Restoration After the Fall

Good morning.

Good morning.

You know, it's just fascinating.

It's just fascinating to read about all that stuff.

And as many of you know, our world seems to be having an increasing number of such disasters.

a building standing in some places, some of the video of the floods where the entire island

was simply underwater, engulfed by the sea.

And seeing the video footage of the survivors afterwards coming out from their refuges and

looking at the wreckage, the complete destruction, the creation that they had lived in and the

forms that had given them life were wiped out.

Many of you are old enough to remember Hurricane Katrina, pictures of people sitting on their

roofs, hoping that someone might rescue them from the floodwaters days after the hurricane

was gone, hoping against hope that they might be rescued.

The aftermath of these storms is devastating.

And of course, in our lives, there are other types of storms as well, aren't there?

The end of a marriage, a tragic diagnosis, losing your job, an untimely death, and many

others.

When we think about these things, it's easy for us to be consumed by fears.

Some of us may struggle with big fears.

I have this chronic fear that when I go away and I come back to my house, I'm going to come

back and the whole thing will be burned down.

And all there is is a concrete slab and ashes.

And this is recurring.

It happens all the time.

When I go away, this is what I think about.

Maybe you have other kinds of fears.

And it's not just the fears when we think about these things.

It's not just the fears about what will happen to us.

But when we think about a God who rules over the universe and sovereignly cares over all

things, it raises questions and fears in our hearts about God as well.

In the aftermath of such things, what will God do?

Who will God be to us?

Is he safe?

Will he do it again?

The fears that arise in the aftermath are what bring us to our passage this morning in the

book of Genesis.

What will happen after the flood?

If you want to turn with me in your pew Bibles, you can turn to page 6.

We're looking at Genesis starting in chapter 8, verse 20.

And as you turn there, let me just remind you where we are in the story.

Anyway, going back a couple of chapters, God looked at the world and he saw the evil that

every intention of the hearts of humankind was only evil always.

And he determined to make an end to that evil by flooding the world and destroying all the living

creatures.

And yet in his mercy, he remembered Noah and he saw Noah in his righteousness and he called

Noah to be the one that he would rescue in the ark.

And Noah and his family were rescued through the flood.

And in chapter 8, verse 19, they literally have just stepped out of the boat.

They are walking into the aftermath of the flood.

And they're asking the questions that we ask often in our own lives.

What will God do now?

What will happen to us?

Where do we go from here?

So that's what we're going to look at this morning.

As we look at this, I'm going to read the passage and then we'll pray together.

And then we'll dive in.

So Genesis chapter 8, verse 20.

Genesis 8:20

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every

clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

And when the Lord smelt the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart,

I will never again curse the ground because of man.

For the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth.

Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.

While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night,

shall not cease.

And God blessed Noah and his sons.

And he said to them,

Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.

The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens,

upon everything that creeps on the ground,

and all the fish of the sea.

Into your hands they are delivered.

Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you.

And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything.

But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.

And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning.

From every beast I will require it and from man.

From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.

Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.

For God made man in his own image.

And you be fruitful and multiply.

Team on the earth and multiply in it.

And then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,

Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you

and with every living creature that is with you.

The birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you.

As many as came out of the ark, it is for every beast of the earth.

I establish my covenant with you that never again shall all flesh be cut off

by the waters of the flood.

And never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.

And God said,

This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you

and every living creature that is with you for all future generations.

I have set my bow in the cloud,

and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,

I will remember my covenant that is between me and you

and every living creature of all flesh.

And the water shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.

When the bow is in the clouds,

I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant

between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.

And God said to Noah,

This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me

and all flesh that is on the earth.

Now the sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

Ham was the father of Canaan.

These three were the sons of Noah,

and from these the people of the whole earth were dispersed.

Noah began to be a man of the soil,

and he planted a vineyard.

He drank the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent.

And Ham, the father of Canaan,

saw the nakedness of his father and told his brothers outside.

