Now remember I said that the information in Genesis is given to us at different levels, like a movie that has different camera angles, different vantage points. I want to just go over those with you, the four vantage points. If you understand this, then you'll understand the transitions. The problem with reading Genesis is it transitions from one view to another without telling you.
So if you know that there are these four views, you kind of know where you're at. The first view is the close-up view. An intimate look at the situation that features dialogue and thoughts and feelings experienced by the individuals themselves.
Close up view. The next view is the social view, kind of a wide angle, a wide view of society at large as it begins after the sin of Adam and after the sin of Cain, as society begins to disintegrate due to the sins that have been committed. So the The writer, if you wish, pulls back and gives you a wider view of society and what's taking place in society.
Number three, the seed of promise. The seed of promise is kind of looking to the future, a long view of God's work in preparing the world for the coming of Christ. And so the seed of promise, like a thread, it's like this golden thread that begins at the beginning of Genesis and just keeps working its way through. The entire book of Genesis, and as a matter of fact, that golden thread continues through Exodus and Leviticus and all the way through the Old Testament, all the way to the New Testament. And that view is the seed of promise.
And every once in a while, the author is talking about people and what's going on, then backs up and gives you a wide view of what's taking place, like the story of Noah, sin in the world, the flood. That's the big view. And then every once in a while you get a close up.
How can I compare it to... It's like it goes back to this line, this thread, this story about the seed of promise that was made to Eve. And where are we at as far as the seed of promise?
And I'll show you what we're talking about a little bit later in the lesson. And then there's the war of the seeds. That's another storyline. That's the word I was looking for.
The seed of promise, like a storyline, that it will follow for a while and then it'll go back to something else. All right. And then there's another storyline called the war of the seeds. An ongoing view of the continual battle between the seed of Satan, those who oppose God in every generation, the unbelievers in every generation, and the seed of woman, the promise God made to Eve about her seed will crush the head of the devil's seed.
So those who oppose God versus those who are part of the line that would ultimately bring Jesus to the earth. So those are the four vantage points points, the four views of Genesis. Now last week we went from a close-up view of Cain and his punishment. We talked about that, how God punished him, what it meant, and then we switched to a wide view of the result of his wickedness in society. So in this class we're going to start with a final close-up view of Adam and Eve and then we're going to take a long view of the seed of promise.
Alright, in chapter four, I'm going to read that in a minute, the story changes its focus from a description of the seed of Satan and the natural development of society, that's where we were last week, the emphasis is not on human boasting and accomplishment, in other words, how man is coping in the world without God. When you read about Cain, you read about him building a city and living in the city. That's a description of how society is muddling along after being ousted from the garden, after the effects of sin are being felt on society in general. We see that man, even without God, still does great things, builds a city, inventions, begins an entire type of society.
And we know that God permits and even provides for these, which is a demonstration of His love and patience. In other words, even those who hate His, even those who deny His, He still provides for them. I mean, think of all the people who do not believe in God in this world. Atheists.
And yet they eat, they drink, they have families, they have moments of joy and great happiness and so on and so forth. God is still, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. God is still blessing people whether they acknowledge His or not.
And so the scriptures describe it. Another kind of man. Last time we were talking about Cain and his people and what was going on.
Now it's going to shift gears, talk about a different kind of man. Who calls upon the name of the Lord? And this will be the beginning of the description of the development of the seed of woman or the seed of promise.
We've only talked about the seed of promise, but we haven't put any names to the seed of promise. How will that seed arrive? How will that person arrive? And so the scriptures, we're going to begin to describe them. The view will shift From that of society and focus on the line of people through whom God will fulfill His eventual promise.
So the world is going on and discoveries are being made. Kings and nations are being formed and kings and nations are rising and falling and all of this is documented by archaeologists and historians. But the Bible will mention some of these in passing. But mostly it will follow just one story, that thread, that golden thread I talked about, and that will be the development of the seed of woman and the eventual coming of Christ.
OK, now we go to chapter 4. There's the preamble. Chapter 4, verse 25 says, Adam had relations with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth. For she said, God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel, for Cain and for the woman of Israel.
