Gen. 9:7-13

God told Noah and his sons and all the animals to go forth and multiply and replenish the earth. God had a plan, and he wanted to give people the free will to choose to follow him or not.

This is the way he always does that. He doesn't want us to be forced to love him, he wants us to choose him willingly.

He then establishes his promise that he will never again destroy the earth with a flood. The rainbow yes, of course, a naturally occurring thing. If you are sprinkling the lawn with a hose in fact, and you flail it back and forth really fast, you can see a rainbow.

So, why did God choose this symbol? God makes it very easy for us to trust him. In fact, he act here - out of the as at other times - without insisting that we hold up a bargain or sales. Of course, there are times when God says he will act only if we act in a certain way. But, this is one time when his promise exists without any effort on our part.

This is just like salvation. He saves us without any effort on our part. We simply must trust Him by faith and call on Him to forgive us and save us. It is not just had knowledge of what he has done. It must be heart's knowledge, where we trust him with all our heart to save us.

Another thing to notice is that this promise was extended to the animals, too. Mankind was to have dominion over the animals and care for them. They were not as protected as humans, because all animals were given for meat – one way of proving that dietary laws specific to the Jewish people were never meant to extend to Gentiles. However, God expected that people would show concern and compassion and not abuse them.

This promise also shows that God cares for everyone. If He is willing to extend a covenant to them in this situation, then how much more must He love we who are created in His image. In the same way, Jesus says in Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” “These things” are necessities such as food, clothing, and shelter. Jesus had just gotten done speaking of the lilies of the valley and, more importantly for our study, the birds of the air.

As He says later(Matt. 10:31, Luke 12:7), we are worth more than many sparrows. No matter how little a person has, he or she is still worth everything to God. For each person from the greatest o the least, it’s true that if you were the only person ever on the earth, Jesus Christ still would have come for you, God in flesh, and taken the punishment for your sins when He died, and risen from the dead.

Gen. 9:4-6

God forbids eating (or, logically, drinking) the blood of any animal, and gives a very important reason and reminder - the life of any creature is in its blood.

This fact, which is repeated in Leviticus, could not have been known by ancient man nearly as literally as it is by modern scientists. After all, even if one argues that technology was as good right before the flood, Noah wrote Leviticus at a time when such technology would have been the very low level we are used to knowing about around a thousand years after the flood.

Not only that, but God had doubtlessly shown something like that even at the very beginning, when as mentioned the system of sacrifice was given and honored by Adam and Eve's son Abel back in Genesis 4.

God also shows the incredible problem of violence which head come upon the world because of sin entering the world, as Romans 5:12 shows. By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin so that death passed unto all man for that all have sinned. God is upset at this, but allows the consequences to continue because he gives me and free will. The consequence of blood bering required for blood is because man is created in God's image and God sees such violence as harming Him because it is His creation.

Notice, however, one very important thing. God decides when and how the consequence shall occur, and not man. God is a much wiser judge, and the only righteous Judge. His ways are perfect, and while he gives human government the right to punish wrong, even this is only at his discretion.

We must never think that we have the right to overrule God, or the right to take matters into our own hands because of a desire to get back at someone or something. That fleshly nature must be battled by the Holy Spirit, and that can only happen if one is born again. Then, one grows the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 22:23, and can be controlled by the Spirit as in Ephesians 5:18, keeping in mind the spiritual warfare which occurs as the fallen angels and devil himself battle against the believer, forcing him or her to take on the whole armor of God so they can withstand. Ephesians 6:10-18.

Finally, let's consider for a moment the importance God places on being made in His image.

Because all people are made in God's image, He places emphasis on not doing damage to His creation. This is different than the way he considers animals. Animals are not made in His image, and therefore they are inferior.

This does not mean, of course, that we may do damage to them. God forbids cruelty, and He also wants to ensure that people do not start to be cruel to animals and continue onto people. So we must be kind to animals as well.

We must, however, all people - of whatever race, tribe, language, or whatever - as worthy of our respect. We must never consider one group of people inferior to another. 

The warning against false pride and the downfall that comes from yet is very apropos here. What is it but false pride to consider that one is better than another because of their position in life, their family, or whatever. Certainly, there will always be someone better than you and always be someone worse than you at some endeavor. However, that simply shows that God made us different, but we should all consider ourselves equal before the cross. And, before our loving, holy God, who made us all special. I have things that I can't do because of my handicaps, but I have other things I never could have done without these handicaps, opportunities I had to reach people who may never have been reached otherwise. 

That is how to use your situation for God's glory, by simply taking stock of the chances you have to share the Gospel or to help someone and serving the Lord in that matter not for your own glory, but for His.

Gen. 9:2-3

God informs Noah and his sons of several things about the new, postflood world here.

First, the animals had instinctively come to Noah - we have already explored whether there were zoos or whether a single continent like what scientists call Pangea could have let them come without any issues with oceans. Now, things were different.

Whether mankind ate animals or was vegetarian before is uncertain, but many nowadays think only here did people start to eat meat. It is, however, also possible that the next few verses indicate that people ate it and God's warning was about a sin which had occurred before.

Either way, the animals lost their familiarity with mankind. Animals almost certainly had killed people before, since they had begun early to hunt other animals for food. Bit, their appetites for any meat had been suppressed by God.

This has modern equivalents, in fact. Zoos in World War 2 in Britain couldn't get meat to feed the large lions and other animals, so the lions and other beasts which normally ate meat kept full eating grass and other plants.