WEBVTT 00:00:00.400 --> 00:00:04.419 I'm going to invite one of our members, Kelly Akers, to come and read scripture for us. 00:00:04.960 --> 00:00:11.759 ! Kelly's going to read from Genesis chapter 8, verses 20 to chapter 9, verses 17. 00:00:12.160 --> 00:00:18.480 If you've got a church Bible, it's on page 6. If you don't have a Bible, there are Bibles on the back 00:00:18.480 --> 00:00:21.679 table. The words are also in your bulletin, and they'll be on the screen. 00:00:21.679 --> 00:00:21.759 Amen. 00:00:51.679 --> 00:00:59.539 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, 00:00:59.679 --> 00:01:05.219 Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon 00:01:05.219 --> 00:01:10.099 every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the 00:01:10.099 --> 00:01:16.620 ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that lives 00:01:16.620 --> 00:01:22.700 shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. But you shall not 00:01:22.700 --> 00:01:28.219 eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning. 00:01:28.520 --> 00:01:35.600 From every beast I will require it, and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for 00:01:35.600 --> 00:01:42.180 the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For God made man 00:01:42.180 --> 00:01:49.080 in his own image. And you be fruitful and multiply. Increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it. 00:01:49.840 --> 00:01:55.800 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your 00:01:55.800 --> 00:02:01.820 offspring after you. And with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every 00:02:01.820 --> 00:02:07.580 beast of the earth with you. As many as came out of the ark, it is for every beast of the earth. 00:02:07.579 --> 00:02:13.840 I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the 00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:20.079 flood. And never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the sign 00:02:20.079 --> 00:02:25.800 of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future 00:02:25.800 --> 00:02:31.780 generations. I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the 00:02:31.780 --> 00:02:37.319 earth. When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, I will remember my 00:02:37.319 --> 00:02:43.439 covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall 00:02:43.439 --> 00:02:49.919 never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember 00:02:49.919 --> 00:02:55.819 the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth. 00:02:56.419 --> 00:03:02.419 God said to Noah, This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that 00:03:02.419 --> 00:03:03.039 is on the earth. 00:03:05.939 --> 00:03:11.299 Let's pray together. Lord, we come now to your word and we ask for help. We ask for the presence 00:03:11.299 --> 00:03:16.719 of the Holy Spirit. We cannot do anything apart from the Spirit. And so we ask now that Holy Spirit, 00:03:16.879 --> 00:03:22.799 living breath of God, you would speak to us. Help us to understand. Help us to hear. Help us to believe. 00:03:22.979 --> 00:03:28.560 Help us to have a fresh vision of the power of the gospel. And we pray that in Jesus' name. Amen. 00:03:28.560 --> 00:03:35.759 Amen. We are working our way through Genesis 4 to 11. We had a break last week, but we're back this 00:03:35.759 --> 00:03:42.060 week and we're on Genesis chapter 9 primarily. And Genesis chapter 9, I think, is the clearest place 00:03:42.060 --> 00:03:48.039 in the early parts of the Bible where God tells us how He feels about us and what He thinks about us. 00:03:48.460 --> 00:03:53.060 He tells you what He thinks about you and how He feels about you. And the way we've gotten to this 00:03:53.060 --> 00:03:59.199 moment is that we've said every week, this section of the Bible is really exploring what's wrong with 00:03:59.199 --> 00:04:05.020 us. And the answer every week has been sin, this disease that we have, this power within us that's 00:04:05.020 --> 00:04:10.939 corrupting the world, corrupting us from the inside out. And in Genesis 3, when sin first entered the 00:04:10.939 --> 00:04:19.100 world, God said to Adam and Eve that one day a child would be born of the offspring of Eve that would 00:04:19.100 --> 00:04:25.920 crush the head of evil, the serpent of death. And so we've been tracing the question, who is this one? 00:04:26.020 --> 00:04:32.520 Who is the seed that would one day arise from Genesis 3, 15 forward? And when you get to the flood story, 00:04:32.680 --> 00:04:39.879 you realize that God has plucked Noah out of the world and put him in an ark and saved him through 00:04:39.879 --> 00:04:45.660 the waters of judgment by way of the ark. And he comes out of the ark in Genesis chapter 8, and you 00:04:45.660 --> 00:04:51.540 realize that this is the one from whom the one offspring would one day be born. And so we're 00:04:51.540 --> 00:04:55.760 tracing the seed. And that's why there's so many genealogies in the book of Genesis, a couple more 00:04:55.760 --> 00:05:03.660 to come in the following weeks. And then lastly, in Genesis 8, 18 to 19, the verses just before Kelly 00:05:03.660 --> 00:05:10.400 started reading for us today, Noah and his family and all the creatures went out from the ark, paraded out 00:05:10.399 --> 00:05:18.560 two by two. And it was as if God had decreated the world in the flood story. He had undone all that he 00:05:18.560 --> 00:05:24.560 had done in Genesis 1, and then put all the waters back in their places and recreated it and told the 00:05:24.560 --> 00:05:31.019 second Adam and Eve to walk out with all the animals into this new world, recreation. And we're left there 00:05:31.019 --> 00:05:36.319 wondering, what is God now going to do with us? What is God going to do with humanity in the world? Now, 00:05:36.319 --> 00:05:42.740 the way that theologians