Genesis 034 – Man’s Problem & God’s Solution, Pt. 2

Transcript

Genesis 034 – Mans Problem God’s Solution

Part II –

Dr. Andrew Woods

Well, good morning, everyone. Happy May [2021] to everybody. I was going to say May Day, but maybe that wouldn’t work. Let’s take our Bibles, if we could, and open them to the book of Genesis 8:21. The title of our message this morning is Man’s Problem; God’s solution — Part II.

If you’re joining us for the first time, we are moving through the book of Genesis in our morning service on Sunday morning. We’ve been looking at the first half of the book, the beginning of the human race in Genesis 1-11, featuring four events:

1. Creation. What was God’s design for our world before sin marred the picture? You can see that in Genesis 1-2; then move to —
2. The Fall in Genesis 3-5 and see what went wrong. Sin enters the picture. Yet there’s hope, because the moment man sins in Eden is the moment God introduces His solution in Genesis 3:15 — a coming Messiah to fix the problem. That verse, as we’ll see today, is going to become very important for us in our study of the end of Genesis 8.
3. The third major event to happen is the Flood in Genesis 6-9; we have seen events before the Flood in Genesis 6. We saw the Flood itself in Genesis 7, we then saw the abating of the waters in Genesis 8, and then we started to move into post-flood events. The post-flood events start to get described in Genesis 8:20 through the end of Genesis 9. There are basically two things happening with these post-flood events:

Number one is a very, very important subject, which we’re barely getting into today— the Noahic Covenant. God makes a covenant with Noah for the benefit of the entire human race, and that becomes a subject in Genesis 8:20; and it spans all the way through 9:17.  Then when we get to Genesis 9:18 through the end of Genesis 9, we start to see that man is still man. The flood didn’t fix what is wrong with man because there will be post-flood sin. We’re going to see a little bit of post-flood sin today in our passage.

So, our focus for the next few weeks will be this Covenant that God entered into with Noah. There are:

• Promises made in 8:20- 22—looking at those today.
• A Provision made in Genesis 9:1-7, and then there is going to be…
• A Covenant and sign, in Genesis 9:8-17.

Focusing today on Promises. Now you might remember from last week in 8:20, that the very first thing Noah did upon disembarking the ark is that he offered a sacrifice unto God. You might look at this as an act of worship, and that’s what worship is.  Worship is a response to truth. You are overwhelmed at the truth that the mind has received; worship is always intelligent. Anyone who wants you to worship God by deactivating the mind is not dealing with biblical worship; they’re dealing with something out of eastern mysticism that the Bible knows nothing of.

Worship, rightly understood, is always a response to truth. Noah issues this sacrifice. The reason he issues the sacrifice is because it was already well-established by this point, going all the way back to the Garden of Eden in Genesis 3:21, where the way God forgives sin is that He punishes the guilty in the place of the innocent. See that imagery all the way through the Old Testament; you can see it there in the Passover lamb. “Your lamb shall be an unblemished male, a year old; you may take it from the sheep or from the goats.“

Unblemished, unblemished. And of course, as we mentioned earlier, this points to Jesus Christ when John the Baptist “…saw Jesus coming to him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’” (John 1:20)

Not any sacrifice will work with God the Father. Not any sacrifice will do, but an innocent scapegoat must be sacrificed. Thus, Noah is using here in Genesis 8:20, clean animals, and that’s very rich typology leading all the way through the Old Testament up to the person of Jesus Christ. And so now it’s in this atmosphere of worship that God starts to make promises. And you ought to try that sometime, because a lot of people complain that ‘Gosh, I feel distant from God. I feel removed from God. I wish God would give me clear guidance for this life choice or that life choice.’  And you ought to, at some point, just forget about all of that and start to worship the Lord based on what you do know about Him. And it’s interesting that when we do that, suddenly the mind gets cleared about life’s decisions. Sometimes we’re so worried about our circumstances that our worry eclipses worship. Yet our calling as God’s people is to worship the Lord. And you’d be surprised what God will start to show you in an atmosphere of worship.

That’s what Noah did. Noah’s first priority upon disembarking was worship. And now God, in this atmosphere of worship, starts to make promises. This is the beginning of what we call the Noahic covenant, or God’s covenant with Noah that we, in the year 2021, are still benefiting from because it’s a covenant with the entire world, all of humanity. It has nothing to do with the nation of Israel. The nation of Israel doesn’t even exist yet. So, this is a very special covenant that we’re starting to read about. And the first thing God promises is never to flood the earth again.