Then Shem and Japheth took a garment,

laid it on both of their shoulders,

and walked backwards and covered the nakedness of their father.

Their faces were turned backwards.

They did not see their father's nakedness.

When Noah awoke from his wine,

he knew what his youngest son had done to him.

He said,

Cursed be Canaan,

a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.

He also said,

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem.

Let Canaan be his servant.

May God enlarge Japheth,

and let him dwell in the tents of Shem,

and let Canaan be his servant.

After the flood,

Noah lived for 350 years.

All the days of Noah were 950 years,

and he died.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we thank you for your word this morning.

We thank you that you have not left us to grope in the dark,

or to wonder what kind of God you are,

but that you have made yourself known.

You have revealed yourself to us,

Lord, through your son, Jesus Christ,

and through your written word here that we read this morning.

Lord, we pray now that you would help us by your spirit

to understand your word,

and to apply it to our hearts.

Lord, that we might know you,

and that we as your creatures

might respond to you, our creator,

as we ought.

Be with us this morning, we pray.

I pray, Lord, that you would help me.

Lord, that I might speak clearly,

and that my words would be true,

and that, Lord, you would help me this morning.

We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

What kind of God will God be after the flood?

And what will happen to humankind?

These are the two questions that this text

answer for us this morning,

and we're going to look at those in order.

So first, what kind of God will God be?

As we start in verse 20 of chapter 8,

we will see that in the first section of this,

going all the way through 917,

we will see that God is a God

who will graciously restore his creation,

that he will make a covenant

to preserve life in God's creation

in a post-flood world.

This is his purpose,

and this is his plan,

and this is the God that we see in it.

Let's look at it.

We'll break it down into three sections

as we look at this chunk together.

Three things that God restores.

First, in chapter 8, 20 through 22,

we see that God is restoring the form of creation.

What do I mean by that?

Well, in response to Noah's response,

Noah walks out of the ark.

He puts his feet back on solid ground

after days and weeks and months

and maybe even years.

It's not quite clear how long,

but a long time he was on the boat,

and he's finally on solid ground.

If you've ever been on a boat for a while,

it feels good, doesn't it?

Whew, solid ground.

But he recognizes that he's there

because God has graciously preserved him

and his family,

and so he responds as he knows.

He builds an altar,

and he worships God,

and he offers up a burnt offering,

which is a thanksgiving and praise offering

to God for his deliverance.

It is also, I believe, a recognition

because a burnt offering,

as you see it played out

in the rest of the Old Testament,

is often an atoning sacrifice,

something where something is being offered

and burned up as a recognition

that sin requires death,

that sin causes judgment to fall,

and something must die for sin.

And so he offers up this sacrifice to God,

and God responds.

And interesting, when you look at it

in verses 21 and 22,

he doesn't actually talk about humanity at all.

What he talks about here

is that what God is doing is saying,

I will never again curse the ground

the way that I've just done with the flood.

Right?

He says, I will not destroy the creation again.

I will not strike down every living creature

as I have done.

Now, if you think back

to what we've talked about

and what God was doing in the flood

and the way that he was,

the flood was in some ways an uncreation,

mirroring in a negative way

what had happened in Genesis 1

where God had taken a world

from watery chaos

to form,

and those forms of day and night

and land and sea

and dry land

and created the place

where life would flourish,

where animals and plants

and then human beings would flourish.

And what the flood was

was a deconstructing of all of that,

an uncreating of all of that.

And now that God,

now that the waters have receded

and there is still life there,

God is saying,

I will never again destroy it

the way that I have.

It's fascinating when you look at verse 22,

you think about some of these structures

that would have been very familiar

in an agricultural society,

maybe less so to us today,

seed time and harvest,

cold and heat,

summer and winter,

day and night shall not cease.

These are the normal rhythms.

And what God is saying is,

I will no longer uproot

and overthrow the normal rhythms

the way that I did

in this judgment and in this flood.

