Doing our series on God’s generational faithfulness. And so far we’ve looked at the generations of Adam. Despite Adam’s rebellion, God remains faithful. Despite Cain’s murder of his brother, God remains faithful. But it doesn’t get better. We’re going to look how it gets worse in this first passage we’re going to read. You follow with me. This is Genesis 6: 5-8. The Lord saw that the wickedness of was great in the earth, that every intention of the thought of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord regreted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. And so the Lord said, I will blot out man with whom I have created from the face of the earth, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. So God brings judgment against the wickedness of mankind. He sends a flood that fills the earth, and he wipes it clean of every living creature except for Noah and his family, and two of every creature on the Ark. And so the creation and the order that we see in Genesis 1 is wiped away with the waters and the earth.
And as the waters receive, the first thing that Noah does in this new creation, this new beginning, It’s an act of worship. He sacrifices to the Lord. Follow with me. This is Genesis 9: 1-17. And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and feel 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 live shall be food for you. And as I give you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood, 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, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.
Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him. Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you 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 establish my covenant with you that 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. And God said, ‘This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations. I have set my bow in the clouds. 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’ll remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember, ever lasting 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. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s have a seat. Let’s pray. Father, we ask that you would open your word up to us this morning. Holy spirit, please penetrate our dull hearts that we would glimpse your true character the beauty of your character in our daily need for you. And I pray special mercy on my voice that you would sustain it this morning. And then me Father, Son, Holy spirit, Amen. Well, with the first waves of patriots already conscripted, they had to press further, deeper into society, and they looked deeper for men to fill secondary offices. They looked back over men who had been rejected for maybe older men who had failed medical requirements, or one reason or another. These were fathers, brothers, bakers, accountants, farmers, everyday people you rub shoulders with. And so with so many men gone on the front, the country needed to restock their police battalions. A historian, Christopher Brown, or Browning, he wrote a book, Ordinary Men, specifically following one battalion called Reserve Police Battalion 101, and he followed it through World War II.
So happy to be of use to their country in the war effort, these recruits trained with vigor. And over the course of the war, they pushed themselves to do things that they never thought possible. Ordinary Men, Reserve Police Battalion 101, has also been known as one of Hitler’s death squads. This particular battalion was tasked with executing thousands of Jewish men, women, and children. It’s estimated this battalion of 500 men personally killed over 30,000 Jews, sent another 50,000 to their deaths in the concentration camps. So we set off on this research saying, who were these men? Who were these monsters? Browning’s conclusion It’s ordinary men, fathers, brothers, people with whom you rub shoulders every day. They were given an opportunity to get out. Twelve of the 500 asked to be reassigned, and they were reassigned. That leaves 488 of these ordinary men who pursued execution of over 30,000 Jews. You might ask, how could this be? It’s arguably the most advanced advanced, most educated, most culturally sophisticated, the most scientific nation in the world at that time. And they also perpetrated some of the most heinous crimes. It just raises so many questions like, Why did God allow this?
It’s one of the great questions of our day, and I don’t know. But maybe one thing that we get from it, it’s a reminder in an age very close to our own, the depths to which humanity can sink very quickly. This first passage in Genesis, it reveals the depths of humanity’s depravity. Genesis 6: 5, it says, The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. This isn’t just something that happens to them. Every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Having spiritually died and been separated from God, evil is what comes out of man’s heart. Evil along the lines of Cain. In Genesis 6, this is far worse than the Holocaust. And so Genesis 6, it gives us a glimpse of man’s total depravity. It gets dark really fast. But even here in Genesis 6, it’s not as bad as it could be because God actively restrains the evil. And we’re going to see that he actively restrains evil on this earth. When we talk about man’s total depravity, we don’t mean that it is as bad as it could get because God is restraining things.
No, total depravedy means that man is fallen in every aspect of his person, every aspect of his being. Our minds, our wills, our emotions are all fallen, separated from God. That means we can’t think our way to salvation. We can’t think our way to God and have perfect systems. We can’t feel our way to the truth. We We can’t decide to be saved. We are dead and separated in rebellion against God. So there’s this striking contrast here in Genesis 6. The last time it says that God saw, it was in Genesis 1, and God was looking over his creation, Genesis 131, said he saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. But here he sees what man has done with the place, this Earth. He sees how man’s wickedness was very great in the earth. And he is watching the sheer degradation, destruction of his creation. Verse 6 says, And the Lord regreted that he had made man on the earth. It grieved him to his heart. It’s not that God changed his mind or that he made some mistakes. God doesn’t make mistakes. It’s talking of God in human terms, ways that we can relate with.