and commentators have talked about Genesis 9 for many centuries now is 00:05:42.740 --> 00:05:49.540 to see it…it helps us see the world as if the world is like a theater. So imagine the whole cosmos 00:05:49.540 --> 00:05:56.120 like a great theater. John Calvin said the world, the cosmos, is the theater of God's glory. And in this 00:05:56.120 --> 00:06:03.680 great cosmic theater, there is a drama taking place. And the drama, the play, the stage play, is what God is 00:06:03.680 --> 00:06:09.639 doing with humans and creatures across this world. And he, of course, is the great author that's written 00:06:09.639 --> 00:06:16.100 the script. And Genesis 3, all the way to this point, basically just says, we burned the script, 00:06:16.439 --> 00:06:21.139 the actors on the stage, and we refused to act in the drama that God was playing out. 00:06:22.180 --> 00:06:29.399 And when Noah and his family walk out of the ark in Genesis 8 into Genesis 9, it's as if the great 00:06:29.399 --> 00:06:37.419 director, the great author is saying, okay, once more from the top. And here the question becomes, 00:06:37.599 --> 00:06:42.759 what is he going to do with us now? And here's where we find out what he really thinks about us, 00:06:42.779 --> 00:06:49.899 what he wants to do with us, how he sees us. Boy, is this a recreation. Look at our passage that Kelly 00:06:49.899 --> 00:06:56.659 read, chapter 9, verse 1, and verse 7, they're the same. And in verse 1 of chapter 9, what does he say? 00:06:56.660 --> 00:07:03.760 Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. That's a quote from Genesis 1, 28. And he's reissuing all 00:07:03.760 --> 00:07:10.160 the commands of Genesis 1 again. He's starting over. He's resetting things. It's like new creation. 00:07:10.480 --> 00:07:16.700 That's the thought you should have. Now, we are not going to talk about verses 1 to 7 today. We'll come 00:07:16.700 --> 00:07:22.340 back to them next week as we consider 18 to 28. But this week, I just want to focus on verse 8 to 17 00:07:22.339 --> 00:07:28.099 with you because that really is the place where we find out what does God think about us even though 00:07:28.099 --> 00:07:35.379 sin still lives in this world after the flood. Listen to what Martin Luther says about this. Luther 00:07:35.379 --> 00:07:41.579 reads verse 12 and 13 from chapter 9 in his commentary on this. And he says this, 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:47.559 God said, the water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh. And then Luther writes, 00:07:47.560 --> 00:07:56.259 this is an indication of God's extraordinary affection, affection for humanity. Noah and 00:07:56.259 --> 00:08:01.379 his people were in great need of such a comfort. God takes extraordinary delight in pouring forth 00:08:01.379 --> 00:08:07.019 compassion like a mother who is bringing her children toward her to comfort them in order that 00:08:07.019 --> 00:08:15.120 they might finally begin to forget the tears of the past events and smile once more. And so, 00:08:15.120 --> 00:08:23.579 this passage says that God has promised a perpetual mercy upon the world. That is, Luther says like a 00:08:23.579 --> 00:08:28.639 mother drawing her children in and showing how much affection she has for them, wiping away their 00:08:28.639 --> 00:08:35.200 tears. This passage tells you what God thinks about you after all we've read so far basically in the book 00:08:35.200 --> 00:08:43.919 of Genesis is that our response to him has only ever been apathy, hatred, rejection, burning the script 00:08:43.919 --> 00:08:49.500 that he wrote. And this is what he says. This is what he does. This is what he gives. And here's what he 00:08:49.500 --> 00:08:57.019 gives. Two things. One, he gives you a covenant. And secondly, he gives you a bow in the clouds. 00:08:58.519 --> 00:09:07.559 So first, he gives you a covenant. Now, one pastor put it like this. When the flood ended at the very 00:09:07.559 --> 00:09:15.159 last section of chapter 8 that Kelly began reading for us in 20 and 21, the waters have receded and 00:09:15.159 --> 00:09:21.259 the animals have gone out in a parade from the ark two by two. And one writer puts it like this. He 00:09:21.259 --> 00:09:26.959 says, boys and girls, what was in the ark? You know, that classic Sunday school question that all the boys 00:09:26.959 --> 00:09:32.959 and girls downstairs could answer right now. Boys and girls, what was in the ark? And of course, the answer 00:09:32.960 --> 00:09:41.700 is Noah and his family and so many animals. And when you read 8, 20 and 21, you realize so was Noah's 00:09:41.700 --> 00:09:50.060 heart. And his heart in the ark was still full of sin. Sin was still in the ark. And sin came back out 00:09:50.060 --> 00:09:57.540 of the ark. God, you know, think about it like this. God took the most holy people on earth that he knew of, 00:09:57.539 --> 00:10:04.519 and he knows them all. Noah and his family, the people that he called blameless, the people that 00:10:04.519 --> 00:10:09.379 had their life the best together. And he put them in an ark and he brought them through the waters of 00:10:09.379 --> 00:10:15.159 judgment. And yet still, 8, 21 says, when they came out, they brought their sin back into the world. 00:10:16.019 --> 00:10:22.839 And in 8, 21, what did God say? He says, I will no longer flood the world, judge humanity like I've just 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:29.180 done because the sin of the human heart, the intention of the human heart is only evil from 00:10:29.180 --> 00:10:34.220 its youth. Now, he had given that as the reason for bringing the flood. Now he gives it as the reason 00:10:34.220 --> 00:10:39.940 for what he's about to say next. He says, because Noah and his family are still sinners and have still 00:10:39.940 --> 00:10:46.519 brought sin back into the world in this moment of what seems like a new creation, he makes a promise. 