CPC Sunday School | Covenant Theology #3 (1/21/2024)

The speaker begins with a prayer, giving thanks to God and asking for blessings on the day. They then introduce the topic of covenant theology and explain that it is a bond in blood, sovereignly administered by God. They discuss the importance of trust and faith in God's promises. They outline their plan for the rest of the session, including discussing the Noahic covenant and its characteristics. They emphasize that covenant theology points towards Christ and the redemption and grace found in Him. They also mention the concept of the eternal covenant and the covenant of works with Adam. All right, let's pray and get started this morning. Our Father in heaven, we bow our head. We lift up your name high. How majestic is your name in all the earth. Our Lord and our God, we lift up your name high because you are worthy to be praised. We pray for your blessing on this day. It is the start of your Lord's day and it is a gift to us. We thank you, Lord, that you have called us, that you have redeemed us. We thank you, Lord, for the hope that you put in us. We thank you, Lord, for your word. We pray, Lord, your blessing on this day. We thank you for each one here, each family here. We thank you for your faithfulness in their lives, for bringing us through another week, for where you've brought us in life. We thank you for your redemption. We ask your blessing on today. We pray that we would be faithful to your word. We pray that we would be faithful hearers of your word and that we would all grow together and make your name great. In Christ's name we pray, amen. We'll be continuing our series on covenant theology. We are in a long series and this is week three where we will be looking at Noah and reminding ourselves throughout the covenant series, drawing heavily on O. Palmer Robertson and his good definition, but very thick definition, that a covenant is a bond in blood, sovereignly administered. He starts off his book that's saying covenant theology, what is the definition of a covenant? That's kind of like asking what is the definition of a mother? To some of us we would say a mother is giving birth to children. A mother has specific tasks. A mother has ... There's a variety of ways that we can define what a mother is, in the same way that you would say that certain things are not a mother. He brings in and he introduces us to the concept of covenant theology to say, hey look, this is going to be a heavy thing, but in that heaviness we are going to ... Covenant theology, how does Noah play into this? Your first response would not be a bond in blood, sovereignly administered by God. If you have that wherewithal at three in the morning, I'm very impressed, but that there is a very basic concept that God is trustworthy and that if you take that away this morning, and we'll get into the details of that, then you've taken away the essence of covenant theology, that our God makes promises, keeps promises, and somebody that makes and keeps promises is trustworthy. What is our response to that? That we would grow in our trust of a trustworthy God. Let's get started of our overview of covenant theology. We're going to go over what is covenants generally. Mr. Juan laid the good foundation of that. He laid the cement, and we're going to build off of that. We're going to look on what, again, a review of what the three covenants that we went over are. We're going to look at death in the covenants as a theme through it and as a truth through it. We're going to dive into the Noahic covenant specifically, universally. We're going to look at the sign and the seal of the Noahic covenant. We're going to look at characteristics of it, and we hope to save time for discussion. Here's our overview. Packer gives us a very concise summary. If we take away anything when we look at the big concepts here, covenant theology and dispensational theology, what is our big picture here on how we divide out those two concepts? If we think that covenant theology is laying that concrete in the garden and building is satisfying God's wrath. We are given these signs. These sacraments are outflowing the signs and seals of the covenant. Then lastly, that God is with us so that we remember that even in the end of the Westminster Confession, Chapter 5, it says that God with his church, there will always be a church as long as he does not come back. God is continuing to give his special, what he says in the Westminster, his care, and he disposes all things for its good according to the church. Questions on that or thoughts on that? We're just getting our pump primed here, is that right? Priming our pump in terms of thinking about covenant theology. Thoughts or reflections just as we're getting going here? The Dutch was for your benefit. Let's look at now drilling down on OPR's definition here. What is a bond? A bond in blood. What is a bond? Anybody? A bond, where do we hear this term used, a bond? Yeah, so in real life, how would we see that play out? Yeah, bail, bondsmen, what do they do? Hopefully, I mean if you have personal