ROUTE 66 1. Destination: Genesis 1-11 I'm so excited about tonight ...
ROUTE 66 1. Destination: Genesis 1-11 I’m so excited about tonight — I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I was inspired to do this series by a great friend, pastor Jim Gallagher. Tonight were’ beginning a series we’re calling ROUTE 66 because we are embarking on a most amazing road trip through the 66 books of the Bible. So here’s a few things that I’m going to ask of you — I'm going to ask you to make this a weekly habit for the next year or so. Some might say, WOE! Wait a minute! A year long commitment? Yep! There are a lot of people who plan, prepare and commit to travelling cross-country. Some guys plan cross country trips to visit every Major League Baseball park in America. Others travel cross-country to visit every national park. There’s a family in our church that just started a cross-country trip on the actual historic Route 66. THIS is the ultimate road trip. Every Monday night we’re going to get in the car, so-to-speak. Just like you need to buckle up and get your seat back adjusted we want to come with our hearts and minds ready to go. Every week we’re going to cover a lot of miles! As we travel through the 66 books of the Bible we’re going to go from eternity past — through history — all the way into eternity future! THAT is an amazing road trip! THAT is why we’re all going to need to give our minds and our hearts fully to the Lord. In keeping with the concept of a road trip — we're not going to go verse by verse — that would be like taking a cross-country road trip and getting off at every exit. To use a mixed metaphor — it’s a road trip that will view the Bible from 30,000 feet. Like flying Southwest from Sacrament to Southern California — the pilot will say, "On the left hand side of the plane you can see Yosemite.” Here’s the deal. Day to day we are navigating our way through life in a spiritually and morally dark world; trying to keep from falling in a broken world where the ground is slippery and treacherous. We need the God’s Word to be a lamp unto our feet and a light to our path. We need the solid ground of truth to stand on, walk on. Sometimes we need to pull 1
the map out so we can to see the big picture of the Bible — the Big Picture of each book — so we can know where to find light and solid ground to navigate in the small spaces in life. So before we start with the book of Genesis lets get hold a few important things about the Bible in general. The Bible is made up of 66 books — written by 40 authors — over a period of 1,500 years — in over primarily 3 languages. It is the most published, transmitted, translated, most owned and read book ever written. But in many ways it’s the most neglected book. In countless homes they occupy space, collect dust, and never influence the lives of those who own them. Though the Bible is made up of 66 books, written by 40 authors, it is a single book. It’s a single book because it has a single source and a central message. The source of the Bible is God. 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture (All 66 books — Gen. 1:1-Rev. 22:21) is breathed out by God THIS IS HUGE — This is not a message from man to man about God. It is a message from God to man about God. Without God revealing Himself to us we could never — and would never be able to answer the questions like Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?" Fallen man, operating from fallen wisdom and finite capacity, has speculated about those things. Starting from the dark he has tried to find the light. Starting from the finite, he has tried to discover the infinite. But God didn’t leave fallen man to thrash in the dark and limp around in his limitations. GOD SPOKE! These 66 books are divided into 2 sections: The Old Testament and the New Testament. Old Testament There are 39 books are in the Old Testament. Those 39 books contain the 2
record of time from God creating the world, and our first parents Adam and Eve, up until the coming of Jesus Christ into human history. From Genesis 12 forward the Old Testament deals with a particular man, Abraham, and his descendants (which come to be known as the nation of Israel). From Genesis 12 forward the Old Testament references the rest of the world only as it relates to Israel. Why is Israel such a big deal? Because the Savior of the world would come out of that nation. In many ways, the Old Testament is a series of promises that God makes. It is a foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus. It contains prophecies and anticipations and expectations of the coming of Jesus. The Old Testament has 929 chapters and 23,214 verses. In the Old Testament, the longest book is Psalms and the shortest book is Obadiah. The New Testament The New Testament is the record of the fulfillment of those promises. The 27 books — 260 chapters and 7,959 verses — of the New Testament begin with the four gospels, which record the life, death, burial, resurrection, and return of Jesus to heaven. It then moves to the record of the early Church and the spread of the Gospel as the first believers were led and empowered by the Holy Spirit (The book of Acts). It then moves into the explanation and application of the Gospel — instruction to various Christians and Christian churches — about how to think and live in light of Who Jesus is; and what Jesus has done. The New Testament closes with the return of Jesus to the earth and the creation of a new heavens and a new earth. Again I want to stress the unity and continuity between the books of Old Testament and New Testament. You can’t start reading a New Testament book without immediately running into a concept — an idea — a person or a quote that comes from the Old Testament. THAT is because the New is the fulfillment of the Old. The Old foreshadows — the New fulfills. “The New is in the Old contained. The Old is in the New explained!”
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66 books — 31,173 verses. That’s a lot of reading. But you can read it through in a year! Reading at what some call “pulpit speed” (slow enough to read out loud and listen to) you can read from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 in about 71 hours. That seems like a lot of reading but if you were to break that down into 365 days it works out to 12 minutes a day. (Bible Bus) QUOTE: Charles Spurgeon — "A Bible that is falling apart belongs to some one who is not." One of the great reasons for this series is for all of us to be able to USE our Bibles. As we move through this series it’s my prayer that you end up knowing the big ideas of each book of the Bible; understand why it is so important for God to have inspired it and preserved it for us. I want you to be able to feed on the Bible — know where to dine. Hopefully by the end of this road trip our Bibles will be well worn — falling apart — but we won't be! Like we noted earlier — this road trip is going to take us from eternity past to eternity future — but every one of these 66 books points us to ONE PERSON and TWO EVENTS. ONE PERSON — Jesus Christ. TWO EVENTS — the first coming of Jesus and the second coming of Jesus Christ. In His first coming Jesus came to deal with sin. In His second coming Jesus is going to reign over, and reign with those who have been redeemed and rescued from the power and penalty of sin. When you’re on a road trip you plan it so you can see notable places (for me I remember where I’ve travelled by notable food experiences). So each week we’re going to look at notable people, events and words that are so important to know about the story of God — critical to the glory of God — necessary to our joy — that God saw fit to inspire the authors to record them and then went to great lengths to preserve them for us. We’ll call them “The Notable” and “The “Quotable.” Another thing about road trips” Every road trip begins at the beginning, right? The Bible begins with “In the beginning.” So that’s exactly where we’re going to start. 4
GENESIS — The first book of the Bible is Genesis, “the book of beginnings.” AUTHOR — Moses Moses didn't come on the scene until 400 years after the Genesis account closes. We meet Moses in the 2nd book of the Bible; the book of Exodus. Exodus is a really big chunk of Moses’ life. Genesis is in a very real way the introduction to the book of Exodus. The Book of Exodus is all about redemption. It points to God redeeming the world through Jesus, the Lamb of God. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. If we don't understand Genesis we can get really lost travelling on “Route 66” — travelling through the other 65 books of the Bible. We really can’t understand the other books of the Bible apart from Genesis. Every other book of the Bible is inseparably tied to Genesis because Genesis gives us the ORIGIN and EXPLANATION of all that follows it. In Genesis we have 1. Beginning/Origins of the universe 2. Beginning/Origins Life forms 3. Beginnings/Origins of Man 4. Beginnings/Origins of sin and death 5. The INTRODUCTION of God’s plan of salvation by way of a promise He made immediately following man’s original sin — and by beginning a nation. The major theme and events of Scripture — (Jesus Christ, the event of His first coming and the event of His second coming) are like great rivers that spring out of Genesis. They get wider and deeper as they flow. But all of them spring out of Genesis. Here in Genesis is the SEED of all that is developed in scripture. Here in Genesis are the ROOTS of all further scripture revelation.
