In this sermon, the speaker reflects on the story of Noah and the flood. He describes how Noah must have felt as he opened the window of the ark after 40 days of rain and saw the tops of the hills emerging from the waters. The speaker then discusses the significance of Noah sending out a raven and a dove to check if the waters had receded. He also touches on the topic of justice and how the leniency in society has led to corruption, citing the biblical principle of "an eye for an eye." The sermon concludes with a personal anecdote about a late-night encounter with a lost young man banging on the speaker's door.

We're in Genesis chapter 7. Now we are coming to the place where the Lord takes Noah and his family into the ark. The backdrop again is an era with a huge population on the earth, very strange spiritual activity, the corruption of the human race, violence, the imagination of man's heart, only continually evil, tyranny, and idolatry. And God comes to Noah and asks him to build this ark. And again, you have to imagine that it never had rained before. Noah had no idea when God said it's going to rain. You can understand where Bill Cosby jumped in here. What is rain? Well, small drops of water will fall from the sky. That was something that had not happened. It tells in Genesis 2, it had not rained, but a great mist went up from the ground and watered the garden and the earth. He spends 100 to 120 years building this boat in the face of mockery, in the face of the challenge constantly to his faith. As you and I live in these last days, there's a constant challenge to our faith. I mean, sometimes in difficult circumstances, we find ourselves saying, Lord, where is your love? You really love me. Why are you letting this happen? Are we really in control? Lord, why this? Why now? Why can't I sense your presence? Why can't I get an answer from you right now about this? In many ways, we sometimes find things in the scripture that are difficult for us to digest and hard for us to understand. Martin Luther said there's a doctrine for every season in a man's life. And Noah is hearing many new things. He's hearing about a worldwide judgment, which is something that never happened. He's hearing about rain, something that had never happened before. He is asked to prepare in a long obedience. Imagine if you had to obey in regard to one particular thing for 100 to 120 years in the face of constant mockery. I mean, it's wonderful that we can gather here together and worship together and sing his praises together. And we have the reinforcement of the body of Christ and other believers that strengthen us. Imagine if it was just you and your wife and your kids and no one else in the planet on your side. And constant people being belligerent and persecuting. Hebrews says, by faith, Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet, something that had never been seen, moved with fear. I like that. Prepared an ark to the saving of his house by the which he condemned the world and became the heir of the righteousness. That's in regards to the Messiah, which is by faith. So as we come to the end of chapter six, the remarkable verse 22 that says, Thus did Noah notice according to all that God commanded him, so did he. By faith he believed these things were true. By faith he was able to fear. It says he was moved with fear. Fear is a good thing, not the dread of God, not fear in the sense of fear having torment, but the fear of the Lord is clean. The Bible tells us there is a fear that is a good fear. It's a good thing that you stop at red lights. You do that out of fear. You're afraid of an accident. You're medical insurance. That's because you're afraid that you may get sick and not be able to pay the bills. It's just prudence, wisdom, fear, and is a good thing. It can be a tormenting thing if Satan is at the root of it. But there is a perfect love. John says, cast out all fear. That is the perfecting, the tenses in the Greek, the perfecting of God's love towards you. The more you grow in that love, it casts out all fear in the sense of fear that is tormenting. But the fear of the Lord is a good thing. So here is Noah. He, by faith, that's attached to things that had not been seen before. Faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the substance of things not seen. So Noah, exercising faith in regards to something God said would come that had never been seen, a world by judgment, we're standing in front of that today. Then it says, because he really believed what he heard, it gave birth to fear in his heart, a good fear, a clean fear, a reverence. And that fear motivated him to obedience, to building an ark, which took a hundred years. And it put him in a position where he was able to stay above things in a world that was falling apart. So I think, you know, as we talk to our friends and our relatives, if we really believe that Jesus could come at any time, and that's what we say we believe, that faith, and it's something that hasn't been seen before, you know, the Lord descending with the shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God. The only one that's ever been raptured before is Enoch and Elijah. It hasn't happened on the scale that we believe it's going to happen. We believe Jesus is going to come interrupt human history at any time. And if we really do believe that, and that takes faith, then we should be moved by fear. There should be a reverence in regards to the days we live in. And then the fact that Christ could interrupt us in the middle of anything. So we want to make sure when that happens, it's not in the middle of being drunk or not in the middle of being violent or not in the middle of living with compromise or apathy. If we get interrupted, we want to be interrupted about his business. Jesus said that we should occupy until he comes. So fear is a healthy thing. It keeps us clean and pure. And it gave birth to his obedience. And imagine a hundred years working alone without a church, without fellowship, him and his family on this ark. Chapter seven begins by saying, and the Lord said unto Noah, come thou. And if you have a translation that says, go thou, it's a bad translation there. God is in the ark when he beckons Noah. By the way, that's the first time the word come see what I mean is use this particular word in the Bible. And the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark. God is inside beckoning him for thee. Have I seen righteous