Looking At Signs - Genesis 8:20-9:29

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Looking At Signs
Gen 8:20-9:29
20210711
By grace we have life, through God’s covenant promises we have a future!
Introduc)on
Church, right here in the early chapters of Genesis we are in the middle of one of the greatest
stories that has ever occurred in the history of the planet. God has given us a tremendous account of
preserving the human race along with all the animals from the devastaIon of a worldwide ﬂood that he
justly released upon the face of the earth…while at the same Ime by his loving kindness – extended
grace to Noah and his family by moving forward his plan of redempIon for all of mankind.
Let me remind you of what is taking place in the early history of man. God created the heavens
and the earth and all that is within them by the power of his word. All things that God made were good.
Man and woman deﬁed what God had commanded them to do choosing instead to sin against God
resulIng in their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. This did come with a promise being made, even in
their state of tragedy, for a beUer future was declared by God in Genesis 3:15. Subsequent generaIons
conInued to struggle in their relaIonship with God to the point we read in Genesis 6:11-13 “Now the
earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was ﬁlled with violence. And God saw the earth, and
behold, it was corrupt, for all ﬂesh had corrupted their way on the earth. And God said to Noah, “I have
determined to make an end of all ﬂesh, for the earth is ﬁlled with violence through them. Behold, I will
destroy them with the earth.”
By God’s grace Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD (Gen 6:8) and he responded in faith
resulIng in him and his family along with all the creatures of the earth being saved on board the ark.
They were all carried along in a vessel of mercy that was designed by God and built by a faithful man.
Now today the Ime has come to depart from the conﬁnes of the ark and to take to the land once again.
It is so hard to imagine even fathom what it was like to disembark from the ark aber over a year. The
landscape of the earth was altered dramaIcally by the ﬂood – we see evidence of it to this day. The
vegetaIon even would have been devastated by the deluge of water requiring new growth. It was very
much a new beginning for the earth – like a second creaIon in many ways. The big diﬀerence of course is
that sin had already entered; it too was on the ark.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that Noah wasn’t perfect. We will see during our Ime in
the Scriptures today that he clearly had corrupIon and sin present in his life and in the life of his family.
We share this with our ancestor – in fact we share this with every human that has walked upon the face
of the earth since the Ime of Adam. That is why it doesn’t take long to conclude that it is not by what is
within us that saves us nor was it what was within Noah that saved him from destrucIon but rather: By
grace we have life, through God’s covenant promises we have a future.
1) Recognizing God’s Grace 2) Receiving God’s Covenant Promises 3) Rendering our life to God’s Ways
Recognizing God’s Grace
1. As I already stated the ﬂood came upon the earth because of the wickedness of man (Gen 6:5). So
here now it is Ime for Noah to come back out of the vessel of God’s mercy that preserved him and
his family and look at what he does: Gen 8:20 “Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some
of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and oﬀered burnt oﬀerings on the altar.”