So 1 Samuel 15: 29, for example, clearly says that God, the glory of Israel, ‘I will not lie or have regret, for he is not a man that he should have regret. ‘ The real emphasis is how much man’s evil pains God. It grieved him to his heart. This is the intensest emotion, a mixture of rage and a bitter anguish. It’s the word that Dina’s brothers feel when they learn that their sister has been raped. It’s the same word that David hears. He feels when he hears that his son, Absalom, has been killed. It’s what a wife feels in Isaiah 54 when she learns that she’s been deserted by her husband. It’s this bitter stomach-turning anguish. God doesn’t sit passively by. He is deeply, deeply grieved. He’s angry. The Lord resolves verse seven, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I’m sorry that I have made them. And he’s going to use water to wipe it away and cleanse the earth. But even there, there’s a tinge of hope. Verse 8 says, But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Here we see that God refuses to give up on his creation. He’s going to start over with this cleansed, renewed world. He’s going to rebuild the earth around Noah and his family. And yes, the flood is an act of judgment, but it’s also an act of mercy. So God pledges to faithfully preserve this fallen world. He’s going to reaffirm man’s place in this world, calling for us to continue to exercise dominion on this earth. So second point here, God faithfully reaffirms man’s role as image bearers in the first seven verses. Verse 2, it says, God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. ‘ Basically, the same words that God told to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1: 28 is presenting Noah as a new Adam. In a sense, he’s like a second Adam called to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth again. Theologians, they call this the creation mandate. We are supposed to be here. We are supposed to take care of this earth. We’re supposed to exercise dominion. We’re supposed to expand the garden to cover the whole earth. But there are a few changes.
It will be different for Noah than it was for Adam. In Genesis 2, God brings the animals to Adam, and they come to him. There’s no fear there. There’s a peaceful relationship between him and the animals. Well, that changes for Noah. Verse 2, it says, 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. So now the animal kingdom will fear man. There will be conflict. They are still delivered into man’s hand, but it’s a strained relationship. It is going to be much harder to exercise dominion. And the Earth and the animal kingdom don’t work perfectly like they were designed to do. There’s brokenness throughout the Earth. And the animals, they have a right to be afraid. Verse three, it says, Every moving thing that live shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. So before, man ate plants, now they kill and they will eat meat. With this change, God also puts a very important boundary.
Don’t eat blood. Blood is precious. The life force is in the blood. And so God makes a further stipulation, From this fellow man, I will require a reckoning for the life of man, a life for a life. Verse 6, it goes, Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image. A life for a life. So if you kill someone and murder them, then you forfeit your own life. This is the basis of the death penalty. The death penalty doesn’t make a lot of sense to people. Sometimes in our culture, just like punishment doesn’t make a lot of sense to people in our culture. There may be a reason that How does executing someone promote life? You lose two lives instead of one. The cost of the punishment shows the value of what was lost, shows the value of the loss. The life establishes a principle of justice. It limits retribution. So if someone kills my brother, I’m not allowed to go and kill their family. Limits justice, a life for a life. It It also affirms a fundamental difference between mankind and the animal world.
Mankind is marked off as distinct, special, particularly for God made man in his own image. This is so foundational for justice, ethics, government, how we treat others, everything. Mankind, men and women together, we image God. We are made in his image. We know that from Genesis 1, what’s significant here is that this is after the fall. We know that man was created good, but what about after Adam rebelled? What about after Cain killed his brother? What about after the degradation in sin in Genesis 6? Does the image still remain? Genesis 9 tells us that it does. Yes. Even fallen, disobedient, sinful man still retain the image of God. We still reflect God, and we’re still called to be his viceroy, his representatives on this earth. We rule in his place. We’re called to be his representatives here, exercise dominion. And so God reaffirms our role as image bearers, as his representatives. One theologian, Francis Schafer, he compared mankind. He was looking at Genesis and he compared mankind to glorious ruins. Traveling around some ancient sites where you could see old pillars and old statues, and you get a glimpse of the glory that would have been there.