Notice what it says there in Genesis 8:21, ‘The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; …’  So, you see here, there’s an atmosphere of worship. And it is in that atmosphere of worship God is starting to reveal Himself to Noah and the things that he had no knowledge of—the post-flood world, and how things would begin to manifest themselves under God.

‘The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing as I have done [emphasis mine].

Here in Genesis 8:21, if you’re a perceptive reader, God says it not once, but twice. ’I’m never going to destroy the earth again. I’ll never curse the ground again on account of man. I will never again destroy every thing as I have done.’  Notice “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, … [It is not God who put us into the mess that we’re in today in our fallen world. It is man’s rebellion against God. Today we are living in a world that is twice removed; I would argue three times removed when you factor in Fall, Flood and Babel—thrice removed from the original design of God. And so many people are frustrated with that because we have evil in our world, and they want to blame God for everything. Yet the Bible clearly indicates that it was man’s decision to rebel against God that got us into the mess that we’re in today in terms of living in a fallen creation.

So, God says, because of what man does, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man,” indicating that the ground was cursed because of man. God brought in the judgment, but it was man that provoked it through open sin against God in the Garden of Eden.

This starts to become the beginning of God’s covenant with Noah. The Covenant, you might remember has been announced back in Genesis 6:18, before the flood waters came upon the earth. It says, “But I will establish” [God speaking to Noah] ”I will establish [6:18], My covenant with you, and you shall enter the ark, your sons, your wife, your sons’ wives with you.“  So God announced there was coming something special on the other side of the flood:  a covenant.  Now the Covenant hasn’t been made yet; it’s just been announced. And when we get to Genesis 9:9, not today, and Genesis 9:11, you’re going to run into the word covenant, because now God will be making good on a covenant that He promised even before the flood waters came upon the earth.

What we have here at the end of Genesis 8 are just promises. Now you’re going to see this pattern as we move through the book of Genesis that God makes promises, and then those promises take the form of an official covenant.

What is a covenant? It’s the Hebrew word ‘berith.’  It refers to a binding contractual agreement between God and man. A promise from God would be enough because God can’t lie. But God will take those promises, and He will push the envelope further and give man a formal covenant.

You’re going to see that with the calling of Abram, which is going to happen in Genesis 12 where He will call Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans. That will be the beginning of a very special nation that will mediate God’s blessings to the earth, the nation of Israel. And Genesis 12:1-3 are incredible promises that God will make to the patriarch Abram, who by the way, was nothing more than a pagan idolater when God found him. So don’t think that if you’ve got something bad in your background that somehow God can’t use you. God does not use perfect people for the very simple reason that perfect people don’t exist. Amen. And if that’s true, I can apply for the job. So, He’s going to call this man Abram out of his life of idolatry; He’s going to tell him to walk by faith. And in the process, He’s going to give him incredible promises that we find delineated in Genesis 12:1-3, and you say, ‘Well, that would be enough to have promises.’ But then those promises are going to take the form of an official binding contractual relationship, a berith or a covenant—Genesis 15:18.

Abram did not just have promises, he had covenant. Noah did not just have promises, he had covenant. The covenant language hasn’t developed yet. We’re just in the promissory stage. And one of the promises that God makes is, ’Look, I am never going to bring what I just brought upon the world, which is the Flood. I’ll never again curse the ground. I will never again destroy any living thing.’  Notice that it doesn’t say flood here, but as this promise starts developing in Genesis 9, you’ll start to see the word flood in Genesis 9:11,15. [See also slide Genesis 8:21

In other words, God is making a promise here that what happened in the global deluge, which is one of the most horrific events ever to hit planet Earth, He’ll never again do, and that’s part of the promises that Noah is now inheriting. And because those promises were made through Noah to the whole earth, it’s a promise to all of us that when you see the covenant sign, the rainbow in the sky, which hasn’t been explained yet…by the way, all of these radical groups that have taken over the rainbow, we have to understand that that’s our rainbow. The rainbow is something of God. It has nothing to do with sexual perversion that you see today. And this is just like Satan—he always takes something good and twists it. The rainbow is the covenant sign, just like the Lord’s Table is the covenant sign of the New Covenant that we celebrated earlier. Every covenant has a sign. The Abrahamic Covenant — the sign will be circumcision. The Mosaic covenant, the sign will be Sabbath. And so, we’re just seeing the initial dealings of this particular covenant. The sign hasn’t been announced yet, but it will be announced in Genesis 9.

