Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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So this morning I'm going to be
preaching on Genesis One through eleven and I'm
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not going to read it. All
of that anyway. I hope that you
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will do that this afternoon or sometime
this week. But I will be reading
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selections from these various chapters and to
remind us of various things that we've thought
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about and considered, the various ways
in which God has revealed himself to us,
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proclaimed his nature on himself, his
saving ways, his just ways.
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So these you might think of them
as a little coat hooks on which to
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hang various ideas and things. These
are not the most important parts of Genesis
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one through eleven, though some of
them certainly summarize and bring together much of
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it. But will consider these and
and then we'll consider what we've learned from
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this prehistory genesis one through eleven that
we've been considering for some time now.
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So I'm going to begin reading in
Genesis one, just the first two verses
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to begin with, Genesis one,
versus one and two. In the beginning,
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God created the heavens and the earth. The Earth was with out form
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and void and darkness was over the
face of the deep and the spirit of
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God was hovering over the face of
the waters. Now moving to the sixth
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day of creation, where God brings
it creates man in verse Twenty Six.
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Then God said, let us make
man in our image, after our likeness,
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and let them have dominion over the
fish of the sea and over the
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birds of the heavens and over the
livestock, over all the earth and over
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every creeping thing that creeps on the
earth. So God created man in his
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own image, in the image of
God. He created him male and female.
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He created them and God bless them. And God said to them be
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fruitful and multiply and fill the earth
and subdue it and have dominion over the
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fish of the sea and over the
birds of the heavens and over every living
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thing that moves on the earth.
And God said, behold, I have
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given you every plant yielding seed that
is on the face of all the earth
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and every tree with seed and its
fruit. You shall have them for food
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and to every beast of the earth
and to every bird of the heavens and
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everything that creeps on the earth,
everything that has breath of life, I
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have given every green plant for food. And it was so. Then we
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read of Day seven and Chapter Two
thus the heavens and the Earth were finished,
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and all the hosts of them.
And on the seventh day God finished
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his work that he had done and
he rested on the seventh day from all
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his work that he had done.
So God blessed them. The or blessed
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the seventh day, made it holy
because on it God rested from all his
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work that he had done. Now
two, chapter three, the fall.
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Now the serpent was more crafty than
any other beast of the field that Jehovah,
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God had made. He said to
the woman, did God actually say
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you shall not eat of any tree
in the garden. And the woman said
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to the serpent, we may eat
of the fruit of the trees in the
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garden. But God said, you
shall not eat of the fruit of the
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tree and that is in the midst
of the garden. Neither shall you touch
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it lest you die. But the
serpent said to the woman, you will
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not surely die, for God knows
that when you eat of it, your
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eyes will be opened and you will
be like God, knowing good and evil.
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So when the woman saw that the
tree was good for food and that
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it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be
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desired to make one wise. She
took of its fruit and ate, and
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she also gave some to her husband
who was with her, and he ate.
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Then the eyes of both were opened
and they knew that they were naked,
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and they sewed fig leaves together and
made themselves loincloths. US, then,
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skipping down to the curses, will
read just the Gospel promise that we
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find amongst the various curses. In
Genesis Three Fifteen, God says to the
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serpent, this seat Great Evil One, Satan himself, I will put enmity
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between you and the woman, in
between your offspring and her offspring. He
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shall bruise your head and you shall
bruise his heel. Then, in the
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end of that chapter, Verse Twenty
Two, then Jehovah God said, behold,
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the man has become like one of
us and knowing good and evil.
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Now lest he reach out his hand
and take also of the tree of life
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and eat and live forever. Therefore, Jehovah God sent him out from the
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Garden of Eden to work the ground
from which he was taken. He drove
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out the man and at the east
of the Garden of Eden he placed the
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Cherubim and a flaming sword that turned
every way to guard the way to that
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tree of life. Then in Genesis, chapter four, we read of Adam
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and eves two sons, Cain and
Abel, and in Verse Eight we read
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of the great murder of King of
Abel by his brother Kane. Kane spoke
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to his eight toable his brother,
and when they were in the field,
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cane rose up against his brother Abel
and killed him. Then Jehovah said to
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Cane, where is Abel, your
brother? He said by do not know,
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am I my brother's keeper. And
Jehovah said, What have you done?
