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But anyway, where was I? I'm
thankful for all of you. I really mean that. It's really
an encouragement to know that there's a church that I know
personally, all the people, and that I know that you're praying
for me. I don't know how to describe the encouragement, so I'll just
leave it at that. It's very encouraging, and I'm very thankful for you
all. But just an update on what's going on at the center. Marty, he had shoulder surgery.
I think you all know that. He's recovering well from that.
In fact, yesterday we had a board meeting and he said that it was
the first day he was able to lift up his soda that he had
with his arm that he had surgery on. He was real proud of that.
So it's getting better. And then I'm sure you all are
familiar with Andy Farrier, our missionary that we have up in
Michigan. He has cancer, and I think we were told it was stage
4 skin cancer. So I'm not super familiar with
all the details of that, but just pray for Andy and his wife
that the Lord would provide for them during this time. And Andy
has been meeting with a young guy up there in Michigan who
is interested in Jewish missions. So just pray, his name is Alex,
so pray for him that their meetings would go well. And then for myself,
I've been I've been trying to build some relationships with
Jewish people in the St. Louis area. On Tuesdays, every
Tuesday, I'm at the Jewish Community Center at this bagel shop that
they just opened called Lefty's Bagels. And so I sit there, and
I'm still in school, so I'm at Brooks, and I'm taking Hebrew
and Greek and church history and economics class this semester,
but I sit there, in the bagel shop, and I have my Hebrew Bible,
and I'm studying it for my class. We're translating Ruth right
now. So I'm sitting there with my Hebrew Bible open here, and
pencil and paper here, and I'm writing down in Hebrew the book
of Ruth. And people stop and ask questions. And there's one of the ladies
there. I haven't seen her in a few weeks,
because I think they changed up the schedules, and they're
new people. But she stopped and asked, what
are you doing there? Why are you doing that? And I
was able to tell her, well, I'm studying scripture because that's
what I do. I'm a Bible teacher, and I love
it. It teaches me how to have a right relationship with God.
And I was able to have a really good conversation with her. And
she said, oh, that's wonderful. I'm a linguist. And she said
that her specialty is in Arabic, and she knows modern Greek. And
her husband is Israeli, so she speaks Hebrew. And so every time
I go in there, although not the last few times because she is
not there right now, but she would always ask, hey, how's
your Hebrew class going? How's your translation work going?
And so that's been good. And I'm noticing some of the
regulars that are there every time I'm there, and I'm trying
to have conversations with them. So pray that the Lord would open
doors there while I'm there. Yeah, pray that the Lord would
help me with my classes. This is the last difficult semester
that I have at Brooks. And it's scary. And actually,
there's one more thing, and it'll kind of transition into what
we're going to be looking at today. I had the privilege last, this
previous Monday, I was invited to this Bible study. And I didn't
know anything about it whatsoever, other than I met this guy at
a pickleball game. And I was asking him about where
he goes to church, and he told me, and I said, I think I know
the people there. I think the principal of the
elementary school I went to goes to that church. And so I wanted
to go and see him, and he said he had a Bible study that he
was going to the next day on Monday. And I said, well, can
I come? And he said, sure, that'd be great. And so I show up, and
I wasn't sure what to expect. I thought it was going to be
just the church's weekday Bible study. It wasn't. It was a bunch
of young men my age and younger, and they just were getting together
all on their own to study scripture. One of them leads every week.
He teaches something, and then he sort of alternates throughout
the group of someone studies something and brings a message
for the group. And it was just really encouraging. And at the
end, you know, they asked me, what do you do? So I told them.
And at the end, they had a whole bunch of questions that they
wanted to ask me about Israel and what the Bible says about
the Jewish people. And it was just this really, really strange
set of circumstances that had me there, and then it seemed
like the Lord wanted me there to answer a lot of questions
about Israel. And then I found out that most of these people,
these young guys, were students or children of teachers I had
in elementary school. It was kind of interesting. But
anyway, one of the questions that Eli asked me at this Bible
study was, We're supposed to support Israel.
The Bible says that God loves Israel. But on the other hand,
we see that, you know, they don't always do the right thing. They
sometimes do evil things. But we're supposed to support
Israel. But they do evil things. How does that work? And it was
a really good question. And the basic answer that I told
him was, well, right now, the nation of Israel, the Jewish
people as a whole, they don't know the Lord. They're a wicked
people. And wicked people do wicked things. That's how it is. But at the
same time, we're supposed to love the nation of Israel with
the same kind of love that God loves Israel. And I brought him
to Romans 11. And you can turn there if you
want. I should have had it marked, but I didn't. But Romans 11,
verse 28. Romans 11, verse 28 says, from
the standpoint of the gospel, they are enemies for your sake.
This is talking about the Jewish people, the nation of Israel,
the people of Israel. From the standpoint of the gospel,
they are enemies for your sake. But from the standpoint of God's
choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers. And
so that's the tension that's there when it comes to the question
of what do we as the church do with the Jewish people, with
the nation of Israel? Well, on the one hand, there
are enemies because they oppose the gospel. But on the other
hand, we love them because God loves them. But why does God
love them? It's not because they're good. It's not because they're
doing the right things. It's not because they make the
best choices. It's because He chose them. It's
a love of choice. It doesn't have anything to do
with what they do. It's entirely on God. And when
it says that they are beloved for the sake of the fathers,
what does that mean? Well, that's referring to the fact that God
made covenants with them. God made promises to them. And
it's not about them keeping anything. It's not about them doing righteousness
because they don't have any righteousness. It's entirely about the fact
that God made promises to this people and he chose to love them.