And God says, ‘I’ll never do what I just did again in terms of the global deluge.’ You must understand that this is an incredible promise. Because of man’s ongoing depravity, human nature hasn’t changed one iota. Yet through the wickedness of man seen prior to the flood, and we’ll start to see after the flood, God makes a promise that He’ll never again bring this global judgment in terms of the global deluge that He once brought. Thus, this is a very gracious promise on God’s part, on God’s behalf.

Notice Genesis 8:21. It says, The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; [Worship is happening. God is speaking now in an atmosphere of worship]. The Lord smelled the soothing aroma; and the Lord said to Himself, “I will never again curse the ground on account of man, … [Now watch this because this will tell you why your kids act up right here; and why you acted up when you were their age.

So don’t look at me like you’re too spiritual to understand that. Amen] …for the intent of man’s heart [that’s the inner being of a human being in Adam’s fallen lineage] … for the intent of man’s heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.” [emphasis mine].

We do not have to be taught to sin. My parents didn’t sit me down and say, ‘Okay, Andy, we’re going to give you a lesson today on sinning. You ready? Here’s what you’re supposed to do when you don’t get your way. Here’s how to throw a tantrum. Now watch me do it a couple times and repeat after me so you can get it down.’ No, throwing a tantrum when you’re a child, even an adult for that matter, if you’ve dealt with the Houston traffic too much, is something that comes very easy for us. My parents never had to sit me down and say, ‘Okay, now we’re going to teach you today about being greedy and not sharing your toys with your friends. So, grab on to them, hold on tight, and let’s let’s practice after me.  Let’s do a couple of rounds here on being self-centered.’ No, we’re like that already. What we have to be taught is the exact opposite. We have to be taught self-control because self-control doesn’t come to us naturally. We must be taught how to be generous and to share with other people and to consider other people as as important as ourselves, because those are thoughts that do not come to us naturally.

And that’s quite frankly, what parenting is. Parenting is about teaching children to recognize the potency of the sin nature within them and to curb that sin nature; to bring the sin nature under their reign, to bring the sin nature under their dominion. And if parents won’t do that, and very sadly, in the United States of America today, we’ve got a lot of parents that just aren’t interested in this kind of thing. You’ve got a generation growing up that’s narcissistic, self-centered. They actually end up many times being criminals. They become prison inmates because they never grew up. They never understood something so basic as human nature and the need to curb natural instincts.

God says this problem hasn’t been altered because of the flood. This problem continues on. It’s all over the Bible this truth that I’m speaking of. Some would call this the total depravity of man.

In Psalm 51:5 David writes, “Behold, I was brought forth in guilt, And in sin my mother conceived me.” At the point of conception, David says, what was transferred to me at the point of conception is a nature that is at war with God—the God that made him. This is called original sin.

Jeremiah 17:9, a very powerful verse on this, says, “The heart is more deceitful than all else, And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?”

This is the divine assessment. As God looks at fallen humanity, He sees a heart that’s sick. In fact, our hearts are so sick that we don’t even understand the sickness of them. We don’t even understand what’s wrong with us. We’re even blinded to the most fundamental realities of life because of the disease and the sickness of our hearts in original sin.

Jesus was criticized for allowing His disciples to eat on the Sabbath.  What an outrageous thing! ‘Go ahead,’ He would say, ‘Nourish yourselves’ to His disciples on the Sabbath. The Pharisees didn’t like that because that interfered, not with God’s Word, which they were totally unconcerned about. It interfered with their traditions. ‘This is not the way we’ve done things in the past’ mindset.

And Jesus in the midst of all of this, says this in Mark 7:20-23:  And He was saying, [to them], ’That which precedes out of the man is what defiles the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.’”  Jesus says that it is not what you take into your body that’s the problem. The problem is who you are in Adam. And who you are in Adam causes all of these things. You could be on the best diet in the world. You could have gotten your full amount of sleep that you needed last night. You could have come to church today all dressed up and hair in the right place. But you are still the same old rotten self you’ve always been because the problem is not what is going on on the outside. The culture is always looking at the outside. Jesus is looking at the heart; at what is coming up from within. That’s what has to be curbed in a child; what has to be curbed in a Christian who is going through the walk of progressive sanctification because God has given us resources like His Word and the Holy Spirit and the new nature to help us in the midst of our depravity. Romans 5:12 says, “Therefore, just as through one man [Adam] sin entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned —.”  That is what we are like in our natural state.