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The Book of Genesis answers the question: “How did all of this begin?” “How did we get here?” How did the world come to be like this?” Those are questions EVERYONE wants answered. It is in the book of Genesis that we get the beginning of everything else in the Bible. Genesis introduces us to God; introduces us to man. Genesis contains the beginning of creation; the beginning of sin entering the world; the beginning of God's remedy to take care of sin; the beginning of civilizations, the beginning of government, the beginning of marriage and family, and as we'll see next week, the beginning of the nation of Israel, through the man Abraham. So Genesis answers, “How did all start; Revelation answers the question, “Where’s it all going?” In Genesis we see paradise lost. In Revelation we see paradise restored. In Genesis we see the curse imposed. In Revelation shows us the curse removed. In Genesis we see fellowship with God broken. In Revelation we see God dwelling with man. In Genesis we see a perfect Garden defiled by sin. In Revelation we see a City in which there is nothing that defiles. In Genesis we see the beginning of sorrow and death. In Revelation we see the end of sorrow and the end of death. In Genesis we see the triumph of evil and the serpent. In Revelation we see the ultimate triumph of the Lamb of God of sin, Satan and death. The 64 books in between fill the gap — move the story forward. Tonight we’re going to put the car and drive and make it through the first 11 chapters of Genesis. That might seem like a short drive through a book of 50 chapters — but we’re covering over 2,000 years! 6
As we drive though Genesis we find that the book is concerned with FOUR major EVENTS and FOUR major PEOPLE. And the book naturally divides into two parts around those events and those people. In Genesis 1-11 we are given the record of 4 major events: CREATION – In it God is revealed as sovereign in creation THE FALL – In it God is revealed as sovereign/ the ultimate moral authority THE FLOOD – In it God is revealed as sovereign in judgment THE DISPERSION AT BABEL – In it God is revealed as sovereign in regards to nations/governments These chapters deal with the world as a whole! In Genesis 12-50 the story of the Bible moves forward around 4 main characters: ABRAHAM — ISAAC — JACOB (later named Israel) — JOSEPH So here we go! The first strokes of the pen of Moses, the first words God breathed words of the first verse of the first book of the Bible are absolutely striking! “In the beginning God…” The Bible does not begin with a stated theory. A theory is the interpretation of facts. It does not begin with a human philosophy. It begins with a declaration of things beyond the farthest reach of human investigation. By the way, the atheistic evolutionist doesn't want to admit that the subject of Origins is beyond human investigation! The Bible begins with no concern for an explanation. God wants us to know that He is and that He preexisted all things and that He is the creator.
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Those opening words tell us that the Bible is about GOD and HIS WORK in the world throughout history. From Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 the Bible is ABOUT God. History is ABOUT God. Life is ABOUT God
FIRST EVENT: Creation — Chapters 1-2 1
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1 is absolutely amazing because in one verse it refutes all of man’s false speculations concerning the origin and meaning of the world. Follow me on this — It refutes atheism — because the universe was created by God. It refutes deism — which says that God created and then removed Himself from all involvement in His creation It refutes pantheism — God is separate from and transcendent to that which he created It refutes polytheism — because one God created all things. It refutes materialism — matter had a beginning — it was not eternal It refutes dualism (• the belief that the universe contains opposed powers of good and evil, seen as balanced equals. see Star Wars – the dark side and the good side) — because God was alone when He created. It refutes humanism — because God, not man is the ultimate reality. It declares that God IS the ultimate reality.1 The rest of the Bible proceeds from that truth. God keeps it so simple. Embrace this first declaration and everything after it is not a problem. If 1
(Morris, Henry. The Genesis Record; Creation-Life Publishers, San Diego, California) 8
you’ve struggled with the miraculous, go back to Genesis 1:1. If you can believe that your God is powerful enough to create the heavens and the earth, the rest is a piece of cake. In a single verse we have the beginning of the Universe. QUOTE: The Genesis Record Morris p.38; 39 — “Thus, Genesis 1:1 can legitimately and incisively be paraphrased as follows: “The transcendent, omnipotent Godhead called into existence the spacemass-time universe.”2 THAT is the God we trust in, cling to and rely upon! By inspiration of the Holy Spirit Moses lets us know HOW God created the heavens and the earth. Created = BARAH > make something out of nothing. The record of origins has massive implications in every day life. There is great comfort, peace and even excitement to know that God is great at making something out of nothing. There is great peace to be had in knowing that God is creator. The origin of the universe speaks to the mind and will of God behind His creative actions. The origin and design of the universe speak to divine purpose. 1 Samuel 3:12 KJV …when I begin, I will also make an end. There is no peace for the atheist because they have taken the position that there is no heart, no will behind our existence. Everything is a matter of random chance!
