And when these things begin to come to pass,
then look up, and lift up your heads;
for your redemption draweth nigh.
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March 20, 2008:Traditions | Just a few more weary days and then... I'll fly away... And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh. |
| December 29, 2007:New Year's 2008 | ||
| November 3, 2007:How To Be Successful in Christian Ministry | ||
| October 23, 2007:Salmon |
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| Noah's Flood and God's Covenant William H. Haller |
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This morning's lesson is on the covenant that God made after the flood of Noah. I'm going to back up just a bit, since I really think the quarterly writers missed the whole reason for the flood in the first place and this needs to get cleared up before you can really examine the covenant itself. Ignoring the reason for the flood also deflects some from the focus on why Noah and his family were picked to be saved instead of others around him. Not everyone shares my beliefs about these subjects and that is fine. My job is to make you think about what you believe.
So let's go back and examine some early Biblical history. We are going to touch very briefly on some of the final elements of the record of creation, then go to the time of Noah, and talk about what Satan was up to in between. Then we'll look at the covenant itself. This is similar to the quarterly writer's presentation, but with a few important twists.
In Genesis 1, we have a Biblical description of the creation of many things. For example, in verse 21 the creation of the sea creatures and birds is recorded. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. In verse 24 there is a description of the creation of the land creatures. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. In verse 27 there is a description of the creation of man. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. The him in this verse refers to Adam, and the them refers to the remainder of the created flora and fauna created in the earlier verses.
There were various commands given to each. In several places, after the particular subjects are created, the command is given to be fruitful and multiply. This can be seen in the verses after the creation of the fowls, sea creatures, and man, for example. In each case, the injunction is given that they only reproduce after their own kind. Man had the additional command to replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over every living thing that moves on the earth. At the end of the complete creation, the Bible records God's thoughts on his work. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
The creation, commands to be fruitful and multiply after their own kind, and satisfaction with His work are the key thoughts I want to bring out of this section of scripture. When God was done, He was pleased with what He had created. God doesn't create junk is a phrase that has become bumper sticker material today, but it is true. He made a beautiful harmonious place, suitable for habitation by man and suitable for Him to come and converse with man in the cool of the day.
We are going to move forward in time now. We don't know how far. Woman has been created as an help meet (or suitable) for Adam. They have had fellowship with God for a time. Eventually, however, they didn't live up to God's few recorded injunctions. By eating the fruit in the midst of the garden, sin entered humanity and a curse was put on man and on the earth. There is one part of the curse that I specifically want to mention in leading into the rest of today's study. Genesis 3:15: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Verses 14 and 15 form the first prophecy recorded in the Bible. In this second part, there is a promise given by God that the seed of woman would have His heel bruised by Satan and would in turn bruise Satan's head. This was a prophetic message about Christ coming through a woman, of Christ's suffering at the end of His life and dying on the cross and his triumph over Satan in the end. This prophecy is fulfilled in some aspects - Christ has come through Mary and suffered and died on the cross. It is being fulfilled, and will be fully fulfilled at the end of this age as recorded in Daniel and in Revelation in terms of complete victory over Satan.
No one on Earth knows what Satan thought he could accomplish - if anything - by using the serpent to entice Eve in the first place. He had already been thrown out of Heaven when he rebelled against God at some time in the past as recorded in Isaiah 14. He knew he couldn't win - he was fighting a rear guard action. My personal opinion based on my understanding of Scripture was that he was mad at having his kingdom on Earth taken away from him and destroyed as described in Genesis 1:2 and wanted to mess up God's new plans. Sort of a - see this creation of yours isn't perfect either - type of thing. There was also a hatred against anything God did, which is carrying through in the persecution of the church today. But that is pure speculation as to his thoughts.
At any rate, when God spoke this prophecy, I believe that Satan fully understood the prophetical implications of the words used. He knew at that point - if not before - what God was planning. He knew that God's word was law, and, like before, he wanted to subvert that law at any cost and in any way he could.
Satan's first attempt to destroy God's plan occurs during the Dispensation of Conscience which lasted from the time Adam was banished from the garden until Noah's flood. Satan's reasoning was straightforward. If he could destroy and subvert the purity of man's blood line, then there would be no vessel left for God to use in providing a redeemer for mankind.
In Genesis 6, it is recorded that the sons of God married the daughters of men in an attempt to corrupt the bloodline established by Adam and Eve. Genesis 6:2-4: That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
In the Old Testament, the term ``sons of God'' is a reference to angels; for example, in the first part of the book of Job (1:6 and 2:1), it is recorded that the sons of God (including Satan) came to present themselves before God. In the reference here in Genesis, the actions of certain of the angels which united their fortunes with Satan and fell with him are being described. The offspring of the union between woman and angelic beings are recorded as being giants - not normal men and women as would be the case if the Bible meant that men and women were marrying since men and women - as with the animals, reproduce after their own kind.
