From Adam to Jesus

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Well, I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Genesis chapter 5.
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When we take the opportunity to preach verse by verse through the Bible, we don't get the opportunity to choose what texts we preach.
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Because if it were that we simply skip over a portion, it would be rather obvious.
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And this is why many, I believe, shy away from expositional preaching.
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They would prefer to choose the passages they preach and overlook the ones they would prefer not to deal with.
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And I think that one of those types of passages that many people would avoid would be the genealogies.
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Because they're often long and repetitive and sometimes can be the part of the Bible where people will say, well, I was reading through the Bible and I got to the begots and I stopped.
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Ever heard somebody say that? I got to the begots.
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And whether this one begot that one and this one begot that one.
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And so the genealogies have somewhat of an interesting part in our particular Bible reading.
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And some complain, again, that as they're reading through them, their eyes glaze over.
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And some say, well, I just skipped that part.
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Well, my hope today as we look to Genesis chapter 5, which is an extended genealogy of Seth, the child of Adam and Eve, my hope is that we're going to see that not only are genealogies not boring, but they are actually very exciting because in them we often find glorious nuggets of gold hidden among the lines of repetition.
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Likewise, they provide for us a reminder of God's plan that it is not some haphazard smattering of unconnected events, but is rather one comprehensive, cohesive, and continuous plan from beginning to end.
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And these genealogies mark, as it were, like links in the chain to remind us that God has a plan from the beginning all the way even to today.
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So we're going to read the whole chapter.
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And my plan today is to preach the whole chapter.
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As I said, it took me a long time to get through Genesis 1 through 3 because I stopped at every verse and I made almost a whole sermon out of every passage.
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And so I've decided to ramp up a little bit just because it's 50 chapters.
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We've got to move.
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So we're going to try to get through the whole chapter today, Lord willing.
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And I'm going to do something.
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I'm going to read out of a version that you probably don't have.
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I was given a gift this week by one of our academy students of a new Bible.
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This is the New English Translation.
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It's one of my favorite translations to study, but I don't use it in the pulpit normally because most of you have either an ESV or a New American Standard.
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Some have a New King James.
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So I'm going to read a translation that's a little different than what you may have.
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So it may be different as you read, but I would encourage you to stand because we do stand for the reading of God's Word and listen intently as we read the Word of God.
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This, again, is the New English Translation.
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This is the record of the family line of Adam.
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When God created humankind, He made them in the likeness of God.
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He created them male and female, and when they were created, He blessed them and named them humankind.
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When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and he named him Seth.
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The length of time Adam lived after he became the father of Seth was 800 years.
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During this time, he had other sons and daughters, and the entire lifetime of Adam was 930 years, and then he died.
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When Seth had lived 105 years, he became the father of Enosh.
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Seth lived 807 years after he became the father of Enosh, and he had other sons and daughters, and the entire lifespan of Seth was 912 years, and then he died.
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When Enosh had lived 90 years, he became the father of Kenan.
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Enosh lived 850 years after he became the father of Kenan, and he had other sons and daughters, and the entire lifetime of Enosh was 905 years, and then he died.
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When Kenan had lived 70 years, he became the father of Mahalalel.
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Kenan lived 840 years after he became the father of Mahalalel, and he had other sons and daughters, and the entire lifetime of Kenan was 910 years, and he died.
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When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he became the father of Jared.
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Mahalalel lived 830 years after he became the father of Jared, and he had other sons and daughters.
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The entire lifetime of Mahalalel was 895 years, and then he died.
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When Jared had lived 162 years, he became the father of Enoch.
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Jared lived 800 years after he fathered Enoch, and he had other sons and daughters.
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The entire lifetime of Jared was 962 years, and then he died.
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When Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah.
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After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God for 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters.
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The entire lifetime of Enoch was 365 years.
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Enoch walked with God, and then he disappeared because God took him away.
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When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he became the father of Lamech.
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Methuselah lived 782 years after he became the father of Lamech, and he had other sons and daughters.
