Genesis 7-9b

I Will Establish My Covenant with You—Part Two

Genesis 6-9

Were you aware that Noah’s Ark is currently a Hollywood blockbuster? I haven’t seen it yet, but the movie 2012 is the ultimate disaster movie about the world being destroyed by a flood and mankind escaping on several enormous arks. It’s funny how the world loves this stuff when they see it on the movie screen but they reject the historicity of the worldwide flood in Noah’s day and the possibility of coming judgment. 2012 is fast approaching the half billion dollar mark in worldwide ticket sales. Do you think they would give me half a billion dollars if I told the story of a worldwide flood? There’s plenty of death and mayhem in the real story and all we would need is some special effects.

Why do people not believe the flood story? The fact that the entire globe could be covered by water and wipe out most of mankind is a fantastic story. On one hand you could say that it is not easy to believe, but on the other hand, countless people will walk out of the movie 2012 and say to themselves, “Well, that could happen.” The Bible tells us why people don’t believe. But they deliberately forget that…by these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. (2 Pet 2:5-6) Furthermore, Romans one tells us that they “suppress the truth by their wickedness.” (Ro 1:18) If you deliberately forget something or deliberately suppress its truthfulness, you are not dealing with intellectual deficiencies but rather moral deficiencies.

But in contrast to those who deliberately forgot, the Lord charges us with the responsibility to deliberately remember the worldwide flood. And what memory device did he give us? The rainbow is the sign of God’s covenant that he would never again destroy the world by a flood.

The sign of his covenant is the rainbow.

It has been two weeks since I last preached, so let me remind you of the first three points in our somewhat corny acronym—RAINBOW. (Remember, God gave us the rainbow to deliberately remember and I am giving you his RAINBOW acronym to deliberately the key points in the historicity of Noah’s flood.)

Rescue godly men from trials

Announce the coming judgment

Invite others into the ark/Christ

Our first point this morning is that God will…

Never again destroy the world by water Ge 8:21, 9:15—fire, yes!

¹² And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: ¹³ I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. ¹⁴ Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, ¹⁵ I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. ¹⁶ Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.” ¹⁷So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

Did you notice who is supposed to do the remembering? Verse sixteen: Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth. Why did God need to “remember”? Was he likely to forget? Of course God cannot forget and therefore cannot “remember” as we do, but he used this language because he was the one making the covenant and it was an unconditional covenant that was not dependent upon anything we would ever do or not do.

I assume you understand the difference between a conditional covenant and an unconditional covenant. A conditional covenant is like a contract between two parties. When we contracted with the concrete company to build our foundation, the agreement was that if they did the work according to specifications, then we would pay them so much money. Their payment was conditioned upon a thorough completion of the work. In fact, they got sloppy at one point and had to reset some anchors on this entire north wall and had they not done so, they would not have gotten paid (and the wall would have fallen over!)

In contrast, an unconditional covenant is only a one way promise that is not conditioned upon any action of the other party. God unconditionally promised that he would never destroy the earth with a flood. Does that promise depend upon anything we need to do or not do? One way that we can be certain of the unconditional nature of this covenant is that God established the covenant with the animals. Verse sixteen says that he made the covenant with “all living creatures of every kind on the earth” and verse seventeen reads, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.” This means that God established his covenant with dogs and sheep and beetles and bacteria. Can a dog maintain a covenant with the Creator? Our dog can’t even stay in the yard let alone uphold his end of a divine covenant!

The only party that needs to maintain the covenant is God himself. Again, that is why he used language of “remembering” the covenant. We don’t have to remember the covenant for it to be true, we don’t even have to know it, understand it or believe it—it simply is true based upon his character and power. God’s covenant stands whether or not anyone accepts or believes it. We could call it an unconditional covenant of common grace. His grace was equally distributed to all without conditions of any kind.

