Wednesday, July 12, 2023 PM

Well, good evening. I am not

Dwight Smoot. He was supposed to teach tonight, lead tonight.

But Ms. Jill fell off their porch and broke her leg. So they are being well taken care of right now at the

St. Anthony's down off I -44 and 134th Street. And they're going to have to transfer her probably downtown somewhere, kind of finish up.

So I talked with Rachel, their daughter. She said their mom was in a lot of pain. But her brother showed up.

And so they're looking after their mom. And so just be in prayer for her, for recovery and healing and all that.

And pray for Dwight, as he will now be tending the garden in Jill's stead and keep all of her deer plants going.

All right. Well, we're going to study a little bit out of Genesis. And here's some notes

I never got to in Sunday school. So I might as well take care of them tonight. They stand on their own fairly well.

So Genesis will be kind of surveying through Genesis 6 through 9.

And let's begin with a word of prayer. Father, I thank you so much for the night. Thank you for the opportunity to gather together and to feast together and enjoy this meal.

Lord, I pray that you would bless our time in your word. I pray that you would encourage us, help us to trust you, and to rejoice in your truth.

I do pray for Miss Jill that you would ease her pain and heal her leg and to help her family.

We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. All right.

So Romans 5 tells us that, through one man, sin entered the world.

And death came to all men because all men sinned. And as we read the early chapters of Genesis, we see how this sin begins to spread.

And get worse. Additional novel expressions of sin begin to show up.

And the chapter 6 of Genesis, God gives his evaluation.

Verse 5, Genesis chapter 6, verse 5. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent or the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart.

So the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, creeping thing, and birds of the air.

For I am sorry that I have made them. And so, of course, how does

God engineer this wiping of the slate?

Says 120 years, and there'll be a flood. A flood where every living thing will be destroyed upon the earth, except he makes a promise to Noah, gives him instructions to build an ark.

Noah and his wife, his three sons, and Shem's wife, and Ham's wife, and Japheth's wife, eight persons,

Peter says, on the boat, on the ark, are preserved. And with them, two by two, male and female, male and female, all these different animals going on to the ark.

If you were in Sunday school, you know the reason why. And if you weren't in Sunday school, sorry, you're just going to have to guess, or watch the

YouTube. So the flood came, covered all the mountains, everything that had the breath of life in it, it all died, except for who was on the ark.

And that wiped the slate clean. But it did not change the heart of man.

It cleansed the earth, but it didn't wash sin out of the heart of man.

For all that water, and all that turmoil, all that disaster, you'd think, you watch enough disaster movies, everybody comes out of it a saint.

At the end of the disaster movie, all humanity comes together, and they all love one another, and all sin has disappeared.

Hollywood's version of that. But actually, in the Bible, that's not how it works. In Genesis chapter eight, in verse 21,

Noah builds an altar, offers up an offering to the Lord. In verse 21, the

Lord smelled a soothing aroma. Then the Lord said in his heart, I will never again curse the ground for man's sake.

Although, watch this, the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth, nor I again destroy every living thing as I have done.

While the earth remains, sea time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease.

So in other words, man was just as evil and as wicked after the flood as he was before the flood.

So after the flood, what man deserved was a whole nother flood. And there have been many moments in history where the saints of God have said, how about we just do away with all this?

Many, many times in history, that has been the prayerful query of the saints.

Lord, why don't you just do away with all this? Seems pretty hopeless, too far gone.

Now, God has made his assessment. He says, never again will I destroy all living things as I have done. He says, we're going to keep things going.

And we see that it's entirely a matter of grace. Do we deserve to have spring, summer, fall, winter?

Do we deserve to have day and night? Do we deserve to have the cycle of the day with the sun coming over, and the weather cycles, and the rainfall, and have crops and produce in life here on this earth?

And the answer is clearly no. What we deserve is a whole nother flood. What we deserve is a whole nother disaster to wipe everybody out, because that's how wicked man is.

And to remind us of this grace, God makes a covenant with Noah and all creation.