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The Voice of your brother's blood is
crying to me from the ground,
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and now you are cursed from the
ground, which has opened its mouth to
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receive your blood, brother's blood,
from your hand. When you work the
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ground, it shall no longer yield
to you at strength. You shall be
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a fugitive and a wanderer on the
earth. Then in Verse Twenty Five of
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that Chapter, the end of chapter
four, we read this. And Adam
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knew his wife again and she bore
a son and call his name Seth,
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for she said God has appointed for
me another offspring instead of able, for
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Kan killed him. To Seth also
was born a son and he was called
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Enosh, and at that time people
became began to call upon the name of
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Jehovah. Next, in Genesis five, stands out one particular man in Verse
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Verses Twenty One through Twenty Four.
In this genealogy of those who walked with
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God, we have this example on
this great man, Enoch. When Enoch
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had lived sixty five years, he
fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after
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he fathered Methuselah three hundred years and
had other sons and daughters. Thus,
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all the days of Enoch were three
hundred and sixty five ers. Enoch walked
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with God and he was not for
God took him. Although we see God's
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preserve preserving of his people, a
continuing of the line so that a seed
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may be born that will crush the
head of the serpent, we also see
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that the earth is now swarming with
corruption and violence. In Genesis Chapter Six,
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God says in Verse Eleven, Chapter
Six, verse eleven. Now the
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earth was corrupt in God's sight and
the Earth was filled with violence. And
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God saw the earth and behold it
was corrupt and all flesh had corrupted their
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way on the earth and God said
to Noah, I have determined to make
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an end of all flesh, for
the earth is filled with violence through them.
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Behold, I will destroy them with
an with the earth. Make yourself
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an ark of gopher wood. Then
in Genesis Chapter Seven, God shuts them
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into that arc and we have the
flood. The conclusion of that flood is
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found in Genesis Chapter Seven, Verse
Twenty Two. Everything on the dry ground
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in whose nostrils was the breath of
life died. He, that is God,
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blotted out every living thing that was
on the face of the ground,
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manned and animals and creeping things and
birds of the heavens. They were blotted
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out from the earth. Only Noah
was left and those who were with him
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in the Ark. But God odd
remembered Noah and all the beasts and all
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the livestock that were with him in
the Ark, and God made a wind
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and blow over the earth and the
waters subsided. Then at the end of
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Chapter Eight, we read of God's
Great Covenant that he establishes with the entire
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world. Genesis Chapter Eight, Verse
Twenty One. And when Jehovah smelled the
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Pleasing Aroma, Jehovah said in his
heart I will never again curse the ground
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because of man, for the intention
of Man's heart is evil from his youth.
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Neither will I ever again strike down
every living creature as I have done,
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while the earth remains seed. Time
and harvest, cold and heat,
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summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. This is God's
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great and unilateral promise. And then
he gives a command to Noah and US
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after him, be fruitful and multiply
and fill the earth. The fear of
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you and the dread of you shall
be upon every beast of the earth and
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upon every bird of the heavens,
upon everything that creeps on the ground and
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all the fish of the sea,
he goes on to say in Verse Four.
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But you shall not eat flesh with
its life, that is its blood.
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And for your life blood I will
require a reckoning from every beast,
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I will require it. And from
man and from his fellow man, I
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will require a reckoning for the life
of Man. Whoever sheds the blood of
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Man by man shall his blood be
shed, for God made man in his
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own image. Despite these great graces, in this great covenant, this command
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to execute justice in the earth,
again immediately we see man plunge himself into
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sin, as even Noah's Children's children. One in particular, his son Ham,
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commits a great sin against his father. God responds in Chapter Nine,
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Verse Twenty Five, and says to
Canaan, the son of Ham, cursed,
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be Canaan, a servant of servants, shall he be to his brothers.
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But then he also blesses the other
two brothers and says, blessed be
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the Jehovah, the God of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.
