Month: June 2022

Genesis 11:31 And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son’s son, and Sarah his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto the land of Haran, and dwelt there.

Terah was supposed to leave Ur and go to the land of Canaan, but he responded by going only halfway, for when he got to Haran he settled his family there. He apparently did not fully obey the Word of the Lord. This behavior is typical of sinners like us, who try to be good but, without faith, we don’t go all the way with Jesus. (So God called Abram to enter the Land of Promise.)

Ur of the Babylonians represents the world with all its false gods and idols. God says, ”Leave it!” Revelation 18:2: ”Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place for demons.” In verse 4, God says: ”Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins.” Terah did so, but he did not leave the world totally behind and go all the way into the Kingdom of God (Canaan). Terah, like all us sinners, likes to keep one foot in both worlds. So we limp.

We think we can enjoy the sinful pleasures of the world while still keeping a faith in Jesus. Actually, we need to be in the world, but not of the world. We live in two worlds and have two lives inside us, but we focus on the ”other life” we have been given. It’s a state of mind, a matter of faith. We don’t go to the literal extreme of leaving the world like the Amish, but in our hearts we live the new life of ”Jesus in us.” We live by faith, in the Promised Land, not by sight, in Babylon. We don’t take time off from living to go to church; we take time off from church to go into the world and make a living. Unlike Terah, we go ”all the way” to enter the Kingdom.

Genesis 11:4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

The people after the Flood continued in rebellion, disobedience, and sin against God. One would think that people would turn to the Lord after experiencing the Judgment of the Flood. But No, they defied God’s mandate to overspread the earth. In place of trust and obedience, the people stayed in one place and made gods for themselves and made themselves gods. They built a city and a tower to make a name for themselves instead of calling upon the Name of the Lord. They defiantly said, ”We will not be scattered.”

The people responded by rejecting His judgment (they did not repent) and His grace (they did not believe). They defied the “fill the earth” Command. They rejected the One True Almighty Creator God, and made their own gods. The purpose of the Tower was to ”reach unto heaven:” They built a ”mountain” (a ziggurat) on a flat plain in Mesopotamia to worship all the gods, demons, and evil angels that had already rebelled against the Lord God. They ended up carrying these gods with them to become deities of the nations throughout the world.

As it turned out, the Lord would call Abraham out from these ”nations” so that his Descendant (Seed) would become a ”blessing to the nations.” In spite of both human and supernatural resistance, God will have a people, a kingdom, of God on earth. It will consist of redeemed human beings (along with loyal angels) who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord. This Chosen Group would eventually bring the Kingdom to ”the ends of the earth.” The scattered nations will be called back to the Only True God.

Genesis 9:1, 7, 19 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply and replenish the earth….And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein….These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.

All the people who ever lived on earth are descended from Adam; and also all people are descended from Noah. The mandate given to Noah was the same as that given to Adam in the beginning: Genesis 1:28, ”And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.” They did so. Within ten generations by Noah’s time there could well have been over a billion people on earth. Then, on an empty earth Noah was told to replenish (refill) it.

God blessed both Adam and Noah. Their response was to do as they were told. Given the sex drive that God created in each human being, that wasn’t really a difficult command to obey. People were glad to procreate, even though the curse on the woman made child-bearing difficult and painful. The genealogies recorded in chapters 5 and 10 give evidence that humans responded. They did fill and then refill the earth.

The Lord has not taken away this mandate and His blessing. However, the present day abortion culture is a direct disobedient response to the command and a rebellious response to the blessing. The Tower of Babel incident was a defiant resistance to God’s blessing to overspread the earth. The Lord frustrated man’s plans and overspread the earth anyway.

God loves people and wants lots of them in His Kingdom; in the person of His Son He brought heaven to earth, and He will restore Paradise at the end of time; and we will rule with Christ over the new heaven and earth.

Genesis 8:16, 18 Go forth of the ark, Thou, and thy wife, and thy sons, and thy sons’ wives with thee….And Noah went forth, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him.

The Flood was over. Dry land appeared. The judgment on all flesh was finished. It was time to get going, leave the comfort and safety of the ark, and start in on the new life. God said, Go forth!” Noah responded in obedience, and went forth. He was told to bring forth all the animals, which were under his care and control, and to be fruitful, and multiply, and repopulate the earth. He and his family did so, as seen by the ”Table of Nations” in chapter 10.

After Jesus finished His work and sin was judged, and before He ascended, He gave disciples the Great Commission: ”Go forth!” Ever since, the church of believers has gone forth and made disciples of all nations. Every week Christians come together to hear the gospel, repent (judge sin), and receive forgiveness and new life. Then, when the Divine Service is ended we are ”sent forth with God’s blessing” in the Benediction. Christians respond to the salvation gospel by going forth as salt and light into a dark and corrupt world.

Daily we renew our baptism in repentance and faith: the old man drowns and dies and the new man comes forth to “walk in newness of life.” We ”die daily” and every day go forth into the new life. After sin has been judged and we have been saved through the waters of baptism, we also are commanded to “go forth.” And so we do, as new people in a new life.

Genesis 7:16 And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut him in.

According to God’s will and plan and perfect timing, Noah, his family, and all the animals went in to the ark just as and when the Lord commanded. Faith and obedience is the proper response to the Lord’s command. The command in this instance is more like a gracious invitation. It is a word of Gospel. It is a free offer of life and salvation.

We ”obey the Gospel” by believing in Jesus Christ. God says, ”Come in to the Kingdom.” We go in. Jesus says, ”Come unto me.” We come. The Spirit and the Bride say, ”Come.” We hear, and come. In the very offer and gospel invitation resides the Spirit’s power to grant receptive faith and its fruit, obedience. The Holy Spirit calls us by the gospel to repent and to believe it. We enter, and are saved.

