. Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father.
And their faces were backward, and they saw not their father's nakedness. I hope you see why
I'm thankful I'm a descendant of Japheth. We're going to stop right here, and we'll take it up next week when
Noah woke up. And I'm not making up anything.
The scripture bears it out. It bears it out, in fact, in terms that I cannot repeat here.
Neither will I if you come to me personally. Brother Lewis, may I ask a question?
Why do you think it was Noah? Verse 6.
Well, I wasn't aware that they would not talk about verse 4.
In verse 6, of course, he's talking about, I'll require the blood of your life at the hand of a beast or man, in verse 4.
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood, you shall not eat.
It both has to do with killing. Beg your pardon?
Our chickens were not killed for shooting. I had never thought about it.
Also cut their throat. That's one reason they pumped so much water back into the meat also, is to try to gain some weight back that was lost.
Anything else? It's a good point. That's right.
But... I'm still not going to eat a whole veg.
I'm not going to eat a whole veg.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Okay. That's enough.
Getting too bloody for me. Let's stand and we'll be dismissed.