Can you think of another type of unconditional covenant of which about half of us in this room are a part? I am referring to the Covenant of Marriage. For good reason we don’t call it the Contract of Marriage. Remember, a contract is dependent upon both parties upholding their end of the deal, but a marriage is an unconditional covenant. Remember those vows you took on your wedding day, whether a year ago or fifty years? “For better, for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health.” Those were unconditional promises that were part of an unconditional covenant. We see this in the great marriage passage of Ephesians chapter five. “Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church.” Is that conditional or unconditional? How about “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.”? Conditional or unconditional? This is also unconditional. But what about the other word for submission that Paul used later in the chapter—“the wife must respect her husband.”Is respect conditional or unconditional? We are quick to say that love is unconditional but we are hesitant to say that respect is unconditional. We usually think of respect as something that is earned but the Bible tells us that that is not the case within a marriage.

God placed the rainbow in the sky as a sign of his unconditional covenant. Although the rainbow has been used a symbol from hippies to homosexuals, we need to recapture this symbol as a vital Christian symbol. It is not merely a corny acronym of a preacher, but rather a sign of a divine, unconditional covenant.

The next letter in the acronym is B…

Believe the gospel—grace through faith—Ge 6:8,

This principle is best illustrated by Hebrews 11:7. By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

If you are not careful, it is very easy to make a false distinction between the Old Testament and the New Testament. On the surface, sometimes it appears that in the Old Testament God required strict obedience to his commands in order to receive favor but in the New Testament God looks at our faith. There are many passages such as this one that very clearly demonstrate that God has always used faith as the measuring rod for his grace. Noah obeyed God. Nobody questions his amazing obedience, but he could not have obeyed without faith.

Some may wonder what the difference is between belief and faith. There is no difference. In Greek, the word for faith is the exact same word as belief. The verb “to believe” is again the exact same word turned into a verb. Belief, faith and believing are all the same thing. Noah was “warned about things not yet seen.” This is how Hebrews defines faith: “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” (Heb 11:1) Noah could not see the worldwide flood but he believed the one who could see it. Let’s say you are in the Navy stationed on a submarine during wartime. The captain peers through the periscope and announces an enemy ship approaching. You are in charge of launching the torpedoes and the order is given to fire. You proceed to fire several torpedoes at a ship you have never seen because you believe the one who has seen it. God not only sees the future, but he has the future wrapped up tightly in his sovereign plan. We don’t believe because we see, we believe because we know the one who does see.

Hebrews contains this amazing verse: By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith. Righteousness by faith is a NT concept, is it not? Paul spelled it out most beautifully in Romans three. “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.” If righteousness comes by faith in Jesus Christ, then how did Noah have this same faith? Noah did not believe in Jesus in the same way that you and I believe in Jesus, but rather he was the “heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.” It was a deep faith in a God who rules the world and saves those who trust in him.

Which leads to the next letter in our acronym…

Obedience is the evidence of faith

Faith always precedes obedience. Obedience is the evidence of faith. If Noah did not believe that a worldwide flood was coming, would he have built the ark? If he had not built the ark it would have been evidence of his lack of faith. What does the book of James tells us about faith that is not followed by obedience? James says that “faith without works is dead.” Faith that is not followed by obedience is not faith at all. It is not merely dead, but it ceases to exist.

It’s like the short video clip I showed two weeks ago. Penn Jillette said, “If I believed beyond a shadow of a doubt that a truck was gonna hit you and you didn’t believe it, and that truck was bearing down on you, there’s a certain point where I tackle you.” Penn Jillette is a big guy and if he tackled you for no reason we would call him crazy, but if he tackled you in order to save your life we would call him a hero. Did you know that every one of your actions throughout every day of your life is based on some kind of belief or another? If I thrust my hand toward you and you believe that I am your enemy, you will flinch, but if you consider me a friend you will probably hold out your hand and shake mine. If I yell at my kids my action is based upon the belief that yelling is the only thing that will work at that moment. Anger and screaming is almost never the only thing that will work, but it’s hard to convince a frustrated parent. What you believe determines how you behave.

