Gênesis 8

Gênesis 8

Morgan - Gen. 8.22. These words are part of the new covenant which God made with man after the Flood. In that judgment of a corrupt race the order of Nature had been set aside. One whole lunar year had been a year of judgment (compare Gen. 7. I I with Gen. 8. 13, 14), and during that time there had been neither seedtime nor harvest, nor cold nor heat, nor summer nor winter, nor day nor night, so far as the experience of man and the condition of the earth were concerned. The purpose of that particular judgment being accomplished, God rein-stated man in his relationship to the earth, putting him under a new order of life, that of the government of man by man (see 9. r-6). In doing so He restored, and abidingly confirmed, the natural order. The next judgment of the earth will be its final fire-cleansing (see 2 Peter 3. 7 and 12). Until then this order abides. It is well that we remember that this covenant has never failed, and that the continuity and regularity of the seasons is due to the faithfulness of God. Through the ages man has lived by seedtime and harvest, by cold and heat, by summer and winter, by day and night; and this because God has been faithful and patient. The sorrows of humanity are all due to man's misuse of these things. If they were properly used under the Divine government, there would be neither pain nor poverty, but perfect human conditions. All earthly blessings flow from these Divine arrangements. All earthly curses result from human misuse of them. May Day While the earth remains . . . day and night shall not cease. — Genesis 8:22 Today's Scripture: Genesis 8:15-22 When I was a young girl in West Michigan, we always celebrated spring and the blooming of the first flowers on May 1. I’d make a basket out of construction paper and fill it with any flowers I could find—mostly daffodils and violets. Then I would place the basket on my neighbor’s doorstep, knock on her door, and quickly hide behind a bush. I’d peek out to watch her as she opened the door and picked up her surprise. When she went inside, I’d run home. The beauty of springtime flowers and the regular changing of the seasons reminds us of God’s faithfulness. When Noah and his family and the animals came out of the ark after the flood waters receded, God gave them this promise: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). And He’s been faithful to keep that promise ever since. God “made the worlds,” and He continues to uphold “all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:2-3). For the beauty of each hour Of the day and of the night, Hill and vale and tree and flower, Sun and moon and stars of light, Lord of all, to Thee we raise This our hymn of grateful praise. —Pierpoint Look at the wonder of creation and say, "What a wonderful God!" Norman Geisler - When Critics Ask - Genesis 8:22—If seedtime and harvest were never to be interrupted, then why were there famines? PROBLEM: God promised Noah: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest … shall not cease.” However, there are many famines recorded, even in Bible times, when there has been no harvest (cf. Gen. 26:1; 41:54). SOLUTION: “Cease” (shabath) means to come to an end, to be eliminated, to desist completely. This passage only promises that the seasons will not cease, not the crops. It refers to “seedtime” and harvesttime, not necessarily to the actual planting and harvesting of a crop. And the seasons have never stopped completely since this promise was made to Noah. Further, this general promise was not intended as a guarantee that there would be no temporary interruptions. It was only a statement about the permanent cycles of the year until the end of time. W H Griffith Thomas - (ED: THIS WOULD MAKE A GREAT SERMON OUTLINE) - Let us now review these three Ge 6-8, and read them afresh in the light of New Testament teaching. In view of the words of the Apostle Peter (1 Pet. 3:20), it is not wrong to regard the story of the flood as a great pictorial and symbolical lesson full of spiritual truths. It is sometimes said that history never repeats itself, but there is a sense in which it does in relation to spiritual and moral realities. Our Lord distinctly tells us that the history of Noah will repeat itself in the day of His coming (Matt. 24:37-42). What were the days of Noah, and what will be the days of the Son of Man? 1. Days of sin. (a) God's Way was abandoned. The earth had become corrupt through sin, and man's heart was only evil continually. (b) God's Word was speaking. The Ark was the Divine protest against sin; while Noah, a preacher of righteousness, ever witnessed to the certainty of retribution and the limited time of God's Spirit among men (Ge 6:3). (c) God's Will was unheeded. For 120 years103 Noah preached without obtaining a single convert. This shows the awful extent of man's depravity, and the certainty of that wrath of God which is the manifestation of the Divine holiness against sin. 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of a living God.' 2. Days of sorrow. We think of the people at the time of the Flood, and our thought goes on to those who will be living similarly in the days of the Son of Man. (a) God's Message was neglected. Every nail driven into the ark was like an appeal from God, and yet all the testimony was fruitless year after year. (b) God's Refuge was rejected. There was no other way of salvation except the Ark; no human device was sufficient. They might get up to the highest peak of the highest hill, and yet there would be no salvation. (c) God's Gift was lost. They had the offer of salvation and life. They neglected and then rejected it, and as a consequence they lost it. 3. Days of salvation. (a) God's Grace was working. Noah was the solitary saint of those days, and this shows that goodness is possible, even amidst the most adverse circumstances. He lived as well as preached; his life testified as well as his words to the reality and opportunity of the grace of God. (b) God's Love was planning. The instructions about the Ark, the invitation to enter, the protection within the Ark, the cessation of the Flood, and the deliverance of Noah and his house, all testify to the reality of God's love in providing this way of salvation. (c) God's Power was keeping. How significant it is to read, 'The Lord shut him in'! There was ample room and perfect provision in the Ark. No anxiety, no possibility of leakage or wreck; one door of entrance, and that protected by Divine power. The Ark was a home for saved people. So far as we know, there was no sail, no mast, no rudder; only God! And that was enough! Thus, as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. Days of evil and yet of good. Amid the evil days an opportunity for salvation and an invitation to partake of the Divine mercy. Days of peril and of loss; and yet the opportunity of pardon, peace, protection, preservation. 