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The entire lifetime of Methuselah was 969 years, and then he died.
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When Lamech had lived 182 years, he had a son.
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He named him Noah, saying, This one will bring us comfort from our labor and from the painful tool of our hands because of the ground that the Lord has cursed.
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Lamech lived 595 years after he became the father of Noah, and he had other sons and daughters.
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The entire lifetime of Lamech was 777 years, and then he died.
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After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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May you bless our reading and bless our study.
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Keep me from error and from cowardice.
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I pray, O God, in Jesus' name.
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Amen.
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You may be seated.
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Over the past few weeks, we've examined Genesis chapter 4.
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Genesis chapter 4 gave us a record of the perpetuation of human degradation and depravity after the fall.
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It began with the first two men born to Adam and Eve, and immediately, it devolved into murder.
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As I said, I think, two weeks ago, it didn't take long for sin to become expressed in the worst of ways.
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It wasn't like the sinful nature took a few generations to really take hold.
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No, the first generation, the first two men, one killed the other.
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It was amazing how that depravity, which became a part of humankind, when man sinned and was passed on generationally to his children, that sin nature was passed on.
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It didn't take long for that sin nature to erupt in the worst kind of evil, the attacking of another person, and what I would argue was premeditated murder of his brother.
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The killer Cain is then exiled from the presence of God.
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His descendants follow his sinful example.
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And we see in the genealogy of Cain three specific cultural watermarks in the genealogy of Cain.
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We see the defamation of marriage.
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We see the devaluation of human life.
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And we see the exaltation of human pride.
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This is all seen in the line of Cain.
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Cain's line is filled with culture, agriculture, science, art, music, but it's devoid of Christ.
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And chapter 4 shows us that line.
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But it doesn't end with that desperate line.
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It ends with a light of hope.
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Genesis chapter 4 ends with a light of hope because God provides another son to take the place of the one who was murdered.
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You see, Abel was a man of faith.
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Hebrews 11 verse 4 tells us that he was a man of faith, but he was killed.
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His life was snuffed out.
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So his brother Cain was the one who was left over.
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And God says, I'm going to give them another child named Seth to take the place of Abel.
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And from Seth, according to the end of Genesis chapter 4, from Seth, it says people began to call upon the name of the Lord.
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It was from the line of Seth that people began to worship God and to do so in accord with the word of God and the truth of God.
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What they had understood from Adam and Eve and what they had learned from them became what they knew about God and how to worship Him.
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As we said last week, Cain built a city, but Seth built a church.
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Now, I want to make a point, a point of clarification.
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Because over the last several weeks, I've talked about two lines.
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I said you have the line of Cain, which is the line of depravity, the line of sin, the line of degradation.
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And you have the line of Seth, which is the line of faithfulness, the line of righteousness, the line of godliness.
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And there is a very distinct pairing of lines that we see running all through Scripture.
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You have the righteous and the wicked.
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And this line carries it through.
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In fact, in Genesis 6, I think that those two lines are necessary to understand the first part of Genesis 6.
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Because I think there's a lot of confusion about the opening of Genesis 6, which is cleared up when you understand there are two lines.
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The line of the faithful and the line of the wicked.
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But before we get there, I do want to make a very important distinction.
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Just because you have a line of the wicked and a line of the faithful doesn't mean that everybody in the faithful line was of faith.
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Because there are sons of Seth who are unfaithful.
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How do we know that? Well, just look around, because everybody here is a son of Seth.
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Everybody in our world is a son of Seth, because all of the line of Cain was washed out in the flood.
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The line of Cain was completely destroyed in the flood.
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We'll see that in Genesis 6-9.
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But the spirit of Cain continues in the hearts of all unbelievers.
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So we're not talking about a physical line which physically creates believers.
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What we're talking about is a spiritual line.
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The spiritual line of Cain is the spiritual line of unbelief.
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The spiritual line of Seth is the promised line of faith.
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And here's why that's important for us.
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Children, young people especially, you may be being brought up in a Christian household.
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But just because you are born into a Christian household does not make you a Christian.
