Genesis 9-10.
Intro
HOLLYWOOD ENDING
Have you ever heard the expression a“Hollywood ending”? A Hollywood ending is an ending that has an unlikely, positive outcome; Like in most films where the nerdy boy gets the pretty girl, or where the superhero saves an oilrig, the planet, and the pretty girl.
JAMES BOND
However, some films do have the complete opposite ending, like “James Bond on her majesty’s secret service” Where James Bond saves the world, the girl, and marries her in the end. During the last 40 seconds of the film she is shot dead, during a drive by shooting.
REAL LIFE HOLLYWOOD ENDING
Last week we witnessed a real life Hollywood ending of chapter eight when Noah, his family, and the animals finally could exit the ark. They came back to a world from which the evil men and women had been washed away. Noah built an altar to the LORD, and sacrificed the animals and birds that God approved of. The smell pleased the LORD. It actually pleased God so much that He said to Himself in chapter 8:21-22:
“I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things. 22 As long as the earth remains, there will be planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night.”
Chapter 8 leaves us with a promise, and to this day, God keeps his promise. Not for the sake of us. He does it for the sake of His awesome grace, ultimately expressed through the cross!
This is where we’re at when we start in Genesis 9. I am going to go through todays text under the following headings:
1. Restoration
2. The human condition
3. A new hope
1.Restoration
God’s righteous anger ceased when the creation’s punishment was fulfilled, and the wicked had been washed away.
GOD INSTRUCTS NOAH AS HE INSTRUCTED ADAM
Some of you who followed the whole series might have noticed that God blesses and instructs Noah and his sons, as he blessed and instructed Adam and Eve. It is just like the story of Adam and Eve all over; we bite our fingernails and think to ourselves “will Noah and his sons be a better Adam than Adam?”, “Cain wasn’t the saviour, is it Noah? Is he the serpent crusher?”
God says to Adam and Eve in Gen 1:28:
“Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground”
God says to Noah and his sons in Gen 9:1-2:
Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth. 2 All the animals of the earth, all the birds of the sky, all the small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the fish in the sea will look on you with fear and terror. I have placed them in your power.
RESTORATION YAAAAY!!! WAIT A MINUTE
Wow! Creation is restored, Noah has saved us. This is brilliant I’m getting the champagne… Hold on for a second, something seems strange.
There’s a difference between Genesis 1:28 and Genesis 9:2, did you notice that?
In Gen 1:28 God told Adam and Eve to reign over the animals. In Gen 9:1-2 God tells Noah and his sons that all the animals will look on them with FEAR and TERROR!!! This could be an ominous sign!
Noah and his sons are told to repopulate the earth; they are given the authority to rule over the creation. They are given a fresh start; the good order of GOD is restored.
THE GOOD ORDER
Do you remember the good order? God created the animals; God created Adam, and from Adam God created Eve. God set man to rule the creation with the authority given by Him, and He set Eve to be his helper. The Good order is: God the ruler of everything, man the ruler of creation, woman his helper, and the rest of the creation.
GOD’S COVENANT
After presenting God with a pleasing offering, God established a covenant with Noah.
Noah and his family are under God’s protection from wild animals and humans. As I mentioned earlier, the unique thing with this covenant is Gods promise. God will preserve the creation from complete destruction, as long as the earth remains. [Gen 8:21-22]
Have a look in your bibles at verses 8 – 11:
8 Then God told Noah and his sons, 9 “I hereby confirm my covenant with you and your descendants,10 and with all the animals that were on the boat with you—the birds, the livestock, and all the wild animals—every living creature on earth. 11 Yes, I am confirming my covenant with you. Never again will floodwaters kill all living creatures; never again will a flood destroy the earth.”
WE’RE THE DECENDANTS OF NOAH!!!
Did you notice that God’s promise applies to us? Does anyone see where in the text we find that God’s covenant applies to us?
It’s in verse nine, the last word “descendants” we are the descendants of Noah and his sons! If we fast-forward for a minute to chapter 9 verse 19, we can read: “From these three sons of Noah came all the people who now populate the earth.” We are the descendants of Noah and his family, therefore that covenant applies to us. As long as the earth remains, life will go on in spite of our sin.
God seals His covenant with Noah and his descendants by placing a visible sign in the “clouds” His rainbow is our promise, life will go on as long as the earth remains.