00:10:46.860 --> 00:10:52.519 And this is what he does. Notice how he says, the problem is the human heart. It's not just that 00:10:52.519 --> 00:10:57.419 there are bad people out there that are gone now. The problem isn't here. It's still the same 00:10:57.419 --> 00:11:03.899 problem for us. The problem is here. It's in the heart. And so God then turns in 21 and gives his 00:11:03.899 --> 00:11:10.279 heart. So if you look at 8, 21, the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma of Noah's sacrifice. And the Lord 00:11:10.279 --> 00:11:16.659 said in his heart, after looking at the heart of Noah, that was still sinful. You see, you have this 00:11:16.659 --> 00:11:21.340 little moment where God's allowing you to enter into the divine council, the intra-Trinitarian 00:11:21.340 --> 00:11:27.259 thought of God, the Father, Son, and Spirit taking counsel with himself. And he said in his heart, 00:11:27.660 --> 00:11:34.060 God said in his heart, I will never again flood the earth the way I've just done. And so just look at 00:11:34.060 --> 00:11:39.160 these. These are the promises. Here they are in 8, 21 and 22. I will never again curse the ground 00:11:39.160 --> 00:11:43.879 because of humanity. And then you say, well, what do you mean by that? And then the second sentence, 00:11:44.399 --> 00:11:48.280 never again will I strike down every living creature. In other words, he's saying, 00:11:48.279 --> 00:11:55.439 I will not get rid of the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve, despite the fact that they have 00:11:55.439 --> 00:12:01.819 only rejected me. And even in the most blameless man I could find, there's still sin. That the flood 00:12:01.819 --> 00:12:06.819 did not rid the world of this great problem. But he says, never again. I will keep them. I will preserve 00:12:06.819 --> 00:12:11.799 them. And then he goes on and says, and the animals, the beasts, the creeping things, all of it. 00:12:11.799 --> 00:12:18.079 I will, in other words, he's saying, I will not give the cosmos what the humans have earned or merited 00:12:18.079 --> 00:12:23.639 for it. And that's death and judgment. And then you say, well, what about, what's the positive 00:12:23.639 --> 00:12:30.819 explanation of that? And then in 8, 22, he says, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and 00:12:30.819 --> 00:12:38.479 winter, day and night, the cosmic order I will preserve, I'll keep. From the subatomic, the most small 00:12:38.480 --> 00:12:43.500 bits of the cosmic structure, all the way to the grandest bits of the sun, moon, and stars in the 00:12:43.500 --> 00:12:48.800 universe, the cosmic structure I'm going to keep, I'm not going to give this world what it ultimately 00:12:48.800 --> 00:12:55.759 deserves. He tells us that he's keeping it and he's keeping us. And so this is a moment where he 00:12:55.759 --> 00:13:04.519 pronounces perpetual state of mercy, a common mercy, where he never gives anybody what they actually 00:13:04.519 --> 00:13:11.480 deserve. And he includes the whole world in that. And so what is this? He gives us the name for how 00:13:11.480 --> 00:13:16.340 we should think about this. And the word that he attaches to it is the word that shows up in the 00:13:16.340 --> 00:13:23.480 rest of the passage, 8 to 17, the word covenant. This is a covenant. And so you can see it down from 00:13:23.480 --> 00:13:30.840 verse, chapter 9, verse 8. He says, I will establish my covenant in verse 9 with you and all your offspring. 00:13:30.840 --> 00:13:36.019 And by the way, Noah and his family are all that's there. All the offspring of Noah is every person, 00:13:36.420 --> 00:13:42.280 every human, every person that would ever live. And he calls this a covenant. Now, what is a covenant? 00:13:43.560 --> 00:13:49.879 A covenant is something that we know from normal life. We think about the covenant of marriage 00:13:49.879 --> 00:13:55.160 between a man and a woman. There are other types of covenants that happen between people. You can even 00:13:55.159 --> 00:14:01.339 have covenant in friendship. We see David and Jonathan as friends making a covenant in the Bible. 00:14:01.459 --> 00:14:07.819 So covenants happen between people all the time. And here's a definition. This is a helpful definition, 00:14:07.819 --> 00:14:13.379 I think. I'll say it twice just because I know definitions can sometimes be hard to listen to. 00:14:13.899 --> 00:14:19.659 But this is a covenant. A covenant is a loving relationship marked by binding promises 00:14:19.659 --> 00:14:28.299 promises that create loyal obligation. A covenant is a loving relationship with binding promises or vows 00:14:28.299 --> 00:14:36.019 that create loyal obligations. And so in the ancient Near East, they also had covenants all over. That's 00:14:36.019 --> 00:14:40.319 where we really get covenants from. God made them, and then they're all over the world in the ancient 00:14:40.319 --> 00:14:46.879 world. And they had a couple things slightly different from a common covenant we might make 00:14:46.879 --> 00:14:51.580 today like in wedding vows. So number one, to have a covenant, you've got to have two parties, 00:14:52.019 --> 00:14:58.820 and they've got to make a vow to one another, a binding promise. But the second thing that came 00:14:58.820 --> 00:15:04.419 with covenants in the ancient world that we don't at least say out loud as often today is what's called 00:15:04.419 --> 00:15:10.240 the oath of malediction. So at the end of the service, I'm going to give a benediction, benediction, 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:16.399 a good word pronounced from the Bible to the people. But there's also maledictions, 00:15:16.399 --> 00:15:21.519 bad words pronounced over people as well. And that's what the oath of malediction is referring 00:15:21.519 --> 