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You become a believer by faith, not by birth.
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Well, let me say it this way.
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New birth.
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You become a believer by new birth, not by physical birth.
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No one is born physically into the family of God.
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We are born spiritually into the family of God.
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You will not get into heaven based on your parents' faith.
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You will not get into heaven because you were born into the right country, the right city, the right family, or the right church.
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We will only be with the Lord if we come by faith, ourselves calling upon the name of the Lord.
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Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
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So, when I talk about the two lines, understand I'm not saying that there is some generational promise that is necessarily going to create believers.
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We don't know if there were unbelievers.
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Notice every generation under Seth.
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Notice what it said, and he had sons and daughters, and he had sons and daughters, and he had sons and daughters.
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There's a very good chance that many of those sons and daughters are unbelievers.
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So, we have to keep in mind, why do we have these ten? By the way, there's ten names.
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Why do we have these specific ones? I believe it's because these were the ones who maintained the faith.
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I do believe the ones mentioned are faithful, and they maintained that promised line of faith.
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But again, we don't know if there were others, and I wanted to clarify that because if I've said anything in the last few weeks that make you think that you're born saved simply because of who you're born to, I want to clarify that right out of the gate.
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All right.
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So, Sain...Sain...Seth...
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I was mixing them up there.
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Seth represents the line of promise.
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And so, what we're going to look at today is we're going to look at the line of promise.
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And I have an outline for you.
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I'll put it up on the screen.
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The outline is very simple.
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In verses 1 and 2 of Genesis 5, we see the faithful line is reintroduced.
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And in verses 3 to 32, we see the faithful line is recorded.
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And in that record, we are given a pattern, but in that pattern, we are graced with certain particulars.
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So, that's the outline of today's lesson.
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You can write it down, take a picture of it, I don't care, do whatever you want to do.
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But this is where we're going to go in the text.
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Let's look first at the faithful line reintroduced, verses 1 and 2.
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Now, it says, this is the record of the family line of Adam, or if you're in an ESV, it says, this is the book of the generations of Adam.
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When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God, male and female.
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He created them and He blessed them and named them man or humankind, when they were created.
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Now, that phrase, book of the generations, is an important phrase.
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You see that ten times in the book of Genesis alone, that the word there is Toledot in the Hebrew, and it's referencing a marking post in Genesis.
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Every time you see, this is the book of the generations, it's saying, this is a new part of the book.
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And there's ten parts, a book can be broken into ten parts.
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The first time we saw it was in Genesis 2, where it says, these are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created.
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So, it's telling us, this is a marking post.
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Now, it's saying, these are the generations of Seth.
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Next time we see it, we'll be with Noah.
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These are the generations of Noah.
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And then after Noah, we'll see the generations of Abraham, and on down the line.
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And what it's doing is, it's setting up marking posts.
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This is starting a new point in the book for us to move forward from.
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Seth is a new point from which we move forward.
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And we see, it says, not only is this the book of the generations of Adam, but when God created man, he made man in his likeness.
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This is a reminder of the imago dei.
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The imago dei is the image of God.
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All people bear the image of God.
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This is what separates us from all the rest of creation.
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And we're reminded here that we are made in the image of God.
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And we're reminded also that God is our creator.
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We are not simply products of the evolutionary process.
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We did not erupt out of the ether.
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We are not stardust collected from a giant cosmic accident.
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But we are, in fact, formed and created by Almighty God.
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He is the designer and the maker of the human race.
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So we see God as creator, and we have been created in his image.
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And it reminds us in verse 2 that we are created with a blessed pairing of sexes.
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It says male and female, he created them.
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It was almost as if the writer of Genesis knew that one day there were going to be some foolish people who came along and questioned that paradigm.
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Because it's where we live today.
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People say there's no such thing as gender and sex.
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It's all fluid.
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That's baloney.
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God made them man and woman to complement one another.
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Man to man is a mirror image, not a complement of the other.
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Man and woman complement each other.
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And both are fully human.
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Notice it says this.
