In Psalm 97, we read about God's activity over the whole earth. The Lord reigns, let the earth be glad, let the distance shores rejoice. And if you are the fact that we hope to discuss some of what the Scripture says about Noah and the flood, we read here in verse 2 on, clouds and thick darkness around him, righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Fire goes before him and consumes his foes on every side. His lightning lights up the world, the earth sees and trembles, the mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim his righteousness and all the people see his glory. This passage, Psalm 97, the first six verses, surely speaks about God's sovereign Lordship and the way he controls all aspects and elements in nature. And people have argued and wondered about the extent of the flood. And as you read in the notes in the NIV study Bible, there's those that say that it's the flood's extent was limited to the then known world. But when they add, Peter don't seem to think of that. In that way, 2nd Peter, chapter 3, first of all, you must understand that in the last days coffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, where is this coming he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation. But deliberately forget that long ago, by God's word, the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word, the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. As I say, Peter has no doubts about reminding us that there was this universal catastrophe that came by the word of God that has God created. So he brought a flood and so he will bring in final judgment. And I think the New Testament commentary is a very important fact to keep in mind. Let us pray. Lord, our God, awesome events have taken place in times past. You've created this world. You said it in order. You've continued to maintain it in spite of judgments that had to come because of disobedience. You've been a faithful God, righteous injustice, gracious and merciful, and help us to appreciate this as we consider how you, the King of all creation, are to continue to be the Lord of it all, the one who guides and directs everything, including us as parts of this world that you have made. Bless us here together for Jesus' sake. Amen. I regret that on Monday I wasn't quite able to get through my outline. You may recall that we first of all mapped out the field of revelation, and then we worked on an understanding of creation that was Roman numeral two, and then we asked the third place, is there a covenant of creation? Now refer to some biblical references, Huzoia 6.7, Jeremiah 33, Genesis 6.18, and the references in Scripture 2, that certain scholars, as for example, Dumbrell and Robertson, seem to hold two. Now I know that good friend of mine who just died recently, Dr. Anthony Hukema and his book on the image of God and man, states four reasons why he no longer can accept that we should speak of a covenant of creation. He speaks of an academic administration, which John Murray does also. John Murray hesitates to use the phrase covenant of creation, and so the discussion continues. But it is because people do not fully understand what one means, or what one is to understand by the term covenant, because the term itself has to be present. Well, in 2 Samuel 7, the term covenant does not appear, but when David later reflects on what God has said and done with him in 2 Samuel 23, he says, God made a covenant firm and abiding with me. Isaiah 55, again, 2 speaks of this covenant God made, although the term isn't used when Nathan, the prophet of God, speaks to David directly. And so the discussion continues. And it's up to us to decide for ourselves whether or not we want to use that phrase. Now I want you to turn to that chart that some of you got last week and others could get to do it. And I want to do now with aspects of the covenant in creation, in the creation act in setting if we can indeed speak of a covenant of creation. Now the first thing I want to stress is that regardless of what we say, we have to speak of God bringing forth unilaterally, without conditions, God counseled within the Godhead. Let us, when men and women were created, there was nothing by lateral about God's creation activity. It took me unilaterally, and it is not in any way conditional, God in place conditions on anyone when he created, when he set up the universe. The question comes in indeed when he spoke with Adam and Eve, that he give Adam and Eve certain condition of set a framework when he pronounced the probation, we'll get to that in a moment. But what I want to point out is what Robertson has that was at quite some length in his book on the covenant of creation, that there are specifically three mandates that I like to speak of these, there are three specific relationships, and look at the chart. We can also call these stipulations, mandates, stipulations, or relationships. There is, and that's very commonly recognized, the cultural mandate, God stipulated, what they were to do, Adam and Eve, who had been made in his images, we stress, and that image surely indicated relationship that Adam and Eve had to reflect God, had a represent God, had to do God's work as mediators between God and creation. Now God comes to them, having established a very unique bond, the image likeness bond, comes to them and says, you see this whole cosmos, and that's what I try to represent in the larger circle. There is the cosmos, get to work in it, keep it, beautify it, develop it, have the minion over it. You are my kings and queens here in the cosmos, you represent me, the royal one, you represent my sovereign rule in the cosmos, get to