{"id":18567,"date":"2021-01-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-10T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/genesis-021-why-the-monotony-part-1\/"},"modified":"2023-04-11T09:32:34","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T14:32:34","slug":"genesis-021-why-the-monotony-part-1","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/genesis-021-why-the-monotony-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Genesis 021 – Why The Monotony? (Part 1)"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[12],"series_event":[511],"sermon_service_type":[472],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18567","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-genesis","series_event-genesis","sermon_service_type-main-service","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Genesis 021 - Why The Monotony? (Part 1)","sermon_date":"20210110","sermon_month":"01","sermon_year":"2021","sermon_notes":19915,"sermon_slides":19916,"sermon_mp3":19917,"sermon_id":"1102113276657","series_or_event":511,"service_type":[472],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":12,"chapter_and_verse":"5:3-5","sermon_transcript":"

Genesis #021- <\/strong><\/h4>\r\n

\u2018Why the Monotony?<\/em>\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\r\n

Genesis 5:3-5<\/strong><\/h4>\r\nWe're moving through the book of Genesis<\/u> verse-by-verse.\u00a0 Today, Genesis 5:3-5<\/u>, [we\u2019re] looking at it more in depth. \u00a0And then we're going to start moving very fast, time permitting, through Genesis 5:20<\/u>. The title of our message this morning is \u2018Why the Monotony<\/em>?\u2019 It's a question as to why the monotony? \u00a0The reason I decided to entitle our message in that vein is because when most people get to Genesis 5<\/u>, it's just too boring:\u00a0 a bunch of names and dates of people who are long gone; it just seems repetitive. \u00a0And because we want some excitement, we have a tendency to just sort of skip over this chapter and miss what the Holy Spirit has for us. \u00a0There are some real nuggets of truth to be gained from these chapters.\r\n\r\nBut first, just by way of review, Genesis\u00a0 4 and 5<\/u> go together in the sense that they are a record of Satan's attempt to destroy a promise, and how God continued that promise through a new line. \u00a0As you remember from our studies of Genesis 1-11<\/u>, it is really a record of the beginning of the human race; Genesis 12-50<\/u> are a record of the Hebrew race.\u00a0 So Genesis 1-11<\/u> are part one and Genesis 12-50<\/u> are part two. \u00a0We have started part one, and it has four parts. \u00a0We've looked at the doctrine of creation in Genesis 1 and 2<\/u>\u2014creation as God originally designed and intended it.\r\n\r\nBut we saw what happened and what went wrong in Genesis 3-5<\/u>:\u00a0 the fall of man. \u00a0We worked our way through Genesis 3<\/u>, the fall of man, and there was a lot of commotion and confusion going on today, even this last week in the United States of America. \u00a0It's just so obvious that we're living in a world very different than what God originally intended. \u00a0The reason for that is related to the fall of man in Genesis 3<\/u>. \u00a0But Genesis 3<\/u>, interestingly, ends with this note of optimism. \u00a0Where in Genesis 3:15<\/u>, you have this tremendous prediction that there's coming One from the Seed of the woman who would be Eve, who will take the serpent's head and crush it. \u00a0That is, I believe, your first reference to a coming Messiah; the first reference, really, to the gospel in the entirety of Scripture. \u00a0And it's announced really at a point when it's needed. \u00a0Man has fallen. \u00a0Now we see God's solution in terms of how things are going to be remedied and rectified one day in the person of Jesus Christ.\r\n\r\nFrom there you move into Genesis 4<\/u> where Satan has Cain murder Abel. \u00a0And as we've tried to explain, that was Satan's attempt to destroy that promise. \u00a0Satan, then in 4:16-24<\/u>, through the Canite line, a wicked line, sought to establish his new world order. \u00a0The New World Order is a one world system of economics, politics and religion that excludes the vantage point of the Creator, God Himself. \u00a0Satan felt that he had won. \u00a0The Messianic line was destroyed, at least in Satan's mind. \u00a0Satan then built the world the way he wanted it through the ungodly Canite line. \u00a0And we're very fortunate that the chapter didn't end there because whenever it looks like Satan is winning, God has a solution.\u00a0 Even in the United States of America today, as you look at the events of this last week, it looks like Satan is winning. \u00a0But that would be contrary to God's nature. \u00a0Satan is not winning. \u00a0God always has a solution, and God's solution to this problem is the godly line of Seth.