Notice that this statement is made in Genesis 8:21 post-flood. The flood did not fix this problem. The flood purified the environment. The flood got rid of what the Bible calls the Nephilim, Genesis 6, we’ve talked about that. It dealt with those external issues, but it never fixed what is happening in the heart—depravity. Depravity continues. Therefore, this promise here is still in effect in the post-flood world. Right when man sinned in Eden, God said in Genesis 3:15, “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”

To make a long story short, there is coming a Messiah. And this Messiah, when He comes, is going to deal with the root of man’s problem, which is his nature that hates God. The Messiah is going to deal with us from the inside out. He’s not going to put you on a self-help program, a self empowerment program; He’s not going to be your life coach. What He’s going to deal with is the basic problem that we have that we don’t even recognize:  the inside. He’s going to do that by giving you: (a) a new nature and (b) the Holy Spirit. He’s going to tell us, Romans 6, to reckon dead the old nature, which you have to contend with until your dying day, or to the point of the Rapture, whichever comes first.

Genesis 3:15 has to continue because the flood didn’t fix the problem. We know the flood didn’t fix the problem because of what the Lord said to Noah in Genesis 8:21.

I hope, if you learn nothing at this church except this, I will be very, very pleased. Christianity is about an internal transformation. It is about what I would like to call, some have called, a revolution from within. It is completely antithetical and foreign to the spirit of religion, which is always trying to fix the outside. Dress a certain way.  It’s the unpardonable sin if you got a tattoo. I’m not a big fan of tattoos myself, but people think that’s the unpardonable sin, if you get a tattoo. External this, external that. Make sure you’re dressed a certain way when you come to church. And those thoughts, as interesting as they are, are foreign to the Bible, because that’s not the focus of the Bible. That might be the focus of man, the focus of religiosity, but it is not the focus of God and the work that He seeks to do through the Messiah, per Genesis 3:15.  If the whole focus of the Bible was the externals, then the Bible could have ended at the end of Genesis 8–the flood fixed the problem. But the flood did not fix the problem. The flood cleansed the environment, but it didn’t fix what’s really wrong with us:  our nature.

Jesus said this to Nicodemus in John 3. Nic at Night, I call this, the Nic at Night Discourse. Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly I say to you, unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot… [he cannot, he cannot] enter into the Kingdom of God.”

Second Peter 1:4 says, For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. How does the Lord deal with the problem of lust which our old nature craves? The Lord doesn’t try to fix the old nature. He doesn’t try to slap a coat of fresh paint on the old nature. The old nature, even to God, is too far gone. He gives you a new nature, a brand new nature. We call this the new birth. The theologians would call this regeneration or the impartation of divine life, without which it doesn’t matter where you go to church or how frequently you go to church, without which you cannot enter the Kingdom nor have a relationship with God. You see the internal focus here. Titus 3:5 says, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.  ‘I’m going to touch your inside,’ God says, ’and I’m going to make you a new person. I’m going to change you from the inside out.’  Revolution from within.

You know, in my naïveté, before I was a Christian, I used to have the religious world divided according to certain lines. I said, ‘Well, those are the Catholic Christians over there, and we’ve got the Baptist Christians over there, and there’s the Methodist Christians over there. And oh, yeah, there’s the born again Christians over there.’ The truth of the matter is there is only one kind of Christian:  the born again Christian. It doesn’t matter where you go to church. You could be a MethoCathoBaptarian. Or a Bapticostal Fundomatic or whatever you want to be. The fact of the matter is, if you’ve never been born spiritually, you’re not a Christian because that’s the focus of the Bible. The focus of the Bible is not fixing the outside, it’s fixing the heart.