before me in this generation? Now, by the way, he sees us righteous the same way. It isn't that that Noah was sinless, that God saw him righteous, but he was righteous in that he believed. Uh, that's what chapter 11 is all about in Hebrews, that the judge shall live by faith. Soon as Noah gets off the ark, he sacrifices, he builds an altar and he sacrifices. He understands a blood atonement. Again, you have to remember that, that Noah's father Lamech, that Adam lived until Lamech was about 50 years old. So Noah's father heard directly from the first man who wasn't born, but was created by God understood what the stakes were understood about substitutionary atonement taught by Adam and his family. And Noah has a direct line to that. And as soon as he gets off the ark, he will build an altar and sacrifice. So God sees him righteous the same way he sees us righteous. And that is by faith for thee. Have I seen righteous before me in this generation of every clean beast thou shall take unto thee by sevens male and female. Now there's another place where it says you take them two by two. Here's the purpose to keep them alive on the earth for reproduction. But now he's told in regards to clean animals, and this is before Leviticus. So God has ministered to the heart of man in regards to sacrifice. Now we don't read about sin offerings or meal offerings or fellowship offers. The only offering that we read of until the law really is the burnt offering. Every offering is a burnt offering, but God has already ministered to those who believe that there are animals that are acceptable in the sacrifice. So now God's going to say of every clean animal, I think there's 10 listed in Leviticus that that you take seven pairs of each clean animal because they were not just to reproduce. They were also to be there for sacrifice. So he's taking seven of every that's 140 of those animals take thee by sevens male and female and of the beasts that are not clean by two male and female and of fowls also of the air by sevens the male and the female to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth for yet seven days and I will cause it to rain upon the earth 40 days and 40 nights and every living subsidence that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. So isn't it interesting all of a sudden God is speaking to him saying in seven days is when all of your labor 100 years worth of work is going to be worth it in seven days. I take it that at some time in this time period where Methuselah passes off the scene because his name is when it when he dies it shall come and we hear that Methuselah died at the very time that the flood came so seven days I imagine what those seven days were like certainly they were preparatory Noah preparing his heart preparing his family. Verse five says Noah did according to all that the Lord commanded him particularly after God said seven days and Noah was 600 years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth now he knew he was 500 when he started building the ark and Noah went in and his sons and his wife and his son's wives with him into the ark because of the waters of the flood of clean beasts and of beasts that are not clean and of fowls and of everything that creepeth upon the earth there went in to and to unto notice they came to Noah into the ark the male and the female as God had commanded Noah and it came to pass after seven days that the waters of the flood were upon the earth so very interesting as we head into this there's at least six times through these passages that tell us that God preserved Noah and his sons and Noah's wife and his son's wives alive we have no detail anywhere of the perishing of the ungodly world we have no record of the screaming of people that are drowning or banging on the ark asking you know the Bible tells in Ezekiel that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked and there is in this no record now as we begin to read this that the the waters came the flood began you have to understand this is written for us this is not written for the unbelieving world to them it's still a storybook kind of tale a non-truth this is like Genesis chapter 1 it's written for us those who believe and there's no doubt in my heart at all that this is all true this took place as God now beckons them to come in and then God says of all the animals they came to Noah Noah didn't have to go find them you know they may have started out five years earlier I mean you know reindeer had to come all the way from the North Pole and Ernie and Bert had to come all the way from Sesame Street you know and then you know they had to come all the way from all over the world who knows some of them their grandparents may have started on the journey and then the kids were born along the way and then the the grandkids finally got to the ark God brought them Noah didn't have to go out and trap them and hunt them down and bring them to the ark so they all of this is converging at one time as God said to Noah in seven days the rain will begin Noah must have looked around and the animals then started to come and he must have just been confirming all of this now is culminating at one time verse 11 says in the 600 year of Noah's life the second month and the 17th day of the month the same day were all the fountains of the great deep that's very important broken up and the windows of heaven were open and the rain itself was on the earth 40 days and 40 nights now this incredible amount of water could not have come just from rain obviously we believe that there was a vapor canopy then and that had a lot to do with the longevity of man there had never been rain but a mist watered the earth and it seems like there was a vapor canopy that filtered infrared ultraviolet light but we're told some very interesting things as we look at the record in Genesis 2 we see Eden we're in a world it tells us right there in that chapter there's no rain and yet we see rivers and coming in the foreheads coming out of Eden so we know it was a world with rivers and yet without rain that means it wasn't fed by tributaries in the way we understand it and it seems that there was a tremendous aqua system under the ground a huge aqua system that when the rain began the plates of the earth begin to crumble and change and the fountains of the great deep were broken up and the majority of that water seems that it gushed out from under the ground and that's what it's telling us here and