Day 003 (Genesis 8-11) - Year 7
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Today in Genesis 8-11, we read about the aftermath of the Great Flood. Everything on earth has been destroyed except for what's on the ark. These eight people, Noah, his wife, their three sons, and their three wives, plus the animals. Post-flood, we see God establishing the covenant with Noah that he promised pre-flood.

God is engaging with this family of people and promising to be faithful to them, despite how every other aspect of their world has shifted dramatically. Everyone they know is dead, the world is muddy and gross, and they're living in a new location. Everything has changed.

Even their lifespan will change. We read about this yesterday in Genesis 6:3. God gave them a heads up not to expect those crazy long lifespans anymore. The environment has changed dramatically and they're a couple millennia removed from the genetic perfection of Adam and Eve. So it makes sense that they would drop to 120ish years at this point. Although to be fair, some scholars say God's mention of 120 years referred to the distance of time between God telling Noah the flood would happen and the flood actually happening.

Despite all the changes they've been through, God makes some promises to them of something that will not change. He enters into this covenant with them, promising he will never again destroy the earth with a flood. Later in scripture, in 2 Peter 3, we find out that he will someday destroy the earth with a fire, but not a flood.

And in the same way that the earth existed after it was destroyed by water, because we're standing on it right now, it will also still exist after it's destroyed with fire. In fact, in the eternal kingdom, all of those who have been adopted into God's family will reign with Christ on the recreated earth. We see this in Revelation 5. So if this is confusing to you, hang in there. That's still a long way off in our reading plan, but we'll get there in another 11 and a half months or so.

By the way, I think all of this is really interesting, especially regarding the ultimate limits of global climate change. Whether you believe Earth's current status is the result of humans neglecting our call to be good stewards of the Earth, or if it's just the natural process the Earth is going through, or some combination of the two, Scripture offers us the comfort of knowing that God, who is sovereign over it all, promises that there will be at least some kind of limit to the damage.

because 822 tells us there will always be seasons and harvests as long as the earth remains. But that's not an excuse for me to just live however I want. That's not the messaging here. He has still called us to be good stewards of his creation. God has some plans he calls Noah to join in on, given that there are now only eight people on earth, and especially given God's ultimate plan to send the Messiah through a poor woman who wouldn't even be born for another 2,000 years.

God reminds them in Genesis 9:1 that they have a role to play in accomplishing His purposes, by telling these eight people to be fruitful and multiply. Given the billions of people on earth now, it looks like they obeyed, but guess what? They also kind of hedged. They didn't fill the earth, they only multiplied. In 11:4, we see how they really prefer to stay put instead of spread out. They pridefully reject His command.

But God, being the sovereign God that he is, continues to work out his plan despite their resistance. In 11.9, he disperses them all over the face of the earth. Rest assured, God accomplishes his plans. We can't thwart his will despite our best sinful efforts. And this should feel more like a great comfort to us than a threat. Aren't you glad you can't mess up his plan? I know I am.

We hit another weird patch in Genesis 9, 18-27, and there are a lot of theories about what's going on here. There's much debate over what this part about Noah's sons means, but the general conclusion is that his son Ham, and possibly Ham's son Canaan, committed some kind of action that was contrary to God's orders, so much so that it was obvious. Again,

Again, like we talked about when Cain murdered Abel, we're far ahead of the Ten Commandments here, but there's still an understanding of what's right and wrong. It just hasn't been written out yet with Ten Laws on Tablets or 613 Laws on Scrolls, which are coming in our next few books, by the way.

As a result, Noah curses Canaan and his descendants in 9, 25-27. And in 10, 6-20, we see these cursed descendants listed out. One cursed line that I really want to highlight is one we'll continue to see throughout scripture, the Canaanites. For the most part, they're seen as the enemies of God's people, but he does some really beautiful things by redeeming people outside of his clan, like Rahab the prostitute, who was a Canaanite, but who is also part of the lineage of Jesus. This

This actually serves as a picture for us of how God acts toward any and all of us that He redeems, because we were all enemies of God by birth. The only way we get into God's family is through adoption. What's your God shot for today? Where did you see God's character portrayed? Here's mine. He is a God who blesses and who curses. Now, if you remember, He did a whole lot of blessing in the first few chapters of Genesis, and we saw more of that today.

We hear people say that God is love, and that's true, but it's incomplete. He doesn't just dole out blessing. He's much more complex than that. And even still, what we see is that He's a God who blesses His enemies. Like I said, that's how we all started out. And for those of us who have been adopted into His family, we were blessed when He pursued us as His enemies and clothed us in the righteousness of Christ.

This is reminiscent of what we read about in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve sinned. When they sinned and hid from him, he pursued them. He chased them down to clothe them. He did that with us too. And it's evident every day on these pages that we're reading that he's where the joy is.

Tomorrow, we're going to move into the book of Job and we'll be there for a little less than two weeks. The reason we go to Job now instead of continuing in Genesis is because we're reading chronologically. Most biblical historians put Job's timeline after Noah, but slightly before the time of Abraham. So we'll go read Job's story in the book of Job. Then we'll pop back over to Genesis where we'll dive right into Abraham's story afterward.

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