work, and then we read in Genesis 4, that's exactly what the K and I's did, they built the city, and the offspring of K and got to work in the area of metallurgy, in the area of music, and also in the whole area of industry, farming, calurating, etc. So the whole area of politics, labor, commerce, the arts, recreation, technology, industry, everything is part of God's cosmos over which we have been given a mandate, get busy, represent me, in the totality of life, no separating of religion from politics, no separating any aspect of life from your relationship with God, you represent me in the totality of life. But then there was that second mandate that was given, when God created man, male and female he laid the basis for that very definite second mandate, the social mandate, he made the male and female, and we said, be thoughtful, multiply, fill the earth, and how will they to do that? The man must leave his father and mother, but close to that wife, do one flesh with her, and that's why I try to represent right here. The male and the female, right at the pinnacle of creation and at the same time at the very heart of creation, male and female, one flesh producing offspring, and may I say it, I usually like to put about eight little lines down there, in case you don't know it, I have eight children. And then about 26 other little lines for the time being, I'm doing my part in obeying the social mandate, I trust. Well, so there's the social mandate, and Jesus acknowledges this in Matthew 19 when he says that from the very beginning of creation, God intended man and woman to be one flesh, in that they were to be bound for life, never to be separated. So that social mandate, which comes to expression, particularly in the family, saw the mother children, and in the greater family, the extended family, in the community, and therefore anyone who believes that the Bible indeed lays a lot of emphasis on the covenant, living stresses, family life, community life, and that's why we can often speak of the church as a covenant community because we are related, not just spiritually, but we have a common bond. We're all made in the image of God, we're all to reflect Him, but at the heart of it all, to carry out the social mandate here, is to carry, is to obey God. And if we carry out that mandate, God's blessing is assured us, perordated, when he started exceeding the bonds of what God had told him, and he went off and got into polygamous marriages, poor man should have a lot of problems in his family, dandy, the first three, four sons killed each other. Now I also want to point out that it's very difficult to maintain a good cosmic relationship and obey and to live fruitfully there if there's something wrong here that has faced it. And if there's something wrong here that can have tremendous impact on this, I'll never forget that one of my uncles who was an elder for years, when he heard I was going to be studying the ministry, he said to me, George, my official name is George, people call me George, more English, you know, he said, get ready to deal with a basic fundamental fact that causes so much strife between husband and wife, between family and parents and children, it's money. There is an aberration in the relationship between people and the cosmos, and a lot of its centers in money. Secondly, there's an awful lot of trouble that comes because of the one flesh concept. Get ready to deal with those two areas, and I've passed it on to you men that are going to be ministers to you, or teachers to you ladies who also have your role in God's kingdom whatever area that is. Right now, I've been asked to be involved in a situation where it, again, it is sex and dollars that has, that's breaking up a marriage of 40 years, tragic, but it started with the dollar problem, and then it went into that and that has tremendous effect on the third relationship, the fellowship relationship. You can't be right with God if you're not right with your mate, or if you're a cook out there in the cosmic world. These three relationships are so intricately related, so involved with each other, now that God's grace, I know some of us run into a problem socially, the other run into a problem after the cosmos, and by God's grace we can overcome many, many of the obstacles. But life at its richest, life at its fullest is if this relationship between male and female husband and wife, parents and children, family with the universe, and at the heart of it being a living relationship with the triumphant God, that's only possible when the Holy Spirit is indeed entered our lives and we are renewed reborn creatures, but this fellowshiping mandate, God doesn't come right out and say, and I want you to keep fellowshiping with me, verse has pointed out that there are four aspects, and he refers to that particularly what some people might say is the reference to the covenant of works. To find out about verse page 27 following, he spoke that God came to him and to Adam and Eve and spoke of life. How was this relationship, the living relationship between God and man to continue? That followed with a reference to the tree, there's those trees, the tree of knowledge and goodness, you don't touch that. I went a wholehearted obedience, God didn't give Adam and Eve a choice, it wasn't a decision that he placed before them, they weren't given an option, they were given a command, don't touch it, they weren't told, they context the tree of life, that was available to them, which meant the continuation of life, that tree is sacramental, it was beautifully explained. Then he also points out that there is the possibility of temptation and sin, yes, that's