SERMON: Old Testament Overview, Part 3: The Flood and Covenants
Old Testament Overview
A Twelve Week Trek through the Text
Part 3: The Flood and Covenants
- This Session:
- The Flood
- The Noahic Covenant
- The Abrahamic Covenant
- I. Introduction
- Last time, we considered creation according to Scripture.
- The presentation in the Bible is very different than…
- …those in ancient near eastern, pagan religions.
- …that in our current, pagan culture.
- Science arises from an interpretation of the data that exists.
- II. The Flood
- God judged sin in Genesis 3.
- In Genesis 4, we see how sin corrupted Cain and his later lineage.
- The prediction of death is emphasized in the genealogy of chapter five.
- “So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died” (v. 5)
- “So all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died” (v. 8).
- “So all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years, and he died” (v. 11).
- Etc.
- Romans 5:12 — “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.”
- This is one reason why naturalistic evolution doesn’t work!
- In Genesis 6:5, we read, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
- The Sons of God?
- The main issue was that people of earth were given over to wickedness.
- God declares that He is going to destroy all flesh w/ a flood (v. 17), but He will establish His covenant with Noah (v. 18)
- The Bible describes this flood as global.
- If it were a local flood, why would Noah need to build an ark and gather the animals?
- 7:19–20 — “The water prevailed more and more upon the earth, so that all the high mountains everywhere under the heavens were covered. The water prevailed fifteen cubits higher, and the mountains were covered.”
- 8:4 — “In the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.” (The peak of Great Ararat is 16,945 feet above sea level.)
- Such a flood will leave a mark!
- There are at least 270 flood legends found in history all over the earth, which are either identical or like the Flood of Noah found in the Bible.
- The geology of the earth does evidence a global flood.
- Genesis 6:11–12 — “In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.”
- The ages of man shorten after the flood.
- Jacob before Pharoah: “The years of my sojourning are one hundred and thirty; few and unpleasant have been the years of my life, nor have they attained the years that my fathers lived during the days of their sojourning” (Gen. 47:9).
- II. The Noahic Covenant
- The flood introduces us to the first biblical covenant (Genesis 9:8–16). Note:
- Covenants were cut as an implicit threat to both parties.
- This covenant is unilateral (God requires nothing of man)
- This covenant is everlasting (v. 16)
- God divided the earth after the Tower of Babel. Why do so many cultures have pyramids and ziggurats?
- Genesis 10 — The Table of Nations 70 nations from Noah, split among Ham, Shem, and Japheth
- Genesis 11:10–32 — The Descendants of Shem
- III. The Abrahamic Covenant
- Genesis 12:1–3 — The calling and covenant with Abraham.
- 15:18 — The reiteration of the land covenant: “To your descendants I have given this land, from the river of Egypt as far as the great river…”
- 17:1–5 — The reiteration of the covenant, an “everlasting covenant” (v. 7).
- This covenant is again eternal and unilateral. (The covenant with Moses will be bilateral and temporary.)
- This is why Jesus Christ had to be a descendant of Abraham!