as we get started here, but we'll go ahead and begin. Let me begin with a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we come to you this morning and thank you for the opportunity that you've given us to gather together in freedom, to worship you as a congregation, to enjoy fellowship with one another and with you through your son Jesus Christ. Lord, we pray that you would open our minds and our hearts to receive your word this morning. We pray that you would help us to see how all of scripture points to Christ, even in the parts of scripture where it may be difficult at first to see how. And we pray that You would refine us through Your Word, causing us to grow in faith, to trust You more and more, to become more and more like Your Son. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. So this past year, I've taken up a hobby of genealogy in my own family. So I'm the one in my generation. It seems like every family has one who's interested, and the rest kind of look at it and say, well, why would you care? Just people who we don't know, names, list of dates, and so on and so forth. But my best friend got me into it through Ancestry.com, and I've enjoyed doing that with my aunt. And one of the reasons why I find it such an enjoyable hobby is that it's more than a list of names, that between each date of birth and date of death, there's a story, that each individual in this line has a story, and as you investigate and you find documents and you put those pieces together, you learn about who they are, and you start to see patterns and themes that repeat themselves across the generations. Some of those patterns, you know, center around ideas of struggle, of trials and tribulations, as well as hopes and joys, pain, and so on and so forth. And you can see in a family, in my own family, I can see how that story becomes my own, how I can relate to some of the challenges that my great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents had in their lives. So, but also, you see pictures of God's faithfulness and His grace. You know, most of my family going back on my father's side were Catholic, and there are many, many stories I found of sin, of broken relationships, of infidelity, of depression, of economic hardship, and so on and so forth. But then I find in my parents' generation, particularly with my father, it comes to faith and how a lot of those things change, how God begins to work to renew things in the family line. And so that's an interesting and encouraging hobby for me as I think about my family's story. And I say that as a way of introduction because this morning we're going to look at Genesis 5, which is the genealogy of Adam. And oftentimes we think the same way about the genealogies of the Bible. We see these lists of names and we say, as one Sunday school teacher said to me some years ago, I honestly don't know what to do with these passages. I don't think there's really anything we can gain from them. And I think that what we'll find as we look at Genesis 5 is that the genealogies of scripture also tell us a story. They tell us a story about ourselves, about the way life is in a fallen world, the effects of sin, the effects of Adam's sin, and how it impacts our own lives. But they also tell us a story of God's faithfulness and the promises, the hope that he offers. So if you've found Genesis 5, probably page four in some of your Bibles, Follow along with me and I'll read from verse one to the end of the chapter. This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female, he created them and blessed them and named them man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth. The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh. Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died. When Enosh had lived 90 years, he fathered Kenan. Enosh lived after he fathered Kenan 815 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died. When Kenan had lived 70 years, he fathered Mahalalal. Kenan lived after he fathered Mahalalel 840 years and had other sons and daughters, thus all the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died. When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he fathered Jared. Mahalalel lived after he fathered Jared 830 years and had other sons and daughters, thus all the days of Mahalalel were 895 years, and he died. When Jared had lived 162 years, he fathered Enoch. Jared lived after he fathered Enoch 800 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he fathered Lamech. Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech 782 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died. When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters, thus all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died. After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth. When we look at this text, just a reminder of where we've been. Last week, we were in Genesis 4, and we looked at Cain and Abel. And then we looked at Cain's ancestry, his own line, which is recorded in the latter half of Genesis 4. And we saw a picture of a man who built himself a life apart from God. See, after Cain sinned, he does not go to God in repentance. He does not admit his sin, rather, He is exiled from the face of God. He's sent east and made a wanderer on the earth. And they make impressive technological advancements, he and his offspring, that they build cities. They're known for starting musical instruments and making tents. And yet, there's an increase in sin in his line. It comes then to another Lamech in Cain's line, who boasts of his sin, who is the first polygamist, who tells his two wives, I've killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is 77-fold. And so we see a progression of sin from Adam to Cain to Lamech, where Adam tries to hide and obscure his sin. At least he recognizes what he had done is wrong. And Cain, likewise, but rather than obscuring it, simply