This Is God's World

Setting the World Stage for God’s Glorious Purposes
(Genesis 10, Preaching: Pastor Nathan Snyder, August 31, 2014)

God's Sovereignty.  Genesis 10 records the descendents of Noah’s three sons: Japheth, Ham, and then Shem.  From these would come all the peoples of the earth.  Seventy names are given of people who descended from Noah’s sons, a number which symbolizes completeness.  All the peoples of the world are represented here.  No other table of nations like this has been discovered in ancient Near Eastern records.  The narrative of Genesis shows that there is one God who created the world, who created all peoples, and who rules over the world and its peoples.  As Paul states in Acts 17:26, “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place.”  God is sovereign over human history and Genesis 10 sets the stage for the world in which God will display his glory through working out his purposes of deserved judgment and undeserved blessing for all nations.

God's Justice.  The largest portion of this table of nations is the record of Ham’s descendents.  The judgment of God is all over this section.  Nimrod is a mighty man, recalling Genesis 6:4, who builds himself a kingdom.  This kingdom will be at the center of mankind’s united efforts to defy God by building the Tower of Babel in chapter 11.  God will respond in judgment, confusing mankind’s languages and dispersing the peoples of the earth.  Half of this section follows the descendents of Canaan.  God will bring judgment upon them for their great wickedness through his people Israel.  We also here among Ham’s descendents some of Israel’s greatest foes.  There is Egypt, who would enslave the Israelites.  There are the Philistines, who would plague Israel during the period of the judges and the early monarchy.  And there are Babel and Ninevah of Assyria.  Built by Nimrod, these would become the centers of powerful kingdoms which would themselves be agents of God’s judgment against Israel.  All judgment against Israel or her foes is deserved because mankind, like Nimrod, is prone to seek to build our own kingdoms rather than humbly surrender to God’s kingdom.  And yet sovereign over rebellious mankind is God, who displays his glorious justice in his judgments.

God's Mercy.  The chapter concludes with Shem, through whose descendent Abram blessing would come to all nations.  Blessing for a sinful world is undeserved.  This is the mercy and grace of God.  It would not come through just any descendent of Shem.  When the genealogy gets to the sons of Eber, it follows Joktan rather than Peleg.  Yet chapter 11 will follow Peleg’s descendents until Terah and his three sons.  God chose Terah’s son Abram to be the vehicle of blessing.  From Abram’s descendents, Jesus would be chosen to dispense God’s undeserved blessing.  That blessing would be for all peoples (12:3; 22:18), the descendents of Shem, Japheth, and even Ham.  God lavishes his grace on all those who stop living to build their own kingdoms and surrender to him and to his Son’s kingdom.  Building our own crumbling kingdoms has earned God’s deserved judgment.  Jesus Christ, whose kingdom will truly last, has earned for us God’s blessing.  In pouring out undeserved blessing upon the nations through his Son, God displays his glorious grace.

God is Creator and Ruler of all.  Human history is the stage for his display of deserved judgment upon mankind’s pompous pride, and his undeserved blessing to those from all nations to whom he extends his mercy.

Put the Word to Work:  The world and mankind does not exist for our glory, our kingdom, or our plans, but for God’s.  Be part of the kingdom of his Son and receive his gracious, undeserved blessing.

Memory Verse from the Psalms of Ascents: Psalm 122:5 – There thrones of judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David.

Gospel Reading: Matthew 13:47-50 – The Parable of the Net

The Grace of God Covers Our Shame

Gossip Versus Grace
(Genesis 9:18-29, Preaching: Pastor Nathan Snyder, August 24, 2014)

“Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.  Noah walked with God” (6:9b).  Thus he heeded God’s warning about the coming flood.  Now there is a fresh start for the world.  Noah is like a second Adam.  All mankind will descend from him and his three sons (9:18-19).  And yet like Adam, Noah was a sinner, as we see from this last glimpse we are given into his life.  He gets drunk and lays naked in his tent.  The shame of this reminds us of Adam and Eve, naked and ashamed in the garden after their sin.  Then in 9:29, Noah dies, like every other sinner.  Do not put heroes like Noah on a pedestal where they do not belong.  Noah was a great man.  But he was not the Christ.  Only Jesus can undo sin, shame, and death for us.

When Ham saw his father in the tent, he went to tell his brothers.  Why did Ham feel the need to announce his father’s shame?  Maybe he thought it was funny.  Maybe he was disgusted and wanted to vent.  The text doesn’t say.  Yet we’ve probably all felt the temptation to gossip over another person’s sin.  Maybe it makes us feel lifted up to see someone else brought down.  Especially if it’s a righteous person like Noah.  The world loves to point out the failings of the faithful.  It makes us feel more secure in our own unbelief when we see the sin and weakness of those that do believe and devote themselves to God.