the rain itself was on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights and the cell same day entered Noah and Shem and Ham every time I read this my kids love it that there's a guy named Ham and Japheth the sons of Noah and Noah's wife and the three wives and his sons with them into the ark they and every beast after his kind all the cattle after their kind every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind and every fowl after his kind every bird of every sort now again by the dimensions of this ark there is a tremendous amount of room they say today with the species of land animals that we know of that on 150 boxcars we could basically fit two of every land creature now we know the dimensions of the ark the the space was about 520 boxcars worth of space so there is plenty of room on the ark in this scene when the when the rain begins and the fountains of the deep are broken up no doubt immediately there was a change in weather patterns did noah have to bring enough food on board and water for these animals to maintain their normal consumption every day i don't know that did were they in a stupor that god allowed them because the weather's changing for the first time to be in a semi-state like a hibernation state during this 371 days upon the ark i don't know that we're not given those details but certainly there are changes taking place that are incredible verse 15 says they went into noah the animals into the ark two and two of all flesh wherein is the breath of life and they that went in went in male and female of all flesh as god had commanded him and of course amazing it says and the lord shut him in it was god that shut the door when it was time i don't think god wanted on noah's conscience the the the sense of noah himself cranking that door shut and hearing an unbelieving world begin to pound on the outside of that ark it was god who shut the door and bore responsibility for all that he was doing at this time it says in the flood was 40 days now this is in regards to rain upon the earth and the waters increased now in these next three verses we have they increased they prevailed they increased greatly they prevailed exceedingly you'll see that as we read through the flood was 40 days upon the earth the waters increased to bear up the ark and it was lifted up above the earth and the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon the earth and the ark went upon the face of the waters and the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered 15 cubits upward did the waters prevail and the mountains were covered so 30 foot or so above the top of the highest mountains that existed now the question is of course what were the mountain ranges like were they similar were they hills were they anything like the mountain ranges we see today were the mountain ranges born when the fountains of the great the great deep began to break up had they been there before that uh presently on the earth with 330 million cubical miles of of water in the oceans 330 million cubical miles they say if you would take the entire surface of the earth and make it completely level flat all around that the water would be thousands of feet deep everywhere on the surface of the earth so we know that water from genesis 1 was in its beds it tells us that he appointed the waves their boundaries then separated the the land from the sea it seems that all land was connected by land bridges at that time and we'll look at that as we go on but we have no idea if the surface of the earth if the himalayas and and the the andes and all of those mountains where are were they the same way they were today i don't think so there are places in the himalayas where they find crustaceans and and salt water shells fossils again lake titicaca in the andes they find the terraces are still there for planting vineyards and it is way above the timber line so there's great evidence that these mountains were much lower at a certain point in time and the geological changes that take place when this cataclysm comes actually pushed up some of these ranges and things changed in a dramatic way that the earth was an upheaval in an interesting way so at this point in time we do know however high any of the highest points were that they were covered by at least 30 foot of water and all flesh died that moved upon the earth both of the fowl and the cattle of the beast of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth and every man all in whose nostrils speaking of men was the breath of life and all that was in the dry land died every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground both man and cattle creeping things and the fowl of heaven they were destroyed from the earth and noah only remained alive and they that were with him in the ark and the waters prevailed upon the earth 150 days so these are 360 days in a year then so this is five months so for five months the waters prevailed it gives us the idea they came to a peak and and they leveled off at their highest point for five months they reached their highest level you know somebody had brought in a book several weeks ago of satellite photography of different places all around the the globe and photographing out into space from some of our satellites and it is really incredible how beautiful the earth is i mean they give you shots of the andes and the himalayas and of paris you could see you see the streets and different cities and i think it would have been remarkable to get a satellite photo of the ark i mean with the whole earth blue with not a thing anywhere with this one boat roughly the size of the titanic and again i know that's a bad comparison because um but just this one thing visible on a perfectly blue background everywhere what an interesting sight that must have been and for these five months the waters are prevailing now 15 of cubits above the highest hill or the highest mountains at that time now chapter eight begins by saying and god remembered noah now it wasn't that god forgot noah we didn't have a lot to remember at that point in time everybody else was gone wasn't like noah was down there saying if you forget about me and leave me with all these animals i'm going to drown myself you know we we lack terms to describe divine activity in heaven i'm sure we'll learn new words that will be adequate to describe the things that god does here in human language uh the writer the idea is god in a particular way begins to be