Moses goes on to tell us that God created the earth and prepared the earth for habitation — a carefully designed atmosphere and hydrosphere; plant 2
(Morris, Henry. The Genesis Record; Creation-Life Publishers, San Diego, California) 9
life and animal life. Then in verse 26 we come to the climax of creation — man. 26
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. " DON'T MISS THIS — Man isn't on the scene for the first 25 verses. The Bible says first that GOD IS. Then it says that GOD MAKES. Then it says that GOD MAKES US. Paul Tripp makes the observation that up to this point the account of Creation has a cadence to it — God creates light, declares that it is good, and there is evening and morning, the first day. God creates something, declares that it is good . . . and that cadence repeats until the creation of man! God does something with Adam and Eve that he has not done with anything else. After creating everything else we’re told that God simply called it a day and moved on. But when God created Man and Woman He talks to them. RELATIONSHIP! Unlike the rest of creation Man was made for intimate relationship with his Creator, and apart from that we do not and cannot understand ourselves or the purpose of our existence. The big push in society is to know yourself — believe in yourself. Our oldest daughter lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan. She says —Dad, just about everybody has a therapist. If you DON’T have a therapist you’re weird. You see people want to understand themselves. But we CAN’T understand ourselves; we CAN’T understand our existence apart from God — God being, God making, and especially God making us. As we look at the record of creation we discover that Man was not only made to experience life derived from fellowship with His creator, the author of life. Against the grain of all secular thought, the record of creation tells us that Man was created to be dependent upon His creator! In Genesis 1 we are confronted with the fact that our need for help preceded sin. Adam 10
and Eve were perfect people living in perfect relationship with God in a perfect world! But the Bible tells us that God had to explain who they were, what they were to do with their lives, and what God desired of them in the perfect world He had created and prepared for them. QUOTE: Paul Tripp — “Trying to live without God’s help is to assign myself a sub-human existence. ” Without the foundation of the FIRST EVENT we can not understand the nature and the gravity of the SECOND EVENT. SECOND EVENT: The Fall — Chapters 3-5 The SECOND EVENT explains the brokenness of the world we live in; the pathos and heartache that is in the world. That the world is broken is not a secret. The great question is: “How do we explain its brokenness?” Make no mistake about it — the answer to THAT question dictates how its can be rescued! Human history makes no sense unless we understand that day in Genesis 3. In medicine you need a right diagnosis to make the way for the right remedy. To not understand Genesis 3 leads to every wrong diagnosis and the resulting ineffective remedies to the moral and spiritual condition of man. QUOTE: C. Plantinga; Not the Way It’s Supposed To Be” — Fallen culture assumes that the proper place to inquire about the origins of evil is a department of psychology or sociology. In the FIRST EVENT we learn about our origin. God is our Creator. When He originally made humanity and everything else it was “very good.” It was “very good” because God is perfectly holy and perfectly good. God made creation for us. With infinite attention He prepared the planet — including the Garden of Eden — for human occupancy. In that we saw the humility of God to serve us. God made us male and female in his image and likeness, and in that we witnessed the loving and kind nature of God. God speaks to mankind. In that we saw that God is personal and initiated a relationship of love and communication with us. God blessed creation and our first parents. In that we saw the generous nature of our gracious God. 11
It is only against the backdrop of God’s infinite perfection and perfect love for man that we can understand the nature of sin! EVERY SIN — all the way back to the first sin — is an act of treachery against THIS infinitely perfect; infinitely kind; infinitely humble; infinitely generous and loving God. Genesis 3 Introduces us to Satan and sin. The Bible does not talk about those subjects in theoretical or philosophical terms. The Bible informs us that both Satan and sin are real, and informs us about the nature and power of both of them. 1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. Satan is not presented as allegory or imagery for the presence of evil in the world. Contrary to popular opinion, Satan is a real person. He is evil. The entrance of the Serpent marks the beginning of chaos in creation. According to Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 the Serpent is Satan. God wants us to know about him because God tells us in the New Testament that he is our adversary. He is smarter than you are. He is been around for a lot longer than you. He has deceived and destroyed people who are far more intelligent than you — far more influential than you — far more powerful and gifted than you. As we get further along Route 66 we get the backstory of Satan’s rebellion against God, and details about his present work in the world. Satan is the one who directs the course of our fallen world in its rebellion against God. He is at work pitching the same lie to men and women today that he pitched to our first parents in Genesis 3. More on that in a moment. The SECOND EVENT records man’s first act of rebellion against God — “Original Sin.” Contrary to popular opinion, there really is a thing called sin. Sin is not a concept. Sin is deceitful. It promises a payoff that it will never, and can never deliver. Sin is deadly. In Genesis 2 God told Adam and Eve that sin is deadly. The SECOND EVENT proves just how deadly sin is. Sin wrecks 12
fellowship with God and it is the very thing that necessitates the need to be redeemed. In the SECOND EVENT we learn how Satan operates. 1
…. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You hall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” In the very last book of the Bible Satan is called – that old serpent. The serpent in the last book of the Bible has a history that dates back to Genesis 3. Over the course of millennia his strategy is the same. He uses a number of variations on a few themes. THIS IS HUGE — The first human sin begins with Satan challenging and changing the Word of God. He challenged the Word of God. The first challenge: I like the old King James: “Hath God said?” In other words, Did God say something? Today that challenge to the Word of God is framed like this: If you must believe that there is a God, He surely doesn’t speak! Do you really think the Bible is God’s Word? Did God ever say anything and then record it in this thing you call the Bible? The second challenge: If God did speak, He really didn’t mean what He said. God said — in the day you eat of it you shall surely die. Satan says — God didn’t really mean that. Guys — there are billions of graves on planet earth that testify to the fact that God is true and Satan is a liar. Today that challenge is framed with — If God did speak — surely He didn’t mean you to take the Bible literally. God’s Word says that Jesus is 13
the only way to be saved. Satan says — He really doesn’t mean that. You can get to heaven by being a good Buddhist or a good Muslim. He changed the Word of God. All he did was change one word of God’s word. It was such a little word — “any.” So little that some ask — What's the big deal? HERE’S THE BIG DEAL — You either take God at His Word or you add to or subtract from his word — and the result is devastation. When we say that something has gone terribly wrong on planet earth — it traces back to THAT! THIS IS HUGE — The first human sin begins with Satan challenging the goodness of God. God is keeping something good from you. If He really loves you why can’t you have this amazing fruit? If you believe the lie that God is withholding on you — then you will sin in order to obtain that which you believe God is withholding from you. It might be some relationship — some possession — some experience — some accomplishment. The temptation was to walk away from God in order to exchange someone else — or something else for God — which is idolatry. D.A. Carson calls this the de-godding of God. Everyone knows that this world is not the world they were meant to live in. That’s why everyone is trying to fix it. But they’re only putting band-aids on the wound. Saving the rainforest is not going to fix the world, fix broken hearts and broken lives. What’s wrong with the world? Why is it so wrecked? Why are we so empty? Why is it that walking through life is like walking through thorns and thistles? ANSWER: Man bought into the LIE OF LIES — That he could have life without God!