Now, in chapter 9, verse 1, he says, so God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth.

Now, that sounds familiar. And that's from Genesis 1. That's called the creation mandate.

It flows inexorably from what it means to be made in God's image. To be made in God's image by nature, by definition, and by design, the function of our nature and design is to engage in this, to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

The two are together. And God says, in the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth and every bird of the air and all that move on the earth and all the fish of the sea.

They are given into your hand. Exercise dominion over them. And again, he says in verse 11,

Genesis 9, thus I establish my covenant with you. Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood.

Never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. Now, you all deserve it. We all deserve it.

And God gives instructions about what to do when the bloodshed and the violence starts up again. That was the problem before the flood, was the earth was filled up with violence.

And so he filled up the earth with water. And he knows that the violence is going to start up again. Men will start killing men again.

You know? Chicago, right?

This is going to happen. Chicago is not unique in the annals of history.

Not unique. You think we live in the bloodiest time of history? There's more of us around, but there's been a lot of violence throughout history.

What did God tell the descendants of Noah to do? To stem the violence by use of capital punishment.

Put a stop to it. So we deserve judgment.

But God, in response to Noah's soothing offering, his peaceful, restful offering,

God says, see time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night shall not cease.

Now, that's hard to believe. It's hard for us to believe.

But you know, it's actually way bigger of an ask for God in all of his holiness, to be long -suffering and gracious, to be patient, and to not reach forth in wrath and just end it all.

A much bigger ask on God's side. And so God said, verse 12, this is the sign of the covenant which

I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations.

He says, I set my rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

It shall be when I bring a cloud over the earth that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant.

God says, I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh.

The water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. God so desired that that cloud just keep on raining.

God so desired that water just keep on coming. I remember the old timers in Tennessee, we'd be driving around and there'd just be water everywhere.

And they'd say, didn't God say this would never happen again? But God gives us a sign, and he remembers.

Now when God remembers, it's not that he has misplaced the information. It is that he is now acting upon something that he has promised.

If he forgets something, it's not that he has lost the information. It's that he is not going to act upon certain information.

To put our sins away from him as far as the east is from the west, to forget our transgressions means he will no longer act toward us based on those because he is remembering his son,

Jesus Christ. So here, when he says, I will remember my covenant, he'll stop the rain.

He'll stop the storm. Whenever you see a massive storm, it just builds and builds and builds.

Except for the mercy of God, there goes everything. And so God puts his rainbow in the clouds, a sign in the cloud for us to see, by which he will remember his covenant.

And where do we see the rainbow? In the sky, in the breaking of the storm.

Correct? In the breaking of the storm. When the sun disrupts the evening rain shower, we look to the east.

Very often, we see our rainbows in the east, don't we? Sometimes in the west. Sun has to be at a 42 degree angle, either in the morning or the evening, for us to see that rainbow.

But there has to be a storm and a break in the storm. There has to be water that God has interdicted and stopped and moved and done something with for us to see that rainbow.

And so let's say it's in the evening. We look there to the east, and what do we see? We see an arched entrance.

We see an arch. An arch is an entrance, something to go through.

You ever chase a rainbow, you never get there, do you? But the entrances to the

Garden of Eden and the tabernacle and the temple are all east. We see most of our rainbows off in the east.

And to look to the east and see the entrance means what? We're already on the inside. If you were in the

Garden of Eden and you saw the entrance to the east, that means you are in the inside of the garden. If you were in the tabernacle or the temple and you looked to the east and saw the entrance, that means you are on the inside.

And if we look at the rainbow in the east, it means we're already on the inside of something.

As Noah's descendants, we have been brought into this covenant, not because we deserve it, but it's the grace of God, right?

It's the grace of God. He provides for us and he keeps us. Now, there's a lesson in that about how we are to live and walk in the light of God's grace and follow in Jesus.

Jesus makes a big deal of this actually in Matthew 5. So let's go over to Matthew 5. In Matthew 5, as Jesus is explaining how things work in his kingdom that he builds, which is superior to the previous one, what are things like in the new creation, what are things like in the new covenant?