Now we need to recognize

this is not a removal

of the curse on the ground

that we see in Genesis 3, 17.

For Romans,

in Romans 8, 19 and following

will tell us that all of creation

is subject to the curse

as it's waiting for the redemption

of God's people

and a final glory

and a final renewal

that we will see.

So it's not that God is removing

all of the curse,

but God is saying,

I will never again bring this form,

this kind of judgment

onto the world.

And interestingly enough,

he does it in the face of knowing

that humans will sin.

Isn't verse 21 interesting?

I almost stumbled over it

and maybe you stumble over it too.

What is God saying here?

I will never again curse the ground

because of man

for the intention of man's heart

is evil from his youth.

What is going on?

It almost feels against the flow.

He's promising not to destroy it,

but then he's saying,

but this evil continues.

And in fact,

that's exactly what he is saying.

God is saying that despite

the ongoing presence of human sin,

despite the ongoing offense

where humanity will continue

to rebel against me,

and therefore,

because they were given dominion

over the earth

and a representative role

over the earth,

this judgment came upon all of creation

because of man's sin.

Now I'm going to say,

I will never again destroy the creation

in this way,

even though man's sin will persist.

And so God is graciously saying,

I will continue to uphold

and sustain the forms

that I created in Genesis 1

that will create life.

So that's the first thing we see

is that God restores

the form of creation.

And then as he keeps going

in the beginning of chapter 9,

God restores the flourishing of life

in creation.

And the reason why I say this

is because you see in verse 1

and verse 7,

this repetition of the creation mandate.

Be fruitful and multiply.

I've created this world

for you to live in.

Now go and live in it

and be a flourishing,

abundant life

that I've made you to be.

But interestingly,

in contrast to what we see

in Genesis 1,

this flourishing is going to happen

not in a world apart from sin,

but in a world that is now

marred with sin.

And so you see in verses 2 through 6

the ongoing way in which

he's having to qualify

or constrain

how life is going to flourish

in a fallen world

where sin and murder

have already happened.

So he talks about the relationship

between man and human beings

and animals.

And what had been

what was meant to be

a husbanding

or a dominion

that was life-giving,

there is now fear.

that humans

will be fearsome

to the animals.

But even more than that,

you see as you keep going

in verses 1 through 7

of chapter 9,

we see verse 5,

for your life blood

I will require a reckoning

from every beast

I will require it

and from man,

from his fellow man

I will require a reckoning

for the life of man.

In Genesis 1,

God never had to say this

because there had been

no murder,

there had been no death,

there had been no killing.

But now,

after Cain and Abel,

after Lamech,

after chapter 6,

after the evil

of man's heart

spreading and infecting

and corrupting

all the world,

God says,

I want you to flourish

and multiply,

but I know that you're doing

that in a fallen world

and that means

that I have to

teach you

how to value

the life

that I've created

in a new way.

You may not eat meat

with blood in it

because the blood

is the life

of a creature

and I want you

to value

the life

of that creature.

So,

even though I'm giving it

to you to eat,

you should drain it out

so that you do not

take its life lightly.

And then he translates that

and he says,

and if that's true

with animals,

how much more

is it true

for human beings

who are created

in the image

of God?

So,

you see in verse 6

this incredibly

powerful statement,

whoever sheds

the blood of man,

by man shall his blood

be shed

for God made man

his own image.

How will life flourishing

go forward

in a fallen world

where human beings

are going to kill each other?

There will be justice

but that justice

won't come

in this cataclysmic

global form

of a flood anymore.

God is now

delegating that justice

to human society

to say

life is meant

to be preserved

and now you

are entrusted

with responding

to murder

with justice.

When you kill

another unjustly,

your life

will be forfeit.

Now look,

we need to understand

this is a movement

of God

away from what we saw

in chapter 4

at the end.

Do you remember Lamech?

The descendant of Cain.

Do you remember

his vengeful spirit,

his promise to kill

not just one

but seven times?

God is saying,

no, that is vengeance

and that is not right.