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May God enlarge jff and let him
dwell in the tents of Shem and let
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Canaan be his servant. Then we
read of the nation's descending down from Noah
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on the many generations. I'm God
filling, fulfilling his promise and keeping man
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on the earth, even though again
we see the great sin of Man,
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now repeated. In Genesis Eleven,
and this is our last chapter, and
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verse four, we read that all
of these descendants of Noah said to themselves,
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come, let us build ourselves a
city and the tower with its top
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in the heavens, and let us
make a name for ourselves, lest we
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be dispersed over the face of the
whole earth. And then we read in
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Verse Six that Jehovah says in response, behold, they are one people and
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they all have one language, and
this is only the beginning of what they
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will do, and nothing they've been
proposed to do will be impossible for them.
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Come let us go down and they're
confuse their language, and let that
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so that they may not understand one
speech. So Jehovah dispersed them from there
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over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city
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again. We have another genealogy at
the end of chapter eleven, and I'll
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read the last few verses of this
inclosing verses twenty seven through the end.
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Now these are the generations of Tara. Tara fathered Abram, Nahor and Harun,
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and Harn fathered lat. Haraun died
in the presence of his father,
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Tara, and the land of his
kindred in Ur of the Chaldees, and
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Abram and Nahor took wives. The
name of Abram's wife was Sarah. The
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name of Nahor's wife Milka, the
daughter of Harun, the father of Milka
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and Eska. Now Sarahi was barren. She had no child. May God
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bless his word to us as we
consider these chapters a genesis one. Through
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eleven, so many a prominent themes
come out, so many different ideas,
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story lines, which we could trace
from this point all the way to the
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end of the book. And if
you would like book recommendations on books that
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do that kind of thing, pick
up on these various motifs trace them to
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the end, I'd be happy to
give that to you. But what I
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would like to present before you is
one of the most important things we see
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in these first several chapters, and
that is that God so clearly establishes himself
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as sovereign over all the world.
Now that's not sovereign just in some kind
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of abstract sense, but the sovereignty
of God, of a very particular God
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who has a particular will, has
chosen to act in particular ways. And
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this is very important because as we
live our lives in the world, we
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often think of ourselves apart from this
God, the God who has been speaking
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to us even now, the God
who reveals himself in these words. We're
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so pleased with ourselves apart from God, we're so content and happy to think
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of our lives separate from him.
We set our hands to various tasks,
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be it in the field or in
the market place, and bank accounts grow,
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plants grow, harvests are made,
we make families, we marry,
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we have children generations. Some of
US have even taken the time to look
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at ancestry and see these great family
trees. Or we can look around the
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world and we see these great towers
that we've built, cities, nations,
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landmarks, monuments. We can consider
the great amounts of wealth that we've amassed,
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the the security that we have.
These things are particularly easy for us
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to do in America, where we
have great freedoms, where this socalled experiment
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and democracy has gone so amazingly well
and so many ways, where we have
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so much wealth, so much freedom, so much security. These things are
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said so often we almost forget about
them, even we have been blessed in
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so many ways and we often think
about it and pat ourselves on the back.
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We not only grow in ways of
a socially and in ways that in
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terms of our family or our businesses, but we also have grow in our
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lives and in the course of history
in terms of the mind. We see
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even in these chapters of Genesis,
the way man sets himself to various aspects
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of society, of civilization, and
he becomes expert and metallurgy and music,
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agriculture, shepherdy, all kinds of
things, various disciplines that he sets himself
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to and really grows in. And
when we think about this, when we
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think about our lives, and when
I say we I mean you and me
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on a daytoday basis, it's very
easy for us to sit in that and
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say, wow, this is amazing. Look at all these things I'm doing.
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Look how full my schedule is,
look how much profits are up from
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last year, or on and on
and on. There's all kinds of examples.
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Well, this kind of flourishing of
man is not only prevalent in our
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own lives, that's very true,
but it's there in the chapters of genesis
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as well, after the fall.