Killed him. The word Seth means appointed or substituted. That's what the word means in Hebrew.
And this indicates what Adam and Eve believed this son represented in their lives. Have you never heard of, or perhaps even in your family, family has a child and that child is ill and dies young for whatever tragic reasons. And then a year or two later, whoops, that couple has another child, and somehow it's like, oh, this child, you can never replace that one, but at least we have another child, and this child is healthy, and this child is growing, and they sense that God has blessed them and helped them to have yet another child to replace and to help deal with the suffering of losing the first child.
So this is the feeling. This is the sense of behind what Eve is saying here. He is a replacement for Abel, another person through whom the promise would be fulfilled.
And remember, we said Abel was a righteous man. Abel called on God and Abel was killed. Think now.
They know the promise is going to come through their children. They realize it isn't Cain because his attitude, his personality is sinful and rebellious. So there's Adam and Eve are thinking, well, it'll be Abel. He's the one. We're counting on him.
And all of a sudden Cain kills Abel. Oh, wow. Where's the promise going to come from now?
How is God going to bring us that person? So down the line, another child is born. Notice another interesting thing. This time Eve is the one that names the child, not Adam. Verse 26, it says, to Seth, to him also was born.
And he called his name Enoch. A son was born, sorry. And he called his name Enoch.
Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord. Two generations before they begin calling on the name of the Lord. So the Bible doesn't say what Seth did or who was his wife, so on and so forth, only that he had a son, one of many, but one particular son during whose life An important change was to take place, change not only for the family, but change for society, a change in the sense that there would start being some spiritual leadership that was lacking in that society. Now, Enoch means mortal frailty.
How'd you like to have a name that meant mortal frailty? This, of course, could suggest that during his time He began to recognize the fragility of life and the certainty of death. People lived a long time in those days, right? And so now with Seth, with his son, probably some people are beginning to die off, beginning to die off and they're realizing the curse that God put on them because of the sin is being borne out.
People are actually getting old and dying. So the story of the garden, the diminished abilities they see around them, the death of Abel, the growing hostility in society, they're beginning to recognize the cumulative effects of the sin of Cain and of course originally with Adam and Eve. So it's during this time... The Bible says that men begin to call upon the Lord, aware of spiritual need.
They become aware of spiritual need and the absence of God among them and this drives them to begin to offer worship and prayer to God. So remember we said the four views? So this is a close-up view. You hear what Eve is saying, you kind of are privy to their hopes and their dreams and what they think things mean and so on and so forth.
So Adam and Eve begin to faithfully follow after the Lord and their faith is rewarded with a child, not only to replace Abel, but to maintain their hope of salvation. Remember I said to you the way that Adam and Eve expressed their belief in the promise of God was that they had children, because God said through your children that you would have children. Salvation will come, the seed of promise will come through your children, but if they don't have any children that promise is not going to happen.
So they have children. It was their way of saying, we believe God, despite the difficulty we're going to go ahead and have children. And then Cain is killed, again a disappointment and fear.
They continue to have children until Seth is born and then Seth's son finally begins to be the one that provides that spiritual leadership. And we know that, we even look at our own children, don't we, children and grandchildren? We love them all the same, we raise them all the same, but some of them have a little more spiritual sensitivity, shall we say, than others. Not in every family, but sometimes you notice that between children, between people. All right, so now we're going to go to the generations of Adam.
I want you to remember also that I told you that Genesis, the book of Genesis, you can chop it up in different ways, you know, if you wanted to outline it. For example, you could take Genesis and outline it in the way that we call the overview method. And the overview method of dividing Genesis is breaking it into two pieces.
First piece is the talk about creation and all the result of creation, chapters 1 to 11. And then the second part is the discussion or the description of the chosen people. Abraham and so on and so forth, all the way to the end. That's one way of dividing it. Creation 1 to 11, 12 to 50, the chosen people. Another way to divide it is through what we call the generational division.
There are nine generations of people who actually wrote the book of Genesis. And this is a much more natural division of Genesis. And so how is it divided? Well, at every point, nine points in Genesis tells us that these are the generations of so-and-so. And that's like a marker point of when that section is complete.