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Male and female, he created them.
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He blessed them.
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He named them man or mankind or humankind.
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He called them humans, mankind.
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So we see a certain form of equality between man and woman.
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They are both fully human, but they are both different.
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Isn't it weird that we live in a world where we have to argue that? I mean, honestly, those of you who are a little bit my senior, maybe a few more years my senior, did you ever think you were going to have to defend that there's a difference between men and women? And that God created those differences to be glorified and to complement one another, not to be diminished.
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Men cannot do what women do.
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And women cannot do what men do.
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And when those lines are blurred, it is a blight on a people.
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So we see this in Genesis 5, 1 and 2.
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We see the faithful line is reintroduced.
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It is the line of Adam.
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But it's not just Adam, because Adam has many sons and daughters.
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It is the line of Adam through Seth.
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And that's what we see beginning at verse 3.
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So verse 3, it says, When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness according to his image, and he named him Seth.
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Now, there is a pattern which is given here.
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The pattern follows.
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We read it already.
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It follows all the way through.
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And as we were reading, I saw some of you kind of nodding your heads because you're going through the pattern.
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The pattern is simple.
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When X lived this many number of years, he fathered Y.
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And X lived after he fathered Y this many years.
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And then thus all the days were this plus this.
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And it's really just a little math problem, right? He lived this many years before he had this child.
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He lived this many years after he had this child.
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Therefore, we can do math, and we add it up, and there we get his number of years.
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And that's the pattern that follows through every one of these.
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And they all end with the same refrain.
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And I heard some of you, when I'm reading, I'm listening too, when he said, And he died.
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I heard some of you say it.
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And he died.
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Because it was over and over, right? It was like, And he died.
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And he died.
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And he died.
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And he died.
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What's interesting about that is there's only one of them that it doesn't say that.
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And we're going to talk about him in a little while.
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We're going to get to Enoch in a little while.
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But before we talk about the exception, I want to talk about the rule.
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Right? The exception proves the rule.
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The only one who didn't say, And he died, was Enoch.
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All the rest of them said, And he died.
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And you say, Well, why are you focusing on this? Because this is the line of the faithful.
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This is the line of promise.
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If you go back to the line of Cain, we know they all died.
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Maybe it wouldn't be a big surprise.
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Of course, the desperate, depraved, debauched line of Cain, of course they died.
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But no, even the line of faith dies.
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Throughout the line of faith, there's a reminder that the curse is in full effect.
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Even among those who believe.
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Remember this, beloved.
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Just because you believe in Jesus, doesn't mean you get to cheat death.
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Some people believe in prosperity theology and they believe that they'll never get sick if they believe in Jesus.
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And I have to ask them sometimes, Do you mean that you're never going to die? Because eventually your body is going to shut down.
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Eventually the sin nature that is within our flesh is going to overtake us and eventually it's going to wear out.
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I'm feeling it as I get older.
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My knees hurt, my hands hurt, I've got trigger finger, I've got all these problems.
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I didn't have that when I was 17, 18, 19 years old.
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And I only mention because some of you are smiling, Jack, you're smiling at me.
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Because I'm sure there are other things yet to come, right? Maybe in a few years.
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And you are the most spry 85, right? 85 year old I've ever seen.
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Healthiest and you and Shirley are great.
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But you understand it's not going to last forever.
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Our lives, this life, no matter how faithful we are, no matter how much we trust, no matter how much we believe, there is no promise that this life lasts forever.
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It will end.
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And this reminds us of that even for the believer and he died.
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Like I said, we're going to talk about Enoch in a minute.
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Enoch does provide us a hope that there's more to it than just death.
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And I do think that's part of why Enoch is included.
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But it's important to remember that we are reminded of this perpetual death which is the result of the fall.
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Remember what the promise was to Adam and Eve.
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On the day that thou eat of it, you will surely die.
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And I remember the question, well, why didn't they die that day? Well, because God, one, they did die that day spiritually.
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So God's not a liar.
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But also they were allowed to perpetuate their own life another 900 and some odd years so that they would have children.