And so that's what we're going to be looking at today. Kind
of. It's going to be a little different.
I think it says Genesis 12, one through three. We're going to
get there. We're not going to spend a whole lot of time going
through the text itself of Genesis 12, 1-3. What I want to focus
on today is, why is Genesis 12, 1-3 important? We're going to
be talking about the context of Genesis 12, 1-3. So let's
read that, Genesis 12, 1-3, which is, this is what Paul is referring
to when he talks about how this people is beloved for the sake
of the fathers. Genesis 12, one through three.
Now the Lord said to Abram, go forth from your country and from
your relatives and from your father's house to the land, which
I will show you. And I will make you a great nation
and I will bless you and make your name great. And so you shall
be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless
you. And the one who curses you, I will curse. And in you, all
the families of the earth will be blessed. So that this is the
beginnings of the Abrahamic covenant. And this is the launching off
point for pretty much the rest of scripture. All of the other
wonderful things that happen in scripture, all of the promises,
all of the blessings, they come from this. But why is this here? Why, what is, who is this Abram
guy? Why is God telling him to leave
the place where he's at? What is this great nation that
he's going to be making? And when it says all the families
of the earth, what does that mean? You know, so why? Well, first I want to ask you,
how does God interact with humanity? Well, first of all, there's humanity
itself. There's us, people, all of humanity,
all the people that have come from Adam and Eve, right? Deals
with us on a global scale, all people. He interacts with us
that way. But there are different levels
beneath that. Let's talk about the divisions.
There's all humanity, all people, everywhere, all time. But then
you have the individual. That's me. That's you. That's
you. That's you. That's you. The individual
level. God interacts with us on the
individual level. But what's in between? So you start with
all of humanity. What's below that? Well, there's
nations. There's the different political
units that are made up of things. But there's families. There's
tribes. And amongst that, there are different
cultural groups. You have different races of people. You have different people from
all different places in the earth. But you have nations. You have
families. or tribe would be a better word. Tribes, you have families,
like the nuclear families within each tribe. You have the individual. God is working on saving all
of it. He's not focusing just on the
individual. He's not focusing just on all
of humanity, all people everywhere. God is in the business of saving
all things. Now, not all people everywhere
are going to be saved, but God is focused on restoring a whole
complete world. And because not just humanity
itself, above that is the creation itself, the universe, the earth
and all that's in it. God is saving all of that and
everything in between. And we see that in Genesis 1,
God made all these things. And what we're going to do is,
we're going to be going through just like a bird's eye view of
Genesis 1 through 11, or 1 through 12, 1 through 3. And we're going
to notice some patterns. And we're going to notice some
concepts, all with the intention of finding out why is Genesis
12, 1 through 3, important. Does that make sense? Okay. Let's go. Let's see if I can
do it in the correct amount of time. So if you go to Genesis
1, it's at the very beginning of your Bible. It took me a while
to find it. But it says, you know, in the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth. The earth was foremost in void,
and darkness was over the surface of the deep. And the Spirit of
God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said,
let there be light, and there was light. God saw that the light
was good, and God separated the light from the darkness, and
God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.
And there was evening, and there was morning one day. And so you see the beginning
of the physical world. You see the beginning of the
world as we know it, the universe, the earth, creation. So you start,
you have nothing but God. And he decides to create this,
the creation, the universe, the earth. Why? For his own good
pleasure. He had no need to do it other
than because he wanted to. And he creates it, and you'll
see throughout Genesis 1, we're not going to read all of it for
time's sake, but he creates things, and he says it's good. And he
divides things, and within the divisions and the proper order
of things, the order of creation, it's good. It's without flaw. And then you get down to... Then
God said, God created man in his own image. In the image of God, He created
them. Male and female, He created them.
God blessed them. And God said to them, be fruitful
and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and rule over
the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over
every living thing that moves on the earth. Then God said,
Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on
the surface of all the earth, and every tree that has fruit
yielding seed, and it shall be food for you. Into every beast
of the earth, and every bird of the sky, and everything that
moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green
plant for food, and it was so. And God saw all that he had made,
and behold, it was very good. And there was evening, and there
was morning the sixth day. So here, if you're thinking about
those levels of things, you've got creation. He made the heavens
and the earth. Then he started populating it.
Then you've got humanity. That's us, man, right here, created
in verse 26. Why were we created? What's our
purpose? Well, we were made in the image
of God. That's our purpose. We're image
bearers. We are created to reflect, to represent the God of the universe
to his creation. That's our job. And within that
job, we're to rule over it. Adam, this man that he made,
was a king, and he was to be the king over all the earth.
He was supposed to cover it, he was supposed to be fruitful,
multiply, it says here, and he was supposed to subdue it. He
was supposed to take control, all the while representing the
God that made him to that creation. That's what we're here to do.