experience, you're welcome to share. Let's talk about a friend of ours is another way you can tell us that story. We have essentially somebody that's saying, somebody gets indicted in a criminal court and they come and they say, the judge says to them, I don't know if you're going to come back but here's pretty good motivation, you have to pay $10,000 and so how many people have $10,000 in their billfold? You have a bail bondsman that will say, okay, I'm going to put up the $10,000 as a guarantee that you're going to come back, you're going to pay me for that, probably cost you 15, 20% of that and fees but that lets you get out of jail. Now what happens if you don't show up on your next court appearance? What happens in the movies which may or may not be close to reality? Who will come get you? Bounty hunter. Exactly. So there's a sense in which you didn't show up and now you have the money that was put forward as being forfeited, right? So a bond is something that essentially somebody is committing, in this example, the bail bondsman, I'm committing money so that you, something will happen, guarantee that something will happen and if it doesn't happen, if you break your obligation, then you forfeit certain things about that initial bond relationship. Let's connect this to our relationship with Christ. What if it's not money? What if the bail bondsman says, not money but I give you my son, the blood of my son guaranteeing that you're going to show up to court? How much more weighty is that? What if it's the, and this is an analogy so come with me on this, but what if it's the blood of the defendant's son, right? So we start to then approach the weight of when we say, when OPR says a bond in blood, right, we're talking about the weightiness that this is not just, you know, Brian and I saying, hey look, you want to go to Portillo's? You know? And we come up with an arrangement, I'll meet you there and, you know, I don't show up, right? There's disappointment there. This is something that is life and death. And that's what we are, in drawing out this definition, getting at, that this is the most significant type of arrangement that's being made. But unlike Brian and I, you know, talking about, well, I'll meet you there at this time or that time, we're talking about something that's sovereignly administered. What does that mean? That it's not me and you saying, we're going to come up with a contract with each other that we are going to negotiate a contract. God is stepping into history. He's setting the terms. So he's sovereign in this in that he's not relying on us and he's saying, hey, Adam, what do you think about this? Noah, what do you think about this? Abraham, I got an idea. Moses, what do you think about this? David, what do you think about me making you the king of the people? Right? Samuel, go get the king. Right? He's the one directing all things. So that's the big idea in sovereignly administered here. And ultimately, what we really want to drive home is that everything in this redemption, everything is driving towards Christ. If we don't see that through the series, then, you know, we've really missed the big idea. Everything is foreshadowing Christ. We'll talk about the ark today. We'll talk about Moses. We'll talk about David. You know, all of these roles, Adam is driving towards one that could not just perfectly obey but one that sheds his blood. Right? That's the whole point of this. This is the richness that once we grasp covenant theology, then you start thinking, oh, let me go look over at this Presbyterian church over here. You know, this is the one that drives a lot of us to the Reformed faith when two-thirds of the Bible is the Old Testament. And a lot of times, until that you grasp the truth of covenant theology, you don't really know what to do with the Old Testament. You're sitting there thinking, well, what does this have to do with Christ? Christ has come, therefore, you know, the old is old. Right? But when you see the story of redemption and grace throughout all of history, then what Christ has done becomes rich. Your faith becomes richer. Your reassurance of who you are becomes richer. And so these are some of the things that we hope to drive to this series. Questions or thoughts on that? All right, continuing on. Lincoln Duncan, covenant theology is the gospel set in the context of God's eternal plan of communion with his people and its historical outworking in the covenant of works and grace. Great definition. So let's look at the three covenants reviewed. We talked about that there are three covenants. There are, and just to flag this as Dan talked about last week, that the eternal covenant is obviously, as its name says, outside of time. So that there's not a chapter and verse where you look and you see the eternal covenant. As Dan talked about, we look at chapter and verses in the New Testament talking about the roles of the father, the roles of the son, the roles of the spirit. And we see that there are distinct roles in salvation. And from that, we derive the theological concept of an eternal covenant. And