After the fall, we see Kane and
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his children after him, establishing these
great cities. They of the Tower of
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Babel, which we considered many other
examples recorded here in Genesis. That man,
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I'm indeed, is in many ways
very great. At the same time,
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though, we are very pleased with
ourselves in a sinful way, as
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I was saying earlier. We see
all this greatness which indeed it is great,
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impressive in some way, I'm but
we think of it entirely separated from
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God. We're like Nebuchadnezzar, who
goes out on his balcony. This is
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right before God turns him into a
animal. It goes out on his balcony
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and says, look at this kingdom, look at everything I've done, this
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is really, really impressive. It's
true. It's impressive in a certain sense
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when you consider how far we've fallen
into sin, how prone we are to
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killing one another and all the rest. The fact that we can do every
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anything at all, the fact that
we can learn and grow in some ways
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and is impressive. But it's more
like it's less like a great king.
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I'm accomplishing all these things, creating
an empire, but we are more like
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even our kings are more like toddlers
who have dumped their blocks out on the
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floor and arrange them in particular ways
and spent it, you know, maybe
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a good twenty minutes doing this and
they go to their mom and dad and
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say, look at this kingdom I've
built, and mom and dad say well,
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yes, that's very nice. God
comes down at the Tower of Babel
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and he looks at this little tower
that they've built. This is okay,
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you've sought to build it up to
the heavens, but let me come down
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and and look at it. The
ways in which we build these things.
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There is a certain context that we
must understand them in, and that's what
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genesis a one through eleven does.
It establishes with all this clarity the kind
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of context that we are living our
lives in, not just the sovereignty of
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God, but particular aspects of that, the noaic covenant, for example,
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the Covenant were, the Covenant of
Works With Adam all kinds of other things.
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If we move up the growth and
development timeline to the teenage years,
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and imagine not a toddler who's proud
of herself, but a young man he
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has fifteen, sixteen, saying to
mom and dad, Hey, look,
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I got it together, I can
make some decisions here now. I I'm
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self sufficient, I can go out, I can do things on my own,
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and mom and dad just sit there
and go hey, you have no
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idea what you're talking about. I'm
sorry fifteen and sixteen year olds, but
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there is some humbling that needs to
happen during this time of life. There
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are so many ways in which you
are dependent still on your parents, so
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many ways that you don't even realize
how much they're providing for you, how
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much they're taking care of you,
guarding you, protecting you ways that you're
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not even aware of. And this
is very much like the same with all
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of us and God. We go
out into the world and we say,
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Hey, I've got this, I'm
good, I'm okay, look at all
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these ways I'm succeeding, look at
all these ways in which I'm successful.
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And Genesis one through eleven is God, as our heavenly father came coming and
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saying, son, you don't have
it all together, you're full of sin,
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you're prone to disobedience, you have
a lot to learn and in fact,
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you cannot go out on the in
the world on your own. And
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as it is with with us,
there's never a way and never a sense
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in which we grow up and are
able to go out on our own.
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God teaches us that we always will
remain in this state of dependence on him,
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but he also teaches us that,
because of who he is, that's
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okay. It's okay to be dependent
on him, it's okay to be leaning
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on him for everything, dependent on
him for everything. How does God teach
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us these things in Genesis one through
eleven? We might think about it in
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terms of our life. Think about
the ways in which we are dependent on
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him in the beginning of our lives. Where do we come from? How
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are we made? Genesis One and
two tells us we don't come from the
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power of our being. We come
because God made us, and out of
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dust no less. We think about
other ways in which the beginning of life
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happens. It's not just there at
the very beginning of God's creation of mankind,
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but that continues on forward. The
genealogies prove that. The fact that
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man continues on living even after the
fall is proof of that. At the
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very end of Genesis, when it
says that Sarah I was barren and,
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as you know, we considered a
little bit before, what happens she has
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a child. How does a bear
and woman have a child? Because God
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is the author of life. The
beginning of our lives are entirely dependent on
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God, even though he might use
secondary causes and materials, whether it's dust
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or or the genetic material from our
parents, are all kinds of these sorts
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of things we might consider God is
sovereign over every moment of it. Genesis
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one through love and tells us that
the beginning of our lives is entirely in
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our God's hands. Well, seems
true of the middle of our lives.