That is cruelty

and that is destructive

and that is not

valuing life.

But to value life

in a fallen world,

there is this principle.

If you take life,

your life will be forfeited.

And it is just.

And it creates a principle

that has been

typically true

in many cultures

throughout all of history.

Now,

I am not going to spend

the next 15 minutes

talking about the details

of capital punishment

and what we think about that

in our modern state

and in our modern government.

It's a great conversation.

If you really want to talk about it,

you can come talk to me afterwards.

But what I do want you to see

is that there is a principle here

that God has said,

I will not judge

the whole world.

I am entrusting

to humanity

this role

of enforcing justice

as it comes to life.

And I believe that

there is a principle there

that we need to take seriously.

Affirming the value

of life,

particularly human life,

someone who is made

in God's image

is one of the implications

that we see here.

And we need to think about this,

that this is not just

in capital punishment

and thinking about murder cases,

but there are broader implications

for this as well.

How do we think about

those who are vulnerable

or potentially whose life

is not valued

in our culture today?

What do we think

about the unborn?

What do we think

about the aging?

What do we think

about those

with severe disabilities

or handicaps?

How are we to honor

their life

that God has given them,

made in the image of God?

how do we respond

when human beings

treat other human beings

as if they are less than human

in modern forms of slavery

and sex trafficking?

Or how do we even confront

the very human

and very fallen

pattern that we have

of being xenophobic,

that is afraid of people

who are different than us.

We look at them

and we think sometimes

how easy it is to think

they're not as human as I am.

And we don't see

the image of God in them

and we don't treat them

with the dignity

that we ought to do so.

God values human life highly

because He has made us

in His image

and because He created

the world

to be a place

where life would flourish.

So He returns

in verse 7.

And you,

you, Noah,

and your sons,

the footnote says

it's plural,

you and your sons

and your daughter-in-laws

and their families,

be fruitful

and multiply,

team on the earth,

multiply life.

God is restoring

this mandate

to humanity

while giving it

constraints within

a fallen world.

But this is what

God's plan is.

His plan to fill

the world with life

has not been derailed

even by this

cataclysmic flood.

God does this

knowing that humans

will sin,

knowing that they

will fail.

He sends His relief pitcher

back out

in the next game

even after they've

blown the save.

So not only

does God restore

the form of creation,

not only does God

restore the flourishing

of life and creation,

but God restores

confidence

in His character

and His faithful care

for all of His creation.

this is what we see

in verses 8

and following

because not only

does God then say

I will not do this

and then gives

instruction for humanity

to be fruitful

and multiply,

but then He says

and I will make

a covenant with you.

I will make a pact,

an agreement with you.

And it is not just

with you,

Noah,

and your sons,

but it is for all

of creation.

If you look at verses

10 through 17,

the repetition

over and over again

of every living creature,

of all creatures,

of all things,

God is doing this

with the whole world

and He's making

a covenant

with the whole world

that He will not

destroy them again

in this kind of way,

but that He will put

a bow in the clouds

so that He will remember them

and so that they will know

that He remembers them.

One of the most interesting things

about the hurricane

in the Bahamas

was that two days

after the hurricane,

there was another front

that came through

and there was rain.

And some of you

may have experienced

something like this.

After a really traumatic event,

when you come close

to that again,

it raises all of the fears

that you experience

going through the traumatic event

the first time.

And it is interesting

that when God wants

to give a sign

to His creation

to say,

I will not do that again,

He does it in the context

of when the clouds form

and when the fear

in your heart rises

that this rainstorm

is going to turn

into that flood

that destroyed the world,

there will be a bow

to remind you

that I have made a promise

that I will not do that,

that I will care,

for you.

The substance of the covenant

is in verse 11.

Never again shall all flesh

be cut off

by the waters of the flood

and never again

shall there be a flood

to destroy the earth.

God will remember

His people.

Just as He remembered Noah

in chapter 8, verse 1,

when the floods were up

and God saw Noah

and He remembered him

and He rescued him.