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QUOTE: C.S. Lewis — “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” Man bought into the LIE OF LIES and from that moment on everything has been broken. Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— Man is fallen! He’s about to be driven from the Garden of Eden. But before he is God makes this amazing promise! 14
The Lord God said to the serpent — (here is judgment) — because you have done this cursed are you above all the livestock, above the beast of the field, on your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed (or offspring) and her offspring.
This is another FIRST! The first proclamation of the Gospel. The Gospel is not advice; it’s the record of what God has done to save us in the sending of His Son. Genesis 3:14-15 is called the Proto-Evangelion. This is so absolutely amazing and radical! The first gospel proclamation is undertaken by God Himself. God is into evangelism — God preaches the first Gospel message. He says that that through Eve there will eventually come a man who will do war with Satan. Satan will harm him — but He will come as the great dragon slayer — and He will defeat the dragon. It's a promise of the coming of Jesus!
In Genesis 4 we have the record of the first home. This is not family life as it was intended. Sin wrecks man on the vertical axis of his life and it wrecks man on the horizontal axis of his life. 15
Adam and Eve have two sons, Cain and Abel. 3
In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. People differ as to why God accepted the Abel’s offering and refused Cain’s. Here’s what we know for sure about Abel’s offering, because God said it: Hebrews 11:4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. In the opening of Hebrews 11 we’re told that without faith it’s impossible to please God. This is BIG STUFF in the book of Beginnings. From the beginning God wants us to know that He never separates the worship from the worshiper. The attitude of the heart and the life of the worshipper are not independent from what he or she might what we bring to God. What follows is another first — the first homicide. Cain kills Abel. I was careful to say homicide, not murder. Homicide is when a man (prefix homo) takes the life of another man. The first murder is the fall of man in chapter 3. Jesus said that Satan was a murderer from the beginning — Satan murdered the human race by plunging them into sin. Ever since Genesis 3 every human has been plagued with that disease from birth. As you read on in Genesis you find that Cain wasn't able to enjoy fellowship with God. In Genesis 4:17 we have the mention of the first city! It was started by Cain. Listen to what Oswald Chambers said about this FIRST the Bible.
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Adam and Eve have another son – Seth. Genesis 5 contains the genealogy of Adam all the way to Noah, through the lineage of Seth.
THIRD EVENT: The FLOOD — Chapters 6-9 The historic event of the flood communicates to us the reality of wrath, grace, and salvation! Genesis 6 1
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, What kind of a population are we looking at here? As we look at the genealogy of Genesis 5, we start with a small number of people. But they lived REEEEALLY LONG lives. Dr. John Whitcomb and Henry Morris wrote a book called "The Genesis Flood." In that book they took the genealogical records of Genesis, the average lifespan and number of kids recorded, and they calculated that at the end of 18 generations there could have been 774 million people on earth. So we’re looking at close to a billion or a billion plus people on the earth. Because I actually want to get through Genesis 11 I’m going to skip the next part that talks about how the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose, and how those unions resulted in a race of giants. The point is this — by Genesis 6 the world was dark — violent and demonic! The state of affairs on the planet leading to the judgment of the flood was in a very real way God’s judgment. God let man have his way. God let man experience the only possible outcome of de-godding God. When man refuses to be governed by God he is incapable of governing himself or governing others — hence 5
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil 17
continually. 6And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” This FOURTH EVENT is not just about wrath and judgment — it’s also about Salvation and Grace. 8
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. 9 These are the generations of Noah, Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation, Noah walked with God.” FAVOR — that’s the Hebrew word for grace — unmerited love, undeserved affection. Most professing believers misunderstand the account of Noah. They think that God spared Noah and his family from the flood because he was the good guy and everybody else was the bad guy. It DOES say that Noah was a righteous man — that he walked with God. But what does it say before that? That he found favor or grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was not a great guy. Noah was a sinner just like everyone else just like you and just like me. God looked at the earth and said everyone is only doing evil all the time — everyone has betrayed me — everyone deserves wrath and judgment. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. WHY Noah? Not because Noah is good — but because God is. Not because Noah deserves it — but because he found favor or grace in the eyes of God. Noah is the Old Testament illustration of this huge New Testament truth — Ephesians 2:4-9 God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the 18
immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Salvation is always a matter of grace. It is always and only the result of God doing for us that which do not deserve and could never earn. The grace of God in Noah’s life had an impact on his whole family! More than anything else I desire that my children to experience the same grace of God that rescued me! By grace Noah and his family is spared to carry on the promised plan of God to redeem and restore man. By the end of Genesis 9 there is a new social order on the earth. Capital punishment is ordained and human government is established We’ve just about hit the end of tonight’s planned segment of the trip.
