Bible Basics Conference 2012: “Genesis 1-12”

… Before we begin to speak our own words, I think we should turn first to the Word of God. Let's read the opening verses of Genesis, verses 1-5 of chapter 1 and verses 1-3 of chapter 2. Genesis 1, reading from the authorized version, which has been publicly read in this country for just over 400 years. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light, and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night, and the evening and the morning were the first day. Now chapter 2, following six days of creation, we read in chapter 2, Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made. In this session we're going to have a look at creation. The second session is going to cover the same verses, but looking at the spiritual aspect, a particular spiritual application of those verses. What is God's purpose in these verses? Well, first of all, it is a literal account. These verses are to be taken literally, word by word, and this is how I propose to speak of them. Not speak on every word, but to speak of it literally. God's purpose is to show Himself as the source of all creation, and to show how the world was prepared as a place for man to live in. We're not looking at a scientific account. We're not looking at a detailed account of everything that God made. We don't find it in this chapter. We find other things elsewhere in the Scriptures that are not covered here. We don't read in this chapter of angels. We don't read of heavenly beings. We don't read of Lucifer, son of the morning, although we read of him elsewhere. But the world was made as a place for man to live in, and a place that God would work in. For what? For his own glory, yes, and for man's blessing. And reading these verses, we can see some divine principles, the separation of things that differ. We'll come to that as we go through the verses. There is life. There is fruit bearing. There is the fact that God is made in the image of man. There's also the fact that man is to have dominion. Man differs from the animals of creation. Not necessarily in intelligence or strength, although man is more intelligent, doubtless, than the beings of creation. But not necessarily in strength, but God intended that man should have dominion. And he is given that dominion in the very first chapter. We know that man misused that dominion, but that's another story. That's another story. We don't get there until chapter 3 and onwards. But God intended that man should have dominion. Man will have dominion in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. And finally, there is the thought with which we finish reading, the thought of rest. God ever had a thought before him of rest. What the verses don't tell us, as I've said already, they don't tell us about angels. They don't even tell us here how sin came into being. We look elsewhere for that. And that is not particularly our theme. Our theme is what we read in the scripture in this first chapter. And as we go through the first 12 chapters, it's what's there and what is suggested that is developed later in the scriptures. We're not, by the way, going to try to refute wrong ideas. It may be necessary to say a word or two here and there. But I'm not approaching this from the point of view of putting right all those things that man has misinterpreted. Nor am I standing on this platform to defend creation as opposed to evolution. I take it, am I right, that everyone in this room believes that the Bible is true? And that the Bible does not speak of everything growing out of a single cell, which grew out of who knows what. And that over the millennia, so gradually, it developed and developed and developed until we end up with a human being. I take it that nobody believes that. Nor am I going to suggest that there was a big bang, that two bodies, and where did they come from, collided, and the result was what we see around us. I'm not going to suggest that. I take it that I don't need to speak about these things in an audience such as this. I say again, I'm just going to speak about what we have here. Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God. Faith. Faith. Reading, I think it was that verse, I looked up a commentator, Mr. Kelly, and he said, what is faith? Faith is thinking as God thinks. I just commend that to you to take away and think about. First one, in the beginning. In the beginning, God, three persons. Later, we get, let us make man in our image, God in three persons. We now know as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He created heaven and earth. He created. There was nothing before God created. There was God alone. But at some point, God created heaven and earth. There was no previous matter. And God made it. He fashioned it. And the Lord Jesus Christ, too, is seen in creation. When we speak of God, we think of three persons. God, the Father. God, the Son. God, the Holy Spirit. And we know that Jehovah was there. We know that Christ, the Messiah, was there. And we learn of his part in the creation in the New Testament. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Without him was not anything made that was made. And in Colossians 1.16, let us just turn to it and read it to you. Colossians 1.16. We get, For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him. The subject is the earth. And what do we make of verse 2? If I speak of a noun clause and a verb clause, you'll say, what do you mean? I mean something like this. If I say God is three persons, that's a statement. If I say the three persons are Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that is a description of what I've said already. If I say something like, and that's a noun clause, if I say something like the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself on the cross for our sins, that's a verb clause because it gives another thought that wasn't in the first. And I'm suggesting to you that verse 2 is a noun clause. It amplifies what happened in verse 1. It's not a subsequent development. Our version says without form and void, and I think that's quite a good translation. But you could also read it as being unformed and unfilled. Unformed and unfilled. The world was in a state of readiness to be fashioned into something that God wanted. It's not chaos. Unfortunately, during the last century, some people started using the word chaos. But I don't think any reliable translation uses that word. It was not chaos. Let me give a stupid illustration, but it's the only one I can think of. Most of you will know what I mean when I talk of Lego. Little kits of bricks and blocks, and you can make them into a racing car, a building, an aeroplane, whatever, a bridge. If you were to take one of those boxes and just simply tip it out on the table, there would be no order. But it wouldn't be chaos because you've only got to take each one of those bricks and stick it in its right place. And you've got whatever it was you wanted to make. Now, that's a feeble illustration, but what I'm saying here is that God made the world, and in verse 2, it's as he first made it. Now, time doesn't come into this. We don't read of time until we get to verse 5. Time doesn't come into it, but the earth was without form and void, unformed and unfilled. Perhaps the stars were as well, but we're not told about the stars, we're not told about the heaven, we're told about the earth. And what we're told about the earth is that darkness was on the face of the deep. At this stage, at this stage, be it a second, be it an hour, be it a day, be it whatever, but the Spirit of God moved on the face of the waters. Now, that indicates that something's going to happen. The Holy Spirit abode upon the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what John 1, verses 32 and 33 tell us. "...upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and abiding on him." The words of John the Baptist. The Holy Spirit was there, abiding on the Lord Jesus. And again, in the second chapter of Acts, we get the Holy Spirit coming into that scene and, as it were, hovering over it. When he was about to come down and indwell those eleven disciples, those twelve apostles, let's get the words right, twelve apostles, and to baptize the whole assembly into one body. The Holy Spirit hovering over the face of the earth. An indication that God was about to act and complete his fabrication of the world for the blessing of men. Some of these actions are described in the verses that follow, and I've given you the verse in Isaiah there. "...for thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, God himself that formed the earth and made it. He hath established it. He created it not in vain. He formed it to be inhabited. I am the Lord, and there is none else." The first day, what happened? God said, let there be light. Is that different from saying God made light? I'm not sure. But what I do know is that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. We read also, in another place, that he called all worlds into being by the word of his power. And God said, let there be light, and instantly there was light, and the light was good. And he divided the light from the darkness. Now, in your notes, I do hope that the notes are not confusing. I realized on Thursday, when it was too late to do anything about it, I have no one to blame except myself. But that we have to distinguish between light and darkness in creation, and light and darkness in the New Testament. Why? God made light, and he, God called light into being, and he divided light from darkness. And God purposed that it should be so, that there should be daytime, that there should be night. The plant life revives and reactivates itself at night. And you and I are glad enough, are we not, at times, to go to sleep? And sleep is not a result of the fall. Sleep was ordained from the beginning, because we read in the second chapter that God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam. So God ordained it this way, there should be light, and there should be darkness. But, as ever, man got involved, and man sought the darkness rather than the light, because his deeds were evil. That's what John's Gospel tells us. The light shone in the darkness, the darkness apprehended it not. But man preferred the darkness to the light. And that explains why, in the New Testament, there are so many references to light and darkness. I've given you three there. But there we are, the evening and the morning were the first day, and that is the first mention in the Scripture of time. Read Exodus 20 verse 11, for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them in, and rested the seventh day. I am suggesting that time began with the first day in verse 3, and that this verse is actually speaking of the furnishing of this world, the six days creation, as the earth for man to dwell in. Others take the six days to begin in verse 1. The second day, heaven and earth are distinguished. The second day, God said, let there be a firmament. Perhaps we ought to say, what's a firmament? What is a firmament? It's not a word we use every day, is it? Well, it's the overarching sky that we can see. That is what the firmament is. And that hymn we sang, Mr. William Cooper's hymn we sang, number four, what was it? When like a tent to dwell in, he spread the skies abroad. That's what the firmament is. The earth was watered by dew from the clouds. Now it's watered by rain from the clouds. But things below, there is water below, there is water above, there is water below. God created this in perfect order. But this figuratively indicates to us the difference between heaven and earth. There is a difference between heaven and earth, which men confound at their peril. We will see when we get to chapter 6 that heavenly persons interfered with persons on the earth, and the result was disaster. Isaiah puts it differently, it's a different thought, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts and your thoughts, my ways and your ways, saith the Lord. The third day, land and water were separated, and here we get the habitable parts of his earth, that well-known quotation in the eighth of Proverbs, rejoicing always before him, rejoicing over the habitable part of his earth. Generally, men are adapted to live on land, are they not? The habitable parts of the earth, you can think about that at your leisure, and ponder whether it is right to build things in the sea. The fourth day, lights to rule. Now, here we have the sun, the moon, and we have stars. We might say, how do we have light in verse 3 when the sun wasn't created until verse, wherever it is, verse 14. And the answer is that God is God, God is all-powerful, God only had to say, let there be light, and there was light. God didn't need a sun, he didn't need a moon, he didn't need the stars for there to be light. The scientists won't believe it, but it is true. God did not need any of these things, but he placed them there. Now, I put the sun supreme authority, and the moon derived authority, and I ought to explain that, because that is, okay, it's there in creation, but it's also there in the new creation. I'll come to that in one moment. The sun is the source of light as far as the earth is concerned, is it not? The light comes from the sun, it doesn't come from the moon, at least not the moon's own light, the moon doesn't have any. The moon reflects the light of the sun, except when the earth gets in the way and then it can't do that. The stars have their own light, not the planets, but the stars have their own light, but they don't, we see them in the sky at night, we see the brightness of the stars and we can admire them, but they don't really provide sufficient light as the sun does in the daytime. Now, we can see this is a picture of the new creation. The Lord Jesus, the light, the sun, the source, the assembly, the assembly to reflect that light. The stars subordinate authority, and perhaps that gives us the thought of the beauty of individual believers. One star differs from another star in its glory, the scriptures say this. Individual believers, we're all different. We all have something. We can't say, oh, you know, that brother, that sister has got nothing, you know, I can't see. No, maybe you can't, but each one has their own beauty, sufficient beauty that the Lord Jesus gave his life for them and he will achieve his purpose in them. Subordinate authority, the stars, each one in its place in the heavens, doing what God would have it to do, and that is the thought of the individual. It should be the thought of the individual now in this world, but it certainly will be in a day yet to come. I must go on because I'm going to be trespassing on brother Michael's time if I'm not careful. Fifth day, creatures of the sea and of the air. There we are. On the sixth day, a double work. He completed, God completed making the animals, but he also went on to make man. Now, I haven't put a picture of man in because he was made in the likeness of God and that is impossible. It is impossible to attempt. It would be irreverent to do, to try to attempt a picture of God or of man in the likeness of God. But God made man in his own likeness and we read also that he made them male and female. That's the creation order. When we read of man it includes a man and woman. There is a difference which we'll come to no doubt in a later session. Man was made from the dust of the earth. Woman was made out of man, but God created them male and female. Now, that is true that it is right to say that the order of creation is another issue, but it says male and female created he them. And man is to have dominion. We have, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. God put man in charge of that earth, that beautiful earth that he had created. Man was to have dominion. Now, we know and will be coming on in future sessions as to how man fell. How man was really, he failed in the commission that God had given him. Till in the end God had to destroy the earth except Noah who found favor in God's sight and then Noah was given dominion. But really, man after man has failed. But God's purpose that man should have dominion will not fail because that man whom he has ordained, the Lord Jesus Christ, will have dominion. And when you read a psalm like Psalm 8, you see there in the first place you see man, but looking beyond that you see the Lord Jesus Christ filling that place as it is taken up in the epistle to the Hebrews. But in Ephesians 1, we read that speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ, he has put all things under his feet and given him to be the head over all to the church. God saw at the end of the six days, God saw everything that he had made and it was very good. The Sabbath. Now, we need another hour for this but we haven't got it. God always had before him rest, the prospect of rest. You find it throughout the Old Testament. The law enshrined it. Once a week they were to keep the Sabbath. The feasts, Leviticus 23, each one is based upon a Sabbath. God always had before him this prospect of rest, work being finished, rest, enjoyment of what he had made, enjoyment of what man was to be for him. And God will have his rest. You can't say really that God has his rest at the moment. The Father worketh hitherto, or to this end, and I work. God and the Son and indeed the Holy Spirit are working at the moment. But God will have his rest. It will be anticipated or foreshadowed in the millennium but really it will be realised in the new heavens, the new earth, Revelation 21 verses 1 to 7. The final rest of God is associated with that new creation. Now, I feel I've not done justice to this subject but that is all we have time for. I'm going to sit down and let Michael speak to us about a spiritual application of the passage we've just been looking at briefly. …

… The topic of this second session is the spiritual meaning of Genesis 1, and let's start by re-reading the opening verse of the scriptures, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now these opening words, in the beginning, are the words that have given their title to the whole book. In the Hebrew, the book is referred to as the beginnings. And it's very important to understand whenever you study any book in the Bible, to be sure you have a grasp of the character of the book. Like in Exodus, you learn about redemption. In Leviticus, you learn about approach to God. In Numbers, you learn about the wilderness journey of the people of God. And in Deuteronomy, you have a summary, a retrospect and outlook. Now when we say Genesis is the book of the beginnings, what do we mean? It's often been referred to as the seed plot of the Bible. Now a large number of principles that you find developed in the rest of the scriptures can be found in the book of Genesis. If you take the first few, creation, marriage, God's sovereignty, man's responsibility, sin, redemption, approach, what is the world, all of these things you find in Genesis, but I won't talk about them now because I don't want to steal anybody else's thunder. But if you just take some of the ones further down the list, like sonship, how do you learn what is sonship? Well, read the story of Isaac. What does it mean to be a stranger? Look at the story of the patriarchs. And how about election? Well, says Paul in Romans 9, if you want to understand election, make sure you know the story of Jacob and Esau. What about discipline? Well, if you want to know about discipline, read the story of Jacob. Israel's history foreshadowed in his biography. The reign of Christ foreshadowed in Joseph reigning over the whole land of Egypt. And resurrection indicated very clearly. And all of these things you find in the book of Genesis. So if you want to have a good start in your Christian career and Bible study, then start with the book of Genesis. Genesis 1 is a literal account. Let me just be very clear here. If we speak about a spiritual meaning of Genesis 1, I am not spiritualizing this chapter in the sense of taking away the literal meaning. So when it says in the beginning, God created, then it is God. It is not chance. When it says created, it actually means created and not evolved. When it says after its kind, it actually means after its kind and not evolved from one kind into another. And when it says days, it actually means days. And when it says Adam, this is not an idea, but it is an actual man, a historical person who lived at the time. Now, don't take my word for it. Look at the New Testament. You find that the Lord himself spoke about Adam as a real living person at the time. So if Brother Hugh just spoke about the literal meaning, then giving a few thoughts to the spiritual meaning of this chapter is no contradiction at all. And I think you are used to this. You would read the story of Joseph and you would say Joseph actually lived and he experienced things we read about, but also you would have a very clear idea that Joseph is a picture of somebody who came later, the Lord Jesus who is foreshadowed by him. But perhaps some of you are not yet convinced. Perhaps some of you still think, well, should a chapter like this really have a spiritual meaning? Well, let me ask you some questions. You will find that days one to three and days four to six run in parallel. Days one and four speak of light, days two and five have to do with water, and days three and six have to do with earth. Why is that? You also find that on day three and on day six there is a double work, and only in those days God speaks twice. Now, if you study the text a little more, you make some more discoveries. You find, for example, that the word good occurs seven times. And your first thought is, well, seven times, that must mean one times good for every day. Well, look again and you find it says good once for days one, four and five. In day three it says good twice, and in day six it once says good and once it says very good. And in day two it doesn't say good at all. Why is this? You also find that the report is selective. Some things are reported on in detail, some things are not reported at all, and again the question why? On day one, it does not say that God made the light, nor does it say that God created the light. Why not? And final question for this series, to make the point, on day one you have light, but the sun, the moon and the stars you have on day four. Why? All of these things are in the text. All of these things are interesting. And I'm convinced that if we want to make progress in the scriptures, we need to read the Bible with the right question in mind. And the right question in mind is not what do I want to know, but the right question in mind is what did God want to tell me? And if God gives us a chapter in such a special way with all these peculiarities, surely we should inquire into the meaning of these. But let's take the clear statements of the New Testament about the creation account. And you find very remarkable explanations of what actually occurred in Genesis 1. Take 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6. It says, because it is God who spoke that out of darkness light should shine. When was that? Surely all say this was in Genesis 1. Exactly right. Who has shone into our hearts for the shining forth of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Clearly what happened on day one when God said let there be light is taken as a picture here of what happens when divine light shines into the heart of man. Now you could quote many other passages, we don't have time to go into them, but let's just be reminded of 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17. If anyone be in Christ there is a new creation. Again a parallel between the creation in Genesis 1 and what God brings about in a man, in a person who comes to Christ. In Ephesians 1, he has put all things under his feet and gave him to be head over all things to the assembly, surely the reality foreshadowed in all things put under Adam's feet with Eve united to her. 1 Corinthians 12, 13, so also is the Christ. That verse speaks of Christ and the assembly. Now that's exactly what we have in Genesis 1. Let us make man and God created man, male and female created he them. Genesis 2, but referred to as man, so also the Christ. And Exodus 20 verse 11 was already referred to speaking about the rest, referring first of all to the actual rest of God on day seven in the beginning of Genesis 2, but using it as an emblem of rest generally. Now that may suffice to convince us, I trust, that we are on firm ground to seek out the spiritual principles in Genesis 1, which takes us to the matter of light. Let there be light, Genesis 1 verse 3. God said let there be light and there was light. God saw that the light was good and divided between the light and the darkness. We have seen already that light and darkness are used frequently in God's word as figures of the spiritual state of a person. Before we knew the Lord Jesus, we were in darkness, and what I find very impressive and telling is that it says in Ephesians 5, not only were we in darkness, but Paul says you were one's darkness. You were darkness. This was our spiritual state. What about the state of a believer? Colossians 1, 13, we have been delivered from the power of darkness. One Thessalonians 5, we are no longer of the darkness of the night. One Peter 2, he has led us out of darkness into his marvelous light. And 2 Corinthians 4 verse 6, we refer to already, the light has shone into our hearts. Now light is a great blessing. Light shows things as they are. Now if the sun rises in Switzerland, what becomes visible is wonderful mountain chains, wonderful landscapes, and the light will bring all this into view. If the light, or if the sun rises over a waste disposal site, the light will also make manifest what is there, and it's a load of rubbish. Light shows things as they are, and by the way, the second aspect is why light was unpopular and why men preferred the darkness to the light. Now when the light of God, I'm talking literally now in Genesis 1, when the light shone, what did it show? It showed waste and emptiness. That's exactly what happened when we were reached by divine light. It exposed the waste and empty condition of our hearts and lives. There was nothing there that could actually please God. But there was hope. It says that the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Now those two elements, the spirit and the water, are elements that you encounter in the New Testament, that which brings about new birth. And let us be very clear on this. All of us who have been born again, we could only be born again because of the activity of the spirit of God. And the spirit of God has taken a verse from the scriptures and has applied it to you and to my heart, and this is how new birth was brought about. Now in verse 7 it says, and God made the expanse, or firmament, and divided between the waters that are under the expanse and the waters that are above the expanse, and it was so. So here you find that God again makes a division. And the division is between the waters above and the waters below. And this ties in exactly with the subject we've just had before us of new birth. You know when the light shines into our lives we realise what the flesh is like. And this is that which is from below. And this is not a nice discovery. I know that for many who have come to the Lord it's been a great disappointment when they suddenly, after the first happiness, they realise something has gone wrong again. Where does this come from? I've turned to the Lord. I wanted to follow him and now this has happened. It's a bitter discovery and if you want to read about it, read Romans 7. You find a man there who has a new nature, who has been renewed, who wants to do what is good in all his strength but he realises I can't and I go wrong again and again. And he discovers that although he has the inclination, that which is from above, the nature, he also still has the flesh. And I think that's why the old nature is called the flesh in the Bible because you can't leave your flesh behind. Take the flesh with us as long as we're here. But the flesh is not allowed to act. Now there is obviously a certain tension here between that which is above and that which is below. And this may well be why in this case we do not read and it was good. But happily there is another day and in our spiritual history it is very important that when you have experienced day one, the light, day two, new birth and the discovery of the two distinct natures, that you come to day three. Now what happens on day three? God says let dry land appear. Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together in one place and let the dry land appear. Now first of all this is day three. The third day you all know speaks of resurrection. On the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, Hosea 6, on the third day thou shalt revive us and we shall live before thee. 1 Corinthians 15, according to my gospel Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures was buried and raised the third day. Now on this third day what happens is that the waters and it was explained that waters are adverse elements. Perhaps you say I like water but if you were plunged into the middle of the ocean somewhere sooner or later you would come to agree that water is an adverse environment for man. Now you will find this actually in chapter six later on in the flood. You find this in Psalms where Christ prophetically speaks about these waters. The waters have come unto my soul and the waters have overflowed me. But then what happens is dry land emerges. Dry land means firm ground, somewhere where you can rest and repose. And prophetically you hear Christ say in resurrection in Psalm 40 verse 2, thou hast placed my feet upon a rock. On day three we are on resurrection ground. Now what does this mean for the spiritual development of the believer? It means that you are no longer trying to improve or to get rid of your old nature and that you come to rest in the work of Christ. You come to realize that Christ is actually risen. He has been raised for our justification. And then it is that you have firm ground under your feet. Now perhaps this is why on day three there is a double work. Because the second thing that happens on day three, you find in verse 11, let the earth cause grass to spring up, her producing seed, fruit trees yielding fruit. On day three you get fruitfulness. It is when this strife has ended, when you rest on firm ground, when you see that Christ has accomplished the work, then there can be fruit in our lives for the Lord Jesus. You won't find this in Romans 7. In Romans 7 you are still in this struggle, but in Romans 8 when you find you are in Christ. No condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, then the Holy Spirit can work. And then there can be actual fruit for God, which you find in the latter part of the epistle starting chapter 12. Day four, let there be lights. God made the two great lights and the stars. God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth and to rule during the day and during the night. In the first three days you find that the spaces are created or made. You find that there is day and night. You find there is water and earth. You find there is that which is above and that which is below. In the second lot of three days you find that which moves within these spaces. So on day four, it is certainly parallel to day one, let there be light, but here it is lights. It is the emphasis on the light bearers. What are the lights for? It says to give light and to rule, and this is the thought of testimony. What happens in the spiritual development on day four? On day four you first of all recognize the true testimony which is Christ, the supreme testimony of the Son, the supreme rule and light. But then you also discover that just as much as the sun isn't here on the earth, but it's up there, just as much the moon and the stars are not on this earth, but they are up there. They belong into the same sphere. And the believer actually realizes, I belong to Christ up there. He is in heaven and I'm seated with him in heaven. And if that happens and we become aware of our Christian position, we will start being a light for others, small lights, like the moon. It varies in brightness and intensity and sadly our testimony does, stars, easily ignored. But if somebody wants to look, he can get orientation. As Paul says to the Philippians, that you shine in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation as heavenly lights. It's a wonderful thing in the life of a believer when day four is reached. Now what happens next? Day five, verse 20, and God said, let the water swarm with swarms of living souls. As day two, on day five, we are again back to the sphere of the water. But there is a difference now. You now find suddenly that in the water, in this adverse environment, there is fruitfulness. It is no wonder if there is testimony for Christ, day four, that there will be opposition, there will be adversity, there will be daily life difficulties. But what God wants is fruitfulness in that adversity, fruitfulness in difficult circumstances. And so it happens on day five that the waters swarm with fish, with living beings. Now the other thing that happens on day five is that there are the birds. And that's another thing that happens in your development, spiritual development as a believer. If there is adversity, there are also the wings to carry you up and to be in the nearness of God and to have communion with him. On day six, again, a double work, first the living souls, the land animals are created in great variety and diversity, no doubt to exalt the one who is going to have dominion over all of them. And this happens in the second part of day six where God says, let us make man in our image and after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the whole earth. And God created man, male and female created he them. Generally speaking, on day six, second part, we learn two things. One is we're united to Christ and the other is Christ is to have dominion over all. And I suppose this is the greatest stage of spiritual maturity. When you come to say, my life is not about what I want, my life is about what Christ wants. And my life is not about me being seen, my life is about the Lord Jesus being seen. He is the one who has to reign supreme on this scene. Paul expressed this very nicely when he wrote to the Galatians and said, my children, of whom I again travel in birth until Christ shall be formed, have been formed in you. That's the end objective of the spiritual development of the believer, Christ formed in you. And on this day, God says, and behold, it was very good. This is followed by day seven, we heard about the rest. It is not so much here the rest for the conscience, I think that is day three, when you come to enjoy peace with God, it is not so much the practical rest of having taken up his yoke, which is more day six, when Christ is supreme, but here you come to eternal rest. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth. And the old things were no more and the sea was no more. No more waves, no more change, no more agitation, but perfect and eternal rest. So that really, these seven days give a very nice panorama of the spiritual development and may the Lord give that we all make progress in these steps. I trust the light has shone into our hearts and we have discovered that we have a new and an old nature. And I urge you, don't rest until you have firm ground under your feet and you have come to day three. And that would be the good basis to bear testimony, to be lights in this world, to bear fruit even when things are difficult, day five, and to come to the point where Christ is supreme overall and we learn that we are united to him and God wants to give us his full rest. Now this is not to take anything away from the literal meaning, which I said a few words about the spiritual development of the believer, but this is far from being all. You can also read those seven days as speaking of Christ. Of course, he is the son of God, he is the son of man, and he is the son of God in resurrection. That's days one, two, and three. He is the one who is the supreme testimony on day four. He is the one who went into the greatest waters and what fruit resulted from Christ being in the waters of judgment, as it says, one day he will be satisfied from the fruit of the travail of his soul. He is the one, of course, day six, who reigns supreme overall and he is the one only in whom God can give that rest. Now you could also apply it to the dispensations, I'm not going to do this now. Some have applied it to the seven biographies in the book of Genesis or to the seven feasts of Jehovah. Now I need to leave this to you because we are otherwise running out of time. My point is, it is a very rich chapter. There is much there for us to enjoy. There is real abundance and I'd like to close with this verse, I have joy in thy word as one that findeth great spoil, Psalm 119 verse 162. If we have time to sing a few verses, I'd suggest perfect eternal rest. I think it's 498. …