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a. This is not something we see God requiring of Noah but it is exactly what you would expect
Noah to do. I mean just consider what the last 100 plus years has been like for the man!
i. “Noah build an ark of gopher wood because I’m going to destroy the whole world
with a ﬂood. Make it really big because you are going to have company.”
ii. Noah believes God and devotes a century plus to making this thing that he has now
just come out of – which did exactly what God said it would do. The ark preserved
his life, the lives of his family, and those of all the animals onboard.
b. I can’t help but consider Noah’s thoughts here. Sin, violence, and corrupIon are present in
the heart of man. This is why God cleansed the earth of all the living creatures save those
onboard the ark. Noah must have thought, I was on the ark along with my family and we are
sinners.
i. We deserve death too but by God’s grace we were saved, our lives were preserved.
c. So how else can this sinful man who has been preserved by gracious God come before the
Holy and Righteous God?
i. This is the most reverent way he can possibly come before God with burnt oﬀerings.
ii. Slaughtering animals, showing that blood must be shed for sins, though it should be
his own blood, he places a collecIon of subsItutes before God in humble worship,
he comes before the LORD, recognizing God’s grace and worships.
d. Is this ever your experience when you recognize God’s vast grace lavished upon you? To just
drop down before him in reverent worship?
i. From what is given to us in the Scriptures it is obvious that Noah is uUerly
dependent on God’s grace!
ii. How much more, from our vantage point, having the whole of Scripture, which
reveals the life, death, burial, and resurrecIon of our perfect Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ who grants eternal life to all who belong to him, to the regenerate, to the
believer cause us to be dependent upon God’s grace?
iii. Eph 2:4-7, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love...”
iv. By grace alone we have life church! – So, we have to be looking at where we are
receiving God’s grace – how it is he is blessing us and live worshipful lives before
Almighty God as our right response.
2. Throughout this secIon are numbers of graces elaborated and given to Noah, his family, and
subsequently to the generaIons that follow.
a. One that may not be appreciated fully but is of immense worth is the reiteraIon of being
made in the image of God. In v6 we see, “for God made man in his own image.” This has
previously been seen in the book of Genesis in 1:27 and 5:1.
i. This fundamental aspect of who we are helps establish how we are to treat one
another and how we are to govern society.

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ii. We should recognize God’s grace in establishing the value of the human life as
bearing the image of God. We can therefore hold evil doers accountable with a just
law which states that should a life be taken through the heinous crime of murder the
taker of that life also surrenders their own life.
1. We all should recognize the merit of this in preserving the livability of a
society while at the same Ime lamenIng the state of the jusIce system that
is in existence currently.
2. It is more common to see what Isaiah 5:20 states, “Woe to those who call
evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put biJer for sweet and sweet for biJer!”
3. This corrupIon should not take away from what we know God gave as the
basis for just living – for simply recognizing the image of God in another
human sobens us when we would rather be hard.
b. That is an ordering of human to human but we also see God’s grace in placing mankind over
the animals. 9:2 “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. Into your hand they are delivered.”
i. This is how it was in the beginning and now in the new beginning aber the ﬂood God
reiterates how the order of the world should be.
ii. AddiIonally, God graces man with the ability to eat meat which comes from the
animals.
1. While always being reverent of the blood. We will come back to the
signiﬁcance of blood shortly.
c. We also see here and recognize God’s grace in restaIng the blessing of “Be fruiKul and
mulLply and ﬁll the earth” in v1 and again in v7. Why does God want the earth to be ﬁlled?
He wants to have us, his image bearers, upon the earth acIng justly, living in loving kindness,
and oﬀering reverent worship of him.
Transi)on: Recognizing God’s grace in all these areas is how we have the very means to live and yet I will
tell you we have even more. When we Receive God’s Covenant promises we see more clearly that God
intends for there to be a future as well.

Receiving God’s Covenant Promises
1. The whole reason we are where we are in the text is because God started making some promises –
even staIng that he would make a covenant back in Gen 6:18, “But I will establish my covenant with
you, and you and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with
you.”
a. Here the covenant promises just conInue to ﬂow from God. He is pleased by the sacriﬁce
made by Noah on the altar (v21) and then the LORD states he will never again curse the
ground because of man.