active with noah you know he's he's drifted for five months and basically the dimensions of the ark with a six to one ratio are made to to drift a a dutch navigator several about 150 years ago i believe was the one who researched all the dimensions of the ark and their navy began using these dimensions and the modern dimensions that we use now in our naval warfare naval systems around the world basically were born out of this this man's research in regards to the ark now most of our our ships today are a seven to a seven point five to one ratio they're swifter they have an engine this was really perfect dimensions to float and for five months now he's been adrift as it were and now the idea is god begins to act in a particular way so the language that we have to convey the activity of god beginning says that god remembered no no it wasn't that he forgot him the idea is god is beginning to work again divine activity begins and and he remembered no and every living thing and all the cattle that was with him in the ark and god made a wind to pass over the earth and the waters king james assuaged literally they became quiet or they began calming so i get the idea of those great turbulence before this now there's a change now no doubt weather patterns are beginning there's a wind no doubt things that had not been seen before under a vapor canopy are taking place possibly the earth now coming on its access of 23rd and a third 23 and a third degrees because we're going to see seed time and harvest summer and winter god describes seasons now that it doesn't seem existed before this so some incredible things have taken place the fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped and the rain from heaven was restrained and the waters returned from off the earth continually they began to subside going and after the end of 150 days the waters were abated and the ark rested in the seventh month on the 17th day of the month upon the mountains of ararat now by the way it's very i don't think it's coincidental the seventh month and the 17th day of the month in the hebrew calendar the seventh month the 14th day of the month was the passover the seventh it was changed after that but the seventh month the 17th day is resurrection day interesting the ark comes to rest now what it must have been wonderful to hear that i don't know if you've ever been out in a boat when you bring it up in the shore you hear it crunching on the bottom must have been a nice sound to hear that baby go crunch and pull into something solid so it comes to rest on this particular day and it's interesting god locates the ark for us i think there's a reason it may show up before this is all over not on mount ararat it doesn't say that which is 17 000 foot 17 250 exactly but on the mountains plural of ararat somewhere in that range in armenia turkey today uh where the tigris and the euphrates find their sources and again i i think it's interesting that in revelation chapter 16 we find the river euphrates drying up not damned up it doesn't say that no there's a dam doesn't say that god doesn't need our help it says that river dries up and for that river to dry up the glaciers will have to melt in this ararat range and if they do it'll leave this thing i think that's why it was pitched within and without because i think it had to last i think it will lay out in the open again to a shocked world that is once again under a global judgment so it is there somewhere in the mountains of ararat marco polo in his journal speaks about staying at saint james monastery and those who had seen it that would go up when there were warm summers to the ark they saw crosses made of the wood from the ark it would be neat if somebody found the captain's log wouldn't it i'd love to hear what it was like on there there are over and if you have a wry study bible he gives you the note in there too there are over 270 accounts that anthropologists have discovered around the world in all different civilizations of a global deluge with a man and his family surviving over 270 from ancient cultures around the world preserved today now one of the interesting ones is in a book called the assyrian discoveries by george smith and he talks about the saniform inscriptions that are two thousand years before christ to 2500 years before christ and they actually speak of a holy man who was a sage a man devoted to a single deity and that in his day the saniform tablets read very close to scripture in some places that the earth was filled with violence it actually says there were races of giants then on the earth the earth was corrupt and it tells how this man and it talks about his father it doesn't use the name lamech but it talks about his father how he came into this boat that he built and that he was there and it tells that how he sent out a raven and how he sent out a dove we're going to come to that this is in saniform inscriptions it actually says that when he first came off of the boat that he built an altar and he sacrificed to his god very remarkable records of this bearing witness to the truth of it but you know second peter tells us that men are willingly ignorant of these things that hark of the judgment of god that men are willingly ignorant that there's enough evidence if men care to see if they search with an honest heart that that that it will be revealed to them but there are those who begin to see the truth and because what it means it means accountability and what it will mean to them if they dig deeper that they shut it off and they are willingly ignorant they don't want to know but it's interesting this arc came to rest now it tells us in the mountains of ararat now and no doubt a 17,000 foot mountain you know these may have been pushed up under the arc as the earth is changing uh it is interesting that in the mariana trench off of japan and some of the trenches of the philippines that are deepest in the world over five miles deep that uh that the silt in there is minuscule there's hardly any silt at all which tells oceanographers that they're fairly new they're less than several thousand years old because if not they'd have been very deep in sediment and silt so so no doubt during this time as the as the water was moved off the earth god was gouging out deep beds in the ocean and all of this to balance the earth again to take it out of a wobble to leave it on a 23rd and a third degree axis he was raising you know again like somebody balances