So also,

God will remember

His promise

and He will take this bow

and it's fascinating, right?

The word for bow

in Hebrew,

in the ancient language,

is the same bow

for a weapon of war.

God makes His bow

to point not downward

but upward.

The image of judgment

is no longer pointing down

at His creation

but it is pointing upward

as if God is saying,

where there is judgment,

I will take it.

I will promise

that I will not

make you face this judgment again

in this same way.

So God has said,

I will be faithful

to care for my fallen creation.

So,

we see

what kind of God here.

One of the most remarkable things

is that when you look

through this section,

after verse 20,

God is the only subject

of the verbs

in the entire section.

God said this.

God says this.

God promises this.

God blesses them.

God does all of these things.

God is taking the initiative

to do this.

When God makes this covenant

to not destroy the world again,

He's not saying,

if you keep the law,

if you obey me and follow me,

if you do all of these things,

God is graciously coming

to His world

that He has just inflicted

a horrific judgment on

and He's saying,

I have not abandoned you,

I have not lost you,

and I am unilaterally

coming to you

to make this covenant,

to promise to you

that I am not a God

who simply delights

in destruction,

but I am a God

who delights in giving life.

I am the one

who has come to bless you

so that you may flourish

and have life.

What a great relief it is

to know that this is the God

that Abraham knew

and experienced

after the flood.

And this is the God

who we still know today.

He is active,

not passive,

but initiating

to restore what is broken.

He is working

to accomplish

His good purposes,

and He is gracious

to renew the context

in which human beings

would flourish.

And the question

that this text

points us to

is,

will you trust Him?

Do you believe

this God?

Have you seen

the rainbow?

It stands

in the storms

of the world

and the storms

of your life.

The story

doesn't end there.

The section

continues.

Having looked at God,

it then goes on

to say,

what will humanity

be like

after the flood?

What will happen?

Particularly with Noah

and his family.

And so this is the

second part

of this passage

that we see.

Starting in verse 18,

what we see

is that we see

humanity's

divided destiny.

So in verses

18 and 19

we see a little,

very brief,

little

genealogy.

The sons of

Noah

were Shem,

Ham,

and Japheth.

And by the way,

Ham was the

father of Canaan.

You might wonder,

why did that get

stuck in there?

Well,

imagine that

Moses is writing

this to Israel

as they're

moving through

the promised land

and heading towards,

or moving through

the desert

and heading towards

the promised land.

Who lives in the

promised land?

The Canaanites.

Who are the Canaanites?

The descendants of Canaan.

So,

Moses is giving you

a little marker.

This is where

those people came from.

So he's just kind of

saying,

hey,

this is where

they came from.

And so,

he gives this

and he says,

from this,

right,

these three men

and their wives,

from these families,

then,

the world will be

refilled.

Pastor Greg

dealt some last week

with the question

of how global

or local

the flood was.

It's an ongoing

conversation.

It's not a hill

for us to die on.

But some of these,

some of these passages

make me think,

maybe it was

a global flood.

I'll just leave it there

and keep going.

The story is going

with a restoration

of a new humanity

and the spreading out,

be fruitful and multiply,

of humanity.

And so,

the question is,

and what kind of humanity

will this be?

And starting verse 20,

then,

we turn from this

grand cosmic narrative

to this very little scene,

this very strange

little story

that tells us about

the sons of Noah

and what kind of men

they were.

Noah is a man of the earth,

sort of like a second Adam,

a man of the soil.

And,

you know,

interestingly,

though,

Noah is not the focus

of this story.

He grows vineyards,

he makes wine,

he gets drunk.

It seems like it's

kind of disgraceful.

But it's not a very strong,

there's not a lot

of commentary about Noah.

It's simply the context

for what happens

with his sons.

So,

Noah does this,

and there he is,

asleep in his tent,

in disgrace,

one would imagine.

and Ham

goes in and looks.