Obedience always follows from faith. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey my commands.” Obeying his commands is evidence that we love Jesus, not the other way around. What kinds of things are we supposed to obey based upon belief in a worldwide flood? There are many things, but let me use the passage from 2 Peter 3 to be very specific.

⁵ But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. ⁶ By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. ⁷ By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

By now we are becoming very familiar with this passage. This is what our letter “A” was based upon: Announce the coming judgment. Peter used the historical event of a worldwide flood to warn us about a future coming judgment, where the world will be destroyed by fire. Do you believe that this will come true? Do you really believe it? Did you know that we can immediately test whether or not you believe this? Listen to what Peter wrote next.

¹¹ Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives ¹² as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. ¹³ But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. ¹⁴So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. 2 Peter 3

The coming judgment by fire is not merely a warning for unbelievers, it is a warning for all believers. Since this coming judgment is an established fact, what difference does it make? As Peter said, “what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. A few verses later he wrote, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him. If you believe in this coming judgment, then you will live this way, but if you don’t live this way, there is only one simple reason why—you don’t believe. And when you don’t believe, what does that make you—an atheist. If we do not make every effort to live holy and Godly lives, then at some level, we are atheists. We are practical atheists. On paper, we believe, but in practice we are practical atheists.

Which leads to our final letter…

Worship is a part of obedience Ge 8:20

There is something very interesting about the size of the ark. The ark had three decks, each deck was 10 cubits high, 300 cubits long and 50 cubits wide. Now compare these dimensions with that of the Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was fifty cubits wide, 100 cubits long and ten cubits high. If you could imagine a rectangular box with the exact same dimensions it would look something like this. The if you took three “tabernacles” and laid them end to end you would have one level of Noah’s ark. If you did this again you would have the middle and upper decks. This means that the ark was exactly nine times—3 “tabernacles” on each of the 3 decks—the size of the Tabernacle where the shekina glory dwelt. The Bible does not make a big deal out of this and I am not sure that we are supposed to either, but I find it very interesting. I am not one of those people who look for hidden messages or numbers in the Bible, but perhaps there is some symbolism about worship and the presence of God that we were meant to see.

But even more important than this is what Noah did when he left the ark.

¹⁸ So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. ¹⁹ All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on the earth—came out of the ark, one kind after another.

²⁰ Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it. ²¹The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

He built an altar and sacrificed some of the clean animals from the ark. Incidentally, this is the first time the word “altar” is mentioned in the Bible. How long did it take Noah to prepare for worship? We might think that it may have taken him the better part of a day to build a stone altar, gather dry firewood, cut up the sacrifices and burn them on the altar. It may have taken him longer than a single day. But where did Noah get the animals? Noah used clean animals that God had told him to bring aboard the ark, so one could say that Noah “prepared” for worship for at least one year prior. If he had not obeyed this part of God’s command he could not have worshipped the Lord. His worship was tied up with his obedience. We could back it up and say that Noah prepared for worship for 120 years while he built the ark. But he was not just preparing for worship, his obedience was worship.

And so it is with us. Just as faith leads inevitably to obedience or else it is not really faith, true faith always leads to true worship, but worship is also intimately tied up with obedience. What if Noah had not prepared for worship? How do we prepare for worship? We come to worship on Sunday morning, leave with a smile on your face but don’t plan on obeying God tomorrow morning. That is not worship.

Listen to this classic text from Romans and how it relates to Noah’s worship.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. ² Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

First we see we are to be living sacrifices. Noah and his OT counterparts knew nothing of a living sacrifice. There was no category for such a thing as all sacrifices were bloody and very dead. We are to offer our bodies, our whole selves as living sacrifices which are holy and pleasing to God. Does that phrase sound familiar—“holy and pleasing”? The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground… God did not smell the odor of burning flesh. He smelled the sweet aroma of Noah’s obedience. This is true for us as well. God loves to catch a whiff or the sweet smell or our obedience, of our service to him. As Paul said in Romans, it is our spiritual act of worship. We prepare for worship by our obedience through faith, indeed, our obedience is worship.

Rich Maurer

November 29, 2009