your tires hammering those things on he was putting mountain ranges in other places and balancing this world out to spin again with a balance and god locates very interesting to me this thing in the mountains of ararat it says it comes to rest and the waters decrease continually until the 10th month now that's three more months in the 10th month on the first day of the month the tops of the mountains now are being seen so noah is stuck in a place as he's looking out he can see the tops of the hills now coming out above of the waters and i'm sure it is a strange world to him much different than the tropical world that he had known um and it came to pass at the end of 40 days 40 more days that noah opened the window and i bet he was glad you know what i mean you know all you have to do is have a dog you know sometimes in your car you're glad to roll the window down i mean here he is almost a year with all these animals noah opened the window of the ark which he had made and he sent forth a raven which went forth to and fro until the waters were dried up from off the earth and also he sent forth a dove from him to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot and she returned to him in the ark for the waters were on the face of the whole earth he put forth his hand he took her and pulled her in unto him now the raven did not return the raven is a scavenger that would have been content to sit on a carcass that was floating in the water and feed a very interesting uh type by the way of the holy spirit and this dove will come back finally with an olive branch and both the holy spirit both the dove and the olive branch symbols of peace and uh the holy the the dove a type of the holy spirit returning to the ark finding no rest in this world uh and in the destruction that is in this world the the raven certainly a type of the lower nature goes out finds its rest in the carcass of this world uh he pulls the dove back into him again he stayed yet another seven days and again he sent forth the dove of the out of the ark the dove came into him in the evening and low in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off so no one knew that the waters were abated from off the earth now if you're thinking how could an olive tree grown in all of that water olive trees had been have been known to actually produce leaves underwater sometimes in fact when they take the olives if they leave a twig on and and before they throw them in brine if they just throw them in water to ship them sometimes that leaf will continue to grow underwater and spread out and become a full leaf so olive trees are very interesting so he returns with an olive branch in his mouth and he stayed yet another seven days and sent forth the dove which returned not again unto him anymore i guess the dove figured there's no use he keeps sending me out again now the dove finally found a place to rest and it came to pass in the 600th and first year in the first month the first day of the month that the waters were dried from off the earth and noah removed the covering of the ark and looked and behold the face of the ground was dry that must have been a wonderful day also and in the second month on the seventh and 20th day of the month was the earth dried now this is one year and 11 days 371 days 360 day year then 371 days on this boat and god spoken to noah saying go forth now you know it's amazing noah and all this doesn't leave the ark even though for months now it seems that he's lodged on the ground the tops of the mountains are appearing there's dry ground the the dove has not returned the the water is dried up off the ground and noah doesn't dare take a step outside till god tells him to god says go forth from the ark thou and thy wife thy sons thy sons wise with thee and bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee of all flesh both of fowl and of cattle and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth that they may breed abundantly in the earth and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth and noah went forth and his sons and his wife and his sons wives with him imagine what a day that must have been for them to walk down that plank off of that boat to step back on dry ground again to to look at a world vastly different than anything they had known there is now climate there is now wind blowing there are clouds moving through the sky that they had never seen i imagine every time they heard thunder they wanted to run back onto the ark again god had to tell them no no no he makes a covenant with them that he won't do that again no doubt there are earthquakes there are geological changes there are carcasses and as far as i as the eye can see there is not another human being in the world you know but him and his family i mean if somebody makes a noise they don't say who was that did you hear something had to be one of the kids that'd be one of them there is no one else imagine getting on a plane and flying across the united states not having to worry about how high you are because there's no other planes and imagine as far as you can go not seeing a single human being all across this nation all through central and south america all through asia not another human living being anywhere what a strange strange experience as they come out of the ark in this new world not worried about anybody stealing anything you know the other uh the other morning five o'clock in the morning saturday all of a sudden joanne is in our room saying somebody's bashing on the door here somebody's been we kind of sit up and look around and somebody's banging on the door downstairs and she said i thought it was you getting firewood she said but i came in here you're in bed somebody so i said no world's going around so i'm walking around in my shorts you know my hair is all sticking up and i can't i can't see yet you know i'm feeling my way down the turn on the lights and there's some kid 20 21 years old who had ripped my storm door open standing there banging on my door i looked at him baseball hat i said what you know it's dark it's five o'clock in the morning he said i'm lost i'm thinking i'll say he says this is just saturday he says i'm lost i need to use your phone phone i'm thinking i said okay let me put shoes and pants let me put some clothes on i'll be back you know so now now the little kids are going you know because he's still down there bashing on the door you know and i'm thinking what's wrong i