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i. v21 God chooses to do this unilaterally. Man’s heart hasn’t changed! It is evil from
his youth. This is post ﬂood and God sIll says this is the way man is.
ii. Jesus stated, “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual
immorality, theO, false witness, slander (MaU. 15:19).”
2. So, where does the covenant begin in earnest here in our passage? Speciﬁcally, we see it in 9:9-11
and look at how broad the covenant is.
a. Remember, man’s heart hasn’t changed from pre-ﬂood but rather God is going to deal with
man in a diﬀerent manner. This should catch our aUenIon as we study the Scriptures and
make us ask what is going on here? Why is God showing his grace so freely and why is he
making a covenant with mankind and the animal kingdom that he alone has to uphold?
i. We have signs doUed throughout the passage that are of great help to us in our
understanding of where this is all leading. Look at the signs with me and let’s see
where they lead.
1. The ﬁrst sign is God’s reacIon to an animal sacriﬁce vv20-21 – he is pleased.
Does this seem strange that a few animals oﬀered on an altar would have
this eﬀect on the Creator God?
2. The next big sign, I believe, is found in God’s instrucIon on blood vv4-6. In
these three verses God equates life with blood. That is the blood of animals
and it is also the blood of man. Three Imes God says that if blood is
desecrated, meaning if life is not honored, he will require a reckoning.
a. Think about that. God the Creator – the grantor of life – will not
tolerate that which he has created to be treated in a way that is not
reverent. A reckoning will be required.
3. Of course, we cannot pass up the sign God puts in the sky – the bow – the
rainbow which God says he will see and remember his covenant promises
made to every living creature.
ii. So many signs and they all point to what we call atonement – that word atonement
carries signiﬁcant weight. For it signiﬁes that the relaIonship between human
beings and God is fractured but can be temporarily restored by covering over the
sins with animal sacriﬁce. Atonement produces a puriﬁcaIon on the human for their
sins and propiIaIon on God’s side meaning appeasing him.
1. We caught a glimpse of it aber Adam and Eve sinned – when the Lord took
an animal – nothing explicit in the text but the skin of the animal was
required to cover their nakedness and the animal would have obviously
given its life for their sin - poinIng to atonement (Gen 3:21).
2. LeviIcus 16 is dedicated to what the LORD required of Aaron and of Israel to
make atonement for their sins. There we ﬁnd the blood of goats and bulls
being the requirement.
3. These are signiﬁcant but we know even in considering our passage before us
that God has given animals to mankind, for us to rule over, to steward, to

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use as food, and God sancIons their use for sacriﬁce – but can they carry
the weight of blomng out sin?
4. Romans 3:23-25a “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God….”
5. Heb 9:11-14 “But when Christ appeared…he entered once for all...”
iii. We bring these observaIons together and recognize that even from early in the
pages of Scripture that this is what the LORD is pumng together through his
covenant promises. A complete work, that is the work of Christ, that is unveiled a
liUle at a Ime as the revelaIon is given. A complete work that is dependent upon
God’s grace to live now while the covenant promises give us all that we need for
the future.
Transi)on: This is really just scratching the surface of Receiving God’s Covenant Promises – Of great
signiﬁcance to our understanding of God is that he will oben enter into covenants and will cause the
covenant to be binding upon himself knowing that we are not a faithful partner – so he carry’s the
weight of the covenant himself – and thanks be to God for being preeminently faithful (Col 1:18-20). A
proper thankfulness and praise lead us to Rendering our life to God’s Ways.

Rendering our life to God’s Ways
1. Aber seeing all the good that has been wriUen about Noah – most of which we have covered we
should have no illusions that he was a perfect man. He wasn’t. God even let us know the condiIon of
man’s heart saying, “The intenLon of man’s heart is evil from his youth (8:21).”
a. He walked with God. He was seen as blameless. He was called a righteous man. He makes
the list of faithful Saints in Hebrews 11.
b. So, what does such a life look like when faced with a hardship, a temptaIon, a sin?
c. If we just observed what we have on Noah’s building of the ark we would think he preUy
much nailed it – yet when Noah tried his hand at a new profession post ﬂood he doesn’t do
as well. This is also helpful for us to see in the Biblical characters because we can be lulled
into thinking they found favor with God because of their diligence in tasks or because they
made no mistakes.
d. Of course, that is not true of the wonderful characters we have in the Scriptures just as it is
not true of the ChrisIans we intermingle with today here in the local church. We sIve to live
as God would have us to but as has been stated mulIple Imes today, we have a sin problem.
It is inherent to us being passed along from the Adam all the way to us (Ro 5:12).
2. Out from the ark came Noah – his wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives. His sons were Shem, Ham, and
Japheth. These were blessed of God and received the covenant we have already looked at (9:1).
Noah tried his hand at something other than building, sailing, and animal husbandry – the text says
he began to be a man of the soil and planted a vineyard (9:20).
a. What do you do with the fruit of a vineyard? – you make wine and you drink. That is what
Noah did and here we are not too far into the new beginning, very reminiscent of the

