Friday, June 10, 2016
Dispensation = Government Opening Event = Noah worships God and receives a covenant and responsibility - GEN 8:20-22 Man's
Responsibility = Believe and obey - GEN 9:1-6
Man's failure = Personal disorder, GEN 9:20-23 and Social disorder; GEN 11:1-4. Man's Tendency = Away from God - Closing Event =
Judgment - confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel; GEN 11:5-9. Personal Salvation = By Grace through Faith - GEN 9:26; 11:10-32
Now, the dispensation of Government also has within it what is called the Noahic Covenant.
When Noah left the ark after the flood, God made His third covenant with man which many call the Noahic Covenant (GEN 8:20-9:17).
Like the previous covenants this was also unconditional and lasts until the renovation of the earth by fire (2PE 3:10).
2PE 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.
In many ways in the dispensation of Government, God is starting over again with man.
Having destroyed everyone except Noah and his family because of extreme wickedness, God sought to replenish the earth through Noah because Noah found grace in His eyes (GEN 6:8).
Like the others before, this covenant contains promises TO man and responsibilities required OF man.
The promises were:
1. God would not curse the ground anymore or smite every living thing (GEN 8:20).
2. The seasons and day and night will not cease (GEN 8:22).
3. He would not flood the earth again and destroy it (GEN 9:11).
4. He would set the sign of a rainbow in the clouds as a token of His covenant (GEN 9:12).
a. He was to again multiply and replenish the earth (GEN 9:1,7).
b. They were not to eat blood from any source (GEN 9:4).
LEV 17:11 'For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.'
c. In the dispensation of Government, for the first time, they were also to exercise capital punishment upon man and beast (GEN 9:5).
1. Animals would fear and dread man (GEN 9:2).
2. Animals were now available for food (GEN 9:3).
And so through the great object lesson of the flood, God showed humanity His hatred of sin and evil.
Also seen in this is God's long-suffering nature.
In the future, He will destroy the Antichrist and all his followers at the Second Advent, but he will not destroy the earth itself until His great
scheme of things concerning it is over, and then only with fire.
The command against the eating of blood is also found in the New Testament (Acts 15:29) and capital punishment is still God's will even if many today ignore it (ROM 13:4).
As for capital punishment, another new law given by God you must remember, the subject of capital punishment was first brought up by God.
Dispensation = Government Opening Event = Noah worships God and receives a covenant and responsibility - GEN 8:20-22 Man's
Responsibility = Believe and obey - GEN 9:1-6
Man's failure = Personal disorder, GEN 9:20-23 - Social disorder; GEN 11:1-4 - tower of Babel. Man's Tendency = Falls Away from God -
Closing Event = Judgment - confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel; GEN 11:5-9.
After noting the definition of the dispensation of Government, the opening Event, man's Responsibility and his personal failure, we are now ready for the great judgment of the Tower of Babel.
The first nine verses of this chapter are obviously brief but it is packed with information. Here we have here the only true record of the origin of nations and the origin of languages, and nations which came into existence by a single act of God.
Sociologists and anthropologists and language theorists imagine a slow, long evolutionary process socializing man and somehow evolving into different nations an languages......but that was not so.
We will focus on the line that led to Abram or Abraham because Abraham becomes the key figure in chapter 12 because it's through him that God creates a Jewish people, the nation of Israel which is our next two dispensations all found in the rest of the Old Testament.
The first nine verses of chapter 11 are crucial because they give us the event that launched the scattering.
When they came out of the ark they were a group of eight and the began to reproduce and reproduce.
In GEN 11:1-9, the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of whole earth and they stopped building the city and therefore its name was called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth.
This is a very simple and straightforward explanation of how nations developed all over the world and how languages developed; God did it in one single act.
It is in a way a profound tragedy as humanity is separated and splintered and scattered from each other already having rebelled from God.
The inevitable result is that a negative relationship with God results in a negative relationship toward mankind.
The Tower of Babel happened no more than 100 years after the flood.
According GEN 10:10, that it appears to be only 100 years after the flood that the earth has gone away from God.
In 100 years the population was still one clan, one tribe, one language, one nation, one family, but hopelessly sunk already into rebellion and sin.
We are to separate from certain loved ones or friends become involved in the cosmic system; MAT 10:34-38.
To avoid this negative influence, the believer can maintain his correct priorities by mental preparation and separation, switching from personal love to impersonal love.
PRO 13:20 He who walks with wise men will be wise, but a companion of fools shall become corrupted 2TI 3:5 "They [believers and unbelievers in the cosmic system] hold to external forms of godliness, but have renounced the power of that same godliness; you also be turning yourself away from these men."
2TH 3:6 "Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our lord Jesus Christ, that you separate from every believer who leads an undisciplined life [no momentum], that is not according to the tradition you have received from us."
2TH 3:14 "If anyone does not obey our doctrinal teaching in this epistle, take special note of that person and do not associate with him, so that he may be put to shame."
In the flood it was judgment by destruction.
At Babel it is judgment by dispersion and separation frankly the world at the time of Babel was not any different than the world at the time of the flood.
Hegel -- "If we have learned anything from history it is that we have learned nothing from history."