then we get to the covenant of works that with Adam, what is the covenant of works? Anybody? With Adam, he was given the garden to enjoy. He was given a probationary period in which, you know, you are saying, are you going to submit to me? Do all of these things, Adam. Don't do this one thing. Are you going to fully trust me? And Adam failed that probationary test. And oftentimes, and Robertson brings this out helpfully, a lot of times we fail to recognize the fullness of the covenant of works where we just focus on that probationary period. And he brings in as a good example, the Westminster confession with a shorter, longer confession that what we have is just the focus on the probationary period and we forget all the other things told to Adam. You have the Sabbath day, the day of rest. You have labor and dominion over the earth. You have marriage and all of these things and these good things that are given in the covenant of works don't just go away. But the probationary period certainly has a test put before Adam, which he fails. And then we have the covenant of grace, that covenant of grace, that third, which flows all the way through Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David into Christ. So the covenant of grace, when Adam and Eve fail, we have the very beginning, this is as exciting as anything in the Bible, is when you are in the very beginning of Genesis and you hear about a he. And you certainly, the readers then would wonder, who is this he that is going to crush the head of the serpent? Us looking back, we have the privilege of saying, who crushed the head of the serpent? And we have the privilege of linking Christ from the beginning of Adam all the way to Christ. But we also have, at the very beginning, two lines, two lines that are flowing out. One is the seed of Satan and one is the seed of Eve, right? This is the very beginning of Genesis. You will have these two lines flow all the way through the Bible. It doesn't matter where you're reading. You have to take what you're reading back to these two lines. It is either the seed of Satan or it is the seed of the woman. And God will choose to use the seed of the woman to redeem his people. That is covenant theology, that there is these two lines that are flowing, that Eve hears about from God that your seed will crush the head of Satan. Okay, so there's some redemption and there's grace in there. And what happens? She has Cain, she has Abel, and Cain kills Abel. And so, you know, what is this, you know, internalization, if you would want to extrapolate that far with Eve, where she's looking and she's told about a promise, and then here's Cain killing Abel, right? And then we have, you know, in the genealogy, who is born to Adam and Eve? Seth. And then through the line of Seth, you have Noah. And then through Noah, you have Abraham. And then through Abraham, you keep going and you look in the New Testament all the way to Joseph, right? And you have Joseph, the father of Christ, legally of Mary, virgin birth of Christ. And you have the consummation of this incredible promise all throughout the lineage, starting in he shall crush the head of the serpent. Your seed, the woman's seed, shall crush the head of Satan. But Satan shall bruise, right? And the bruising, it is not an insignificant thing for Christ to die on the cross. It's not an insignificant thing for Christ to give of himself. And that is as much of a bruise that Satan inflicts as possible. Yeah, Andy. Great question. So, Andy asks, are these new covenants of grace or is this a continuation of both? Because you know, unlike the dispensationals, we're not going to say that it is a new covenant of a new arrangement that God is making with man. It is the continuation of the covenant of grace. So God is continuing. So reestablishment could work, but essentially you don't have Christ unless you have all of humanity saved in Noah. But Noah doesn't fully recognize his link to Christ. Noah knows, right, we could talk about how Noah was saved, but Noah knows that God speaks to him and he responds to that and he answers. So if Noah wouldn't have followed God and saved humanity, then where would the line be to Christ? If there wasn't a people, you know, as we'll talk about in Abraham, and the promise of many sons, right? So each of them connect with the other, whether or not they in and of themselves fully appreciate or recognize that. Does that make sense? That's a good question. And interrupt me as we go if there are other questions. Any other questions before we get started? Do you guys get the richness of this, and this is as rich as it comes, that when you're reading all through the Old Testament and you get to Christ, Christ's sacrifice on the cross is, this isn't the first time that you've heard about this because you've been hearing about this all throughout the Old Testament, that somebody will come that can actually do what these people aren't doing. And the person that's doing it isn't just like Adam made in the image of God, is God himself. Adam made in the image of God was created to do certain