Archives for January 2017

OVERVIEW: The sacrifices of Cain and Abel; Cain murders Abel; genealogy from Adam to Noah; the days of Noah; Noah’s ark.

HIGHLIGHTS & INSIGHTS: The physical and spiritual ramifications of the entrance of sin into the perfect environment into which man was placed were unbelievably devastating. The curse of sin that entered into the world in chapter 3 is already clearly manifest in chapter 4 as Cain murders his own brother. Cain’s is the religion of HUMAN WORKS. Sadly, billions of people follow “Cain’s religion” to this very day! Cain offers to God the fruit of his own labor. His offering recognized God as CREATOR, but it did not recognize Cain as a SINNER. Abel’s religion, however, is that of FAITH. His offering not only recognized God as Creator, but the fact of his own sinfulness. He recognized that the blood sacrifice of a lamb was necessary to atone for his sin. (Heb. 9:22; 11:4; Pro. 27:26) Notice that God asks Cain a question in 4:9, giving him the opportunity to confess his sin. Rather than “own” his sin in repentance before God, notice in 4:16 that Cain goes “out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.” Note that from this point in the Bible, virtually every positive move will be from EAST to WEST—while virtually every negative move will be from WEST to EAST. Note, also, that the word “Nod” means “to stray” or “to wander.” Even the land in which Cain chose to dwell speaks of his willful choice to refuse to confess his sin, his refusal to trust the blood of the lamb, and his refusal to move toward God. Where did Cain get his wife? It’s the age-old question. Obviously, Cain married one of his sisters. By the time he takes a wife, Adam and Eve have many descendants, and there has been given no Divine prohibition forbidding him from taking one of them to be his wife. The very idea of marrying a relative sounds strange and even repulsive to us, until we realize that though in a much larger sense, all of us are descendants of Noah, and all of us who are married have likewise married another descendant of Noah. Chapter 5 is another one of those passages like we saw in Genesis 2:1–3 in yesterday’s reading where God reveals to us how He thinks—and just how supernatural His Book actually is! Because right in-between the account of Cain and Abel in chapter 4—and the account of the days of Noah in chapter 6, God clears off the 32 verses of chapter 5 to provide us a genealogy. For many people who are seeking to read through the Bible in a year, genealogies can seem somewhat “boring” (if we’re allowed to say that!)—but they do at least provide an opportunity to do some “speedreading!” Remember, however, that Proverbs 30:5 says, “Every word of God is pure!” Don’t ever forget—everything in the Word of God is important—and there is nothing in God’s Book that is random. First of all, the genealogy is important because it provides for us a very significant timeline. It lets us know that there is actually a 1653 year period between Genesis 4 and 6! Sure, that’s important—but why not just provide one verse, or maybe even just a footnote at the end of chapter 4 that says something like, “And, oh, by the way—there’s a 1653 year gap between what just happened here with Cain and Abel—and what happened next with Noah.” Why 32 verses? I mean—that’s more verses than God spent talking about the entire first six “days” in Genesis 1! Here’s the reason: through the meaning of the names of the 10 men who are listed in the genealogy in Genesis 5— God is going to do something to literally blow our doors off!

Check this out… #1 is ADAM – and his name simply means “MAN.”

#2 is SETH – his name means “APPOINTED.”

#3 is ENOS – his name means “DESPERATELY WICKED.”

#4 is CAINAN – and his name means “POSSESSION.”

#5 is MAHALALEEL – meaning “PRAISE OF GOD.”

#6 is JARED – which means “DESCENT.”

#7 is ENOCH – and his name means “DEDICATED” or “TRAIN UP.”

#8 is METHUSELAH – which means “MAN OF THE SWORD.”

#9 is LAMECH – meaning “POWERFUL.”

And, #10 is NOAH – in his name means “REST.”