just told him you know and and kath says who's down there what's going on you know and and i said i don't know some kid somebody wants to come in you can't let him in there might be other kids out there there may be people waiting to ambush you know so she's on the phone calls the police you know which i guess was a sensible thing to do and i staggered back down again and i hear him bashing but i can't see him now so now i look and he's sitting on the ground between the storm door and the door just bashing with his elbow and i knocked i knocked for him he looked up i said the police are coming they'll give you a ride thanks he says he's just sitting there so sure enough here comes the police and then i open the door and the police says look he's drunk he got lost he was freezing it's five in the morning he must have been walking all night he finally figured out i don't care who lives in that house i'm gonna huff and puff and blow that door down you know i'm getting some heat and some phone and the world's so crazy you have to worry you don't know what you don't know you don't know what's going on imagine imagine a world where none of that is an existence cleansed different no worry no fear no one his family walking down this plank no one forth verse 18 his sons his wife his sons wives with him every beast every creeping thing every fowl whatsoever creepeth upon the earth after their kinds went forth out of the ark and noah to build an altar now this is the first time the word altar is used in the bible it's implied in eden but eden is gone now its location has disappeared today we have you know we know where the tigris river is we don't know if it's exactly the same path that it travels in we know where the phrase is which is mentioned the gihon and the pishon we have no idea eden the garden the cherubim at the east of eden guarding the way of the tree of life all of that is gone and yet noah still knows it's the altar it's the shedding of blood there still is a way to meet with the holy god and he comes off of the ark he builds an altar first thing he does he took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl and he offered burnt offerings on the altar and the lord smelled a sweet savor and by the way the hebrew is a savor of rest whenever you read this a sweet savor to the lord is a savor of rest it is a savor of rest in his nostrils because every burnt offering reminded him of the day that he would come in human flesh and make the payment once and for all and that mankind would then enter into a rest that was far superior than any rest that had ever been provided so there is in the smell of this burnt offering coming up in the presence of god a savor of rest it says the lord smelled the sweet savor and the lord said in his heart i will not again curse the ground anymore for man's sake for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth neither will i again smite anymore every living thing here's his clause as i have done the next time it will be fire while the earth remaineth now this is interesting seed time and harvest but now we have something different cold and heat summer and winter this is post flood before this we have no evidence of seasons like this day and night shall not cease so god makes a covenant he will never bring judgment again in this way and god blessed noah and his sons and said to them be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast now probably speaking of wild because there were domestic clean animals of the earth and upon every fowl of the air and upon all that moveth upon the earth and upon all the fishes of the sea into your hand are they delivered every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you even as the green herb have i given you all things so before this men were vegetarians now god says from now on of the beasts of the field they will be for your food so it isn't any more spiritual to be a vegetarian than it is to be a carnivore i'm a carnivore i kind of like steak you know i like uh i like lamb i like to chew on meat and it's okay with god i remember before i got saved i was i was kind of out on the astral plane somewhere uh meditating i'd been a vegetarian for three and a half years and and no white flour no white sugar no dairy we kept sacks of grain ground them by hand made our own bread without yeast and just you know a baking soda just i was in the ozone somewhere i don't know where i was at and uh swallowing rags cleaning out your stomach pulling them back up again and uh yeah somebody here can bear witness to that if he's here and then remember i remember i got saved and all of a sudden i realized i can say grace and eat it whatever it is i remember after not eating meat for three and a half years i started with a couple hot dogs and a ham sandwich i said grace i ate it tasted great i can get sick or nothing it was wonderful and uh i still live by the same philosophy but it's great if you're a vegetarian that's good you know some people are vegetarians because they love animals and some people are vegetarians because they hate vegetables i mean you can have either position i guess every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you even as the green herb have i given you all things but flesh with the life thereof which is the blood thereof shall you not eat and god has asked him to drain the blood and surely your blood of your lives will i require at the hand of every beast while i require it if an animal in the law we've stated that if a animal gored a human being and killed them that the the life of the beast was then taken so god will require it at the life of the beast and at the hand of man at the hand of every man's brother will i require the life of men who so sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed for in the image of god made man now government is established at that point when someone has the right of capital punishment government has been established and god endorses capital punishment in this place now there's a question about tenses some feel it says those who are inclined to continually shed blood when we get to the law though it tells us that it draws a line between involuntary manslaughter premeditated murder it gives us clearly differences and it says in the cases of premeditated murder that then it is a an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth i think that personally uh the leniency which is extreme in our society today the taxpayer