See these old statues of an old king, and the stone and the quality of the craftsmanship and the artistry, amazing. But it’s not what it was. Hundreds of years have left its mark. Maybe there’s an arm missing. There’s an ear missing. Maybe birds have pecked the face, and it’s just a glimpse of what it used to be. That’s a picture of mankind. We still bear traces of the glory that man made us, that God made us, but has been marred by sin in thousands of years of rebellion. It means that every person, every one of us, every person in our country, the countries around the world, have been made in the image of God. As Christians, we have to hold those two things together, and it can be hard to hold those together that we are both glorious, created in him as image with inherent dignity, and we rebelled and sinful, and sometimes we do bad things. So the hard-hearted criminal still has rights because he’s still is remade in the image of God, and ultimately, he will give account to God for how he has imaged him. The homeless woman maybe who’s given up on life and is just sustaining and getting by, she might not have respect for herself, but we’re called to treat her with dignity because she is made in the image of God, and it still remains.
I think one of the first steps towards committing atrocities or going down the path of sin is when we dehumanize recognize other people, maybe the people we disagree with or the people out there. This is a call to remember that we are all made in this image, even our enemies and the people we disagree with. On The flip side, no matter how amazing someone seems and how shiny we are and everything, we also still bear the traces of sin and brokenness in our lives. So we have to be careful about putting people on a pedestal that’s a pastor or a favorite Christian voice or a favorite celebrity, or maybe that boyfriend who just seems like he can do absolutely no wrong. A couple of years, you’re going to find out. We are saved sinners if we believe in Christ. He is actively working on us. We’re a work in progress. The Holy spirit is restoring that image in us. We are being conformed continually into the image of Christ day by day. And so we still bear the marks of sin. And so we have to walk this balance. We don’t condone sin, and we don’t want to allow it and say, well, that’s no problem.
That’s no big deal. And also we don’t have to be surprised by it. Noah shows us that God is still faithful. He is still graciously. He reaffirms his image in fallen man, our role in creation. He also graciously covenants to preserve the earth. Verses 8 through 17. Verse 8, Then God said to Noah and his sons with him, ‘Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you. ‘ We call this the Noahic covenant. Of all the covenants, the Bible, it’s a unique covenant. God makes it with Noah and your offspring after you. This is all of mankind, all future generations. This is the human race. And God doesn’t put any conditions on mankind because he knows that we’re going to fail. We’re going to be faithless. And so all the responsibility falls on God in this covenant. It’s not just with mankind. Verse 10, it says, 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. Again, verse 16, Every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth This is a creation-wide covenant, every living creature until the end of this world.
God promises, he covenants verse 11, That never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood. Never shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. Never again until the final judgment, the end of this earth. So God covenants to preserve this earth, preserve life. And he reassures us. And to reassure us, he gives us this visual image, this reminder. It’s a sign. Verse 12, it says, God said, This is the sign, the visual reminder. This is the sign of the covenant that I’ve 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. 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’ll remember I remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. God puts a bow in the clouds, right? The rainbow. Why a rainbow, right? It’s a beautiful image. It’s a beautiful symbol. In the original Hebrew, the same word is used for rainbow and a battle bow.
So accommodators, they’ve long debated the visual symbolism of this and argued for different things. There’s no consensus. But the argument that I find most persuasive, and I like best, is that God has taken his battle bow, what he would use to make war, and he has laid it down. And now the bow is pointing up towards the heavens, up towards God, signifying that if he breaks this covenant, that judgment should be executed on him. He promises sustain this Earth. Of course, the last few decades, the symbol of the rainbow has been re-appropriated, reinterpreted. So usually when I see a rainbow on a bumper sticker or on a storefront or something, it means something different. It’s a statement not of Noah’s Ark, but usually it’s a statement, a symbol of sexual diversity, LGBTQ. And it’s a symbol that we should affirm every form of self-expression, every form of sexual self-expression as good. And so that’s what I think what it means for most of the people in our culture today. The rainbow symbolizes the goodness of all sexual self-expression. And I think people want the rainbow. They want it to mean that God affirms those as well.
He doesn’t. God has clearly laid out a biblical ethic of sex, and it is a beautiful ethic. It’s between a man and a woman in the context of marriage. And in that context, it is a beautiful and wonderful thing. But those are the bounds of the biblical sexual ethic. We know what God thinks of the expression of mankind’s heart, what comes out of his heart. Genesis 6, evil is coming out all the time. Our selfish hearts, they devise all all sorts of evil. We cannot trust them. But it’s particularly striking to me. So when I look at a rainbow, a bumper sticker, or going into a store, I don’t see the goodness of different sexualities. Instead, I see the goodness and the greatness of God, a God who promises to preserve the Earth and be gracious to all men and women, even when they reject him. What a gracious God, a God who is sitting over and he is in bitter anguish over the mess that we have made of things. And he covenants, I am still going to be good to you. I’m still going to bless this whole earth. It’s not like, oh, wow, God is so gracious because he is gracious even to those people.