And what becomes apparent as we look at the meaning of these names compared to what God reveals throughout the remainder of the Bible—is that more than simply providing us a timeline through the listing of these 10 men, God is actually using the meaning of their names to provide for us, not just an outline of the Bible, but an outline of the entire course of man’s 7000 year history on this planet! Let me explain… The first man, ADAM, meaning “MAN,” represents CREATION—and specifically, the CREATION of MAN. And God did that in Genesis 1:26. God said, “Let us make MAN in our image after our likeness…” Then, SETH, meaning “APPOINTED,” represents the COMMISSION God gave to the “MAN.” Notice that after God created the man in Genesis 1:26, in the remainder of verse 26 through verse 28, God “APPOINTS” man to have dominion over everything In the earth and sea, and “APPOINTS” him, or “COMMISSIONS” him (along with his bride), “to be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth.” That’s was his commission, or what he was “APPOINTED” by God to do. And then, there’s ENOS. After man was “APPOINTED” to carry out the commission, something happened to his heart: it became “DESPERATELY WICKED!” (Jer. 17:9) And so, ENOS represents the FALL of man—where man loses the “image of God,” and thus, the ability to reproduce “sons of God.” He now only has the ability to reproduce “sons of Adam.” After his FALL, Genesis 5:3 says that Adam “begat a son in his own likeness, after his image,” which, of course, was FALLEN. And that’s a problem! It certainly looks as if the plan of God through MAN has been forever thwarted! But through the next name, CAINAN, meaning “POSSESSION,” God shows us the direction the plan is going to go and how He will fulfill it. And in Genesis 17, God enters into an unconditional covenant with a man by the name of ABRAM, or ABRAHAM—along with “his seed” after him. That “seed,” of course, was the NATION of ISRAEL! And listen to what God said to ABRAHAM in Genesis 17:8, “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the LAND where in thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting (listen to this next word…) “POSSESSION!” God also told Abraham in 17:6, that “kings shall come out of thee.” And we begin to see that the Nation of Israel would produce the “KING” who would rule over the whole earth—and all of the Gentile nations of the world would come to Jerusalem to “PRAISE the GOD” of Israel!
And interestingly enough, the next name in the genealogy is MAHALALEEL, meaning, “PRAISE of GOD.” And in Kings 10, it’s incredible! During the REIGN of SOLOMON, the Nation of Israel is the “PRAISE of GOD,” and the kings and queens of the Gentile nations are coming to bow before the “king of Israel,” the “son of David” (hello?), and present him gifts. It is the “glory days” of the Nation of Israel, as they are, indeed, the “PRAISE of GOD.”

But then, no sooner are we out of 1 Kings 10 before in 1 Kings 11, the Nation of Israel begins their “DESCENT.” And again, interestingly enough, the next man in the genealogy “just happens” to be JARED, meaning “DESCENT.” This “DESCENT ultimately leads them to be taken into Babylonian CAPTIVITY, and there’s no more KING in ISRAEL. And once again, it looks like the plan of God will not be fulfilled. But then, all of a sudden, a very “DEDICATED” man comes on the scene. In fact, Jesus said of this man in Matthew 11:11, “Among them that are born, there hath not risen a greater than JOHN THE BAPTIST.” And he has some INSTRUCTION for the Nation of Israel, doesn’t he? He has some “TRAINING UP” to do, as it were! And just what is it that he’s actually “TRAINING UP,” or PREPARING the people for? Obviously, the FIRST COMING OF CHRIST—the coming of “the MAN of the SWORD!” (Eph. 6:17; Jn. 1:1,14) And the “MAN of the SWORD” (the meaning of the next name in the genealogy, METHUSELAH!) was here on this planet, “full of grace and truth.” (Jn. 1:14) But when He comes the next time at the SECOND COMING OF CHRIST, it won’t be like that at all! Revelation 19:15 says that the “MAN of the SWORD” will use that sharp sword that goes out of his mouth to smite the nations! Mark 13:26 says He’ll come, not with “grace and truth,” but with “great POWER and glory!” And the meaning of the name of the next man in the genealogy, of course, is LAMECH, which means “POWERFUL!” And at the second coming of Christ, when He comes in power and smites the nations, putting his enemies under his feet, He will bring in that period of “REST” on the earth that we call MILLENNIUM—which, as we saw yesterday from Genesis 2:1-3, is the THEME of the entire Bible, and that to which all of human history is MOVING! Wow! How about a God that can take the names of 10 men—and not only preach the message of the entire Bible… but completely unfold the entire history of mankind on the earth?! Note then, that the 10 point outline of history revealed in Genesis 5 is as follows: 1) Creation. 2) Commission. 3) Fall. 4) Nation of Israel. 5) Reign of Solomon. 6) Captivity. 7) John the Baptist. 8) First Coming of Christ. 9) Second Coming of Christ. 10) Millennium. Note in chapter 6:5,11 and 13 as God describes the sinful days of Noah, that there is not much difference between Noah’s time and ours! He describes it as “wicked…corrupt… violent… and every imagination of the thoughts of man’s heart was only evil continually.” Keep in mind that Jesus said in Matthew 24:37, “But as the days of Noe (Noah) were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.” Even so, come, Lord Jesus!