things and to follow and submit to God. He fails. And so you have one that is actually God himself, right? That actually obeys perfectly. Like if Christ just died, if that's all Christ did, God and he died, redemption would not be accomplished. If Christ just came and obeyed perfectly, redemption would not be accomplished. You have to have Christ coming, obeying everything perfectly, which is what we could not do, and then giving of his precious blood for redemption to be accomplished. This is the rich theme of covenant theology. Questions on that? Brian. Yeah, that's a good... I like that. That's a good way to put it. So basically, for an analogy, you're going to the hardware store and you want to get a drill bit. And you get this, you get the Milwaukee, and then you're drilling through and that fails. And you're like, ah, let me try the Cobalt. Let me try the Ryobi. So it's like, okay, you didn't really carry the weight. Let me try another tool. Let me try another person. So yeah, that would be accurate to think of in a dispensational way, as far as I understand it, that you are continually trying to reset. Well, that didn't really work out, so I'm going to try this now. That didn't really work out similar, but we're going to start again. This is Robertson. Generally the emphasis on blood in the biblical faith is regarded as an element of primitivism that must be excused, but the pledge to death involved in the covenant of creation makes mandatory just such an emphasis. So this idea that we read about animal sacrifices, we read about the death throughout the Old Testament, and some of us are like, well, that was before, that's primitive, or we become uncomfortable with that. God created this world. He created the rules of this world. And in that, he created the very basic concept that disobedience of God requires death. He created that. And so all throughout history, it requires death, it requires blood to satisfy disobedience. So this is essentially, when we look at Genesis 2.17, that if you eat, this is how it was set up, of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall surely die. You have Christ himself saying in Luke 22 that we will remind ourselves visibly this morning that the cup poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. It required Christ's blood. This is the preciousness of his sacrifice. And without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin. So, you know, at the very beginning, you know, think when Adam and Eve disobeyed. What did they do? What did they do before they talked to God? And what did they cover up with? And then we have animal skins. Where did those animal skins come from? Yeah. But animals, you know, certainly the implication is there that we have now on the flip side of sin, we have animals dying. We have in Genesis 5, and we'll get to this, an entire recording by Moses of the lives of people. Right. And these are people that are living, we can talk about this, but living to almost a thousand years. It's an interesting passage of scripture. We could spend a whole hour on this section. So I think they call this the antediluvian period, where my RTS, I got at least one, two thumbs up. But these are people that are living to incredible lengths of time. What does every single, who's got their Bible this morning, if you look at Genesis 5, what does every single one of those verses end with? And he died. And he died. So, you know, Moses in precious scripture, you know, what is he, what is he, what is he doing there? Recording for us, using these superfluous words that he died, or is for the first time you're being reminded in the history of Genesis that the wages of sin is, as it says in Romans 6, death. And so right on the verge of death, what do you have? Over and over. And he died. And he died. And he died. That we have now death. And these people, it doesn't matter how long they lived, and he died. Over and over. So I need to get scooting here, because I don't think I'm going to make it. Let's look at then the context of where we are. Okay, so it's helpful when we get to Genesis 6 through 9 to remind ourselves of Genesis 1 through 5. Right? So we have the creation. These are rough categories. Some of these chapters will spill over a little bit into the others. The creation of heaven and earth, chapter 2 in Genesis, Adam and Eve, covenant of works, chapter 3, the failure and the covenant of redemption. Chapter 4, you have Cain and Abel at the end. You have Seth coming. Chapter 5, you have all the funerals, right, and Adam all the way. And then you hear about Noah. And then in chapter 6, we start through 9, the Noahic covenant. All right, let's talk about the specific covenant that God makes with Noah. It says in Genesis 6, 17 through 19, I'm going to hand the microphone here in the front. Who wants to read that? The first paragraph, for behold, I will bring a flood of waters up upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which it is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on earth shall die, but I will establish my covenant with