Podcast Introduction Our reading today is Genesis 8-11. After that I’ll have some comments. Then we’ll do our “On This Day In Church History” segment. Thoughts on Genesis 8-11: After the Flood Genesis 8 Noah, his family and all the creatures were on the ark for about a year before the earth was ready for them to come out. When the time was right, God told Noah to go out of the ark and take his family and all the creatures with him, so that they would be able to repopulate the earth. The first thing Noah did was worship God through sacrifice. He knew that God had delivered him, and that he owed God everything. He owed a debt he could never repay, and in this sacrifice he demonstrated his devotion and desire to please God. Noah had brought just seven each of the clean animals and clean birds on the ark, and to sacrifice any of them was very costly, but a sacrifice that is cheap is no sacrifice at all. God was pleased with the sacrifice and He said to Himself that He would never curse the earth on account of man’s sin again, nor kill every living thing in this manner again.  After the flood, the water canopy that had been above the earth was gone. This caused a completely different ecosystem to emerge. Before, temperatures were moderated year around by the canopy. After, the earth experienced seasons. Verse 22: While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. Notice also that, as I mentioned in my remarks on previous chapters, with the water canopy now gone, lifespans quickly decreased.  Genesis 9 God told Noah and his sons to multiply and fill the earth, as He had told Adam and Eve. And God told them that they were now allowed to eat animals. This could be that because the environment was so different that food from plants would not be as plentiful as it had been before the flood. But because they were now prey, God put the fear of man into the animals.  It is in this chapter that we first read of the importance of blood. Blood represents life. When blood flows out of a living being, so does its life. And because man is made in God’s image, when a person’s blood is shed there must be an accounting. It is in this chapter that God allows capital punishment for murder.  And then God made a covenant, a promise, to Noah and his family, and to every living thing on the earth, that he would never again bring a flood like this again to the earth. And to mark this covenant, God made the rainbow. (Note that during the pre-flood era, with the water canopy, rainbows were probably never seen because the sun’s light was diffused because of the cloud cover.) It would be a constant reminder, whenever it is seen, of this covenant. Then we have the Bible’s first mention of drunkenness. Over indulgence in alcohol is always condemned in the Bible. Proverbs 20:1, “Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.” Proverbs 23:29-33, “29Who has woe? Who has sorrow? Who has strife? Who has complaints? Who has needless bruises? Who has bloodshot eyes? 30Those who linger over wine, who go to sample bowls of mixed wine. 31Do not gaze at wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it goes down smoothly! 32In the end it bites like a snake and poisons like a viper. 33Your eyes will see strange sights, and your mind will imagine confusing