But what happens? And also, I want to point out
some things that we're going to see throughout the next few
chapters. This idea of being fruitful and multiplying and
fill the earth, that's really important. So just put a pin
in that. And then you'll notice that God,
he creates all these things in the earth, the trees, the plants,
the animals. He creates them with the ability
to reproduce. God makes an earth that he wants
to continue. He wants it to be able to go
on. But keep in mind that mankind
is supposed to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth. And then chapter two, it focuses
in on the creation of man. And we won't spend too much time
there, but what we get out of chapter two is that God placed
man in a place that was ripe for living. I mean, there was
food, there was water, there was lots of natural resources.
It was a place ready for mankind to flourish. Not just physically,
but also intellectually. I mean, there are all these sorts
of things, resources, building blocks for mankind, for Adam
to go through there and discover how to use them, how to put things
together, how to build in this world, how to live life, and
how to interact with this world. It's the perfect place. But then
we get to chapter three. things change. And it says that,
starting in verse 1, Now the serpent was more crafty than
any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he
said to the woman, Indeed has God said you shall not eat from
any tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent,
from the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat. But from
the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden God
has said you shall not eat from it, or touch it, or you will
die. And the serpent said to the woman, you surely will not
die. For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes
will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and
evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was
desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate.
And she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. And then
the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they
were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loin
coverings. Mankind sinned, they disobeyed
God. And it was done after being tempted
by the serpent. Well, what do they do about it?
What does mankind do about it? And I think it was either the
last time I was here or the time before that, we looked at Psalm
32, where David, he sins, and he says that he covered up his
sin, he hid it, and the Lord disciplined him. Because he was
trying to cover it up. He was trying to do something
about it himself. And all it brought was more pain
and suffering. But what he needed to do, in
Psalm 32, he says, I confessed my sin to the Lord, and he forgave
me. And he flourishes after he lets the Lord do something about
it. Here, mankind, and this is one of those things that I want
you to put a pin in it, mankind tries to do something about the
problem, whatever the problem is, here it's sin, they try to
do something about it themselves. and it doesn't work. Here it
says that, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the
garden in the cool of the day, and man and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of God among the trees of the garden. And
the Lord called to man and said to him, where are you? And he
said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid
because I was naked, so I hid myself. And he said, who told
you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree
which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, the woman
you gave to be with me, She gave me from the tree and I ate. And
the Lord said, and the Lord God said to the woman, what is this
that you have done? And the woman said, the serpent
deceived me and I ate. And this is really important,
these next few verses for what we're looking at. The Lord God
said to the serpent, because you have done this, Cursed are
you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the
field. On your belly you will go and dust you will eat all
the days of your life. And here, really pay attention
to this verse. And I will put enmity between
you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise
you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. And to
the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain and childbirth.
In pain you will bring forth children, yet your desire will
be for your husband, and he will rule over you. And then he said
to Adam, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and
have eaten from the tree which I commanded you, saying, You
shall not eat from it. This is also very important.
Cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you will eat
of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles that
shall grow for you. And you will eat of the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face you will eat bread. till you return
to the ground, because from it you are taken, for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return." So we have this, we were created
with a purpose, we failed at that purpose. And now, mankind,
we're separated from God, we've sinned, and God comes in, and
he says that we're gonna die. That's what it is. We're going
to return to the dust. And our life here, until we die,
it's not going to be pleasant. Well, that was sad. What are we going to do? We've
sinned, we're going to die. What hope is there? Well, that's
verse 15. I will put enmity between you
and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise
you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel." This
is the first gospel message. Everything has gone wrong. I mean, something incredibly
new. Sin, death, pain, suffering. Very hard to deal with things
have entered into the world. I'm sure they had no clue what
to do. Obviously they didn't. They sewed together fig leaves
to try to fix it. Didn't work. But God says, amidst
this curse that's here, he gives hope. I will put enmity between
you and the woman. This part of it, I believe, is
talking about the ongoing struggle that's going to take place between,
for lack of better terms, good and evil, between the righteous
and the unrighteous. But then it focuses in a little
bit. It talks about he, to get specific,
he shall bruise you on the head, talking about the serpent, and
you shall bruise him on the heel. So, God says that there's going
to be this ongoing struggle between the seed of the woman and the
seed of the serpent, or the seed of Satan. And amidst that struggle,
there's coming one who's going to bruise the serpent on the
head and be bruised by the serpent on the heel. So there's hope.
There's one coming. There's this struggle and there's
one coming. Keep that in mind. And that's what the rest of this
section we're going to be looking at is going to be tracing. So
mankind, everything has failed. Everything has gone wrong. Now
there's death, there's pain, there's suffering. What are we
going to do? Well, God says there's one coming that's going to fix
it. Okay, so what happens? Chapter four. Now the man had
relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth
to Cain. And she said, I have gotten a man child with the help
of the Lord. Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. So
this is why I believe that Adam and Eve are saved, because they
heard this gospel message, this good news that there's one coming
that's going to fix everything, and then they start having kids,
because they know that one of their kids is going to fix all
these things. So they believed God, that God was going to provide
someone, and they did their part. But now you have two kids. You
have Cain and you have Abel. In verse 3 it says, it came about
in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord
of the fruit of the ground, and Abel on his part also brought
of the firstlings of his flock and their fat portions. And the
Lord had regard for Abel and for his offerings, but for Cain
and for his offerings he had no regard. And so Cain became
very angry and his countenance fell. And the Lord said to Cain,
why are you angry? Why is your countenance fallen?