00:15:27.159 to. So people in the ancient world would say, I've just made a vow with you, and if I break this vow, 00:15:27.779 --> 00:15:33.980 may I be cursed. That's an oath of malediction. And so that comes commonly with ancient Near Eastern 00:15:33.980 --> 00:15:39.699 covenants. And then the last part of the covenant would be there would be some kind of ceremony or a 00:15:39.700 --> 00:15:46.960 sign to commemorate the making of that obligation, that relationship. So today we use wedding rings 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:52.259 to signal sign and to help you remember the obligation, the vows you've made in the marriage 00:15:52.259 --> 00:15:56.440 covenant. But that's always been the case. And we have one, of course, that we'll talk about in just 00:15:56.440 --> 00:16:00.600 a moment right here. So kings make covenants with each other. Clans make covenants with each other in 00:16:00.600 --> 00:16:05.160 the Bible. Jacob makes a covenant with Laban. David and Jonathan make a covenant of friendship. 00:16:05.159 --> 00:16:12.459 And of course, we know the covenant of marriage. This moment is the first explicit covenant made, 00:16:12.679 --> 00:16:19.039 talked about in the whole Bible in a really explicit, upfront sort of way. And in that section, 00:16:19.259 --> 00:16:26.819 8 to 17, if you look at it carefully, if you read every clause carefully, what you find is that 00:16:26.820 --> 00:16:35.340 this is a very highly stylized passage where it's almost as if you're reading a wedding registry, 00:16:35.480 --> 00:16:41.379 the piece of paper that you sign on a wedding day. It's printed almost like that. There's a rhythm. 00:16:42.100 --> 00:16:48.040 I will establish my covenant with you. It's repeated multiple times. And then the vows, the chorus line, 00:16:48.860 --> 00:16:55.120 the obligations, the chorus line, the oath of malediction hidden within the sign, and the chorus 00:16:55.120 --> 00:17:00.679 line, if you were to work carefully through it. Let me put it like this. I won't do this now because 00:17:00.679 --> 00:17:06.680 there would be far too long of an awkward silence while you counted. But if I asked you, go through 00:17:06.680 --> 00:17:15.420 8 to 17 and count how many times the word covenant appears in a rhythm, it appears seven times. 00:17:16.059 --> 00:17:22.539 It's a very highly chosen, stylized way of God speaking, pronouncing. Imagine that, 00:17:22.539 --> 00:17:28.059 seven times because it's following Genesis 1 in the days of creation and saying, I'm reestablishing 00:17:28.059 --> 00:17:35.240 creation order, and I'm making a covenant here with you in the same logic like I made you in Genesis 00:17:35.240 --> 00:17:40.859 chapter 1. And so here it is. What's this covenant? This covenant, who are the parties? Chapter 9, 00:17:40.940 --> 00:17:48.799 verse 9, we read who the parties are. God says, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring 00:17:48.799 --> 00:17:54.099 after you. So then he goes on. That's with every single human being, God and every human being, 00:17:54.500 --> 00:17:58.899 and then with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, every beast of the 00:17:58.899 --> 00:18:04.779 earth, as many came out of the ark. It is for every single animal, beast, creature in the whole earth. 00:18:05.500 --> 00:18:13.059 He's saying something astonishing. God has covenanted from this moment with every single thing that he ever 00:18:13.059 --> 00:18:19.099 made. He's entered into a covenant. And then you say, well, where are the vows? Verse 11, he gives 00:18:19.099 --> 00:18:24.480 the vows. I establish my covenant with you. There's the chorus line that never again will all flesh be 00:18:24.480 --> 00:18:29.299 cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth. 00:18:29.960 --> 00:18:36.099 There's his covenant vows, his promises. I will never again bring a flood that would wipe the sons of 00:18:36.099 --> 00:18:41.039 Adam and the daughters of Eve off the earth and all the creeping things. And then you say, okay, 00:18:41.039 --> 00:18:48.559 a covenant needs a sign. It needs a wedding ring. It needs a symbol. And you come down to verse 12 to 13, 00:18:48.759 --> 00:18:55.240 and he says, I will put my bow in the clouds. And I will look at the sign, and I will remember my 00:18:55.240 --> 00:19:01.680 covenant with you and with all the beasts and all the creatures. Now, friends, the most important thing, 00:19:01.759 --> 00:19:06.799 I think, maybe one of the most important things to know today is that this covenant that God made with 00:19:06.799 --> 00:19:15.419 all of the cosmos is very much in force today. And that God is actively existing in covenant 00:19:15.419 --> 00:19:20.259 relationship with you and with all the animals and all the beasts of the field and the stars in the 00:19:20.259 --> 00:19:25.460 heavens and the whole cosmos from the tiniest little subatopic particles all the way to the highest 00:19:25.460 --> 00:19:32.980 heavens right now underneath the obligations that he made in Genesis chapter 9 and this covenant. And so 00:19:32.980 --> 00:19:38.980 let me be as precise as I can be about this covenant. This covenant that stands today does not promise 00:19:38.980 --> 00:19:45.640 forgiveness as the rest of the covenants we'll see in the Bible does. Instead, it's promising 00:19:45.640 --> 00:19:53.259 preservation. And God is saying, he's giving really what we now call something that the theologians 00:19:53.259 --> 00:20:02.019 call common grace. And he's saying that I will be patient and loving and kind to all people, 00:20:02.019 --> 00:20:11.180 no matter what they believe in. And I will preserve them. And I will, you tried to burn down the stage, 00:20:11.299 --> 00:20:18.960 I'm keeping it. And I'm going to play out the drama of history. And that's my promise. And that means 00:20:18.960 --> 00:20:24.720 that the reason this covenant exists is he's saying, while this covenant might not be the promise of 00:20:24.720 --> 00:20:32.700 forgiveness yet, he's saying, I'm keeping the stage so that I can work out the drama of redemption on the 00:20:32.700 --> 00:20:40.220 stage. And Abraham's covenant is coming to work out the drama of redemption on the stage. What does it 00:20:40.220 --> 00:20:47.660 mean? Let me give you a few things. Number one, number one, we've got to be willing to look at the 00:20:47.660 --> 00:20:53.240 world the same way God looks at the world. And Genesis 9 tells you how God looks at the world. 