… Well, good morning. I will turn to Genesis chapter 2. Just so that we refresh our memories of what we are about to look at, we will read a few verses. Genesis chapter 2 and verse 4. These are the generations of the heavens and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew. For the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. And there went up a mist from the earth and water to the whole face of the ground. And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. And the Lord God planted a garden each wood in Eden, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And we'll just drop down to verse 15. And the Lord God took man and put him in the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded of man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. It is my job to say a few words on these verses in the second chapter of Genesis. The second chapter of Genesis is a unique chapter in the whole of the Old Testament, as it is the only chapter in which we have mankind without sin. And I've divided this chapter into four basic comments that one wants to make. First of all, the name of God. Secondly, men or man from the dust, the garden and the rivers and the two trees. I hope that in these four headings we will help each other to learn something from this chapter. It is important that each one of us here has in our hands the Word of God. As was already mentioned by Brother Hu, most of us are very familiar in the UK with the Authorised Version. The Authorised Version is, of course, a direct translation from the original Hebrew and Greek. Mr. Darby himself speaks on the Authorised Version of its beauty and he says he grew up on it. However, there is other translations and we favour Mr. Darby's own translation. But what is important, if we are going to look into these verses, is that we have in our hand a translation that we can stand on and we can say with authority, this is the Word of God. We live in a day when there are many paraphrases which gives the thought of man and when we look at things such as the names of God, they do not altogether work. So in chapter 1 and 2 we find that the name God is mentioned 35 times. But you will have noticed that when I began reading in chapter 2 and verse 4, it says the Lord God or Jehovah. We may ask ourselves the question, why does it differ? Now if you were to be a critical theologian, you would suggest this proves that the opening chapter was not written by the same person. But we can be convinced that Moses wrote the opening chapter of Genesis and the remainder of the book. In chapter 1 we find the mention of God 35 times. But in chapter 2, the name the Lord God, Jehovah, is mentioned 11 times. And the question is, is why? Why is it changed from one to the other? The word God, the name God, we had it mentioned would speak of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The unapproachable, the incomprehensible, we cannot understand God. He is all-powerful. But we see in creation, he is the one that made the universe. When we come to the Lord God, we see there something of God acting in his grace towards mankind. So when we are introduced to the Lord God, it is Jehovah, the one who has a relationship with mankind. And I think we have examples of this. And the first one that I will give you is in Genesis chapter 7. I hope I'm not encroaching on anyone else's ground. But in Genesis chapter 7 and verse 16 we read, And they that came, came male and female of all flesh. And God has commanded the hymn. God had commanded Noah. And Jehovah shut them in. So in that verse we clearly see that God, the one who is all-powerful, is the one that is about to bring judgment upon this world. And yet that same one, the same God, but here mentioned as Jehovah, is the one that shuts the door. The one who has a relationship with mankind shuts the door. God in his government was about to destroy the human race. God commanded him. The Lord in his relationship with Noah, the Lord shut him in. And then there is other references to this same idea. And I put one Samuel 17 verse 46. We will just look at that one which is a very interesting one where we read of the, This day will Jehovah deliver thee into my hands, and I will smite thee, take thy head from thee, and will give thy carcass to the camp of the Philistines. This is of course David speaking to Goliath. And all the earth shall know that Israel has a God. Universally they will know there is a God, an all-powerful God. But all the congregation shall know that Jehovah saves. And so when it's a question of that which is affecting the world, it is God. When we are talking about that which would be in relation to his people, we are introduced to Jehovah. And here in this chapter we are introduced to the Jehovah, the one who is about to enter into a relationship with mankind. Now we did read the verses that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground. In 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 23 we read that man is body, soul, and spirit. Or we could use the, I think the correct order, spirit, soul, and body. This is true of the Lord Jesus when he was here. The verse in Luke 22 verse 19 the Lord Jesus says, take ye, this is my body. And I think that we would all without any question believe that when the Lord Jesus was here he had a body. But in John chapter 12 verse 27 the Lord Jesus speaks of his soul. So we are absolutely confident that the Lord Jesus had a body and he also had a soul. But also in John chapter 11 verse 23 the Lord Jesus speaks about his spirit. And so where we have a body, soul, and a spirit, the Lord Jesus stepping into manhood, sin apart, had a body and a soul and a spirit. Now when we come to the ourselves here, every one of us has a body. We can see that. I don't think there's anybody going to dispute that one statement. They may dispute other things that I say but we won't dispute the fact that we all have a body. But we all have a soul. And I would suggest that the soul would be the feelings, the emotions, the desires that we have. And we see this to a measure in animals. Now animals if we read in first chapter of Genesis verse 21 are called living creatures in our authorized version. But if we read in the New Translation we find that they are called living souls. And actually if you look up the word in the Strong's Concordance you will find that it is the same word used in chapter 1 verse 21 as used in chapter 2 verse 7. And so animals have a soul. Fish, Leviticus chapter 11 are also said to have to be living souls. But then we have a spirit. And this is the distinction between the animal kingdom and the human kingdom or the mankind. The verse in Job 32 says, but there is a spirit in man and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. Only a man has a spirit and a soul. Now the spirit is the intellect, reasoning power which we can have fellowship with God. So we can say in a simple way that with our spirits we are conscious of God. We can have a relationship with God. With our souls we have self-consciousness. And with our bodies we have world consciousness. Now our spirits enable us to have fellowship with God and God with man. God's desire was that there would be that link between himself and with mankind. And hence he says let us make man in our image. And so man is a unique being in that it is only of man that God breathed into him the breath of life and man became a living soul. And that soul will live for eternity because that soul will live as long as the breath of God lives. And so any idea of annihilation is completely removed from the very first pages of our Bible. Our soul will last as long as the breath of God does. But when sin entered into this world that link of fellowship was broken. We see that man was on the earth in chapter 1 and there was no nothing there to bar communion between himself and God. But when sin entered in that communion was broken. That fellowship was cut. In verse 17 that we read it says very simply for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. Now you might not agree with me I'm going to say this. Some have used this verse and said it means a Hebrewism dying thou shalt die. And so they say that Adam having sinned he died eventually. We know that it took 950 years for Adam to die. But you know it says in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt certainly die. And I think that if we use the days in verse 1 as a literal day why not use the day in verse 2 as a literal day. And I'm going to suggest that when Adam took of the fruit of the tree he died spiritually. That link that existed between him and God was cut. And from that moment onwards man is at a distance from God. But the wonderful thing is is that God in his grace and in his kindness had provided everything for mankind. And when we come to the question of the rivers first of all and again I don't want to crouch on further speakers. I think we have to be careful looking at these rivers to try and find them in the world today. Because in the Noah's Ark when the fountains of the great deep were broken up the contours of the land would have changed completely. And so what we are left with is a statement of four rivers that we don't know where they were. We may suggest that Moses writing this after the flood after the the change had taken place could relate back to rivers which then existed. And two of the rivers that are mentioned here are mentioned elsewhere in the scriptures. But I think overall we can say that the contours of the land were changed. But I want to suggest that these rivers would speak to us of God's blessing. God here planted a garden. And you know in chapter 1 God said let the earth bring forth and it brought forth. But here God planted. And to my mind that needs an energy. There needs some thought. God had prepared this garden. And the garden it faced east. And here's the importance of the scriptures that we can rely on. It faced east. Why does God tell us it faced east? It doesn't say it faced west. I want to suggest to you that God is always looking towards the east. Because in chapter 1 we find it's not the morning and the evening but the evening and the morning. The tabernacle is pitched and it is facing towards the east. And in the last chapter of the Old Testament we read the Son of Righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings. God is always looking towards the coming of his beloved Son. And so he is looking towards the east where the sun will rise. So not only is God planted that garden for our blessing. Every resource, the source of all our blessing comes from God. There was that prepared for mankind. In John chapter 7 38 we read the Holy Spirit is spoken of as a river of living water. What a wonderful thing that in this garden there was ample supply for the people. And that river departed into four heads. Four's the number which speak of universal, the four wings of the earth. How that the gospel has gone out to whosoever will. How that we as believers on the Lord Jesus Christ can enjoy the presence of the Holy Spirit with us. How that we also can have the Word of God which again is spoken of as water. The provision that God has made for you and me is absolutely incredible. That verse in Psalm 46, we'll refer to that in a minute. Now we come to the trees. You will notice as we read through the opening chapters of Genesis that there are things in Genesis which are also in the book of Revelation. The rivers that we spoke of in the first and that's last portion. In Revelation we read of a river. Of the tree of life we find that is seen in Revelation. In Revelation 2 verse 7 in relation to the church at Ephesus, the overcomer is to be given to take of the tree of life. In the very last chapter we read of the tree of life. But the tree of knowledge and good and evil is not in Revelation. We need to ask ourselves the question why? Why is it that God in his wisdom should record in that final chapter of the Bible the tree of life but not the tree of knowledge and good and evil? I want to suggest very simple that the tree of life would speak to us of the sovereign act of God. God in his sovereign love to mankind provides a tree of life. And you will notice that in the opening chapter, chapter 2, 1 and 2, there is no bar to the tree of life. The bar to the tree of life comes in after sin. I also want to suggest that the tree of knowledge would speak of man in his responsibility before God. So we find the tree of life speaks of sovereignty. The tree of knowledge of good and evil speaks of man in responsibility before God. I think we just mentioned that. Man, having taken of the tree of life, failed. And if we look at man under responsibility before God, we find nothing but failure. It doesn't matter if we look under any of the dispensations. If we look at man under conscience, we see failure. If we look at man under government, we see failure. Under promise and the law, we find that man failed. So man taken up under responsibility would lead to absolute failure. John 1, verse 17, we read, the law by Moses, grace and truth came by Christ Jesus. What I would simply suggest is that the law would speak of man under responsibility. We said that under responsibility, man has failed. The verse in Romans, what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God send in his own son, in the likeness of sinful flesh and force him, condemn sin in the flesh. And so when the Lord Jesus came, this is God's answer. The coming into the world of the Lord Jesus Christ, by his death on the cross, he has closed forever that order of man. What I'm trying to say is that man after the flesh, man under responsibility failed. But when the Lord Jesus came into this world, he took up the cause of man. And in his death upon the cross, finished that old man. Man under responsibility is finished with. And so we can say with John 10, verse 10, the Lord Jesus could say, I am come, that they might have life. In complete contrast to what man sought to achieve through their own responsibility, it is in John 10, we have this reference to the Lord Jesus giving life. Now, you will notice in the Old Testament, there are many, many references to the Lord Jesus coming and speaking of his death. But I don't think in the Old Testament, we get references to the Lord Jesus as bringing life. Because in the Old Testament, it is man under responsibility. And under responsibility, there is death. But when the Lord Jesus comes, he could say, I am come, that they might have life. And again, in John 5, it says, he that hath the Son hath life. Now, I need to go back. Right. Does ever God desire that there should be a people with him? We've seen in the second chapter of Genesis that God had desired that he would have a man that they could commune with. And there was a time when God could speak to man. But when sin entered into this world, that communion was broken. In the 25th of Exodus, God speaks to Moses and saying, I want you to build the tabernacle. And I think it's verse eight, it says, there I will dwell with you. God was about to dwell with man. But God could only dwell with man in Exodus 25, because of the fact of the Passover had taken place. We need the death of Christ before there can be God dwelling with mankind. So God could dwell in the tabernacle. In the temple, God could dwell as well. And the verses there in, I think it's first Kings chapter eight, we read of the presence of God being seen in the temple. God can dwell as well in the temple that Ezra wrote, built. In the absolute sense of the word, God dwelled on this earth in the person of the Lord Jesus. The disciples said, we have behold his glory. We contemplated him. He tabernacled amongst us. At this present moment, God is, there is a habitation of God through the spirit, which is in each one of us. But this verse here would speak of a future day, a millennial day, when God will dwell in the midst of her, in the midst of redeemed Israel, God will dwell. And further on, we read in the 21st of Revelation, that God will dwell with us in the eternal state. And so God will fulfil his desire that sin coming into this world has not robbed eternally anything from God, because God has sent his son, the Lord Jesus. And that which should have been seen in the garden of Eden, that which should have been there, the dwelling place of God, God being able to have communion with mankind, interrupted because of sin. When we come to the end of our Bibles, we find that there is a time coming when God will be able to dwell with mankind. And it is all due to the fact of the coming into the scene of the Lord Jesus. So we find that the answer that God has is the Lord Jesus Christ. …

… Well, let us read from Genesis chapter 2, from verse 18. And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him and help me for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every fowl of the air and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them. And whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle and to the fowl of the air and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helpmeet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept. And he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. And therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and there shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. We already heard a few things about the relationship, the relationship of Adam to God. He was made in the image and in the likeness of God. That's why you and I are responsible towards God. We are not like animals. We have, as we have heard, spirit, soul, and body. And in our responsibility, we all have failed, not just Adam, not just Eve, we all have failed. But we already heard something about this. In regards to the animal world, we have here a very interesting passage, verse 19 and 20. We find that, we heard that in the first message, that Adam had dominion over the animal world. Why is that? Or why is it shown here? You know, as parents, we give names to our children. Why? Because we have dominion over the children. We have authority given by God over our children. That's why we have the right to name them. And this is similar here. Who has the right to change a name? Who has the right to give a name? Somebody who has dominion over the animal. And so we find Adam was asked to give names. And I can imagine this was hard work. You know, we have already read in verse 15 about work. Adam was put in the garden to dress it and to keep it. Now, this is manual work. Some of us have manual work. We work with our hands. But when it comes here to giving names, you know, you see that big animal and you say, well, what shall we name it? And so he said, I call him elephant. And he's still called the elephant today. And then comes the next animal. You know, he had to do a lot of thinking and said, how shall we call this kind of animal? And he had to give names and names and names and names and again names. So this was hard work. And it shows us work was introduced long before sin came. So work is a blessing for us. This is just by the way. And so we find that he had to give names to all the cattle, the fowl of the air, every beast of the field. But you know, he really looked at these animals. And at the end of the day, he says, there is nothing which I can communicate. There is nothing there in all these animals, as beautiful they are, it's none of my likeness. When you read this passage, some people say, well, did God forget about Eve? Was that an afterthought? No, it was not an afterthought. But who took the initiative? Now many young people here in this hall today. Who took the initiative? Was Adam coming to God and says, you know, I didn't find anything matching for me. Now as God says in verse 18, the Lord God said, it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a help me. I will make one which really fits to you. Do you believe this? Are you convinced in your own heart that there is one person which is the correct, the compliment for you, which God has already in his wisdom designed and given long before you were even thinking about getting married. God said it is not good. God said, I will make him a help me. And I think that's why I would like to stress this morning, don't just marry anyone. You know, in this world today, there are a lot of people, they look different aspects of marriage. But you know, for a believer, it's different. God wants to give you the exact match for you. And there is one there. The exact match that you will find out, not before marriage, but after marriage. You can only wonder after 20, 30, 40 years, how God in his wisdom designed the perfect compliment for you. But you know, why did God come only now? We already read he made male and female. It was not an afterthought. But why here so specifically showing how he brought this Eve to Adam? You know, it is wonderful in the whole Word of God. God delights to show us something about Christ and hear about Christ and the church. He would like to instruct us that, you know, marriage, he has given marriage, but it should be a picture of what God is really interested in, in his son, the Christ, and the church which God has given him. So when we compare these two things, we have read it, how it happened in verse 21. Adam fell into a deep sleep. And this speaks of Christ who had to go to the cross to fall into the deep sleep of death. He had to die for you and for me. He had to give his life. And what was the motive? God has taken that one, that rib, which is a bone closest to your heart, has taken that bone, not the foot and not the hand and not the head, no, he has taken that bone closest to your heart, showing that Christ has loved the church and has given himself for it. And we have read about that Adam says, now he is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. The Lord has given you the eternal life, whoever belongs to him has got the same life as he had from all eternity and in all eternity. And we can read from Ephesians 5 and verse 25 and verse 30. In verse 25 we find the love of the Lord Jesus and it compares it to your love as a husband to your wife. Husband, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church and gave himself for it. Verse 30, for we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. And then it continues, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall be joined unto his wife and they shall be one flesh. This verse is mentioned several times in scripture. And we have heard about spirit, soul and body. And I would like to compare the man leaving his father and mother as the spiritual union. You know in your family when you grow up there is a union of spirit, not of body but of spirit. Your father, your mother, son and daughters, they have a spiritual union. Now you have to get out of this close fellowship to become a union with your wife. And he shall leave unto his wife is your love and emotion for your wife. That is absolutely necessary. And only thirdly the two shall be one flesh comes the physical union. So God doesn't emphasize on the physical union, what the world does unfortunately. Satan puts such an importance on his physical union but God says you are spirit, you are soul and you are body and I want that these three is going to match, not just the one. We have already read 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 but in 1 Corinthians 2, in chapter 6 it says if you have sex with a harlot, your body who is actually the temple of the Holy Spirit is now united with a harlot. This just emphasizes the importance of keeping yourself clean for the Lord and keeping us clean for one another. A few principles about marriage which I would like in this particular relationship between husband and wife. It says that a man shall leave his parents, not a child. I often see that 15, 16 year olds, they want to have a girlfriend and you are not ready for marriage. Why do you want a girlfriend? And you have years before you really become a man to be ready for marriage. And both husband and wife, they have to leave their homes. And this is a very important thing. I have seen marriages which were really in great difficulties because one of the two has not left home. They still, you know, when her mother said something, it was more important when the husband said something. You know, this is really giving strain to a marriage. You have to leave, your husband has to leave home and you have to really make a separation so that you can really get attached to your wife and the same applies to the girl as well. But the other side of that is that parents also have to have grace to let go. It's not always the problem of the young people, sometimes the parents who don't want to let go and they influence, they come and check out, you know, what are you going to cook for today? What are you going to dress tomorrow? No, it's none of your business as parents. Once they are married, then it's their own life and their own situation. To cleave means to love and to be attached to one another. There must be real love for one another. You know, we had once a young man wrote to one of our daughters saying, you know, I'm so convinced that the Lord has shown me that you are the wife for me. You are. You are the other one. And our daughter said, look, I have absolutely no feelings for that man. I don't know how can he say it's the Lord's will to marry him if I don't have any feelings, if I don't have any love for that person. It has to be that both of them, they cleave to one another in love. Love is absolutely essential. And so we counseled with our daughter and finally we as parents wrote back to that young man and said, I'm sorry. As long as there's no feeling for you, we wonder if it's really the Lord's will. And it wasn't. So the parents have an obligation, of course, to help their daughters and sons. But ultimately, it's their attachment to the other person and that's what we find in cleaving or loving to one another. And the standard of that love of a husband to the wife is Christ to the church. And I think it's very difficult to talk about this because we all know we come short of that standard which Christ has set. Christ has given himself for us. He has given all. Are we, as husbands, prepared to do that? And only finally they became one flesh. Every marriage is for life. You know in German we have this new expression, LAP, Lebensabschnittspartner. So that's a partner for a certain period of your life and then you're going to swap it and take another one. This is in the world we live today. If we remember that marriage is a picture of Christ and the church, is that just for a little period of time? It's for all eternity. And that's why marriage is truly for life. It warns you very clearly in 2 Corinthians 6 not to marry an unbeliever. So if that one you love is an unbeliever, don't get involved. You have no promise whatsoever that God will turn this into blessing. Many said, you know, let's get married and then we work on it. No, you're not going to work on it. God has no promise whatsoever that if you get involved with an unbeliever, you are in an unequal yoke and has no promise that God will bless this marriage. No promise. Of course there are cases where God has shown grace, but you have no promise at all. So some young people say, yeah, I understand it, I understand it. But the main thing is the other one is a believer. Is that the main thing? Yes, it is an important aspect. But I think God wants more than that. And in Numbers we have a wonderful illustration. In Numbers, in chapter 36, we have these five daughters of Telofkat. And they had a real earnest desire in verse 27 not to lose the inheritance which God has given them. And God says they are right. Put it down in the law that if there's no sons, the daughters should inherit. But then comes the next problem in chapter 36. The people from Manasseh said, now if one of these women is going to marry from another tribe, what's going to happen with my inheritance? It will say they were from the tribe of Manasseh. If they would marry somebody from Judah or from any other of the tribes, eventually that inheritance would end up in Judah. And we would lose it. Why do I stress this point? You know how many of our young people have married a believer? Maybe one from the Baptist church, maybe one from any other Christian churches. But in most of these cases, where did they end up? Did they come to the assemblies eventually or did they end up in the Baptist church? You know the answer. I would say more than 90% it works the other way. They're going to leave the assembly and they're going to join up whatever other church it is. And I think that is why it is so important that we also think about this aspect. The more light you are given about how we should gather, the more it is important that we also have a partner and wife or a husband which has the same view of the gathering of his people and to walk in the same way. God puts his stamp on every marriage. Some people think, you know, if I don't marry in the Lord, it's not a marriage before God. No, God actually puts a stamp on every marriage. Whatever you decide, God says, yes, I accept this marriage. And he says, I don't want, I don't like putting away. I don't want to be divorced. And some of the Pharisees said to the Lord, why did Moses give them a law for divorce? And he says, only because of the hardness of your heart, Moses has given this, a bill of divorcement. But from the beginning, and we talk about the beginning, it was not so. What God has joined together, man shall not put asunder. Neither husband or wife, nor any other person should try, because you spoil the picture which God wants, has given us in Christ and the church. There is no separation. There's no putting away. Now God, the Lord Jesus is caring for the church. Even if we fail, he still loves us, he still carries on. And this is a way we should also think about our marriage. Don't even think about divorce. Don't even think about putting away. It says to put away your husband or wife and marry again means adultery. And there is an exception, except for fornication. That's mentioned in Matthew 19, but it's not even mentioned in Mark chapter 10. Because, except for fornication means, well, if fornication has happened, the marriage is broken anyway. But to put somebody away, to marry another, because another person came along and you love them so much more, and you get rich, this is the kind of things the world is doing. But this is not so from the beginning, and not according to God's ideas. But not all are getting married. So there is also words for the unmarried people. In 1 Corinthians 7, we have that he that marries does well, but he that does not marry does better. So there are some young people here who are not married, and maybe have no intention to get married, and they said, you're doing better. You're doing better. Why is that? It says, you know, an unmarried man cares for the things of the Lord, how he shall please the Lord. In verse 32 of chapter 7, and an unmarried woman cares for the things of the Lord that she may be holy both in body and spirit. So it shows another aspect. If you're unmarried, you can dedicate your life for the Lord in a much different way as if you're married, and you have to care for your wife, you have to care for the family, you have to take a lot of time to look after the family. But if you're single, and you know, we cannot say if you're single, you dedicate your life to the Lord. It still needs a dedication. It's not automatically done, but the Lord would encourage you. Don't always think about, you know, should I get married, should I get married, who should I get married? You know, people have that idea that they're constantly occupied with that. If you are bound to a wife, seek not to be loosed. On the other hand, if you are free from a wife, do not seek a wife. Don't constantly be occupied with that thought. Make the best of the life which you are now living, and if God wants to change it, and he has a husband or a wife for you, he will show you, and he will also show you when the right time has come. Also in the book of Genesis, we have a very beautiful example, and I just make a bridge to Genesis 24. We find six points, maybe there are more, but I've listed these six points. Abraham, he cared to get the right wife for Isaac. And you know, this speaks now to us as parents. How much do we care for our daughters and sons to get the right husband or wife? Do we care? Or do we say, well, they're old enough, they have to make their own decisions. Now we have a responsibility to help them, to lead them in that very important decision. The first important decision is to come to Christ. That's the most important decision in life. But the second most important one is that decision about marriage. And do we as parents guide our sons and daughters, or do we just let them run? And then we are surprised, and things go wrong. Abraham had it on his heart that Isaac would get the right wife from the Lord. And he sent his servant, and this is a picture of the Holy Spirit. Do we allow the Holy Spirit, who is indwelling us, to lead us to the right person? Or is it the other way around, that I make a decision, I say, oh, look at this wonderful girl, this is the one I want to marry. Lord, is it okay if I marry this girl? But you made already a decision, do you want to marry that girl and not another one? You don't leave it open to the Lord, you don't leave it up to the leading of the Holy Spirit, you made up your mind, and then you start praying about it. No. Let the Holy Spirit lead you in this very important question. Isaac, he was at the well of Beelahairoi, the well of the living who was seen and who was revealed himself. And this means nothing else than being occupied with the word of God. Don't be so occupied with the other sex, but first of all with the word of God, and study it, and let us meditate about the thoughts of God, and spend much time, Isaac went and he meditated in the fields in the evening. Do we spend time to pray? How much did you pray for your future husband, for your future wife? How much did you pray? We had a daughter, she prayed six years. And she said, last time I was at the conference, he didn't even look at me. And I prayed six years and he didn't even look at me. She came to the point that says, Lord, I'm going to give him back to you. You know better. I even accept if he would marry somebody else. And the next thing which happens, we got a letter from him asking whether she would become his wife. And then we find out that he was praying seven years for her. They didn't know anything about each other, they just prayed, prayed and prayed again. But the Lord had in his own time brought the two together. And again here, Rebecca asked, who is that man walking in the field, not who is that boy. No, he was an established man. And I think this is, it needs to have maturity to get married. A man who has the ability to look after a household. And last, and we find that also there must be true love for one another. I would like to show from one example, I think it's 2 Samuel 13, verse 15. If you're only driven by physical love, that will happen what happened to Amnon. 