bearing the burden of of some criminals that are without question in my mind at least people that we would be better without has brought our nation to a terrible point the bible says that when when when justice is not executed speedily then a nation then becomes corrupt and when people feel like they can you know when you hear somebody about molesting a little child who's up for the fourth or fifth time in my mind we've failed we hear someone who's up for premeditated murder the second or third time in my mind we failed there are parts of the world where if you steal your hand gets cut off theft is is virtually unheard of because if you walk down the street and you see a few hands hanging in the marketplace and they hang them up for people to see them it's a great reminder if you see people strolling around with one arm it's a great reminder there are parts of this world where where capital punishment is executed in a public fashion and there are people that for for where it is a just punishment that's meted out for their crime that that is done publicly and and there are places in this world where you can walk the streets at night fairly safe unlike many of of what go much of what goes on here in our nation so there is by god now instituting of capital punishment one of the reasons is this god knows that the flood did not cure the heart of man the flood cleansed the face of the earth certainly the flood brought about a tremendous reform but god knows that the heart of man is still desperately wicked and that violence will slowly return to the earth and that the sanctity of human life needs protection on some level and it isn't natural to mankind to hold life sacred we can see that around us in the world today so god then establishes a law that if someone sheds deliberately the blood of another human then his blood will also be shed and the law is established to protect the sacredness of life you see we've turned that around somehow saying now that punishing the criminal is is the raw is the crime and the victim no longer has any rights in our society and it's created a great problem and some of the the cases that are caught up in our court system and certainly our nation is in a legal crisis the medical community is caught in a legal crisis millions and millions and millions of untold millions of dollars are being caught up in the system today and the system if you get caught in it is not merciful but the bible is clear and and our modern system of law finds its origins and we'll get there as we get to exodus and leviticus and the laws of god established in the scripture and they're good and they're wholesome but they don't change the heart of man god institutes this law of capital punishment desiring that the the sin of cain and abel not to be repeated certainly it was and has been many times over but god says if somebody in a premeditated fashion takes the life of another human being than that individual to prevent him from repeating that his blood will also be shed he says and you be fruitful verse seven and multiply bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply therein and god spake unto noah and to his sons with him saying and i may god speaking behold consider i establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you and with every living creature that is with you of the fowl of the cattle of every beast of the earth with you for all that go out of the ark of every beast of the earth i will establish my covenant with you neither shall all flesh be cut off anymore by the waters of a flood neither shall there be any more a flood to destroy the entire earth now no doubt there have been local floods and we see that but god says he will never cleanse the entire earth with a flood again it will be fire next time and we read that in the book of revelation but the flood would not destroy all that live again now this covenant is a monogeric covenant the idea is it is a covenant established and upheld by one covenanter it doesn't take man's cooperation into concern it's the kind of covenant that god says i behold i establish this covenant and because of who he is there will never be a flood to destroy the entire earth again it's not dependent upon man to keep his side god said this is the token of the covenant which i make between me and you every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations i do set my bow the rainbow in the clouds and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth it shall come to pass when i bring a cloud over the earth that the bow shall be seen in the cloud and i will remember my covenant which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh and the water shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh now when we see a rainbow by the way certainly we think it's beautiful you know we see one when i get the kids we all run outside look at the rainbow but i guarantee you that the rainbow was much more beautiful to noah and his kids than it ever was to us because every time they saw clouds and heard thunder they were looking for that rainbow i hope he remembers you know he's not going to do that anymore and it was a beautiful signature of god keeping his covenant his faithfulness and certainly i'm sure they appreciated the beauty of a rainbow and the bow shall be in the cloud i will look upon it that i may remember the everlasting covenant between god and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth god said unto noah this is the token of the covenant which i have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth and the sons of noah that went forth of the ark were sham ham and japheth and ham is the father of canaan now we're going to hear canaan mentioned several times here and there's a reason these are the three sons of noah and of them was the whole earth overspread or repopulated we'll follow that in the next chapter by the way if you want to read ahead for next week chapter 10 is called the table of nations and it is a remarkable record of all of the families of the earth and we'll look at that it says here by noah and his sons the earth was repopulated noah began to be a husbandman and he planted a vineyard verse 20 so he began cultivating and he drank of the wine first mention of wine in the bible and was drunken and he was uncovered he was naked within his tent and ham now here's it again the father of canaan saw the nakedness of his father and told now loopholed in his commentary on on