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The fact that we continue on,
the fact that we are able to go
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on living, is only allowable because
God did not slay Adam and Eve after
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the fall, but he extended to
them grace and mercy and a promise,
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a promise even of a birth,
a promise of the birth of a son
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that would come to set things right. We have the dependency of the middle
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of our lives made clear not only
in genesis three, but also in the
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genealogies and the way that life goes
on, that the births and and and
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the marriages and all of these things
are dependent on God, that of course,
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there's Noah, who was only able
to live and continue on in this
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world because a god saved him.
All kinds of things. We also learned
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that our lives, as history plays
out, as very dependent on God.
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As we think about the curses and
blessings given to know as children, for
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example, when God curses Canaan and
blesses sham and chaff. We read here
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of the establishment of certain trajectories of
history. It reminds us that history is
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not just falling out as it happens
to fall out, but according to God's
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perfect plan. You could consider those
curses and blessings, or you consider God's
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promise to Noah. While the Earth
remains seed time and harvest, summer and
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winter, all of these things will
continue on. It's not just the beginning
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of life. God doesn't just create
the world and boom, goes into existence
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and then just begins operating on its
own apart from him. No, he's
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involved at every moment, with every
harvest, with every rising of the sun,
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with every setting of the sun,
with every birth, with every death,
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and that reminds us that it's not
only the beginning in the middle,
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but also the end of our lives
that are entirely dependent on God. We
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think again of the genealogies, or
we think of God's judgment and the days
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of Noah. This is perhaps the
strongest example of this. Man's life had
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increased, sin in the world had
increased to a certain point when God said
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no more. That is it.
Same thing with the Tower of battle.
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God allows sin to go on,
but only to the point of his perfect
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will. Or you think about the
end of our lives in terms of Adam
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and eve continuing on and living.
Or you can think about the end of
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our lives in terms of these specific
numbers given in the genealogies, the exact
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number of years in which they lived. Or One more enoch being raised up,
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and he was not a man who
didn't die, because God is sovereign
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over not only the beginning and the
middle but also the end of our lives.
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You see, in all of these
ways, in all throughout genesis,
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one through a level, and God
tells us these things over and over and
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over again to humble the pride of
his rebellious children. You're not all that,
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you are not self sufficient, you
are not capable of living and and
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particularly living in obedience to the things
I have called you to obey. Now.
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God says all of these things not
to make us feel bad, although
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that may of course happen and wouldn't
be such a bad thing, but he
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says it because he wants to bring
conviction on our hearts. He says it
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as a loving parent to help put
our pride into perspective. God says what
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he says in Genesis one through eleven, not because he needs your recognition,
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not because he needs some kind of
affirmation for you, from you that,
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yes, he's still in authority.
He will go on being in authority whether
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you recognize it or not. See
the flood, see Kane, see Laimek
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no, he says these things not
because he needs some kind of recognition from
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you, but because he loves you. He wants to humble your pride so
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that you might turn to him,
who loves you and desires to take care
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of you and protect you. God
humbles you so that you might receive his
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mercy, and that's the other thing
we find in these pages, in Genesis
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one, two, three, four, all the way up to eleven.
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As the greatness of God's mercy,
it comes in the way that it changes
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people's hearts. How could a man
like able lay down his life, be
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the first martyr, be willing to
go to his death for the cause of
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God, despite all of his sinfulness, the same sin that he had his
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cane because God had done something in
him. The same with Enoch, the
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same with Noah, the same with
all of these great fathers of the faith.
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We see God's mercy displayed in these
particular lives. These people didn't die,
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they didn't descend into unrighteousness and debauchery. They live their lives in a
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way that was holy and pleasing to
God. How did that happen? How
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did that happen with people that were
completely fallen and sinful? Because God is
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Merciful. We have it not only
in the these examples, but we have
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it in the covenants that God makes, the promises that he makes to Adam
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and Eve. Of they didn't need
those promises, or that what they needed
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them, but they didn't. They
didn't. God wasn't required to give them,
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and yet he does. He makes
it so that these people who've been
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condemned to death may that Eve,
for example, may be rightly called the
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mother of the living. Why?