2 Samuel 13, it's a very solemn story and it's a warning for us all. Amnon, he looked at that girl and said, I want that girl, I want this Tamar, she's such a beautiful woman. And he was sick, you know, because of her love, his love for her. But was it true love or was it only physical? Physical desire, and this is what we read in verse 15. Then Amnon, after he was laying with her, then Amnon hated her exceedingly, so that the hatred wherewith he hated her was greater than the love wherewith he had loved her. Yeah, that can happen. If the motives are not correct, if they are not really genuine, then this love can turn into hatred in no time. And the last verse talks about the time of innocence and I want to finish with that. They both were naked and they didn't think anything about it. They were not ashamed, they were looking at each other and they didn't feel anything. They were living in a time of innocence. They had no sin within themselves and they had not sinned. They did not know what sin was. But then we find that as soon as they were eating from the tree of good and evil, then they realized we are naked. From that very moment, we heard that was the moment when he died. That was the moment when sin came in his life, he knew, now he was naked and he was ashamed. You know, today we live in a world where Satan tries to tell everyone nakedness is acceptable. No, it's not. We are not living in a time of innocence anymore. It's a shame and therefore innocence has come to an end as soon as sin enters into the world. But let us not forget, in that wonderful picture, Adam and Eve were brought together to give us an understanding of what God's desire is for Christ and the church. Do you want to spoil that wonderful picture? I hope not. And let us really lead in this thing, in this very important question of that relationship between husband and wife. If you let God lead you, you will find out that it's a life of richest blessing, a blessing for you, a blessing for your family, a blessing for the outside world. May we take this to heart. Thank you. …

… Good afternoon. Could we just perhaps read some of the chapter? Genesis chapter 3. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made, and he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die, for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her, and he did eat. I put these two stanzas of a hymn because often when we read Genesis chapter 3, it's like a dark cloud coming over the sun. But the sun still shines through the cloud in this chapter, and the ways of God in mercy and grace are implied in what is said by God in the prophecy which is really central to the whole chapter. In Genesis 3, we don't actually read that the serpent was Satan, but that becomes clear in the book of Revelation chapter 20 verse 2, where the serpent is referred to as to who he is, that old or that ancient serpent which is referred to as the serpent. Where the serpent is referred to as to who he is, that old or that ancient serpent which is the devil and Satan. And these two names of the serpent, they really describe who he is. The devil meaning a slanderer, force accuser, and Satan meaning adversary, enemy, the enemy of God. And at the very beginning, we see how Satan moves in enmity against God. He has witnessed, as it were, the pleasure that God takes in that which he has done, the delight he takes in the man and the woman that he's put in Eden, which means delight, and now he wants to spoil it, to corrupt it, to take it away from God. And the way he does this is to undermine God's word in the heart of the woman. The apostle Paul, when he spoke to the Ephesians for the last time, he wasn't going to see them again. He committed them to God and to the word of his grace because the apostle knew that that was safe ground. They would be kept if they cleaved to God and obeyed his word. They would be kept safe from every attack of Satan. And so Satan wants to take the woman away from that safe ground. So he questions God's word. He knows that if he can get Eve to depart from that word, then he has the woman in his power and he can take her down another path, a path which will lead her away from God. So having, first of all, questioned the word of God, now Satan attacks God himself. The Lord Jesus, when he spoke of Satan in John 8, verse 44, he called Satan a liar. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it. In other words, he is the originator of the lie. But also he spoke of Satan as a murderer. He was a murderer from the beginning, he said. And when the Lord speaks of from the beginning, he's speaking of this time now. From the very creation of the world, Satan was a murderer. That was his character. And Satan, he presses home his attack now upon Eve and he reveals himself to be a murderer because he wants to take her life from her. We heard, didn't we, that when they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, on the day that thou eatest of it, God said, thou shalt surely die. There was no question about that. There they would be alienated from the life of God. God is the source of life and they would depart from him and therefore they would die. And so Satan, he wants to lead Eve down that path and he shows himself to be a murderer. He wants to take her life from her. And so he also reveals himself as a slanderer. He slanders God. He says, God, he doesn't want the best for you. He's keeping something from you which will be a wonderful thing to have. And also he says that God is a liar because God has said that on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die. But that's not the case. You won't die. In fact, things will get so much better for you. You will be like God. Your eyes will be opened. You will know good and evil like God does. This is a wonderful thing to possess. And of course Satan himself, he wanted that, didn't he, at the very beginning. He exalted his throne above the stars. He said in his heart that he wanted to be as the most high. He wanted to be as God himself. So Satan was tempting Eve down the same path that he had gone. Well, we read that both Eve and Adam ate of the fruit. Eve giving the fruit to her husband and he eating of it also. And verse 7, the eyes of both of them opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. They realized now, after having eaten the fruit, they knew indeed good and evil. Their eyes had been opened to it. But they realized also that in eating of that fruit, they themselves had become evil. They had become corrupt. They felt guilt and they felt shame at their situation. And they wanted to do something about it. And so in order to be respectable, as it were, in one another's eyes, in order to feel better about themselves, to cover themselves up, they sewed fig leaves into aprons and they wore those aprons. And then while they were in one another's company, they could look upon one another and feel that they were okay. They were all right. Their nakedness wasn't visible anymore. Not to them anyway. And it's true, isn't it, that we can go through life thinking that we are respectable, that we are acceptable because we only judge these matters from the viewpoint of ourselves, how we think about ourselves or how our family thinks about us or our friends think about us, those around us who are in the same position as we are. But it is God who makes the final assessment about us. It is God who judges. And we read of God that everything is bare to his eyes. Everything is laid bare. Everything is naked. He can see everything. And in Hebrews chapter 4 verse 13 it says, All things are naked and laid bare unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do. Because ultimately it is not our friends who will judge us, it is not our family, but it is God who will make that judgment concerning us. It is him that we must finally stand before at the throne of judgment. God called unto Adam, first of all he walked in the garden in the cool of the evening. I'm sure that this was something that meant a great deal to the heart of God. He desired communion with the creature that he had made. This probably happened very quickly, this fall. Because Adam hadn't even named Eve yet. So, and I'm sure Satan would have acted very quickly. God comes into the garden in order to speak to his beloved creatures, the man, Adam and Eve, the man and the woman. And Adam hides himself. He is afraid of God. He hides himself among the trees in the garden. And the Lord God calls unto Adam and says unto him, Where art thou? Where art thou? In those words, God really brings home to Adam his moral state. He is now far from God. He is away from God. And he wants to bring before Adam the seriousness of his lost condition. Where art thou? He says. Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, Isaiah says. And so in that question that God asks, he brings out man's moral condition. He is away from God. He is dead in trespasses and in sins. And Adam says, I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 11, he speaks of the terror of the Lord. He says, knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. It wasn't that Paul was afraid of that terror. He wasn't afraid of that terror because he knew what it was to be forgiven and cleansed of all that which offended God, his sin. He knew what it was to be clothed with the righteousness provided by God in Christ. Therefore, he wasn't terrified of that terror. But there was a time in Paul's life where he was terrified by it. On the road to Damascus, when the Lord spoke to him from heaven, it says, he says that he fell to the ground. It says trembling. And that word trembling, it means filled with dread. But the Lord has spoken to Paul and Paul had put his trust in him. He says, Lord, Lord, he had bowed to him. He had bowed to his word and he had put his trust in the Lord. Therefore, the terror, he didn't feel that terror anymore in his own heart, but he knew it. He knew of it. And therefore, he would persuade men by the truth of the gospel not to stand before God and have to give an account of themselves on that terrible day of judgment, but to be reconciled to him, to accept the truth of their condition, to believe upon the name of the Lord Jesus and to be saved, and therefore not to have to stand before the Lord as the judge of all things, for all judgment has been committed unto the Son, but to be in his presence as those who are loved by him and to have a place eternally with him in the Father's house. Well, the man replies, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me the fruit and I did eat. In Adam's response, we see the true state of his heart. He won't accept that he is in the wrong. He will justify himself before God. I've quoted this verse here, The poison of asps is under their lips. An asp is a little serpent. And we see in Adam now the poison that was seen in Satan, in the serpent. Adam is a slanderer now of God. He says, in effect, When you gave me the woman, it wasn't for my welfare, my blessing, my good. You hurt me by giving that woman to me. And so he says, The woman that thou gavest me, she gave me the tree and I did eat. And so we see now a mind in Adam which is at enmity and alienated by wicked works. Colossians chapter 1 verse 21. And so God, he takes up the matter and he says, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest eat? And Adam gives his reply. And then the Lord says unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. This is the prophecy that I refer to which is really central to the whole chapter. God turns to the serpent and he tells him that there will be enmity. He speaks of two seeds. The seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. And we can trace these two seeds throughout the scriptures from the beginning until the end. Now, plainly, when he speaks of the seed of the woman, he's speaking of a person. It's not in the plural, but it's singular. The seed of the woman, which is, of course, Christ. And then he speaks of the seed of the serpent. That is to say, those who morally are like Satan. But specifically, one who is, as it were, Satan's man. The Antichrist, at the very end. But we can see the character of these two seeds right at the beginning in Cain. Right at the beginning in Cain and Abel. Abel, we read in Hebrews chapter 11, he had faith. It says that by faith he offered up a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. So, in Abel, was seen the obedience of faith. And it's that godliness that characterizes the seed of the woman. Godliness. But, in Cain, we can see the seed of the serpent. And again, Scripture would speak of Cain that he was of the wicked one. He was of Satan, morally. Because he slew his own brother. There was murder in his heart. And hatred of God. And a refusal to bow to God's word. God reasoned with Cain, didn't he? But Cain would have nothing of it. And he slew his brother. And so in Cain is seen that spirit of lawlessness which can be traced throughout the seed of the serpent. And then, if we go perhaps to the middle, as it were, we can see at the trial of the Lord Jesus. We get the Lord, the seed of the woman. And then we get that which figures the seed of the serpent with Barabbas. His name means son of a father. He shows forth that nature of his father, Satan. And he was a murderer. And he was a thief. And he was a rebel. He was thrown into prison for sedition. And the people made their choice. They would have Barabbas. And the Lord they would crucify. And then right at the end, we see the two seeds once more. This time, we see the seed of the serpent fully manifest in the Antichrist. He who would take the place of Christ. Because that's what Antichrist means. And we see him in all his murderous heart against the people of God. All those who would not worship the image of the beast. Those who refuse that evil way and have trusted in God and want to serve him and obey his word. They will not bow to that image that he has set up in the temple. And he has them killed. We see his murderous heart. But then, the second part of the prophecy regarding that seed. He says, It he shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. And so we have two adversaries who would ultimately meet in combat. And I'll quote this verse from Isaiah. He is near that justifies me. The Lord in dependence upon God. He won't, he doesn't seek to justify himself in any way. He is the servant of the Lord. It is God who justifies him and it is God in whom he trusts. Who will contend with me? Let us stand together. Who is my adversary? Let him come near to me. And so the Lord, the seed of the woman, will crush, bruise or crush the serpent's head. He will inflict a mortal wound upon him. A wound that he cannot recover from. A wound that will finish him. A crushed head. No one can survive a head that is crushed. But in doing so, the Satan will inflict a wound upon the Lord. He will crush his heel. Now, a crushed heel is extremely painful but it is not terminal. And also, if an adversary could only, as it were, lash out and strike his opponent upon the heel, it means that he is on the ground and his opponent is standing up. And it means too that his adversary is passing him by and moving on, pursuing his purpose. And Satan, although he inflicted that terrible blow at the cross, and we're not talking here about the sufferings of the Lord in redemption, because Satan didn't inflict those. It says of those in Isaiah 53, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. He hath put him to grief. No, Satan, he stirred man up against the Lord and the sufferings that Satan could inflict upon the Lord were the sufferings that he received at the hands of men, not at the hands of God. And they were terrible indeed. And the reproach that they involved broke the Lord's heart. But nevertheless, it says of the shame, he despised the shame. He counted it as a small thing and he endured the cross. That's the sufferings that he received at the hand of God. That could not be despised. That was endured. But he completed that work and passed on and Satan was left a defeated foe. He had taken away Satan's power through entering into death and having the victory over death, taking away the sting of death, sin, in being made, in having his soul made a sacrifice for our sins. And Satan was defeated. He had no more power over us. He had no more leverage, as it were, over God. That which had given him his power was taken away. But there are consequences spoken of. Unto the woman I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, or travail. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children and thy desire shall be to thy husband and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed is the ground for thy sake. In sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Just quickly speak on this consequence of sin. Firstly, the woman's conception would be greatly increased. In other words, she would suffer in bringing forth children. She would have travail, physical travail. And the man, if he was to have that which was for his blessing, bread, that which strengthens the heart, Scripture says, that which satisfies the increase of the earth, if he was to have those things, then he must sweat, he must work hard to achieve them. And these things only serve really to speak of a far more profound consequence of sin. The Lord, if he was to have that seed which his God had promised him, which he could speak of prophetically, which he could speak of in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 13, when he says, I and the children which God hath given me, if he was to have that seed, then he must travel. And we read of that travel in Isaiah 53, he shall see of the fruit of the travel of his soul and shall be satisfied. The cross with all its sufferings. And if he was to bring man that which was for his blessing, bread, and he spoke of himself, didn't he, as the bread of life. If man was to have life, then he would have to take up that great work at Calvary, that work of redemption. And so in the garden, in anticipation of that work, it says that he sweat, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Such were the sufferings of the Lord on account of sin. And we don't read, you know, that God cursed man because he didn't. He cursed the serpent, he cursed the earth, but he never cursed man because the Lord himself was to take that curse, to be made a curse in man's place. It is written, cursed is every man that hangeth upon a tree. Well, now in this scripture, Adam called his wife Eve, because she was or is, because she is the mother of all living. Eve means life. And here we see faith, we see faith implied. We're never told that Adam had faith, but I think in these words we see that Adam, he had bowed to God's judgment now. He knew that through him death had been brought into the world. By one man's disobedience, death entered into the world. Sin entered into the world and death by sin. Adam knew that now and he knew that out of his loins, yes, there would come a race of men, but in him they would all die. Death would be upon all because all have sinned. Adam knew that, but he took account of what God had said concerning Eve and he realized that there would be a deliverer, rise up, the seed of the woman who would deliver them from Satan, deliver them from the serpent and in him would be life. And so we read in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 22, as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. All die in Adam because all are in Adam. We are all in Adam, we've all been born of that, of him. We can trace our parentage back to Adam. So all die in Adam, but in Christ shall all be made alive. That is to say all who are in Christ shall be made alive. That is only those who have put their trust in him. They will be brought out of death into life. And so because of faith now we read that God, the Lord God made coats of skins and did clothe them. They had that now which they could stand in the presence of God knowing that they need not be ashamed anymore of their nakedness. And if anybody had said to them, well, how do you know that? They could say, well, God has given us these skins, therefore we must be acceptable to him in them. And that would remind us of the fact that an animal had to be slain to provide those skins. And in Genesis the only offering that we read of actually being offered, although others are referred to, but the only offering that we read of in Genesis being offered is the burnt offering. And in Leviticus 7 verse 8 we read that the offering priest, he offers up that offering and it all belongs to God because it speaks of the worth of Christ in the eyes of God, how God fully appreciates him and therefore his work is acceptable on that wonderful basis of who he is. But the priest gets the skins, he gets the covering and we learn from that that we are acceptable in Christ to God. And so God drives man out from the garden, but in doing so he simply takes away the first in order that he might establish the second. And I'll just read these scriptures from 1 Corinthians and then finish. 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 45, thus also it is written, the first man Adam became a living soul, the last Adam a quickening spirit. This doesn't mean that the last Adam became a quickening spirit. We must read it carefully. It says the last Adam a quickening spirit. This is characteristic of the last Adam. He is a life-giving spirit. He is God himself. But that which is spiritual was not first, but that which is natural then that which is spiritual. The first man out of the earth made of dust, the second man out of heaven. Such as he made of dust, such also those made of dust. And such as the heavenly one, such also the heavenly ones. We have a new race of men, a new head, the second Adam, the last Adam, the man out of heaven. As we have borne the image of the one made of dust, we should also bear the image of the heavenly one. …

… Let's read Genesis chapter 4, Genesis chapter 4, And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived, and Bear came and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, Why, what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth, and from thy face shall I be hid. And I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. And it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and bare Enoch. And he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch. And Adam knew his wife again, and she bare a son, and called his name Seth. For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. And to Seth, to him also there was born a son, and he called his name Enos. Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. As I'm sure all of the other speakers have found, there's quite a lot in each of these chapters to cover in a short period of time, and I'm sure that all of us have appreciated that from the sessions that we've had already. The slides that I've put together don't do justice to the whole chapter, and even the time available doesn't do justice to the slides that I have put together. But the things that they cover are set out on this slide that we have before us. We start off with a look at the people who are involved in the events of this chapter, and then we consider the offerings that are brought by Cain and Abel, and then Cain's murder of Abel, the consequences of that next, and then Cain's response to all of that. But then we see God's intervention and man's proper response to that. As I said, there won't be time to go through all of the points that are on the slide, but what I hope to focus on are the things that we see in this chapter illustrating wider truths, the details of which are set out elsewhere in the Bible, and also some of the things that we have in this chapter that are types of other things presented in the Bible. Now, when we come to the people involved in the chapter, I think our little white books that we have list four people, Eve, Cain, Abel, and Seth. I've actually added a few people or a couple to my list. The first one, and we have him mentioned at the very beginning of the chapter, is Adam. I think it is important to see the role, if you like, that Adam plays in the things that take place in this chapter, because really he is, in one sense, the very reason why all of these things come to pass. Through Adam, or in Adam, we see the truths that we have presented elsewhere in the Bible illustrated. In particular, what we have in Romans chapter 5, verse 12, by one man sin entered into the world, and verse 19, by the disobedience of the one man, the many have been constituted sinners. Adam and his sin is the reason why all of the things that we read about in this chapter came to pass, because his sin and the consequences, insofar as he was concerned, he was constituted a sinner, and that was passed on to his descendants, Cain and Abel. Now we also have Eve mentioned in this chapter, and just to follow on from some of the things that Paul was speaking about, we see in the first verse that, like Adam, Eve has some belief in God's promise in chapter 3, because she describes Cain as a man with Jehovah. It would seem that Eve had this idea in her head that Cain was the promised seed, the one that God had mentioned in the previous chapter. Perhaps just by way of an aside, it is interesting to note that Adam and Eve, and Satan as well, believed literally in the promise that God had made in chapter 3. We've already had the importance of a literal or natural interpretation of scripture brought before us, and that's perhaps emphasised, or we see a good example of it in the fact that Adam and Eve, and also Satan, believed God's promises literally. Now Eve had some belief in that promise, but sadly she trusted in the flesh to accomplish what God had said would come to pass. She says, I have acquired a man with Jehovah. Sadly, she doesn't realise that any effort of any man, and I'm using that term to cover both men and women, is never going to be successful, never going to be pleasing to God, never going to bring about the blessings which God has promised. She doesn't realise that that which is born of flesh remains flesh. Now, we also have Cain, of course, in this chapter. Perhaps worth noting, though, that to all outward appearances, Cain was a good man. We don't read that he was caught up in any great moral corruption. Rather, everything about him looked good. He was certainly a man of natural abilities and natural strength. He was a husbandman, as it says in verse two, or a farmer, we may say today. So he must have been diligent and hardworking because, again, as we saw in chapter three, the ground was cursed and God had said to Adam that with toil he would eat of the ground. So Cain must have been a hard worker. He also did have a knowledge of God, and I do say a knowledge deliberately because there is this interaction between Cain and God in the chapter. And perhaps worth noting that in the way that that's recorded, God is described as Jehovah, the name that's associated with his relationship with man. So there was some knowledge on Cain's part of God. But notwithstanding all of these outward things, when it comes to the inner man, that's where we see Cain's deficiency. His worship of God was only ceremonial. It was only outward. It was only about going through a ritual and doing something significantly. He had no relationship with God through faith, and as has just been alluded to, he was in reality the child of Satan. We have a great contrast in Abel, of course, but before going into that, I just want to reiterate a point that I've already made, and that is that Abel was a sinner just as much as Cain. By nature and by birth, there was no difference between the two of them. In God's sight, again, as they stood, by birth and by nature, there was no difference between the two of them. Abel was born in iniquity, to adopt David's words in Psalm 51, just as much as Cain was. But there is this difference on the part of Abel. He realised that his life was but transitory, and that's the figurative meaning of his name. The things of this life, the things that he could do in this life, were meaningless. He knew what was important, and that was to know God through faith, as it says in Hebrews 11, verse 4. Now, we don't know the basis of Abel's faith, and precisely what had been said to him, but it's clear that he had learned that one can only stand before God through the death of another. No doubt he would have heard God's promise about the deliverer who would crush the head of the serpent, but in so doing, would have his heel bruised. No doubt he would also have heard about the animals who were killed, so that Adam and Eve could be clothed. We know that God is a rewarder of those who seek him out. So, perhaps just on the basis of those two things, there was enough for Abel to come to this realisation that he could only stand before God through the death of another. Now, in addition to his faith, Abel knew what God respected, and we see that in the offerings, which we'll come to in a moment, and he devoted his life to what was associated with what gave God pleasure. He was a shepherd, as it says in verse 2, and he was a shepherd at a time when men did not kill and eat animals for food. That didn't come about until Noah's time. So, I think we can draw the conclusion that he was a shepherd, tending lambs so that there would be something to be offered to God. And Abel, not Adam, interestingly, is the first one that we have in the line of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. Now, the other person that I've added as being active in this chapter, even though he's not mentioned, is Satan. No doubt he was the real player behind the scenes, doing what he could to thwart God's plans for his own glory and for man's blessing. And again, we see evidence of John chapter 8 verse 44, Satan being a murderer from the beginning in this chapter. Now, we come to the offerings, and if we look at things from an outward perspective, Cain's offering may not seem so bad. It was something that he'd worked to prepare. It was the fruit of the ground, and it was something that belonged to him. So, in some sense, he was making a sacrifice to God. But again, outward appearance doesn't really mean very much. In substance, what he was offering was a cursed offering, because the ground itself was cursed, as we have in chapter 3 verse 17. So, the offering, the fruit of the ground, was also cursed. But perhaps more importantly than that, the principle underlying Cain's offering was flawed, and because it