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Those children were lived, but everybody eventually died.
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And he died.
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So that's the pattern.
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This person lived this many years.
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He fathered that person.
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After he fathered that person, he lived another some amount of years.
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And you add those two together and you get the amount of years of his life.
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And he died.
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That's the pattern.
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But then we are graced with three specific particulars.
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In the midst of the pattern, there are three times where the pattern breaks.
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Actually four, but we're going to look at particularly three times the pattern breaks.
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And I want to show it to you why they're important.
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Number one is in verse 3.
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Notice what it says in verse 3.
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It says, When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness according to his image.
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That statement doesn't come up again.
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The phrase in his likeness and after his image doesn't come up under Seth.
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It doesn't come up under Enosh.
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It doesn't come up under Kenan.
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It doesn't come up any of the rest.
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None of the rest of them say in his likeness, after his image.
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Or after his likeness or in his image.
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And you say, well, why not? Well, it doesn't tell us why, but we can certainly consider some thoughts as to why.
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Adam is created in the image of God, and the image of God is passed to all of us.
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We all are image bearers.
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The Bible tells us that in Genesis 9, in fact, in Genesis 9, the first real law about capital punishment is given.
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And the reason for the law of capital punishment was because if you kill a man who's made in the image of God, it's like attacking God Himself.
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And therefore, if you shed the blood of man, so too shall your blood be shed, because in the image of God made he him.
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Right? That's the law of retribution for those who commit murder.
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Why is murder wrong? Because you're attacking an image bearer of God.
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Everybody bears the image of God.
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But guess what else we bear? We bear the nature of Adam.
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We all have the Adamic nature that we have all received.
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And we see that being reminded, given to Seth.
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Seth is made not only in the image of God, but in the image of Adam.
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He is not only a creation of God, but he's a byproduct of the relationship between Adam and Eve who pass on to him a sin nature.
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And so Seth is the one who it's reminded.
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We don't need to be reminded of it.
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But it's reminded to us about Adam.
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He is passing on his nature.
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He's passing on his image.
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He's passing on his sin to his son.
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And beloved, you all bear it.
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You want proof that we all bear the image of Adam? Turn on the news every night.
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I'll tell you this.
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When it comes to Reformed theology, total depravity is the one doctrine that doesn't have to be proved.
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It just has to be pointed at.
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It's the easiest doctrine to prove because total depravity says all men are evil by nature.
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And you look around the world and you say, well, what about this philanthropic person? Or what about this loving person? Or what about this good person? The Bible says there's none good and no not one.
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There's none who understands.
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There's none who seeks after God.
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Our greatest works, the Bible says, are like filthy rags.
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The very best things we do are glorified sins if they are not done in faith.
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That's an interesting thought, by the way.
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Until we come to faith, all we do is sin because that which is not of faith is sin.
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This is why it says all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags.
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So we see the Adamic nature as well as the nature of God, the image of God, rather, which is passed down.
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Now the next thing we see, the next outlier in the order of things, is we see verses 22 to 24, and this references Enoch.
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Enoch, or Enoch, however you want to say it.
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My wife and I had a little discussion about which is the best way to say it.
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I say Enoch, a lot of people say Enoch, so it doesn't matter.
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But Enoch walked with God.
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That is an outlier.
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None of the rest of them say that.
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None of the rest of them focus on that.
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And it says, again in verse 22, it says it happened after he became a father.
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Notice that with me.
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Look at verse, it says, when Enoch had lived 65 years, he became the father of Methuselah.
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Now we should all know Methuselah, because Methuselah is the oldest one on the list.
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And most of us are familiar at least with the fact that he made it 969 years, which is only like 36 years more than Adam.
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So it wasn't like it was that much more.
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But it was still the oldest on the list.
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So Enoch fathers Methuselah, and what does it say? It says after he fathered Methuselah, he walked with God for 300 years.
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So, and Brother Mike and I talked about this a little bit this week.