00:20:53.460 --> 00:21:02.580 First off, do you read your life and actually all of history underneath the covenant structure that 00:21:02.580 --> 00:21:08.000 God has taught you exist in the Bible? He's telling us here something profound. And that's that 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:14.740 without the concept of covenant, really the Bible is just an anthology of stories 00:21:14.740 --> 00:21:20.740 that God's given you about people's faith. But when you see that covenant is the structure, 00:21:21.120 --> 00:21:26.900 not only of the Bible, but of all of history, it's actually the way you should think about all 00:21:26.900 --> 00:21:32.140 of history and even your life, that my life exists underneath the covenant. That's the whole meaning 00:21:32.140 --> 00:21:39.480 of the space-time continuum that we're walking in right now. But secondly, not only is it a mindset 00:21:39.480 --> 00:21:45.120 for you philosophy students in the room, a historiography of how you should think about 00:21:45.120 --> 00:21:50.880 the world. It's also a mindset for how you approach the world in the way that God does. 00:21:51.160 --> 00:21:57.779 One of the big issues we face today is the issue of the age of the internet giving rise to the 00:21:57.779 --> 00:22:04.720 addiction of scrolling, scrolling ourselves to death. And we all probably struggle with that to some 00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:10.539 degree. And one of the terms that's been coined to describe this is doom scrolling, but that's led 00:22:10.539 --> 00:22:14.660 to a second concept that I think describes something very real, and that's doomerism. 00:22:15.519 --> 00:22:20.279 Doom scrolling leads to doomerism. And what is doomerism? It's that we look out of the world and 00:22:20.279 --> 00:22:28.240 we have a mindset of fatalism, of pessimism, of cynicism, especially cultivated by doom scrolling 00:22:28.240 --> 00:22:32.900 and the internet. And we think, I can only see the bad. Really, that's what the mindset is. 00:22:32.900 --> 00:22:38.140 I look at the political realm and I only see the bad. I look at the ecological realm and I only see 00:22:38.140 --> 00:22:43.040 the bad. I look at the economic realm and I only see the bad. And doom scrolling has created a whole 00:22:43.040 --> 00:22:51.960 movement of doomerism. But Genesis 9 says something so nuanced, and it's 821, the intention of the human 00:22:51.960 --> 00:22:59.280 heart is only evil from its youth. Yes, things are bad. And yet, God looks at the world and says, 00:22:59.279 --> 00:23:06.460 I have set my covenant on this world to promise from the tiniest to the greatest thing that's ever 00:23:06.460 --> 00:23:13.879 existed that I'm keeping it and it's good. You know, you woke up this morning and the buildings 00:23:13.879 --> 00:23:21.539 were still standing and the heat came on in the church today, unlike last week. And, you know, 00:23:21.619 --> 00:23:27.059 you had coffee probably and tea and breakfast and the crops are still coming up. And actually, 00:23:27.059 --> 00:23:32.039 actually, while on the one hand, the world is so sinful and broken, on the other hand, because of 00:23:32.039 --> 00:23:40.519 the Noahic covenant, the world is so good in so many ways. Not ethically, no, broken morally, oh, to be 00:23:40.519 --> 00:23:48.899 sure. But look at the gifts. And actually, chaos is not the normal state of our lives. It would be, 00:23:48.980 --> 00:23:54.960 it would all be Mad Max without the Noahic covenant. The other thing we might, you know, we might be, 00:23:54.960 --> 00:23:59.460 you might be prone to doomerism. Some of us are prone on the opposite wing to what the ancients 00:23:59.460 --> 00:24:06.720 called acedia. And acedia is really an old word for a type of boredom. Doom scrolling can cause this 00:24:06.720 --> 00:24:12.559 too. And it's, you know, I'm just bored by everything. Everything is dull. I just don't 00:24:12.559 --> 00:24:17.940 care about anything. I have apathy in my life. The old monks in the early church called this the noonday 00:24:17.940 --> 00:24:22.880 demon, where every day by the time you get to noon, you wake up and think, what am I doing? This is all 00:24:22.880 --> 00:24:29.580 pointless. And that's not really laziness, but it's a heart that stopped receiving the promise of the 00:24:29.580 --> 00:24:37.180 Noahic covenant. And here's the diagnosis. Here's the problem, is that sin is, of course, things we do, 00:24:37.720 --> 00:24:43.460 ways we break God's moral law. But sin also makes us unable to see the good things. 00:24:45.240 --> 00:24:49.080 And acedia creeps in. We're bored with everything. Everything's dull. 00:24:49.079 --> 00:24:54.099 And this passage is saying we're not yet seeing the world the way God sees it. 00:24:55.079 --> 00:24:59.980 That He loves this place and the people and the creatures and the bugs and the spiders and all of 00:24:59.980 --> 00:25:07.419 it. And a third final way, the old church, the early church called this the problem of Gnosticism. 00:25:07.619 --> 00:25:13.159 It's a fancy word for a simple idea. And that's just, Gnosticism is always something that can creep 00:25:13.160 --> 00:25:19.120 into the church's consciousness. And it's something that says this, the world is a place for me to 00:25:19.120 --> 00:25:23.840 escape. There is only danger out there, outside the walls of the church and Christian community. 