denies it. Now here's Lamech boasting, boasting in his sinfulness. And so it gives us a picture of a world full of sin, if you will, a world where people are living as they please with no regard for what God has said, with no regard to worship Him or to honor Him. And I began last week by saying that these texts remind us of the faithfulness of God in a fallen world. That in spite of sin in our world and in our own lives, what we see is that God remains faithful, and he continues to fulfill his promises, to work out his promises for the good of those who love him. And so we came to the end of that passage, and we first read of Adam having another son, Seth. And when Seth is born, we see the words of Eve, she says, the Lord has appointed for me an offspring, or a seed, in the place of Abel, for Cain killed him. And in those words, she recalls the words of God in Genesis 3.15, where God made a promise as he cursed the serpent, saying that between you and the woman, and between your offspring, I will put enmity, and he will bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. There's a promise of victory, in the offspring of the woman. And we know that that promise ultimately comes to its fulfillment in Christ. But they, at the time, did not have a clear picture of what that would look like. All that she knew was that Cain had proven himself, not her offspring, but by his character, as the Apostle John tells us in 1 John 3, proved himself to be an offspring of the devil, of the serpent. Because Satan being a murderer and a liar, Cain followed his ways. And so then at Abel's dead and in his place, God appoints an offspring, appoints Seth, whose name recalls that promise. And so then Seth has a son, Enosh, and we read, then at that time men began to call upon the name of the Lord. In other words, we see the beginning of faith, a faithful line of those who are going to worship God and are going to follow him through Seth's line from Adam to Noah. Well, as we come to Genesis 5 then, we revisit the birth of Seth. And Genesis 5 reminds us of what's gone before. It takes us back to Genesis 1. In Genesis 1, 26, we see the creation of mankind. And God says, let us make man in our own image and our own likeness. And he gives him dominion over all that God has made. God also says that God made them male and female and he blesses them and says, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And so we see two, really two blessings there. The first one, the idea that he'd be made in the image and likeness of God. One scholar has argued and shown that It presupposes a covenant, the covenant that we confess in our confession between God and Adam, that it communicates the idea of a relationship between Adam and God, a relationship that Adam would be the son of God. Not in the sense that we refer to Christ as the son of God, but as Luke in Luke 3.38 concludes Christ's genealogy, the son of Adam, the son of God. This is the idea that he would live as God's son, and that's his relationship to God, and his relationship to creation would be one of a ruler. Thus God gives him dominion over all that he has made, that he would rule as a faithful son over the things that God has made. And so we won't go through all the ways that we can show that from Genesis 1, 26 and the following verses, but just note to say that the idea there is one of relationship. and also a blessing in the dual gender that God made man be fruitful and multiply. That follows God blessed them. God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. And the reason why that's important is as we come to Genesis 5, we're reminded of those things. This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Again, communicating the sense of sonship, the sense of relationship. Male and female, he created them and he blessed them and named them man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth. And so those ideas then carry on to this next generation. Why is that important? Because in the wake of the fall, something of the relationship between God and man is severed because of sin. And yet, God's intent of relationship and of blessing is reaffirmed here after the fall. It will be reaffirmed again after the flood as God will say to Noah, man was made in the image of God, reaffirming this central truth about our nature. But what it does is it assures us that still, in spite of man's sin, in spite of man's rebellion, God intends good for his people. And so Genesis 5 begins by reminding us of those blessings that we saw at creation, that they continue forth in spite of Adam's sin and the sin of his offspring Cain. So, when Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and he named him Seth. As you look at that passage, I'll just put it to you all, What are the things that stand out immediately as you read through the list of the genealogy? What are some of the things that are very striking? Anyone go ahead and, the time, absolutely. So the long lives I think is what you're pointing to is that these guys are living 800, 900 some odd years, right? Sure, 130 years or 65 years I think is the lowest number that I remember. Yeah, absolutely, Adam had other children. Well, we don't know, I mean the text doesn't tell us, but we assume, I mean, because Cain has a wife, right? Yeah, so we can assume, I mean, you're thinking a guy lives 900 years. There's a lot of time for, you know, many, many children. And your children to have many, many children. And so there's a lot of time for the human race to expand from two exponentially to many people. My old pastor said that when the flood came, it was a lot of people. Sure. It wasn't just a few hundred thousand. It was something like millions of people at that time. Because God said to multiply. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. We imagine it might fizzle out. That's right. That's right. So the long life spans, and it's not clear, in my opinion, it's not clear whether the son that's first listed is the firstborn son. In the case of Seth, it's clearly not the firstborn son. Some commentators argue that after that it would be convention for it to be the firstborn, but I'm not sure that that's the case. In the end, though, It's, sometimes what we need to say as we look at the text is just recognize what scripture doesn't tell us and not go, try to go and fill in the gaps and focus on what it does tell us. At the very least, we're struck by the length of the life, by how long until the son that's listed is born, and I think that that really stands out to people on their first reading. What else kind of strikes you as you, as we read the text and as you look at it yourself, what else really stands out? in his own likeness. Yeah. Yeah, so the idea with image and likeness, just to kind of give you the sense of it, is, you know, there's a lot of interpretations across church history, and many people will say that image and likeness are the same. Many people will say they're different. Many people say it shows that we're like God. I do think that the image, the idea of image, is related to the idea of the way he relates to creation as ruler, and the idea of likeness is the way that he relates to God as son. And so it refers to the relationship and the, if you will, the office that he's placed in. But I by no means would say that that must be the interpretation that we all come to. Persis, you had something you wanted to share. And he died. That's right. So we see, I think that's the other thing, is we get bored by the repetition, right? He had other sons and daughters, he lived this many years, and he died, and yet the repetition's important. You see, and he died, and he died, and he died, and you think back to, well, what does God say in Genesis 2? If you eat of the fruit, in that day you will surely die. And what does he say in Genesis 3 to Adam? From dust you came, and to dust you shall return. So we see that then seen in all the generations. And he died, and he died, and he died. What else stands out? Go ahead. Yeah, so that's a good point. Yeah, I did some math, too, and so just to explain here a couple things about genealogy and the conventions. There's disagreement as to whether when he says, for example, Seth lived so many years and he had a son, Enosh, and fathered Enosh, whether that means he fathered Enosh or he fathered a descendant of Enosh. And the basis for that, among others, is that if you look at Matthew chapter 1 and the genealogy of Christ, there's clearly generations skipped. And it's not to say that it's inaccurate. It's because Matthew has a purpose in giving three segments of 14 generations. It fits into his literary purpose. And just to not leave you hanging there, In Hebrew, there's gematria is the idea where each letter has a value assigned to it, a number. And the numbers of David, the number of David's name then would be 14. And so it's sort of a subtle way in Matthew of saying, hey, this is the son of David, this is the son of David. So he omits some of the generations, which we could then go back to Chronicles or some of the other genealogies and we can see that, well, you know, there's two generations skipped there. But I don't know that that's clear. I don't think that Genesis I'm not sure that it does that. Some people say it does, and again, I don't think we need to answer that. So if you assume no gaps and you add up the years, Methuselah dies in the flood, or the year of the flood, maybe before it, who knows? Lamech, shortly before. If you assume no gaps, Lamech is born when Adam is still alive. That's all interesting to think about and try to put together the history, absolutely. And I asked that, I wanted to gauge what's striking to everybody because You know, over the years as I've read it, I've had a very similar interaction with the text. We're captivated and curious about the historical, what happened back then. We want to put it all together. And I think, though, what we need to see is that there are other things that the author wants us to see that are important as well. And not that those things are not important, but particularly the historical reconstruction. But I don't know that the text gives us enough to fully, to provide a convincing reconstruction of history. Rather, there's the repetition, as Persis pointed out, and he died. And that's a real strong emphasis, because in the midst of it, Who do we see who doesn't die? Enoch. And I think that that should really strike us. That should really hit us in the face and we say, well, Enoch didn't die. And we'll come back to that idea. I really want to focus in on that and hone in there as we come to the end. Someone else had a comment? So the long life, I'll come back to that point. I wanted to say something about it. Last week I talked about affirming the historical truth of Genesis. And my reasoning is simple. Genesis presents itself as a historical narrative. Genesis is the word of God. We should trust that God's word is true always. Therefore, we take it as historically true. That's how I reason through that. And the point of it presenting as a historical narrative is that some people will say, well, you know, these long lives, it's just clearly exaggerated, clearly not true. I took a course on the background of the Ancient Near East once and my professor Eugene Merrill had a very helpful comment on this point because there's another text from that time from Mesopotamia. It's a list of kings from Sumeria and it lists their lives as 30, 40,000 years. And then it says, then the flood washed over the earth. Interesting that you have another text that refers to a universal flood. And then you've got a list of kings, and they lived 1,900 years, something like that. So much shorter, but still exaggerated. And my professor said, you know, that's clearly exaggeration. We know that that can't be. But