If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And
if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its
desire is for you, but you must master it. And Cain told Abel
his brother, and it came about when they were in the field,
that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him." Things are going very wrong.
This is far from Eden. This is far from the paradise
that mankind had. And it doesn't look like we're
doing our job of being fruitful I can't talk. Being fruitful,
multiplying, fill the earth, subdue it. Doesn't look like
we're doing that very well. But you do see that there is
seed of the woman now. There's two children. You see
that between these two children, the Lord has regard for the offering
of one of them, for Abel. And later on, we find out that
it's because he offered a better sacrifice. And then you have
Cain. And so if we go back to 315 and
we see that there are these two lines, the seed of the woman
and the seed, the ungodly line, the seed of the serpent, not
physical seed in this sense, you start to see the representatives.
You've got Abel. The Lord has regard for his sacrifice.
It seems like he has a relationship with the Lord, but Cain, well,
what does Cain do? I mean, he kills someone. He kills his brother. He gives
in to sin. So you start to see this struggle
between righteousness and unrighteousness. It's beginning. But now you have hope. There's
Abel. He has offered a sacrifice that's acceptable to God. So
there's hope. Is Abel the one? Is Abel going
to bring about redemption for mankind? Well, he died. So what hope is there? The ungodly line, Cain, he's
alive. But what about godliness? The
godly line? He's dead. And Abel, it does
not say that he had kids. So the godly line, the one that
just from this section of chapter four makes you think, you know,
this is where the Redeemer is coming from. It's been cut off.
So what hope is there? Everything has failed. Everything
has gone wrong. What's going to happen? And so
we have Cain, we have the ungodly line, he killed his brother,
and he talks to the Lord about it, and the Lord curses him. Verse 12, when you cultivate
the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you. You
will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth. And Cain responds
that, Lord, that's too much. Someone will kill me. And so
the Lord, He extends His grace even to this ungodly person,
this murderer of Cain, and says, if anyone kills you, I'll avenge
you. Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken
upon him sevenfold. And so God's grace extends even
to the ungodly line. And then it says that Cain, verse
16, Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the
land of Nod, east of Eden. And Cain had relations with his
wife and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch and he built a
city. I keep saying put a pin in things. Put a pin in the fact
that Enoch built a city. This is going to be a common
thing, building a city. But he built a city and he called
the name of the city Enoch. Okay, he names a city after himself. Or he named a city after his
son. Yeah, after the name of his son. But it gives several
more verses of how Cain's line continues. Why does it seem that
the ungodly line is prospering? And they're building cities,
they're having lots of children. And you get down to Lamech. It
says in verse 23, you have Lamech, who's one of these children of
Cain. Lamech said to his wives, Ada and Zill, listen to my voice,
you wives of Lamech, give heed to my speech. For I have killed
a man for wounding me and a boy for striking me. If Cain is of
N sevenfold, then Lamech 77 fold. So this is this ungodly line. You have, first of all, it begins
with a murder. God has grace even to Cain. And Cain, he goes out, and he
does what? He starts having kids, and he
builds a city, and he has lots of kids. And his son, or one
of his sons, Lamech, well, he continues the patterns
of Cain. Kills people. I have killed a
man for wounding me and a boy for striking me. He kills people.
He's like his father, Cain. We're seeing attributes of this
ungodly line. He killed people like his father, Cain. He wanted
to make a name for himself. I mean, that's what he's doing
there. He's saying, listen to me. Listen about me, Lamech,
and all the things that I've done. And then he's talking about
all these ungodly things that he's done. That's what he's characterized
by. And he's taking advantage of the grace of God. I mean,
it was grace that would have caused Cain to be avenged if
he were killed. And Lamech, he's openly saying, yeah, I've killed
people, and if someone kills me, I'll be avenged 77-fold. He's abusing God's grace here.
And he's taking pride in his sin. And he wants to make a name
for himself. Keep that in mind. That's very
important. He's making a name for himself, making himself known.
So the ungodly line's prospering. The godly line, it seems, is
dead because Abel died. Mankind is dying. We're separated
from God. The promise that God made that
the seed of the woman would bring about redemption doesn't seem
like that's going to happen because that line was cut off. What hope
is there? What hope is there? Verse 25,
Adam had relations with his wife again, and she gave birth to
a son named Seth. For she said, God has appointed
me another offspring in the place of Abel. For Cain killed him. And to Seth, to him also a son
was born, and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call
upon the name of the Lord." So you're in this situation of everything
has gone wrong. It seems like the promise of God is not going
to be fulfilled. And God does something about
it. He provides someone in the place of Abel. He does it. And
he provides it in such a way that his promise is going to
be fulfilled. And then you see that Seth, he has kids. He has
kids, so his line can continue. This line that's going to bring
about the Redeemer, it hasn't been cut off because though Abel
died, one was provided in his place and he had kids. And then
men began to call upon the name of the Lord. This is another
reoccurring thing that you're going to see. But my point in
going through all this is you see a lot of patterns of things
that start in these early chapters. That's really important for you
to understand Genesis 12, 1 through 3, which we will get to. Men
began to call upon the name of the Lord. This is what's going
to characterize the godly line. And so, where are you at by the
end of chapter 4? Everything is ruined because
of our sin. We're separated from God. There's
pain, suffering, death. God makes a promise, through
your seed, through the seed of the woman, a redeemer is going
to come and he's going to undo all these things. He's going
to crush the head of the serpent. But until that time comes, there's
going to be this rivalry between godliness and ungodliness. Seems like the ungodliness is
going to win, like the world is going to win. But God does
something about it in an almost miraculous way. And then you
get chapter five, the descendants of Adam. This is the book of
the generations of Adam. And it goes through and it's
a genealogy. Some people think they're very
boring. But there's a lot of really fascinating things in
here. Adam lived 130 years and he became the father of a son
in his own likeness, according to his image. Those are things
that man, Adam, when he was made, were said to be of him, but about
God. So Adam is made in the image
and likeness of God. Adam's son is in his image and
likeness. And so this line, it continues
through Seth. This role of being an image bearer
of God continues through Seth. But verse four, then the days
of Adam after he became a 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. Okay, well, we knew Adam was
going to die. God told him, you're going to return to the dust that
you were taken from. But what about Seth? Seth lived 105 years
and became the father of Enosh. Then Seth lived 807 years after
becoming the father of Enosh, and he had other sons and daughters.