\u00a0 Seth was born, and to Seth was born Enosh, and a new line continues which will be the fulfillment, or actually bring into existence, the promise of Genesis 3:15<\/u>.\r\n\r\nAnd so as we come to Genesis 5<\/u>, which we started looking at last time, we discovered a messianic line through which the promise of Genesis 3:15<\/u> will be fulfilled.\r\n\r\nThe Canite wicked line was described in Genesis 4<\/u>. \u00a0Now we're getting a description of this godly line. And the line will start with Adam, per Genesis 5:1<\/u>, and it will go all the way to Noah in Genesis 5:32<\/u>. \u00a0So it's a genealogy.\r\n\r\nAnd then there's going to be an additional genealogy post-Tower of Babel, beginning in Genesis 11:10<\/u> through the end of that particular chapter of Genesis 11<\/u>. \u00a0That line will continue through Noah's son, Shem, which will go from Shem all the way to Terah. \u00a0\u00a0Terah is Abraham's father.\r\n\r\nAnd then once you get to Genesis 12<\/u>, the spotlight will turn onto Abraham because it will be through Abraham that God will begin this new race, the Hebrew race through which the Messiah will be born, and Genesis 3:15<\/u> will be fulfilled.\r\n\r\nSo that's where we are in our study of the book of Genesis<\/u>.\u00a0 We are in chapter 5<\/u>, which gives us a monotonous perspective on this godly line. \u00a0In fact, it's so monotonous that most people skip right over it. \u00a0But you can't skip right over it because there's some material here that's critical to understand. \u00a0So there's an introduction in Genesis 5:1,2<\/u>, then you have the godly line of Adam, then Seth, then Enosh, then Kenan, then Mahalalel, and then Jared.\u00a0 Some interesting things start to happen after the genealogy of Jared. \u00a0It gets very interesting with Enoch in 5:21-24<\/u>; Methuselah in 5:25-27<\/u> and Lamech in 5:28-31<\/u>, ultimately leading to Noah [5:32].\r\n\r\nSo the last time I was with you, we took a look at the Introduction, and now we're moving into the genealogy, first of Adam, where we're going to find a six-fold pattern. \u00a0\u00a0I want you to see this pattern for what it is. \u00a0I'll try to explain the pattern to you, why it is here and why it keeps getting repeated. \u00a0But once you get the pattern down, then the rest of these names go by very, very quickly.\r\n\r\nSo if you have a copy of your Bible<\/strong>, notice Genesis 5:3-5<\/u>.\u00a0 It says, \u201cWhen Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. \u00a0Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he had other sons and daughters. \u00a0So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 Now, this is very, very interesting because it gives you six things. \u00a0And these six things are repeated for every pre-flood patriarch.\u00a0 We call these the antediluvian people that lived prior to the great deluge of Noah's day that\u2019s going to be described for us in Genesis 7 and 8<\/u>. \u00a0So these are the antediluvian patriarchs. \u00a0And for every patriarch, what you're going to see are six things mentioned over and over and over again. \u00a0And that's the monotony that I'm speaking of:\u00a0 a monotony with a purpose, as I'll try to explain. [See slide on Six-Fold Pattern \u2014 Genesis 5:3-5].<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe first<\/strong> thing you'll see is the name and the meaning of the patriarch.<\/u><\/strong> So I'll be giving you the name of each of these patriarchs and what their name actually means in the original language. You'll notice here that Adam<\/u><\/strong> is named, and his name means Man<\/u><\/strong>.\r\n\r\nThe second<\/strong> thing is the age of the patriarch at the time of his firstborn<\/u><\/strong>, so when Adam<\/u><\/strong> became the father of Seth, the next in the line, he was 130 years<\/u><\/strong>.\r\n\r\nThe third<\/strong> thing is the additional years that the patriarch lived<\/u><\/strong> following the birth of the seed-son. \u00a0So Adam<\/u><\/strong> became the father of Seth at the ripe old age of 130, and Adam, according to these verses, lived<\/u><\/strong> an additional 800 years<\/u><\/strong>.\r\n\r\nAnd then the fourth thing is that Adam had other sons and daughters<\/u><\/strong> during that 800-year time period.\r\n\r\nThe fifth thing is the total number of years that Adam lived<\/u><\/strong>.\u00a0 So you have to add up number 2 and number 3, and the total years that Adam lived were 930. \u00a0So at age 130, he becomes the father of Seth. Then an additional 800 years passed: 130+800 = 930, and that's the total length of Adam's life<\/u><\/strong>.\r\n\r\n[Sixth], with each of these patriarchs, except for one, as we'll explain, there's a record of their death<\/u><\/strong>. \u00a0It says over and over again, \u2018and he died, and he died, and he died<\/em>,\u2019 etc..