THROUGH THE BIBLE: Genesis 9..

Welcome to Cornerstone Reformed Baptist Church. Thank you for using and sharing our resources. What you're about to hear is God's Word from one of our teaching elders. We trust that God's Word will inspire, instruct, and bless you. For further teachings or information on our ministry, please visit us on our website at cornerstonerbc.

com. That's cornerstonerbc.com. Genesis chapter 9, we continue with our corporate reading of the scripture. We're going through the book of Genesis.

Our aim, by the grace of God, is to go through the entire Bible. That's going to take us many years. So this morning, we're continuing with this corporate reading, reading chapter 9 of the book of Genesis. So if you have your Bibles, I'm going to be reading from the English And God blessed Noah and his sons and 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.

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, and from From his fellow men I will require reckoning for the life of men. Whoever sheds the blood of men, by men shall his blood be shed.

For God made men in his own image. Verse seven, And you be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it. And God said to Noah and to his sons with him, Behold, I establish my covenant with you 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."

Verse 12, and God said, this is the sign that I make it between me and you and every living creature that is with you for all future generations. I have set my bow in the clouds 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.

God said to Noah, This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth. The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Daphid. 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 salt, and he planted a vineyard.

He drank of the wine and became drunk, and laid uncovered in his tent. And him, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward, and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their I knew what his youngest son had done to him. He said, Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall be to his brothers.

He also said, Blessed be the Lord and God of Shem. and 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 350 years. All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died.

Amen. This is the words of God. Beloved, the Psalmist in Psalm 119, he says that he delights in the statues and in the words and the testimonies of the Lord, that he He finds pleasure and delight in studying and searching the ways of the Lord. It is only when we know more about the ways and the testimonies of God that we can have a good understanding of who He is, what He has done, us as the covenant giver. Every time that we approach the Word of God, we have to have that heart of wanting to know more about God and what He has done through the history of redemption.

Why am I saying that? I'm saying that because here in chapter 9, we have one of the most important tools of Bible interpretation, of Scripture interpretation. Here in Chapter 9, we don't only have an immediate narrative that is given to the immediate audience, but we also have a Bible or a Scripture interpretation tool that is going to help us to understand not only Chapter 9, but the whole history of redemption. And I want to make emphasis on what is contained here in chapter 9 as this important Bible or a scripture interpretation tool that is called a covenant. Beloved, I don't have sufficient words to express it, to communicate to you how important it is for us to understand what a covenant, a biblical covenant is, not only for the context of Genesis 9, but for the whole Bible.

Understanding covenants or understanding a covenant will help us to establish our doctrine and to be able to divide the word of truth to understand the scripture in the way that is meant for all of us. The concept that we see here in Genesis 9, it is the concept of a covenant. And let me just define for you. So we will use the definition of a covenant not only for Genesis 9, but for the coming teachings that we will have on covenant theology. Because one of our distinctives as a Reformed Baptist Church, it is that our understanding of covenant theology is different to other views of covenants.

So this Pay attention to this. A covenant is a special relationship that God sovereignly and freely enters with His people. It's a special relationship in that God enters freely and sovereignly with His people in which He gives a promise of something and then He self-imposes an obligation because He's free always an oath for that promise. There is an oath in the way of a sign of something that witnesses to that promise that God has given to his people. Pay attention to that, beloved.

Special relationship between God from his mouth that he's going to do something on behalf of his people and then he gives an oath or something that witnesses that that promise is going to be accomplished. This is very important because we see many covenants that develop throughout the history of redemption and our understanding of those covenants will define our view of the covenant that is given in Jesus Christ and then the life and the nature of the church of who we are. Now, a covenant, not only is that a special relationship between God and his people, but also serves us to understand the progressive development of the history of redemption. If I could give you a picture of how the Bible progresses, it's just like a line that is going up, up, up, up, up, and it's pointing to the person of Jesus Christ. So when we find a covenant, a covenant is giving us information of something that happened in the past, fulfilling that something that happened in the past, and then giving us more information of something that is coming in the future.

And we see it here in Genesis 9. You have to see here the comparison and the similarities between Noah, who is given us, God has given us here the covenant with Noah, and that would happen with Adam in the garden. The vocabulary is so similar. We start the verse or the chapter here saying that the Lord blessed Noah, and he said to Noah, be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth. This is similar or the same language that was given to Adam in the garden.

So remember, a covenant speaks of something that happened in the past and then gives us a clearer picture of something that is coming in the future. So God is here entering into a covenant. You can see here in the text how it says, I will Noah, and with your sons, and with every living creature for all future generations." And we cannot perceive it here in the English very, very clear, but in the Hebrew, this, I will establish my covenant, is very strong. That means that it's a covenant that comes from the sovereign will of God.

Behold, I establish my covenant. It is in the Hebrew. So it is a covenant that comes from God to Noah. And as I said, this is giving us some information of what happened in multiplied. And also, not only this blessing is given, it's also a prohibition.