FOURTH EVENT — THE TOWER OF BABEL Chapters 10-11 Genesis 10 gives to us the genealogy of Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 30 nations are mentioned. It is referred to as “The Table of Nations.” Dr. William F. Albright, an unbeliever who was a renown archaeologist, anthropologist and scholar of Middle Eastern culture and history said that this table of nations is UNPARALLELED in ancient history. There is nothing that touches it for its accuracy and content. After the flood, in Genesis 8, God had told Noah to fill the Earth. But look at what we read in Genesis 11. 4
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 5And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have 19
all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth. Babel is will one day become Babylon. This is the birthplace of pagan religion built around a guy named Nimrod. He was the prototype of the antiChrist. Every false religious system of the world has its origin in Babylon. In our study of the Book of Revelation we learned that From Genesis 3 forward human history is essentially a “Tale of Two Cities” — the City of Man and the City of God — Babylon and Jerusalem. In Revelation 18 we have Babylon the Great, the Mother of all harlots, as opposed to the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. The question for us in closing is this: Which city do you live for? Which city do you belong to? CLOSE LOOKING AHEAD
The 2nd half of Genesis hinges on the story of 4 main characters. Until the time of the dispersion at Babel, God has been dealing with mankind as a whole. But beginning in Genesis 12 we see God begin to deal with one man — Abraham — and all of his descendants. We went through the first 2,000 years of planet earth in eleven chapters. Genesis spends that many chapters just on Abraham’s life! 20
READ AHEAD The 2nd division of Genesis deals with FOUR MAJOR PEOPLE.
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the map out so we can to see the big picture of the Bible — the Big Picture of each book — so we can know where to find light and solid ground to navigate in the small spaces in life. So before we start with the book of Genesis lets get hold a few important things about the Bible in general. The Bible is made up of 66 books — written by 40 authors — over a period of 1,500 years — in over primarily 3 languages. It is the most published, transmitted, translated, most owned and read book ever written. But in many ways it’s the most neglected book. In countless homes they occupy space, collect dust, and never influence the lives of those who own them. Though the Bible is made up of 66 books, written by 40 authors, it is a single book. It’s a single book because it has a single source and a central message. The source of the Bible is God. 2 Timothy 3:16 All Scripture (All 66 books — Gen. 1:1-Rev. 22:21) is breathed out by God THIS IS HUGE — This is not a message from man to man about God. It is a message from God to man about God. Without God revealing Himself to us we could never — and would never be able to answer the questions like Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going?" Fallen man, operating from fallen wisdom and finite capacity, has speculated about those things. Starting from the dark he has tried to find the light. Starting from the finite, he has tried to discover the infinite. But God didn’t leave fallen man to thrash in the dark and limp around in his limitations. GOD SPOKE! These 66 books are divided into 2 sections: The Old Testament and the New Testament. Old Testament There are 39 books are in the Old Testament. Those 39 books contain the 2
record of time from God creating the world, and our first parents Adam and Eve, up until the coming of Jesus Christ into human history. From Genesis 12 forward the Old Testament deals with a particular man, Abraham, and his descendants (which come to be known as the nation of Israel). From Genesis 12 forward the Old Testament references the rest of the world only as it relates to Israel. Why is Israel such a big deal? Because the Savior of the world would come out of that nation. In many ways, the Old Testament is a series of promises that God makes. It is a foreshadowing of the coming of Jesus. It contains prophecies and anticipations and expectations of the coming of Jesus. The Old Testament has 929 chapters and 23,214 verses. In the Old Testament, the longest book is Psalms and the shortest book is Obadiah. The New Testament The New Testament is the record of the fulfillment of those promises. The 27 books — 260 chapters and 7,959 verses — of the New Testament begin with the four gospels, which record the life, death, burial, resurrection, and return of Jesus to heaven. It then moves to the record of the early Church and the spread of the Gospel as the first believers were led and empowered by the Holy Spirit (The book of Acts). It then moves into the explanation and application of the Gospel — instruction to various Christians and Christian churches — about how to think and live in light of Who Jesus is; and what Jesus has done. The New Testament closes with the return of Jesus to the earth and the creation of a new heavens and a new earth. Again I want to stress the unity and continuity between the books of Old Testament and New Testament. You can’t start reading a New Testament book without immediately running into a concept — an idea — a person or a quote that comes from the Old Testament. THAT is because the New is the fulfillment of the Old. The Old foreshadows — the New fulfills. “The New is in the Old contained. The Old is in the New explained!”
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66 books — 31,173 verses. That’s a lot of reading. But you can read it through in a year! Reading at what some call “pulpit speed” (slow enough to read out loud and listen to) you can read from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 in about 71 hours. That seems like a lot of reading but if you were to break that down into 365 days it works out to 12 minutes a day. (Bible Bus) QUOTE: Charles Spurgeon — "A Bible that is falling apart belongs to some one who is not." One of the great reasons for this series is for all of us to be able to USE our Bibles. As we move through this series it’s my prayer that you end up knowing the big ideas of each book of the Bible; understand why it is so important for God to have inspired it and preserved it for us. I want you to be able to feed on the Bible — know where to dine. Hopefully by the end of this road trip our Bibles will be well worn — falling apart — but we won't be! Like we noted earlier — this road trip is going to take us from eternity past to eternity future — but every one of these 66 books points us to ONE PERSON and TWO EVENTS. ONE PERSON — Jesus Christ. TWO EVENTS — the first coming of Jesus and the second coming of Jesus Christ. In His first coming Jesus came to deal with sin. In His second coming Jesus is going to reign over, and reign with those who have been redeemed and rescued from the power and penalty of sin. When you’re on a road trip you plan it so you can see notable places (for me I remember where I’ve travelled by notable food experiences). So each week we’re going to look at notable people, events and words that are so important to know about the story of God — critical to the glory of God — necessary to our joy — that God saw fit to inspire the authors to record them and then went to great lengths to preserve them for us. We’ll call them “The Notable” and “The “Quotable.” Another thing about road trips” Every road trip begins at the beginning, right? The Bible begins with “In the beginning.” So that’s exactly where we’re going to start. 4
GENESIS — The first book of the Bible is Genesis, “the book of beginnings.” AUTHOR — Moses Moses didn't come on the scene until 400 years after the Genesis account closes. We meet Moses in the 2nd book of the Bible; the book of Exodus. Exodus is a really big chunk of Moses’ life. Genesis is in a very real way the introduction to the book of Exodus. The Book of Exodus is all about redemption. It points to God redeeming the world through Jesus, the Lamb of God. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. If we don't understand Genesis we can get really lost travelling on “Route 66” — travelling through the other 65 books of the Bible. We really can’t understand the other books of the Bible apart from Genesis. Every other book of the Bible is inseparably tied to Genesis because Genesis gives us the ORIGIN and EXPLANATION of all that follows it. In Genesis we have 1. Beginning/Origins of the universe 2. Beginning/Origins Life forms 3. Beginnings/Origins of Man 4. Beginnings/Origins of sin and death 5. The INTRODUCTION of God’s plan of salvation by way of a promise He made immediately following man’s original sin — and by beginning a nation. The major theme and events of Scripture — (Jesus Christ, the event of His first coming and the event of His second coming) are like great rivers that spring out of Genesis. They get wider and deeper as they flow. But all of them spring out of Genesis. Here in Genesis is the SEED of all that is developed in scripture. Here in Genesis are the ROOTS of all further scripture revelation.