\r\n\r\nSo let me slow down just for a minute and show you why this pattern is repeated\u2014virtually ten times in Genesis 5<\/u>. \u00a0Let me show you the reason for the repetition of this pattern. \u00a0In fact, I want to make six observations (see Slide on Six-fold Repetition: Significance (Gen 5)<\/strong>. \u00a0There are observations 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 about this pattern, because once you get it and see why it's here, then the rest of the names will fit into the pattern very nicely and the rest of the antediluvian patriarchs will go by very, very quickly.\r\n\r\nBut what is<\/em><\/strong> this information doing here in our Bible? \u00a0First<\/strong> of all, with each patriarch, you see a name. \u00a0And we're going to give the Hebrew meaning to each of those names. \u00a0Why do we have to know all of these names? \u00a0Why do I have to know the names Seth and Adam and Jared and Kenan and Mahalalel, etc?\u00a0 The reason that information is so important is because the Bible wants us to understand that these are actual historical figures<\/em><\/strong>. \u00a0These people are so accurate historically in terms of when they lived as is or was George Washington or Napoleon or Alexander the Great or any other historical figure that you might study in history. \u00a0In fact, you might want to jot down 1 Chronicles 1:1-4<\/u>, which is another genealogy. \u00a0In that genealogy, you'll see the exact same names:\u00a0 Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan Mahalalel, etc.. \u00a0In fact, these names, many of them are mentioned in the genealogy leading to Jesus Christ. \u00a0Did you know that? \u00a0In Luke 3:36-38<\/u>, which is part of a genealogy linking Jesus back to Adam, you'll see these exact same names. \u00a0And did you know that these same names are mentioned in the book of Hebrews 11:4-7<\/u>, our Great Hall of Faith chapter? \u00a0You'll see the names Abel and Cain and Enoch and Noah. \u00a0And so I think that's why the history here is given\u2014 God wants us to understand that this is not some sort of figment of someone's imagination. \u00a0This is not some sort of fairy tale. \u00a0This is not Jack and the Beanstalk or Veggie Tales or Star Wars or whatever comes out of people's minds in terms of imagination.\u00a0 This is actual history<\/em><\/strong>. \u00a0And if you start playing games with the historicity of these characters, and if they're in an unbroken genealogy, Luke 3<\/u>, leading ultimately to Jesus Christ, and you dehistoricize some of these pre-flood patriarchs, then it's just a matter of time before you start dehistoricizing Jesus because Jesus is in the same exact genealogy.\r\n\r\nThe second<\/strong> observation I want to make here about this pattern is there's some very interesting information given here that you don't find anywhere else in any other genealogy in the entire Bible<\/strong>. \u00a0The Genesis 11 <\/u>and Genesis 5<\/u> genealogies are unique in the sense that they give the age of the patriarch at the time of birth of the seed-son.<\/em><\/strong> \u00a0In other words, it doesn't just tell you how many years Adam lived and what year or age he was when he died. \u00a0It goes far more in depth than that, and it gives you the age of Adam at the time Seth was born<\/em><\/strong>. \u00a0This is true with all of these patriarchs.\r\n\r\nNow, this becomes very significant because what is being demonstrated here is that there are no gaps, despite the fact that what many people will tell you, there are no gaps in these genealogies. \u00a0And I'm speaking specifically about the gaps allegedly<\/em> in the Genesis 5<\/u> genealogy and the Genesis 11<\/u> genealogy. \u00a0There are no gaps. \u00a0There are no missing generations in those genealogies.<\/em><\/strong>\r\n\r\nAnd the reason that is a battleground concept is because people have used these genealogies to calculate the age of the earth. \u00a0The age of the earth is not, contrary to what evolution says, 4.5 billion years old. \u00a0The age of the earth is quite young. \u00a0It's in the thousands rather than the millions or the billions. \u00a0And you can reach that conclusion by simply not<\/em><\/strong> inserting massive gaps of time into these genealogies.\r\n\r\nJames Barr said this, and keep in mind, James Barr was not a conservative evangelical scholar at all. \u00a0He was very liberal in his views. \u00a0He did not have a high view of the inerrancy or the authority of the Scripture, but he simply admitted that the Scripture, when rightly understood and interpreted, leads to a conclusion of the earth being thousands of years old rather than millions and billions of years old. \u00a0It is almost the unpardonable sin to say something like that to an evolutionist because the evolutionist has a holy trinity that they adhere to. \u00a0A trinity are 3 beliefs that they adhere to by way of faith, and that holy trinity is time plus randomness plus matter.