In Matthew 5, verses 43 through 45, and he gives a pretty good summary of the law,

Mosaic law, verse 43, you have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

And how you did both was pretty well spelled out in Mosaic law, and there are ways to do both of those things as full of content, you can look that up.

Leviticus 19, be a good place to start. So you've heard that was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you, love your enemies.

Bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.

Well, there's a change, there's a change. That's not exactly how the

Israelites treated the Jebusites, if you know what I mean. In the new covenant, things are different in Christ.

Now, why would we love our enemies and do kind of those who don't deserve a single thing?

You don't deserve a single thing, you worthless enemy. Why would we bless those who curse, do good to those who hate, pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you?

Why, verse 45, that you may be sons of your father in heaven meaning that you would live as children of your father in heaven and exhibit those traits of having

God as your father. As any child would exhibit similarities and traits of their father, so also we should do this.

We're mimicking our father in heaven, you see. Why, because what does he do? Now, imagine this.

He makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. So I would think that many people, many violent people from the past and the present would really hate to hear this word from Jesus about how to treat our enemies.

As we kind of look at what happened in Genesis 6 and so on, it seems like violence was the only way for those pre -flood people to deal with anything.

And for some people today, violence is just the only way to deal with anything. And that violence becomes more and more prevalent if sin is left unchecked.

And we looked back and we saw that soon Noah was really the only one left. It was just Noah and his family, it's the only one left.

But Noah being dead still speaks of Christ. What does

Jesus say? He says, if you wanna be true sons of God, think of how he gives his son and gives his reign on the undeserving.

He preserves life, undeserving life. He preserves life by his grace.

And when God sends his son and his rain at the same time, what do you get?

You get a rainbow. So you go back to Genesis and the discussion was about the sons of God.

There were the sons that God gave such as Seth and Enosh when men began to call upon the name of the Lord. And then there were the sons of God who were corrupted themselves and went after sexual immorality and were polygamists there at the beginning of chapter six.

And again, with sexual immorality comes major waves of violence as it always does. And so God responds by dealing with the one left,

Noah, who was named by Lamech. He named his son Noah because he desired rest, the promised rest that God would give.

The concern was about where are the sons of God, right? And when there was a lack of the sons of God, there was a lot of violence and a lot of disaster.

People were hating each other and murder everywhere. But then God preserves Noah, makes a covenant with him, gives a sign of the rainbow because he's gonna preserve life on earth.

And Jesus says, hey, if you wanna be true sons of God, that group of people that was lacking before the flood, you need to follow in the example of your father who is in heaven, who gives his son and his reign upon those who don't deserve it.

And you know, when he does both of those at the same time, you get a rainbow and reminds you that you don't deserve life here on this earth.

What have you been given in just your life? So how do we think of those who are enemies?

How do we think of those who curse us? How do we think of those who hate us? Our sonship, of course, it doesn't depend upon our own behavior, but it depends upon Christ's own merits.

You know, he's the fulfillment of Noah. He's the real man of rest. He's the real Shiloh. And it was

Christ who sends forth the dove, the spirit of peace that brings about that new creation that Noah's story only hinted at.

And as the first fruits of the resurrection, all who are born again into him, what are we told?

We are seated with him in the heavenly places. We are seated with Christ in the heavenly places, seated with him by faith, by the

Holy Spirit, and we're with Christ. Christ is at the right hand. And what do we find?

We find that all around the throne where Christ sits is a what?

It's a rainbow. Preserved by God's grace, all judgment has been spent.

We are forever preserved. So in Christ, we have our sonship.

And then walking forward and living out that sonship, it looks like we are, we bless those who curse us.

We love those who hate us. We do these things to those who don't deserve and thereby demonstrate that we're like our heavenly father who gave us the sign of the rainbow.

Okay, we'll leave it there. Any questions or thoughts? Began thinking about that July 3rd, there was an amazing rainbow.

I was just, it was a double, double rainbow. Lasted like two hours.

It was pretty remarkable. All right, well, let's take a look.