also part of the fellowshiping mandate, and that temptation to depart from a right relationship with God exists when temptations come in the social area as well as in the cosmic, cultural area. And then Vos speaks also of the death, possibility of death and dissolution. Some Evangelical scholars are talking about death before the fall, I don't think that there was bloodshed before the fall, death in that respect, but look, when Adam and Eve ate grass, the grass didn't stay living as they chewed and digested it, if they ate grass, but the trees went through their cycles, the blossoms died, disappeared, this became dissolved, in order for the fruit to dig up and when the fruit got ripe, it had to get ripe in order to have seed. So there was a process there, and we often speak of the end of the season that the leaves have died and the leaves are dropping, that I can see as part of creation, but I don't want to recall that dissolution in the sense of death, in the sense of bloodshed. So we got to be careful to what distinctions we make when we could become too absolutistic and say, there was absolutely no death before the fall, look, when I was in the army, I got trapped a couple of times, you know, innocent boy just off the farm, all for creation, man a couple of university students, short-tore, and in the first couple of weeks that I was there, I learned some very, very important lessons finding out that I had to be careful when I spoke to make careful distinctions, but I did ever have to give up my basic position, and you don't either, but think carefully, and don't be too absolutistic in making statements concerning certain factors that you've got to think through first of all. Now there were destipulations, but I want to go on and say, where are the promises? Promises are always part of the covenant. There was the promise of life, implicit, there were the promises of all kinds of blessings, was there any reference to curse, the word a-ra, which is the Hebrew word for curse, or for while, to hold lightly or to dismiss, cast off, no, not using Genesis 2, but death is spoken of, the possibility of a curse is definitely referred to there, death coming as result of eating, will your witnesses there? What I'll find interesting is that when I look to Deuteronomy 30 verse 18 and Micah chapter 1 verse 2, covenantal passages, heaven and earth are called as covenantal witnesses, they're called as witnesses to the fact that God established a living, loving relationship with his people with creation, correct, heaven and earth, you are there, and in that sense a certain personality is aspect of personalities ascribed to the creation cosmos. Is there continuity, or it's definitely implied there, but it's not basically stated. So when I look at this whole question of, is there a covenant of creation, then I must say, there are basic elements there, in germinal form, but whether you want to speak of it as a covenant, well, I'll see what you write, now I want to go on with what was scheduled for today, and the outline of that again is before you, Genesis 3, 4 and 5 gives us the story of the fall, verse chapter 4 is very specific on this too, and chapter 5 refers to some of it, the fucking man was in a noble place, he invites Regent in the garden, and I like what Meredith Client says, paradise was Adam and Eve's palace, a palatial garden, God put Adam and Eve right at the heart of his cosmic creation, having made them well part of his sovereign family, he placed them in a setting where there was a abundance of gold and other minerals, there was water, there was everything, Adam and Eve were placed in a palatial setting of garden, enter Satan incarnated himself for the purpose of deception in the serpent, and so the serpent and Satan are very difficult to distinguish, but God had no problem with that, Adam and Eve did, now who was Satan, books have been written on that, in Dutch, in German, maybe in Oriental languages too, the presence of Satan in the world and of demons is often scoffed that in the Western Occidental world, it's not in the Oriental world, and having spent some time there, I can surely testify to the fact that the demons are still as active as they were in Jesus' day, in a different way, and they know how to choose their settings, and they still know how to work their diabolical schemes. Satan, I believe Satan was one of the three great archangels, Gabriel being the great messenger angel, Michael being the great commander angel, and Lucifer, the like one was the great administrative servant, he was the great administrator, so there was the messenger communicator, there was the great defender, the one who was in charge of all the people, and then there was the administrator under God, and I believe, and I'm speculating, but I'll still say what I really believe, Satan was so jealous that God made Adam and Eve his vice-regions, he wanted that position to be the head of the creation, to be in that specific, vice-regional, vice-gerential position, he wanted to be the mediator between God and the whole cosmos, envy, pride, correct Satan, and how that was possible in the angelic world, I cannot speculate, I may not speculate, was there, and Satan comes to Adam and Eve, the vice-regions, and seeks to establish a relationship with them that would make the relationship with God the sovereign, and once he got them, they haven't been given that position by God, and God does not change, I can get the control of the universe by getting Adam and Eve under me, and they'll become my vice-regions, they'll become my representatives, and they'll become my reflectors, and don't we see an awful lot of people representing