So all the days of Seth were 912 years. And Seth, after him,
people began calling upon the name of the Lord. Is he the one? Is he the one that's going to
redeem us? And he died. It's not Seth. Enosh. Could it be Enosh? Well, at the
end of verse 11, and he died. Kenan. What about him? Well, at the end of verse 14,
and he died. You see the pattern. It's none
of these people, but the line is continuing. And it goes through,
and some of these things, like with Enoch, in verse 21. Enoch,
he became the father of Methuselah. He 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. Verse 24, all the others say,
and he died. But Enoch, Enoch walked with
God, and he was not, for God took him. He didn't die. So there's something unique,
even in this boring genealogy, something unique about Enoch.
First of all, we see that this godly line is continuing and
we know that as it starts, these are men who call upon the name
of the Lord. This is that line. And Enoch, he walked with God. It speeds up and it slows down
to focus on important attributes. So this one that we're looking
for, it's someone who walks with God. Then in verse 28, you have
Lamech. This is a different Lamech than
the other one. And although I think it's possible that this Lamech
may be named after the first Lamech, the son of Cain, indicating
that maybe the world had gotten kind of corrupt. I mean, this
is... Lamech is the father of Noah, so the world was getting
kind of corrupt at that time. But Lamech says in verse 29 about
his son Noah, That sounds really hopeful. Is Noah going to be the one?
I mean, clearly, he's going to give us rest from our work, from
the toil of our hands rising from the ground. And so, then
you have Noah. And he lived to 500 years, verse
32, and he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Okay. So, all the stuff that we looked
at leads you to Noah. And Noah is going to give us
rest. But, chapter 6, it came about when men began to multiply
on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them,
that the sons of God saw the daughters of men were beautiful,
and they took wives for themselves from whoever they chose. And
then the Lord said, My spirit shall not strive with man forever,
because he also is flesh. Nevertheless, his days shall
be 120 years. And the Nephilim were on the earth in those days.
And verse 5, The Lord saw the wickedness of man was great on
the earth, and that every intent and thought of his heart was
evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made man
on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. And he says, I
will blot out man whom I have made who I have created from
the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things
and birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them." The godly line, they're continuing,
but the whole earth is wicked again. Wickedness is abounding. So much that God is going to
destroy the whole earth. What hope is there? It seems like
evil is going to keep winning. But Noah found favor in the eyes
of the Lord. He found grace. And it says that Noah was a righteous
man, blameless in his time. And Noah walked with God. And the earth was corrupt in
the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God
says he's going to destroy the earth. And you know the story.
He has Noah build an ark. And through this ark, he lifts
up this godly line. off the face of the earth, away
from the flood, so that they're safe, and he carries them through
it. And that's what the next few chapters describe. And God,
he wipes out everything that lives. Everything that has the
breath of life, it all dies. But then the flood ends. Then
you get to chapter 8, that Noah built an altar to the Lord. Actually, verse 17, bring out
with you every living thing of all flesh that is with you, birds,
animals, creeping things, that they may breed abundantly upon
the earth and be fruitful and multiply. Noah built an altar
to the Lord, verse 20, and he took the clean animals and he
offered them, and the Lord smelled the soothing aroma and he said
to himself, I will never again curse the ground on account of
man. For the intent of man's heart
is evil from his youth, and I will never again destroy every living
thing as I have done." Okay, so you have the beginning, you
have Eden, you have the fall, you have the promise of God,
you have the curse because of the fall. Part of that curse
is the ground is cursed. And you see the progression of
how things go, and it seems like evil is going to keep winning,
but then God does something about it. Evil is going to keep winning,
God does something about it. And God did something about it
in providing Noah. He cleansed the earth with the flood. And
through that, he ended the curse of the ground. Things are a little
better now. And he sort of restarted things.
There's a beginning again. There's the commands to be fruitful,
multiply. There's a new family. And they're righteous. Is that it? Are things better? Is Noah the one that is at the
extent of the redemption of the earth? First of all, the first half
or so of chapter 9 is where you see all these commands again
to be fruitful, multiply, eat things from the ground. But you
get down to verse 20. Noah began farming. he planted
a vineyard and he drank of the wine and he became drunk and
he uncovered himself in his tent and Ham the father of Canaan
saw the nakedness of his father and his two brothers outside
but Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon their shoulders
and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father
and their faces were turned away so they did not see their father's
nakedness and when Noah awoke from his wine he knew that his
youngest son, what his youngest son had done to him." And then
we'll read the next section in just a moment, but God has done
all this to redeem the earth. Curse of the ground is gone.
