1442 - "Noah...Shem, and the new beginning after the flood." Genesis 8:20; 10:1

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Each weekday, Dr. Crisp will be discussing biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Tune in daily to start your day right and deepen your understanding of how to better walk the way and enjoy the journey. Here's your host, Dr. Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Welcome to On the Way. This is Tony Crisp, and this is Podcast 1442. Today we're going to continue through the book of Genesis and we're going to follow the story of the Crimson River. We have discovered that in the very Garden of Eden, God used the skins of a sacrificial animal to cover, that's right, to cover the guilt and the shame of Adam, our first father, and Eve, our first mother, in their rebellion and their choices against the God who had created them and all of the cosmos, all of the universe. And because of their sin, someone, something had to die and pay the penalty for sin. Either Adam and Eve would pay it and they would die and be lost forever, or God would work out the great plan of redemption that he established before the foundation of the world itself. And that's what he did. And he no doubt taught Adam the truth of why an innocent animal had to die, one of his own beloved animals, that he had no doubt given its name. And now that one had died. It was not the blood of bulls and goats or rams or lambs that would take away the sin of Adam and Eve. No, it was going to be just a picture of one who would come as a man and would live in perfect harmony with the will of God and do exactly as the Father would have wanted Adam to do, but he did not. He failed. And so God sent a substitute, a Savior. We know him as Jesus of Nazareth. And God throughout the Torah, throughout the prophets, throughout the writings, he showed in shadow and picture. He explained over and over again the one that would be coming, but he did it in a fashion that for those of us who are not steeped in the Word of God and do not know the customs and culture of the Bible, of ancient or even just two thousand years ago, all of that is much more mysterious to us. But I want to remind you as we go through this story of the Crimson River from Genesis to Revelation, that the Bible is filled with assumptions, and it is not complete in detail. I have shown you that in the past over and over, but I remind you just in one book in the last two chapters of the Gospel of John, the beloved disciple, that John said at the closing of both chapters that the things that he had written he had written on purpose and for a purpose, and that is that he might show that Jesus is the Son of God by what he said and by what he did, and that if he were to write down all the things that Jesus said and did, if he were to write of the ramifications and the benefits and blessings and consequences of what Jesus did, the world couldn't even contain the books. So the Bible is not complete in details. And it is filled with assumptions. This is why many times as we read through the Bible, we read of things and we say, Well, I wonder what that means. I wonder why that was written. Well, the people to whom it was written originally knew everything about what was being said. They knew the language, they knew the culture, the customs, they knew the history that had preceded that, the geopolitical setting. And you see that in the book of Exodus with the Pharaoh and the Egyptian customs. You have to spend years, you and I do, studying ancient history and the religions of the past in order to truly get the richness of what God uh was saying in many places. Now we don't need that to get the plot, the story, the storyline, but many times it is important for us to know more than just the main figures and the plot if we're wanting to pass it on to someone else, because the Bible, if it is nothing else, it is a story. It's not a fable. Because remember, Peter said in 2 Peter, we have not followed cunningly devised muthos, myths, but we have followed the true word of God. Now this is very important because the Bible doesn't start out on once upon a time. It starts out with God. In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and then it goes on to describe all of creation. This is not an Aesop's fable. This is the story of God. And the story of God is the story of the crimson river of the sacrificial offerings that were made that God insisted upon so the people would never forget that without the shedding of blood there can be no forgiveness of sin. And so when we come to the flood and the saving of Noah and his children, his household, and when it comes to the new beginning that God gave them to start brand new, it's interesting that the first thing they did in chapter eight and verse twenty, it says, Then Noah built an altar to Yahweh, and he took of every clean animal that he had taken on the ark. Remember it wasn't just two of each, of the clean animals it was more than two. It was pairs of them. Why? They were going to be sacrificial, many of them, and so he said of every clean animal, he took of every clean animal and every clean bird, and he offered burnt offerings on the altar. Now why would he do that? Because he was going to remind Noah in the very beginning before