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The Book of Genesis answers the question: “How did all of this begin?” “How did we get here?” How did the world come to be like this?” Those are questions EVERYONE wants answered. It is in the book of Genesis that we get the beginning of everything else in the Bible. Genesis introduces us to God; introduces us to man. Genesis contains the beginning of creation; the beginning of sin entering the world; the beginning of God's remedy to take care of sin; the beginning of civilizations, the beginning of government, the beginning of marriage and family, and as we'll see next week, the beginning of the nation of Israel, through the man Abraham. So Genesis answers, “How did all start; Revelation answers the question, “Where’s it all going?” In Genesis we see paradise lost. In Revelation we see paradise restored. In Genesis we see the curse imposed. In Revelation shows us the curse removed. In Genesis we see fellowship with God broken. In Revelation we see God dwelling with man. In Genesis we see a perfect Garden defiled by sin. In Revelation we see a City in which there is nothing that defiles. In Genesis we see the beginning of sorrow and death. In Revelation we see the end of sorrow and the end of death. In Genesis we see the triumph of evil and the serpent. In Revelation we see the ultimate triumph of the Lamb of God of sin, Satan and death. The 64 books in between fill the gap — move the story forward. Tonight we’re going to put the car and drive and make it through the first 11 chapters of Genesis. That might seem like a short drive through a book of 50 chapters — but we’re covering over 2,000 years! 6
As we drive though Genesis we find that the book is concerned with FOUR major EVENTS and FOUR major PEOPLE. And the book naturally divides into two parts around those events and those people. In Genesis 1-11 we are given the record of 4 major events: CREATION – In it God is revealed as sovereign in creation THE FALL – In it God is revealed as sovereign/ the ultimate moral authority THE FLOOD – In it God is revealed as sovereign in judgment THE DISPERSION AT BABEL – In it God is revealed as sovereign in regards to nations/governments These chapters deal with the world as a whole! In Genesis 12-50 the story of the Bible moves forward around 4 main characters: ABRAHAM — ISAAC — JACOB (later named Israel) — JOSEPH So here we go! The first strokes of the pen of Moses, the first words God breathed words of the first verse of the first book of the Bible are absolutely striking! “In the beginning God…” The Bible does not begin with a stated theory. A theory is the interpretation of facts. It does not begin with a human philosophy. It begins with a declaration of things beyond the farthest reach of human investigation. By the way, the atheistic evolutionist doesn't want to admit that the subject of Origins is beyond human investigation! The Bible begins with no concern for an explanation. God wants us to know that He is and that He preexisted all things and that He is the creator.
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Those opening words tell us that the Bible is about GOD and HIS WORK in the world throughout history. From Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 the Bible is ABOUT God. History is ABOUT God. Life is ABOUT God
FIRST EVENT: Creation — Chapters 1-2 1
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
Genesis 1:1 is absolutely amazing because in one verse it refutes all of man’s false speculations concerning the origin and meaning of the world. Follow me on this — It refutes atheism — because the universe was created by God. It refutes deism — which says that God created and then removed Himself from all involvement in His creation It refutes pantheism — God is separate from and transcendent to that which he created It refutes polytheism — because one God created all things. It refutes materialism — matter had a beginning — it was not eternal It refutes dualism (• the belief that the universe contains opposed powers of good and evil, seen as balanced equals. see Star Wars – the dark side and the good side) — because God was alone when He created. It refutes humanism — because God, not man is the ultimate reality. It declares that God IS the ultimate reality.1 The rest of the Bible proceeds from that truth. God keeps it so simple. Embrace this first declaration and everything after it is not a problem. If 1
(Morris, Henry. The Genesis Record; Creation-Life Publishers, San Diego, California) 8
you’ve struggled with the miraculous, go back to Genesis 1:1. If you can believe that your God is powerful enough to create the heavens and the earth, the rest is a piece of cake. In a single verse we have the beginning of the Universe. QUOTE: The Genesis Record Morris p.38; 39 — “Thus, Genesis 1:1 can legitimately and incisively be paraphrased as follows: “The transcendent, omnipotent Godhead called into existence the spacemass-time universe.”2 THAT is the God we trust in, cling to and rely upon! By inspiration of the Holy Spirit Moses lets us know HOW God created the heavens and the earth. Created = BARAH > make something out of nothing. The record of origins has massive implications in every day life. There is great comfort, peace and even excitement to know that God is great at making something out of nothing. There is great peace to be had in knowing that God is creator. The origin of the universe speaks to the mind and will of God behind His creative actions. The origin and design of the universe speak to divine purpose. 1 Samuel 3:12 KJV …when I begin, I will also make an end. There is no peace for the atheist because they have taken the position that there is no heart, no will behind our existence. Everything is a matter of random chance!