00:25:24.320 --> 00:25:30.800 Everything that I touch, taste, eat, everything is bad. And so I need to discipline myself maximally 00:25:30.800 --> 00:25:35.940 and get away, even from the physical at times, because it is only the spiritual, only the heavenly 00:25:35.940 --> 00:25:41.380 that's good. And actually, in some sense, we're trying to be holier than God when we think that. 00:25:43.120 --> 00:25:49.559 Because God says that He loves the bugs and the people and every person that exists in the whole 00:25:49.559 --> 00:25:54.340 cosmos, that He's made them and He's preserving them and He's keeping them and He's keeping them. 00:25:54.380 --> 00:25:59.420 It's not a promise here that all are redeemed. The promise here is that He's saying, 00:25:59.420 --> 00:26:04.700 I'm keeping, I'm giving you breath, I'm keeping you alive so that you would see my patience and my 00:26:04.700 --> 00:26:10.100 love and enter into the drama of redemption fully that I have built for you on this stage. 00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:15.800 And so I just want to ask you, do you see the world the way God sees it? Do you love the city and love 00:26:15.800 --> 00:26:20.860 the people and love the creatures as much as God loves them? All creatures, great and small. And the 00:26:20.860 --> 00:26:27.539 medicine here, I have to move on to the very brief final thing, but G.K. Chesterton, I love how he puts it. 00:26:27.539 --> 00:26:35.259 Think about chapter 9, verse 10. We're being told here that God has bound Himself in love to this 00:26:35.259 --> 00:26:42.440 world. And G.K. Chesterton writes this. He talks about the child who comes to their parent, you know, 00:26:42.500 --> 00:26:47.720 pulling on their shirt all the time and saying, do it again, do it again, do it again. My wee little 00:26:47.720 --> 00:26:54.839 Isabel two-year-old, she says over and over, chase me, chase me, chase me. And she's two, so it's very 00:26:54.839 --> 00:27:01.599 cute. It's fine. But as they get older, you know, it becomes something different. And the grown-up, 00:27:01.980 --> 00:27:08.939 Chesterton says this, by the way, the grown-up gets worn out and says, stop asking me for things. Stop 00:27:08.939 --> 00:27:15.059 saying, do it again, do it again, do it again. But Chesterton writes, but God may be more like that 00:27:15.059 --> 00:27:22.480 child than He is like we adults. Because every morning He says to the sun, do it again. Every 00:27:22.480 --> 00:27:29.519 evening He says to the moon, do it again. And He never gets bored. Day and night, seed time and harvest. 00:27:30.059 --> 00:27:37.220 And Chesterton writes, God perhaps has the eternal appetite of infancy, for we have sinned and we've 00:27:37.220 --> 00:27:49.779 grown old. And our Father is far younger than we are. His child, He's got an appetite for loving to see 00:27:49.779 --> 00:27:56.519 the world functioning in its cosmic structure. He delights in it. And the question is, do we? Boy, He's 00:27:56.519 --> 00:28:04.259 bound Himself to us. He's bound Himself to us. And so, finally, He hangs His bow in the clouds. He not 00:28:04.259 --> 00:28:10.319 only establishes a covenant, He hangs His bow in the clouds, very briefly. Some of us here today 00:28:10.319 --> 00:28:16.879 not only are maybe saying, yeah, I do want to grow in seeing the world the way God does, not 00:28:16.879 --> 00:28:22.920 in doomerism or ascedia or gnosticism, but in the delight God has actually in the created world, 00:28:23.319 --> 00:28:28.140 acknowledging fully 821, it's sinfulness, it's brokenness, it's moral depravity. But some of us 00:28:28.140 --> 00:28:32.440 today need to see something else, and that's the truth of the way God sees you. 00:28:34.259 --> 00:28:41.599 And so, you might be a Christian today, and you read 821 and say, the desires of my heart are only 00:28:41.599 --> 00:28:48.519 evil and very so intentionally from my youth, and I feel that very much. I come back to the same sins 00:28:48.519 --> 00:28:56.700 every month, every year, every week, every day. And maybe you've built up a massive amount of guilt in 00:28:56.700 --> 00:29:05.000 your life, and you think, God must be so tired of me. I come back with the same problems, the same issues. 00:29:06.039 --> 00:29:10.200 And today, you need to see the Noahic covenant, not because it's a covenant of redemption, but because 00:29:10.200 --> 00:29:17.759 it says to you that God has bound Himself to you in ways that you can't even imagine, that He loves you 00:29:17.759 --> 00:29:25.779 and is patient with you beyond your imagination. And you got to see, you know, in the way that you got 00:29:25.779 --> 00:29:30.359 to see the world the way God sees the world, you got to see yourself the way God sees you. And again, 00:29:30.440 --> 00:29:37.000 listen to the nuance. Sinner from the bottom, you know. He sees you. He sees you all the way to the 00:29:37.000 --> 00:29:42.160 bottom, and He knows the truth about you, yet He binds Himself to you in the Noahic covenant and says, 00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:49.000 but I love you to the sky. And so, I'm keeping the stage so that you could find redemption. 00:29:49.560 --> 00:29:55.540 That's how much I want you. That's how much I love you. And so, He hangs His bow in the clouds as we 00:29:55.540 --> 00:30:06.620 finish. Notice in this passage, especially in verses 9 to 13, where does Noah and the animals and where do 00:30:06.619 --> 00:30:13.819 you sign the dotted line of the wedding registry here? God comes and says, I'm establishing my 00:30:13.819 --> 00:30:21.699 covenant with you, but notice that Noah never even says anything. And the animals don't get a choice. 