they did anything, before they planted, before they went out and began to build communities and then towns and villages, that the most important thing was to remember the Creator and the Redeemer, now the one who has made a way for man to be forgiven. And one day he would send a substitute that would pay the sin debt once and for all. And so the story began. Again, it was in shadow, it was in sign, it was in symbol, and sometimes God just outright telling them, This is what I'm going to do, as he often did in the prophets, for instance, Isaiah 53. But early on it was passed down from father to son, and that's the way it was, and we see that in Noah's children, because the scripture says in chapter ten, now this is the genealogy of the sons of Noah. And here were their names Shem, Ham and Japheth. Now Shem, it's interesting, the oldest was named Name. That's right, Shem S H E M is the word which in Hebrew stands for name. It's the word name. And so he was named the name. That's what Noah called him. Why? Because he was going to be the one through whom God was going to bring the Redeemer. He was the firstborn, and so God named him Name. He was a reminder in his own life that God is first. And so Noah not only sacrificed first, but he named his firstborn after the name, after the name of God. Today, the Jews who have forgotten how to speak the name of God, the personal name of God, YHVH, remember YHWH, depending upon the pronunciation, whether you're Ashkenazi or whether you're a Sparti, and other factors as well would determine how you would say that name. And the vows are unknown. And because the high priest only said them once a year after the destruction of the temple, it was not spoken. So people forgot, uh certainly by that time, and so this is the story. And so Shem is part of the story, and this genealogy is so very important. And if you'll notice back in verse nine, just a couple of sentences before what we label as chapter ten, it says that when Noah sinned before God and got drunk, it said that he blessed Shem and said, Blessed be Yahweh, the Elohim, the God of Shem of the name. And so this is the way that it was passed on. It's the way that it's always been passed on, father to children, father to children. Why? Because God is just beginning the story in the book of Genesis. And by the way, I believe this is why the book of Acts doesn't formally end. Why? Because the church is still going on. The story is still being written, not the words of God as the inspiration of Scripture. No, no, no. The word of God is complete, and we have the scriptures. No, what I'm talking about is the story of redemption goes on in you and me. And the way that the Jewish people passed it on is the way we're to pass it on. But the reality is, just from a standpoint of application, that most families, even Christian families, many times even devout Christian families, and those who would stand in pulpits and before people, they relegate the teaching of the story of God and the story of redemption to someone, maybe a staff member, maybe to a Christian school, maybe to a secular school, a government school, a public school, or to a student ministry or to a children's ministry. And all of those are ancillary and good in their place. But let me tell you, it is the responsibility of the parents to pass on the great story of God and the truths of the Bible to the next generation. And God will hold every one of us accountable as to how we do that and the way that we do that because we cannot improve upon what God said. In Genesis, it is laid out in a pattern for us. But in the book of Deuteronomy, the last book of the Torah, the scripture says in chapter six how and when we are to do it. We are to teach our children to love God with everything that's within them, to start the day with Him, to end the day with Him, to speak with Him and about Him as we walk along the way, as we eat our meals, as we move. God is not someone we just address one day a week. He is the warp and woof of who we are. He is the fabric of our lives. He is the one that gives us meaning. And so the story of the Crimson River is not some mystical story that we cannot know. It's a story that we do know personally and we pass it on to our families. And so the story of Noah is the story of the passing on to the next generation. And when we look at Abraham, all of a sudden everything takes a new level of meaning and revelation. As God picks out the man who's going to be the father of the faith from that generation onward, and still today, whether you are a Jew or a follower of Jesus who is a Gentile, you are part of the family of Abraham, either as a Jew or as a Gentile, because God has opened up the door so that all of us can know the God of the Bible in a personal way. I pray this is a blessing to you as you walk on the way. This is Tony Crisp.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Thanks for listening to On the Way with Tony Crisp. Tune in every weekday for information on biblical passages, people, places, and prophecies. Fridays are for your questions. Email your questions to questions at TonyCrisp.org, then just listen for your question to be answered on Friday's podcast. That's questions at TonyC R I S P dot org. Thanks for listening and have a blessed day on the way.