you, and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you. And every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark. Keep them alive with you. They shall be male and female. Thank you for that. So we have in here, right, the first, in all of scripture, the first use of the word covenant. Dan talked about, I won't repeat last week, that you have the framework of covenant. You walk in on two people and a crowd, you say, okay, a wedding is taking place. They may not announce it as a wedding, but it is a wedding. And so you have here the first time the word covenant is taking place. And as we'll learn later, when it says that Noah found favor, that word grace, first time that we see the word grace in scripture as well. And so what is this ark that God is commanding that Noah build? Do I have that in this? Yes, it's there at the end. What is this ark? So interestingly, it's the exact same word that is used for Moses being placed in the river. Think about that. So God is going to save his people and he says, build essentially a big box, right? Or he's going to save Moses and he says, build this small little basket, right? The basket floats where the basket floats down the river. Who determines where that basket goes or if it lives or if it drowns, right? This is on the verge of Pharaoh saying to, uh, proclaiming that he will drown all of the Hebrew babies in the river. And here's a baby that is being placed in a basket, right? This ark is a box that's going to float where it's going to float. Doesn't have rudders. It doesn't have navigational equipment. It doesn't have sails. God's creating a box and he's putting his people in and God's doing it. Noah's not saying, well, actually, I think that what we should do is go a little bit, you know, longer in the back. Well, no, God is directing Noah sovereignly and administering how he's going to preserve humanity, right? So we get back to, uh, Palmer Robertson's definition here, um, and you have in here, you know, God essentially reaching out to Noah and showing him grace. Um, what are, what is, what is the, the, the redemptive theme here? Well, we wouldn't have Christ. We wouldn't have essentially us here today if humanity wasn't being saved, right? So God is using this to save humanity and using this as a rich image today when we say, and I think first Thessalonians one 10, where it says, uh, that you now believe in Christ to save from the wrath that is to come this, these two, the pulse of these two seeds still are around today. You still have the seed of Satan and the seed of the woman. We are grafted into the seat of women through Christ faith alone, the seat of Satan. There's still wrath that is going to come on the last day. That still is happening today. And so that when we think about the grace that was shown to Noah, it's not hard for us to think about that. There is a judgment that is coming. And what is the arc? What is the gospel message today that believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. There is one door in that arc. That's the only way to exit out of the seed of Satan into the seat of what the, of, of the woman and through Christ. That's it. And so there's some rich, rich, uh, visuals there that God has put throughout redemptive history. Questions or thoughts on that? We'll continue going. All right. Universally, we have a covenant with all of the earth. Um, and he says, neither will I strike down living creatures as I have while the earth remains. Seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night. So just the fact that we last February had to drip our pipes, right? And here we are again. Until the Lord comes back, we will continue to do this. How often do we recognize that just because the sun comes up every day and just because we have a winter and then a spring and then a summer and then a fall, what's your favorite season? Just the fact that you can say that I look forward to fall is whether or not you are in the church or outside the church, you are affirming and thanking the Lord for this covenant. It is a covenant that applies to everybody. And the, um, we'll get into what the re the renewal of the creation mandate means in that. But any thoughts on that? Okay. The sign and the seal of the covenant is here in Genesis nine. That is, we talked about that, uh, we often struggle to remember the promises and God is kind enough to assure us and give us a visual representations of that. And so we have a Genesis nine, 12 through 17. Uh, this is the sign of the covenant I'll make between you and a living creature that is with you for all future generations. I set my bow in the cloud. So oftentimes, uh, we see that, right? It's a beautiful thing, right? It's a beautiful thing more than it is just visually. Um, Sinclair Ferguson, as with all God's covenant in the Bible, he always adds physical signs to them to reassure us. Yes, his word is enough. His word is his bond, but we are doubters. And so he gives us a visible sign that says to us, I really meant what I said. Look at the sign. And here he says to Noah, I'm going to give you a sign, the bow in the