00:30:21.739 --> 00:30:26.459 Of course, they can't to enter into this covenant. And Abraham Kuyper puts it like this, God does not 00:30:26.459 --> 00:30:32.019 ask whether people approve of this covenant. He decides it, and it remains that way, even if we 00:30:32.019 --> 00:30:37.099 should resist it with all of our might. And you see, this is so contra modernist individualism, but 00:30:37.099 --> 00:30:42.240 the disease of sin says on the one hand, of course, I don't want the flood. I don't want God's judgment. 00:30:42.799 --> 00:30:47.759 Of course, we don't. But the disease of sin in our hearts also says, I don't want His mercy either. 00:30:48.579 --> 00:30:54.180 I don't want anything to do with Him. That's what sin actually creates in us. Let us make a name for 00:30:54.180 --> 00:30:58.559 ourselves. That's the chorus line of Genesis 4 to 11. I don't want anything to do with His judgment. 00:30:58.559 --> 00:31:04.599 I don't want anything to do with His mercy. I want to be left alone. I want to be the king of my own 00:31:04.599 --> 00:31:10.980 life. And therefore, in this covenant, it is what the theologians call unilateral, one way. It comes 00:31:10.980 --> 00:31:17.700 down. You don't even get a say in it. And only, only in that scenario could we possibly be saved. 00:31:19.019 --> 00:31:23.240 This is unlike any human relationship, not like marriage even, because in marriage, you have two 00:31:23.240 --> 00:31:28.259 people vowing to one another. But here, you have God binding Himself to you before you were ever 00:31:28.259 --> 00:31:37.099 even a thought in the world, before you were born. And that is why the bow, that's why He gives the bow. 00:31:37.799 --> 00:31:44.879 Because the question remains, if 821 is true and our hearts are only evil, only struggling with sin, 00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:52.339 only bent away from Him and towards ourselves, is God just saying, I'm keeping the world, I'm preserving 00:31:52.339 --> 00:31:58.299 the world. And I'm not really concerned about the question of justice anymore. You know, I'm going 00:31:58.299 --> 00:32:03.299 to let them fall down into the depths that they were in in Genesis 6. Again, violence, murder, 00:32:04.139 --> 00:32:08.119 sexual sin of all kinds. And He says, you know, it's all fine because I'm just going to be merciful, 00:32:08.619 --> 00:32:13.819 never bring justice. And that would not be a holy God. That would not be a good God. 00:32:13.819 --> 00:32:21.039 And so He hangs the bow in the clouds. Verse 13, I've set my bow in the cloud. Now, listen, friends, 00:32:21.819 --> 00:32:26.279 rainbows already existed, just like bread existed before the Lord's Supper. 00:32:27.859 --> 00:32:33.879 Of course it did. But if you look today and say, oh, come on, a rainbow is now this sign of God's 00:32:33.879 --> 00:32:39.279 perpetual mercy in the world. And you say, that's just not what it means. Rainbows are scientific. 00:32:39.279 --> 00:32:45.440 They're refractions of light after a storm through the lens of the sunshine hitting them and creating 00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:49.980 this colorful spectrum. It's just something the human eye catches in the scientific order that 00:32:49.980 --> 00:32:54.980 we live in. But look, that's like saying, that's like saying, look, I see all of you and all I see 00:32:54.980 --> 00:33:01.639 is a collocation of atoms. God has taken something that's so real in the scientific order, the cosmic 00:33:01.639 --> 00:33:08.220 structure, that already existed and He set it aside to be a covenant sign or we might call it a sacrament. 00:33:08.220 --> 00:33:14.000 And so all the covenants have sacraments. Adam's covenant, God's covenant with Adam, the tree of life 00:33:14.000 --> 00:33:18.360 is a sacrament. And Abraham's covenant, circumcision will become the sacrament, the sign. 00:33:19.120 --> 00:33:24.559 And then in the new covenant, of course, baptism and the Lord's Supper. So here God gives a covenant 00:33:24.559 --> 00:33:32.660 sign, a bow, a rainbow. But it's so important to see that the word that is written in verse 13 is not 00:33:32.660 --> 00:33:38.940 the word rainbow exactly. The word written in verse 13 in Hebrew is the word for the warrior's bow. 00:33:39.779 --> 00:33:47.120 It is the bow that shoots an arrow. And so he says here, I have hung up my warrior's bow in the cloud. 00:33:47.519 --> 00:33:54.740 And that is the sign of my love for you, my preservation of you. Meredith Klein, one theologian, 00:33:54.740 --> 00:34:03.599 says this, God's battle bow has been laid aside, a token of grace, staying the lightning shafts of 00:34:03.599 --> 00:34:10.340 wrath through the flood. God has decided, I will hang up my bow. I will not bring the judgment on 00:34:10.340 --> 00:34:15.280 them that they deserve. You know, if you think about this warrior's bow hung in the sky, which direction 00:34:15.280 --> 00:34:19.699 does it point? If you were to attach an arrow to the rainbow, this warrior's bow in the sky, 00:34:19.699 --> 00:34:26.299 where would the arrow go? And the arrow would only go up. It would shoot upward. And God's taking this 00:34:26.299 --> 00:34:32.179 real thing that exists out in the world and he's saying, you look at that and realize that it's not 00:34:32.179 --> 00:34:35.699 just that I've been willy-nilly about justice. I've not just thrown the question of justice out 00:34:35.699 --> 00:34:43.799 altogether. No, I have turned the bow against myself. Just like in Genesis 15, when Abraham was told to cut 00:34:43.800 --> 00:34:50.400 up the pieces and God as a covenant sign would pass between them, Abraham vowing, if I break the 00:34:50.400 --> 00:34:55.260 conditions of the covenant, may I be cut in pieces like these animals. But when it came time, Abraham 00:34:55.260 --> 00:35:02.720 was put to sleep and God passed between the pieces for Abraham. God saying, may I be cut in half 00:35:02.720 --> 00:35:09.320 if Abraham breaks the conditions of the covenant. And in the Noahic covenant, what about justice? God is 00:35:09.320 --> 00:35:16.700 saying, the oath of malediction falls only on me. He has hung his bow in the clouds. He has shot his arrow 00:35:16.700 --> 00:35:23.160 into the heart of heaven. And who sits at the heart of heaven? It is Jesus Christ, the Son. He turns his 00:35:23.160 --> 00:35:31.900 bow against the Son. The Son says, I will take the arrow. The Son of God says that. And that means that 00:35:31.900 --> 00:35:38.880 when you come to a place like Isaiah 53 and you read, Jesus Christ will be stricken and pierced. 