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Could it be that it was the birth of the son that actually was the converting moment for Enoch's life? Because it says after he had Methuselah, he walked with God for 300 years.
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So again, this is a little bit of kind of considering what could it mean? I mean, how many of us know that there was a time in our life when we weren't walking with God? There was a time in our life when we weren't believers.
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And something God did in our life made the change that brought us to Him.
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Maybe there was some tragedy that we faced.
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Maybe there was some blessing that we had, and we realized God's the one doing it.
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Or maybe we were sitting in a church just like this on a day like today, and you realize you've spent all of your life up until this very moment not walking with God.
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Maybe it was today.
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You see, that was the moment.
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It says he had his son, and after this, he walked with God.
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And you notice he walked with God only 300 years, which you say only.
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You know, for us, that's a long time.
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But for them, he was a sprout.
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He was a young man.
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He was only 365 years when his life ended on this earth.
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He was the youngest one on the list.
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And something to consider from that, it says that God took him.
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The New English Translation says it a little strange.
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That's why I wanted to read it to you.
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The New English Translation says, Enoch walked with God, and then he disappeared.
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The ESV says it a little differently.
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It says he was not.
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This is only one of two times in the Bible we ever hear of this happening.
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The other time, if you want to take a note, is in 2 Kings 2, verses 11 and 12, where Elijah and Elisha were together, and the Bible says that chariots of fire and horses separated the two men, and Elijah was taken up, and he was, the word we typically say, was translated to heaven.
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Now, this is not death, but it's a translation from life to life.
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It's not death, but it is a change.
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And here's why I know that's the case, because when I go to the New Testament, it tells us this is the same thing that's going to happen for the believers who are still alive when Jesus comes.
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It says, they shall not all die, but they shall all be changed.
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In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, the dead in Christ shall rise first, and those who are alive will be caught up together with Him in the clouds, right? There will be a translational moment.
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Some people call that the rapture.
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We can debate eschatological views on the rapture, but the point is that's the change where we go from living in this world to living in the next without having to see the specter of death.
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That was the blessing that Enoch was able to enjoy.
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He was able to enjoy going from life in this world to life in the next without having to face the grim specter of death.
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And Hebrews actually describes the moment for us.
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Listen to this.
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This is Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 5.
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It says, by faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found because God had taken him.
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Now, before he was taken, he was commended as having pleased God.
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How do we please God? By faith alone.
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The Bible says without faith it is impossible to please Him.
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Right? So we know what it means when it says he pleased God.
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It means he was a man of faith.
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In fact, the book of Jude tells us that he was a prophet.
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The book of Jude tells us that he prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His holy ones.
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So not only did he walk with God, but he proclaimed the word of God to his generation.
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He was a man of God.
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And God took him and translated him.
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And as we'll see in a moment, reminded us all that just because we die doesn't mean that that's the end.
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But let's look at the third particular.
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This is down in verse 28.
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It says down in verse 28, it refers to Lamech and Noah.
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Now, just to make a point, this is not the same Lamech in the line of Cain.
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There was times where we see the same name in two different family lines, and that's not that uncommon, is it, Mike? Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike, yeah.
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It's not that uncommon to see multiple families with the same name.
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And so Lamech is a name in the line of Cain.
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He was the one who took two wives, remember? And then Lamech is also a name in the line of Seth.
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And Lamech prophesies over his son in hope.
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This is a reminder that we're looking for the son of promise.
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And he says he sees Noah, and he calls him Noah, and that comes from a word that's very similar to the Hebrew word for relief, very similar to the word for rest.
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And so he calls him Noah because he says this one is going to give us relief from the curse, right? What were they looking for? They were looking for the Christ figure.
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They were looking for the one who was going to crush the head of the serpent.
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They were looking for the one who was going to give them relief.
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Not did they totally realize that the relief was going to come through a flood and through destruction and through all of that.
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But Noah would be the one who saved his people.
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Noah would be a Christ figure because Noah would protect his family from the wrath of God in the flood.
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So he did, in a sense, fulfill this prophecy of Lamech, but the prophecy of Lamech that he would be the one that would reverse the curse.
