Genesis 17
Last week we saw how as the Lord made the flood waters subside on the earth He was giving humanity a second chance – a second chance to live! Because of God and by God man had a new lease on life and a second chance to exist and live like they were created to live.
But what if mankind became increasingly sinful again? What if man went right back to his old ways of ungodliness? Would God destroy them again?
I mean, if our children continue to disobey we continue to punish them. If our employees continue to break the rules on the job they continue to get discipline. Even in church if someone continues to lead an ungodly life we confront them. So what about God and mankind? If this ‘new’ life on earth goes back to its old ways will God step in with His wrath?
Well the answer is yes and no. Yes, God will bring wrath, punishment, and chastisement on the people of the earth as He sees need to. But he won’t universally destroy all life on the earth with a flood like He had before. As we’re going to see in tonight’s passage, God makes a covenant with mankind to that affect.
Now the word covenant is used throughout Scripture in many different places. Some times it’s used as God expressing His promises to man or man expressing their promises to God. Sometimes it’s used to express promises between men or promises between nations. But in most cases it’s representing a promise or even a legal contract that binds the parties to what’s in the covenant. It’s a mutual agreement that binds the parties involved to faithfulness.
Sometimes the covenants in the Bible between God and man are conditional covenants. Those are where the Lord has said He will bless His people if they remain faithful to Him.
[Read Exodus 19:5-6.]
Israel’s faithfulness to their covenant to the Lord would be rewarded by His blessing upon their nation. That’s a conditional covenant.
But some covenants are unconditional like the one we’ll be looking at tonight. Unconditional covenants aren’t based on the faithfulness of man. Unconditional covenants are based on the faithfulness of God.
Now the first place this unconditional covenant is mentioned is actually before the flood ever happened. As a matter of fact, God mentions His covenant with man before Noah even starts building the ark!
[Read Genesis 6:18-19.]
As we learned a few sermons ago, the word ‘establish’ is the Hebrew word ‘koom’ which means to accomplish and confirm something. The flood was coming and Noah would need to understand that it was all a part of God’s plan to accomplish and confirm His will on the earth. God would establish His covenant in His way and in His time. After 120 years of ark building, and a year of ark living, God would permanently establish His covenant with man.
Last week we saw God display just how precious man is to Him. He furthers that thought by establishing an unconditional covenant with man to show us just how much He loves us.
I. The God of the covenant
[Read Genesis 9:8-11.]
God makes a promise to man that’s entirely based on Himself and who He is. He even repeats Himself in saying, “I will establish My covenant with you.” This is a common Hebrew method of showing emphasis and seriousness. God wants everyone to know that it’s His covenant and that He has established it. The establishment of the covenant has nothing to do with man and everything to do with God.
Remember, it’s by His grace that He allowed the human race to go on in the first place. And so here He further shows us just who He is by establishing the covenant Himself. That means keeping the covenant is solely His responsibility. There’s nothing man can do to encourage Him or to even discourage Him in keeping this covenant. It’s all on Him.
And you know what? Our God is faithful. He has and will continue to keep His covenant with man. And there’s a few of His attributes that show us why He does this.
1. God is immutable, (unchanging)
[Read Isaiah 54:10, James 1:17.]
God is unchanging. His mind isn’t swayed by the winds of time or by the seasons of circumstance. Our eternal God is also the unchanging One. We can take great comfort in knowing that our God is faithful to His promises because He is immutable.
2. God is omniscient, (all-powerful)
[Read Jeremiah 32:17, Revelation 19:6.]
There are no limits on the power of God. So not only is He committed to keeping His promise to us, He is able. And this covenant, as we’re going to see, is something that takes the almighty power of God to keep. We can take great comfort in knowing that our God is faithful to His promises because He is omniscient.
3. God is love
[Read I John 4:7-8.]
God doesn’t just love us, He is love! Everything He does is because of His love for us. He can never cease to love us because He can never cease to be God and God never ceases to be love. We can take great comfort in knowing that our God is faithful to His promises because He is love. The God of the covenant, our God of the covenant, is faithful to keep His promise to us because He is immutable, He is omniscient and He is love.
So as God establishes His covenant with man based solely on who He is, just what is the purpose of the covenant? Why did He establish His promise to never end all life on earth with a global flood again?