Satan attempted this again after Noah's flood and this is one of the reasons that God commanded the Israelites to utterly destroy many of the inhabitants of Canaan when they left Egypt and went to the promised land. The Anakims, Ammonites, Zamzummims, and residents of the valley of Rephaim among others are all described as being giants. These were not merely 7 foot tall people, which we might consider giants today. The bed of Og, the king of Bashan is described in Deuteronomy 3:11 as being 18 1/2 feet long and 8 ft., 4 in. wide. Goliath was about 13 feet tall in 1 Samuel 17:4 and wore 200 pounds of armor. Javelins are described as being 10 to 25 pounds apiece in 2 Samuel 21:19. There is some discrepancies possible in the measure of a cubit (these measurements come from a cubit being 25 inches and a span of 10 inches) but in any event these were extremely large folks. They weren't just good NBA center material!
Since God had promised not to destroy the entire earth yet again, He used the Israelites to eliminate the results of Satan's work on earth the second time around and locked the offending angels up in chains - see 2 Peter 2:4-5 and Jude 6-7 for a further description of the angel's part in all this.
Remember that although just a few chapters have passed since Genesis 3, this covers 1,656 years of history. How successful was Satan in his first attempt to destroy mankind? At the time of the flood, wickedness reigned on the earth. We aren't talking about just a few people. Some estimate that using the current rate of reproduction, there could have been 150 to 500 million people around at that point in time. Others put the estimate higher. God waited and gave mankind a chance to choose who they would serve - just as He does today. But it was clear that not only was Satan being successful in introducing impurities into the blood line from Adam and Eve that would impact the coming of the Messiah, the morality of the world was in absolute shambles. Genesis 6:5: And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
God's disgust with the situation was very real. The joy in his heart, recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, was broken. It had been hurt by the disobedience of Adam and Eve, and was now absent. Genesis 6:6-7: And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
God's attitude was very clear. He was grieved at the core of His heart. He repented of making man on earth in the first place. In order to keep the blood line intact, it was necessary to select the last remaining family which was still perfect, and save it, destroying everything else. Of all mankind, Noah was found to have perfect genes among his contemporaries. As the Young translation puts it - taking verse 9 and 8 out of order These are births of Noah: Noah is a righteous man; perfect he hath been among his generations; with God hath Noah walked habitually. And Noah found grace in the eyes of Jehovah.
Many have questioned why the children weren't saved or why Noah couldn't convert anyone else in the days as he built the ark and save others. After all, we believe that when Christ returns the children below the age of accountability get a free pass to heaven. The fact is, the bloodlines were polluted, and this was God's way of cleansing the earth. I believe that the children who died still got that free pass to heaven, but God simply couldn't let them live to reproduce another generation with genetic material partially from fallen angels. I believe that by that point, there was nothing anyone else could have done to be saved other than Noah. God wanted another clean start. Fortunately, for humanity, Noah was both pure, and willing - which was just as important.
What if Noah had been dispirited about all that was going on around him and just said - it doesn't matter. The world is too wicked for me to make a difference. I don't have the strength to do what you ask of me (he was 600 years old then, after all.) It isn't worth it - just take me too. What will the neighbors think - they're a lot bigger than I am after all. So many things that we say today when God asks something of us may have floated through his mind as well. Satan certainly would have been trying to place those types of seeds of doubt in his mind. But through it all, he did what God asked of him.
We aren't going to deal specifically with the building of the ark to save Noah and his immediate family, and the fowl of the air and beasts of the field. I only want to make two pertinent points. God was very specific in His plans for how the ark was to be made, and exactly what clean and unclean animals were to occupy it. Seven pairs of clean animals and one pair of unclean animals of each kind occupied the ark. God selected exactly which ones were to go and got them miraculously to the ark and into the ark without killing each other in the process. Animals tend to be a lot more obedient to God than mankind. After God had shut Noah, his family, the animals and the birds in the ark, the flood came and utterly destroyed everything else. All of the living flesh in the area around him died in the flood.
There is discussion as to whether this flood was universal or local. My belief is that it was a local flood in the sense of the world as a whole, but it was on such a vast scale when compared to Noah and his family that it seemed to be universal in scope. I have long felt that the flood could have referred to a vast inundation of water from an ocean into a below-sea level place where they may have been living. Glenn Morton makes a very good point about this in his paper The Bible and Science: The Mediterranean Flood. I'm going to raise some of his main points here, just to give you a flavor of the article. My belief is that this flood was too far back in time to have been the one referred to in Genesis 6. I tend to lean to the flooding of the Black Sea as more likely which occurred around 5500 BC. But the principals would be the same for Noah's account's purposes. In this article he proposes that Noah inhabited what is now the sea floor of the Mediterranean Ocean, and that a break between Africa and Europe at Gibraltar opened to allow in a flood of sea water. A summary of the main points he makes (see his paper for references) are that
When we look at the Mediterranean Sea or Black Sea today, it is hard to picture a dry basin or just a smaller fresh water lake, but scientists believe that during the late Miocene (Messinian, 5-6 Ma) period, the Mediterranean did in fact dry out and that the Black Sea was once just a separate salt water lake. At some point, rising glacial melt raised the water level and broke down the barrier to Africa to start the process of filling the Mediterranean and a similar occurrence or earthquake activity broke the dividing line at the Bosporus to fill the Black Sea. In either case, it is plausible that a catastrophic flood event occurred which would appear to be global to the inhabitants, would not be survivable for anyone not prepared, would not require saving all animals, birds, insects worldwide in an ark - just the local ones, and which fits the description of the Genesis account. Even though the basic body of water didn't recede, the torrential rains experienced around the area would have taken time to dry out.