00:35:39.320 --> 00:35:46.200 For our transgressions. He took the arrow. He took the arrow of your injustice. The arrow that your 00:35:46.200 --> 00:35:51.700 injustice deserves at the hand of God's justice. And that means the rainbow directs you straight to 00:35:51.700 --> 00:36:00.880 the cross. And the last thing I'll say is, the last thing I'll say is that when you read this text, 00:36:00.940 --> 00:36:05.660 especially at the end of verse 14 to 17, who does it say that the sign is actually for? 00:36:06.599 --> 00:36:12.679 It's not even primarily for Noah. Verse 16, when the bow is in the clouds, God says, I will look at it. 00:36:12.960 --> 00:36:20.199 I will see. I will remember. You see that? He's saying the bow in the clouds is the sign for God 00:36:20.199 --> 00:36:24.879 to remember. And it's not at all saying that he forgets, but instead what he's doing is he's inviting 00:36:24.879 --> 00:36:30.480 you into something. He's inviting you to see every time today. Let me ask you, do you do this? Today, 00:36:30.480 --> 00:36:35.740 there's pretty decent conditions for a rainbow today. When you go out into the world, do you just 00:36:35.740 --> 00:36:39.480 look through the lens of your scientific materialist worldview, or do you go out into the world 00:36:39.480 --> 00:36:46.820 and see that rainbows today are the covenant sign that God has given you, that you would look at, 00:36:46.860 --> 00:36:54.260 and you would know he is looking at that rainbow right now and saying, the bow I see pointed me in 00:36:54.260 --> 00:36:58.360 the beginning of history directly to the cross. And now when God looks at the rainbow, what is he looking 00:36:58.360 --> 00:37:05.160 at? He's looking at the cross. He's seeing the one to whom the rainbow pointed, that the arrow would 00:37:05.160 --> 00:37:10.599 strike the sun on your behalf, that he would die in your place. And look, in order to have a rainbow, 00:37:10.880 --> 00:37:14.700 you've got to have storm clouds. And so let me invite you, every time you look at a rainbow, 00:37:15.280 --> 00:37:21.160 no matter what you believe today, this is what it's saying to you. The storm clouds were there before 00:37:21.160 --> 00:37:25.380 the rainbow showed up, right? You got to look at the storm clouds before, and you got to say, 00:37:25.380 --> 00:37:31.680 the storm clouds represent my life, my heart, the condition of my heart, 821, that without me seeing 00:37:31.680 --> 00:37:36.960 the dark clouds first, I'm not ever going to see the covenant promise that has been fulfilled for me 00:37:36.960 --> 00:37:41.320 at the cross of Jesus Christ. But then you got to look at the rainbow that follows the cloud 00:37:41.320 --> 00:37:47.280 and say, he's done it for me. The rainbow tells me that once again, I am a child of God. 00:37:47.380 --> 00:37:53.619 I have been adopted. You got to hear God say, I see the bow. I remember the cross. I see the baptismal 00:37:53.619 --> 00:37:59.960 waters down here, and I see Christ crucified for you. I see the bread broken at the table. 00:38:00.219 --> 00:38:05.759 I see the wine poured, and I see the blood of Christ poured for you. God is saying that I look 00:38:05.759 --> 00:38:10.940 at the sacraments. I look at the rainbow. I look at the bread. I look at the wine. I look at the water, 00:38:10.940 --> 00:38:18.920 and I remember how much I love you. George Matheson, Edinburgh minister, George Matheson, 00:38:18.920 --> 00:38:23.880 a long time ago. He wrote the hymn, O Love That Will Not Let Me Go. We're going to sing it now. 00:38:24.639 --> 00:38:32.139 And in the third stanza, he writes, O joy that seekest me through pain, I cannot close my heart 00:38:32.139 --> 00:38:41.659 to thee. I trace the rainbow through the rain, and I feel the promise is not vain. That morn 00:38:41.659 --> 00:38:49.199 shall tearless be. The morn that is to come, and that morn is Revelation 4.3. In the new heavens and 00:38:49.199 --> 00:38:56.639 the new earth, the Son of Man appears. He sits on his throne, and John writes, I saw the Son of Man 00:38:56.639 --> 00:39:04.699 on the throne, and a rainbow that shone like an emerald encircled above him. And that is the morn 00:39:04.699 --> 00:39:12.099 that the rainbow points us to. Let us pray, Father. We ask that you would help our hearts 00:39:12.099 --> 00:39:18.419 now to trace the rainbow through the rain, that we would see the astounding love that you have for us, 00:39:18.919 --> 00:39:24.419 the mercy, perpetual mercy you've placed upon this world as the stage, the theater of your glory and 00:39:24.419 --> 00:39:31.079 redemption, and that we would be reminded that the rainbow points us to the cross, that in Jesus, 00:39:31.079 --> 00:39:38.400 all the arrows were let go, released into him that we deserved. And we thank you, Lord, that Christ 00:39:38.400 --> 00:39:45.179 is the meeting place of judgment and mercy, our mercy, the mercy you've given to us. So I pray today 00:39:45.179 --> 00:39:50.500 that even as we sing these words of George Matheson, we would be helped to trace the rainbow 00:39:50.500 --> 00:39:54.400 through the dark clouds of our lives. And we pray that in Christ's name. Amen.