And the word to see

has a sense of searching,

like he really wanted to see,

like he was jumping up

to see if he could look

through the windows,

except they don't have windows

because it was tense,

so he's peeking,

see if he could get in.

He really wanted to look

on his father

in his shame.

And once he saw it,

he went to his brothers,

he's like,

you see what dad did?

It sure seems like

whatever he was doing,

he was either tattling

or mocking his father

in how he responded

to this context.

Whatever it is,

it's a violation

of honoring his father.

And you see that so clearly

because you see the contrast

between what he does

and what his brothers do.

when Shem and Japheth

hear this,

look with me at it

because it's so striking.

Verse 23,

they took a garment,

laid it both on their shoulders.

They walked backwards

and covered the nakedness.

Their faces were turned backwards.

This was repeated twice.

They did not look.

But they carefully covered him up

in a way that honored him.

in distinction to what Ham did.

And so,

when Noah awakes,

he figures it out.

It's interesting.

The story doesn't care how.

No one knows.

But he knows what happened.

Right?

And he looks at his sons

and he lays down

cursing and blessing.

Interestingly,

the curse on Ham

is not on Ham,

is it?

See verse 25?

The curse is on his son,

Canaan.

One of his four sons,

as we learn later on.

You can look in chapter 10,

verse 6.

You see that Ham had four sons,

Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan.

So this was the youngest son

of the youngest son.

And this curse then

has an explanatory context

that most of us

wouldn't recognize.

Because when you look

at the sons of Ham broadly,

you recognize that from him,

many of the greatest opponents

of God's people

in the Middle East came.

The nation of Egypt,

the nation of Assyria,

the nation of Babylon,

and specifically

the Canaanites

who lived in the promised land.

You can see that

in verses 6 through 10

of chapter 10.

What God says is,

Canaan, you will be a servant.

And what I think

this is specifically telling

is predicting

and speaking into the future

about what will happen

as God is bringing his people

into the promised land.

There is a focused

salvation historical purpose

for what this story

is pointing to.

Because it is pointing to

the people that Moses is leading

and then Joshua will lead

into the promised land

where these Canaanites live.

And he is saying,

from this stock,

from this account,

from these historical curses,

this is then the conflict

that arises

and the basis upon which

we will see this conquest come.

The curse is predictive

and it is elective,

not merely punitive.

Noah isn't just in a tizzy

and getting mad at Ham

because he's ashamed.

There's a larger history

because what we see in this

is that there are two lines

that come out of Noah.

And these are the lines

that we've already seen

in the history of humanity

ever since Adam and Eve.

As Adam and Eve fell into sin

and then they had children,

right,

we had the line of Cain

and we had the line of Seth.

And we've seen this repeated

over and over again.

One is a line

that is under the curse

and is exemplifying

the worst of sinful humanity.

One is a line of promise,

not because they are sinless,

but because God is working

through this line of promise

to work his redemptive purposes.

And so we see the line

from Seth to Shem

to Abraham in just a few weeks.

And we see the line

from Cain to Ham to Canaan.

And we see these two lines of promise,

the line of promise

and the fear of judgment,

both being realities

in the future of humanity.

Now I need to spend two minutes here

because there has been

a line of interpretation

about this passage in particular

that the curse on Ham

has been used by some

in the church

and outside the church

as an excuse for a defense

of a biblical justification

for slavery of Africans.

How they got there

had to do with the fact

that many of Ham's children

ended up living in seemingly North Africa

and becoming the...

And the way that this was played out

in the thoughts of those

who presented this

was that these are the ones

who are the sons of the curse

and therefore because

they're called to be servants,

then we have the right

as the church,

as Westerners,

as the seed of promise.

This is the thinking.

It's not right,

but it's the thinking.

This has been justified.

This has been used

to justify racism

against Africans

and black people,

and it's been used

to justify slavery.

It is reprehensible,

and it is incorrect.

There is no excuse for it

except for human sinfulness,

which is not an excuse.

Because we see a number of things.