I don't argue with anyone who says that the terms "great in the earth", "the face of the earth", "all flesh", et cetera were forms of Hyperbole where an exaggerated term is used when only a portion is really affected. God could potentially eliminate all of the problems caused by the angels by destroying all of the people affected in the one area and still have people dispersed in other areas that were not affected by the angels in any way and who could survive on their own. This would also be consistent with either flooded area noted above. I don't personally think this is the case, but it isn't worth arguing about. Similar debates arise over the extent of the Anti-Christ's rule after the Rapture - will it be worldwide or is hyperbolic and figurative language being used?
The lesson writer goes on about how the post-flood humans were just as likely to commit sin as the pre-flood humans. They say that the only good that the flood did was to change God's attitude toward sinners since it didn't fix the problem. Well, I disagree. God's attitude toward sinners has always been the same. He wants everyone to be saved. He put a plan in motion when Adam and Eve sinned. In spite of Satan's best efforts to derail the plan, He carried out His plan, even though it meant wiping out a bunch of His creation to do it. He waited till the very last minute for man to choose the right path. He only acted when it was clear that man would not choose that path and there was just the one chance (Noah and his family) left. Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord (Gen. 6:8). He was found righteous before God (Gen. 7:1). He did what God asked of him and built an ark. He and the animals went in. God executed Judgment. God would have preferred man to take the right path. He didn't want to destroy His creation. But He had no choice if the Messiah was to come.
So that finally brings us to the subject of the lesson in Chapter 9 of Genesis. Let's read the scripture verses that are recorded.
Here God starts with the same command He gave to Adam. Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth - fill it again. If I'm still doing this in a year, we can talk about Genesis 1 and why I think the replenish command is used in both places instead of a command to simply plenish the earth (fill it a first time).
God states that a fear of man will be on every creature. Since man had caused all of creation save plants and dwellers of the rivers and sea to be wiped out, it isn't to hard to figure out where the fear would come from. Man is now given the freedom to eat animals explicitly (whether this was true before is an unending debate). The death penalty for murder is affirmed.
Then we get to the meat of God's covenant with Noah, his offspring, and all living creatures on the Earth. This covenant was first mentioned back in Genesis 6:17-18. Now we learn its details. God will not inundate the earth and wipe out His complete creation via a flood. He picked the rainbow (not the first rainbow ever made - simply what He chose to associate with His covenant with the living creatures on the Earth) to be His symbol to remind him not to let loose in this way again and to remind mankind also of His word. Fortunately His word is good.
That is not to say that people will not lose their lives in floods or other disasters. We can look at the recent tsunamis as examples where thousands upon thousands were killed when the tsunami flood waters hit. I won't get into the debate as to whether this is judgment from God or not. I did think it was amazingly timed at the day after Christmas and the day after Easter. It severely disrupted some portions of the world which are manifestly anti-Christian. Did God have a hand in it? We'll have to ask some angel someday. But even if He did, He has still kept His word, because humanity, as a whole, lives on. Many noted that many animals took to higher ground before the tsunami hit - interesting that the animals listened better to God than we do.
The quarterly writer points out that 2 Peter 3:3-13 says the world is is now reserved until a destruction of fire in which the heavens and earth will pass away with a great noise and the elements and works therein will melt with a fervent heat. A new heavens and a new earth are promised. He asks whether this is literal or figurative. I believe it is literal. Even if God does not act at all, in 5 billion years or so our sun will eventually either super nova or collapse and become a white dwarf. In either case, it doesn't look much different from scripture where our planet is concerned. The diameter of the sun will grow to reach our planet's orbit, the atmosphere will be super heated to 3,000 degrees or so, the ocean's will boil away, and poof, that's all for us. Our little planet will be a crispy critter deep in the sun. If God chooses to destabilize the star early, that's all she wrote! Old Peter had it all together back in 61-65 A.D.
Just keep in mind that God's purpose is to redeem all of mankind. He isn't out to get you if you are making an effort to reach out to Him. But if you read the Old Testament, it is clear that when people sin, he frequently cuts them off. Where is the line - opt for safety!
