Genesis Chapter 9 Verse 1

• The first four words of this chapter halt me in a way. When I first read through this chapter in preparation for this time of study, I noticed that, (at least at first concluded), that the doctrinal, applicable, meat of the study would be in the second part of the chapter…and then I reread it and reread it and couldn’t quite get these first four words out of my head…
• “So God blessed Noah.” Noah is just a man. Filled with imperfections like anxiety, doubt, fear, anger, frustration…on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being perfect and 1 being a mess of a man, even with all we know of Noah in the scriptures…he’s maybe a 1.01…and yet God, the Perfect prefect…all good and all knowing and all powerful and all mighty…everything about Him right and good and clean and immaculate…and yet God blesses him. Calms my heart a bit. Encourages my soul a bit. Because there is not a day that I don’t feel unworthy of a King who would give Himself for His enemies, me being one of them…
• And yet, God has a heart, a desire and a readiness to just bless me and you…love on us and provide for us. Guide me and protect me. Cover my family…that steadies my heart and calls me to worship…simply halts me…

Genesis Chapter 9 Verses 1 – 3

• The implication is that before the flood the animals had no fear of man and this would explain why the dove and the raven would seemingly work with Noah in the previous scene. Many have postulated that after the flood the earth would be much different in terms of agricultural potential and so to sustain the multiplying family of Noah, he would need the additional food source.
• And so God provides for the animals as well in that as He gives them to mankind for food, He also gives the animals a fear of mankind that they would know to RUN! HA! And so God gives Noah and his family the go-ahead to eat animals but I’m sure He said hold off for a bit…so that Noah doesn’t go and eat the only two of one kind of animal! HA!!

Genesis Chapter 9 Verse 4

• This is an interesting statement and truly a scientifically observable truth…that the life is in the blood. Not in the organs or in the brain or in the heart but in the blood. Blood is unbelievably interesting and complicated…I’m no biologist but here are a few things I found interesting…first, history and science caught up to God in this statement He made all the way back in Noah’s day…
• The fact that blood circulates throughout the body and feeds the organs and such wasn’t understood in any capacity until about 1620 when this realization was discovered by a creation scientist named William Harvey. Now it’s just common knowledge. Blood brings nourishment and food to all parts of the body, acts as a transport system of sorts and even sends communications throughout the body’s systems. It also transports away or removes wastes from the organs…
• I love that because truly the life is in the blood and that speaks of the blood of Jesus that poured out for the sin sickness of the world. His blood has saved us, given us life, fed to us the bread of life while also, at work in our lives, His blood, His Spirit, His REALITY carries away the waste of sin…creates a direct line of communication between sinful man and a holy God…
• Check this out…just interesting stuff and I marvel at creation in knowing these things…one red blood cell will live about four months until it is recycled in the body (harkens back to the perfection of creation)…a continuous cycle of renewal…and during that four month span it will travel through the entire body 14,000 times per day! We, humans, have so many blood vessels that if one person’s alone were laid out end to end, that would cover 100,000 miles, enough to circle the earth at the equator about four times! It’s just crazy! The wonder of our design…and this statement, the life is in the blood just screams of the cross of Christ, man!!

Genesis Chapter 9 Verses 5 – 7

• And so the foundation of the judicial order of the new world that Noah and his family was to inhabit and populate was capital punishment. (God put the fear of man into animals and the fear of God into man…) Whether you are for it or against it is not the conversation tonight but simply to study the scriptures and to see that God placed a notable importance, value and mandate on the life of man. Another interesting truth is given in Numbers 35 verses 31 – 34 and in that God says that murder that goes unpunished defiles the land and implies that God will not dwell on defiled land…

Genesis Chapter 9 Verses 8 – 17

• Has something every happened to you and then from that day forward you have a phobia or an issue? Maybe you were in a motorcycle accident and you just can’t bring yourself to throw your leg over a bike again? Well imagine for Noah, every time the clouds moved in from this day forward, every time he was awoken by the sound of thunder…and so God stills his heart and gives him this promise…
• A testimony to God’s promise and an opportunity for Noah to speak on the magnificence of God Almighty…which he no doubt did. We have the chronologies…Shem outlived Abraham…and Noah was around still when Abraham was on the scene…a full 39 years…(Nimrod was also their contemporary and Isaac and Jacob were taught by Shem himself!)

Genesis Chapter 9 Verses 18 – 22

• This is the only controversial thing we have written of Noah in the Bible…and certainly it is a bit of a scandalous scene but what happens to him is, well…it’s really bad. The Bible says that Ham saw the nakedness of his father and the word in the Hebrew can be interpreted that there was more here than just seeing…when Noah awakes later he will know something happened…so it’s pretty sick actually…There’s more to this story too…

Genesis Chapter 9 Verses 23 – 29

• What Ham does here is deplorable…He sees the sin of his father and he goes and makes it known. That, my friends, is just horrible stuff. Think about this…the enemy of your soul shouts out your sin…the one that loves your soul, the friend to your soul, covers your sin with His own blood. Whom are you more like?

• Proverbs 11:9 (in one translation) says, “The loose tongue of the godless spreads destruction.” Proverbs 15:4 says, “A wholesome tongue is a tree of life, but perverseness in it breaks the spirit.” Proverbs 20:19 says, “He who goes about as a talebearer reveals secrets; don’t associate with them.” Ham experiences the sin of his father…gets all up in it…and announces it…Shem and Japheth stay out of the sin and install the fix…

• And very interesting, Noah’s proclamation ends up being quite accurate…as we will see next week in what is called the most accurate account of the table of nations available to mankind…Noah cursed Canaan specifically…not the decedents of Ham and there are many that take this too far…insert things that aren’t here about slavery and such but Noah makes mention of the Lord God of Shem and from Shem will come Abraham. And he says Japheth will be enlarged and today the super powers we see on the earth are indeed the decedents of Japheth…the westerners as they are called and even the Russians…more on that next week.