was an offering based on his own strength, something that he had done, had done, something that he was seeking to bring to God so that he could give God pleasure. But something that the Bible makes consistently clear is the things that we do cannot bring any pleasure to God. No flesh can glory in his presence. Our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and many other verses. It's perhaps worth noting that it says in verse 5 that God didn't even look upon Cain's offering, and the reason for that being that it wasn't what God had said he wanted, and it wasn't what God wanted, and so God couldn't even look upon it at all. It's perhaps also important to note that this is the first sin of fallen man. When we read Genesis chapter 4, we probably focus on Cain's murder of Abel, which was certainly a very terrible thing, but this act of false worship in God's sight, I think it would be right to say, must have been even more terrible. It wasn't a mistake on Cain's part. He should have known better, and there are serious warnings to people who proceed down this path of merely getting involved in religion or ceremonial things, and Cain is mentioned in connection with the warnings that we have in this regard in Jude's epistle, verse 11, and Cain is a picture of religious Israel, but perhaps he's also a picture of those in Christendom who have a mere form of godliness, and perhaps at this point it is just worth pausing and again emphasising the seriousness of what we're talking about, because I think it is very easy to adopt a mere form of godliness, even very easy amongst the meetings that most of us are associated with, very easy to grow up amongst the meetings, very easy to go along to them, and perhaps even to start breaking bread, perhaps even to give out a hymn or pray from time to time, relatively easy to do these things without there being any reality in the heart, and I think perhaps it is just worth us reflecting on that. If there's one here who has been coming along to the meetings, perhaps for a very long time, but is like Cain, is only doing these things out of show, then he should take the time to get right with God. Again we have a contrast between Cain and Abel in terms of the offerings. Cain brings an offering of the flock, which is the pattern that God had established in chapter 3, and as it says again in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 4, he does this by faith, and God looks upon Abel, it says, but it's Abel and his offering, and I think that is the key part, that Abel is accepted as righteous, again the way it's described in Hebrews chapter 11, by virtue not of himself or of what he had done per se, but by virtue of the offering which spoke of the Lord Jesus Christ and his work upon the cross, and similarly we are accepted before God in the beloved, as it says in Ephesians chapter 1, not by virtue of anything that we have done, and this is the first offering of faith that we have in the Bible. Now the details of the murder, we probably know very well, I don't want to spend too much time on them, but I think it is just worth noticing the bottom point here, that really the reason why Cain proceeded to murder his brother Abel, is because Abel had spoken to his conscience, that's really what first John chapter 3 verse 12 brings out, it was because Abel's offering had been accepted, that Cain proceeded to murder him. Cain couldn't stand the thought that there being someone else that was accepted by God when he was not. This is of course the first murder that we have recorded in the Bible, and notwithstanding my earlier comments, we can't overlook the seriousness of this. CHM, in his commentary on Genesis, makes a remark to the following effect, that if there was ever a time when man could have proved himself worthy to stand in God's presence, if there was ever a time when man could have done something to bring him back into the state that he was before the fall, this was it, the very beginning of his history. But what happens at this time? Well man just simply proves what he is, that he is wholly sinful, that as the Lord Jesus says, out of the heart that proceeds murders amongst other things, and that's true of every human heart, not just of Cain's, but all of us by birth and by nature had that sinful heart, that only sinful things proceeded about. It's not a case of the world starting off maybe only a little bit bad and gradually getting worse, or the same being true of mankind. Mankind and this world have been ruined from the beginning. Perhaps more importantly than just the mere historical details of this chapter, we see in a picture of Cain's murder of Abel, the Jews' conduct in putting the Lord Jesus to death. Cain killed his brother and the Lord Jesus was rejected by his own and then put to death by his own. Cain doesn't kill his brother in the house or nearby, but kills his brother in the field. Similarly, the Jews took the Lord Jesus away from the city, away from where their ordinary life was, away from where their religious life was, and they took him outside the city to be crucified. Both Abel and the Lord Jesus came to an unnatural end and they were both cut off out of the land of the living. There are many other similarities as well, but of course there is this great difference in terms of what the two events speak of. God, in speaking to Cain, talks about Abel's blood crying out from the ground. If we compare that language to the language of Revelation chapter 6, we'd see that Abel's blood was crying out for vengeance, whereas the blood of the Lord Jesus, as it says in Hebrews chapter 12, speaks of much better things. We have come to the blood speaking better things, probably speaking there what that's referring to is probably the new covenant and the forgiveness of sins that we enjoy through his blood. We now come to the consequences. Again, we'll need to move through this fairly quickly, but worth noting perhaps the counterpart to the question that we had in chapter 3 that Paul mentioned. The question there was, where are you? Here the question is, what have you done? The one having to do with state and the other having to do with conduct, and as a result of these things and many other things, every man, every man and woman, boy and girl is deserving of God's judgment. But the consequences, again, over and above the historical details where Cain goes out from God's presence, they are a picture to us of things concerning the Jews. Cain complains against God about the punishment that God has given him, even though it was what he deserved. Similarly, the Jews in a future day when they are suffering during the tribulation will complain against God. We have an example of that in Psalm 44. They will do this even though they made that terrible statement, let this blood be upon us and upon our children. They on the one hand were willing to accept the consequence of their actions, but in a future day will blame God when this comes to pass. Just as Cain was marked so that he would be separate from the rest of the world, the Jews are distinguishable from the rest of the world. It's remarkable how distinguishable they are and have been over so many centuries. But over the same lengthy period of time, they have been fugitives on this earth. Even now, Israel is not really Israel. The Jews don't really enjoy their land or the land that God has promised them. What we see represented in Cain being a wanderer and a fugitive. In a future day, just as God promised to take vengeance on any who attacked Cain, God will take vengeance on those who have attacked his earthly people. We'll have to skip over the details of Cain's response, but perhaps worth noting that it culminates in him going to a place away from God and away from things that would remind him of God and making himself comfortable, building a city, making a name for himself because he names the city after his son. In that city, agriculture and industry flourish and music is developed as well. Things which aren't necessarily wrong in and of themselves. There's nothing wrong with cities per se, just as well for those of us who are city people. God has given a special place to one city on this earth and that is Jerusalem. Similarly, music is not bad in and of itself. It was prescribed as part of worship of God in the Old Testament. Of course, it has no place in New Testament worship or the reliance upon it doesn't. There are grave dangers associated with these things, particularly for the people of the world because all of these things can occupy an unbeliever and keep their mind off the fact that this earth is cursed and that they will come under God's judgment, but they can be very real dangers for believers as well. Cain's line culminates in Tubal Cain, whose name means son of Cain. The end of this line, we could say, is just like the beginning. We might ask, what happens next? Does this mean that Satan, through his activity in this chapter, has been victorious over God? Has he destroyed the seed of the woman? Has he prevented God's promises of a deliverer from coming to pass? Of course, the answer is no because God is never defeated, not by Satan and not even by Satan's greatest weapon, that is death. He will always keep his promises and every time Satan comes in to attempt to thwart what he wants to do, every time man fails, that is just another opportunity for God to act in grace. We see that here when he appoints Eve another seed, Seth. This time, Eve seems to recognise that true blessing comes solely as a result of God's grace. She says, this time God has appointed me another seed. Perhaps in this further seed for Eve after the death of Abel, we see in Seth a picture of Christ raised from the dead. It's important as we consider this chapter to take note of where it finishes. It finishes with this lovely statement, then people began to call on the name of Jehovah. This statement is associated with the way it's recorded in the text with the birth of Seth's son and the meaning of the name that is given to him is weakness. That's an essential principle for us to grasp, that great blessing, true blessing, comes as a result of realising one's weakness. In some ways that's the way to salvation, recognising and perhaps to adopt the words of the prodigal son, that we are not worthy to be called God's son, to realise that there is nothing good in us and that we need the way of salvation and that God has opened to us. It's also the way to blessing in the Christian life as well. We need to come to a realisation of the truth of what we have at the end of Romans chapter 7, a wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me out of this body of death, to realise that there's nothing in me that can do any good and to realise that it all comes from God through Jesus Christ our Lord. It's also the secret to true worship and the acceptable worship of God, not the ceremonial worship of Cain, but worship by faith, to be those who don't trust in the flesh and don't try to bring anything of ourselves or do anything ourselves to please God, but to be those who worship not by ceremony but by the Spirit of God and to be those who boast not in our works but in Christ Jesus. you …

… Well, as Brother Mark said at the beginning of the last talk, the same is true of this. We won't adequately in any way cover the chapter, but hopefully we'll gain something from it. Okay, I'm going to start by reading some of this chapter, just to give us a flavor. So this is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them and called them mankind in the day they were created. When Adam lived 130 years, Amber got a son in his own likeness after his image and named him Seth. And we seem to have lost the screen, I think. And it's come back. Okay. The days of Adam were 800 years and he had sons and daughters. So all the days that Adam lived were 930 years and he died. And then we get records of the life of Seth and Enos and Canaan and Mahalal and Jared and Enoch and Methuselah and Lamech. And the chapter finishes with Lamech lived 182 years and had a son and he called his name Noah saying, this one will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord has cursed. After he begot Noah, Lamech lived 595 years and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Lamech were 777 years and he died. And Noah was 500 years old and Noah begot Shem, Ham and Japheth. Now I went through these names in the middle here in a rather brief and dismissive way and it's tempting to do so because we can look at it and think, oh no, a load of names and years. But of course, if you're familiar with this chapter, you'll know I've missed a gem here. And the lesson is, don't just skip over lists of names and years. There's often something very interesting. So if you're not familiar with this chapter, then listen out and we'll come to it. Okay, this is what I want to split my talk into. First of all, God and man. God wants communion with man and then we'll talk about likenesses. Following that we'll talk about Cain's line and then Seth's line and then compare them. And then I want to pick up some individuals in Seth's line, particularly Enoch, Lamech and Noah. And then I want to see Enoch and Noah as pictures of the future. So let's start from the top. God wants communion with man. God in his grace always wants communion with man and he came and talked to Adam and Eve when they were in the garden. Adam since separated man from God and the Lord God still came to talk to man and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God. But we noted at the end of chapter four it says in connection with Seth's line at the birth of Enoch then man began to call on the name of the Lord. Cain had gone out from the presence of the Lord. The Lord provided Adam and Eve with another son Seth. The start of our chapter reminds us that Adam was made in the likeness of God. It says in the day that God created man he made him in the likeness of God. He was good. He was without sin. He walked with God in happy intimacy. And unlike other creatures, as we've said, God made Adam a moral creature, able to make intelligent choices, having the capacity for communion with God. And Adam sinned and separated himself from God. Now, we might naively think that sin would only affect Adam and Eve. And then their descendants could be sinless if they chose to. But no, the whole perfect creation was disordered by that sin and when the scriptures talk about the birth of Seth, the Bible doesn't say he was made in the likeness of God. But makes the point that he was made in the likeness of his father, Adam, after his image. But we notice in the New Testament, James, for example, notes in chapter 3 that man still bears in some senses the likeness of God. So we have no choice over this. We're all born in sin with a sinful human nature. Seth was born in Adam's likeness and so are we through our parents. And we've already had this quoted to us, but David notes in Psalm 51, I was shaken in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. But the wonderful news is, if we just look at this, this is deeply depressing. But the wonderful news is, the astonishing truth is that we are being transformed into Christ's image and we will be like him when he comes. And I'll just note one scripture there, but there are plenty we could quote. We know that when he is revealed, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. We shall indeed be like Christ. That work of transformation will be completed. So the gloom that descends when we see that we're born in sin is lifted when we see that we will be like Christ and that he's performing a transforming work in us now. Okay, Cain's line. Well, Mark has spoken about Cain's line. Seven generations are shown in chapter four and we can say, ending really in the degradation into which the human race had degenerated. We read near the beginning of chapter six, but certainly referring to the end of the time period covered by chapters four and five, that the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And we have at the end of Cain's line, as presented in chapter four, a small example of the ungodliness of violence that engulfed mankind. Lamech, it says, got his revenge on a young man who had injured him by killing him. So this line starts with a murderer and ends with a murderer, from murderer to murderer. Seth's line is what we see in chapter five, totally different line. The genealogy in chapter four comes through Cain, from chapter five, from Abel's replacement Seth. We should note at this point that Adam also had other sons and daughters. There may be many of them. We know nothing about them, none of them are mentioned, nor are their descendants, and the wickedness engulfing the human race would have included them as well. They also died in the flood. But here we're presented with ten generations from Seth to Noah. And these are the progenitors, of course, of all mankind, but the scriptures always have the Lord Jesus Christ in view. So particularly, they're progenitors of the seed, the one who will come, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we see, if we look at the Lord's genealogy, this is the one quoted in Luke. Jesus himself being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Canaan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God. That's the Lord's genealogy here as a man. Death. We saw earlier that Adam and Eve disobeyed God, so sinned, and the just punishment was death. This was pronounced by God, and as was noted earlier, spiritual death was immediate. And although complete physical death wasn't immediate, the process had begun, and culminating in Adam's death 930 years later. So it says in our chapter, Adam and he died. And Paul writes in Romans, the wages of sin is death, and Adam received sin's wages. The die had been cast, the deed had been done, and there was no going back. Sin had entered the world, and as we look at this chapter, we're struck by death. Seth, and he died. Enosh, and he died. Canaan, and he died. Mahalalel, and he died. Jared, and he died. And then we have a difference. The exception is Enoch. He didn't die. God took him. Extraordinary, that, isn't it? God took him. And this is part of what we missed when we just skipped over those names at the beginning of the chapter. God took him. Methuselah died, Lamech died, and then we get to Noah, and his death is not recorded in this chapter, but is recorded later. Again, Paul, writing to the Romans, says, by one man, sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. A dreadful conclusion, but it brings us to some wonderful contrasts. Now, for time's sake, I'm not going to dwell on these, but I've pulled out five contrasts from Romans 5, and I suggest you study them at your leisure. Many die. God's grace abounds to many. Condemnation and justification. Death reigned. We shall reign in life. Judgment to condemnation. Free gift to justification. Many made sinners. Many made righteous. So I'm going to go on. Seth's line. We're going to look at Seth's line in a bit more detail. We've got ten generations, and details of the age at the son's birth, and how long they lived, where they had other sons and daughters, and so on. And we can make up a table like this, if we wish, which is similar to the table you'll see in the notes. So there we are. There are numbers. Many people find numbers difficult to absorb. That's really quite difficult to take in, so what I've done for us on the next slide is do a timeline. Now, I'm very fond of timelines myself, and I think they're quite helpful, really. So here's a timeline. Okay, so we've got time going across the screen, yeah? So on the left, we've got when Adam was created, and on the right, that line when he died. So that's 930 years, this creation of Adam. So that line there represents a thousand years after the creation of Adam. Then we have Seth, then we have Enos, Canaan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Enoch was taken at that point, he didn't die, Methuselah, and we notice, if we work it out, that the flood occurred the same year as Methuselah died. Then we have Lamech, who died just before the flood, and then we have Noah, who went through the flood, of course, and then we have Shem. Okay, now, one of the interesting things about this is if we look at it, we can see that all the way down to Lamech, they could have known Adam, and they probably did. They could have talked to Adam, discussed what went on in the Garden of Eden, he could have told them about the fall and the terrible things that had happened. They'd have known firsthand, directly from the horse's mouth, if you like. So do we actually believe this? Do we really believe in this sophisticated, scientific, 21st century, that really people live this long? Well, I hope so, because that's what's in God's Word. So it is true. And it's interesting to note that the longest living person here, Methuselah, who lived 969 years, didn't quite make it to a thousand. When the Lord comes to reign, when he rules during the millennium, the faithful will live the full thousand years, longer than even Methuselah. Now I want us to look at what these names mean, possible meaning of names. I think it's profitable to do so, but we have to be cautious about this, because it isn't always clear what the name means. This is very old language, and the experts don't always agree among themselves as to the meaning. But it's interesting to look at what's known. So Seth was a substitute, that's what the name appears to mean. So Eve called him Seth, as he was another seed instead of Abel, a substitute for Abel. And with righteous Abel, we see a picture of Christ killed by evil men, and Seth substituted in his place, maybe considered as a picture of Christ risen from the dead. And Seth had a son, Enos. And this actually illustrates that there isn't universal agreement about what names mean. Brother Mark was saying the name of Enos is Weakness. You'll find in the notes that written down it says Mortal. Now, of course, Weakness and Mortal are similar ideas from a similar root, I'm sure. But what I've written here is Mortal. And this made me think, you know, here's Seth. He's got this beautiful newborn babe, there is, in his arms. And he looks at his babe, and he's going to give her a name, give him a name. And he doesn't think, oh, what a beautiful baby. Well, he probably does. But he also thinks, this child's going to die. That's what's on his mind. His parents' sin, and that this child is mortal, he's going to die. And if we take it that the name means Mortal, then that's what Enos, that's what Seth is thinking of. And of course, you know, how do we view the truth that we're getting older, and death comes to all, unless God intervenes. Now, of course, we know that we're mortal, but what's our attitude in view of this? Do we hide from this? Do we pretend it doesn't exist, and go on with life as though we are going to live here forever? Well, we should note that we are going to pass away at some time if the Lord doesn't come first, and live in the light of this. Now, if we consider the Lord Jesus himself through these names, which we can do, and it's profitable to do so, we're reminded that he, the one who is God, became man. He became for us a man who is subject to death. Canaan. And again, we see there's disagreement as to what the name means, perhaps meaning fixed, suggesting when we think of the Lord Jesus, of his consistency. He would always do God's will, even knowing the terrible sufferings that would come upon him. Satan and nothing else could divert him. And of course, we ourselves should be fixed. We should be constant. We should have our minds on the things of the Lord, and not the things this world offers. Another suggested meaning is one who laments. We can think of the tears of our Lord Jesus, and the fact that anyone with real spiritual life laments the sinfulness within and the sinfulness around. Mahalaleel means praise of God. The Lord Jesus' life was a life of praise, an expression of praise, and we who are redeemed have much to praise the Lord for. Jared, a descent, one who descends, reminds us of the Lord Jesus, who came down from the highest height of glory. And Enoch, trained or dedicated, reminds us that the Lord Jesus was dedicated to do God's will, prepared for it, trained to do it, dedicated to it. Now, it seems the name of Methuselah includes the idea of death and a dart or a spear, and the action in using it. And it's been suggested that Enoch, being a prophet, as we'll note later, that he was giving a prophetic warning of the coming flood, an event which took place, as we noted earlier, in the year that Methuselah died. And if this interpretation is correct, and the name was so intended, it was a warning to a careless world that judgment was coming. And the length of life of this man, the longest living that we know of, a personification, if this is right, of God's warning to mankind, he who lived longer than any other recorded, as it shows, it shows us God's very great patience to the world, patience which is stressed for us in the New Testament. They mix meaning is uncertain, and no means rest or comfort. And God judged, and then gave rest to the earth. And the Lord Jesus, who bore our judgments and rose again from the dead, we can say, gives rest to those who trust in him. Now I want to contrast these lines. It's interesting and profitable to compare Cain's line and Seth's line. They have the same origin. Both lines are descended from Adam, all are human in the same time period. But then we see a difference. Here at the start, this is a key difference. The scriptures say Cain goes out from the presence of the Lord. As far as Seth's line is concerned, it says, then men began to call on the Lord, a key difference. We notice there's a difference in the God-given details of the two lines. Very little is said about the individuals in Cain's line. Nor is said about the individuals in Seth's line, particularly how long they lived. This is a reminder that the Lord notes the lives, the work, the years of those who call on him in a world that's rejected him. Morality. Well, we aren't told a lot about any of these characters. But where we do notice what they're like, we see that Cain's line has at least two murderers, and Seth's line has two who it says specifically walked with God. That's Enoch and Noah. Earthly success. And here's another contrast, and again, this reminds us of what Mark was saying earlier. Lamech, the Lamech in Cain's line, had children who made economic and cultural advances. They were successful in earthly enterprises. And we see nothing of this in Seth's line. As Mark was suggesting, I don't think we should take from this that economic and cultural advance is wrong per se, because we'll benefit from it. In fact, it's a question of attitude and priorities, isn't it? We have to recognize the Holy Spirit gives this information for a reason, and it seems to me to be pretty clear that what those in Cain's line were engaged in, what took their time, what their priorities were, was things to do with this life, this world. Nothing to do with relationship with God. It was all to do with comfort here. And this reminds us of the truth that we, as believers in the Lord Jesus, are citizens of heaven, not of earth. Peter writes we're sojourners and pilgrims. Seventh from Adam. Now there's an interesting contrast here. Seventh from Adam in Cain's line is Lamech. We could say it's the culmination of a family that's chosen to go away from God's presence. He was a polygamous, vengeful murderer, and illustrating features of the world that are rejected God. Whereas in Seth's line, the seventh is Enoch, and we'll talk a bit more about him later. First and second, well, again, we've seen this earlier. Often we see in the scriptures that the first follows man's way, man's way, and the second follows God's way. And the scriptural principle is the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. It's 1 Corinthians 15. And of course the outcome. There's a difference in outcomes. In Cain's line, they all die in the flood. In Seth's line, Noah and his sons go through the flood. Okay, very briefly. What do we know about these people? There are four we could say we know a little about, more than just how long they lived and who their son was. We'll mention them, and then we'll look at two more in detail, although I'm running out of time. Seth, well, I won't talk further about Seth. We've been talking about Seth. Enoch, we'll come back to, just to comment on Lamech, Lamech named his son Noah. We could say Lamech was a prophet. He was clearly a man of faith. He was very concerned about the ungodliness of violence in the world. And he understood that rest will be brought to this earth by God through his son. His understanding seems limited because he talks about bringing rest to us, and in fact he died before rest came, as did everybody else, apart from Noah and his family. There can't be rest without judgment. And then, of course, Noah himself, and we'll talk a tiny bit more about him in a moment. Enoch, well, a few things about Enoch. Enoch walked with God, and he was not for God to talk him. He walked with God. It's a lovely expression, isn't it? His life was in communion with God. It's also said of Noah in chapter six. There was a continual contact, a permanent, active relationship with the Lord God. He walked with God. And Enoch gets two very interesting mentions in the New Testament where we learn a bit more. It says, by faith, Enoch was taken away so he didn't see death because he was not found because God, and he was not found because God had taken him. Before he was taken, he had this testimony that he pleased God. So, faith is a feature of Enoch's life. He fully trusted God. He walked with God, it says, and he pleased God. An important lesson we can learn from this is that it's possible to walk with God and to please God, even when around us is sin and corruption. I mean, Enoch clearly lived in terrible times. Mankind had rebelled against God. Enoch managed to live a life in communion with God, a life that pleased him, and there are strong parallels between then and now. And this commendation of Enoch tells us it's possible to please him, even in an evil age. He's a witness to us. He appears in the Heroes of Faith, here in chapter 11, as one of the cloud of witnesses. He was a prophet. In Jude, verse 14, we read, Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with 10,000 of his saints to execute judgment on all. As a man who walked with God, God was able to reveal things to him. And remarkably, he understood something about the coming of Christ. He talks about the coming of Christ to judge lawlessness. This is still future, but no doubt he warned his fellow antediluvians that judgment for them was to come. And there's a good general principle that the closer we walk to the Lord, the better we will understand him and we will learn more from him. And then finally, God took him. He walked with God, and he was not, because God took him. He disappeared from the earth, he was translated from earth to heaven. So before the world was engulfed, before God executed judgment, Enoch, the man who walked with God, was taken. Noah, briefly, this is somebody else's topic, but briefly, Hebrews 11, verse 7 says, By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet come, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemns the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. So we find that Enoch's warnings to the world go unheeded, and Noah is introduced. And again, we notice faith. He was moved with fear of God. Moved with fear. He has a proper understanding and appreciation of who God is. He recognized the greatness and holiness of God. In 1 Peter, we're told, fear God. Fear God. Remember who the mighty God is. Fear him. We notice his obedience. The ark which Noah prepared to save his household gives us a picture of Christ, of course. A shelter from judgment. As far as we're concerned, we're sheltered from God's wrath. He bore the penalty for our sins. He saved his house and condemned the world, and he became heir of righteousness. I'm passing over these quickly because of time, and he's a witness to us. We notice in Hebrews chapter 12, it says about those in chapter 11 that they are a great cloud of witnesses. And the lesson for us is, because of the behavior of these people and their faith, let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus. Right, just a little bit more. I just want to compare and contrast, just for a moment, Enoch and Noah, very quickly. We can consider them as pictures of the future, if you like. Enoch as a picture of the church, the true church, true believers. And Noah as a picture, at least as a faithful in Israel in future times, after the church is taken. Both are witnesses to God in their age. Both walk with God in relationship. Enoch walking with God, pleasing God, warning of judgment to come to this earth. Enoch was taken by God, as true believers will be taken by the Lord Jesus. Noah wasn't taken by God. True church, those who are faithful in the Lord Jesus, will be taken by the Lord before God's judgment comes on this world. As one Thessalonians 4 tells us, then we which are alive and remain will be caught up in the clouds. But God will still have a witness on this earth as he deals again with Israel. Faithful Jews, faithful Jews who will be saved through the tribulation period to go into the millennium. And Noah gives us a picture of these. He was saved through the judgment on earth to go into the new world, if you like. Saved from judgment, saved through the judgment to heaven, to a different world. Okay, and finally, just one verse for us to think about. I referred to it earlier. Our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to his glorious body according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things to himself. …