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This is looking further down the line to the one who would ultimately come through the line of Noah, and that is Jesus Christ.
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And the last particular we see is that Noah is the only one who's mentioned as having more than one son.
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I said there were four.
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There are four.
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The last one is in verse 32.
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It says Noah had three sons.
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Why did Noah get to mention three? It says all the rest of them had many sons and daughters.
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Why is it that Noah gets Shem, Ham, and Japheth? Why are those three names, all the rest of them only had one name? Because as we will see, from those three men come all of the population of the world.
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Later, all three of those, you are either a Hamite, a Shemite, or a Semite.
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That's where the word Semitism comes from.
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The Jewish people trace their line through Shem.
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So you're either a Hamite, a Semite, or a Japhethite.
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You're one of those three.
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And so this provides for us the three lines from which all humankind would come after the flood.
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Now, that is the outline of the text and that is how I wanted to teach it to you, but I want to give you six thoughts as I close.
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You say, wait a minute, are you starting over? No.
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Six things to think about.
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Because it's a long chapter, but I wanted to keep it into one message.
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There are six things to think about.
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I'll put them up on the board for you.
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Number one.
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The antediluvian lifespans were longer than later generations.
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What's antediluvian? That simply means the people who lived before the flood.
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The deluge is the flood.
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Antediluvian is just a fancy word which means the pre-flood people or the people who lived before the flood.
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And the antediluvian lifespans were longer than later generations.
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And people say, why? Why was it that Methuselah lived 969 years? Why was it that Adam lived 930 years? And some people think that those lifespans are wildly exaggerated.
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That they didn't live that long.
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It was just an exaggeration.
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Maybe they counted their years different.
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Maybe that.
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I don't think so.
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I think these are proper and true lifespans.
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You say, how could that happen? Remember we talked about last week how if you go to the source of a spring it's going to be pure and then later as it goes down the river it's going to pick up contaminants.
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Well, we're at the last part of the river.
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We've got all these contaminants and mutations in our system and all these things.
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But you're looking at the earliest generations of mankind.
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And the concept that they could live a long time in a pre-flood environment which we don't certainly understand in a pre-flood physicality which certainly changed after the flood.
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I do believe there was a change not only in the environment and how men lived in that environment.
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So the idea that they could live hundreds of years I don't think is exaggerated at all.
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I will tell you this though.
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The Mesopotamians have their own history.
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And you can actually study the Mesopotamian history.
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They did, I believe, exaggerate lifespans.
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If you look at the kings of the Mesopotamians of this same time period 20,000, 30,000 year lifespans.
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So I do think there was an exaggeration on behalf of them.
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Not that it couldn't have been that long but it goes to show you that if lifespans were long it's common among men to exaggerate something.
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So if the Bible gives us a 900 year lifespan and then the unbeliever says no, I lived 30,000 years.
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Kind of makes sense.
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By the way, I wish I had time to go through that but it's really neat looking at these kings and 29,000 years.
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So anyway, the lifespans being long you say, well why does that matter? Why does this matter? I think the lifespans were allowed to extend not only because of their being in a good environment because of their being healthy because of being closer to the source but also because this was God's mercy in allowing humankind to flourish and grow.
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Think of how long these men were staying fruitful.
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They were having children in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s.
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Many sons and daughters.
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This is filling the earth and it's allowing for the perpetuation of faith and thought and culture as it's translated.
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You understand this.
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Adam was still...
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If this genealogy is correct and I don't believe that this genealogy is broken up.
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Some people believe that there's skipping in this genealogy.
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I don't think so and the reason why is because it says this one father, this one and this one.
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It's too specific for there to be misses in there and if this genealogy is correct Adam was still alive when Lamech was alive.
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Can you imagine if your great, great, great grandfather who believed in the Lord and loved Jesus was still alive today? The amount of change that that would make in your life.
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Can you imagine if some of the great theologians of the past were given an extra 300 years to think and write and preach? Imagine if John Calvin were still alive or Martin Luther.