\u00a0 They need vast ages of time for evolution to work. \u00a0James Barr says the Bible doesn't yield those vast ages of time. \u00a0He says, \u201cProbably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writers of Genesis 1-11<\/u> intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: (a<\/strong>) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience. (b<\/strong>) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies... <\/em>[That's where we are in our study] \u2026 provided by simple addition, a chronology from the beginning of the world up until up to later stages in the biblical story (c<\/strong>) Noah's flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish...human and animal life except for those in the ark. \u00a0Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the \u2018days\u2019 of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be merely a local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.<\/em>\u201d\r\n\r\nSo what he is saying is if you just take the Bible for what it says, the creation days were 24-hour days. \u00a0The flood, which we haven't studied yet, but we will be studying in our study of Genesis<\/u>, covered the whole world, and there are no missing gaps of deep time in these generations in Genesis 5<\/u> or Genesis 11<\/u>, because it gives you specific information, not just how many years Adam lived, but the age of Adam and all of these ten patriarchs at the time the seed-son, or the first-born was born.\r\n\r\nSo the Bible, if just taken at face value, reveals information that this world that we're living in hasn't been here for billions of years or trillions of years or gazillions of years, but rather thousands of years.\r\n\r\nNow, I've given you this slide before from Dave Breese. \u00a0[See slide on AUTHORSHIP]. <\/strong>He's talking here about seven men who rule the world from the grave, and he's talking about how these men, although long gone, their ideas continue on. \u00a0And he's got here Karl Marx, Julius Wellhausen, John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, John Maynard Keynes, Soren Kierkegaard. \u00a0And you'll notice that the number one person he's got on this list is a man named Charles Darwin. \u00a0It was Charles Darwin that formally articulated evolution in his book, The Origin of the Species<\/u><\/strong>, going back to 1859, and the moment that that idea became popular, the Christian Church, God's people, found themselves in a quandary because the scientists, so-called, were saying that the age of the earth is very, very old because you need deep time for evolution to occur. \u00a0And yet the Bible, through simple addition, was saying something completely different. \u00a0And so what do you do when you're in that conflict? \u00a0And we're not the first generation that's dealt with this conflict. \u00a0This conflict goes back to the publication of Darwin's Origin of the Species<\/u><\/strong> 1859.\u00a0 Well, what the Christian Church started to do at that time was to adopt what I like to call the backward Christian soldier<\/em> mentality. \u00a0Instead of \u2018onward Christian soldier<\/em>,\u2019 it's backward Christian soldier<\/em>.\r\n\r\nThey began to rewrite or reinterpret the book of Genesis<\/u> to make it harmonious with Darwin. \u00a0One of the tools that they used, and you can track this down to a Princeton scholar named W.H. Green about 1890, who started to say, \u2018Well, there's missing generations in these genealogies. \u00a0And if we can find enough missing generations in the genealogy of Genesis 5<\/u> and the genealogy of Genesis 11<\/u>, then we're going to have the deep time we need to make the Bible harmonious with the evolutionary view of the origin of the human race. \u00a0And so we can make the Bible fit science or scientific philosophy.\u2019<\/em>\r\n\r\nThe problem with that strategy is now, today, they're not saying that the earth is hundreds of thousands of years old. \u00a0They're saying it's billions of years old. \u00a0Some argue it's 4.5 billion years old. \u00a0And you can stretch these genealogies all you want. \u00a0But the fact of the matter is you're not going to find a missing billion years. \u00a0So consequently, what people have gone to is beyond genealogy stretching. They've gone to the day-age theory that each of the creation days represents an age, and we've dealt with that in-depth in our study in the book of Genesis 1<\/u>.