So you have the generations of heaven and earth, chapters 1 verse 1 to chapter 2 verse 4. And then the generations of Adam, chapter 2 verse 4 to 5 verse 1. The generations of Noah, 5, 1 to 6, 9. The generations of the sons of Noah, 6-9 to 10-1. Sons of Shem, 10-1 to 11-10. The generations of Terah, 11-10 to 11-27.
Isaiah, 11-27 to 25-29. Jacob, 25-29 to 37-2. And then the sons of Jacob, their generations, their writing, their recollections, if you wish, their record of their time and their life. Chapter 37 verse 2 to Exodus 1.1.
Those are not... This view here, let's see if I can get it, I didn't get it. The view of when you break it down just into two parts, that's a human division. That scholars look at it and say, well, you know, first 11 chapters are about this.
The other chapters are about that. That's the human division. But the generational division is the natural division.
of Genesis. That's how it naturally breaks down. All right, so in Genesis chapter 5, verse 1, we've covered two chapters already, sort of.
Chapter 5, verse 1, we see the end of the writings provided by Adam concerning his times and the development of the seed of woman. OK, so this is... And how do you know that?
Well, in Genesis 5, 1a, it says, this is the book of the generations of Adam. So everything that came before chapter 5, verse 1, Genesis says, okay, this is what Adam provided. This is Adam's record that he provided for us.
Okay, so note that the verse says, The book, this is the book of generations, suggesting that there were not just oral traditions, but that Adam wrote his information and left it to his sons. They were recording God's dealings with them from the very beginning and preserving them for future generations. It's a summary, if you wish, of Adam's life from his beginning. And as the verse says, the book... describes the generations or the origins of Adam.
Remember I told you also this idea of generations, the word means origin. So the origins of Adam, Genesis 1-1 to Genesis 5-1, the origins, the story of Adam. Alright, so now in the next section we begin reading a section that's been prepared by another writer and the next writer of Genesis is Noah. Alright, so let's read.
5, 1, B, and 2. It says, In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them man in the day when they were created. So here we begin a section prepared, as I say, by another writer, Noah. So what does he do? How does he begin?
Well, he summarizes the life of Adam from his creation in the garden. And he provides a direct link. between what has happened in the past and what the present writer is going to be writing about. Isn't that how we do stuff? Even in my lessons I do it.
We did one last week. We start this week. I take the first minute or two to summarize and give you a little idea of what has gone before and then we move forward.
It's exactly what the writer has done here. Let's read verses three to five. It says, When Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. Then the days of Adam, after he became the father of Seth, were 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters.
So all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. So after summarizing his life and establishing the link between what has been written and the present story, The writer pronounces Adam's obituary statement. This is an obituary statement. Having Seth at 130 years doesn't mean they didn't have any other children before this. It simply means that the one through whom the promise, because this is what the Bible is tracking, the one through whom the promise would come was born when Adam was 130 years of age.
A lot of people read this and say, wait a minute, So far all I'm counting here is Cain, Abel and Seth. That's three kids. How'd they populate the world with three kids? Well no, the Bible is just following that thread, just the thread of the seed, the seed of promise.
Lots of other kids, lots of things going on, it's just hitting the high points and the high points as far as the seed of promise is concerned is to follow which lineage will that seed of promise be? promise eventually come from? Well, it's not all the other children that they had, it's this one person called Seth.
It was going to be through Abel, but because of the devil's power and temptation, Cain killed Abel. So now the one through whom the seed would come is dead. So this is why the great joy of Eve, that she gives birth to now another child and in some way knows, This is the child that's going to replace Abel, not because I had a son who died and now I've got another son. No, no, no, no.
I had a son that was going to carry the seed of promise and now I have another son that's going to continue that seed of promise. Adam dies at 930 years of age. Now I'm going to read a long section, but we're going to read it. I think it's important and I'll show you why in a minute. So it said, Seth lived 105 years and became the father of Enoch.
Then Seth lived 807 years after he became the father of Enoch, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Seth were 912 years and he died. Enoch lived 90 years and became the father of Kenan.
Then Enoch lived 815 years after he became the father of Kenan, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were 905 years and he died. Cain lived 70 years and became the father of Mahalalel.