In the Garden of Eden, to Adam, he says, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I have given you all these trees and all these fruits for you to eat, but you shall not eat of this one. To Noah, God says, I to it but you shall not eat flesh with its blood because its blood it is it is the life of that flesh so don't eat of it so you can see here how in Noah the new Adam we can see the new creation that has been destroyed by the flood but beloved is not only that it is not only a blessing that is given to Noah is not only a prohibition that is also given to Noah it is also I promise of that covenant. Here God says to Noah, I will establish my covenant with you, with your sons, and with every living creatures, and I will not destroy the flesh. I will not destroy everything that has been created by the floods of the waters.

God has given Noah, and not only Noah, but his sons, and everything that has been created, I promise. And then God, when God gives that promise, his self God could sovereignly come and destroy everything that has been created, but by entering into this very special covenant with Noah, now he is in obligation to fulfill that. And because he knows that the recipients of this covenant, lack of faith and lack of understanding of who he is, gives a sign, the witness to that promise that is being given. He says, I'm giving you this rainbow, and every time that rains, you will see the sign of enter with you, so you will know that this covenant that I'm entering, I'm not going to break it in the garden. Adam entered into a covenant with God until he says, you shall not eat of the fruit of that tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The day that you eat of it, you will surely die. So that implies that if he did not eat of it, he would remain in a state of obedience and therefore of life. He was given two signs of that agreement, a tree of knowledge of good and evil and a tree of life that were testifying, that were witnessing of the promise that God gave to Adam. Beloved, this concept of a covenant is very important because we can see even the parallels that continue here between Adam and Noah. We know that these two men inherit the righteousness that they may have from God himself.

Adam was the one that walked in the presence of God in the garden. And then he said to us in Genesis 6 and Genesis 9 that Noah, same like Enoch, he walked with God and that he was righteous in the sight of God. Two similar words of vocabulary speaking of Adam and Noah. disobey in the same way that Adam ate of the fruit through his wife ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil Noah by the fruit of the vineyard he sinned disobedient and then we can see not only that but further on we can see that nakedness brings this concept of shame to Adam after the disobedience and here with Noah we can see that he was naked because of the disobedience he was drunk and he He was naked and this brought shame. We see the parallel continues because in the garden, then God comes and covers the nakedness of Adam.

Here in Genesis 9, the sons of Noah come and cover the nakedness of Noah. And then after that, it comes a curse. God gives a curse to Adam and Eve because of the disobedience. And then Noah curses Canaan because of what he had done. A covenant speaks to us of realities that happened in the past and gives us pictures of things that are going to come.

If we do not understand covenant, we are not going to understand the nature of that what is to come. in the future, beloved. And the preciousness of this, as the psalmist says in Psalm 119, is that the more that we know our Bible, we can see the wisdom and the providence of God in how he reveals and gives us information about the person that is to come. Because Noah, or Adam, is a shadow of Noah, the second righteous man. But Noah and Adam are shadows of the I promise of eternal life that it was given in eternity past, that it was given to Jesus Christ, that in Him, by grace through faith, we can be safe, that we have the promise of eternal life.

Titus 1, that by having faith in Christ, we receive the promise of God. And then because God knows, because He knows, that we are weak in our faith, he has given us signs of the covenant. These signs of the covenant correspond in the New Covenant to realities of the Old Covenant. For instance, you might remember, and I cannot go very deep into this, but you might remember the covenant with Abraham. When God enters into a covenant with Abraham, Abraham is given circumcision as the sign of the covenant just as the rainbow is the sign of the covenant with Noah then God with Moses in Mount Sinai he is given the fourth commandment of the Sabbath the order not to meet 32 is the sign The one, the circumcision, is the sign of entrance into the covenant.

And then the Sabbath, it is a sign of permanence in the covenant. Then when Jesus Christ comes and we have, by grace through faith, we're united to him, we are partakers of the sign of entrance into the covenant, baptism. We are baptized. Because we have circumcised in our heart, we are baptized and we entered into an everlasting covenant. And then not only that, but the Lord Jesus Christ, when he's establishing the Lord's supper, he said, this is the blood of my covenant.

And then he says, do this in remembrance of me. Just as God says, when you look at the rainbow, I will remember my covenant. When the church of Jesus Christ comes together and we partake of the Lord's table, we are receiving the ongoing sign of permanence in the new covenant. We come and partake of the body and the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. Just as when we see the rainbow, And we know that the Lord is not going to destroy the earth when we partake of the bread and the wine as a family.

We know that we will not be destroyed in judgment because there is a covenant keeper, Jesus Christ, who has accomplished all the requirements of the old covenant. And in him, we have a better covenant, an everlasting covenant that makes us covenant keepers. Adam and Noah broke their covenants because even though they were righteous in the sight of God, they disobeyed. Jesus Christ, the last Adam, the one, the man of heaven, the heavenly man, he came and fulfilled all the requirements of the law and he establishes this everlasting covenant. not be broken.

Noah, through Shem, he is given a blessing. The Lord says, and Noah blessed God, and then through their blessing, he blessed Shem. This was, again, I promised or an expectation that it was given to them, but just as Adam through Seth Now, from Noah through Shem, there's, again, this holy expectation that God is going to give us the true Messiah because Noah has failed. And then when you go to Luke 3, you will see that Jesus Christ, it is this sentence, through Adam, through Noah, through the person of Shem, who is the one that receives the blessing here. That we may see the depths and beauties of this Word of God so that we can understand the new covenant in Christ.

Amen?