The rainbow, when we see it, it’s a symbol that, wow, God is gracious Because he’s gracious to me. I deserve to be wiped clean for my own thoughts, my own actions, the own hatred in my heart. I fully deserve to be wiped out by God. And yet he’s gracious. He’s patient. He’s faithful to all of us. The rainbow, it’s a beautiful sign of God’s covenant blessing, his preservation of all creatures. In the rainbow, God says, even the enemies, even to those who reject him, I will continue to be gracious. Grace isn’t affirmation. It doesn’t condone wrong. Again, grace is that God continues to be good to a world that has thoroughly rejected him. The Newark Covenant, it’s a gift of what theologians call common grace. God sends his reign on the just and the unjust. The sun continues to shine on the whole earth. The Psalm often lament, why do the wicked prosper so much when those who are trying to follow God suffer and struggle? God continues to bless the whole earth. Also means that all cultures continue to reflect his image in some way. In some ways, they are beautiful and they reflect his glory, and in some ways, they don’t, and they are marred by sin.
And each culture is a little a bit different. That’s why we don’t automatically reject non-Christians, non-believers. Common grace is that God has showered his wisdom on them as well. So they have great insights. We call it Common Grace wisdom into things like a scientific discovery, counseling broken people, how to run a business. All these areas of life, there is wisdom from people around the world. It’s why common grace is even why sometimes you look out at our neighbors and sometimes unbelievers, sometimes they even have better marriages than we do. Because his grace is showered on the just and the unjust, those who believe, those who don’t believe. But Common grace is not redemptive grace. It doesn’t mean that God redeems each and every person on the face of the earth in history. There is a difference between common grace and redemptive grace. Redemptive grace Grace leads to salvation. Common grace sustains life so that God can execute his redemption plan. So Genesis 8: 22, it says, The Earth remains seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. God promises to preserve this Earth, the conditions of this Earth, the rhythms, the regularities of the Earth.
They will continue until Christ comes back. God maintains the That means that we can study scientifically how the Earth acts. It’s consistent. He also limits evil through governments. He doesn’t let the heart do exactly what he wants. He continually puts limits on evil and actively restraining it. Preserves the Earth until his plan of action, his action of redemption, can be accomplished in Christ. In the meantime, this earth is filled with glorious runes. Even the man here, the hero Noah, the one who found favor with God, he himself, he reflects God brokenly. At one moment, he comes off the Ark and he does this glorious thing. He offers a sacrifice to God. The first thing is an act of worship, and it’s a beautiful thing in creation. And then right after this passage, he plants a vineyard so that he can get drunk, and he passes out in his tent naked, and his son sees him, and there’s some shame involved there. And he ends up cursing his son and all of his descendants. It’s right there. The very next thing after an act of worship, he ends up cursing his son and the thousands and thousands of descendants that come with him.
We see the brokenness in this family. So it’s a reminder that we’re going to need a better Adam, someone better than Noah. God is going to need a more radical solution, not just wipe the earth of sin, he’s also going to have to cleanse our hearts of sin. And so he’s going to need to send a last Adam. That’s how the apostle Paul refers to Jesus Christ, right? Romans 5, Paul explains that Adam, the first man, was a type of the one to come. He was a type of Jesus. Romans 5: 15, he says, For if many died through one man’s trespass, that is through Adam’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift of grace that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. So all fell into sin through Adam. All who have faith in Christ comes to life through the new Adam, the last Adam, Jesus Christ. But it’s not just a me and Jesus faith. God is radically committed to this whole creation. He’s redeeming all things. Colossians 1: 18 it almost sings. We think it as an ancient hymn in the church. It says, He is the beginning, the first born from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. So we see that Jesus is redeeming all things, whether on earth or in heaven. As far as the curse is found, he is bringing redemption. He is radically committed to this creation. He is radically committed to us. He is bent out of shape. He is in anguish over the sin. But he doesn’t just sit passively die. He sent his son to die for us, to redeem us. And by the blood of the cross, he is making a whole new creation. Creation. Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for your patience. We thank you for your grace to preserve all things. That we know there’s things in our lives and things in culture and things throughout history that just are a gas to you. And yet you are good to us and gracious. We thank you, especially for sending your son that you didn’t sit actively pie, but that you came down and that you gave everything, that he died for us, that you were so radically committed to this creation and to us and to all living things, that you want to be with us forever.
So we praise you in the name of the Father, the Son, Holy spirit. Amen.
Discaimer: This sermon text was generated by an automated transcription service.