Ham responded to his father’s sin by gossiping.  Yet when Shem and Japheth heard about their father, they showed him grace and covered his nakedness.  This is what Christ does for all who belong to him.  He did not come into the world to gloat over our shame, or hold our sin against us, but to cover it.  He was exposed and naked on the cross for our sin, not his own.  His blood and perfect righteousness covers us.  When we receive this precious gift by faith, it changes our hearts.  We become people like Shem and Japheth.  No longer do we need to cover our own shame by gossiping about the shame of others.  Christ has covered our shame.  We love as he has loved us, and love covers over a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8; cf. Proverbs 11:12-13).  We must not put another person on a pedestal, but we must not also tear them down when we see their failures.

Noah learned of his son Ham’s extreme disrespect.  He responded by pronouncing a curse, not on Ham but on his son Canaan.  The fact that Canaan was Ham’s son had already been mentioned twice in the text (9:18, 22).  God would bless Shem and Japheth.  God is even called the God of Shem.  Japheth would dwell in the tents of Shem, but Canaan would be servant to both Shem and Japheth.  This all seems very bizarre.  Yet God was using the occasion of Ham’s sin to give a prophetic word through Noah regarding the rest of biblical history.  The people descended from Canaan would become exceedingly wicked.  The people of Israel, descended from Shem, would be agents of God’s judgment on Canaan.  Then when Christ came from the line of Shem, his gospel would in the first century spread widely throughout the regions populated by the descendents of Japheth in Asia Minor (Turkey), Greece, and Italy.  The other descendents of Ham would also be included in the tent of Shem, but the focus of these verses is on what would actually be recorded in the Bible itself regarding the early spread of the gospel.  Gossiping over a righteous man’s sin leads to judgment.  Why not rather receive the grace of God and then extend that same grace to our brothers and sisters in their failings?

Put the Word to Work:  Honor those who honor God, despite their weakness and failings.

Memory Verse from the Psalms of Ascents: Psalm 122:3-4 – Jerusalem—built as a city that is bound together, to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel, to give thank to the name of the LORD.

Gospel Reading: Matthew 13:45-46 – The Parable of the Pearl of Great Value

Preserved for Redemption

God’s Covenant of Preservation
(Genesis 8:20-9:17, Preaching: Pastor Nathan Snyder, August 17, 2014)

Every human being has breathtaking dignity, for each of us has been knit together by God to bear his own image (9:6).  God made us to care for and rule over his creation.  He made us to live forever in relationship with himself.  From the successful billionaire to the homeless man on the street corner—remember that each person is made in the image of God.  Animal life is also important to God (8:21b; 9:4, 10-12, 15-16).  We are given animals to rule over, and to eat, but not with savagery.  It is clear that God cares about all life, and so must we.  Yet God is so adamant about the dignity of humankind, that he demands a reckoning when human life is taken (9:5).  Indeed, when one person takes the life of another, God has established that the murderer deserves the death penalty (9:6).  Some would argue that the death penalty is itself a violation of the dignity of human life.  But according to our Maker’s sense of justice, it is right for society to put a murderer to death.  God has given authority to the civil government to carry out such justice (Romans 13:1-4).

Every human being has great dignity, and yet it is also true that every human being is grossly depraved (8:21).  God promised Noah that he would not destroy the world again in a flood: “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth.”  In other words, the sinfulness of man that motivated God to send the flood had not gone away, and God is pledging not to respond to that sin again with a worldwide flood.  God’s indictment of the human heart is hard to hear, but it is true.  Apart from God’s grace, our heart’s natural bent is not to trust and obey God.  Therefore left to ourselves, the intentions of our hearts are evil from youth.  The fact that we are made in God’s image makes our depravity all the more heinous.

After the flood, God looked upon Noah and his family.  He looked into the future at the generations of humanity that would indeed fulfill his commands to be fruitful and multiply upon the face of the earth (9:1, 7).  Human life was precious to God, but it was also depraved and in need of redemption.  God made a covenant with humanity, and all living creatures, that he would not destroy the world again with a flood.  He promised to preserve the world so that in time he could redeem the world from sin and all its bitter fruit, which redemption God had already promised to Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:15).  The LORD made his promise to Noah to preserve the world when he smelled the pleasing aroma of the burnt offerings Noah made on an altar (8:20-21).  Was it really the death of a few animals that could appease the justice of God against sin and bring about redemption?  No (Hebrews 10:4).  Yet these offerings foreshadowed the sacrifice of God’s own Son, the God-man Jesus, who would die on the cross to truly redeem us.  His death satisfied God’s justice so that we can be redeemed from God’s deserved judgment.  It is only through Jesus that we, whose hearts are evil from youth, can be fully cleansed of guilt and have our hearts renewed so that we do learn to trust and obey God.  Jesus died to redeem depraved image-bearers like us, and restore us into perfect reflections of God’s goodness.  One day he will redeem the whole of creation (Romans 8:20-21).  God’s covenant with Noah, and with all living creatures, made this redemption possible.  He gave us a sign of his promise: the rainbow.  The next time you see a rainbow, remember that God has postponed worldwide judgment so that he could send his Son to be our Savior.