”Going in” is a miracle. The Spirit uses the Word of Gospel to miraculously overcome our stubborn resistance. He makes us an offer we can refuse. This is a mystery: God gave us the choice to reject, to refuse the offer, but we cannot by our own decision accept the offer, enter in. The saving response, going in, takes a work of God. It is all of grace, even our going in.

Then “the Lord shuts us in” to the ark, the safe place in Christ and the Kingdom, where we are saved from sin and death and enjoy forgiveness and life.

Genesis 7:1 And the Lord said unto Noah, Come and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

Noah responded to God’s Word and Promise by believing His Grace. His faith was counted to him as righteousness. Out of all the people on earth, Noah and his family were the only ones whom God saw as righteous, meaning they believed God and trusted His grace for forgiveness. As the tenth generation from Adam through Seth he carried the Seed of the Promise of a Deliverer. He had faith; God saw him as righteous. Noah had faith in grace.

The outward evidence of his inward faith was seen in his obedience to the Lord’s commands to build an ark. In the same way, we who believe in Jesus are accounted as righteous (that’s what God sees), and we show the evidence of faith by our submission to Jesus as Lord and living His Commandments.

The Lord’s response to Noah’s, and our, faith and imputed righteousness is “Come into the ark.” The ark is Jesus and the Kingdom of God. ”Unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God” And at the final Judgment the Lord will say to the believers, ”Come, inherit the kingdom prepared for you.” ”Enter into the joy of the Lord.” The righteous live by faith.

Genesis 6:18, 22 But with thee I will establish my covenant; and thou shalt come into the ark, thou, and thy sons, and thy wife, and thy sons’ wives with thee….Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he.

God promised to establish His covenant with Noah, while all the rest of mankind would suffer and die in the Great Flood Judgment. Noah believed God; he believed God’s Grace, and he also believed His Judgment: enough to build an ark in the desert, how to build it, when to build it, where to build it, whatever it took.

Noah responded to God’s Word and to God’s Grace. He believed and obeyed. “He did all that God commanded him.” Noah did so because the Lord made a covenant with him. We also obey and do what God commands (live a good life) because God established His covenant with us in Baptism, renews His covenant in Communion, and reminds, confirms, comforts, and reassures us in it every time we hear the Gospel. We believe it, receive it, and live according to it.

We respond to Grace and Salvation by actually doing His will, as expressed in His Commands. We fail, but we keep coming back in repentance and faith in the gospel. And we pray for the Father to make us better people in the Lord’s Prayer. We find grace; we enter into the ark, which symbolizes Jesus and His Salvation; we live by faith; we are saved; then we do what He says.

Genesis 6:9 These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

Noah responded to God’s promise by walking with God. Noah believed God’s Word, listened to Him, found grace; he followed up that faith with obedience. Trust and obey. He built the ark over a long period of time, an apparently foolish thing to do in the desert while enduring the mockery of a perverse generation. But he did it just because God told him to.

Noah believed God and His Grace, and like Abraham, it was counted to him as righteousness. Grace and faith made him a just man and perfect in his generations. In faith and obedience he walked with God. He walked with God because he found grace; he did not walk with God in order to find grace and earn His favor. And so it happened, that Noah’s faith in grace saved him and his family, and the air-breathing animals.

And so it is with us: we respond to grace by walking with God. We trust and obey. After we are “saved by grace through faith,” then we do good works. Ephesians 2:10: ”For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Like Noah, that is our response. ”We love him because he first loved us.”

The end result of grace: we are saved! 1 Peter 3:20-21: ”In [the ark] a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you…through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” We are saved by grace; therefore we walk with God.

Genesis 6:8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

While almost all of mankind increased in sin and found judgment, one man responded with faith and found grace. He did not deserve grace, since by definition grace is unearned and undeserved favor. Noah was a sinner like all people, but repentance and faith in God made him unique among humankind. The world insisted and persisted in sin, but he believed the promise of a Seed. God responded with grace and favor and salvation from the judgment.

When humans look at God they see either judgment or mercy, justice or love, wrath or kindness, punishment or forgiveness. When Christians look at God they see both: they fear God’s wrath and just judgment and they love His grace, mercy, and forgiveness. “To fear and love God” means to believe Him. ”By faith, Noah…in reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household…and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith [Hebrews 11:7].” He ”found grace.”

All people are hostile enemies of God until they find grace. Hostility shows up as ignoring God or being indifferent. Amazing grace makes us friends of God who enjoy a loving relationship with Him. Noah unstopped his ears to listen to the Lord, trust Him, and so be saved from the Flood Judgment. So we also find grace by hearing the Gospel and are saved from the Fire Judgment.

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.

Man’s universal response to God’s good creation of life and abundant blessing was, and still is, disobedience and sin, wickedness and increasing evil. This sinful response was evidenced not only in outward criminal works, but also the inward thoughts were only evil continually. Since Adam fell both violence and sinful thoughts increased, intensified, and became widespread. Life was miserable. Wickedness was great and the heart thoughts were only evil continually.

Things got so bad that even God, who knows everything, had to make inspection to prove how terrible human response had become. He looked carefully at mankind, not to learn something, but to make sure all knew the judgment was just. Yes, it was bad! Divine judgment was the only option.

This historic human event was written ”for our learning.” not so that we might agree that they were bad people, but that we might understand and say, ”I am the sinner. I am the one who justly deserves a terrible, eternal judgment. We need to feel and be convicted that God’s judgment is just and fair. The more clearly we see our own sin in the Flood Judgment and the coming Fire Judgment, the more gratefully and appreciatively we receive the grace and salvation of the gospel.