Then Cain lived 840 years after he became the father of Mahalalel and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Cain were 910 years and he died. Mahalalel lived 65 years and became the father of Jared. Then Mahalalel lived 830 years after he became the father of Jared, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Mahalalel were 895 years and he died.
Jared lived 162 years and became the father of Enoch. Then Jared lived 800 years after he became the father of Enoch, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Jared were 962 years and he died. Enoch lived 65 years and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God 300 years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters.
So all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. Methuselah lived 187 years and became the father of Lamech. Then Methuselah lived 782 years after he became the father of Lamech, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.
Lamech lived 182 years and became the father of a son. Now he called his name Noah, saying, This one will give us rest from our work and from the toil of our hands, arising from the ground which the Lord has cursed. Then Lamech lived 595 years after he became the father of Noah, and he had other sons and daughters.
So all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died. Noah was 500 years old, and Noah became the father of Shem, His, and Japheth. All right, long passage, but when you read it through, you see the link that stays from one generation to the other. Notice he says, and he had other sons and daughters, didn't give their names. Doesn't give where they went, how they married, how many kids they had, which cities they lived in, what wars they had.
Not interested in that. Interested only in the names of the individuals that would carry the what? The seed of promise. Only in that lineage. OK.
And so Noah, we said Noah writes this, he lists nine other antediluvian, meaning before the flood, and he says, antediluvian means before the flood, nine antediluvian patriarchs through whom the seed of woman would come. Now there are 10 of these in all. So now that we've read the passage, let's just group the patriarchs together, shall we? And there they are.
The first is Adam. The meaning of his name is man. Year of birth, one.
Year of death, 930. The next patriarch in the lineage now of the seed, Seth. means appointed one. Well, doesn't he match his name pretty well? Year of birth, 130. Year of death, 1042. Next one is Enoch, meaning mortal frailty. Men begin to realize their needs.
Year of birth, 235. Year of death, 1140. Cain. Now it's spelled differently here. It's spelled Cain.
There's two ways to spell his name, K-E-N-A-N or C-A-I-N-A-N. It's the same person. Different Bibles have different spellings.
Cain means smith, lock smith, gold smith, a worker of metal. 325, year of death, 1235. Mahalalel means God be praised, 395 to 1290. The next patriot, Jared, means descent. He's in the descent of the seed. Year of birth, 460. Year of death, 1422. Enoch, dedication.
Year of birth, 622. Year of not death, it says death, but he didn't see death, right? 987, taken up to be with the Lord. Methuselah, his name is interesting, means when he dies, judgment. When he dies, judgment. 687. Year of death 1656. Lamech means conqueror.
Year of birth 874. Year of death 1651. Then Noah, his name means to rest. Year of birth 1056. Year of death 2006. Not like our 2006, obviously, just counting here. Alright, so there's some interesting things about these people here that we have looked at. First of all, these are the patriarchs that carried the seed of the woman, but these are not the only people that existed.
There are thousands and thousands and tens of thousands of people that existed in between. ...between each of these people. Remember, the Bible is only following one story, the lineage of those who will eventually bring the seed of promise, who is Christ on earth.
Second thing, interesting, Adam lived until the time of Lamech, who was Noah's father. So there's only one generation that separated Noah from Adam. So the point saying, well, how did they know?
Well, they lived eight, nine hundred years in those days. And so the story and the information, still very fresh. As a matter of fact, one of the writers talks about the curse on the earth and so on and so forth. He's referring to something that happened a millennia in the past.
And yet it's still very fresh in his mind that the reason that there's so much trouble is because of the curse. And the curse took place during the time of Adam. In verse... verses 21 to 24, they talk about Enoch. A very interesting thing about Enoch.
In Jude, in the New Testament, the book of Jude, just one chapter. In Jude, verses 14 and 15, Jude actually quotes some of the prophecies made by this patriarch, who prophesied of not only the judgment against the world that was coming in Noah's time, but also the second coming of Christ. Very interesting, Enoch. We don't have the book of Enoch, we just have his His name.