This becomes the error of what is called social gospel. Social Gospel is a liberal heresy that really started to infiltrate the churches in the United States probably around 1920.  And let me tell you something. It is alive and well today within professing Christendom. The whole focus is changing the world.  Make this world a better place. And you could hear some really stirring and interesting sermons about racial injustice and the alleged hole in the ozone layer and universal health care and fix this problem, fix that problem; systematic racism, on and on and on, and they have nothing to do with Christianity.  The first order of business in God is to fix a person’s heart.  If a person’s heart is not fixed, I don’t care what piece of legislation you come up with, you’re not going to fix a race issue because racism or the irrational hatred for somebody based on their skin color is an emanation from the sin nature. It’s not about race. It’s about grace. We have the greatest message on the subject of race available. You hate somebody, you’re resentful against somebody for some arbitrary, irrational reason. God says, ‘That’s not a work of the new nature. Let Me give you a new nature. And I want you to reckon dead the old nature, and I want you to live according to the dictates and the desires of the new nature.’ And that’s how you begin to mature as a Christian. That’s how you begin to grow.

We’re going to baptize, and I’m excited about it. I hope people will come because baptism is supposed to be done in front of witnesses, and we need some witnesses.  Amen, 3:00,  there’s a map in the foyer where you can find out where we’re doing that very near by.  I think we’re going to baptize 12 people. We had each of those 12 people go through a class. ‘Oh, no. Why would you have them do that?’  Because we want to make sure they understand that the baptismal waters have no regenerating power. They are an outward symbol of an inward reality. Something has to have already supernaturally happened to you before you can biblically become a candidate for baptism, or else you have the cart before the horse, and we want to make sure that the people being baptized understand that and that they have had this revolution from within.

Well, if you enjoyed the first part of the sermon, maybe you won’t enjoy this part, because we’re going to get very politically incorrect, so strap on your seat belts here.

In the atmosphere of worship, not only does God:

(1) Promise to not flood the earth again, (Genesis 8:21a) but…

(2) He makes that promise in spite of the depravity of man, necessitating the future work of the Messiah, which is internal. But…

(3) Genesis 8:22, and with this verse we will conclude. He promises uninterrupted seasons or cycles. Part of the Noahic promises, eventually to become a covenant, the world itself is going to go through rhythms and cycles that have absolutely nothing to do with your SUV. They have to do with the Noahic promises which eventually will become a covenant.

Notice the promise in 8:22:  While the earth remains…, [so the movie, Star Wars probably doesn’t have it right where the Death Star blows up planets.  A lot of people look at the Earth as it’s just going to blow up because, they have their theology from Star Wars. That’s not what God says. God says that the earth is going to remain until God removes it by fire and replaces it with a new earth] …

While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest. And cold and heat, and summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease.

Now, by my count, there are four cycles that are mentioned here that have nothing to do with human activity or human consumption.  The first is Seedtime and harvest. We’re going to have seedtime and harvest regardless of what people do.

The second cycle is summer and winter. You’re going to have summer and you’re going to have winter regardless of the activity of human beings. In fact, that one there, you might remember, is as old as Genesis 1:14, where God, on the fourth day of creation said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years.”  The earth was apparently already going through these rhythms or cycles, at least in that regard, and it’s going to be day and it’s going to be night. And you could vote that you don’t want this, And God says, ‘It doesn’t matter.’

You could ban all of the carbon dioxide on planet Earth, which would be a terrible idea. God says, ‘It doesn’t matter; it’s going to be day and night whether you like it or not.  It’s going to be summer or winter regardless of what you do. There’s going to be seedtime and harvest regardless of what you do,’ and right in the middle of the mix, and it’s very interesting how people, in their commentaries, skip right over this verse, or they’ll comment on the three we just spoke of:  seedtime and harvest; summer and winter; day and night. But see what got thrown into the mix there? Cold and heat. The earth, as far as God is concerned, is going to pass through rhythms of cold and heat that have nothing to do with human activity— just like human activity doesn’t stop summer or winter, day, or night, etc. You say, ‘Well, why camp on something like this? Who cares?’ Because it’s antithetical to what your children and grandchildren are being taught today, as I speak, in the university, in the schooling system where they’re being taught that this world that we’re living in is so defectively manufactured, that you better be careful about what you eat, what you drive, what kind of hairspray you use, whether you eat donuts on Sunday morning with strawberry jelly in the middle.  Virtually all human activity, you have to be very careful about, be very cautious, because you can send the Earth into planetary heating.

Now, it’s interesting that back in the 70s, they were they were warning about global freezing. Well, then the earth started to heat up. Now they’re worried about global warming, and then the Earth started to cool down a little bit. Finally, someone got smart and said, ‘let’s just call it climate change.’ And the whole mindset is that humans have the ability to alter the climate, because we’re living in a world and ecosystem that got here by random chance anyway, right? Evolution.  Billions of years. Everything’s an accident. So, everything since it formed as an accident, needs a lot of protective care, because we could create an accident which could send the world into planetary crisis. That’s the climate change agenda. That’s what everybody is being taught today.