One is that not all

of Ham's descendants were cursed.

Only Canaan was cursed.

So to see this as a global curse

on Ham's descendants

is a misreading of the text.

Secondly,

we see that

what this story is doing

is setting up the context

in which Israel is going to enter

into the land of Palestine,

the promised land,

later,

and where the people

came from

whom they will

be displacing.

Now,

that's a whole other question

to yourself.

I'm going to refer you.

Pastor Greg,

about a year ago,

did a great sermon

on Exodus 21 and 22

and dealt with this issue,

so you can go there.

And you work it out

because there are other questions

that this raises,

but what I want to say

very clearly

is that

the curses

do not have

any enduring

racial or social,

political application

for us today.

In fact,

what we see

in the sweep

of the Bible storyline

is that God

is always inviting people

from every tongue

and tribe and nation.

And even in the Old Testament

when he's prefer,

when he's making Israel

the center of it,

he's inviting people in.

And when we see

in Acts 2

the spread of the outpouring

of the Spirit

and the bringing in

of people,

and when we look

at the vision

of what's going to happen

in the throne room

when people from every tongue

and tribe and nation

are gathered around

the throne of Jesus

worshiping him,

we recognize

that there is no place

in the church

for that justification

or that discrimination.

So I just need to say that

because it's out there.

It's out there

in the history

and we need to recognize it

and we need to repudiate it

and we need to be clear

on what the Bible

actually says

about these things.

That brings us back,

however,

to the fact that

there are two lines.

The history of humanity

is divided.

There are those

who will face judgment

and there are those

through whom

God will work redemption.

We need to be clear

on the fact

that this is true

still today.

If the flood

couldn't cleanse the world

or redeem humanity,

what will?

The pattern of God's faithfulness

is in the context

of human fallenness.

And His faithfulness

is a redemptive one,

but it comes

in the context

of recognizing

the greatness

of His judgment

against sin.

So how do we know

who God will be for us

as we face

God's judgment

against sin

in our own lives?

Well, friends,

this is the beauty

of the storyline

of the gospel.

This is why we read

Jeremiah 31 earlier

because this covenant

said,

I will not destroy.

The new covenant

that God promises

through Jeremiah

and Ezekiel

and then establishes

as Jesus comes

is that God

will not abandon

His righteousness

so the judgment

will come on sin,

but God will not

abandon His purposes

for His created beings

to live.

So how will He do this?

Through the line of Shem,

through the line

of Seth,

He will bring

to Jesus.

Look at the genealogy

in Luke 3

and you will see

this line

coming all the way

from Adam

to Jesus Christ,

God become man

in the flesh

who has come

to stand in the gap

between the death

that we deserve

and the life

that God has intended

for us.

He has come

to take on flesh

and to live as a man.

He has come

to take the judgment

on our sin

at the cross.

He has come

to gain victory

over sin and death.

By His resurrection

from the dead,

He has come

to be our rescuer

in whom many

will be saved.

He has made

a better covenant

with His blood

that is sure.

and that if we

take hold of this

by faith,

we can rest

in the refuge

of Christ

and know

that when the storm

of judgment

that will finally come

upon all earth

and upon all flesh,

that we will have

a rescuer

and we will stand

through that storm

that God will not

abandon His plan

or His people

but that He has come

in Jesus

so that we might be His.

Let's pray.

Lord, we thank You

for this hope

even as we are sobered

and recognize that,

Lord, we are as much

of the line of Ham

as we are of the line

of Shem.

Lord, that we have

sin in our hearts

that we cannot uproot

and we cannot overcome

simply by good works

or by good will.

Lord, that apart

from Your redeeming work

we are lost.

Lord, we praise You

for Your redeeming work.

in Christ

and ask, Lord,

I ask today

that as we come

to Your table, Lord,

that You would help us

to celebrate, Lord,

the redemption

that we have in Him.

We pray this

in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Well, friends,

it is fitting for us

to...

raumu relationship

that...