the devil reflecting him today, in every area of life, and let's even come to the point now that we are confronted with Satanic worship, fellowshiping with the devil, or bringing him in the social setting, carrying out his diabolical schemes in the cosmic situation, it wasn't just that the devil wanted to have a little party with Adam and Eve, he wanted the cosmos, he wanted his empire, and he was able through the fall and the subbeings and deviation of Adam and Eve to set up a parasite kingdom within the cosmos that God had created. You know, if God didn't keep the universe, if God didn't keep the cosmos, Satan couldn't do anything, Satan depends on God. Satan needs God, because God is the only one who can sovereignly uphold the cosmic kingdom, and Satan always remains under God's specific state. So what was the tactic that Satan tried now when emphasized the fact of the fall, just to clever little conversation by asking some questions, casting doubt on never forget when I was at the University of Melbourne in a man who claimed to be a quaker, but who could no longer accept the basic evangelical tendance of the quaker face, how he tried to undermine my evangelical face by just throwing out little questions. Can you imagine anybody being so stupid as to believe that you can be saved by blood? Isn't that gory? Think about it, and it was the one district place in a public university classroom, doubts, suggestions, diabolical schemes, the devil's still at work. And then the great deviation took place. You know, some theologians and scholars, commentators, don't like the word fall. It isn't so much that Adam and Eve fell. They deviated. You know, when a child falls, it's not necessarily a sin. Maybe an evidence of weakness. So when the child becomes devious, hey, that's evil. There was a deviation. They were disobedient. They departed from God. And the fact is that after Satan really carried out his tactic Adam and Eve deviated tragically from God's will for them. Being a creative image of God, they were given a freedom. They were given responsibility, but they were not given an outright choice. Choose now what you want to do, but the possibility of deviating was there becoming rebellious, and they abdicated. They abdicated their God-given position as royal servants of God. They abdicated their cosmic throne, their family throne, their access to the dreaded to the throne of God, their throne before God's throne. That's what happened when they deviated, disobeying, not believing, and then comes the proto-Avangalian. By the way, you will find, if you look up in commentaries and theologies that this term is spelled in three different ways, in order to find that out for yourself, but it means the first gospel, the first gospel message. And class it is God who pronounced it. God announced it. God took the initiative. God came seeking man and woman. God called, where are thou Adam? I'm hiding. Why are you hiding? God comes. And he brings Satan into the setting there too as he addresses Adam and Eve and Satan. He stays sovereignly in control. The proto-Avangalian is given then in a setting of God's sovereign exercise over the abdicated vice-regions and over the rebellious administrator of the angel in the angel world. And he calls them to account right there in the palatial garden in the palace of the cosmos. What have you done? And what does he say? He pronounces curses. He pronounces curses. There's the absolute curse. That absolute curse is pronounced upon Satan. The fullness of the concept are R-A-R-R in Hebrew. And in the passive when it says you be cursed, R-R-A-R-U-R, long U. R-R-R. Your curse and to be cursed is to be placed in a bondage, to be placed under restraints, to be tied down. I would bind you under my lap when God covenanted. He bound his people in love. When he curses, he binds them under his wrath. Because R-R, the Hebrew word means to bind. And you know what magicians try to do? They try to put a spell on people and then bind them, you know, all magicians. They are tools of the devil. Because the devil tries to copy what God only can do. Really bind one under the power of darkness and evil. Only God can bind one under death. And that's what God said to Satan. Cursed. Now, did God also pronounce an absolute curse on Eve? Did he say to Eve? And cursed. Are you Eve? The word curse, R-R-A-R, or Kalau, a term that doesn't quite as laden with bondage, Kalauk, Q-L-L, as R-R, God doesn't use either two terms when he speaks to the woman. He speaks of the woman's pain and grief that is to come. He lets her know that there will be some sad consequences, and this is often referred to them as mitigated. Mitigated. M-I-T-I-G-A-T-E-D. Mitigated curse is God pronounced on Eve, in pain you will bear. And what did he say to Adam? Did he say, and Adam? You? No. That Adam, the ground over which you are to be the husband, over which you are to really exercise your headship rule in the cultural area, the ground will be cursed. Then the word R-R-R-U, the earth, and in this sweat of your brow, and in laborious activity, you're going to have to be carrying out your cultural mandate. It's mitigated. And why is it mitigated? Because it's not absolute. The ground will still bear. They can still eat from the ground. And so, yes, the earth is bound, but there still remains possibilities of life. And therefore, we speak of this as a mitigated curse that God pronounced on the ground. Now, when K-N killed his brother Abel, and God came to him, and he said, you'll be cursed, was that an absolute or mitigated curse that was pronounced on K-N? It wasn't absolute. He was banished, but God protected him. God continued