Genesis 8:20-21 - Noah Pleased God out of Trust
Yesterday, I took some poetic license with Noah’s story, in Genesis 8-9 - Noah feels overwhelmed. Funny thing. I mentioned “Noah’s tent” but forgot to add a stage where he pitches one. Well, clearly he pitched a tent at some point. When I make omissions like this, I realize how human the Biblical authors were. It is the same kind of omissions, and people point to the lack of authenticity, implying the author didn’t think it through. What it tells me is that the author was human. And in the case of the flood, I can that Noah was human, too.
I love the fact that Noah could remain so obedient throughout his ordeal. Whatever else he felt. Whatever else he was tempted to do, Noah believed God and obeyed Him. When it was all over, Noah paid his respects to God.
 20 Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.
Recall in Genesis 7:2 that while God only instructed Noah to take two every kind of animal, he said to bring seven of every clean animal. Noah now gave one each of the clean animals back to God. Noah knew the tale of Cain and Abel… how else did it get passed down to us? So, Noah knew what was pleasing to God. A sacrifice of first fruits, an offering from ones work. After working so hard to keep these animals alive for about a year, Noah was willing to give one each clean animal back to the Lord. A lesser man would have either just stopped caring for all the animals out of sheer emotional exhaustion, or on the flip side might have coveted every single one, worried that any harm to any one would make his hard work a waste. But Noah went to neither extreme. He went to the extreme of willingly giving to his God what God could have taken Himself but did not. It was a true sacrifice from Noah’s labors. It was a sacrifice from Noah’s heart. A sacrifice of fear? No, but of obedience, not the obedience of fear, but of belief… the obedience of righteousness.
21 The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
Yes, our God can be appeased. It’s an odd thing to speak of, because of the false gods people have worshipped in the past, who seemed equally bent on killing who do not plesae them, and preserving those who do. It seems so similar from humanity’s perspective, but it is completely different, and betrays our small notion of what a true God is.
A false god is said to spare you if you sacrifice your first born child to him; our God sacrificed His first born for us. A false god gives you no clue about his intentions, leaving you to guess at every step of the way; our God told Noah that He was going to kill everyone, and then told Noah through a rainbow that He would never kill everyone through a flood again. A false god can be appeased by acting in fear; our God is appeased by acting in trust. A false god would please by the physical sacrifice itself; our God is pleased by the heart that went into offering it.
It was not the actual smoke that smelled so good to God, but the obedience. I believe God was genuinely relieved in some respect to have this one moment without the evil of mankind and their willful ignorance to their God. Whatever else was true at whatever other moment in history, this was a moment of purity, an indication of how things could be between man and God. It is in those moments that God finds His peace, His comfort.
Skeptics wonder why God won’t simply reveal Himself to everyone. Well first of all, He shouldn’t have to. On the other hand, He actually does… we just don’t see it. Why not make us see it? Because he would be “making” us see it. How sweet would that smell? It would be empty. How could a God feel empty? Because He is emotional. People seem to think that killing everyone who doesn’t believe is the sign of a cold God. That isn’t true. It the equal acceptance of the indifferent and the righteous that would be cold, and simply turning the indifferent into the righteous would be fake and unsatisfying. If the skeptics want to believe in a God that is not cold, He’s right there waiting.
But as God realizes in verse 21, “every inclination” of mans heart “is evil from childhood.” However, He did remove the curse from the ground, and promised never to destroy all life through a flood every again. That was done in compassion, but people would still need to respond in kind to truly have Him embrace them.
A skeptic would argue that if God loves us all, He should embrace us all. But once again, what does that say of the ones who love Him? It says their love does not matter, because it yields no actual reciprocation. But then the skeptic rejects that love because it comes on the condition of obedience. Obedience is such a cold word these days. It is partially why requiring obedience seems cold, when it is quite opposite… NOT requiring obedience is what is cold. Why so? Because the basis of this obedience is trust; skeptics think obedience to God is based in blood-curdling fear.
I do not obey God out of fear, and neither did Noah. Noah acted in trust, amongst a land of people who trusted God not. And that trust was a pleasing aroma to God.