We know that He's a true Bible character because He's mentioned in Genesis and then He's mentioned again in the New Testament in the book of Jude. The idea is that at that time in the book of Jude, for some reason, they had access to the prophecies of Enoch, which we don't today. We have access to the prophecies of Isaiah because we have actual manuscripts, not that Isaiah wrote, but copies of manuscripts that he wrote. that they discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls. But Enoch, in our day, we don't have any copies, manuscripts, nothing.
We just have a mention of him by other writers. But at the time of the New Testament, it seems that there were access to Enoch's writings or sayings, the prophet. And so what's interesting about him is that his are the oldest prophecies. that we have a record of.
He prophesies against the people that lived during the time of Noah. I mean, Noah also, a man of righteousness, was warning his present generation about what was going to happen and they needed to repent and so on and so forth. But even before Noah, there was Enoch who was warning the people about a judgment that was coming.
It wasn't just a judgment. coming like right away, in a week or a month. It was still in the near future, but it was still coming. OK. The other idea too is that it says, he walked with God, in that he was a faithful one during a wicked time.
So Lamech was the seventh generation and so was Enoch. It says he was taken to heaven without seeing death. And if you read in Hebrews, New Testament, Hebrews chapter 11 verse... 5 also gives more details about this idea.
Now the antediluvian prophet Enoch not only warned the present generation of judgment, but he also encouraged those who believed before the flood of two things. He encouraged them by reminding them that the seed of promise would be fulfilled. Even way back, this is before the Jews, before everything, way back there Enoch was saying, don't give up, God will fulfill His promise of of the seed. And secondly, the nature of the promise was freedom from death.
That was the nature of the promise. Way back there, that was the promise that was being made. Through Adam, sin came into the world.
Through sin, death came into the world. Enoch is saying, someone will come in the future and will save us from this death. That Enoch was making that prophecy way back when. And Enoch... himself did not taste death.
An interesting type. Remember, we've talked about types. A type, an arch type, is a model, if you wish, or a preview of something that'll come in the future.
They said that John the Baptist was like Elijah. He was in the spirit of Elijah. We say that about some people, some great athlete. Wow, this guy, the way he Swings the bat, he's like Mickey Mantle. Well, we're not saying this guy is Mickey Mantle, Mickey Mantle is dead.
We're saying this guy plays like and has an attitude like Mickey Mantle, power hitter and so on and so forth. Well, this is the same thing. Enoch was in this, he was a type that looked forward to other types who would preach about the kingdom and who themselves would not die as a result.
So what did you have? Elijah was this type during the Old Testament, so before the prophets there was Enoch, he was this type. And then you had Elijah, what was the similarity between Elijah and Enoch? Well Elijah also didn't die, did he?
He was taken up to heaven. OK. And who do you think the third type is that resurrects from the dead in the New Testament?
Well, that's Jesus. And so you have the type of Jesus in the antediluvian period before the flood. That's Enoch.
Preaches righteousness, preaches the kingdom to come, does not die, is taken up to heaven. Then you have Elijah. Same thing. Gives a vision of heaven and so on and so forth.
During the Old Testament time, after the flood, and what happens to His? He's taken up to heaven. And then you have the fulfillment of these two types in Jesus Christ, who says not the kingdom is coming.
He says the kingdom is here. I'm the kingdom. The kingdom is inside of you. And what happens to His?
Yes, He's crucified, but what does He do? He resurrects and goes to heaven. So that's why I've put that Enoch, Elijah, Christ. Those three individuals in three different time periods.
All right. Let's read 25 to 27, shall we? A couple of other things about, oh yeah, we're talking about fact, different facts.
We mentioned Methuselah, right? Methuselah dies in the year of the flood. The year of the flood.
His name implies that God will act at the end of his life, at the end of Methuselah's life. He dies in the year of the flood, as his name suggests. His name suggests there's going to be a judgment. So what happens? He dies and in the year that he dies, the judgment comes.
The flood comes. All right. And let's look at Lamech, verses 28, 32. Lamech was a prophet because he speaks concerning the future in regards to his own son. Of all the children he bore, only Noah survived, and through Noah the promised seed would come. We always think of Noah as the guy in the boat, and that's true, but in a bigger sense, Noah is one of these patriarchs through whom the seed came.