it also suggests that there were people back then, when this text was written, who had a memory of people who did live very long lives. And there's no reason why we should look at that and say, well, obviously that can't be true, right? Why would we assume that that can't be true? Genesis 6-3 explains very clearly why people don't live 900 years anymore. You look at Genesis 6-3, I'll read from verse 1. The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years. And so God then puts a cap on the life of mankind at 120 years because of the wickedness and the proliferation of sin in the world. We look at these long lives and we sometimes maybe think jealously, I'd like to live 900 years. There's so many things I'd love to accomplish and Persis is shaking her head and I agree. I don't want, don't give me 900 years. I think of 900 years, 800 of them in a walker. Not what I want, right? But there's, I joke, but there's truth to it, right? Because it's a life of, how does Lamech describe it? Toil, trouble, pain. It's a life where you have people who are murderous, as we saw on Cain's line, people who steal, people who lie and who are proud and arrogant and, you know, mistreat others. That's the lot of Adam's race in a sinful fallen world. Imagine 900 years of that in your own life. 900 years of that in my own life. I surely want relief from that. And so we look at those long lives and, you know, some people, you know, even on a day you read about extremely wealthy people who are living, who are focused on trying to find a way to cheat death, to prolong their life. And I say, what a hopeless life that they think all their hope is here in prolonging their life and avoiding death. So just that word on long life and long days. Is long life the best possible life is the question. Well, coming back then to Enoch. In thinking back to creation, God's original intent in creation was one where man would live in relationship with him, where man would rule as a servant king over God's creation, where man would be holy before God and would walk with him, as God would walk with Adam and Eve in the garden. And then also we see an intention of rest. Richard Barcellos in his book Getting the Garden Right explains that. in God's rest in Genesis 2, 1 through 3, there's an implicit invitation for Adam to then work toward that rest, to enter into that rest by obediently fulfilling the command to fill the earth, be fruitful, and multiply. And so there's this kind of invitation, come into my rest. We see that in the book of Hebrews, too. How the author of Hebrews keys on the fact that all of the six days of creation, and there's evening, there's morning, that day. But then the seventh day doesn't have an evening and morning formula. It's just there was a seventh day and God rested. And so the author of Hebrews speaks about there being an eternal rest toward which, in which we're hoping. He then goes on to, he cites a psalm where the psalmist speaks to, David speaks to there being still a promise of rest while they're in the promised land. And there the author of Hebrews argues Because of that, Joshua did not bring them into the rest. When he brought them into the land, they did not enter the rest that was ultimately intended. Otherwise, David would not have, being in the land, spoken of a day far off. And so you see this kind of trajectory in scripture of looking toward rest, a hope of rest. And we see it here in Genesis 5 at the end of the chapter with Lamech's words. where he invests his hope of rest in his son Noah. And so you see these things, you see rest, you see life, you see relationship in the garden. Those things are severed by the fall. And last week I noted how we asked the question, is a relationship with God possible outside of Eden? Is a relationship with God possible outside of Eden? And asking that question, if we put ourselves in the shoes of those people who are living at that time, they don't have all of the revelation that we have that shows us how we might have that relationship. But they do know about Abel, presumably, and they know that here's a man who came to God with an offering and was accepted. There's a suggestion of yes, there's a relationship that's possible. The question of how, how is that relationship possible? The author of Hebrews interprets that passage saying that Abel was accepted because he offered the sacrifice in faith. That it was the attitude of the heart, that he came to God in faith. And so there's a possibility of restoring that relationship for the one who walks with God by faith. We look at that and we recognize, however, that Abel's dead. And I say that because there's another question, is there a possibility of life outside the garden? I already asked it and I repeat it again, is there a possibility of life outside the garden? And the answer, if we read Genesis 5, is very clearly yes. How do we know? Because of Enoch. Because Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him. And so we look at all those things that strike us immediately, the length of days, the fact that people die and they die and they die. And oftentimes we sort of walk over Enoch, I remember as a child, reading that text and thinking, what is that about? What does that tell me? And why Enoch and why not anyone else? Well, only Elijah later on in scripture is translated in the same way. And I think that the answer is that Enoch was taken in order to show us that, yes, life is possible outside the garden. The question is, how did Enoch then find that life? In the text we read, Enoch had lived 65 years. He fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah, 300 years. Three centuries, the entire duration, Enoch walked with God. The last person who's described in that way is Adam, where God would walk with him in the garden. We'll see later on in Scripture other people who walk with God. Noah, for example, it's said that Noah walked with