cloud. And in that same sermon on Noah, he goes on to say, and of course we know that it is the bow, the multicolored rainbow, but actually the word used in the book of Genesis is not it's war bow, the bow of war, the bow of battle. It is the picture of God after hostilities have ended. And he has established his new creation, flinging his blow, his war, his bow of judgment into the sky as a reassurance to Noah. Now that there is a reconciliation, you may enjoy the peace that you have with me and you can be sure that there will never again be this kind of judgment on the earth until of course the cosmic final judgment of all at the end of time. So here you have, what does the top picture do to you or maybe a deer that's facing the other end of that, right? That's a very threatening image. The bottom picture, as Sinclair draws out, look at the, if you were to shape a bow on that, and the same word is used in the Old Testament 72 times for this concept of bow is a bow that's facing away from the earth, right? Isn't that interesting? So if you think about Abraham or Noah for the first time, that he's just gotten out of the ark and that the rain clouds fill up and it looks like it's going to rain. And you've just come through the most horrific experience and the most incredible visual thing you've seen in your life and that you have walked on an ark and that you have, God is faithful to his word and you and your family have survived and the animals have survived. But here the rain starts again, right? What kind of anxiety is swelling up inside of you? And then graciously, what do you see? The rain stops and you see something in the sky that's as beautiful as this, a bow that is the reminder of God's promise that he's not going to keep letting it rain, that he's not going to destroy all of humanity in this way, right? It's a beautiful sign of God's promise to Noah. What does that mean for us when we see a baptism? Where do we get these sacraments, these signs and these seals, right? These outward representations of spiritual realities that are taking place. This morning, I hope that you're encouraged when you see, when you taste, when you smell all of what it means to participate in communion, that in this race to have babies that we're having, that we have an infant baptism, I'm sure, around the corner. That will be for us a beautiful sign right in front of us of God's grace and kindness to us in families. We'll look at that if we have time. The six observations for the covenant creation and the redemptive covenants are together. Oftentimes, and I think what Robertson here is trying to bring out, is that this myopic view that all that God in this preserving of Noah and in the preserving of the covenant of grace all the way through Christ to us in his church can just be mildly focused on the salvation of the church. That is not to devalue that at all. God is in renewing the covenant mandate, which is saying be fruitful and multiply, dominion, take care of the earth, work. In renewing these things that he is, again, talking about the importance of creation and blessing ordinances being together. Does that make sense? Yeah. Observation number two. We will see this even as we talk about election, the particularity of God's redemptive grace, that God chose Noah. In Genesis 6-7, it talks about that God had favor on Noah. That word favor is grace. Then you see, I think it is in 6-8, it says that Noah was a righteous man. Robertson pounds very hard that Noah didn't have favor because he was righteous. He was righteous because he was given favor of God. It hasn't changed today that we are not getting ourselves clean and righteous before God and then asking God, is this good enough? Do I have your favor now? Do you see that even as early as Noah, we have the reassurance of who we are in Christ. We have the reassurance that God loves us and that depends on him. His unmerited grace. Unmerited means not because you did A, B, and C. It depends on him. Thoughts or questions on that? God's familial structure that he says to Noah that Noah, you and your family will be saved. This brings up a fascinating, we could do a whole Sunday school on this, but God deals with families. Families here today, this row. The Hollins, God is dealing with your family. That your families all here today are the promises in the New Testament made wholly, set apart just by the basis of one of your parents being a believer. What an incredible promise. Do we want to spend more time on this? Questions or thoughts on this? We see this in Noah that he's not just saving Noah, but he's saving Noah and his family. Do we hear about Noah's family? That Noah's sons were righteous men or great men? I don't know. But we know that Noah is and on the benefit of that, Noah brings in and his family, sons and their wives are saved. Who are these women? I don't know. But they're saved too just on the basis of Noah. It's an incredible promise. Any thoughts on that? And we see this in the New Testament as well to the Philippian jailer in Acts, Paul and Silas. And he says, you and your families will be