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Garden of Eden, and Noah ends up naked and ashamed. He fails to render his life to God’s
ways.
i. He is in a compromising situaIon that is embarrassing enough – but then Ham, his
son, makes it worse.
ii. Ham does not honor his father but dishonors him and brings disgrace upon the
family. He too fails to render his life to God’s ways.
iii. The other brothers, Shem and Japheth, take a diﬀerent approach. They choose to
assist their father in his state of shame and sin by covering him with a garment.
Taking care not to look upon their father’s nakedness (9:23). Being mindful to honor
their father.
b. From our perspecIve we look at the curse that Noah places on the descendent of Ham and
tend to think it was really quite harsh but here we fail to see the depth of the breach of
standards that occurred by Noah and then by Ham – they both miss the mark.
i. Therefore, we would do well to think about the importance of what it means to
honor our father and our mother. The basic authority structure God insItutes in the
family over children is their parents.
ii. So valuable is this to the Lord that next to commandments about how we are to be
in regards to him is the 5th commandment as found in Exodus 20 to honor father and
mother.
iii. How are you doing in regards to upholding the honor of your father and mother?
We all can readily idenIfy with Ham – ﬁnding our parents as imperfect and sinners.
1. Some, sadly, have been hurt tremendously by those who have been placed
over them in this life. If that, is you, you may even ﬁnd that alcohol or drugs
played a factor?
a. The substance allowed the contents of the sinful heart to be
expressed with less restraint.
2. Most, people are like Ham, seeing sinfulness in their parents they magnify it
with their own sinful response. AccepIng sin and turning it into a game
using it to humiliate and shame.
a. Consider how you have been rendering yourself to God’s ways in
this area. Are you taking the way of Ham? It resulted in a further
demise of his family – becoming enemies of God’s chosen people in
the generaIon that followed. Are you willing to act in the way Shem
and Japheth did? SIll very aware of the nakedness of their father
yet rendering themselves to God’s ways in service to him in a most
honorable way.

Conclusion

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Beloved we look at the Scriptures. We look at what God provided us with to guide us in this life and we
are forced to ask such quesIons. And it humbles us because though we haven’t been brought through a
world-wide ﬂood each of us can say we have been preserved by God in ways that we cannot fully
understand. This is especially true when our own sinfulness is considered – our sin condemns us right
along with all those who perished in the days of Noah. Right now, you might be saying to yourself that is
exactly what is keeping me from God – You might be saying I have no right to be anywhere near a Holy
God. Friend, that is the whole point of what we have been looking at this morning. That is why we have
to be like Noah when he departed from the Ark and Recognize God’s Grace. To be brought to a place
where he could stand on dry ground once again, it was all because of God’s Grace. This put him in a
mindset, it put him in such a place, where he could receive God’s Covenant Promises. God said he would
preserve the earth and the life contained upon it. Allowing the seasons to conInue, seedIme and
harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night while it conInues to serve his plan. His plan
being that people would Render their lives to his ways.

The Scriptures reveal that God, being perfectly just, provided a covering for us. A covering beUer than
animal sacriﬁces a covering beUer than a garment simply draped over our bodies. The Heavenly Father
chose to save a people for himself by atoning for the sins of mankind by sending his own Son. That is
Jesus, he lived the perfect and sinless life being tempted in every way and yet resisIng. Oﬀered his life as
an atonement for sin being acceptable to the Father – set the capIves free. Jesus is the one who covers
our sins perfectly making us acceptable to the Father allowing us to live now and granIng us eternal life.
By grace we have life, through God’s covenant promises we have a future.


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