Notice what God says here. God knows nothing of this doctrine—nothing. He says, ‘The earth, no matter what you do, is going to get hot, and it’s going to get cold, just like it’s going to be day and night, summer and winter, seedtime and harvest.’

Why is this climate agenda being foisted on us so aggressively?  It is very simple. That is what Rahm Emanuel, former chief of staff in the Obama administration who later became the mayor of Chicago, said: ”You never let a serious crisis go to waste.  And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”

Government loves a crisis. And if government doesn’t have a crisis, they will create a crisis. ‘Well, gee, Pastor, you’re really getting into conspiracy theories now.’

Do yourself a favor.  Go home this afternoon and study the Reichstag fire in Nazi Germany.  The Reichstag building was that the Nazis themselves set on fire, and they blamed it on their political opponents, and they got the country to believe that it was their political opponents that caused the fire. And then the Nazis said said, ‘Trust us with political power, and we will make sure nothing like this ever happens again.’  The fact of the matter is that it was the Nazis that caused the problem to begin with. It’s an ancient strategy used by almost every dictator on planet Earth. You create problems and put people into a state of fear. And if you get them into a state of fear, by the way, that’s why the Bible, 365 times says, “Do not fear.” It is to protect us from things like this. Once you put people in a state of fear, and believe me, people are in a state of fear today. You can see it in their eyes. They will volitionally or voluntarily acquiesce political and economic power to an entity that promises to solve the problem for them that they’re so afraid of. That’s the right way to understand the climate change agenda. I’ll give some balancing comments about the environment in just a minute, but I want us to diagnose the problem correctly.

The cry today is for global governance. I do remember when George H.W. Bush, Bush 41, used the expression New World Order in one of his speeches. The outcry at that time, this would go back to 1991 somewhere in there, was so great, he quit using the term. He used the expression New World Order.  Well today, it’s almost shocking when any public figure speaks if they don’t use the phrase, because it’s common. They use ‘global governance, world government’ all of the time. And you can’t have a global government unless you have a global problem. The global problem becomes the pretext through which people in their state of fear will cry out for global governance. This is a strategy as old as the Reichstag fire, which was local and national. What we’re speaking about here is global. The Chicken Little agenda: the sky is always falling.  Here’s a chart, [see slide on United Nations Conferences] and it shows you the UN Globalism Conferences] hosted going back to the 1990s—always some global problem.

Rio de Janeiro summit.  We’ve got to protect the environment

Human rights conference in Vienna, protect human rights.

Population Conference, Cairo, Egypt 1994, to prevent starvation and world poverty.

Women’s Conference, Beijing 1995, protect women’s rights.

Habitat Conference, Istanbul, 1996, provide global housing for all crisis.

Climate change conference, Copenhagen, 2009, we need to implement climate change policy.

The carrot that’s always dangled in front of people is global government.  ‘Just give us global government, and we can fix all of these problems.’  What people don’t understand is that when global government is achieved, and it will be achieved one day, biblically, it will introduce a form of slavery that perhaps the world worldwide has never known.  It’s spelled out in your Bible. It’s in the book of Revelation 13:16-18.  Do you want to know the end game?  Do you want to know where it is all moving? It’s right here in your Bible.

And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, … [‘Don’t come into this store without your mask on.  Don’t go into this shopping mall unless I see some sort of verification in terms of a Covid 19 passport.’ Covid 19, I call it Covid 1984] …except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.

Global government has already been tried.  It’s in Genesis 11.  It’s the Tower of Babel.  God didn’t like it when it was happening then; He’s not going to like it anymore when the events of the tribulation come.  The LORD said [in Genesis 11:6], “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.” The potential for evil is unlimited if you have one government.  The potential for enslavement is unlimited if you have one government.  So, God divided the world into nations beginning in Genesis 11.

[See slide on God’s Doctrine of Nations]

But the carrot that’s constantly dangled in front of the masses in their state of fear is global government. ‘You’ve got a global problem. Look to us for a global solution.’  Reichstag fire on steroids.