CLICHÉ ENDING
After being the “savior “of the world Noah retreats to a quiet life as a farmer and plants himself a vineyard. It seems like a beautiful finale doesn’t it? The hero that saved humanity has done his duty, he is going to cultivate the ground and live a quiet life from now on. The mood is set for a heartwarming finale, a real “Hollywood ending” The music is swelling, the string quartet is getting, ready to play. The Kleenex man is handing out tissues, we are waiting for the six final letters T-H-E E-N-D, THE END.
2.The human condition
SOMETHING#S WRONG!
Sitting in front of the cinema screen waiting for THE END to appear, something happens...BOOM.. Like a fist to the face we are hit with the sudden realization that there is more. We get up and start running, are we going to be able to outrun the truth? The truth catches up with us, and as we are pierced by its sword, we fall to our knees screaming “Noooooo”
We remember Genesis 9:21: “One day he drank some wine he had made, and he became drunk and lay naked inside his tent” We remember Genesis 9:24 - 25: “When Noah woke up from his stupor, he learned what Ham, his youngest son, had done. Then he cursed Canaan, the son of Ham: “May Canaan be cursed! May he be the lowest of servants to his relatives.”
Just as the final 40 seconds of “In her majesty’s secret service” everything goes to pot, (Although James Bond’s wife isn’t killed in the bible as far as I remember).
Noah the man that had great promise of being our “saviour” has done a 180. He has gone from being the saviour of the mankind; to being so drunk that he loses consciousness, inappropriate, naked and cursing his family. What happened???
Was Noah not meant to be the new Adam, did he fail as well? Did he not bring mankind, and the animals back to a restored earth? Was he not the saviour we were waiting for, the saviour God told us would come in Genesis 3:15 is he not the serpent crusher?
A PLANET NOT RESTORED
Well, look at verse 5 “And I will require the blood of anyone who takes another person’s life.
We realize that the world after Noah isn’t restored after all, a restored world would not need laws against murder! We’re pointed back to before the flood, Adam and Eve rebel against God in the garden [Genesis 3:6]. Cain murders Abel [Genesis 4:8], and Lamech’s disproportionate act of retaliation against the man who hurt him [Genesis 4:23-24]. Sin is out of control, and wickedness is so great. So God must do the only just thing ,He has to judge the world, killing all of mankind, except Noah and his family.
FLAWED DNA
So Noah has failed to save the world from sin. Why? Because Noah himself is a sinner! Just like Cain and Abel, Noah inherited the “DNA” of Adam and Eve. Noah’s rebellion against God is their rebellion against God. We face the same problem with Noah as we did with Adam and Eve, as we did with Cain and Abel, as we did with Lamech. The problem is that the sin has not been dealt with. We need someone to deal with our sin, but how?
Noah knew God, and God knew Noah. God deemed him righteous and blameless in His eyes. But what did Noah do? In spite of his close relationship to God. In spite of seeing God’s awesomeness and glory what does he do? After building his vineyard Noah get so plastered that he strips naked and, passes out. You’ve heard the story; Ham finds Noah drunk ,passed out and naked in his tent. He tells his brother who covers him up. Noah finds out what Ham has done and curses him, and blesses his brothers. Noah’s inability to enjoy the fruit of his orchard wisely, led him to sin. Just like Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God in the garden of Eden, where them eating from the forbidden fruit led to sin. And the result is the same: naked before the Lord, full of shame, and a terrible curse passed on to the son.
And we are no better. We show God and others the content of our hearts through our actions, and what we see. It’s not pretty, Adam and Eve knew God, they had an unique fellowship with Him, So did Noah. Yet, what they have in common is that they, sinned against God. The first rulers of creation, and Noah the “saviour” of mankind. They failed, they didn’t plan to fail, yet they did.
When Noah, his family and the animals left the ark, they also brought their sin. They brought their rebellious hearts, their desire and imagination for evil, the world still contained people capable of sin.
WE RE ALL SINNERS
In the letter to romans, Paul writes: “For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard [Rom 3:23]” We don’t need much interpretation to understand that we’re all sinners. That is the reality, we’re living in today, more than six billion sinners on one little planet. There’s no escape from being sinners, not even for Christians, (Well, at least not on this side of death. One day we will be fully restored!)
Just like there was no escape for Noah there is no escape for us. As Christians we are not better than others, but since we are in Christ by his mercy, we receive the same favour Noah received, although he was a sinner. And the word of God says the same about us: We’re blameless and righteous in God’s sight. Amazing isn’t it?