… The story of Noah. A number of people have alluded to it as they've been discussing the early chapters of Genesis. Before we begin, I'd like you to think, perhaps even look at the booklets that we've been given and look at the chapters and the headings. I'm sure many people don't even need to do that. But I'd like you to think for a moment of how much space, how many chapters does God in his word apportion to the story of Noah. We can perhaps think of the 11 chapters before chapter 12 starts on Abraham. We think that Noah is found in four chapters, four out of 11. Surely the story of Noah is something that is very important to God and something whereby we can learn a great deal from. The Lord Jesus spoke of the times of Noah. Matthew's gospel, Luke's gospel. We find incidents about Noah or Noah's life three times in the epistles that Peter wrote. We find other mentions of those days in the Old Testament, Ezekiel and Isaiah. The story of Noah is a very, very important. It's amazing that perhaps one of the first stories that children learn is the story of Noah. It's an illustration, isn't it, of how God in his word presents stories to us that contain a great deal of truth and will benefit us a great deal if we understand and learn from them. So there's a lot to say, a lot to get through. But I'd like first of all to present some of the main truths that are contained in the story of Noah. The first one is the only time when judgment has passed upon all of mankind. Think about it for a moment. We look through the whole of God's word, particularly the Old Testament, and we see God having to act in judgment, particularly against Israel. He takes them away into exile, ten tribes and then the two tribes. He has to exercise judgment against the nations, against different countries, different groups, different peoples. But the flood that was sent upon this earth was the only time judgment was passed upon all mankind. And we know from God's word that he tells us that all mankind will be judged in the future. We've got evidence in the past that he was able to do this. But although judgment was passed upon all this world, salvation was provided by the grace of God in the ark. There was a means whereby we can be saved. That Noah was saved, not through anything he'd done, but God in his grace acted so that certain, eight of them were preserved from the flood in the ark. God remembered Noah in the ark. We'll see perhaps later that this could be considered the central point in the story of Noah. That there was Noah in the ark, the terrible physical catastrophe that was happening all around. But God remembered those people in the ark. That he remembers about individuals, he remembers about families, he protected them, he watched over them, he cared for them, he provided them during that time of catastrophe. Fourthly, it is possible that men and women can shine for God in an evil society. How we must remember this? We know, don't we, from other scriptures that the times of Noah are characterized by the times in the last days. It is possible for you and I to shine for God. Despite everything that goes on, despite all the sin and the wickedness and the corruption and the violence, it is possible for you and I to shine for him. And perhaps others will want to develop later the fact that the flood, Noah's time, caused many dramatic changes. It affected this world a great deal. But the first few verses of chapter 6 introduce us to these four verses that we certainly need to consider. We need to look at them carefully. So you've highlighted in red those people that we need to take or consider carefully. The sons of God saw the daughters of men, that which were fair, and they took them wives of all which they chose. And if we look at verse 4, there were giants in the earth in those days. And also after that, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. What is this referring to? What is it talking about? Well, we've got highlighted there the giants. The giants are ordinary men. We read of giants after the flood. In the promised land, we read of Goliath. It mentions the sons of God. And Jude tells us, our angels which kept not their first estate. What does that mean? We'll look at it later. But also we've got mighty men which were of old, of renown. And it's been suggested that these were produced by the sons of God, angels, taking wives of the daughters of men. So we're told of the seriousness of some of the things that were going on in that time before the flood. It tells us, doesn't it, as to why God took this drastic action to wipe out the whole of the people living on this earth. That these mighty men were a mixture. And they were a mixture of the sons of God, which were angels, who kept not their first estate. And they took for themselves wives of the daughters of men. The mighty men were a mixture of angels and men. The giants were ordinary men. Now, why do we say this? The sons of God, that phrase which we hear very regularly from the New Testament, we are sons of God. It's one of the many blessings that we've been brought into. But in the Old Testament, they never refer to men. Sons of God never refer to men. If we look in the book of Job, three times, angels are referred to as the sons of God. And if we think that we know from the New Testament that the angels are spirits, cannot be seen. But in the Old Testament, when the angels were sent to men, they appeared as ordinary men. And we think of the examples of Abraham and Lot. So we have there evidence, reasons, as to why we suggest that these mighty men of old, men of renown, were a mixture of angels and men. No wonder, apart from what we commonly refer to when the earth was filled with wickedness and violence, that God deemed it necessary to wipe out the whole of mankind. But isn't there another reason? People have alluded to it once or twice already. Satan. We've seen evidence of Satan at work. That Satan instigated this to prevent the Messiah coming. He wanted to corrupt man. He wanted to mix man. Why? Because we know that all the counsels of God are centered in his beloved son, the Lord Jesus Christ. What a study it would be to look through the Old Testament and see the number of ways, on the number of occasions, the number of instances, Satan working behind the scenes, tried to prevent the coming of the Lord Jesus as the Messiah into this world. If we look at the story of Noah, to move on to another tack, it's interesting. I put this in front of you as a suggestion. Shared it with one or two others. But if we take some of the salient events that we're told about in the story of Noah, you can see that what's done there is to give each one of them a letter, up until the letter G. We mentioned earlier about God remembered Noah as perhaps the most important point in the history of Noah. But if you take each of those points of God saying he will destroy, point A, of Noah told to build the ark, come into the ark, seven days until the flood, 40 days of rain, 150 days of water on the earth. You'll see as you come after the story of Noah that the pattern, the numbers, and the thought seem to be reversed. We've got 150 days, the water abating, 40 days on Mount Ararat, seven days waiting between the dust sent out. Go forth of the ark, the opposite to what he's told earlier. Noah building an altar and God promising again not to curse the ground anymore. We can see there there's a parallel and you've seen already this morning that there's been a number of parallels introduced into the scriptures and explained to us. But God in his word seems to use the idea of parallels to help us to remember, to help us to get a pattern. We've seen the idea of compare and contrast is a mechanism that the Holy Spirit seems to use in his word to help us to understand things that might be a little bit difficult by comparing and contrasting other thoughts. Have a think about that pattern there. It was perhaps given to help man remember the stories. There's a framework there. God is not a God of disorder. There's a pattern that we can learn from and help us remember. But if we look at that increase of wickedness of man, we've already thought of Methuselah and the patience, the grace, the long-suffering of God as he waited. He knew that man wouldn't repent, but Methuselah there was a witness. But if we think of this story of Noah, we're told in other parts of the scriptures that Noah was a righteous testimony. In his life he practiced righteousness, he preached righteousness. The two went together. He was a witness to everybody round about him. He was a witness, a righteous witness in a most remarkable way. He built the ark. What an incredible witness that was to people round about them. Had the people ever seen water on the land? Had the people there ever seen a boat of any description whatsoever? But Noah was faithful and he built the ark. God gave him the exact dimensions. God told him what to do and he did it. Another example to us. But there was a terrible increase of sin, of wickedness and corruption. Do we see that all around us today? The Lord Jesus spoke of the fact that in the days of Noah, that people would be marrying and giving in marriage. That people would be carrying on as normal, but absolutely careless, heedless to God's message that they needed to repent. That judgment was coming. We see how similar that is of today. We read in some ways these remarkable words. That he repented the Lord that he had made man. What does that mean? What can we learn from this? We know that the purposes of God, what God has purposed, cannot be set aside. But when it comes to the ways of God, they are variable depending upon man's reception. Depending on how God acts and reacts to what God has said. We can see it in the example of Noah. A man shall reign in righteousness. Judgment, the ways of God, were sent to destroy evil on the earth. God had his purposes, and his purposes center in his son. Nothing will thwart those purposes. He will be the one who will be supreme. And the ways of God are variable depending on our reaction to it. Thought a little bit about Noah. But he does say that he was a just man, perfect in his generations. Wondering in particular about that phrase. The suggestion about the sons of God, the mighty men of renown, perhaps gives added meaning as to what it means to be perfect in his generations. He would suggest that Noah wasn't corrupted by any of these mighty men of renown. Already thought about Noah walking with God. But if we think about Noah and what a remarkable man that he was. A preacher of righteousness, that he was skillful, that he built that boat. We don't know whether he did it by himself. We don't know whether his family were involved. We don't know whether he paid men to help him. Don't know whether anybody's got any thoughts about that. But he was certainly active. He wasn't somebody who was used to doing nothing, being slothful and lazy. He built that ark. It took him a very long time. But he kept going. He wasn't put on. God had spoken to him. He must have been a family man. His family went with him into the ark. We don't need much about his family. We don't know what their views were. But Noah and his family went into the ark. Even his son's wives followed them into the ark. That he was a patient man, that he didn't give up over all those years, that he kept going. Though we read of him as a priest, one who came out of the ark and worshipped God. And clearly, he was a spiritual man, that he knew what God had said and obeyed it. Rusty and others have alluded to this verse. But I think it's always a good job and idea to carry on and just reinforce what's been said. We look at this, these two verses. Jehovah saying to Noah, go into the ark, thou and all thy house, for thee have seen righteous before me in this generation. And verse 16, and they came, came male and female of all flesh, as God, Elohim, had commanded him and Jehovah shut him in. It's a good explanation. It's a good example for us of Jehovah in the same verse. Verse 16, being used to express that relationship, but in the very same verse. Then Elohim was used because it spoke about God. You might have seen pictures of, I believe, I don't know if anybody's actually seen it, it's a reality. There's people in Holland who have built a scale down, still a large replica of Noah's ark. A witness to people of what has happened. But into that ark, seven of every clean animal were taken. It's fairly obvious that why seven of the clean animals and only two of each of the unclean animals. Seven were taken of clean animals so that Noah could offer sacrifices of the clean animals. Again, we're not told specifically, and we are told a great deal of detail in this story of Noah. As to how Noah knew at that time, before the law was given, as to which were clean and which were unclean. But two of the unclean, there wasn't any reason to doubt. We know amongst the animal kingdom and amongst humans how reproduction doesn't always happen. But two, it was going to succeed. They were going to produce. God was behind it all. God was given the instructions and God would bring the increased. And the story of Noah and Ark is a wonderful story, I'm sure most of us know, of the idea of salvation. Salvation is of the Lord. You and I wouldn't be here this afternoon listening to God's word unless God in his grace had acted towards us. And how did he act? He commands. He commanded Noah, make the ark. In the New Testament we hear of God commanding all men everywhere to repent. There's a way of salvation and the way in Noah's day was to make an ark. Today, it is to put our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. The gopher wood, the wood was specifically mentioned, the type to use. We think of trees, speaking of humanity cut down and they were used to build the ark. Speaking of Christ, speaking of a way in which Christ was cut down, was nailed to that accursed tree, but bringing forth life. The pitch, we know many have told us before that this means to cover or to atone. It's the same word that's used in the idea of atonement. That all in that ark was safe, they were covered by the death of Christ. The rooms, the rooms would perhaps speak of rest in the Lord. The only way in which we can have rest is by trusting in him and trusting in him so that we know that he will give us rest throughout eternity. The door, one door. There's only one way of salvation. And how wonderful it is that the Lord shut him in. The Lord closed the door, shut the door. They were safe. Nobody could be able to stop them being saved. We can think of the window, speaking of divine light. After salvation, they received divine light. And the Lord said, come thou and all thine house into the ark. That the waters of the flood caused a separation for Noah and his family. A separation from the world. And it delivered Noah and his family from their enemies. And likewise, trusting the Lord Jesus separates us. It separates us from the rest of mankind. That who do not trust the Savior, they will go on to that lost eternity. That it delivers us, delivers us from our enemies. Why? Why are we delivered from our enemies? So that we can serve God in the very place in which we were slaves. We can serve him in this world. We can think of the similarity between the last days and the time of the flood. What a warning this is to us. What a tremendous warning. Are we living like Noah? As practicing righteousness? Preaching righteousness? That corruption and violence was so great that it demanded judgment. God had to act. And he acted. Noah's flood is the evidence of it. But he will act in that future day. And the earth will be judged. That God was long-suffering. Long-suffering at the time of building the ark. But how long-suffering has God been since the death of his son on the cross? Nearly 2,000 years now. And he's waiting for the church to be built. For sinners to be saved. For all to be brought in before he acts in judgment. How wonderful that is. That the godly were warned beforehand and saved. That we know that by reading the scriptures, by understanding God's word. That we can put our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus today. And be saved from the judgment to come. Now is there anyone here who isn't saved? Saved from that awful judgment. Think about the turmoil that was in that earth. When the waters above and the waters below came forth on the earth. All were destroyed. All who know not the Savior will be destroyed. We're told that Noah was moved with fear. He understood what that judgment entailed. The judgment of God will come upon the wickedness in this world. Are you saved? Are you going to be saved? And most wonderfully. We as those who trust in the Lord Jesus. Will not go through the flood like Noah. Who we were told spoke of the remnant of Israel. That will have to go through in that tribulation period. Terrible sufferings. But like Enoch. To be taken out of this world. Before the judgment will come. There's no escape route. There's all those people who could have repented. Noah preached. There's only Noah and his family saved. We might preach the gospel today. We do preach the gospel today. Thankfully souls are being saved and are being brought in. But Noah was faithful. Despite his knowing of nobody. Who repented. And most wonderfully. After. We missed out number four I'm sorry. But it tells us doesn't it. We know in Noah's day. That the earth was destroyed by water. But we're told that it's by fire. In 2 Peter. That the earth will be destroyed in a future day. That fire and water. Something of the earth. Will be used to destroy the earth itself. We heard earlier. How that God created the heavens and the earth. By the word of his power. Mighty. Fantastic. Wonderful. Amazing things that could be done. How much simpler it is to destroy. Rather than to create. God created the world. He will destroy. Are you safe. Have you put your trust in the Lord Jesus. Are you going to be taken out of this world. Before the judgment will surely come. And. That better world that Noah enjoyed. Will be nothing. Compared with the place. In my father's house are many mansions. That the Lord has gone to prepare. For those of us who love the Lord Jesus. May it be that each one of us. Has made that step of faith. And trusted the Savior. Before the judgment comes. …

… We have, I think, seven questions. If I may, I will ask the first three, which are of a general nature, and I should be able to set a good example and not take too long to answer them. Then I'll call on three brothers who have questions which relate to something specific that they have said. Now, the first question is, where is the Garden of Eden today? Is it still on this earth? Answer, it was barred to man when Adam sinned, and it was washed away in the flood. And the earth that came out of the flood is not precisely the same, it will have changed as a result of the flood. So do not try to discover where the Garden of Eden once was. His second question is, is the Ark not rather a figure of water baptism? Well, certainly it is a figure of water baptism. It's all those things that our brother Jeff was telling us about, but it is a figure of water baptism. In 1 Peter chapter 3, which he speaks of spirits in prison which sometime were disobedient when once the long suffering of God awaited in the days of Noah while the Ark was a preparing wherein few, that is eight souls, were saved by water. The like figure whereunto baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So there is the Apostle Peter's answer. The Apostle Peter is concerned with entry into the kingdom and it is possibly baptism in that sense where this figure comes into play. I hope that suffices for that question. Thirdly, now here's a difficult one. Why does God say he creates evil in Isaiah 45 verse 7? Let's just read the verse first. Isaiah 45 verse 7, I form the light and create darkness. I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things. I believe this verse is speaking of circumstances. God through the prophet Isaiah is not saying that he is the author of evil. Banish that thought from your minds. What he is saying is, and he's speaking here of his dealings with the nation of Israel, and he's speaking to Cyrus, a Gentile king who he does actually call somewhere my servant Cyrus. And he's speaking to Cyrus of what he is going to do in relation to Israel. He's prospered them. He's guarded them. He's guided them. And they've disobeyed. They've gone in for other gods and now he has to bring in discipline. Now he has to send them into banishment as was mentioned earlier this afternoon. He has to send them away and just as he has brought them into peace or it might be prosperity, so he's going to bring them into difficult circumstances, bad circumstances. I believe that that's what that verse means. Nothing to do with evil as sin. Nothing to do with that at all. But into that which for them will be uncomfortable because God needs to secure his purpose for his people Israel. He needs to deal with them according to their doings and then ultimately to bring about the prophecies whereby the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. Now I hope that that answers that question. Now I think it would be best to take these in the order in which they spoke. So if I could ask brother Rusty please to come and answer his question. Then Hans Rudy has two and Jeff has one. So if you'd please each come up here. You have to come up here because this is where the mic is. Sorry. Basic question. It was suggested that animals were beings with a soul. Are souls not eternal? Second question. If so it would seem strange that animals should be eternal beings. Could you please explain a little more? Well first of all I don't think I said and certainly wouldn't want you to go away here thinking that animals are eternal. The reason why I suggested that animals have a soul is because the scriptures actually said so. And if you take a Strong's Concordance and look up the verse in first the first chapter of Genesis verse 22 where it speaks about the animals and it says they became living creatures. You look up that word creatures and you put it into the Strong's Concordance on your computer or on your manual one you will find that it is number 829. If you put the same word which we had in chapter 2 verse 7 soul it is the same word in the original Hebrew. So animals have souls. But when we come to Ecclesiastes we have a verse which may confuse some. It's Ecclesiastes 4 and it says Ecclesiastes 3 verse 19 for that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth the beasts. Every one befalleth them. Yea the one dies so dieth the other. Yea they all have one breath so that man has no preeminence above the beasts for all is vanity. It goes on who knoweth the spirit of a man that goeth upwards and the spirit of the beast that goeth downwards to the earth. Here is Solomon's inspired ideas according to human wisdom. And certainly according to human wisdom we may wonder why animals have souls and humans have a soul but one goes down and the other goes up. And I want to suggest that a key is in Job 33 verse 4 where it says the Spirit of God has made me and the breath of the Almighty has given me life. And the clear distinction that I think we have in Genesis chapter 2 is that it was into man, into mankind that God breathed the breath of life. And the big difference between animals and man is that into man was breathed the breath of life and that will last for eternity. So I think that hopefully will clear up the point. I have received two questions. One is it was said that God puts a stamp on every marriage. Does that mean that God accepts a marriage even though it may not be his will? Marriage, for instance marriage to an unbeliever or what is meant by this? I like to read from Matthew chapter 19 that we first look at the Word of God here. Verse 5 and he said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife and they twain shall be one flesh. Therefore they are no more twain but one flesh. For therefore God has joined together let not man put asunder. It shows very clearly in this verse that it does not depend of whether God can agree with that marriage or not. It says if you have married and you have become no more twain but one flesh, God says I don't want that this oneness is going to be separated again. We find in 1 Corinthians a similar thought expressed by the Apostle Paul where it says 1 Corinthians 7 and unto the married I command yet not I but the Lord let not the wife depart from her husband. But then if she depart let her remain unmarried or be reconciled to her husband and not the husband put away his wife. It doesn't say anything about the condition under which they were married. It says once you are married you belong together and God accepts that marriage and further down it says maybe there was both of you were unsaved and it says now if you if one of the parties become saved what should you do? Should you leave your husband? Should you leave your wife? He said no. And then Paul says very clearly now you should not depart, you should not go but to the rest speak I not the Lord if any brother has a wife that believeth not and she be pleased to dwell with him let him not put her away. So you find there a very clear example that God hates putting away. That's Malachi 2. It doesn't have no condition it just says God hates putting away and that's why I said I think God puts the stamp on every marriage. He accepts it whatever you have decided you have married God says okay this marriage is now a binding and I don't want to put away because if you think the other way then it's very easy you can say well you know this was not a marriage you know in the Lord's will so I can do whatever I am pleased. No God wants you to stay with that wife and you don't know if the wife is not saved whether you cannot through your testimony bring her to the Lord. So that's the idea of why I said God approves. Now God puts a stamp it's not an approval that he agrees with it but he says now these two people are married and I accept this as a marriage. And the second question is we only read at the very end of Genesis 24 that after Rebecca became Isaac's wife he loved her. Is love the most important thing to have for a woman when considering God's will for her life's partner? That's a good question. Rebecca could not have fallen into love with Isaac. She didn't know him. And I think love is important. There can be cases that a man is really asking a girl to get married and she says or you know she says well I do not know I do not know is it the Lord's will. So the question is really that this person has to be before the Lord to say is this now from the Lord or not. And I often said to my sons you know sometimes it takes you months and more than months maybe a year or so you pray about it and once you come to the decision that now this is the right one for you and you make an application. I said give her time. Now you take all this time and now you want an answer right away. Now give her time. And this time is also given to Rebecca. You know she saw the way the Lord led Eliazer the servant. She could see all these different steps. He explained everything. He said this is how I prayed about it. This is how God showed me. So he showed all these things to her and then at the end in verse 58 it says and they called Rebecca and said unto her will thou go with this man. So then comes the question now what do you want. Now you have seen the Lord's leading but now your question and she says I will go. So she has to come to the point that she says yes before the Lord I see it the same way. And it's not a question of the measure of love but love is important. You cannot go into marriage when you don't feel anything for your husband or vice versa. You cannot enter into such a relationship. But it can well be and I can tell you of cases where the girl didn't know anything about it came out of the blue here comes a letter and now what shall she do. She has to pray. She has to be before the Lord. She has to wait to get an answer from the Lord and here Rebecca says I will go. So this was really the basis of her going and then the thing came later on and you know it never says that the woman has to love the husband but it says to the husband that you have to love your wife even as Christ. I think that speaks to us men. God knows the woman is made differently but it's up to us to show that love and that reference and I think the response will come if it's the Lord's will. But I would not suggest to go into any relationship if you don't feel anything about it. Now God would also create that love in your heart for your husband. So then it's better to wait. Then it's better to pray about it till you're sure and it could be that the answer is no and you also have to accept this. I'll read the question to you. It's a good question. How can angels, spirit beings, traffic in a material and carnal way with creatures of flesh and blood, the daughters of men, to produce a physical and material seed? And then really subsidiary questions. Is not this a form of evolution? And lastly, does it not contradict after its kind in Genesis 1? I think if we look at the epistle to Jude it's worth looking at a couple of verses. So the epistle to Jude verses 6 and 7. And the angels which kept not their first estate but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner giving themselves over to fornication going after strange flesh are set forth for an example suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. So we're told here in the epistle to the Jude that the angels left their first estate. That God created the angels as he did man, woman, and the animals. But the angels, some of the angels left the position that God had put them in. We looked at Genesis 6 and we saw the reason in verse 2. The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair. They lusted after the daughters of men. They left their first estate, they had wrong thoughts, they weren't prepared to remain in the position that God had put them in, and they fell in this way. Now the question really asks how is this possible? We have to rely upon what scripture tells us. And one of the reasons for reading verse 7 was to refer you back to Sodom and Gomorrah. And if you wanted to look at chapter 19, and without going into what is really abhorrent of details, chapter 19 verse 1 tells us, and there came two angels to Sodom at even. So there were two angels. And I mentioned that the angels in the Old Testament appeared, mentioned Lot, mentioned Abraham in a human form. Now these men were clearly, these angels were obviously clearly and looked like men. Men to such a degree that as we glance through the rest of the chapter, we know the story that these men were taken in by Lot and that there was a riot really at the door because the men of Sodom wanted to have physical relations with these two angels that looked like men. And even Lot said to them, here are my daughters, have them. So from those examples, we can see that there, that from the scripture in chapter 6, that that was possible. We might not know or understand it, but these angels looked like men and looked like men to those who were living in Sodom and Gomorrah. Now the subsidiary questions really unfurl a whole another question. Is not this a form of evolution? Now evolution we know is wrong. We know it's man's attempt to explain the creation and particularly the creation of man. Here, when people talk about evolution, which we know to be wrong, then they're thinking of the same creature, and it's wrong, it's difficult to explain something that we believe is wrong, that is changing through mutations and producing something that's a little bit different. But here in the scriptures, we're not talking, we're talking about two distinctly different beings that God has created, angels and men, that should have nothing to do with each other. And we're not talking even about creatures that God has made to live upon this earth, mixing together. Because we know that when things mix, particularly in this way, then it is really disastrous, it is very wrong, it's not what God attempted. So I think we should avoid that idea of thinking about evolution at all. And the last part, does it not contradict after its kind in Genesis 1? If we go to Genesis 1, I think the verse has certainly been alluded to, verse 12 we could have a look at, talking about the grasses and the herbs, and it talks there whose seed was in itself, and after his kind, and God saw that it was good. God created vegetable matter, living matter, that would produce after its kind. We know when we're talking about evolution, it's one of the ways we can read from scripture that evolution didn't take place, because we're produced after our own kind. So again, after its own kind talks about things on earth. And we need to remember that in this case, it was definitely wrong that the angels mixed with men. And here, when it's talking about after its kind, it's talking about things that occur on this earth, and we know that this is what God has directed, and we believe that this is what happened, that creatures produce only after their kind. Somebody's just, in fact, given me another supplementary and said, why would they want to stop being angels? In other words, why would these angelic beings want to stop becoming angels? And we can see, can't we, that it was really because they lusted after the sons of men, because they were fair. That's why they did it, and as the scriptures tell us, they kept not their first estates. I'd be quite interested to speak with this person, because I think he does raise a number of issues, if they so wish. Thank you, Geoff. There is another question, actually, which Michael's going to answer now. Right, the question is this. If the creation is a picture of the work of God in the soul in new creation, does this not suppose a previous state of ruin or failure or sin? Well, I'm grateful for this question, because it gives me opportunity to mention a couple of things that I couldn't pack into this morning's rather compressed speech, or whatever you want to call it. First point is about types. We must never build a New Testament doctrine or a doctrine on a type. Once the doctrine is established, we can recognize that a certain thing illustrates that doctrine in type. Now, that's something we emphasize quite often. What we perhaps don't emphasize that often is that nor should we do the opposite and take a New Testament doctrine and use that to determine what must have happened to the type. So I'm not going to do that either. Now, if you look at the things in the Old Testament that have typical meaning, I would divide them into two classes. One class is types where the New Testament tells you explicitly this is a type of that, like the rock was the Christ. There you have the authoritative explanation from the New Testament explicitly, and it is clear. But you also have a category of types where you don't have that explanation. The example I would give is, and there are many, many examples, I would give is Joseph. If I asked you who is Joseph a picture of, everybody would say of the Lord Jesus, how he was hated by his brethren and so on and so on, you know the story. Now, nowhere in the New Testament does it say Joseph was a type of the Lord Jesus, and yet it is such a clear type that we can recognize it. Now, Genesis 1, seen as illustration of the spiritual development in man, falls into the first category. I've given you at least four scriptures from the New Testament that have made clear what was meant by the verses referred to in Genesis 1. For example, 2 Corinthians 4, 6, the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness has shone into our hearts. And I gave you a few other verses. So it really falls into the category of clearer types that are explained by the New Testament. And my last point on this is the following. In creation, God has revealed himself. But he has not only revealed himself in creation, he has also revealed himself in Christ. And he also, this is also reflected in that which God forms in a believer in new creation. Now, therefore, it shouldn't really be as surprising as it is at first sight when you are told Genesis 1 gives a picture of the spiritual development of a believer, but also of dispensations, and also of Christ, and so on. Because these are ways in which God has revealed himself, and we should not be surprised if there is a certain consistency between those different aspects of looking at that chapter. I'm happy to have a conversation, but I think we have another address now. So I hand over to Simon, but I'm very happy to speak to the person who asked the question if anything has been left open. …