genesis says this means to tell with delight to be delighted in the telling it it maybe is a clue to the attitude of ham here that he's mocking his father's nakedness he saw which means he gazed intently on the nakedness of his father and then with delight he told his two brothers without sham and sham and japheth and sham and japheth took a garment a covering they laid it upon both their shoulders and they went backwards in they covered the nakedness of their father and their faces were backward and they saw not their father's nakedness they respected him and noah awoke from his wine most people awake from sleep he awoke from his wine and knew evidently sham and japheth told him what his younger son had done to him and a question mark if any more than that would have happened and he said cursed be canaan now this is the first curse pronounced after the flood the earth is cleansed ham you know is not changed by a miraculous flood of water it's just a beautiful picture of the human heart in all of the things that happen he's not changed you know for me i think if i'd have been on that boat for 371 days and heard those waves slapping every day on the side of that boat i'd have behaved for a while when i came off that thing you know but here ham comes off noah you know i don't know whatever excuse he told god but he gets pickled drinking wine crashes in his tent naked ham comes in and gazing staring at his father mocking him is not changed by you would think that if you were one of the only survivors of a global judgment and saw the hand of god judge the entire human race it would tend to straighten you out for a little while but the human heart was not changed new birth is necessary for that not miraculous signs i think by the way because it's the first time wine is mentioned and we see it directly related to a curse just to consider alcoholism in this nation and the problem that has caused i think and it's my conviction that as a christian you're foolish if you drink i can't tell you the bible prohibits you from having a glass of wine with dinner i i don't think that the bible does do that drunkenness is certainly prohibited but as a christian should you you know be somewhere public and have a glass of wine i think and to me at least the law of love takes into consideration those who might be around you you know for me at least and the guys on staff here there's no room for it because satan would use it that fast and besides that you know i i want my kids as they grow up if they're tempted at any point to go out in the world and taste of what the world offers i want them sometime to remember that we don't remember ever in our entire life ever seeing a can of beer or a bottle of wine or a bottle of whiskey in our home we have never seen this i want them to remember that if you're sold out for jesus christ you can live a life that is far superior to anything this world offers and as paul says be filled with the holy spirit and don't be drunk with wine i think just the indicators of what alcohol does through the scripture as as a christian witness in a nation where alcohol has been destructive i think it's just wisdom to set aside the things that would ever cause anybody to stumble is it a law no it's not a law for me it is in my own heart it's not enforced on you telling you that if you have a glass of wine with dinner that you're in sin we know drunkenness is sin so then you have to measure you know if i have two glasses i start to get a little pickled so i have to only have one and a half what you need to do is get one of those kitchen you know measuring cups and measure out the exact amount that you can take without starting to feel soused where you decide on that measuring cup where sin you write on there put one line say sin above this line of sin i don't have to do any of that see heck with it it's not expedient now verse 24 when noah awoke from his wine he knew what his younger son had done and he said cursed be canaan a servant of servants shall he be unto his first time the word servants use in the bible unto his brethren now by the way i must say this i think necessary this does not say that there's a curse on ham from ham come the african nations the egyptians the persians uh the philistines the hittites it is on one strain of ham's line and that is the canaanite the curse comes upon the canaanite not upon the whole line of ham because there are racists who have taken this and claimed that this line this curse is on the black race or this curse is on a particular people that is never been taught in the history of the church it rose its ugly head in this century about the middle of the century it was never embraced before that and it is not biblical it is the canaanite who becomes a perennial enemy to israel that they have a curse pronounced on them and it is not an unconditional curse because rahab turns to the lord and the satan becomes part of the lineage of david of the messiah there are even amongst the canaanite there were those if in if they turn to god in faith after so many generations were made part of the worshiping of israel of the true and living god that were inducted into the nation but there is a curse pronounced on here's noah he wakes up from a stupor the holy spirit comes on him and he prophesies and pronounces a curse upon a particular strain we'll see there's many families next week from ham but upon from one strain of his line which become the canaanites there is a curse that is pronounced upon them they shall be servants unto his brethren he said blessed be the lord god of shem by the way shem outlives abraham noah lives until abraham is about 35 years old if our chronologies are correct which means abraham may have talked to noah or heard of noah or seen noah shem if our chronologies are correct outlives abraham it was very interesting as we uh as we follow these lines to to see how verbally these uh the this heritage of god could have been passed from generation to generation very very accurately until the word began to be written down by moses blessed be the lord god of shem canaan shall be a servant god shall enlarge japheth and he shall dwell in the tents of shem and canaan shall be his servant and noah lived after the flood 350 years and there's no details really of noah after that that we have all the days of noah were 950 years and he died and lived until abraham was 58 i'm sorry i said 35 if our chronologies are correct very interesting record