him in life, so that he could got and build the city, and he could become the forefathers of the first great cultural mandate servants, but K-N was banished. And there's no evidence that all that K-N ever became, and enlightened, converted, regenerated one who followed the line of Seth, and the line of the servants of God. So, there were curses, the absolute and the mitigated, but there were assurances. The continuity of what God had established is assured. His kingdom will continue in spite of the curse. And I have tried to draw this in various ways, and my big circle here will represent the cosmic kingdom of God. That continues. The relationships, God didn't say it adamantly, even now, for now, and you no longer be one flesh, and I'm going to separate you and never know what it is to love one another's male and female. God continued, but you know what did happen? Satan was permitted to put his parasite kingdom, a parasite kingdom. I don't know what other phrase to use. I said before, this parasite kingdom is totally dependent on the cosmic kingdom. The cosmic kingdom continues, and therefore the satanic empire, the principal is in darkness of the air, and the prince of darkness can continue to function because the cosmic kingdom continues. Right? There's an assurance of the continuity because God does not say I'm finished. He carries on. Grace is revealed. Grace is always God's love to the undeserving. Some people say that grace is evident in creation. I don't believe that. There was no guilt. There was no evil when God created, but Grace is God's love coming to the undeserving to the guilty. There's mercy shown. God had compassion. God showed His love to Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were in misery when they were out there hiding, knowing they were naked. Righteousness was revealed. Righteousness, God maintaining His will, but also, and here, Dumbrell has a good point in his works on Noah. Righteousness is a two-barrel term. There's the legal dimension, and there's the relational dimension. And sometimes you have to see it in the read, in the relational setting, and other times you have to see it more in the legal setting. Dumbrell speaks about that, and I think he can be helped. And there's a revelation of justice. God, if he were fully just according to some of our standards, would have wiped everything. But he does reveal his justice in that he pronounces a judgment, which is according to his will. Justice is performed. But a third assurance, that's given. First assurance was the continuity, the covenant of creation, the cosmic kingdom. The second was the assurance of his love continuing, shown in grace, mercy, righteousness, and justice. And third, he assures Adam and Eve of a victory through the mediatorial seat. The mediatorial office will continue. And you, Adam and Eve, are going to continue in that role. You have advocated, I'm going to put you back. And I'm going to have your children who follow in your way. I'm going to have them carry on the seed, the concept there in Genesis 3, 14, and 15, and the seed of the woman. It's a singular term, but it has a plural connotation, a collective connotation there. You're a seed. Are you incipient there? Is the promise of the mediator, the Christ Jesus to come? No doubt. And fourth, what we have here assured us is that within the covenant of creation or the cosmic administration, there is a second relationship that's set up. And that is the relationship referred to as the covenant of grace. God, in a way, within the greater creation setting, sets up a new relationship, the preventive relationship. And that is what really, really is unfolded as we go on through Scripture. After Adam and Eve's devotion and God's picking his curses and his assurances, we have to look at some of the recorded after events. How did in the four of them that I want to mention here briefly? First of all, there's Adam and Eve's responses. After Adam listened to what God said to Adam and Eve, Adam said to his wife, Herva, from the work Hava which means life, and he called her life. God has spoken of death, but he looks at his wife and says, life. Think of that, ladies, you were wise, life. Yes, through conception, gestation, birth, you become the great bearers of life, and he called her life. He accepted the promise of victory. He accepted the basic outline of the covenant of grace. And then what did Eve do when she had her first child, Genesis 4, and she called, and she said, I have a man from the Lord. But secondly, they were banished from their palatial garden. They could not eat from the tree of life because that was the sacrament for continued life. And having, or it in the God would withhold life from them, but they could no longer achieve it sacramentally, post-discusses at wealth, and I won't say anymore on that. But what happens though, as soon as the nuclear family begins to develop in the third place, there's murder and banishment. Kayon murders able. You know the story well enough. And right there, that principle of death, of envy, that was so, that Satan is so full of, came to full expression in the second generation in Kayon murder. And then God pronounces the mitigated curse. The part, you know, at the heart of the concept of death is separation. Kayon died in the sense that he was separated and he knew it. And he knew too that he was vulnerable to death by anyone that would look at him. And the fourth thing I want to mention here is God's demonstration of common grace. That is another great event. God demonstrated a grace and undeserving love to the totality of the cosmos to everything. God continued it. And in a sense, one can even