Moses goes on to tell us that God created the earth and prepared the earth for habitation — a carefully designed atmosphere and hydrosphere; plant 2
(Morris, Henry. The Genesis Record; Creation-Life Publishers, San Diego, California) 9
life and animal life. Then in verse 26 we come to the climax of creation — man. 26
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. " DON'T MISS THIS — Man isn't on the scene for the first 25 verses. The Bible says first that GOD IS. Then it says that GOD MAKES. Then it says that GOD MAKES US. Paul Tripp makes the observation that up to this point the account of Creation has a cadence to it — God creates light, declares that it is good, and there is evening and morning, the first day. God creates something, declares that it is good . . . and that cadence repeats until the creation of man! God does something with Adam and Eve that he has not done with anything else. After creating everything else we’re told that God simply called it a day and moved on. But when God created Man and Woman He talks to them. RELATIONSHIP! Unlike the rest of creation Man was made for intimate relationship with his Creator, and apart from that we do not and cannot understand ourselves or the purpose of our existence. The big push in society is to know yourself — believe in yourself. Our oldest daughter lives in Brooklyn and works in Manhattan. She says —Dad, just about everybody has a therapist. If you DON’T have a therapist you’re weird. You see people want to understand themselves. But we CAN’T understand ourselves; we CAN’T understand our existence apart from God — God being, God making, and especially God making us. As we look at the record of creation we discover that Man was not only made to experience life derived from fellowship with His creator, the author of life. Against the grain of all secular thought, the record of creation tells us that Man was created to be dependent upon His creator! In Genesis 1 we are confronted with the fact that our need for help preceded sin. Adam 10
and Eve were perfect people living in perfect relationship with God in a perfect world! But the Bible tells us that God had to explain who they were, what they were to do with their lives, and what God desired of them in the perfect world He had created and prepared for them. QUOTE: Paul Tripp — “Trying to live without God’s help is to assign myself a sub-human existence. ” Without the foundation of the FIRST EVENT we can not understand the nature and the gravity of the SECOND EVENT. SECOND EVENT: The Fall — Chapters 3-5 The SECOND EVENT explains the brokenness of the world we live in; the pathos and heartache that is in the world. That the world is broken is not a secret. The great question is: “How do we explain its brokenness?” Make no mistake about it — the answer to THAT question dictates how its can be rescued! Human history makes no sense unless we understand that day in Genesis 3. In medicine you need a right diagnosis to make the way for the right remedy. To not understand Genesis 3 leads to every wrong diagnosis and the resulting ineffective remedies to the moral and spiritual condition of man. QUOTE: C. Plantinga; Not the Way It’s Supposed To Be” — Fallen culture assumes that the proper place to inquire about the origins of evil is a department of psychology or sociology. In the FIRST EVENT we learn about our origin. God is our Creator. When He originally made humanity and everything else it was “very good.” It was “very good” because God is perfectly holy and perfectly good. God made creation for us. With infinite attention He prepared the planet — including the Garden of Eden — for human occupancy. In that we saw the humility of God to serve us. God made us male and female in his image and likeness, and in that we witnessed the loving and kind nature of God. God speaks to mankind. In that we saw that God is personal and initiated a relationship of love and communication with us. God blessed creation and our first parents. In that we saw the generous nature of our gracious God. 11
It is only against the backdrop of God’s infinite perfection and perfect love for man that we can understand the nature of sin! EVERY SIN — all the way back to the first sin — is an act of treachery against THIS infinitely perfect; infinitely kind; infinitely humble; infinitely generous and loving God. Genesis 3 Introduces us to Satan and sin. The Bible does not talk about those subjects in theoretical or philosophical terms. The Bible informs us that both Satan and sin are real, and informs us about the nature and power of both of them. 1
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. Satan is not presented as allegory or imagery for the presence of evil in the world. Contrary to popular opinion, Satan is a real person. He is evil. The entrance of the Serpent marks the beginning of chaos in creation. According to Revelation 12:9 and 20:2 the Serpent is Satan. God wants us to know about him because God tells us in the New Testament that he is our adversary. He is smarter than you are. He is been around for a lot longer than you. He has deceived and destroyed people who are far more intelligent than you — far more influential than you — far more powerful and gifted than you. As we get further along Route 66 we get the backstory of Satan’s rebellion against God, and details about his present work in the world. Satan is the one who directs the course of our fallen world in its rebellion against God. He is at work pitching the same lie to men and women today that he pitched to our first parents in Genesis 3. More on that in a moment. The SECOND EVENT records man’s first act of rebellion against God — “Original Sin.” Contrary to popular opinion, there really is a thing called sin. Sin is not a concept. Sin is deceitful. It promises a payoff that it will never, and can never deliver. Sin is deadly. In Genesis 2 God told Adam and Eve that sin is deadly. The SECOND EVENT proves just how deadly sin is. Sin wrecks 12
fellowship with God and it is the very thing that necessitates the need to be redeemed. In the SECOND EVENT we learn how Satan operates. 1
…. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You hall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” In the very last book of the Bible Satan is called – that old serpent. The serpent in the last book of the Bible has a history that dates back to Genesis 3. Over the course of millennia his strategy is the same. He uses a number of variations on a few themes. THIS IS HUGE — The first human sin begins with Satan challenging and changing the Word of God. He challenged the Word of God. The first challenge: I like the old King James: “Hath God said?” In other words, Did God say something? Today that challenge to the Word of God is framed like this: If you must believe that there is a God, He surely doesn’t speak! Do you really think the Bible is God’s Word? Did God ever say anything and then record it in this thing you call the Bible? The second challenge: If God did speak, He really didn’t mean what He said. God said — in the day you eat of it you shall surely die. Satan says — God didn’t really mean that. Guys — there are billions of graves on planet earth that testify to the fact that God is true and Satan is a liar. Today that challenge is framed with — If God did speak — surely He didn’t mean you to take the Bible literally. God’s Word says that Jesus is 13
the only way to be saved. Satan says — He really doesn’t mean that. You can get to heaven by being a good Buddhist or a good Muslim. He changed the Word of God. All he did was change one word of God’s word. It was such a little word — “any.” So little that some ask — What's the big deal? HERE’S THE BIG DEAL — You either take God at His Word or you add to or subtract from his word — and the result is devastation. When we say that something has gone terribly wrong on planet earth — it traces back to THAT! THIS IS HUGE — The first human sin begins with Satan challenging the goodness of God. God is keeping something good from you. If He really loves you why can’t you have this amazing fruit? If you believe the lie that God is withholding on you — then you will sin in order to obtain that which you believe God is withholding from you. It might be some relationship — some possession — some experience — some accomplishment. The temptation was to walk away from God in order to exchange someone else — or something else for God — which is idolatry. D.A. Carson calls this the de-godding of God. Everyone knows that this world is not the world they were meant to live in. That’s why everyone is trying to fix it. But they’re only putting band-aids on the wound. Saving the rainforest is not going to fix the world, fix broken hearts and broken lives. What’s wrong with the world? Why is it so wrecked? Why are we so empty? Why is it that walking through life is like walking through thorns and thistles? ANSWER: Man bought into the LIE OF LIES — That he could have life without God!