\u00a0 They've also gone into the idea that there is some sort of missing time or gap of however many years you need between Genesis 1:1,2<\/u> which is called the the gap theory, and that theory originated as a result of trying to make Scripture harmonious with what evolutionists were telling us about the age of the earth. \u00a0We've explained in prior studies, you can go back to our very early lessons in Genesis<\/u>, why we at Sugar Land Bible Church, are not adherents of the gap theory, nor are we adherents of the so-called day-age theory. \u00a0But one of the other tools that's been used is, \u2018Well, there must be a bunch of missing persons in between each of these patriarchs.<\/em>\u2019 \u00a0And what I'm trying to explain here is the details of the numbers, not just giving you how old Adam was when he died, but how old he was at the time his seed-son, in this case, Seth, was born. \u00a0That amount of detail allows you to find no missing ages whatsoever.\r\n\r\nArnold Fruchtenbaum puts it this way. \u00a0He says, \u201dA third observation is that there are no gaps in the genealogy<\/em>.\u201d [He's speaking here of Genesis 5<\/u>]. \u201cSome try to put gaps into the genealogy in order to accommodate the scientific long age of man, but the wording does not allow for that. \u00a0If the text only said begat, then that would be permissible, since the word \u2018begat\u2019 does not always require direct father\/son relationship. \u00a0It could mean grandfather, great grandfather, or ancestors and so on.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the wording in this section does not allow for that interpretation. \u00a0The text does not simply say begat. \u00a0It gives the years before and after the birth of the seed-son. \u00a0So this type of language simply does not allow gaps to occur.\u201d<\/em>\r\n\r\nSo if the gap theory of Genesis 1:1,2<\/u> is invalid, if the day-age theory that each of the creation days represents some kind of vast age is invalid, and if there are no missing generations in this genealogy of Genesis 5 <\/u>and Genesis 11<\/u>, then the only thing that's left to accept is the fact that the earth that we're living in today is not 4.5 billions of years old. \u00a0It's more in the direction of maybe thousands of years. \u00a0Some say 10,000, some say 6,000, and that's the perspective that we adhere to at Sugar Land Bible Church, not the old earth creationist perspective, but the young earth creationist model.\r\n\r\nNow, one of the things people are doing today is they're trying to say, \u2019Well, you know, Genesis 1-11,<\/u> that's just poetry. \u00a0It's just symbolic.\u2019<\/em>\u00a0 And there was an actual study done on this by Stephen Boyd at the Master's University. \u00a0You can look up his work online, and he gets into the specifics of the verb structure of Genesis 1-11<\/u>, and he demonstrates that, yes, there are poetic sections here.\u00a0 For example, I think the first reference to poetry or words composed in poetry is in Genesis 2:23<\/u>, where it says, The man said, \u201cThis is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man<\/em>.\u201d \u00a0That's poetry. \u00a0And then over in Genesis 4:23-24<\/u>, it says, Lamech said to his wives, \u201cAdah and Zillah, Listen to my voice, You wives of Lamech, give heed to my speech, For I have killed a man for wounding me; And a boy for striking me; If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold<\/em>.\u201d In other words, that's poetic.\r\n\r\nSo there are poetic statements in Genesis 1-11<\/u>. \u00a0But the whole kit and caboodle is not poetic. It's narrative history, and Stephen Boyd demonstrates this by simply doing an in-depth study, if you will, of the verb structures and how Genesis 1-11<\/u> doesn't fit poetry. \u00a0It fits narrative history, although it has poetic statements interspersed inside of it.\r\n\r\nSo here's my point: \u00a0If Genesis 1-11<\/u> is historical narrative, if the so-called gap theory between verses one and two of Genesis 1<\/u> is invalid, if the day-age theory is invalid, and if there are no missing generations in the genealogies of Genesis 5<\/u> and Genesis 11<\/u>, then the Bible is not teaching that this world has been here for 4.5 billion years, and that puts us into a collision course with evolutionary thought, which needs vast, deep time for evolution to occur.\r\n\r\nAnd so the reason I'm going into this detail is [because] you have to decide which side of the ledger you're going to stand on here. \u00a0You're either going to stand on the authority of the Word of God <\/strong>or you're going to try to rewrite the Bible<\/strong> as W.H. Green was doing in 1890, to try to somehow make Genesis 1-11<\/u> more accommodating to evolutionary thought. That's why understanding the detail in these genealogies is significant. \u00a0Because the more you understand it and grasp it, the more it leads you away<\/em><\/strong> from the old earth creationist point of view.