speak of God showing grace to the devil because he didn't just and he could have wiped the devil right then and there, could have limited his activities completely. And there's a certain permissiveness there. A latitude, I'd rather use the term latitude that God even gave the devil. And so common grace, not saving grace, but a favor, a general goodness, God revealed that to his entire creation to everything within it. The very thought that there was continuity and there would be a continuation of life, be it for a time. A time within which the possibility of living before the Lord and coming to repentance was always there. What about the three mandates after the fall? Chapter four tells us that the man's social mandate wasn't kept. Yes, K and went and married. And the preeluvian times, there was no problem with men marrying sisters or close relatives. But what does K and descendants do? Lamek takes two wives, so and after. And he brags about it. And there is, and that gives us the context for murder because he goes off and he brags to his two wives. I've killed all the social mandates gone around. It is really being undone. How about the cultural mandate? Hey, that's being obeyed, but now out of selfish, undoubtedly selfish, interest-emotives, music is developed. And by the way, all musicians are necessarily simply motivated by any means. Music is one of the great gifts of God. Animal husbandry is two. Oh man, I love cows and horses. One of the most difficult decisions I had was when God continually and my heart had to go study for ministry and go and be a missionary, was to leave those eighty-headed cattle, those horses we had, and oh, how I loved to be out in the tomato and watermelon fields and out in the almond orchards. We owe my garden that I have now still reflects a little bit of that, but I can't have a cow or a horse in my backyard. But really, God continued to show his common grace in the way that the K&I were able to carry out the cultural mandate and Adam and Eve's believing descendants had tremendous benefit and profit from that. And so common grace obviously functioned on behalf of the believing ones, would no have been able to build an ark if their headman woods, craftsmanship, architecture, building, no. And then we also read that Enic walked with God, the spiritual mandate. You know, the last part of chapter four tells us, and in those days, it tells us right after Seth was born in those days, men began to call on the name of the Lord. And so the spiritual fellowship continued. And the verb that used, the Hith-Halak, indicates a daily interaction. Wherever Enic went, when he rose, when he lay down, when he sat at the table, he would do the Rodomy six. That's the verb that used. He worked with God. God was not out of his life. He was not out of God's presence, and he knew it. And then there was that pattern he set up, and then we read that Noah walked with God, and God demanded this of the end of Genesis 17, this work with God. So in conclusion, the kingdom covenant mediator continue. God's cosmic kingdom continues, but now it's got that parasite within it. The relationship between God and man continues, and in fact it is more firmly established, what I would call, if you speak of a covenant creation, by that second strand, which you can separate from the first, and the mediatorial concept definitely continues, and the idea of seed. And with Enic walking with God, Enic represents the mediatorial line. Well, as we go on to the Nureiki covenant, Genesis 6-9, I'm very thankful that Robertson has given us six collared principles that are obvious there. And Dumbrell gives us quite a discussion. I wish I had more time to deal with that in class here. I just simply do not, but look at the outline. Understanding I have three points, there's evil regarding the three mandates, but there's Noah's character in life, and there's God's grief, all the pain of God's heart. And then he pronounces judgment, the flood comes, the flood destroys all, but after the flood, there's the reconformation. And here especially Robertson and his book on his chapter four on the Nureiki covenant is very helpful. How he shows that the creation, cosmic setting, and the covenant of grace really fit together. You can't separate the two. The covenant of grace and God's creative mandate. You can't, you can't separate it. And then the covenant of creation is repeated, or you want to say, establish for the first time in Genesis 9-1-17. The interrelationships are reestablished. In that context, we also have the death penalty, capital punishment, and Robertson has a good discussion on that. Pay careful attention to that. And then there is the covenant of grace also given in the setting of Noah's shame, getting drunk, lying naked. And when he awakens from that, God gives Noah the gift of prophecy. And he's able to say, shen, you're to build the tent. And the descendants of tanen can get into the tent, build through service. And they give you nights later on, are a clear example of how they can get into the tent of shen in the days of Joshua. And finally, Japhic will take it over. So there you get the outline of God's covenant of grace program within the creation setting, where humanity is preserved through the death penalty. And God says, shen, you're going to be central. Can't, can't, son of ham, you're going to participate in that tent. But Japhic, you're really going to make it large. The Gentiles will really take over. But it does say the Gentiles ever kicked the Sethites out, the Shemites out. Oh no. And so Noah lays out for us the great program, and we'll pick that program up. Next week, we'll be looking at Abraham's.