Because of God's mercy. Many other ways
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we see a God's mercy, you
might think of them in God's mercy displayed
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in these chapters in two ways.
There's his common grace, or his common
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mercy, and then there's his special
grace. There's this common grace that God
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gives. Particularly we see it in
his covenant that he makes with the Earth
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in Genesis Chapter Eight, and nine. They're where he promises that the world
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will continue on, even though there
will be more canes and Lamex and Babbels.
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God will continue on the world until
the day that his son comes to
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bring all things into consummation. This
is this common grace and it's something that
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all of us, unbelievers, believers, Christians, non Christians, all of
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us have this, these great benefits
of God. And Jesus says that God
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sends his reign on both the just
and the unjust. But this common grace
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in many ways serves as a platform
on which God will then exercise and give
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special grace to his people, and
we see that again, particularly in this
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promise to give a seed that will
come to save sinners. This seed,
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of course, is Jesus Christ.
This Baron Woman, Sarah I, will
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be renamed by God Sarah, Abraham
will be called Abraham, and God will
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make a promise and say through you, through you Abraham and Sarah, will
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come a multitude of nations and through
them all the nations of the world would
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be blessed. Paul tells us very
clearly that this promised seed is Jesus Christ
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himself, and there's many ways in
which the scriptures take us to that point.
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I won't overview them for you now, but that's the rest of the
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Old Testament is moving forward and forward
and forward to this promised seed. Many
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ways that the serpent will come in
and try to stamp it out, many
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ways in which the city of Man
will rise up against the city of God
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and seek to destroy the Lord and
his anointed one. But over and over
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and over again throughout the pages of
the Bible, God preserves your savior and
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he comes and he does the thing
that he came to do, to go
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to a cross and to save us
from our sin, to save us from
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all this mess, to bring justice
to the martyrs, to establish not the
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city of man and all its greatness, but the city of God in which
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man will dwell and live forever,
not hiding from God, as Adam and
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Eve did in their sin, not
seeking to rule over men and unjust ways,
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like the sons of God did in
Genesis Chapter Six, not seeking to
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Lord it over people and lie and
steal and mock God, but to live
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in perfect harmony with one another and
with God. And so genesis one through
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eleven, at the end of it
all brings us to a savior and to
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a choice. We can read all
of this, we can hear God's word
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as it comes to us and tells
us these things, and we can choose
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to continue on in our blindness.
We can be blind to these realities and
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live on in this world as though
the rain were of our own making and
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our birth and our life and our
death. Why, that's all in our
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hands and we can control it and
we can master it and we can rule
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over it. But Genesis one through
eleven teaches us that whenever man does that,
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all he does is fall further into
sin and further into misery and further
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into judgment. All the mercy that
God displays in these chapters is also right
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there, along with his judgment.
That great flood of Noah that comes in
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the days of Noah is a constant
and continual reminder that God is capable to
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judge. He has and one day
he will again, but not in the
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way that he did in the days
of Noah, in a much more grand
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way, in a much more permanent
way. People will not only go to
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their graves because of their sin,
but also to hell. But Genesis went
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through eleven in the is it proclaims
the mercy and the grace of God gives
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us another choice. We can choose
to live blind to these realities, refusing
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these promises of grace, or we
can hear what God has said. We
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can listen to the father who has
spoken. We can hear the message of
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mercy and receive it and say thank
you and rely on him for everything,
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beginning, middle and end, all
the details, every moment, every day.
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We can lean on this God who
is powerful, who isn't an abstract
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hope and US an optimistic dream,
some kind of metaphysical formula, but God,
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Jehovah, the God of Abel,
the God of Noah and Enoch,
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the God of Abraham and Isaac and
Jacob and Jesus and you. We go
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to Jesus as our God and as
our Savior, not so that we can
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leave him and go build Sylvia cities
on our own, but so that we
404
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can grow up in him, live
in him, know him and no God.
405
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That's what God invites us to in
Genesis one through eleven, to come
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to him in all of his sovereignty, in all of his power, in
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all of his grace. It is
my prayer that each of you will do
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that and know him who made you, and him who saved you. Let
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us pray