You have a righteous family. Are things over? No. Evil is still there. Noah, the
man who found grace in the eyes of God, favor in the eyes of
God, who was a righteous man, who walked with God, He got drunk,
and he had uncovered his nakedness. This nakedness, I don't know
what that is, but it hints at something sinful. And I don't
want to know what it is, but it indicates that Noah was doing
something that was not right. And so did his son Ham. So evil's still there, even after
the flood. But Noah says, cursed be Canaan,
a servant of servants, he shall be to his brother. He also said,
blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem. That indicates something. Who's the next line? He has three
sons. Well, God apparently is the God
of Shem. And Shem was one of the sons
that did right and covered their father. and let Canaan be his
servant. May God enlarge Japheth and let
him dwell in the tents of Shem and let Canaan be his servant.
And Noah lived 350 years after the flood, all his days were
950 years, and he died. So, you've got this line, you
trace it through all these people, you trace it through Enoch, you
trace it through Noah, and now, you've got Shem. We know that
this Redeemer is going to come from Shem. But, in chapter 10, you get the descendants
of Noah. These are the generations, this
is the genealogy of all his sons. And this is where all the nations
of the earth come from. And I'm not gonna read through
all of chapter, and I've already taken up a lot of time, but through
all of these nations here, come all the nations of the earth,
all the people that each one of us are descended from, all
the families, wherever our families came from, came from chapter
10 here. This affects all of us. This
shows how, you know, this wickedness, this evil, the sin that's within
us has spread to everyone. Because we see that even Noah
was a sinful man, and we all come from Noah. But back to this ongoing struggle. Even in chapter 10, you see it. Especially in the Sons of Ham.
Chapter 10, verse 6, the sons of Ham were Cush, Mitzrayim,
Put, and Canaan. The sons of Cush were Seba, Havilah,
let's see, there was one I was looking for. Yeah, verse 6, the
sons of Ham were Cush, Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim is Egypt. Put and Canaan. If you know your Old Testament,
you know that what we know becomes the godly line, the nation of
Israel, which we will get to in chapter 12. They seem to have
a lot of problems with Egypt, or Mitzrayim, and Canaan. You
see the beginnings of this ungodly line continuing on into the future
and affecting the rest of history. But another thing is, verse 8,
now Cush became the father of Nimrod. Nimrod, he became a mighty
one on the earth, and he was a mighty hunter before the Lord.
Therefore it is said, like Nimrod, a mighty hunter before the Lord,
the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Akkad,
and Chalna, in the land of Shinar. And from that land, he went forth
into Assyria and built Nineveh, and Rehoboth, Ir, and Qala, and
all of these other names for cities that are hard to pronounce.
And in Qala, it says, that is the great city. So actually,
one thing we missed in chapter 6 is that the Nephilim, and these
men that were there, and the wickedness of the world, when
the whole world was wicked, They were known. They were men of
renown. They were men of a great name. And they were mighty men. And
that's characterized of the ungodly line. Cain, Lamech, Lamech, I've
killed a man and a boy for striking me. It's this idea. And also Cain, he built a city.
And he named it after his line. Okay? You see that continuing
here. This idea of this ungodly line. They keep doing this. They keep
wanting to do something. Several things. They want to
make a name for themselves. They want everyone to know about
them, about me. Nimrod, I mean, here it says
that he was a mighty hunter. And it's a saying. Like Nimrod,
a mighty hunter before the Lord, he made a name for himself. He
was mighty. He was known for being powerful
here on the earth. Another aspect of this ungodly
line. And another thing, as strange
as it sounds, he built cities. There's nothing wrong with building
cities, but it's a characteristic of this ungodly line. They keep
going around and they build these cities. And we see in these cities certain
names that are, we notice them, we recognize
them. That's the word I'm looking for.
Babel, we're about to see that in chapter 11. Akkad, that's
important. Assyria, he went into Assyria
and built Nineveh. That sounds oddly like a name
of a city and an empire that you know, wage war against God's
people later on. You know, so you start to see
these things here. So that's chapter 10. We call
it the Table of Nations. And after each son of Noah is
listed, it says, like in verse 20, these are the sons of Ham
according to their families, according to their languages,
by their lands, by their nations. You know how I was talking about
there are these different levels within human society? They're
mentioned here. This is important. This is all
just to get you to chapter 12. Because all of these words, all
of these ideas that I'm pointing out to you are essential to understanding
Genesis 12. And so you have all the nations
of the earth. You have the flood is over. There's still sin in
the world, but at least they're the godly line. At least there's
some semblance of righteousness there. But you get to chapter
11, and it says that the whole earth used the same language
and the same words. And it came about as they journeyed east,
they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
And they said to one another, come, let us make bricks and
burn them thoroughly. And they used brick for stone
and they used tar for mortar. And they said, come, let us build
for ourselves a city. That sounds familiar. Let us
build for ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach
into the heaven. in recent history to them. Their
father, their grandfather, just went through a global flood where
everything died. And so now they're saying, okay,
we want to build ourselves a city, a place where we can stick together,
which is the opposite of being fruitful and multiplying, spreading
out. They want to stick together. And in doing so, they're expecting
God to flood the earth again. They're not believing the promise
of God that, where he said that in chapter 8, that he would never
do that again. So there's this thing to notice. Ungodly people, they don't believe
the promises of God. They don't believe the promises
of God. They disobey the commandments
of God. See, they're building a city,
they're sticking together, they're not spreading out, filling the
earth. And they're trying to do something
about it themselves. They're trying to protect from
God's wrath themselves. They want to build a tower that
will reach into the heavens. Yeah, God's going to flood the
world again. We've got to escape it. They're trying to do something
about it themselves. And, let us make for ourselves
a name, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole
earth. This is the ungodly line. This
is just like Genesis chapter 6, right before the flood, where
God, he destroyed everything because of it. Now he cleansed
the world. He saved this righteous line. And now the whole world is wicked
again. Everyone's doing evil. How is it that this evil just
seems like it keeps on, like it's just going to keep winning?