Put the Word to Work:  How should we view each person in our home, neighborhood, school, workplace, church, etc.?  This person has both great dignity and tragic depravity.  This person needs Jesus, our Savior.

Memory Verse from the Psalms of Ascents: Psalm 122:2 – Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!

Gospel Reading: Matthew 13:44 – The Parable of the Hidden Treasure

Christianity-A Religion of Hope

God Remembered

(Genesis 8:1-19, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, August 10, 2014)

[8:1] But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. [2] The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, [3] and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, [4] and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. [5] And the waters continued to abate until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains were seen.

The Lord has the right to judge His creatures, but He will not forget His eternal plan. God had promised that He would bring victory over evil. That's why the waters of judgment receded.

[6] At the end of forty days Noah opened the window of the ark that he had made [7] and sent forth a raven. It went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth. [8] Then he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters had subsided from the face of the ground. [9] But the dove found no place to set her foot, and she returned to him to the ark, for the waters were still on the face of the whole earth. So he put out his hand and took her and brought her into the ark with him. [10] He waited another seven days, and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark. [11] And the dove came back to him in the evening, and behold, in her mouth was a freshly plucked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the waters had subsided from the earth. [12] Then he waited another seven days and sent forth the dove, and she did not return to him anymore.

God used a raven, a dove, and an olive branch to communicate to Noah that the waters had subsided from the earth. With the passage of an appointed amount of time, a new world began.

[13] In the six hundred and first year, in the first month, the first day of the month, 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. [14] In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth had dried out. [15] Then God said to Noah, [16] “Go out from the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons' wives with you. [17] Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—that they may swarm on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” [18] So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. [19] Every beast, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out by families from the ark.

God called Noah and His family out of the ark. The day of destruction was over. The time had come for God's creatures to go out by families and to be fruitful and multiply on the earth.

Put the Word to Work: The only reason that there can be any communal peace or family joy upon the earth is that God remembers that His eternal purpose will surely be accomplished through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We need to live out the important connection between God's love for the elect (special grace) and His goodness to all (common grace.) We are an aroma of life to all who can sense the joy that comes in the morning.

Memory Verse from the Songs of Ascents—Psalm 122:1 – I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go to the house of the LORD!”

Gospel Reading—Matthew 13:36-43 – The parable of the weeds explained

He Hideth My Soul...

The Ark of Our Salvation

(Genesis 6:9-7:24, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, August 3, 2014)

[9] These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God. [10] And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.... [12] And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt ...

Everyone on the earth came from the line of Noah through his three sons. What do we know about this ancestor? He was called a righteous man, and like Enoch before him, Noah walked with God. He did this in an era that was so corrupt and filled with violence that the Lord determined to make an end of all other humanity in the world that once was. The Lord gave Noah detailed instructions that would be necessary to survive the judgment day that was coming. Salvation would be through an ark that would be able to withstand the flood. He promised to establish His covenant with Noah—His arrangement for new life upon the earth. Noah heard the covenant word of promise and believed. He did all that God commanded.

[7:1] Then the LORD said to Noah, “Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you are righteous before me in this generation. [2] Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and his mate, and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and his mate, [3] and seven pairs of the birds of the heavens also, male and female, to keep their offspring alive on the face of all the earth. [4] For in seven days I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.” ...

The account of the boarding of the ark and the coming of the flood makes noticeable use of the number seven—the biblical number of perfection or completeness. There would be seven pairs of animals that could be used for sacrifice and seven pairs of birds of the heavens. The flood would come seven days after the boarding of the ark. God's judgment would surely come. Noah's obedience to the Word of the Lord would require faith. That faith was blessed with survival.

[11] In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.... [17] The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. [18] The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. [19] And the waters prevailed … [20] The waters prevailed … [23] ... Only Noah was left, and those who were with him in the ark. [24] And the waters prevailed on the earth 150 days.

The water did come. It came from below and from above. The waters of the Lord's judgment prevailed upon the old earth. That pronouncement was repeated in the account for emphasis. Only that which was in the ark survived the waters.

Put the Word to Work: There can be no doubt that the Lord is able to judge the earth. Nor can there be any doubt that He is able to save His chosen people from that judgment. The flood reminds us of these facts. Another day of judgment is coming. The only way to be saved from that judgment is through the provision of Jesus—the ark of our salvation. Hear. Believe. Obey.

Memory Verse from the Songs of Ascents—Psalm 121:8 – The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.

Gospel Reading—Matthew 13:34-35 – Prophecy and parables