God, another man who was righteous by faith, that he received that righteousness from God that comes by faith. another man who was saved from the midst of an evil generation. And then we see as God visits Abraham and commands him, walk before me, walk before me, repeatedly throughout Genesis. This idea of walking with God, of one who enjoys that kind of close relationship with God in all the days of his life, 300 years, and he was not. for God took him. Now turn over to Hebrews 11 and I want to, we looked at it last week and I want to come back here because the author of Hebrews, even though Enoch only has a couple verses here, there's not much material about him, he still keys on him as one of the early examples of a faithful life. beginning in verse 1, the author says this, 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. And we looked at the kind of logic that the author is using, is that the fact that God accepted Abel and his sacrifice is conclusive that Abel offered it in faith. For no one can, he goes on to say, God committing, I'm sorry, verse six, and without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him. So we saw that with Abel, and then we come to Enoch. By faith, this is verse five, by faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death and he was not found because God had taken him. Now before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God. I think what he's referring to there is the fact that he walked with God, is the commendation that God would come into that close relationship with Enoch as the proof of his commendation. He was commended as righteous, he was commended as one of faith. And then, again, that same logic. Without faith it is impossible to please him. And the same belief. How could Abel and how could Enoch have come to God without all the revelation that we have? They believe that he exists. They believe that he rewards those who seek him. So they came to him, and God, indeed, rewarded their faith. And so with that principle, scripture interprets scripture, we can state with confidence that the reason why Enoch was accepted by God was because Enoch came to God in faith. We'll see that same thing as you read on. I'll leave it to you and your own studies to read on in Genesis 11 and see how he reasons to show that Noah lived by faith, though the text never explicitly says Noah lived by faith. And then Abraham, where the text does explicitly say Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, and then shows examples of his faithful life throughout all of his sojournings in the land of promise. So we see these pictures in Enoch's life and Abel's lives and the lives of Abraham later and so on of people who live by faith in the midst of a fallen world and how God shows his faithfulness to fulfill his promises and to graciously accept children of Adam, people born in sin. It's not that Enoch was perfect. It's not that Enoch never sinned. Can't be the answer. It's that Enoch walked by faith. One other point I forgot to mention, and I'll just add this to it. There are ten generations here. I said that earlier. Enoch is the seventh. And there's, you know, there's a sense of completion, a sense of perfection in the number of seven that we see symbolized throughout scripture. And in these lists and generations, in genealogies, oftentimes the seventh generation, Victor Hamilton explains this in his commentary that the seventh generation is oftentimes an important figure. So just another reason why I argue that Enoch is central to this narrative here, that he's someone that really should strike us and we should key on as an example of how can one walk with God, how can one find life in the midst of a sinful, dying world. Okay, so we come to Lamech as we draw toward an end and we look at his words. Lamech had lived 182 years. He fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. Oftentimes in the Old Testament, just as a note, the names that they give there, when there's a meaning or purpose ascribed to a name like Seth or Noah, it's not necessarily that they use the word. It's more that there's a similar sound, an assonance, if you will, that the word for rest sounds like the word for Noah. And so that is why the name is chosen, not that Noah itself means rest. So just an interesting point, not that it's extremely important. It's obvious from the text that however, whatever the reason for choosing the name Noah, Lamech saw in it a reminder of rest. So he says, out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, recalling Genesis 3 and what God had said to Adam, because you have done this, and we'll turn back there so I'll read the words exactly. Because you have, this is verse 17 of Genesis 3, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you are taken, for you are dust and to dust you will return. And you remember the same idea after Cain kills his brother Abel. The Lord says in Genesis 4, looking in verse 12, when you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. So there's that repetition and kind of an increase of the curse of the ground, in particular for Cain and his line. But you see that in Adam, and Lamech recalls that. This is why Tom had mentioned earlier the overlap in lifetimes and how it's If we assume no gaps, it's possible that Lamech was born while Adam was still alive. Interesting to think about, but at least we can say that Lamech had knowledge. He had knowledge of the curse, of what God had said in Genesis 3. I think that's helpful because at least through this line they're communicating the things that God has said, the truth that God has said, and also maybe a subtle indication that this is a line of people who have faith, who seek to be worshipers, as we saw at the outset of it, at that time men began to call upon the name of the Lord. How much Lamech knew is not clear, and it seems at the least we can say that he's misplaced his hope. He's misplaced his hope. Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. Perhaps an irony there that what kind of relief will come in Noah's life? We look toward the flood, when God will destroy all living flesh on earth, but preserve Noah and his family through it, through the flood with the ark. And then we'll begin again with Noah and his family, a new Adam, if you will. A world that, again, will descend into sin and rebellion. But I don't think that that's what Lamech had in mind. At the least, though, we know that he's looking for rest or relief from the painful toil that is characteristic of life. And I think back to what I said at the beginning, talking about my own study of my own genealogy and my own history, and my dad's line, for instance, they were all machine shop workers from Waterbury, Connecticut, the brass capital of the 1800s, and they were, you know, working people had hard lives. I mentioned that there were divorces, there was infidelity, there wasn't really any sign that these people were believers. You see suicides and you see censuses where from one census to another, My father's great, great, great grandfather is married to one person, then the next person, and so on. And all these characteristics of life in a fallen world, the same as however many thousand years ago in Adam's line. I think if you all looked at your own story, you'd say the same thing. And yet, we also, being here in America, we have stories of hope. People coming here with the hope of a better life. My great-great-great-grand-uncle wrote a book about his family coming from Norway because his mother's aunts wrote them and said, Minnesota's great, come here. And they came in search of a better life and, you know, they built a life, but they had the same trouble and the same struggles. You know, putting their hope in, well, if I change my scenery, if I search for something different. And so you kind of see an illustration that's similar to what Lamech is saying here. Life is painful. Life is difficult. Life ends in death. But maybe there's some hope of rest in this son that's born. Well, of course, as I've alluded, Noah doesn't bring that rest. Just another lineage after Noah of sin and of rebellion. But a son of Noah does, and so if you look at Matthew 11, 28, we'll come to a close here. How does Genesis 5 point us to Christ? How does Genesis 5 answer the question, how does God show his faithfulness in a fallen world? How does God reveal himself to be a God that fulfills his promises? Many, many years later, he sends a son. Matthew chapter 11. Jesus, in the context of a Pharisaic religion that called people to work in order to earn their salvation, to adhere to the law with perfection, Jesus says in verse 20, 25 and onward, at that time Jesus declared, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. No one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Come to me. all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Lamech put his hope in his son, Noah, but we ought to put our hope in the far more distant son, Christ. He's the one who can truly offer us rest, saying, come to me You who toil, you who are heavy laden, take my yoke. Now Christ is a heavy yoke to bear, as one has written, but it's not It's not that it's heavy for us because he bears so much of it, you see. When he invites us to take his yoke, he's inviting us to receive the gracious gift of salvation that he offers, that he purchases for us by his own work on our behalf. That's why he offers us a yoke that can be characterized as restful, as one that gives us rest. My yoke is easy, my burden is light. Well, again, seeing how Christ is the one who fulfills Lamech's hope of rest and our hope of rest, Revelation 14, 13. And this one is near and dear to me because it's the verse that my father-in-law's pastor expounded at his funeral. And just this one verse, the Apostle John writes, and I heard a voice from heaven saying, write this, blessed are the dead, who die in Christ, in the Lord, excuse me, blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on. Blessed indeed, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them. And in that one verse, such a striking thing to say that the dead are blessed. We see that, our inheritance from Adam again and again, and he died and he died and he died. And yet for those who die in Christ, there's a blessing of rest. and a blessing of life. And so when we read Genesis 5, we look at it, don't look at it as just how can I reconstruct the history of a primeval world? How can I pursue my curiosity about what life might have been like back then? But look at it also as how does this point me to, how does this show me my problem? that I'm a son of Adam, a daughter of Adam, that I've inherited death from him, that I've inherited his sinful nature from him, and yet if I find my hope and my joy and my trust in Christ, then like Enoch, I'll have life. If I trust in him alone, then though I die, I will find rest with God forever. Let's pray. Father in heaven, your word brings life to us. Your word of promise of Christ who shed his blood for us is the way that we, it's all our hope. And we come to you this morning and recognize ourselves as sinful, as children of Adam, And yet, by your mercy, you call us your own children. You've adopted us into your family that we may be children of God. What a precious promise this is. And so we ask, Lord, that you would enable us to walk with you. as children, all our days trusting you by faith, as so many who have gone before us showed us what it means to live a life of faith, not looking to them as our hope, but looking to them as reminders to look to Christ as our hope, as you've said through the author of Hebrews. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity again to study your word, and we ask that you would write these truths on our heart and on our minds. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.