… Good evening everyone. I was hoping I would be able to speak until half past seven when I saw the program, but from your faces I can see you're happy that that liberty has been taken away from me. Okay, Genesis chapter 8. Nor only remained alive and they that were with him in the ark, and the waters prevailed upon the earth and hundred and fifty days. That's where we get to at the end of Genesis chapter 7 and it's a bleak, a bleak presentation, isn't it? And it just shows us how serious a matter sin is and the effects of sin in terms of God's judgment. So perhaps we should all just reflect on that, that sin is something that's very serious. We live in a world where sin's regarded as a joke, but one day God is going to judge this world and he's going to judge those who are sinners. And this portrayal of the earth under the waters of this flood is a very solemn picture of the matter of sin and judgment. It's appointed unto men once to die and after this judgment. But the believer on the Lord Jesus, the one who's trusted in him as their Savior, can rest upon this verse, this second verse, which may not be the verse that you would immediately think of, but which I've chosen because it shows salvation in its fullest extent, not simply the matter of salvation from the penalty for our sins, but salvation from the power of sin and salvation from the presence of sin eventually when we go to be with the Lord Jesus. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. God remembers Noah. Judgment is God's strange work, his unwanted act. God doesn't delight in judgment. Now this is expressed in this verse which we've already had before us. So whether we look at Noah as a picture of the Jewish remnant, as we had from our last presentation or the presentation by Brother Derek, or whether we look at it as a picture of Christians, those of us who trust in the Lord Jesus now, who are in the ark, if you like, if you want to think of it in that way, the ark as a wonderful type of the Lord Jesus, or even the Lord Jesus Christ himself, and I'm going to suggest to you that in Noah we see some aspects of the Lord Jesus. We learn from this verse that God never forgets his own. He never forgets his own, but brings them, us, him, actively to mind for blessing and glory. You say to me, how can you apply that to the Lord Jesus? I say this to you, that this world has forgotten the Lord Jesus. This world cast him out, but God's not going to allow that to remain the case for very much longer. The one who's been rejected by the world he made is going to be brought into the place of supremacy, and that will be a wonderful time of blessing for this world. All creation is going to benefit from this in the world to come. This phrase, the world to come, which we find in Hebrews chapter 2, doesn't refer to eternity, as some people think. It refers to the time when the Lord Jesus is going to reign for a thousand years, and this world in which sin has wreaked so much havoc is going to be the place where the glory of the Lord is going to cover this world as the waters currently cover the sea. It's going to fill this world as the waters currently cover the sea. God is going to work out his purpose as far as this present creation is concerned, and he's going to get the glory, and man is going to benefit from it in that day. But of course anyone here who doesn't trust on the Lord Jesus as their Savior will never know that wonderful time of bliss in this world. You will be dead. You will be in the grave until after that thousand years is completed, and then you will face God as your judge. You will face the Lord Jesus as your judge at the great white throne. No, those who trust the Lord Jesus now are not going to be part of this world to come. They're going to be with the Lord Jesus reigning over this world to come. That's the special blessing that God has given to those who make up the assembly. I'm going to go through this chapter. Perhaps you like to keep it in front of you. Keep your Bibles in front of you. We'll just have a look at each of the verses, or maybe two or three verses together in some cases. The first three verses speak about the waters receding, the waters that covered the earth receding, and it says to us that God brought this about by the wind. The wind in Scripture is often the picture of the Holy Spirit as the person in the Godhead whose power brings about God's will. We saw that already, didn't we, in Genesis chapter 1 verse 2. You see it in relation to the deliverance of the people of Israel from Egypt. A strong wind divided the Red Sea so they could go over. And of course, in regard to spiritual blessing in this current dispensation, it began with the descent of the Holy Spirit upon those in the upper room when there was a rushing mighty wind or the sound of it, and the Holy Spirit came upon those that were there. Here is a picture of what he does now in individual lives. I'm talking about these verses in Genesis and what he will do in preparation for that world to come. If you look at these verses, they speak of the work of the Holy Spirit in believers today who trust on the Lord Jesus. The Spirit works in their hearts as we've noticed already in our presentations, and God is going to pour out his Spirit on all flesh. We're told that in that prophecy in Joel, which Peter quotes on the day of Pentecost in preparation for the world to come. That scene on the day of Pentecost was simply, if I can say that simply isn't the right word, was a kind of portrayal of what would happen in a day that's yet to come. And the ark rests. The ark rests, we're told, in verse four. Here's a man who's resting. A Frenchman, actually, says on the photograph when I took it off the website. But there he is. He's resting with his dog in his lap. Maybe I'll say a little bit more about that in a moment. Ararat. Ararat. Ararat. The mountain in the picture, in Jeff's 3D presentation, and at the start of his slides, and the start of my slides. It means holy ground, or the curse reversed. What a beautiful reflection of the way in which God is going to change this world from where sin has reigned to one where he reigns, the Lord Jesus himself, in righteousness. But for blessing to be established, there must be holiness. You can look up that verse later on. I haven't got enough time to go into these verses in detail. And righteousness. Often people connect love with the gospel. They're quite right to do that, of course. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have everlasting life. But when we turn to Romans 1, verses 16 and 17, the apostle Paul says that righteousness is revealed in the gospel. There has to be a righteous basis for there to be blessing to mankind because of sin. And that was also emphasised by our brother Derek. Noah's name means rest. And it's in that sense that we can take him as a picture of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus is the one who alone gives rest. Michael mentioned that in his presentation this morning. The one in whom God and his people find rest. God finds rest in the Lord Jesus. We can find rest in the Lord Jesus. Rest for our conscience. Rest in our circumstances. Rest completely in a day to come when we go to be with the Lord Jesus in the Father's house. But rest will mark this world during that thousand years I mentioned. Because that's the Sabbath to which God is working when there will be rest in this world as there has never been rest since sin first came into it. In verse 5 of this chapter, we're told that the tops of the mountains were seen. And you may think this is a little bit fanciful. But for me, I like the thought that in the tops of the mountains we see a hint of what's going to characterise this world when the waters have fully subsided. The mountains speak of the place of power, of elevation. The tops of the mountains are seen. And if you like, this is an anticipation if we apply it spiritually to the fact that the time when the Lord Jesus is going to have the preeminence in this world is fast approaching. And we by faith can see it. We see not all things put under his feet. We're told that in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 8. But we know by faith that it's going to happen one day. And it's the eye of faith, if you like, that can see the tops of the mountains even today in a world that's full of chaos. I refer you to 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 22 about the Lord Jesus. He has gone into heaven and he's on the right hand of God. Angels and authorities and powers be made subject unto him. That's going to be realised in fullness in that coming day of glory. And this is going to be the fulfilment of all man's responsibility to God. Where man has failed, everything is going to be found to be perfectly fulfilled as far as man's responsibility is concerned in the person of the Lord Jesus. He's glorified God in his death and he's going to glorify God in that wonderful thousand year reign that's going to come in this world. Now in verse 6, let me just go back to our chapter, Genesis chapter 8. In verse 6, it came to pass at the end of 40 days that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made. He waited patiently for 40 days. And you know in these verses that I've quoted there, we see that patience should mark believers. 40 days. Brother Hans Rudy has mentioned this in connection with marriage. Waiting on the Lord. Patience. Patience characterises Noah. So when we see him as an example for ourselves, one of the things we should think about in connection with him is his patience. 40 days is a figure of testing and Noah waited. He didn't just act on his own impulses. He was led by the Lord. He waited before he did things. And this should characterise saints as we see in Romans chapter 8 verse 25. It certainly characterises the present time of waiting where we're told even the Lord Jesus currently is patient while he waits to receive his kingdom. Now Noah made the ark under God's instruction. Now he had to leave it under God's direction. You know this shows us that our lives should be marked by dependence upon the Lord. Listening to his will. So often we do things just as we think we should do. But Noah, he built the ark according to God's instruction. He left it under God's direction. And I've left a few examples of cases where people are exalted to walk wisely, to understand the will of the Lord, to listen to what God is saying to them. That was the instruction of the writer to the Hebrews, to the Jewish believers in the days when he wrote them in that letter, that they should pay attention to what the Lord had said and what the apostles had said, what God had witnessed to in signs and wonders. Daniel is a wonderful example of this, isn't he? He prayed to the Lord three times a day and he paid attention to the word of God. It's in both those references. And what had brought light into the ark, that window above, was now to be the way out of it. I don't mean that he physically got out of the ark through the window. What I mean is that through the window he let out the raven and the dove that we're just going to come on to. In fact, the word for that window changes. In chapter six, it's a light. When we come to it in this chapter, we find it's a perforation. It's something which you make a hole through. And it speaks of faith acting on God's direction. And the Holy Spirit guides us as we wait on God and read his word and pray. Noah sends out the raven in verse seven, an unclean bird. We know that from Leviticus chapter 11 verse 15, able to go to and fro in a world under judgment. People around us are like ravens. They're going to and fro, enjoying themselves in this world that's under judgment. Are we like them? Or are we like the dove? We'll come on to the dove in a moment. God used the raven's strength to feed Elijah. The raven is marked by an ability to fly long distances. But Elijah had to learn that he needed to be sustained through a widow's faith and obedience. That's the lesson of 1 Kings chapter 17. Similarly, we cannot find and enjoy God's blessings according to our own natural powers. And that's brought before us in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, where we're told of the wonderful things that God has prepared for those that love him. But we cannot enter into them with our natural minds, but only with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit. So, in that story of the raven, as you know, the raven, he went off, he never came back. He must have found something to feed upon that was in the waters of the flood. But then Noah sent out the dove. And the dove denotes purity and devotion. You'll find that in Psalms chapter 5 verse 2. Love undefined. She does not act independently, but in intimacy with the one who sent her. You don't find it said that he sent the raven from him. It's only said of the dove that he sent the dove from him. And it's a little reminder, isn't it, of the way in which the Holy Spirit came upon the Lord Jesus. At the river Jordan, the Holy Spirit could come upon the Lord Jesus in the form of a dove. It wasn't an actual dove. But in the form of a dove, marking the complacency the Holy Spirit could have in one who was marked by purity and devotion in perfection. And the Lord Jesus sends the spirit of truth to us from with the Father. These are all wonderful expressions of the character of the Holy Spirit and what he delights in. And when we remember that, the fact that the Holy Spirit indwells us, we're going to come on to that in a moment. Let's take notice of these injunctions in the New Testament, which tell us as believers that we should not grieve the Holy Spirit and we're not to quench him as he seeks to direct us in God's service either. The dove found no resting place. She had no joy in resting. That's some of the thoughts behind the dove. She finds joy in resting. I think that the meaning of the word dove is very much related to the word for wine. But there was no workplace to rest for the dove in that scene. It was a world that was still marked by God's judgment. And so she returns to Noah's hand. See that personal connection between Noah and the dove? It's not there with the raven, it's there with the dove. She comes back to the ark. It's her only home. And I think we come back to some scriptures that we've already been mentioning in connection with this subject, that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. That's in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 19 to 20. Each of us is indwelt by the Holy Spirit if we've believed on the Lord Jesus. And also the church as a whole is the habitation of the Holy Spirit. That comes before us in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, verses 16 and 17. How wonderful that the Holy Spirit indwells us. The Lord Jesus says, he is with you and shall be in you forever. And then she comes back the next time. I can't really go into the detail of these seven day intervals, but Noah sends the dove again and she returns to him at eventide. The end of men's expectations. There are many examples of eventide, when the darkness is coming on and one feels the hopes one has are going to fade. And yet then the Lord brings in his blessing. And that's what happened here. It happened actually with Isaac. We were talking about Isaac. He was out in the fields at eventide, looking for his wife to be brought to him. Perhaps he felt, no, she's not going to come today after all. And then she appears with a servant on the camels. Read about it in Luke 24. Here, the dove has an olive leaf in her beak. And Noah sees the evidence of God's blessing of this earth. And we are meant to have the day dawning in our hearts. The morning star rising in our hearts, I should say. The anticipation of the day when the Lord Jesus is going to come for us. And the remnant, the Lord Jesus encourages them, when they see these things happening, to look up. To look up. That expectation of God's blessing, even perhaps in the darkest hour. And for Noah, this was it. When he saw the olive leaf there, the promise of life and fruit. New creation blessings for us. We'll come on to those in a moment. Earthly blessings for Israel. They're all in those verses that I've quoted here. And then the next time the dove doesn't return, verse 12, Noah sends the dove out after another seven days. She does not return. She's found her rest at last. As the Holy Spirit did in the Lord Jesus perfectly. As he seeks to do in us. Yes, he indwells us. But is he there ungrieved? Not always, sadly. As he will do in the world to come. And perfectly in eternity. 2 Peter chapter 3, verse 13. The earth's surface is drying. Verse 13. Says the waters were dried up from off the earth. And what struck me about this is that it says at the beginning of this verse, in the 601st year, it doesn't say of Noah's life. It says just the 601st year. I mean, I sometimes think, I thought, well, you know, it's almost as if Noah's life is being timed from Noah's birth. And maybe it's a little picture, if we take Noah as a picture of the Lord Jesus, just a little, that this blessing is characterized by the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is the one who is that this blessing is characterized by the one who's going to take preeminence over it. Because Noah is going to be governor over this cleansed earth. We're going to see that tomorrow in Genesis chapter 9 in the Lord's will. And everything about that wonderful world to come, which I was talking about earlier in Hebrews chapter 2, is going to take character from the one who reigns over this earth. And so it should be with us, we who have come into the blessings of new creation already. If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature or creation. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new. Mr. Hole says in his book, The Great Salvation, that many of the topics he takes up, like forgiveness and justification, reconciliation, are all things that you can put against the effects of sin in our life. Guilt, condemnation, enmity against God. But with new creation, it's a positive thought, an entirely positive thought. God brings us into conformity with himself so that we can enjoy him and he can enjoy us. That's the thought behind new creation. And it's already something that we can enjoy. It's not simply fresh, a recent thing, something that has been brought about subsequent to sin and good, but it's of a different order that cannot fail. The word you often in the Bible means something of a completely different order that cannot fail. Sometimes people worry. They say, well, couldn't sin come in a game when we get to heaven? Couldn't it spoil everything all over again? Somebody will do something wrong and we'll all follow them. But no, the point is that we have been given an incorruptible nature through the work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts. And we cannot sin in heaven. And as a result, that perfect future that we have will never fail. And I've just given you some references where the apostle is already saying that we are the products of new creation work. But of course, we still have an old nature in us at the moment. And so we can't do wrong things and therefore we're exhorted not to live according to the old nature, but according to the new nature, to produce works that give evidence of the fact that God has done this wonderful work in us. By the way, the 601st year shows the importance of looking at the timings in God's word. And it's good to have calendars as well. And there are calendars on the back of this. It's a very good calendar, I can assure you, especially for use in gospel work. Noah uncovers the ark. Noah is typical of believers. He knew by the olive leaf, faith, the waters had become low. But it was not until he uncovered the ark that he saw the earth's surface was dry. That window was in the top. He couldn't see what was around. It wasn't until he uncovered the ark, acted on the basis of what he knew from that olive leaf, that he actually saw for himself that the earth was dry. Faith will give way to sight one day. And these verses are just another indication of that in God's word. The earth is thoroughly dry in verse 14, the perfect standing of the believer. We already had firm ground, high ground, emphasized as a picture of our solid foundation as believers. That comes across here too in this verse. And perhaps it makes us think of Romans chapter eight, verse one. Well, it made me think of Romans chapter eight, verse one, which is true of every believer on the Lord Jesus. But do we really enter into the joy of it? There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. And of course, later on in that chapter, we see how much the Holy Spirit is mentioned compared with chapter seven, where it's all me, I, struggling to work out what it means to be a Christian. The Holy Spirit is the one who enables us to do that, not in a legal way, but he simply brings about in us a desire to please the Lord because we love him. And then there's fruit in our lives. It's also a picture of what Peter speaks about in Acts chapter three, verse 21, the restitution of all things when this world is brought into a position where it brings forth the fruit. Remember what we read about in Genesis chapter one, the idea of the earth marked by fruitfulness. That's going to be what happens. Think of today, so many people are hungry in this world when others have got plenty to eat. There's such an unequal distribution of the world's bounty. It's not going to be like that when the Lord Jesus reigns over this world. His kingdom is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. That's a moral thought today, but it's going to be an actual physical thing in that coming day. The earth will flourish. Read about it in Psalm 72, the Psalm related to King Solomon when this wonderful kingdom is in public display. Only a couple more. I think I'm allowed a little five minutes longer because I started a bit later. Replenishing the earth. That's a beautiful word, replenishing, isn't it? Only those God chose went into the ark. We saw that, but he preserved them all. What was precious to God was what was in that ark. That's what he had his eye upon. Those are the ones he remembered and all of them came out. And you know, it's a wonderful thought to me. Nothing was lost. It's a picture of eternal security. Nothing's going to fail as far as God's salvation is concerned. If we take that ark as a picture of the Lord Jesus, we can be assured that everyone who has entered in will come out into blessing. Everything also is going to be brought about for God's blessing. Sometimes we don't emphasize this enough, but if you read Ephesians 1, verses 3 to 6, you'll realize how much in those verses is for God's own pleasure, for him, because he wants it, because he desires it. And this wonderful bringing of everything through the floods that God particularly put his signal hand of blessing upon, the bringing through of it, and then filling the new earth, if I can put it that way, with those people, with those animals, is a picture of the way in which God is bringing everything about for his own glory and pleasure. Noah, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Noah's fear bore fruit in the obedience of faith, which led him to build the ark and to find safety in it and a new life on the cleansed earth with his family. It's the only way out of judgment into the blessing of knowing the father of whom the whole family or every family in heaven and earth is named. Noah and his family going forth from the ark onto that dry earth, that cleansed earth, is a wonderful picture of the blessings which result from the fear of the Lord and the obedience of faith. He offers a burnt offering, burnt offerings, plural. The first mention of an altar in scripture, by the way, here. The sacrifices of the clean animals, holy for God, that's the burnt offering, we've already had that brought before us, are a picture of the death of Christ for God's glory, for God's glory, and they result in our acceptance. Acceptance is a wonderful truth, to know that we're accepted before God, to know him as our father because we are before him in his son. And the Lord Jesus, of course, he came to do the will of God. He is the one who perfectly did everything holy for the glory of God. God smells from that, that sacrifice, those sacrifices, an odor, a sweet odor, an odor of rest, reminds us of the continual burnt offering of exodus. Morning and evening there was an offering to God, a picture of the way in which the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus upon the cross will ever cause God delight throughout eternity. Sinful man has gone in the death of the man who was after God's own heart. God says in his heart, he will not curse or smite. That's a picture of reconciliation. If you look at Ephesians chapter 2 and 2 Corinthians chapter 5, you will find that reconciliation and new creation are thoughts that go together. Then God's promise. Yes, verse 22 of Genesis chapter 8. Well, what can you say about this verse? While the earth remaineth, this is not the new heavens and the new earth. This is the current earth and this will be fully realized during the thousand year reign of Christ. Seed time and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. You know, we do experience this promise even today in a world which has been so affected by man's mismanagement of it. But you know, it's a remarkable thing that this earth that could support two people at the beginning is now able to support eight billion people. Isn't that remarkable that God brought into being a world capable of supporting us in this current day when there's eight billion of us on the planet just as well as it supported Adam and Eve when they were just two. That's God's wisdom and assures us nature's order will continue to support life. Don't worry about global warming. Really, don't worry about it. We needn't have any angst about global warming. I'm not saying we shouldn't care about looking after the earth, but we needn't worry about it because you know, the Lord Jesus is coming and he's going to put it all right. We need to worry about more important things than global warming. Now somebody who heard that, they would be horrified outside the four walls of this hall, but there are more important things to be worried about than global warming and that's people coming to know the Lord Jesus as their saviour and us, us being faithful to the Lord while we wait for him to come. So God delights in his son and preserving those who belong to him in the ark, not in dispensing judgment. He will bring us into the full blessing of new creation in the value of the person and the work of the Lord Jesus. May these things encourage us. …

… Good afternoon. Genesis chapter 9. I would suggest that this session has worked out very happily in terms of where it comes in the program, because we are taking it up in the afternoon of the Lord's Day and many of us, most of us possibly, have been occupied this morning with the person of the Lord Jesus, in remembering him in the way he has asked of us. We've had brought before us the preciousness of the person and the work of the Lord Jesus and the efficacy, the value of his work to God. And I'd like us to start this session by reminding ourselves of what we had at the end of the last session, and that's that the first thing that Noah did was to build an altar unto the Lord. And we read, he took of every clean animal, of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar, and the Lord smelled a sweet savour. That's Genesis 8, verses 20 and 21. And I'd like to stress that to have a proper appreciation of Genesis chapter 9, we really need to grasp that the basis of it are these two verses in chapter 8, the burnt offering. Noah offered burnt offerings, not an offering for sin, not a trespass offering, not a peace offering, not a meal offering, the aspects of which we don't get until later, but here, as in throughout Genesis, a burnt offering, burnt offerings. It speaks of what is for God. It speaks of the person of Christ. It speaks of his, the value of himself and his work in God's sight. And Noah had an appreciation of that, wonderful insight that Noah had. And so I would suggest that to understand properly chapter 9 of Genesis, we must really grasp this, that the basis of it is what is spoken of in the burnt offerings. So perhaps we might read together as we go through the chapter, Genesis chapter 9, and verse 1, we read, and God blessed Noah and his sons and said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth. So we have at the outset a blessing on Noah and his sons. And we might ask ourselves, on what basis could and did God bless Noah and his sons? And the answer is on the basis of the burnt offerings. What do the burnt offerings speak of? They speak of Christ and his work. And God took account of that. God took account of Noah's intelligence as to this matter. And on that basis, I suggest we should understand that God could come out in blessing and bless Noah and his sons. And the exaltation to Noah in verse 1 was to be fruitful and to multiply and replenish the earth. So there was an expectation that this blessing should have results. There should be fruit. There should be evidence of it in replenishing the earth. And then in verse 2, we read, and the fear of you, the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth and upon all the fishes of the sea, into your hand they are delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all things. And so we now come on to this matter that there's now a new order of things. And in chapter 9, we have established a completely new order of things. Indeed, when we looked at the dispensations, we noticed that this marks the beginning of a new dispensation. And the new order has its basis in this work of Christ and the value of it to God. And now God introduces a change. And God says that whereas before, where man was to live on the fruits of what is grown, now meat is to be part of the diet. It was introduced as a matter of godly instruction. And I suggest we should understand by this that Noah, his sons and his descendants, men, were to be nourished and fed on the results of death in a practical way. Life was going to be hard. Post-flood, the condition of the earth was not as conducive to growing lush vegetation as it had been. A matter of practical survival would necessitate the eating of meat. And God introduced this new order. Now for us, of course, I suggest this remains. It's right and proper that we should eat meat. But what is the spiritual significance of it? Well, we have it fully developed or more fully developed in John chapter 6. We're to cast our minds back to this whole matter of death. It speaks to us of Christ. And the believer is to be nourished, is to feed on the results of death. All that we have and enjoy in our spiritual life, it has its basis in the death of Christ. And we're to be occupied with him. We're to be occupied with that which has come out of death. And a proper apprehension of this will preserve believers from taking up vegetarianism as a principle. You may be surprised that I make such a comment. But I would ask you to think of this. There are many religions that advocate vegetarianism. And they have their basis in falsehood. They have their basis in one idea or another such as reincarnation. The idea that when we die we come back as some other creature. The idea that man is no different from any other animal. We're just another kind of animal. Now such thoughts, if taken up logically, would lead, yes, to the repugnance of eating meat and to vegetarianism. But really it's flying in the face of godly order. And do we know better? Do we presume to say to God, actually, I don't think it's right to eat meat. I find it distasteful. Well, you know, it's a solemn matter. The whole matter of sin is and was distasteful to God. The very fact that the Lord had to die, it's a distasteful matter. And we must accept that. We can't brush it aside. And it seems that God is desiring that in our life, practically and spiritually, we should apprehend this, that the necessity of Christ's death, the results of that, is that which should sustain the believer. So we now, we find that Noah and his sons, they were to be sustained by the eating of meat. And this matter is taken up a little further, verse 4, but flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, ye shall not eat. And surely your blood of your lives will I require at the hand of every beast, will I require it. And at the hand of man, at the hand of every man's brother, will I require the life of man. So we have now the concept that in God's eyes, the blood is very significant. Now, I'm sure as believers we understand something of this. We know, we speak about the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. We speak of without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. And at the beginning of this new order, God desires that this principle might be established in our hearts and minds. The blood conveys the thought of life. And when we speak of the shedding of blood, it goes beyond merely the pouring out of blood. It speaks of the whole matter of death itself. The Lord Jesus shed his blood, and what's meant by that is he laid down his life. And we have here a motif, a symbol that's used for blood donation. And even the world understands that the blood is very significant. Give blood, give life. Well, the believer, I trust, takes even more account of this symbolic matter. Life is in the blood. And so there's to be a prohibition, and this prohibition remains today for the believer where not to eat blood. Now, it might just, you might have a question. I'll just go back to this symbol. You might ask ourselves, well, you know, when we put a joint of meat in the oven, isn't there blood there? Well, I think the answer's quite simple. What looks like blood, it's not. The blood is that which flows in the veins. And there's this distinction between the blood that circulates and what appears to be blood in meat. So that really should touch that matter. And then in verse 6 we have this consequence that life is to be considered sacred. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. For in the image of God made he man. And so we have introduced the death penalty. Now, this is not a popular matter today. It's seen as barbaric. But we take account that God introduced the death penalty to emphasize the sanctity of life. The sanctity of life. And so much so that now God says he who sheds man's blood, his blood shall be shed. Now, this is a departure or something new, a new development from what we have earlier. In the case of Cain and Abel, Cain, we know he killed his brother. But in Cain's case, he was sent out. And he had a mark put on him. There was to be no revenge or retaliation. But now God introduces something new. And so this principle of life for life, the death penalty, is brought in. And it's brought in in verse 6. And in this verse, in the notes, you'll see that the heading for verse 6 is government. And you might ask yourself, how does government come in here in verse 6? I don't see the word, I don't really see the thought introduced. But I'd like us to think of it like this. The death penalty is introduced. Somebody has to carry that out. There has to be some form of government. It's not to be a mob rule. How is such a thing to be worked out? Well, it's a matter of government. And the second clue, I think, we find in the end of verse 6. Where it says that, in the image of God, made he man. And really, the whole point of government is that man is taking up a place in the representation of God. It's not his own authority with which he rules. But he's ruling with God's authority. It's authority that God has given him. God has said, and it's man's responsibility to ensure that God's thoughts are carried out. And I suggest to us that this is where we see, here in verse 6, the matter of government brought in. It's introduced on the specific principle of the death penalty. But now this responsibility is given into the hands of men in taking the place of God. They're not taking the place under their own authority, but they're given the authority by God himself. Now, this slide I chose to try and illustrate the idea of government. And maybe to those of us who live in the UK, we understand what this refers to. But there's an aspect I want to draw our attention to. Because when we think of these houses of parliament, we really think of the principle of democracy. And that's not what is brought in here in verse 6. It's not the principle of democratic government. But rather, the principle that God has established kings and rulers. Now, in the case of Noah, Noah is the one who is given to govern. And this is really the principle. It's not a question of what the people want, what they take counsel together. And we'll see a little later in one of the later sessions what democratic rule leads to in the Tower of Babel. And we'll come back to this slide just before the end. But I want to show by virtue of this slide that what God had in mind in giving into the hands of Noah the role of government was to have a representative for himself on this earth. Now, through failure, which we'll come to later, the government was given into the hands of others. But ultimately, what God had in mind was the person of Christ. And this really, I think, is what we see figured by Noah. Well, we move on. And now we read in verse 7. And you be ye fruitful and multiply, bring forth abundantly in the earth and multiply therein. God spake unto Noah and to his sons with him, saying, And I behold, I establish my covenant with you and with your seed after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the fowl of the cattle of the beast of the earth with you, from all that go out of the ark to every beast of the earth. And I will establish my covenant with you. Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood. Neither shall there be any more be a flood to destroy the earth. And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you for perpetual generations. I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass when I bring a cloud over the earth, and the bow shall be seen in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant which is between me and you, and every living creature of all flesh, and the water shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh, and the bow shall be in the cloud, and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth. Now, if I were to ask the children, what do we need to see a rainbow? What do we need to see a rainbow? We need sunshine, and we need rain. Now, we get plenty of rain in this country. It's no good looking out every time it rains to look for a rainbow. Sometimes we get sun. No good looking outside when it's sunny to see a rainbow. You need sun and rain. And I suggest we have, even in this simple picture, a very wonderful spiritual principle. To see a rainbow, we need a shower, we need rain, we need clouds, and we need sun. And you know, the way of blessing that God brings in, the sun I suppose would speak to us, as we've heard already, of the source of God himself. God is light. We have the glory of the Lord Jesus. God is the outshining source of blessing. But in a practical way, he blesses us in our circumstances. And now in this new order of things, for the first time we have showers, we have rain. No longer do we have the earth watered by mist coming up and dew falling on the earth. Now, the earth is watered by showers. And so we have these two things brought together. The blessing of this earth, the covenant that God made between himself and the earth, has this basis. The sun and the rain. And I trust we can learn something from this. We must put God in his rightful place. He is the centre and the source of all these things. But the way in which he brings his blessing through us, is through our circumstances. Through the clouds, through the rain, through the showers, through our difficulties. That's when we learn really the wonderful depths and extent of the blessing of God. And I suggest that this covenant is really ultimately to be fulfilled in the world to come. When all in this world will be sustained and supplied in perfection. No lack, all is supplied. The sun, the rain, every man will sit under his vine. All will be supplied, there will be plenty. And I think we need to look to this world to come to see this covenant of God in its fullest fulfilment. But nevertheless, God has made a covenant with man. And we might say it's a one-sided covenant. There's nothing on man's side. God has made the covenant. And I brought this picture in because, you know when we look at a rainbow, we only see a semicircle. But if we were to go up in an aeroplane, if we were to see the rainbow from, as it were, God's side, we'd see a full circle. Slightly squashed in this slide. But we have here a wonderful picture, I suggest, of what God sees when he sees the bow. Maybe we don't see every rainbow, I'm sure we don't. But you know, God sees everyone. And he remembers his covenant with the earth. There's no failure with God. Because it's based on the person and the work of Christ. The matter of the burnt offerings is brought in once again. So you children, you remember, when you see a rainbow, remember that there's another side to it. And as you go round the rainbow, it never ends. There's no break. There's no ending, no break in the promises of God from God's side. We have a picture here. The wolf will live with the lamb. Quotation from Isaiah 11, verse 6. Just a reminder, I think in a coming day, in the world to come, we will see the fulfilment of this covenant of God worked out in a practical way. Until then, we're marked by failure. Man's failure has brought in ruin. But God will not forget his covenant. He remembers his covenant and he will bring it about. And it will be established in the fullest possible way. Well, now we move on to verse 18. The sons of Noah that went forth of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. And Ham is the father of Canaan. So here we have Noah and his sons. And we're told in verse 1, God blessed Noah and his sons. These are the families of God. Now, regrettably, failure came in. We need to now read on. Verse 19. These are the three sons of Noah. And of them the whole earth overspread. Noah began to be in husbandmen. He planted a vineyard. And he drank of the wine and was drunken. And he was uncovered within his tent. And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brethren without. And Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and went backwards. And covered the nakedness of their father. And their faces were backward and they saw not their father's nakedness. And Noah awoke from his wine, knew what his younger son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan. A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. Well, we must bring in this matter of failure. And did we see how it developed? We have in verse 20. Noah began to be in husbandmen. We should say there's nothing wrong with that. He planted a vineyard. Nothing wrong with that. He drank of the wine. Nothing wrong with that. And now we have the first step of failure. He became drunken. And one step of failure leads to further failure. We have to say what we have here is a picture of how not to act in regard to verse 6. God established government. Noah was established as the head of the families on earth. He was to govern. But he failed to govern himself. And that's a very solemn matter. And this is where we can learn a spiritual lesson. Because everything starts with ourselves. Very easy, isn't it, to look at one another and to see our failings, failings to criticize. But what about ourselves? How do we carry ourselves? How do we behave ourselves? Well, sadly, Noah, he failed. And when he failed in regard to government, we can go back now and see how it was necessary that in due course, the government of the land, it passed into the hands of others. And then into the nation of Israel and their kings. But because of failure, failure first begun in Noah, government rule was passed into the hands of others. And we're now living in a day in the time of the Gentiles. Rule, government in this world is in the hand of the Gentile nations. And that's really as a consequence of failure. Man's failure. But the wonderful thing is that one day, God will put it all right. And power will be taken out of the nations and will return into the hands of the Lord Jesus. The king of kings, lord of lords, the one who is really the answer to Israel's king, Israel's first true king. They chose Saul, again, a principle of democracy. When they had the choice, they wanted a king like the other nations and they chose Saul. But David was a man after God's heart. And the true David is the person of the Lord Jesus. And in the coming day, he will rule. And he will rule perfectly in the world to come. In the meantime, we have the consequences of Noah and his failure. I'd like us to note very carefully. Ham, the youngest, or the second son, it's Shem, Ham and Japheth. So the second son, he came in and he saw Noah's drunken, disorderly, ungoverned condition. And what did he do? Instead of trying to resolve the matter, he went and told his brethren. And I think we see here also a principle. This world loves scandal. It lives for it. This world loves nothing more than rejoicing in the failure of others. That's what sells newspapers, what keeps the television cameras rolling. Political scandal, moral scandal. And we see the mind of man. It loves to be occupied with sin. And here, Ham, he made things worse by spreading it about. Thankfully, the other brothers, they dealt with the matter in an appropriate way, as we see depicted here. But it had consequences. Now, we have, let's just go back here. Now, if we move on, verse 24. Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan. A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. We noticed it says, Cursed be Canaan. Have you ever wondered why, why doesn't it say, Cursed be Ham? It was Ham that failed. Ham that dishonoured his father. Why did not Noah curse Ham? Well, he couldn't. We've already started this session with verse 1. God blessed Noah and his sons. And it would not have been right for Noah to curse Ham. But Ham had other sons. Now, here is the family tree of Ham emphasized or exaggerated, enlarged. We find that Ham had four sons, whose names are mentioned. Cush, Mizraim, Fat and Canaan. So, Canaan was the youngest of the sons. Now, if we go back, we find that there's something in the names of these three sons of Noah. Now, not all books on names of Hebrew pronouns, they don't all agree. So, you need to do a bit of research yourself. But generally speaking, it's accepted that the three sons of Noah, their names mean this. Shem means renown. Ham means black and Japheth enlargement. Now, we need to be very clear here that the disobedience or the dishonor of Ham resulted in Noah cursing Canaan. Only one of his four sons. And we must make it absolutely clear that there's no scriptural authority, there's no scriptural reason to suggest, but some have tried to suggest that Canaan was cursed because he was black. Now, this is something that in the past has been pressed. And it's not borne out by scripture. Ham, it would appear, was black. And his four sons, Cush, Mizraim, Fat and Canaan would have passed on those genetic characteristics. Canaan was not cursed because he was black, but because of the sovereignty of God. Now, if we go back and further look at this, Shem is renown. His name means renown. And it's God's will that the renown of Shem should be brought out in the person of Christ. God's plan that the Lord Jesus should be born as a son of Shem, the Semitic races. Christ is the one through whom we enjoy all blessings. And it has pleased God to bring out his renown, his glory through Shem. In regard to Japheth, now we're told something about Japheth, we're not told about Shem and Ham. And that is that the descendants of Japheth inhabited the Isles of the Sea. And it's understood that really all the Gentile nations are descended from Japheth. And Japheth's blessing comes about through the grace of God. The enlargement in Japheth comes about because God looks in grace upon Japheth. Now let's read in verse 26. And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. So Japheth is blessed how? By coming into the tents of Shem. In other words, the only way we are blessed in God is by coming under the banner of Christ. By acknowledging that God blesses man through his son, the Lord Jesus, who was born of Shem. And that's in grace how God has blessed Japheth. Now, wonderful grace. In the New Testament, we read of three characters who come under the blessing of God. Saul of Tarsus, a Jew, Pharisee of the Pharisees. He tells the Jews that he's a perfect example. If he had anything to boast in regard to his lineage, he had it. And yet what a wicked man he was in himself. He had to say, I'm the chief of sinners. And yet in God's grace, Saul of Tarsus, descendant of Shem, was brought into blessing. Then we have the Ethiopian eunuch. Now, just to make it clear, the Ethiopian would have been a descendant of Cush. Not of Mizraim, not of Thut or Canaan, but Cush. So we can see now, Philip the Evangelist, he went and he met with the Ethiopian eunuch. He explained to him the meaning of Isaiah. And the Ethiopian was brought into blessing. A descendant of Ham came into the blessing of Christ in the line of Shem through the grace of God. And then lastly we have Cornelius the Centurion. Just one example of a Gentile who found blessing by coming into, as it were, the tents of Shem. So we have the grace of God to man brought out in these three sons of Ham. We're all descended from one of these three sons. And that might be of interest, but what's of more importance is that we have come into the tents of Shem. We've accepted the person and the work of the Lord Jesus. There's no other way of blessing in this scene. Well, we can conclude with reminding ourselves God's covenant. He has made a covenant with the earth. And through the person and the work of Christ, he will bring it about. It's not going to be affected by man's failure. Everything else has been, but God's covenant will not be affected by man's failure. In the world to come, he will bring all these things out in a wonderful way. As we can see, the rightful rule of this world will be seen perfectly for the first time in the person of the Lord Jesus. …

… Good, can we continue by reading a verse in Genesis 7, verse 11. In the 600th year of Noah's life, the second month, the 17th day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up and the windows of heaven were opened. In 2 Peter chapter 3, the world that was before the flood, the world that perished, is contrasted with the heavens and the earth that are now. And I want to consider, first of all, some of the differences between these two worlds. We've already noticed some of them that I'll come on to refer to that Nick has brought before us in the previous session. But I wanted to begin by noticing verse 11 in chapter 7 because it shows us, first of all, in the statement that the fountains of the great deep were broken up, that there was, at the time of the flood, great geological activity and water that was trapped beneath the surface of the earth was released. And at the same time, we've read that the windows of heaven were opened and the mass of water that was above the firmament that we read about in Genesis chapter 1 was released and fell upon the earth as rain in the 40 days and 40 nights of the earth. So that, first of all, there were these great geological changes. There was the flood itself and these two things had a great effect upon the physical geography of the world. So first of all, in that respect, when we compare the physical earth before the flood with the physical earth after the flood, there was a very great change. But there were other changes too that Nick has brought before us. And the first is that the fear and the dread of man came upon the other creatures upon the earth. I take it that before the flood, there was not this fear and dread of man. That before the flood, animals were tame. But since the flood, those animals that are not domesticated have become wild. And we can understand why the fear and dread of man is felt by these creatures because as our second point makes clear, many of them are now on our menu. I don't know what you had for lunch today. I know what I had. It did include meat. And very enjoyable it was. So mankind is no longer vegetarian but we eat meat now as part of our diet. And in addition, as Nick has mentioned, we have government committed to Noah and through Noah to others with authority to put to death, to deal with the worst excesses of the behaviour of men. We've learned too that we're not to eat blood. We're to respect the fact that life is in the blood and God claims that life for himself. All life comes from God. He is the one who gives life. We don't have that ability and we respect that by not eating blood and we should be careful to do so, to observe this in our day. In Acts chapter 15, as a result of a discussion about certain questions by the apostles, they wrote to brethren everywhere to settle a certain dispute and what they, one of the things that they insisted upon is that even today we refrain from the eating of blood. So that's something that we should be careful about in our time. There are other changes that come before us in chapters 10 and 11 that I'll now refer to. And the first, of course, is the introduction of different languages that chapter 10 brings before us. Before the confounding of the language, verse 11 verse 1 tells us that the whole earth was of one language and of one speech. Darby says the whole earth had one language and the same words. So before the confusing of the languages that we have explained in chapter 11 and the consequence of that confusion brought before us in chapter 10, before us every human being spoke the same language and there were no variations. There were no dialects within the language that was spoken. As a consequence of the confounding of the one lip, one language, there was the division of mankind into nations that chapter 10 brings before us. And a third major difference between the world before and after the flood that comes to our attention in the second half of chapter 11 is that there was a major reduction in the average length of men's lives on earth. Noah lived to be 950, but by the time we reach Nahor, the length of a man's life was down to 148 years. And we know that by the time that Moses wrote Psalm 90, that span had been further reduced to three score years and 10 or where there was a particular strength, someone might live to be 80. And this reduction in the length of a man's life, the creationists explained to us, was attributable to the major climatic change that occurred at the time of the flood. When the belt of water that was in the upper earth's atmosphere came down as rain upon the earth and wasn't replaced, that belt of water that formerly had filtered out many of the harmful effects of the rays of the sun ceased to do so with the marked reduction in the ages of men, the consequence. So we can see that these differences, differences three and four in our list here were attributable to the flood, but the first two differences were due to the subsequent judgment that fell upon mankind because of their desire to make themselves a name, the desire to be great. If we then look at chapters 10 and 11 in order, chapter 10 sets out the genealogies, the descendants of Japheth, first of all, then of Ham and then of Shem and shows us the parts of the earth that were given to them to be their territory. In forming the nations, God always had in view that the children of Israel were going to occupy the land of Canaan and accordingly when he was setting the bounds of the nations, he did so according to the number of the children of Israel. Father Simon yesterday was telling us how the earth today is able to sustain a population of eight billion people and when God determined that he would give the children of Israel the land of Canaan, he knew that that land would be able to sustain them. I've mentioned these references in Genesis 9 and 10 because in these three places and I think actually in every place where we read about Shem, Ham and Japheth, that is the order in which their names are given to us. But in chapter 10 verse 21, we read that unto Shem also the father of all the children of Eber, the brother of Japheth the elder, even to him were children born. I had a chat with Nick about this in the interval and Darby has a footnote for those of you who have his translation, a footnote on this point that suggests there may be a question as to whether Japheth was the elder or whether in fact Shem was the elder. From our authorised translation, which I think is the preferred translation if you read Darby's footnote, it appears that Japheth was the elder. But in every place where the three brothers are named, Shem is the first one mentioned. And this shows us I think that from the very beginning, it was Shem and his descendants who were especially before the mind of God. And I'm sure that the primary reason why it was so is that in that line, according to the flesh, Christ came. If we read the genealogy in Luke chapter 3, we can trace the genealogy of the Lord Jesus back through Shem to Adam. So it was always God's intention that Israel would be his chosen nation. The assembly or church is a called out company. It's a company that belongs to heaven and that linked to its glorified head in heaven now should be heavenly in character. It's composed of believers who have been called out from the descendants of Shem, Ham and Japheth. As far as the place of Israel is concerned, this distinction that Israel has, it's a distinction that will be maintained through until the end of the millennium. Again Nick was showing us that God intends to govern the earth through Israel and when Christ in the millennium takes up the reins of government, he will do so through Jerusalem and through Israel on the earth. And Isaiah chapter 2 verses 2 to 4 make this very clear where the nations go up to the mountains of, to the mountain of Jehovah's house. That is the earthly center. They will acknowledge that Israel are God's earthly people and make that pilgrimage. But this distinction between Israel and the nations will disappear in the eternal state whilst the church will always retain its distinct identity. If we read in Revelation 21 verses 1 to 4, we read about God's tabernacle which is the church, the assembly being with men. There will be no more sea. There will be mankind upon the earth, no distinction between them and there will be the assembly. And Ephesians 3 verse 21 speaks about the glory that there will be to God by Christ Jesus throughout the ages of ages. Here's a map that shows us how the Middle East was populated. The area in green gives us the portion of the descendants of Shem and what you might notice is that in the middle of that portion there is Nimrod and we'll come back to that. To the north of the green area there is Medei. To the west of it there is Javan which is Greece and way up in the northeast we have Magog. We'll go through the genealogy. We won't speak about everyone that's named but we'll pick out certain ones. First of all Medei, the Medes. What's interesting about this study is what a prominent part these nations play in the future of Israel. If God has determined that they will be his chosen people and that they will populate the land of Canaan, we then find in these various genealogies those who in various prominent ways become involved with Israel in its history. First of all we have Medei the Medes who together with the Persians formed the second of the four Gentile empires that are referred to by Daniel. Javan, Greece, referred to in Daniel 8 verse 21. The name Javan is the word that is translated Greece in Daniel 8 verse 21. The rough goat which was Alexander the Great. The rough goat is the king of Greece and the Grecian Empire was the third of the four Gentile empires in Daniel. And then we have Magog which is Russia or greater Russia. The descendants of Ham and here we have the more immediate enemies of Israel. We have the Canaanites whom we are familiar with. We have five of the other enemies that were children of Canaan, the Jebusite, Amorite, Girgashite, Hivite and Hittite. The seventh, if we include Canaan, the seventh the Perizzites are mentioned and their origins according to the Moorish's new and concise Bible dictionary are not known. The Philistines weren't descendants of Canaan they were descendants of Mizraim through the Patrasim and the Kaslehim. We then come to Nimrod and you remember that Nimrod had his territory in the heart of the territory that was occupied by the descendants of Shem. Nimrod means a rebel. He was a mighty hunter of men. This is remarkable. We're told he was a mighty hunter before Jehovah and immediately the scripture goes on to say and the beginning of his kingdom was Babel. So that he was not merely a hunter of beasts but a hunter of men. When Cain went out from the presence of Jehovah he built a city and he called the city after the name of his son. But Nimrod if we read the appropriate verse in chapter 10 was not content with building one city, the city of Babel, but we read that he built four cities within the territory allotted to him. And not content with that. He invaded part of the territory that was within the allotted sphere of Shem and he built four more cities there including the city of Nineveh. And then the descendants of Shem we have Asher or Assyria which we know were a people extremely hostile to Israel. They became the rod of Jehovah's anger when the nation of Israel fell into idolatry. They were the people that we used to chastise the children of Israel. Shem were sons born he is the father of all the sons of Eber and with Eber we get the idea of being a pilgrim. Instead of building a city we get the idea of faith looking up to God looking for a city that has foundations whose maker and builder is God. Faith that is patient, faith that is prepared to suffer at the present time and to leave everything in God's hands. So Eber were born two sons the name of the one was Peleg for in his days was the earth divided so we now come to that point in time after the flood when God confounded the one language that was spoken by all men. And what is striking is that Peleg was born only 101 years after the flood so that we can see that there was this rapid departure from God and men sought to make a name for themselves, sought to make themselves great without any reference to God and as a consequence God had to step in and confound the language so as to hinder mankind in the projects that he proposed Peleg was the father of Eber. So there was only one language and men formed this union without any reference to God in order to exalt themselves and God intervened as a judge. We thought of Babylon being the beginning of Nimrod's kingdom and really from that point of view we have thought of it as a political entity but now we want to think about Babylon in another way and that is from a religious point of view and Babylon in fact as Zechariah 5 the end makes plain became the source of idolatry in Israel and it was out of such idolatry that Abram was called by God so that those who were of the seed of Shem were also affected by this terrible departure from God. If we turn back to Genesis chapter 6 we would find that the reason that God brought the flood upon the earth was because there was in the earth violence and corruption and here for all the differences that we've noticed between the world before the flood and the world after the flood we are discovering that morally the world is just the same. The world is just the same morally after the flood as it was before because men's hearts are just the same. We've seen violence in the case of Nimrod and his aggressive policy towards Shem and now we see in Babylon corruption. The idolatry that would corrupt even those who were the descendants of Shem and sad to say idolatry played such a great part in the history both of Israel and of Judah and in both instances they were deported by invaders because of that idolatry. Coming back to the matter of the confounding of the language there are apparently at the present time between 6,800 and 6,900 distinct languages that's without taking dialect into account and English is the third most commonly spoken but the most commonly spoken and this is supposed to be hello in that language is Mandarin. Mandarin apparently is spoken by 15% of the world's population whereas the other four that I list here is spoken in each case by about 5% of the world's population and that the Mandarin word there that is supposed to say hello my software had great difficulty in copying and pasting it across I fear I've only got half of hello so you know don't try it. The fourth is Hindi and the the fifth is Arabic and I've had to put it back to front because again my software insisted on writing from right to left so all I'm all I'm all I'm indicating is that when God confounded the language he did a good job. There were the three brothers Abraham, Noah, and Haram. God appeared to Abraham and he was called to get out of his house initially he left Ur which is at the northern tip of the Persian Gulf but under the influence of his father he only got as far as Haram and dwelt there. When you you read the the sort of history that's given us at the end of chapter 11 you would think that Tirar was the prime mover in the matter it's only when we come to other scriptures that show that it it was when Abraham was in Ur that the God of glory appeared to him and he was called out he got as far as Haram he was held up there until the death of his father and after that he continued to Canaan taking Lot with him and that turned out I think to be a very great mistake. It was a disaster for Lot, for his family, for his subsequent history. Lot was a real believer but he became entangled with Sodom as we know and his wife whose heart was always bound up with that city when she looked back was turned into a pillar of salt. To his shame Lot by his own two daughters fathered Moab and Ammon who as we know in turn became very hostile to the children of Israel. I'm already over my time I apologize for that Andrew over to you. …