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QUOTE: C.S. Lewis — “God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.” Man bought into the LIE OF LIES and from that moment on everything has been broken. Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— Man is fallen! He’s about to be driven from the Garden of Eden. But before he is God makes this amazing promise! 14
The Lord God said to the serpent — (here is judgment) — because you have done this cursed are you above all the livestock, above the beast of the field, on your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed (or offspring) and her offspring.
This is another FIRST! The first proclamation of the Gospel. The Gospel is not advice; it’s the record of what God has done to save us in the sending of His Son. Genesis 3:14-15 is called the Proto-Evangelion. This is so absolutely amazing and radical! The first gospel proclamation is undertaken by God Himself. God is into evangelism — God preaches the first Gospel message. He says that that through Eve there will eventually come a man who will do war with Satan. Satan will harm him — but He will come as the great dragon slayer — and He will defeat the dragon. It's a promise of the coming of Jesus!
In Genesis 4 we have the record of the first home. This is not family life as it was intended. Sin wrecks man on the vertical axis of his life and it wrecks man on the horizontal axis of his life. 15
Adam and Eve have two sons, Cain and Abel. 3
In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. People differ as to why God accepted the Abel’s offering and refused Cain’s. Here’s what we know for sure about Abel’s offering, because God said it: Hebrews 11:4 By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. In the opening of Hebrews 11 we’re told that without faith it’s impossible to please God. This is BIG STUFF in the book of Beginnings. From the beginning God wants us to know that He never separates the worship from the worshiper. The attitude of the heart and the life of the worshipper are not independent from what he or she might what we bring to God. What follows is another first — the first homicide. Cain kills Abel. I was careful to say homicide, not murder. Homicide is when a man (prefix homo) takes the life of another man. The first murder is the fall of man in chapter 3. Jesus said that Satan was a murderer from the beginning — Satan murdered the human race by plunging them into sin. Ever since Genesis 3 every human has been plagued with that disease from birth. As you read on in Genesis you find that Cain wasn't able to enjoy fellowship with God. In Genesis 4:17 we have the mention of the first city! It was started by Cain. Listen to what Oswald Chambers said about this FIRST the Bible.
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Adam and Eve have another son – Seth. Genesis 5 contains the genealogy of Adam all the way to Noah, through the lineage of Seth.
THIRD EVENT: The FLOOD — Chapters 6-9 The historic event of the flood communicates to us the reality of wrath, grace, and salvation! Genesis 6 1
When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, What kind of a population are we looking at here? As we look at the genealogy of Genesis 5, we start with a small number of people. But they lived REEEEALLY LONG lives. Dr. John Whitcomb and Henry Morris wrote a book called "The Genesis Flood." In that book they took the genealogical records of Genesis, the average lifespan and number of kids recorded, and they calculated that at the end of 18 generations there could have been 774 million people on earth. So we’re looking at close to a billion or a billion plus people on the earth. Because I actually want to get through Genesis 11 I’m going to skip the next part that talks about how the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose, and how those unions resulted in a race of giants. The point is this — by Genesis 6 the world was dark — violent and demonic! The state of affairs on the planet leading to the judgment of the flood was in a very real way God’s judgment. God let man have his way. God let man experience the only possible outcome of de-godding God. When man refuses to be governed by God he is incapable of governing himself or governing others — hence 5
The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil 17
continually. 6And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” This FOURTH EVENT is not just about wrath and judgment — it’s also about Salvation and Grace. 8
But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. 9 These are the generations of Noah, Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation, Noah walked with God.” FAVOR — that’s the Hebrew word for grace — unmerited love, undeserved affection. Most professing believers misunderstand the account of Noah. They think that God spared Noah and his family from the flood because he was the good guy and everybody else was the bad guy. It DOES say that Noah was a righteous man — that he walked with God. But what does it say before that? That he found favor or grace in the eyes of the Lord. Noah was not a great guy. Noah was a sinner just like everyone else just like you and just like me. God looked at the earth and said everyone is only doing evil all the time — everyone has betrayed me — everyone deserves wrath and judgment. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. WHY Noah? Not because Noah is good — but because God is. Not because Noah deserves it — but because he found favor or grace in the eyes of God. Noah is the Old Testament illustration of this huge New Testament truth — Ephesians 2:4-9 God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7so that in the coming ages he might show the 18
immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast. Salvation is always a matter of grace. It is always and only the result of God doing for us that which do not deserve and could never earn. The grace of God in Noah’s life had an impact on his whole family! More than anything else I desire that my children to experience the same grace of God that rescued me! By grace Noah and his family is spared to carry on the promised plan of God to redeem and restore man. By the end of Genesis 9 there is a new social order on the earth. Capital punishment is ordained and human government is established We’ve just about hit the end of tonight’s planned segment of the trip.
FOURTH EVENT — THE TOWER OF BABEL Chapters 10-11 Genesis 10 gives to us the genealogy of Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. 30 nations are mentioned. It is referred to as “The Table of Nations.” Dr. William F. Albright, an unbeliever who was a renown archaeologist, anthropologist and scholar of Middle Eastern culture and history said that this table of nations is UNPARALLELED in ancient history. There is nothing that touches it for its accuracy and content. After the flood, in Genesis 8, God had told Noah to fill the Earth. But look at what we read in Genesis 11. 4
Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” 5And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have 19
all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” 8So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth. Babel is will one day become Babylon. This is the birthplace of pagan religion built around a guy named Nimrod. He was the prototype of the antiChrist. Every false religious system of the world has its origin in Babylon. In our study of the Book of Revelation we learned that From Genesis 3 forward human history is essentially a “Tale of Two Cities” — the City of Man and the City of God — Babylon and Jerusalem. In Revelation 18 we have Babylon the Great, the Mother of all harlots, as opposed to the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. The question for us in closing is this: Which city do you live for? Which city do you belong to? CLOSE LOOKING AHEAD
The 2nd half of Genesis hinges on the story of 4 main characters. Until the time of the dispersion at Babel, God has been dealing with mankind as a whole. But beginning in Genesis 12 we see God begin to deal with one man — Abraham — and all of his descendants. We went through the first 2,000 years of planet earth in eleven chapters. Genesis spends that many chapters just on Abraham’s life! 20
READ AHEAD The 2nd division of Genesis deals with FOUR MAJOR PEOPLE.
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