CHRIST IS REVEALED: Through Abel’s BLOOD SACRIFICE – Gen. 4:4 (Heb. 9:19-22)

Through Abel’s SACRIFICIAL LAMB – Gen. 4:4 (John 1:29; Heb. 11:4)

In METHUSELAH (meaning “the man of the sword”) – Gen. 5:27 (John 1:1,14; Eph 6:17; Heb. 4:12; Rev. 19:15)

 

OVERVIEW: Creation of all things; creation of Adam and his bride; their commissioning; temptation by Satan; Adam and his bride rebel against God—forfeiting the Garden of Eden, their relationship with God, and the ability to fulfill their commission.

HIGHLIGHTS & INSIGHTS:

The word “Genesis” means “beginnings.” The Book of Genesis records the beginning of the universe, man, woman, marriage, the family, sin, judgment, death, sacrifice, salvation, worship, civilization, false religion and war. In the first 10 words of the Bible (Gen. 1:1), God sums up the five elements of science: TIME (“beginning”); SPACE (“heavens”); MOTION (“created”); MATTER (“the earth”); and ENERGY (“created”). In this simple verse, God destroys ATHEISM (“… GOD created”), denies POLYTHEISM (“… GOD (singular) created”), and dispels EVOLUTION (“… God CREATED”).

Man is the crown of creation. God formed the first man “in His own image and likeness,” and gave him the place of dominion over the whole earth from Eden, the Garden of God. (1:26,28) Lucifer once held the position as the crown of creation (Ezek. 28:11–17; Isa. 14:12–14) and held dominion over the whole earth from Eden, the Garden of God. (Ezek. 28:13) Since Lucifer couldn’t have the place of God in the universe, he sought to have the place of God in the life of man. Sadly, he was successful. (3:6)

Some interesting things to note in today’s reading…

• God clearly defines marriage in the first two chapters of the Bible!

Sure, the world can invent its own scandalous definition of marriage—but the Creator of human life made His definition extremely simple and clear from the very beginning:

Marriage = One man. One woman. One lifetime. (Gen. 1:27–28; 2:24)

• Adam’s “Bible” only has two “verses!”

God’s instruction to Adam boils down to this:

1) Enjoy the intimacy of the physical relationship designed for marriage partners of the opposite sex until the whole earth has been replenished! (1:28)
2) Eat as much as you want… from any tree you want—except one! (2:16–17)

Wow! How hard could those two things possibly be? Well, evidently—pretty hard! (See 3:6)

• Man’s “choice” is represented in a “tree.”