And so the Bible says that during Noah's time, the thoughts and intentions of men were wickedness always. They were sinful. and had God allowed it to go on, people would have just killed each other.
They would have just killed each other off, the nuclear option, because their sole desire was to do wickedness. And so He saves a few to start over again. And the one that is mentioned is Noah.
He's also in that lineage of maintaining the seed of promise. So Noah is born also. And he has children. He doesn't have only these three sons, but again, these three are mentioned because only these sons came aboard the boat. And through these three, the world will be repopulated, but only through one of them, through Shem.
And through Shem come the Semites, the Jews. So through Shem. You see, Lamech, then Noah.
And then Noah has many children, only three get on the boat to repopulate, but only one of those three, Shem, will carry the seed forward into the next generation. So we've now established a kind of a broad stroke, the millennium between Adam and Noah, while tracing the seed of woman through each of the ten patriarchs from Adam all the way to Noah. And that's what this passage that we've talked about. Usually we skip through the generations.
It's boring. I know. When I do my Bible reading and I get to three pages of the son of, the son of, the son of, it's like, OK, does it count as Bible reading if I flip over? Or am I saying, oh, my Bible reading is over for today.
It's like five pages of names. But God doesn't put anything for nothing in the Bible. There's no wasted words or space.
And I wanted to highlight the fact that The reason for this is to trace in one chapter Ten patriarchs that carry the seed that started with Adam to go all the way through to Noah's son. So we had a big view. All right. A couple of lessons here. Usually, as I say, we skip through stuff which is kind of boring, but there's a couple of lessons just from this genealogy that we can find.
Lesson number one is God is patient. God is patient. The world and all it contains He makes in six days, right? But then He waits a thousand years to allow man to go to the end of his rope. It just amazes me.
He waited patiently to see who would respond to His before judging. So I'm talking to me, trust me, as much as I'm talking to any of you. When we are impatient with ourselves because we haven't reached a certain point or we haven't totally overcome a certain sin or whatever and we haven't been able to do it in six days or six weeks or even six years, we need to take comfort in the fact that God is patient with us. He waited a thousand years to get to Noah.
What does Peter say in II Peter chapter 3 verse 9? That God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And if you ever ask the question, what is God waiting on with me? He's waiting for you to repent of whatever it is that you need to repent of.
repent of. A. B. He's waiting to bless you.
That's what He's waiting for. And C. He's waiting to see how you and I, of course, will react to the situation that we've been placed in today. I've said it before.
I'll say it again. It's always about faith. Always.
Always about faith. You find yourself in a situation, you're saying, why am I here? What's going on? Ask yourself this question. OK, how is my faith being tested in this particular situation?
I guarantee you you're going to be able to get a perspective on what is going on. Because let's face it, the bottom, I don't know about you guys, but what I'm about, what I'm working on, is I'm working on remaining faithful until I die. The good thing about getting older is that I'm getting closer to that goal whether I like it or not. Now we're not all as close as Ron is, but I mean not everybody's done that.
fortunate. You know what I'm saying. God is patient. So if God is patient with you, you need to be patient with you too. The one beating you up in the spirit, that's never God doing that, that's you.
That's you doing that to you. God is never the one calling you names. God is never the one putting you down.
God is never the one saying, look, take it or leave it. That's never God talking. That's you talking to you or that's the evil one talking to you, but it's not God. And then two, I only have two lessons. God's plan will win.
despite the sinfulness and schemes of Satan and his seed, the seed of woman survived."Ten patriarchs. God's plan is that those who are the seed of woman, that's us today, will have the experience of Enoch, of Elijah, and of Christ. Those who are faithful will overcome death. God accomplished it then and this is an encouragement to us that He can and He will accomplish it now. We've had three examples of it. It wasn't any easier, in fact, more difficult to believe then than it is now. Those who believed and lived righteously then, the ten patriarchs, they received the promise. And those who believe and live righteously now, the disciples of Jesus, will also receive the promise. Why? Because there's nothing God can't do and what He wants to do is to give each of us eternal life. So we just need to get out of His way and let His give that to us, right? All right, we shall move on at our next meeting.