And you know what, folks? They have come up with the ultimate fear tactic.  It’s the environment. It is evolutionary. That’s why they’re so strong on teaching evolution in the classrooms. Everything got here by accident anyway.  It’s not the result of a careful Creator who put things into operation.  It’s the result of random chance events over billions of years, and if we’re in such a fragile state, curtail consumption. Curtail human activity because you might contribute to the fragility, and that’s why there’s so much talk about weather patterns, climate change, overheating, cooling, when God, in the Noahic Covenant says, ‘Relax. That stuff is going to go on regardless of what you do.’

This is a very interesting quote here.  It’s from some authors who wrote for a publication published by the Club of Rome, a one-world organization.  Do we understand this, that there are organizations all over our world today whose whole purpose is to bring in world government?  ‘Well, you’re teaching conspiracy theories.’  No, I just read books and websites. They telegraph what they’re going to do. You know, Adolf Hitler authored a book called Mein Kampf, and he was dismissed as a crazy person.  Think how different our world would have been if people had paid attention to what he said in that book and to the demons that were speaking to him that he put into print. Think about the different outcomes if he been taken seriously.  In this particular publication, they say, “In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with, [look at this] the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill….”  

‘We need a global problem so people will cry out for a global solution, which is global government. Let’s have a brainstorming session. Oh, the environment will work because the environment affects everybody. And if you can convince people that there’s some kind of problem with the environment that they’re causing, then they will acquiesce to the global solution:’  the Reichstag fire on steroids.

Al Gore, in his book, Earth in the Balance— [I guess he wrote this before he invented the internet, says, “We must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization.”

John Kerry, when you listen to him talk, compares global warming to the worst of the worst. “When I think about the array of…global threats —…terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction — all challenges that know no borders — [they’re global, in other words], the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them... [Really? You mean, just as severe as a nuclear explosion?] …Or think about the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.  It doesn’t keep us safe if the United States secures its nuclear arsenal, while other countries fail to prevent theirs from falling into the hands of terrorists….”  This climate change issue, in his mind, is as bad as terrorism, epidemics and pandemics and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Remember Mikhail Gorbachev?  Is it not interesting, and I found this on his Wikipedia page, so it must be true, right? It says “In 1993, Gorbachev, [now, he is a communist, and communists believe that the state is God]. In 1993, Gorbachev launched the Green Cross International which focused on encouraging sustainable futures.” Is it not interesting that this man who is red, suddenly got interested in being green?  I mean, why would a former communist take such an active interest in the environment?  Very simple.  He saw the environment as the issue that could take his communism and export it to the whole world simply by telling people, ‘You’re causing planetary crisis. And if you believe you’re causing planetary crisis, then you need to control consumption; control economic behavior. Come under our rubric. And that way the day can be saved.’

And how do you keep your mind? How do you keep your children? How do you keep your grandchildren out of this mentality? You study the Bible. You study what God says and take your children and grandchildren and tell them, ‘Yeah, this is what they’re going to tell you in the schools, but here’s what God says.’ Fortify their minds and tell them not to be afraid, because the Bible, 365 times, that’s once for every day of the year, says, “Do not fear.”

Genesis 8:22 “While the earth remains, [God says that there will be rhythms.  There’s going to be] … ’Seedtime and harvest. There’s going to be cold and heat. There’s going to be summer and winter. And there’s going to be day and night. And day and night shall not cease.’ This is what we call a biblical worldview. This is what we call allowing the Scripture to speak the way it wants to speak to every issue that we’re facing today. Did you know that your Bible is not just a book about how to get to heaven? That’s important, but it is [also] a book about politics. It is a book about literature.  It’s a book about industry. It’s a book about finances. It’s a book about music. It’s a book about art. I need to add to this— it is a book about science.  And right now, as I speak, you know what the youth are being taught in our Sunday schools? These [very] issues: worldview. In fact, I was sitting here with my wife a good minute or two before I came up here, and she said, ‘I want you to pray for me, I’m nervous.’ And I said, ’Why are you nervous?’ She says, ‘I’m dealing with homosexuality today in the classroom from a biblical point of view.’ So, we we prayed right there on the spot.  Why in the world, would you, in a classroom in Sunday school with young children, talk about an issue like that? Because it is in this Book. And this Book is not just a book about how to get to heaven. It’s a Book that, if you let it, will speak to every issue of life, including the climate change insanity that we are now experiencing as a country, a culture, and a world. That is the only solution to the things that are coming upon the earth that are such evil in their proportions. It’s astounding what is going to happen. The only thing that keeps you out of the sewer, that puts you in a position where you can educate the next generation or your children or grandchildren or your friends, or even the people sitting next to you in church, is the Bible. But you can’t shortchange the Bible when it wants to talk. When it wants to talk, it will speak authoritatively on any subject it deals with. It is just as authoritative when it talks about this issue here as it is about any other issue.