Before the foundation of the world, God made an incredible choice. He didn’t have to do it this way, but the glorious reality is—He did! And what He chose was that when He would create man, He would create him in a relationship with Himself. (3:8a) Through “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” (2:17), God beautifully offered man the opportunity to exercise his will by making his own choice concerning this relationship. He could choose to CONTINUE his relationship with God by NOT eating of the tree—or, he could choose to eat of the forbidden tree, choosing to suffer the consequence of spiritual death (2:16–17), and thus, severing his relationship with the holy and loving God who created him.

As we will see in today’s reading, man made the fateful choice to sever his relationship with God in choosing “his own way” by partaking of that tree, resulting in every person born from Adam’s corrupted seed entering this world spiritually dead (Rom. 5:12; Gen. 5:3), and thereby, separated from our perfectly holy God. (Heb. 7:26; Isa. 59:2) Wow! We can’t even get three chapters into the Bible before the entire human race has completely run amuck! Note, that like Adam, Isaiah 53:6 is clear that all of us made the same fateful choice Adam made: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to HIS OWN WAY.”

And yet, there’s “good news!” As we make our way into the New Testament, we find that the holy and loving God of the Bible is still offering man a CHOICE concerning his relationship with Himself! Because you see, God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ, and in His own body, bore the penalty of the curse of our sin through His death on the cross. But, be sure not to miss how the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostle Peter to word Christ’s incredible sacrifice for us in 1 Peter 2:24! Peter says, “Who his own self (Christ) bare our sins in His own body (watch this now…) on the TREE!” The Holy Spirit did the same thing through the Apostle Paul in Galatians 3:13, “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is everyone that hangs (here it is again…) on a TREE!” Man’s relationship with God comes down to a decision we make—represented in the choice of a TREE! To state it succinctly…

* The first man CHOSE to partake of the fruit of a TREE in the garden, CHOOSING to SEVER his relationship with God.

* All of us have the opportunity to CHOOSE to partake of the fruit of the TREE of Calvary (the forgiveness of sin!), CHOOSING to ENTER a relationship with God!

Have you ever exercised your will in making that choice? (Acts 4:12; Rom. 10:9)

• The first recorded words of Satan in the Bible.

The first recorded words of Satan (3:1) come in the form of a question—and notice, the question has to do with the “words” of God, or what God “said” (“Yea, hath God said?”)—i.e. The Word of God! Questioning the Word of God will become Satan’s M.O. throughout the remainder of the Bible—not to mention the remainder of human history! (Matt. 4:3,6; 2 Thess. 2:2)

• The first temptation.

When we compare Genesis 3:6 with Matthew 4:1–11, we find that Satan tempted the Lord Jesus Christ the same way he tempted the woman… through the lust of the flesh (“the tree was good for food”), the lust of the eyes (“it was pleasant to the eyes”), and the pride of life (“a tree to be desired to make one wise”). Notice in 1 John 2:16, God lets us know that those are the only three plays in Satan’s playbook! He continues to run those three plays—for the simple fact that they keep working! In Christ’s case, however, the temptation was resisted. James 4:7 says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” Note also that our Lord was successful in resisting the temptation by quoting Scripture that applied to each of Satan’s specific attacks! (Ps. 119:11)

• The Author of the Bible (God!) establishes its THEME by the second chapter!

One of the things we will discover as we make our way through the 52 Weeks of Pursuit is that the God of the Bible is extremely ordered, patterned and structured. In fact, one of the ways He uses to call our attention to something particular that He wants to make sure we don’t miss in His Book—is by breaking His pattern! It’s kind of His way of saying, “You may want to slow yourself down here and see what’s really going on!” Such is the case in Genesis 2:1–3. Notice that on each of the successive “days” in chapter 1, God’s unmistakable pattern at the conclusion of each day was to say, “And the evening and the morning were the 1st day… 2nd day… 3rd day… 4th day… 5th day… and 6th day.” (1:5,8,13,19,23,31) But something strange happens on the 7th day! The ultra-patterned God—suddenly breaks His pattern! As He gives us the details concerning the 7th day, for some strange reason He is careful to omit from the text the anticipated phrase, “And the evening and the morning were the 7th day.” Interesting.