And now what do we do? Well, the Lord, he goes down
and he confuses their language and he scatters them. And that's
how you get all the people groups in chapter 10. Talking about
Psalm 32 again. At the end of Psalm 32, it talks
about how, you know, don't be a stubborn mule that needs a
bit in its mouth to pull it near. because God will pull you near,
forcibly. This is God saying, I've had
enough of you people. And he's making them do the thing
that he told them to do. And he spreads them across the
whole earth. But this city, its name was called
Babel, which was like Nimrod, who founded the city of Babel,
who was probably leading this whole thing. But what do we do? Is it over? The whole world is wicked again.
They're disobeying God. They're not believing God's promises.
Well, then you have the descendants of Shem. Again, these genealogies
are really cool if you spend the time to understand their
purpose. But you have Shem, and there's
just a few names in here that are really important. Like verse
14, Shelah became the father of Eber. Eber is where we get
the term Hebrew. And you have Eber, and it goes
down through to verse 26, Terah. Terah lived 70 years and became
the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Okay. I'm going to get
here. We're almost done. We're almost
there. We can see the finish line. You have this, Genesis
3.15, you have this promise of two lines. The godly line, we
trace it. It seems like it's never going
to win, but then God does something about it, and he causes it to
succeed and to prosper. And we trace it through all these
different people, through Noah, and then we see that God is the
God of Shem. It's coming through Shem. Now
we have the genealogies of Shem. And who do we see? We see Terah. Then we see Abram. And we see that Abram, he had
a wife, and his wife, verse 30, was Sarai, and she was barren
and she had no child. Just seems like the godly line
just can't catch a break. Because how is this line going
to continue if the wife of the person at the end of this godly
line can't have kids? It says, verse 30, that she was
barren. But Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of
Haran, his grandson, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, and his
son Abram's wife. And they went out together from
Ur of the Chaldeans in order to enter the land of Canaan.
And they went as far as Haran and settled there. And the days
of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Haran. So we see the state of things
at the end of Genesis chapter 11. The earth is wicked. Evil is abounding. But there's
still this godly line. God's working through this particular
group of people. And he's been causing it to continue.
And he's been saving them from the evil that keeps getting infiltrating
into it. And now they're living in Ur
of Chaldeans, which was a really prosperous town. It was a renaissance
city in the day. I mean, all sorts of art and
culture and beauty and trade goods, luxury goods. I mean,
it was the place to live. And so it seems like they're
doing well. Seems like they're prospering. But it was also a
city of idolatry. And God says something. He says in Genesis 12, verse
1, we're here. Now the Lord said to Abram, go
forth from your country, from your relatives, from your father's
house. You have Abram. He's this godly
line. And you see, you have the ungodly
line, and they keep trying to make a name for themselves. They
keep making themselves mighty. God
is saying, don't be like them. I'm separating you from all that.
Leave it. Leave it all behind. Leave your country. Leave the
land where you're from, the place you know very well, the place
you have connections, the place you have a home, where you have
resources, where you love the land, where you know all the
places that are there. Leave all that. Set it aside. From your relatives, all your
family, all this thing that makes your tribe powerful, having all
this people. Leave that. Your father's house,
your inheritance, your name, all those things, leave that.
Leave it. And do something instead. Go
to the land which I will show you. God is going to replace
the land that he's leaving with a new land. God is going to provide
a land. As we've seen in this experience
that we've been going through this morning, God provides. He provides for this godly line.
He doesn't want them to do it themselves. That's what the ungodly
line does. God is going to provide a land.
Go to the land which I will show you, and I will make you a great
nation. All the ungodly line, all those
people, Nimrod, he made himself a great nation. And what happened? The Lord came down and he spread
his nation, this empire that he built, all across the face
of the earth. God is going to make Abram a
great nation. I will bless you. I will make
your name great. Nimrod. He's Nimrod, the mighty
hunter. The Nephilim, they were men of
renown. They were men of name. Great name. Lamech. Everybody listen to me, who I
am. I'm Lamech. And I've done all these great
things. Or mighty things. God is here. God is going to
make the great name. And so, you shall be a blessing,
and I will bless those who bless you, and the ones who curse you
I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will
be blessed." And so, what does this mean for us? And what does
this have to do with that question I was answering at that Bible
study on Monday night about what do we do with the fact that Israel
does evil things and yet we're supposed to love them? What does
this have to do with what Romans 11 says about how they're enemies,
but yet they're beloved for the sake of the fathers? Well, this
is the fathers here, the head of the fathers, Abraham. This
is the promise. This is where God chose this
people group, this line, Abraham. And he makes them into a great
nation, which we see becoming the nation of Israel as we read
through Genesis. And so keep in mind that promise
in Genesis 3.15, that it's through this line that God is going to
crush the head of the serpent. He's going to restore things.