… God Calls Abram, Session 12, Genesis 12, 1 to 8. I trust that you have read the verses. If not, keep the passage open and you can glance at them and it may well be, and indeed I hope it will be, that in your own time you will study it in more detail. Just a word of prayer before we begin. Blessed God, we acknowledge once more our dependence on thyself and as we turn now to the scriptures once again we would say with the psalmist, open thou mine eyes that we might behold wondrous things out of thy law. In the name and for the glory of the Lord Jesus. Amen. The call of Abram out of his country and family. God's purpose to bless. God always calls out those he wants to bless. This involves separation. Go out. That's the main outline that I was given to cover in these eight verses. Here's the call the Lord had said unto Abraham, get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house onto a land that I will show thee. So what can we say about the call of Abram? Here we are. First of all it is a scriptural expression, Hebrews 11 verse 8, by faith Abram when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive an inheritance obey. When he was called we have here a completely new departure in the ways of God. And I say that because Genesis is the book of beginnings and actually in this section from which we have read we have a new beginning. In chapter 11 and verse 27 you have these words, these are the generations of Terah. And when you read that expression these are the generations of, it indicates a new section in the book of Genesis. For instance in chapter 10 verse 1, the generations of the sons of Noah. In 11 verse 10 the generations of Shem and here the generations of Terah. And Rusty yesterday he read the first one, the generations of the heavens and the earth or the history of the heaven and the earth. And if you have the new translation by Mr. Darby, along with others incidentally involved in the translation, it's already been indicated that the footnotes in this version are very useful. In French or English or German but probably in English we get the benefit of the other versions since it was the last to be completed. If you don't have the new translation I'm sure Nick would be delighted to sell you one. If you wish to have a free copy of one in a cheaper binding speak to me it may be possible to arrange it. But just to give you an instance in Genesis chapter 2 and verse 4 all these phrases are listed, all these sections in the book of Genesis which are generations of the heaven and earth, of Adam, of Noah, of the sons of Noah, of Shem, of Terah, of Ishmael, of Isaac, of Esau and of Jacob. So these are the generations of Terah. It's a new beginning, it's a new start because it's a new section of the book of Genesis. But it's also new in another way in that it's in contrast with what before in chapter 10 and 11. Because there we've had man's world and we've had a man's doings and man's self aggrandizement. Nimrod a mighty hunter before the Lord, the tower of Babel. Let us make us a name for ourselves in a tower that reaches to heaven. We can manage very well without God, thank you very much. Man's unity, one language, all these features which God had to bring judgment upon. But when we get to chapter 12 God as it were says be that as it may. So that's man's world go on. I'll call someone to myself. I'll bless him in view of another world and I'll have him walk in separation. And that very important principle did not just apply to Abram. It carries right through even to this present day. I think you'll agree with me that Abram or Abraham has a very important place in Scripture. Not alone in the book of Genesis but in many subsequent books, both of the Old Testament and the New Testament. He was a friend of God. And we also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abram. Romans 4 12. Who is the father of us all? Verse 16. And in Galatians 3 verse 9. They which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abram. So what we have here in this chapter is important for us today. It's a new thing. The first instance in Scripture of the call of Abram. It's the invariable starting point with God from that day to this. The call of God is no more secret but evident to all. God may have taken up others and in that sense called them but it is now brought out as a principle of public dealing and those whom God has called as indeed we've heard are distinguished from others. It's no more secret and he would now make the call distinct and plain. I want to give some Scripture support that this continues to apply and is true of us today in regard to Israel and in regard to Christians. Hosea 11 verse 1. When Israel was a child then I loved him and called my son out of Egypt. The children of Israel the nation was called out. Christians well there are numerous passages but here I've chosen Romans and 2nd Timothy Romans 1 verse 6 and 7. Among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ. And then we are called saints called to be saints or really the meaning of it is that we are today we are saints by divine calling. And those who were present on the previous Saturday before yesterday will know if you were here in the afternoon that I attempted to look at 2nd Timothy 1 9 where it says God has saved us and called us with an holy calling. The principle of God's call was introduced with Abram and it runs right through with the nation of Israel and with believers. And if we are believers in the Lord Jesus Christ we have received that call. And if you this afternoon evening have not received that call where are you in regard to God? The call of Abram. I've two questions. How does God call us and why? Why particularly did God call Abram? The first question I'm going to attempt to answer. The second question I'm going to leave with you and I'm hoping that some will give me the answer or at least seek to give me the answer. How does God's call reach us? I would suggest it does so externally, it does so internally, and it does so effectively. Externally, internally, and effectively. Externally by the Word of God. We had this before us on the previous day, I think in connection with the new birth where we're born of water. That's the Word of God, that's external, that comes to us. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. But it comes internally by the work of the Holy Spirit. We're born of water and of the Spirit. And where those two elements are combined, that call is effective. It is less effectual, meaning that it produces the desired result, meaning that it has an effect in us, meaning that it is the genuine article, that it is the truth. Yes, we need to hear the Word of God, but you know, many hear the Word of God and where there is not that work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, there's no permanent result for God. So the call reaches us externally, internally, and where those elements are combined, combined, combined, it reaches us effectively. This next question, why did God call Abram, is more difficult. Put another way, why did God pass the others by? Why was Abram the one who God picked up on, picked out, used, that it was Abram that became the father of the faithful? Not Terah, not his father, not Nahor, not his brother, not any of those other ones that dwelt beyond the river, because he was no different, no better, he was an idolater like the others. In Joshua 24, he says your fathers dwelt on the other side of the river, beyond the Euphrates. Terah, Abram's father and the father of Nahor, they served other gods and I took your father Abram. Now, that's the question. It's a profound question. It's a question I leave with you. Those are the two questions I had in mind. How does the call reach us and why did God call Abram? Or put another way, why are we in this room this afternoon listening to the Word of God and not others? Or as the hymn writer expressed it, why was I made to hear his voice and enter while there's room? One thousand sealed their wretched choice and rather starve than come. That's the call. But you know, when we think of the call, we think of what God calls us to. It's simplifying it somewhat. There's what we're saved from. We're saved from, we flee from the wrath to come. But there's that which we're called to. And when God called Abram, he had a purpose to bless. And when God calls us, he has a purpose in view to do us good in our latter end. See here, in the following verses, I'll make of thee a great nation. I will bless thee and make thy name great. Thou shalt be a blessing. I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that curses thee. And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. There are three great thoughts in the Old Testament. Blessing, dwelling, and ruling. Blessing in connection with Abraham. Dwelling in connection with Moses. Ruling in connection with David. God rules that he may dwell and he dwells that he may bless. Now, in the order in which we have these things, chronologically, the blessing comes first. The dwelling comes out in connection with Moses, as we saw. Ruling in connection with David and indeed with Solomon. The interesting thing about dwelling is that God didn't dwell with Adam innocent. He didn't dwell with anyone in the book of Genesis. Michael, in the first day, in the second session, he referred to Exodus as the book of redemption. It's only after the blood of the Passover lamb was sprinkled on the doorposts and the lintel and they were delivered through the Red Sea that God came to dwell in the midst of his people. Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. It's only after that we believe in the finished work of Christ that we're sealed with the Holy Spirit. It's only after Christ accomplished his work on the cross of Calvary and went back into heaven that the Holy Spirit was sent down on the day of Pentecost. God's dwelling with his people supposes redemption. But isn't it wonderful, although the order is somewhat different in the Old Testament, that the thought that God always had in view was blessing? He blessed the living creatures. He blessed man and he blessed the heaven and the earth and he blessed the seventh day and he blessed Noah, but preeminently and particularly the thought of blessing comes out in connection with Abraham. It's too great a subject to develop in the limited time that's at my disposal, but it carries right through to eternity, to the new heaven and the new earth, because in Revelation chapter 21 we read about the throne. He that sat upon the throne, that's God ruling. We read, and we had it from the previous speaker, that the tabernacle of God is with men. The dwelling place of God is with men. He will dwell with them and they shall be his people and God himself shall be with them and be their God. That's God dwelling. And what's the blessing? God says that there'll be no more curse. He says that he himself will wipe away all tears from their eyes. There shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away. What a wonderful prospect for the people of God in this blessing. And even now in the assembly these things are known. Because the gospel, you know, it leads on to the truth of the kingdom. The kingdom establishes the authority of God. And then when we have God's authority established, we come into the enjoyment of God dwelling with his people. And God would bless us. He blesses us with the blessings of the new covenant and with eternal life. There God commanded the blessing, even life evermore the blessing. What can we say about it? We're blessed with faithful Abraham. Now the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. What was the blessing of Abraham? I believe it was justification in the context of Galatians 3. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. And we are justified by faith through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have brought into right relations with God. And then there are promises made. But the important thing in verse 16, and it all has to do with singular or plural, whether the word is in the singular or the plural, the promises were not to seeds as of many, but as one and to thy seed. Which is Christ. You know, looking up that verse in its context that Paul is quoting in Galatians from the book of Genesis to see whether it is translated in the singular or in the plural in an English modern Bible translation is a very good gauge of accuracy of translation. Blessing through Abraham, blessing of justification, blessing, our brother referred to the blessing that will extend to the earth, the position of the land, the sand is a descendants as the sand upon the seashore or on the heavenly side of the stars in heaven. We can't, we've talked about the call of Abraham. We haven't time to explore the blessing, but you know, in the Psalm, God says of Christ, thou hast made him to be blessings forevermore. The blessings are in Christ. We're blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Go home, count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done. Of course, this involves separation. Get thee out. And Abraham went out. He departed as the Lord had spoken unto him. There's scripture support for separation. And again, in regard to Israel, the people shall dwell alone and not be reckoned among the nations. That was spoken about. I've quoted first Peter one, two, in regard to Christians, because we are set apart or elect according to the foreknowledge of God, the father. But the clause I want to pick out here is through sanctification of the spirit, through the setting apart of the Holy Spirit, and brought under the obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. And in Acts 15 verse 14, when James was explaining what God was doing, he says, Simeon, Peter, Simon Peter has declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name. The call of God involves blessing, but it also involves separation unto God. And indeed, the previous speaker gave us some little lesson in languages, not just modern languages, but ancient languages, because he had up on the screen the word Ecclesia, transliterated into our Roman alphabet. And this word for church, Ecclesia, means a called out company. So we are a called out people. Now we know in regard to Abram, it was a very literal thing, wasn't it? Because he had to get out from his country and from his kindred, from his associates, and from his father's house. It came very close. It was a, shall we say, a physical and a geographical separation. Our sanctification or separation is a spiritual thing. It's a setting apart of the Holy Spirit. But the point with Abram was, God had to be everything in his life and God had to have that first place. In the previous chapter, with man's world, man was, man was everything. And God was saying to Abraham, I must be everything to you. Your shield and your exceeding great reward. Even the one who can raise your offspring, your only begotten child from the dead. What faith in God. But no, the challenge comes to us today in a spiritual way. Seek ye first the kingdom of God. Do we put God's things first in our life? And a very challenging verse about discipleship. And look, if any man, we know that means if anyone come to me, what's this? And hate not his father, mother, wife, children, brother and sisters, even his own life also. What does it mean here to hate? Because this goes against natural relations, does it not? What it is saying is that we must love God more than ourself or our father, our mother, our grandfather, our grandmother, our wife or children. That God's will must be paramount in our life. That's what's involved in the call of God. That's what was seen in a very visible material way in the life of Abraham. And this is what should be seen, beloved, in our lives. Separation. We are divinely separated onto God positionally. How is it in our practical lives? And I could name a lot of things which I haven't time to name. Things which it would have been unheard of even for Christians to think about in a former day, which seemed to be permitted in this degenerate age in which we're found. Are we characterized by separation onto God? Do people see in our lives that we're different? Would they ask us for the reason for the hope that we have in us? There's a challenge in what we're learning today for ourselves. So we've had God's call to Abraham, mostly verses 1 to 3. I hope you'll spare me a few more minutes just to speak about Abraham's consequent walk with God in verses 4 to 8. Abraham's walk with God. We know he had the tent and the altar, because there's another altar, by the way, spelt differently. With all the confusion of languages and with all the different nationalities present here today, altar, A-L-T-E-R, means we have to change our behavior. That's what I was speaking about in regard to separation. Alter our lifestyle, A-L-T-E-R. But here Abraham had altar. That's the thought of sacrifice. Not the first in Genesis. We had that in connection with Noah. But in this passage, verses 4 to 8, we have twice again the mention of the altar. But here's another thing. The Lord appeared unto him, and he called on the name of the Lord. And then there's another point. This is my fifth one. He had enemies. Looking at these things briefly, a tent is a temporary dwelling place. We daily pitch our moving tent a day's march nearer home. We're pilgrims and we're strangers. Pilgrims means we're on a journey. Looked at the other way, strangers mean we don't belong here. Pilgrims, we belong somewhere else. We're not of the world, which fadeth away. We're in the world. We're not of the world. It's not for us to be seeking our bliss and building our hopes in a region like us. It's the altar. Approach to God. Worship. Thanksgiving. When we get to chapter 15, Abraham fell on his face before Jehovah. That was the true expression of worship. The family altar, very prevalent in the book of Genesis. Individual worship. Collective worship. Some of us have had the privilege in different localities to come together around the Lord Jesus to worship the Father and the Son. But listen, this central one is so important. The Lord appeared unto him. What do we know of personal experiences with God? Of life-changing experience? Of divine visitation? I'm not talking about anything emotional or mystical or sentimental. I'm talking about experiences which are firmly grounded on the Word of God. But there needs to be some sense of the reality of personal and direct dealings with God. The Lord appeared unto Abraham. There were moments in his life that he could look back on, that Moses or whoever wrote the book of Genesis could record. When Abraham was in the immediate presence of God, when he was bowed before him, when God spoke to him. Has God spoken to you? In anything that was said yesterday? Or today? Or in your personal devotions? I take it you have personal devotions when you read the Word of God for yourself, when you study the Bible. That's a thing of the past with a lot of people in this busy world. We need to be in the Lord's presence. We need divine visitations. We need to experience God speaking to us. But also he called on the name of the Lord. I'm not going to speak about this because it's too challenging. I just leave the question with you. How is your prayer life? Dear brother, dear sister, how is your prayer life? And then in that scripture in Luke that we read, you know those that want to be disciples of the Lord Jesus need to take up their cross daily and follow him. The Canaanite was laying in the land. Abraham had enemies. And if we seek to walk with God, we're not going to find a bed of roses. To be forearmed, to be forewarned, is to be prepared. So just to go back to this one here, God's call to Abraham out of the world, God's purpose to bless, God's separation of Abraham unto himself resulted in a consequent walk with God. The five points I've brought before you. May God help us in regard to these things. …

… Okay, well, the good news is, there is only one more slide. The bad news is, you'll need to help me. And there will be a quiz. And you will need a piece of paper and a pen. And you need to be seated strategically. Because each row will be one group. The papers will be very carefully marked. There will be an evaluation of the papers. And then we will determine the winning group. And, exactly, the winning group will get free tickets to next year's Bible Basics Conference. Okay, are you all equipped? Strategically, just think next to whom you want to be sitting now. Right, there are, I think, around 17 questions that every group needs to answer. I hope. And the questions are these. Well, let's start with an easy one. And the picture may help you a little bit. The first question is, what is the topic of the book of Genesis? Or the character? You can still change rows. If you find you want a different neighbor. Now, just to give you some advance notice of the next 12 questions. The next 12 questions will be, can you think of one word that gives a good idea of the central thought of each chapter? So, one word for Chapter 1. One word for Chapter 2. All the way down to 12. In my proposed answers, sometimes I've listed two or three words. So, if you hit one of them, you get a point. Just to make it a bit easier. So, one word for the heading, Genesis. Then, 12 words, one for each chapter. And the last four questions I will tell you in about two minutes. When you've answered the first 13. Well, you've all been here today and yesterday. You've heard all this. So, I'm sure it will now just flow out of your pens. Okay. Are we all finished? Rusty and Simon, you must have finished already. Now, if it's too difficult, start with the last one, because that's what you heard most recently. Now, in about 30 seconds, when we've all finished, I would ask you to pass your paper to the row behind you. Who will mark the paper. And if the last row could pass their paper to the front row, and they will mark those. And perhaps put a name on your paper as well. The name of the team leader, the row leader. So, that's 13 so far. Okay, then. Let me give you the last four questions. The last four questions are something like this. Think of grouping those chapters into four groups that stand for four different distinct time periods. Or ages. Or significant passages in the history of mankind. And to give you one more clue, the last one does not finish in chapter 12, but it's started by the time you come to chapter 12. Something that characterized a time period that may go beyond one chapter. Five, four, three, two, one. And stop, please. Okay, if you now keep your pen, just pass the paper to the row behind you, please. Okay, I know this is very, very exciting. But can we just take the papers now and watch them, and then we go through the proposed solutions. And maybe you're marking me in the end, and I don't know whether I got them all right. But let's see. The first question was, what is the character of the main theme of the book of Genesis? Now, Genesis is the book of the beginnings. Very good. Well done. Well done. That's one out of one so far. Now, it's getting a little more difficult. What is the key word you have for chapter one? Ah, creation. Very good. I see we have some real Bible students here. Now, more seriously, in chapter one, we learn a great deal already about the glory of God and the glory of God in creation. It's something that is mentioned in each of the, actually I should have asked that question as well, in each of the three key chapters in the New Testament that speak about the personal glories of Christ. Question 18, which ones are those? John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1, and each time it mentions the creator glory of Christ. The main thought perhaps to take away is that God reveals himself in creation and that his ultimate objective, and you might say the crowning part of the creation was man, and his ultimate objective is for man, the man, the son of man, to have dominion over creation. And this is what we looked at in chapter one. Now, chapter two, is there anybody, relationship? Very good. Is that something that was on Simon's paper, or is that just something he said now? Now, why relationship? And the question has actually been asked, if in chapter one we already learn about man being made, God created man, male and female he made them. Now, why is it that in chapter two you read again of Adam and that God breathed into him and that he became a living soul? Why is that? Is that kind of just some duplication or what is happening here? The other question that was asked in one of the presentations was, why does the name of God change? Or why is a different name of God prominent in chapter two? Well, all of those are related. In chapter one, it's a question of the creator and his creature. In chapter two, it's a question of the Lord who enters into relationship with man. And there, of course, you find that he breathes into man. And there you find that the principles of marriage are unfolded. So, chapter two has a suggested key word, relationship. Now, chapter three, what was that? Sin. Sin. Anything else? The fall. Anything else? The remedy. Let's see. Sin. I think fall we'll accept as well. Redemption. Covering. We saw how sin entered the world, but also how there was the promise of the Redeemer and how God found a means for covering, a means that involved death. Now, number four, chapter four, anybody in agreement here? Sorry. Go back. What's on your papers? New hope. New hope. Well, let me try and explain why I put down what I did put down. Obviously, chapter four is the story of Cain and Abel. And there was a disagreement. And the question is, what was this disagreement about at the core of it? What was at the core? And my suggestion is that at the core there was the question, how can you approach God? And Cain said, I can do that with the work of my hand. And Abel said, it requires a sacrifice. Now, what Cain did is what I would call the principle of carnal religion. Carnal meaning, you know, the natural strength. I can do something and God has got to be pleased with what I do. Whereas in Abel, you find the real way of approach to God through sacrifice. Now, when Cain then goes away from the face of the Lord, what he essentially does is he becomes the founder of the world. That incidentally got washed away in the flood. But what he does is he builds up a system. And the core idea of that system is, let's make it as pleasant as possible with a city and with technology and music and culture. As pleasant as possible, but without God. And therefore the suggestion, approach to God and the origin of the system of the world. But I'm really intrigued now. If nobody had those two, maybe I'm completely wrong. What about Seth? At the end, you find the new hope in Seth. Oh yes, okay. If you focus, yeah. In the last verse, okay, we'll give half a point to Hans Rudi for new hope in Seth in the last verse of chapter four. Any other suggestions? I didn't want to spread a spanner across this, but I can't help thinking that in some ways chapter four includes the consequences of the flood. Yes. For both Abel and Cain, actually. Yes. Yes, indeed. Half a point for consequences. Sorry, one point. Yeah, I mean, obviously this is important and it's related to what Cain does. I mean, Cain basically builds a curse alleviation society. And I think we could go through any job that any of us in this room has. Ultimately, every job is in some way part of alleviating the curse and the consequences of the curse. Whether you work in health or in education or whatever you do. So those are the consequences of sin. And despite those consequences, there is a way of approaching God. But Cain chooses to go away from God and founds the world. Now, oh, sorry, chapter five. Any thoughts? I can see that Rusty at some point must have been a very good pupil. Yeah, suggestion is that in chapter five, in contrast to the family of Cain, we come to the family of faith. And that family is marked not by great achievements like the line of Cain, but it's marked by faith and by calling upon the name of the Lord. Sorry, chapter six. Let's take chapters six and seven. Well, it's probably too easy, so I'll carry on. Suggestions for chapters six and seven are, on the one hand, the truth that for mankind gone away from God, the inevitable consequence is going to be judgment. And that's illustrated in a striking way in the flood which came. It took a long time. We heard how many years Noah had to build the ark. It looked like judgment was never to come, but in the end it came. But also in those chapters you find that there is not only judgment, but there is salvation. And that's another principle we need to take away, that before God judges, he offers a refuge, a way of salvation, a way of escape to those who believe what he says, to those who have faith. I hope you keep marking. Chapter eight, obviously, we find Noah on a new and cleansed earth, and it has been connected with new creation. And perhaps we want to add something. Right. And this is the point of acceptance. Noah, we heard, builds the altar, he offers sacrifice, and it says that God smelled the sweet savor of that sacrifice. And so it's not only that Noah is on a new and cleansed earth, but he has acceptance, and that's beautifully illustrated in that chapter. Now, in chapter nine, we come to the time of government. Well done, Simon. This is not that long ago now. Nick explained this afternoon how God instituted government at the time of Noah, and how the command was given that those who shed blood, that their blood should be shed. Chapter ten, put down nations, how the descendants of Noah populated the earth, and in chapter eleven, you find the pride of man, the confusion that God then sent in response. Think of Tower of Babel, and what happened was the dispersion of the nations. But also, at the end of the chapter, we come to the matter of the calling. So that, starting with chapter twelve, we really have before us the call, where God now goes a different way. He calls out someone out of that system that had failed, despite of the other three things that had been before. And those are the last few questions you had, in terms of groupings. Did anybody come up with any grouping? Yeah? One and two? Let's see. One and two. Very good. The time of innocence, in chapters one and two. Then we have a time of, what, chapters three to eight. It certainly wasn't innocence anymore, but what had man received? A conscience. Very good. He had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Satan had said, you will be like God, and in one respect, it was true. They then knew about good and evil, but at the price of having fallen. And then we have a time of, I'll give you a hint. Look at chapter nine. A time of government. And then you have a time of... A point for both. Calling and promise. Close related. So I'm impressed. You have done very well. The lectures have been obviously a great help to everyone. I just want to add one point, and that's picking up on something Brother Rusty said this morning in the meeting in Plumstead, where he said, ultimately, if we study these things, the objective must be to find Christ in all the scriptures. And that's a very important point to make. But if you look at this slide here, you might say, you know, there's nothing about Christ, really. This is all theology. This is all sort of difficult words. This is like, you know, relationship and redemption and judgment and so on. Well, is that actually true? Let's have a quick look. Chapter one, I don't need to repeat. You really find the glory of Christ as creator and as son of man set over creation. In chapter two, where we come to relationship, this is actually where Adam falls into a deep sleep. And we saw that this is Christ again going into death, and this is how the church was formed. In chapter three, obviously, death comes in, and it speaks of Christ. And Christ is the one who brought covering that we can stand before God. Now think of chapter four. It's again death, but it's not exactly the same thing. It's not death as covering. It's now the death of Christ as that which gives us the approach to God. Then you find the family of faith, those who live in a living relationship with Christ. Then in chapter six and seven, obviously, in view of the judgment, what is central is salvation, and we find salvation in Christ. Christ, I think it was pointed out, the Ark of Gopher Wood, how we find Christ there as that which gives us salvation, and therefore there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, just as it was for Noah and his family in the Ark. The Ark, however, was exposed. Noah was sheltered, but the Ark was exposed to the rain and to the flood. And this is how Christ speaks of the fact that Christ was exposed to the judgment waters from which we have been sheltered. Now then, the new earth, new creation, of course, founded on the work of Christ, and you come to the matter of acceptance. A third aspect, we had covering, we had approach. Now we have acceptance on the basis of the work of Christ. Government, well, there was failure under Noah, but there will be perfect government. The time will come when there will be a perfect government on this earth. And if the nations have been dispersed over the whole globe, Christ has given himself to gather into one those who were scattered abroad, the children of God who were scattered abroad. And the wonderful thing that has happened is that a unity has been made that transcends the unity of a nation. This is the unity of the one body that is composed of believers from all possible different nations. And coming to the call and the promise, it came out in the ultimate, in the final lecture we had, that really, what does this promise rest on? It says, in the seed of Abraham you shall be blessed. And there again you have Christ, again in a different aspect. So I just wanted to mention this, that really, you know, we do want to go away with a good framework. We do want to go away and know what chapters 1 to 12 are about, what the key ideas are. But we do want to go away as well, remembering that all of this is really speaking of what the Lord Jesus has done, what his work means for us and his person. …