\r\n\r\nWhen you think about this, there really can't be missing generations in these genealogies. For example, when you go back to Genesis\u00a0 4:25<\/u>, you'll see that Adam named Seth. \u00a0Because Adam and Eve begat Seth, and Adam and Eve named Seth, there can't be a missing genealogy between Adam and Seth because it is parents who name kids. Grandparents or great grandparents typically don't name their grandkids, but parents do the naming. \u00a0And so because Adam and Eve are begetting Seth and naming Seth, you can't have a billion years between Adam and Seth, it just wouldn't make any sense. \u00a0And then you go to Genesis 4:26<\/u>, and you'll see that Seth named Enosh. \u00a0Well, if Seth named Enosh, there can't be a missing generation between Seth and Enosh.\r\n\r\nAnd then you go to Genesis 5:29<\/u>, and you'll see that Lamech named Noah. \u00a0You can't therefore have missing generations between Lamech and Noah since it's parents who name their children.\r\n\r\nAnd then when you go to the book of Jude<\/u>, the Lord's half- brother in Jude 14, it talks about how Enoch was the seventh from Adam. \u00a0\u00a0Now look at the genealogy and just do the work. \u00a0Start at Enoch, and backup seven, and you get to Adam. \u00a0Adam to Seth to Enosh to Kenan to Mahalalel to Jared to Enoch. \u00a0Enoch is the seventh from Adam. \u00a0Therefore, according to Jude himself, who was the Lord's half-brother, who wrote the little epistle of Jude under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, there can't be any missing generations between Adam and Seth, Seth and Enosh, Enosh and Kenan, Kenan and Mahalalel, Jared and Enoch because Enoch is the seventh from Adam.\r\n\r\nAnd so all of this mindset of trying to find these missing generations so we can get the Bible to somehow catch up with what Charles Darwin said was the age of the earth, becomes an impossibility.\r\n\r\nSo I have a choice I've got to make as a Christian. \u00a0What am I more impressed by? \u00a0Am I more impressed by what the Bible<\/strong> says, or am I more impressed by Darwinian evolutionists masquerading as scientists?\u00a0 \u00a0And this is why the work of Henry Morris, who I will quote a little bit later, is so significant because Henry Morris in 1960, roughly, with his book The Genesis Flood<\/u><\/strong>, reversed the evangelical strategy for dealing with this issue. \u00a0Prior to this point in time as I mentioned before, the issue was \u2018backward Christian soldier<\/em>.\u2019 Let's keep rewriting and accommodating the Bible<\/strong> to keep up with what Charles Darwin said was an appropriate age of the earth; Charles Darwin needing that deep time because the holy trinity of evolution is time, randomness, and matter. \u00a0So the only thing the Christian church knew to do was to just rewrite the Bible<\/strong> over and over again, to get it to keep up with Darwinism.\r\n\r\nWell, Henry Morris came along as a scientist, fully credentialed, and he co-authored a book with John Whitcomb, a Hebrew scholar, and the two of them reversed the evangelical strategy on this issue and said, \u2018You know what, we\u2019re not going to do backward Christian soldier anymore. \u00a0What we're going to do is we're going to go out and challenge what evolutionists are saying concerning the age of the earth<\/em>.\u2019 \u00a0So they went out and they challenged Carbon-14 dating. \u00a0They went out and challenged the fact that there this is this alleged missing link or links between apes and man. \u00a0And they went out and reversed the strategy, and challenged what the scientists masquerading as philosophers or philosophers masquerading as scientists were saying. \u00a0And they said, \u2018We're going to stand on the authority and the integrity of the biblical text.\u2019\u00a0 <\/em>And so they reversed the strategy.\r\n\r\nToday, evangelicals have to choose what strategy they're going to adopt here. \u00a0You're either going to keep rewriting the Bible<\/strong> to keep up with so-called humanistic philosophy, or you're going to go out like Morris and Whitcomb did and challenge humanistic philosophy and stand on the biblical text. \u00a0As for me and my house, we're going to adopt the Whitcomb and Morris strategy. \u00a0We're going to leave the genealogy stretching and all of these other things behind with W.H. Green in 1890, because quite frankly, that's where they belong. \u00a0They're part of the past.\r\n\r\nSo that's why I'm going into some detail here about alleged missing generations in these genealogies. \u00a0Now, one of the things people do is to go to the genealogy of Jesus Christ that you find in Matthew 1<\/u>. \u00a0[See slide on Jesus Genaology According to Matt]<\/strong> \u00a0\u00a0Matthew 1<\/u> deals with a genealogy of Jesus, linking Jesus back to David and then ultimately back to Abraham. \u00a0And what they like to say is, \u2018Look, there's missing generations in that genealogy. \u00a0And if there's missing generations in that genealogy, then there must be missing generations in the Genesis 5 <\/u>genealogy and in the Genesis 11<\/u> genealogy.