And what becomes even more interesting is what He does include in His description of this 7th day! Because we find that, first of all, this is a day that God BLESSED. Hmmm. It makes you wonder what was so special about this particular day that God chose to “BLESS” it? Secondly, we find that this is a day that God SANCTIFIED. The word “sanctified” means “to set apart.” God set this particular day apart to Himself! In other words, God said, “This day is Mine.” Or, “This is My day!” Again, it makes you wonder why He would feel the need to do something like that? I mean, since He was the One who created every day, weren’t they all His anyway? Did He really need to set a particular day apart in order for it to be “His?” And then, thirdly, we find that this is a day in which God RESTED. Wow! Rested? Really? Are we to assume that the omnipotent God of the Bible got Himself just plum “tuckered out” from the exhausting work of speaking things into existence on the previous six days? Did He really need a day to refresh Himself? Somehow, I don’t think so!

What God is doing in 2:1–3 is giving us a glimpse into how He thinks—and thus, how He reveals truth in His supernatural Book. Because you see, when we take the details of this  7th day, and begin to compare them (1 Cor. 2:10,13) with what God reveals throughout the remainder of the Bible in terms of the unfolding of human history—it gets very exciting!

Because God finds another very interesting way to get our attention in another passage toward the end of the Bible in 2 Peter 3. In verse 8, He inspires Peter to write, “But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing…” In other words, there may be some things in this Book that you’ve missed along the way—but just make sure this one doesn’t get added to the list!” Oh, okay, Peter—so what’s this “one thing” we better be sure not to miss? Here it is! Peter continues, “… that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day!” And obviously, God is letting us know here that, as God, He doesn’t count time the way we do. That’s an important truth, but somehow it doesn’t seem to merit the fanfare of being “one thing” we better be sure not to miss!

However, if we were to take that little equation in verse 8 (one day = one thousand years)—and plug it into the first time “days” are mentioned in the Bible in Genesis 1 and 2, what it would say to us is that after 6000 years (each of the first 6 days X 1000), the next 1000 years (represented in the 7th day) would be a period of 1000 years on this planet that would have no EVENING or MORNING… it would be the most BLESSED thousand year period in the history of the world… it would be a time when God would be at REST… and it would be a period of time known as His Day—”the LORD’S DAY,” or “the DAY of the LORD.”

And do you realize that from this point in the Bible, everything in it will be wrapped around that very THEME—and pointing to that very DAY! What DAY? The 7th Day! And it just happens to be…
 * A 1000 year “day” that has no “evening or morning.” (Rev. 20:1–5; 21:23)
 * It is a 1000 year “day” that is called throughout the Bible, “the Day of the Lord,” or simply, “that day” —because He SANCTIFIED it as such.
 * It is a 1000 year “day” when God will be BLESSED like no other time in human history because His Son is receiving the glory that is due His name. (Ps. 29:2: Phil. 2:9–11; Ps. 66:4)
 * It is a 1000 year “day” when sin has been vanquished, and God is finally at REST. (Heb. 4:3–5; Acts 3:19–21… “times of REFRESHING”…”times of RESTITUTION.”)

May “THAT DAY” be our PURSUIT through the Bible—and through our lives! (2 Tim. 4:8)

CHRIST IS REVEALED:

As CREATOR – Genesis 1:1 (John 1:1-4; Heb. 11:3; Col. 1:16-17)

As the SEED OF THE WOMAN – Genesis 3:15 (Isa. 7:14; 9:6-7; Gal. 4:4) In ADAM – Genesis 2:21-24 (John 19:34; Eph. 5:28-32)

*Note: God caused a sleep to fall upon Adam, and from the substance that came from his side, God formed for him a bride. God caused a “sleep” to fall upon the second Adam, Christ (1 Cor. 15:45-47), and from the substance that came from His side, God formed for Him a bride.

As the SACRIFICIAL LAMB – Genesis 3:21 (Prov. 27:26)