We get to know GOD, we develop deep and meaningful relationships with Him. Just like Adam, Eve and Noah, we know Him, we might actually know God better than they did. However, what do we do? We do what they did, we sin although we know better. Our generation is especially good at twisting the word of God into what we want it to be. Our churches seem quite often to be more concerned with being nice, than sharing the gospel and leading the congregation according to God’s word.
We try to create Christianity 2.0 where we become God’s equal and our own saviours. But if we’re honest with ourselves, we realize that this is hopeless. Just look at the bible. The Bible is filled with would be “saviours”, and they all crash and burn. Adam the first of his kind set to rule the creation messed up, Abel and Cain didn’t work out, Noah didn’t work out, Abraham didn’t work out, Samson didn’t work out, David didn’t work out, Solomon didn’t work out. No matter how bright, rich or gifted they were, they didn’t seem to work out. Why? Because they were all sinners, just like us.
3.A new hope
GOD ALWAYS KEEPS HIS PROMISE
But is this how it ends, not with a bang but with a whimper? Thank God, there is more. In chapter 10 we see God remembering His promise. The promise that life will go on as long as the earth remains [8:21-22]. We see how in spite of his sin, Noah becomes the ancestor of all of mankind. Just like Adam before him, before the flood. You see, although Noah failed, although he didn’t keep his part of the deal, God in all His glory always does. Life goes on, and so does God’s plan of salvation. There’s 65 more books in the bible after Genesis, and they show humanity as we are, not as we present ourselves. Still after all that time, filled with sin and failure to comply with the will of God. Earth is remaining; God is still acting out His plan of salvation not because of us, because of His awesome GRACE.
GENEALOGIES ABOUT JESUS
We see how from Shem, Ham and Japheth became the fathers of everyone in the world. We see how they had sons; how their sons had sons, and their sons, sons had sons, and so on. We can follow God’s master plan through the genealogies. In chapter 10 we read about the linages of Shem, Ham and Japheth. I have to admit that up to this point I found genealogies being, painfully boring. However, as I was reading about the descendants of Shem, I realized that the genealogies aren’t just a list of hard to pronounce names. They actually point towards Jesus. I am going to show you this by reading a shot summary of the descendants of Shem in chapter 10 verses 21-25, chapter 11:18-26 and Matthew 1:1-17.
The scripture I read is inspired by God, the chronology I read it in might come from my head. My point with reading this to you, is to show you that the genealogies points towards the serpent crusher[3:15]. The only One who’s ever lived a perfect life, the only one who can be the saviour. Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
From 10:21-25 we read that Shem had Aram. Aram had Arphaxad, who had Eber, who had Peleg. Peleg we pick up again in 11:18-26. We see he has Reu, who has Serug. From Serug we have Nahor, then Terah, then Abram who was renamed Abraham.
Turning to the New Testament we read in Matt 1:1-17 This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David and of Abraham: Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob and so on we go, on and on through the centuries until finally, finally we reach the one we have been waiting for!
Here is the serpent crusher, the one who is born of man, yet not born of man: fully human, yet fully divine. Human, yet sinless. The one who can defeat Satan, defeat death, and destroy sin. v15 Eliud was the father of Eleazar. Eleazar was the father of Matthan. Matthan was the father of Jacob. 16 Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Mary gave birth to Jesus, who is called the Messiah.
Throughout the bible, we see great men rise and fall, we see people that we think might have “saviour-potential” Noah, Abraham, Moses, Samson, Saul, David, Solomon. We know they all fail, there is but one.
JESUS AS PERSON AND SACRIFICE
There is but Jesus. He is the only one who led a perfect life, He is the sacrifice that is without a blemish. Only His blood can atone for our sins once and for all.
He is a full sufficient sacrifice. The aroma of His sacrifice on the cross is a fragrance God finds pleasing, so pleasing that the aroma unleashes eternal life for all those who turn to Him and believe! Jesus is the reason God promises Noah that life will go on as long as the earth remains. Genesis 8:21-22. Jesus is the new Adam, a better Noah. He is the serpent crusher, He is the only one who can deal with our sin. That is what He is did on the cross, He dealt with our sin. People are born and people die, as long as the earth remains, there is hope. Every day we’re given is a new chance to turn to Jesus and repent of our sins.
Conclusion
1. When Noah and his family, leaves the ark after the flood. They return to a semi-restored world, where sin yet is to be dealt with.
2. Noah couldn’t save us because he is a sinner, and for the same reason we can’t save ourselves. We need someone without sin.
3. There is only salvation through Jesus, He is the serpent crusher, it’s because of Him Adam found favour with God, it’s because of Him we who are in Christ find favour with God.
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