<\/em>\u2019 And you know what? \u00a0They're right in the sense that there are missing generations in the Matthew 1<\/u> genealogy. \u00a0In fact, if you were to read Matthew 1:8,9<\/u> and compare it to the genealogy in 1 Chronicles 3:10-12<\/u>, you would see that Matthew omitted some names.\r\n\r\nSo the thought process is, \u2018Well, if Matthew omitted some names, then obviously Genesis 5<\/u> omits names as well. \u00a0And maybe there's enough missing names here that we can make the age of the earth not thousands, but maybe millions. \u00a0And we can finally get the Bible<\/strong> to catch up with Darwinianism<\/em>.\u2019 \u00a0Well, I would just say this: \u00a0If that's your mindset, that is what I would call an apples and oranges comparison. \u00a0There are things happening in this genealogy of Genesis 5<\/u> that are not happening in the Matthew 1<\/u> genealogy.\u201d\r\n\r\nFirst of all, the Matthew<\/u> genealogy is summing up a vast portion of human history. \u00a0Think of all of the time that would have taken place before the New Testament<\/strong> came into existence. \u00a0That's what Matthew is trying to sum up. \u00a0That's not what's happening in Genesis 5<\/u>.\u00a0 In Genesis 5,<\/u> it\u2019s a summation of a very short time that has elapsed thus far in human history. \u00a0Genesis 5<\/u> tells you the age of the patriarch at the time the son was born. \u00a0That never happens in Matthew 1.<\/u> \u00a0\u00a0So obviously you can't compare the genealogy of Matthew 1<\/u> and Genesis 5<\/u> because they're trying to accomplish two different things.\r\n\r\nMatthew 1:17<\/u> is very interesting. \u00a0This is what it says, \u201cSo all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.\u201d<\/em>\r\n\r\nMatthew wants you to focus on 3 groups of fourteen. \u00a0That's not at all what's happening here in Genesis 5<\/u>. \u00a0Why is Matthew trying to get us to focus on three groups of fourteen?\u00a0 Well, as you probably know by now that Matthew<\/u> was the very first gospel that was written, and it was written to Hebrew Christians. \u00a0And one of the purposes of Matthew's gospel, written to Hebrew Christians, was to explain to them that the Messiah that they had believed in is in fact the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ, sometimes called Yeshua. \u00a0And one of the things which is common in ancient languages is something called Gematria. \u00a0[See slide on Table of Alphabetic Notation of Numericals] <\/strong>\u00a0It's a practice that's foreign to us in the West. \u00a0But if you went back into biblical times, Gematria was very well practiced, and it's the idea that each letter in an ancient alphabet\u2014whether you're dealing with Hebrew in the Old Testament<\/strong> or Greek in the New Testament<\/strong>, had a number associated with it. \u00a0In other words, you could take any person's name, spell it out into either Hebrew or into Greek, attach the right number to the right letter, add up the digits and everybody's name could be converted to a specific number. And you could do this in Greek and in Hebrew. \u00a0I think that's part of the meaning of the Antichrist having a name: 666. \u00a0In the events of the tribulation period, everybody<\/em><\/strong> will know who the Antichrist is because they will be able to take his name and spell it out in Greek, and attach the right number to the right letter, and he will be the only man in history whose name spells out to [the number] 666. \u00a0Everybody living on the earth at that time will know exactly who the Antichrist is. \u00a0Therefore, taking the mark of the beast as given in Revelation 13:16-18<\/u> will be a sin that damns someone eternally. \u00a0But this is all based on this practice of Gematria.\r\n\r\n[Something else] that's very interesting is if you take David's name and look at it in Hebrew, attach the right number to the right letter and add up the digits, David's name in Gematria using Hebrew Gematria is 14. \u00a0Oh, well, that's why Matthew<\/u> is focused on 3 groups of 14. \u00a0The reason Matthew<\/u> is focused on 3 groups of 14 is [because] he is using another tool at his fingertips to identify to his Hebrew Christian audience that in fact, Jesus is the son of David, the heir to David's throne. \u00a0That's why Matthew selectively picks 3 groups of 14. \u00a0He's deliberately skipping generations because he is using Gematria very skillfully to show that there are 3 groups of 14 here.\u00a0 One group from Abraham to David.\u00a0 He skips a lot of generations and just picks 14; another group from David to the deportation. \u00a0He selectively skips many generations, but picks a second group of 14. \u00a0And then the last group from the deportation to the coming of Jesus Christ, he does a lot of selective skipping and just picks a third group of 14.