saved. Covenant of preservation, fourth observation that he is there to preserve the world. Again, we talked about the seasons. First time you see instituted capital punishment. We spent a lot of time talking about that. Capital punishment devalues life. The argument may go. But you read in Genesis 4, Cain is given a sign, right? Don't kill this guy. And he takes off running. For the first time in Genesis 6, you see, hey, if you kill somebody or a beast kills somebody, you die. Because you are made in the image of God. You are so valuable and life is so valuable that to take life, you will lose your life. That's how valuable life is. And so God entrusting to man the sword, right, continues all the way through Romans 13. Even as evil a man as Nero, we hear about that our government is given the sword, even to today, to do two things. One, to protect our borders, like to protect us as a nation. And two, punishment that God allows in Genesis 6 for this to take place by man. Questions or thoughts on that? It's a big conversation. We can have it in the time we have left. But just to flag that for a conversation. All right. The universalistic dimension of the covenant with Noah, that all of earth is saved. This is not to say universalism, right, but that it's universalistic. And then lastly, the gracious character of God's covenant with Noah in the context of, you know, again, threatening rain. You have here God has saved Noah and his family and that will not, that gives the rainbow as a sign of his grace. Those are the six observations from Palmer Robertson on Noah. Noah is a great visual and a great stepping stone in the covenant of grace. And we have three minutes for discussion. And, you know, your guys' thoughts on this. How does this strike you? Does this strike you as rich listening to it as it was preparing for it? That is the distance sometimes that I'm interested in. Yes. Yeah. So Noah built the ark and then God looked at him and said that my favor is on you. The problem with that is chronologically in scripture it doesn't say that. It says that Noah found favor in the eyes of God. And that's the unmerited grace that's coming out to Noah. Noah is a righteous man. And then Noah, God comes to Noah and says, hey, all of this is going to be destroyed. And here's what you're going to do. He gives Noah a word, right, just like today you will have a word preached. If you are not in the family of God, that word preached to you will be an invitation to get on the ark. That is your response to that word. If you are in the family of God, then that word to you will be maybe to correct the way that you're thinking. But the word to Noah was build the ark. And he believed that and that was counted to him as righteousness. That's what it says in Hebrews. That's his response to that. And then his actions are a demonstration of his trust. So the idea that somehow his actions merited God's favor would just be unfortunately not how, there wouldn't be the textual authority for that. But, yeah, that is something that you will hear and that could take you down some distorted rabbit holes. Any other questions? Yeah, Josh. So the covenant is to reveal more and more about God's character. Is that what they're doing? They're showing a different aspect of God's character, a different aspect of his purpose. What do you think is the covenant or then even the wiping of the earth, sunning of the earth revealed about God's character such that he didn't want Paul to talk to him again? So what was revealed in that? Do you remember? That's a great question. What is revealed in this, you know, Genesis 6 through 9 about God's character? In our series on the character of God, you know, and we talked about in our series on the order of salvation, we talked about God recoiling from sin. You know, that has not changed. And God will continue to recoil from sin. So you see in this, you know, the very recoiling that in Genesis, as it's talking about man, that every thought of man was depraved. You cannot come up with a worse description of what a sinful man would be in that time, that every single thought of what was going on in their heads was depravity. So in response to that sin, you see God and his judgment to that, and his judgment also of that seed, a serpent that we talked about, that will continue to flow all throughout these covenants. It's a good question. Any other questions? Okay. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we give you thanks, Lord, that we in fact count ourselves as righteous, not because of our works but because of your great grace. We thank you, Lord, for the redemption that takes place throughout your word as we watch it all leading and culminating in the perfect obedience and the perfect sacrifice of Christ and in his resurrection. We pray, Lord, that we would never hold lightly to these things, that we would hold them with the weight that they are due. We give you thanks again for the gift of this Lord's Day of us all being together. We pray your blessing on the rest of this time. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.