'Now is the accepted time; now is the day of salvation.' (2Co 6:2+). Excerpt from Spurgeon's sermon on Genesis 8:22 - THE SERMON OF THE SEASONS OUR Saviour constantly taught the people by parables, and I think he would have his ministers do the same. The condition of things just now, both as to weather and business, furnishes a very plain and instructive parable which it would not be wise to pass over. Every morning when we wake we hope for a change of wind, a glimpse of the sun, and the end of the frost; but still we moan with the poet— “Oh, the long and dreary Winter! Oh, the cold and cruel Winter!” We say to ourselves, Will spring-time never come? In addition to this, trade and commerce continue in a state of stagnation; crowds are out of employment, and where business is carried on, it yields little profit. Our watchmen are asked if they discern any signs of returning day, and they answer, “No.” Thus we bow our heads in a common affliction, and ask each man comfort of his fellow; for as yet we see not our signs, neither does the eastern sky grow grey with the hopeful light of the long-expected morning. Having faith in God we faint not, but believe that a lesson of love for us is written by his hand in these black characters. Let us spell it out with childlike confidence. Our text takes us back to the time when the waters of the flood had just assuaged, and God opened the door of the ark and bade Noah and his family come forth into a new world. For a time there had been a confusion: the seasons were mixed up, the perpetual downpour of the rain had almost turned day into night, and whether it was summer or winter could scarcely be told. The frame of nature seemed to be out of joint, her order suspended. And now the Lord, in making a promise to Noah that he would never destroy the earth again with a flood, also declares that while the earth remaineth there shall be no more of the confusion of the seasons and mingling of day and night which had brought such destruction upon all living things. As there should be no more a general deluge, so should there be no more a serious disarrangement of the course of the seasons and the temperature appropriate thereto. Seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, are to succeed each other in their perpetually unchanging change, so long as the present reign of forbearance shall last. Till comes the close of time, the rolling year, made up of alternate day and night, shall pass through cold and heat in due order. We are grateful to God for thus settling in his mind that so it shall be. We are at ease because we know that he will not lift his hand again to destroy every living thing with a flood of water. He will deal with men in longsuffering, and tender mercy, and forbearance. He will not use the stern weapons of destruction, but will try the tender ministrations of patience and grace, that men may be led to repentance. There will come an end to this dispensation; but while the reign of forbearance lasts, nature shall keep her appointed marches, and we need not fear a disorderly rush or a destructive chaos. “Four seasons fill the measure of the year.” In their mysterious round they come and go, and all combined display a moving harmony of wise design most glorifying to our God. Fear not in the day of tempest, for the rain shall not deluge the earth. The Lord setteth his bow in the cloud as the ensign of his covenant with mankind. Fear not in the black midnight: God will rekindle the lamp of day, and chase away the darkness. It is very singular that when the Lord thus ushers in the reign of forbearance he gives as his reason the following statement:—“I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake; for the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” This is very singular, because this seems to have been the powerful reason why the Lord had already destroyed the guilty race from off the face of the earth. In the fifth and sixth verses of the sixth chapter we read: “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. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” Here we have almost the same words. Can the reason for judgment become the argument for mercy? Assuredly it can. God who changeth not absolutely, yet changeth his hand in his dealing with men. He had left them to themselves and permitted them to live through centuries; but the longer they lived, the more wicked they grew, until sin reached to a horrible degree of infamy. Man becomes a bad enough sinner when he lives to be seventy; but what he became at seven hundred or more it is somewhat difficult to guess. We wonder not that there were giants in those days—giants in crime as well as in stature. The Lord saw that however long man lived he only grew a greater adept in sin, for the imagination of his heart remained evil, and even grew to an intolerable height of iniquity; and therefore he said that he would destroy the race and begin anew. But when the Lord looked down upon those whom he had spared, who were to be the parents of a new race, he saw that in them also there was the same fountain of evil, and that their hearts also yielded evil desires and devices continually. Then he resolved to shorten the life of man, so that no individuals might ever arrive at so horrible a ripeness and cleverness of iniquity; but at the same time he said: “I will bear with them. I have dealt sternly with them, but they do not change; the few whom I have snatched from a watery grave are still inclined to sin. This dreadful expedient has not washed away the rebellious tendencies of the human heart. Therefore I will deal leniently and gently with them, manifesting a long forbearance, that man may have space for repentance. I will no more destroy every living thing, because destruction itself does not avail to banish sin.” Thus it seems by no means difficult to see how that which to divine holiness was a reason for judgment may be used by divine pity as a reason for mercy. But what, think you, could have made the reasoning assume this new form? I attribute it to one thing never to be forgotten. Read the verse which precedes our text: “And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord; and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl and offered burnt offerings on the altar; and the Lord smelled a sweet savour.” The sacrifice is the turning-point. Without a sacrifice sin clamours for vengeance, and God sends a destroying flood; but the sacrifice presented by Noah was typical of the coming sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son, and of the effectual atonement therein provided for human sin. The very shadow of the one great propitiation changed the state of the world. Now the Lord pleads with himself for grace as once he argued for doom. He speaketh of course after the manner of men; it is only to our apprehension that these things are so, for Jehovah changeth not, and he is always love and wisdom. For the sake of the sacrifice God resolves to bear with man, as with one who is incurably unwise, or desperately sick. He determines to look upon the evil tendency of man’s imagination rather as an inveterate disease than as an unbearable provocation. He deals very patiently with the race, and no more sweeps it away in his wrath. See what the Lord will do when a sacrifice is provided! Methinks I hear him say of the earth, “Deliver it from flood, and bid the seasons keep their round of beneficence; for I have found a ransom.” I. Thus I introduce to you the text, and I would have you notice, dear friends, that in that text there is first of all a hint, A SOLEMN HINT, OF WARNING. It begins thus: “While the earth remaineth.”