Caleb Drahosh \\ Noah's great faith, demonstrated in earlier chapters, did not make him immune to the devastating effects of sin in his personal life. This text parallels the Fall recorded in chapter 3. Like Adam, Noah finds himself ashamed of his nakedness, humiliated by his son, Ham. Noah's sons Shem and Japheth provide a covering for their Father and their lines receive blessings, while Ham's line receives a curse. Just like Noah, and Adam before him, we need a covering for our sin and shame. It is the righteousness of Christ that clothes us and makes us whole.

Caleb Drahosh \\ God makes good on His promise and blots out every living thing on the face of the earth. All except for Noah and Noah's family; God remembers Noah. God delivers His people through adversity—and Noah had faith that God would deliver him. Do you struggle to believe that God has not forgotten you? God is faithful to all the promises He has made in His Word and will fulfill them all because He is God.

Caleb Drahosh \\ Despite God's vow to blot out man from the face of the earth, Noah found favor in the eyes of God and therefore God committed to deliver Noah and his family. God gives Noah the details of how it will happen; Noah and his family will pass through the waters of judgment in a vessel constructed according to God's standards. God is a God who delivers—and He does so specifically; His way is best and will lead to salvation.

Caleb Drahosh \\ After being exiled from the garden, Adam and Eve had two sons––Cain and Abel. Both men offered worship to God. Abel worshiped God in God's way, through faith, while Cain worshiped God in his own way. Abel's worship was accepted and Cain's was not regarded. As a result, Cain's sin compounded and ended in the murder of Abel.

Caleb Drahosh \\ In these verses, we see three biblical themes introduced: faith, sacrifice, and exile. By faith, Adam believed the promises of God, that through a sin-atoning sacrifice God would bring His people out of exile and restore them to the garden. Jesus Christ is that sin-atoning sacrifice, the One to whom Christians are joined by faith, and the One who delivers His people from the tyranny of sin and death.

Caleb Drahosh \\ In these verses, God turns to address Adam. Adam bears the most responsibility for the introduction of sin into the world because he received the Word of God directly and yet he rebelled. And so God's creative order was fully disrupted. As a result, God cursed the ground so that Adam's charge to have dominion over creation would be riddled with pain and difficulty. And then we're introduced to the final enemy: death. This enemy will pull us all back into the very ground from which we came.

Caleb Drahosh \\ In this verse, God addresses the woman. Two things are disrupted here for Eve. First, she will experience pain in childbearing. And secondly, she will be drawn to usurp her husband's leadership. Two of the great blessings given to Eve––displayed in marriage and childbearing––are now laden with difficulty because of Eve's rebellion. Nevertheless, God's promise to Eve is intact: her offspring would end the tyranny of death that her actions brought about.

Caleb Drahosh \\ In this text, God turns and addresses the serpent. The serpent disrupted God's created order by assuming a position over God's image bearers, and so God curses him. But within the curse there is an incredible promise––God intended to send Jesus to crush the serpent's head and restore that which would be lost because of sin.

Caleb Drahosh \\ After the man and woman sin, God shows up. They hide, but God finds them. And rather than confess their sin, Adam and Eve seek to justify themselves. God does not deal with Adam and Eve harshly however; He kindly draws them out. In Romans 2, Paul says that it's the kindness of God that brings us to repentance. We regularly shift the blame for our sin off of ourselves, but even still, God, in His immense kindness, sent Jesus to be our justification.

By Samantha Culliton