He's going to redeem things. So it's through this great nation
now that God is going to bring about restoration. And he's going
to bring through this great nation, the one that's going to crush
the head of the serpent. We see through this great nation,
that there's a blessing associated with it. And at the end, at the end of
verse 3, in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.
Paul says in Galatians 3 that this is the gospel, that this
is the gospel being preached in Genesis 12, way before Christ
came to earth and took on flesh. The gospel is that all the families
of the earth will be blessed through this great nation. There's the great nation, and
then there's all the families of the earth. They're two separate
things. And the great nation is what is going to bless all
the families of the earth. The great nation is what becomes
the nation Israel. How is it that they bless all
the families of the earth? There are several ways. And we're
gonna go to the New Testament now, and we'll probably close
with this. Romans chapter nine. Actually,
let's see. Actually, Romans chapter three,
just for one verse. What advantage has the Jew or what is the benefit
of circumcision? Great in every respect, first
of all, that they were entrusted with the oracles of God. This
people group, that this great nation brought us this. God used them to provide us scripture,
his word. It's that, Romans nine. I am
telling the truth in Christ. I am not lying. My conscience
testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, and I have great sorrow
and unceasing grief in my heart, for I could wish that I myself
were a curse separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren,
my kinsmen, according to the flesh." Who is this? Who are Israelites, to whom belong
the adoption as sons, the glory, the covenants, the giving of
the law, the temple service, the promises, We're partakers of those now.
We're saved because we partake of the blessings of the New Covenant.
The New Covenant was made with the house of Israel and the house
of Judah. It's through this great nation that we receive our salvation
from God. Okay? Whose are the fathers? From whom
is the Christ? According to the flesh, who is
overall God blessed forever. Amen. So God is, all those families
in Genesis 10, all those wicked nations that we come from, okay? God is, his plan is to save the
nations. His plan is to save the great
nation. He's saving all of it. And he's
doing so by working through a particular people group. That's how God
works. He selects a people, and he uses
them to reach the rest of the people. And throughout most of
history, and in the future that is to come, that people group
is the nation of Israel. So how do we deal with the fact
that right now they do evil things? Well right now, They're not the
people that God is using to reach the world. Romans 11, it talks
about how a partial hardening has happened to this people group.
It talks about how that has happened so that the gospel can go to
the nations. It's until the fullness of the
Gentiles has come in. It talks about how through their
disobedience, we have salvation, we have riches. There are many ways in which
this great nation is blessing all the families of the earth.
But it's happening. It has happened. It is happening.
And it is going to happen. Because one day, God is, you
know, we believe that God is going to rapture the church.
He's going to take us up. Because right now the church, we're that
people group that God is using to reach the world. But one day
we're going to be taken up. And then what happens? Then God
returns to using the nation of Israel. He saves 144,000 Jewish
men, and he uses them to preach the gospel to the whole world.
And what happens? This is where we'll end, I promise
you. Revelation, chapter 7. If you'll excuse me, I can't
find the verse in my notes. I'll hear it, it's right in front
of me. Revelation chapter 7, verse 9. And after these things,
I looked and behold a great multitude, which no one could count. From
where? From every nation and all tribes
and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before
the Lamb, clothed in white robes and palm branches were in their
hands. And they cry out with a loud voice saying, salvation
to our God who sits on the throne and to the Lamb. That's because
God used this great nation, this righteous line. The plan wasn't
just to save this righteous line, but to save people from every
nation, all tribes, all peoples, all tongues. So why do we love
the nation of Israel even though they are wicked people right
now? Well, because God loves them,
because he made promises to them. He chose them as his instrument
to reach the world. Hope that makes sense. And I
hope this was valuable to you. Genesis 12, 1 through 3 doesn't
make a whole lot of sense, unless you understand the fact that
God is not just talking about Abraham. He's talking about the
whole world, everyone, right after, you know, the whole world
becomes the whole world in Genesis 11. So, think about that throughout
this week. Think about how God worked in
history to bring about the salvation that we have, the salvation that
is to come. Think about how the pattern that we see that evil
always seems to be winning, and then God does something about
it, and he provides for salvation, he provides for the righteous
people, he provides for the right thing. Think about this throughout
the week. Let's go to the Lord in prayer.
Father, thank you for providing for us. Thank you for doing something
in history to provide for the salvation of people from all
tribes, all nations, all tongues. And thank you for Christ, who
is the one that provides the salvation for us, who died for
us so that we didn't have to die the death that we deserved.
And Father, I pray that as we think about you, that we would
remember your constant love and providence
for mankind and your faithfulness to take care of us, even when
we are wicked and evil and we go against you. So, Father, I
just pray that you'd help us to think about these things throughout
the week and apply it to our lives. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Thank you.
Genesis 12:1-3
| Sermon ID | 9102549562552 |
| Duration | 1:08:59 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Genesis 12:1-3 |
| Language | English |
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