GOD’S PROMISES

May 4, 2008 ~ Bay Ridges Long Term Care Centre

If I remember correctly, it was by reading about Noah and the flood with my Mother that I received my first lesson in how to understand the Bible. I was a young boy and we were reading the history of Noah and Mom began describing her own experiences with floods as a child in Holland. I was confused by this and asked her how come Holland was flooded if God said that He wouldn’t flood the earth ever again. She told me that God didn’t promise that there would never be a flood again. He promised that He would never send a flood to destroy the entire earth again. It was at that time that I learned that I would have to read the Bible carefully if I was to understand it correctly. Today, let's take a look at this promise of God, as well as two others that He made at the same time, and learn what we can from them.

Genesis 8:15-22 ESV  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.  (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.  (21)  And when the LORD smelled the pleasing aroma, the LORD said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man’s heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done.  (22)  While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

Genesis 9:8-17 ESV  Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him,  (9)  "Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you,  (10)  and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth.  (11)  I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth."  (12)  And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations:  (13)  I have set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  (14)  When I bring clouds over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds,  (15)  I will remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh. And the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all flesh.  (16)  When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth."  (17)  God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth."

The passages we have just read take place after the flood God sent on the earth at the time of Noah; a flood so devastating that even today its effects are felt throughout the earth. Three promises are made by God in these verses; promises so enduring that even today their effects are felt throughout the earth. These promises are:

1 - “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of a man’s heart is evil from his youth.”

2 - “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

3 - “Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood”

The first promise, ““I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of a man’s heart is evil from his youth,” is an inverse echo of God’s words in the Garden of Eden about 1,500 years earlier, following the rebellion of Adam and Eve:

Genesis 3:17-19 ESV  And to Adam he [God] said, "Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, 'You shall not eat of it,' cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;  (18)  thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.  (19)  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

and is yet again evidence of the grace of God overwhelms our sin and works instead for our salvation. That fact that God will not curse the ground again on account of our sin shows his willingness to be patient with us so that we might be saved. As the apostle Peter has said:

2 Peter 3:9 ESV  The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

The second promise, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease,” shows us that not only will God be patient with us but that He will also give us what we need to live. He will ensure that we will be able to plant and harvest. We will be able to enjoy winter and summer. We will be able to do a good day’s work followed by a night of rest. As the apostle Paul said to the Athenian philosophers:

Acts 17:22-31 ESV  So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.  (23)  For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, 'To the unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.  (24)  The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,  (25)  nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.  (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,  (27)  that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,  (28)  for "'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'  (29)  Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.  (30)  The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,  (31)  because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead."

That Paul should speak of the day of judgement in the same breath as the constancy of God’s provision for His creation should come as no surprise for God even alludes to it in the third promise.

The third promise, “Never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood,” is not evidence that God will never again destroy the earth (a general pronouncement) but that He will never again destroy the earth by a flood (a particular pronouncement). The Bible teaches that the earth will be destroyed at the end of time, not with water but with fire. The apostle Peter writes to the Christian Church that:

2 Peter 3:5-7….10 ESV  ...the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,  (6)  and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.  (7)  But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly….  (10)  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.

These three promises also act as a warning to mankind, especially as they are made immediately after the flood. The first promise speaks of the sinfulness of man’s heart. The second promise speaks to the mercy of God in providing for man in spite of his sinfulness and hints that the earth itself will eventually pass away. And the third promise, in the context of Peter’s words, show us that when the earth does pass away it will be in God’s final judgement of man and His creation of a new heaven and earth (as described in great detail in the books of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation).

So in these promises God shows us our sin, His mercy and the coming judgement. Let us return to the letter of Peter to see what our response ought to be. Peter writes:

2 Peter 3:11-18 ESV  Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,  (12)  waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!  (13)  But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.  (14)  Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.  (15)  And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,  (16)  as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.  (17)  You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.  (18)  But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

Interestingly, Peter is describing two responses to God in this passage. The first is the response of the believer, one who has been saved through Jesus Christ. That response is to “be diligent to be found by Him without spot or blemish, and at peace.” We are also to “count the patience of our Lord as salvation” for those who have not yet put their faith in God.

The second, and only other possible response is the response of the unbeliever, one who has not yet been saved through faith in Jesus Christ. That response is to “twist to their own destruction” Scriptural teaching. That is not to say that these cannot be saved but that they have not yet been saved and as such do not understand the pure doctrine of salvation and so pervert it with their limited and sinful understanding that has been given over to the purposes of the enemy. There is the possibility that we could be “carried away by the error of lawless people and lose [our] own stability.” This is clearly evident today in the many ways that people will twist the Bible to say what God never intended it to say. Examples abound in the acceptance, within churches of all places, of various sexual perversions and other sins.

Peter encourages us to be steadfast, to stand firm in the face of such things; just as Noah stood firm in his day as he built the ark amidst the Godless acts of those to whom he was preaching the gospel. We are not to give up hope for those who do not have our faith but to pray that the patience of God will lead to their salvation as it has already lead to ours.

AMEN!