II. The purpose of the covenant
[Read Genesis 9:11.]
The purpose of the covenant seems to be two-fold:
1. The covenant shows us who God is
And we’ve already seen that our God is faithful beyond measure.
2. The covenant shows man that He has a chance to live
I know it sounds basic, but think about it. Noah, his family, their future generations, and even us today can rest in the fact that God won’t wipe us out with a flood again. We have a chance to live. We have a chance to choose to live for Him and live as He created us to live.
Man do we take this for granted. It’s like we walk around in our arrogance believing that since we’re alive we’re entitled to do as we please. It’s this entitlement mentality that believes we somehow deserve our life and it’ll all ours. But really, being alive is a gift from God that we shouldn’t take for granted. I think people acquainted with death or the death of a loved one understand this much better than the average American today.
When we lose someone close to us we better understand our own mortality. When sickness or circumstance bring us close to death we better understand our own mortality.
[Car wreck story.]
Life is precious but life is fleeting. Rarely does someone know when their time is up. So we try not and take life for granted.
When we think about God’s covenant with man we need to not only remember who God is but also that He hasn’t given up on us. He’s given humanity another shot at life. The flood wasn’t the end, and won’t be again. The flood was a chance for man to start over and live as God created us to live. God’s covenant with man shows us that every time we think on it. God has given us another chance to really live!
And of course we have a wonderful reminder of His covenant every time we look up in the sky and see a rainbow.
III. The sign of the covenant
Now I happen to think that the rainbow was a new phenomenon that happened on the earth after the flood because of the new atmospheric conditions with the formation of rain clouds and because of rain itself, (which wasn’t present before the flood).
So God places the rainbow in the sky as a sign of His covenant with man.
[Read Genesis 9:12-17.]
So God places the rainbow in the sky as a sign of His covenant with man. But it isn’t just a sign to us, it’s a sign to God Himself. But let’s make sure we understand what this really means. Because if you just read it at face value it looks like the Lord needs a reminder every once in a while of His promises to man.
[God getting upset with man and noticing rainbow demonstration.]
The word ‘remember’ here in the text is the Hebrew verb ‘zakar’ that literally means “to remember, to recall, to mention”. It means more than just to recall. It means to retain in thought. It’s not that our eternal, omniscient God forgets His promises and needs to be reminded. It means our eternal God constantly thinks on His promises to man. The rainbow, that He places in the sky, causes Him to continually muse on His promises to man.
We don’t put up pictures of our family on our living room walls because we don’t want to forget about them. We put up pictures as constant reminders of them and of our feelings towards them. When we look at pictures of family on our walls it isn’t like we say to ourselves, “Oh yea, I have three kids!” We look at the pictures and say to, “I love my three kids.”
When God places a rainbow in the sky I think He looks at it and says to Himself, “I love my kids. I’ll never flood the earth again because of love my creation.” God doesn’t need the rainbow to jar His memory. He uses the rainbow to reflect on His love for us.
Now us on the other hand, our memory needs some jarring every once in a while. We go through tough times, times of doubt, and we forget that our God is faithful. Faithful in His promises towards us. And when we look at the rainbow it should remind us that if He’s been faithful for the last 4000 plus years never to flood the entire earth again, He’ll be faithful in His promises to us for the years we spend on this earth – and even after we leave the earth.
- He’ll fulfill His promise of salvation for anyone who would believe in His Son.
- His promise of forgiveness of sins.
- His promise to provide for our needs.
- His promise to answer prayers given according to His will.
- His promise of Holy Spirit power for every day life.
- His promise of comfort in the midst of trials.
- His promise of wisdom for life’s decisions.
- His promise of eternal life.
- His promise of eternal rewards.
- And many more.
When we look up at the sky we should see more than just God’s promise not to cause
another worldwide flood. We should see the God of the covenant who is faithful and able to keep His promises to man. The sign of the covenant is a constant reminder of that. Isn’t it great that we serve a God like we do?
In the early 20’s there was a former minister named Thomas Chisholm who wrote some 1200 poems. He sent some of them to a composer who turned one of them into one of the most well known hymns of all time. Chisholm said there were no special circumstances which caused its writing - just his experience and Bible truth. Isn’t that great. Just what He knew about God moved him to write the poem, that was later made into the song, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” Why don’t we sing that as we close tonight.