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They'd probably be going out of their minds with all the things that are happening but imagine, even in art and music, imagine if Beethoven got 300 more years.
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Imagine if Einstein got another 500 years.
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You see, that's what we see in these early generations.
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We see men who are able to sort of transcend our understanding of a lifetime and pass on to the generations what they had amassed in wisdom and knowledge and understanding.
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This is why when we get to the story of Noah we're going to see Noah knew a lot of things that it seems like he really shouldn't have known.
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How to build and construct and do all these things that seemed amazing but they had a thousand years to figure it out.
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Think of what we've learned in the last 200 years.
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So just something to consider.
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Those lifespans are longer and I think there's a reason for it.
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Number two, the age of the earth can be estimated by this genealogy.
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If those lifespans don't have any breaks we're looking at an earth that's less than 10,000 years old.
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I know a lot of people get upset about that.
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Oh no, it's 4.5 billion years old, 13 billion year old universe.
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That's fine if you want to believe that.
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I don't think it necessarily is a point of faith but I will say this, I don't think the Bible teaches that.
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I think the Bible teaches the earth is a young earth.
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But again, if somebody says I have trouble with that we can talk about that.
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We're not going to beat you over the head with it but from a biblical perspective if we follow these generations down it gives us an estimated timeline of the earth.
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Number three, the opening chapters of Genesis are about real people in real time.
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That's key.
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The opening chapters of Genesis, these genealogies remind us these are real people.
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How do we know these are real people? Go to Luke chapter 3 when Jesus who of course was a real person is given a lineage.
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Where does his lineage go back to? To Seth and to Adam.
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These are real people in real time.
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These genealogies remind us we're not dealing with mythologies.
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We're dealing with history.
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Number four, the curse was in full effect.
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I already explained that one.
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That was part of my explanation of death.
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But it just reminds us the curse was in full effect.
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Number five, there is life beyond this life for those who walk with God.
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Enoch tells us that.
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I've heard people say the Old Testament saints didn't believe in an afterlife.
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And I will say this, the Old Testament does not have as robust a theology of the afterlife as does the New Testament.
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But to say that the Old Testament saints did not believe in an afterlife I think is wildly missing the truth because even as far back as Enoch they knew after death something was to come and Enoch was the promise of that.
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And then later Elijah becomes another promise of that.
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And one day we will all share in that same promise of life here and life there.
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Finally, we have the unbroken line of promise.
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This line reminds us that the Messiah is coming.
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Lamech thought it was possibly his son.
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He's the one that's going to relieve us.
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And in one sense he did.
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He saved them from the flood.
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He was a Christ figure.
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But this line is more important than Noah.
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In fact, I'll tell you this, a lot of people who preach this text, they spend all their time on Enoch.
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They spend all their time on the prophecy of Lamech.
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Or they spend all their time on how old these guys were.
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All of that is secondary to this one truth.
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This genealogy is here to show us that there's an unbroken line of promise from Adam to Christ.
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From Adam to Noah is this genealogy.
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But we can follow that line all the way to Jesus.
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The Bible is about Jesus.
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Even from the opening chapters.
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It's pointing us one direction to Jesus Christ.
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There is no other Savior.
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There is no other Messiah.
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There is no other way.
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There is no other name under heaven given among men.
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And there is really no other focus in Scripture than to point us to the Lord Jesus Christ.
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To whom be glory and honor forever.
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Amen.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for Your truth.
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I pray that Your Word would be the light to our feet and the lamp to our path.
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And most of all, Lord, that this Word would affect us.
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That if we are believers today, that we will be encouraged and emboldened in our faith.
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And Lord, if there are those here today who do not know the Lord, who have not come to faith in Him, Lord, that today might be the day.
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That today might be the day that their hearts are changed.
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Lord, like we saw Enoch walked with God after his son was born.
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There was a moment of change in his life.
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Lord, let today be the moment of change.
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Father, for men and women and children who do not know the Lord.
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And I pray it in Jesus' name.
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Amen.