When the Bible speaks about salvation, it’s authoritative. When the Bible speaks about angels and demons, it’s authoritative. When the Bible speaks about sin, it’s authoritative. When the Bible speaks about climate change and how to think about it biblically, it’s authoritative as well. Now some people listening to me will think, ‘Well, the Pastor is basically teaching that we should trash the environment. We should have no environmental consciousness or no environmental concern whatsoever.’ And that’s what I’m not saying.

Going all the way back to Genesis 1:26-28, God put man in a position [we call this the Creation mandate] to steward the earth on His behalf. It is called the Office of Theocratic Administrator. Jot down Psalm 8:4-6. We’re not here to abuse the animals, the environment, trash the planet.  I do not like breathing polluted air or drinking polluted water any more than someone else. There is always common-sense environmental stewardship that we should embrace. But you need to watch the environmental movement carefully because they are very fast blending from theism into pantheism where the earth now becomes the subject of worship.  Now they’ve gone too far. Where the environmental issue is used as a pretext to argue for global governance, now they’ve gone too far. They’ve taken something good, which is what Satan always does, and turned it into something wrong. Perversion. And what rescues us is a careful study of God’s Word.

Unless you’re going to study the Bible verse by verse, carefully, you‘d just rush over Genesis 8:22, wouldn’t you? ‘What bearing could 8:22 have to my life?’  I’ve tried to demonstrate every way. Have a right view of the world, that it is a special creation of God. Humans are not the enemy. God created man and woman in His image, and He gave them the Creation mandate to steward the planet for God. Be careful about planetary worship and planetary crisis being used as a pretext to argue for global governance.

If you think today was politically incorrect, wait till we get to Genesis 9 because what happens in Genesis 9 as part of the Noah covenant is the beginning of human government, and it will tell you what government is supposed to do and what the limitations are on government. Beloved, we’re living in a time period where the government has overstepped its bounds, interfering into the realm of free speech and freedom of religion. And what’s interesting is [that] your Bible, all the way back in the days of Noah orients our thinking properly.

 

You could be here today, and you could have never had this internal transformation that we’ve been speaking of. Our exhortation to you is to believe the gospel. Jesus, as we celebrated at the Lord’s Table, stepped out of eternity into time. He died on a cross 2,000 years ago to pay the full penalty for our sins, He rose bodily from the dead to vindicate who He claimed to be, and He leaves humanity with a very simple promise. In fact, He has dispatched the Spirit of God into the world to convict people of their need to receive this promise. And the promise is simply this: ‘Stop trusting in yourself. Stop trusting in your works. Stop trusting in your efforts. Stop trusting in your religiosity for salvation. But trust exclusively in what I did for you 2,000 years ago for the safe keeping of your soul.’

We call this the gospel because it is good news. If you believe that, then you believe the work rested on the shoulders of Christ, not on my shoulders. I have simply received, by way of faith, a gift from God, and according to Romans 4:4-5, the only way to receive a gift from God is by faith.

If you’re here today or listening online or listening to this after the fact, and you find yourself under conviction, the reason you’re under conviction is because God loves you. If He didn’t love you, He wouldn’t bother you. But He loves you. He loves you enough to annoy you. And He loves you enough to annoy you into heaven. I think I’d rather be scared into heaven than flattered into hell. Amen?

If you are under that conviction, and no doubt some of you are, because Jesus in the Upper Room, said that would happen. Respond to that conviction of the Spirit. It’s not a matter of walking an aisle, joining a church, giving money. It’s a matter of personal privacy between you and the Lord where you trust, which is another way of saying faith; you rely upon, in other words, what Jesus did for you.

Coming to Christ is not a 12-step program. It’s a one-step program where you believe or trust in the God who entered history and paid such a great price to gain for us so great a salvation, something you could do right now, even as I’m speaking.

If folks are still sort of confused about this, I’m available after the service to talk. Shall we pray?

Father, we’re grateful for even verses that seem obscure in the book of Genesis, and yet they teach us so much about life and Your priorities. Help us to be, at the end of the day, biblicists in every area of life. We will be careful to give You all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus’ name, and God’s people said Amen.