\u00a0 Why is this number 14 so important to Matthew? \u00a0Because of Hebrew Gematria. \u00a0The name David adds up to 14, and Matthew is just showing that Jesus, in fact, is the heir to David's throne.\r\n\r\nSo that is a reality that's happening in the Matthew 1<\/u> genealogy, but that's not happening at all in Genesis 5<\/u>. \u00a0There's no Gematria here. \u00a0There's no deliberate skipping of generations to find this number 14. \u00a0And so when people say, \u2018Well, gee whiz, Pastor, there's gaps in the genealogy of Matthew 1<\/u>, so there must be gaps in the genealogies of Genesis 5<\/u> and Genesis 11<\/u>,\u2019<\/em> they're mixing apples and oranges. \u00a0I mean, those two genealogies are written to accomplish two completely and totally different things. \u00a0And I bring this to your attention because these are the things that people use and employ because they're trying to always find gaps in the genealogies of Genesis 5<\/u>, because they're still walking by the backward Christian soldier<\/em> mindset as adopted by W.H. Green.\r\n\r\nSo what are we talking about here? \u00a0\u00a0I realize that this is a lot of information to be dialing into on a Sunday morning.\u00a0 I'm simply trying to show you that there's a pattern here. \u00a0To each patriarch in the genealogy, six things are going to be repeated about ten times. \u00a0The first reason this is so significant, finding the names of these people and what their Hebrew name means is to show:\r\n\r\nNumber one, these are actual historical characters<\/strong>.\r\n\r\nNumber two, there's information here about the age of the patriarch at the time of the birth of the seed-son.<\/strong> \u00a0That information is given, I believe, largely by the Holy Spirit, to reject old earth creationism, and to show you that there are no genealogical gaps here. \u00a0There may be genealogical gaps in Matthew 1<\/u>, for reasons I've explained, but that's not what's happening here in Genesis 5<\/u>.\r\n\r\nThe third thing that takes place here is it reveals that each of these patriarchs after the seed-son is born, had other sons and daughters<\/strong>. \u00a0Adam and Eve, for example, had other sons and daughters. \u00a0Now, that becomes very significant because it helps you understand the population explosion happening on the earth at this time. \u00a0That becomes very critical because Genesis 4:14<\/u> says, and Cain is speaking, \u201c...whoever finds me will kill me.<\/em>\u201d\u00a0 Genesis 4:17<\/u> says concerning Cain, \u201cCain had relations with his wife and she conceived, and gave birth to Enoch;\u2026<\/em>\u201d\r\n\r\nAnd people say, \u2018Well, oh my goodness, where did all of these other people come from? \u00a0How did Cain get his wife?<\/em>\u2019 \u00a0Genesis 4<\/u>. \u00a0How did Cain work himself up into such a frenzy or such a fear that he thought other people were going to come and kill him?\u00a0 So until you get from Genesis 4<\/u> into Genesis 5<\/u> and start to understand that these patriarchs had other sons and daughters, can you make any sense of those statements in Genesis 4<\/u>. \u00a0But those statements start to make a lot of sense when you understand that there was a population explosion happening on the earth at this time prior to the flood.\r\n\r\nAdam and Eve, living into their nine hundreds, continue to have sons and daughters, as did all of these other patriarchs. \u00a0And therefore, Genesis 4<\/u>, where did Cain get his wife\u201d? Genesis 4<\/u>, what about this vigilante army that Cain was afraid of?\u00a0 Suddenly, Genesis 4<\/u> statements start to make a lot of sense. \u00a0That's why Moses keeps saying, \u2018After the birth of the seed-son, other sons and daughters were born unto Adam and Eve\u2019<\/em> and all of these other antediluvian patriarchs.\r\n\r\nHenry Morris says it very well in his book The Genesis Record<\/u><\/strong>. \u00a0He says, \u201cIt is further assumed that, on the average, these children grew to maturity, married, and began to have children of their own by the time their parents were eighty years old, and that the parents lived through an average of five such \u2018generations\u2019 or four hundred years, then it can easily be calculated that the earth had acquired within its first eight hundred years, (presumably approximately the lifetime of Cain, as a minimum), a population of at least one hundred and twenty thousand<\/strong>.\u201d <\/em>[That's the vigilante army that Cain is afraid of. \u00a0He says, \u2018They're going to kill me. \u00a0They're going to take it out on me because I murdered Abel.\u2019<\/em>\r\n\r\nWhere did all of these people come from?\u00a0 It's explained in Genesis 5<\/u>. \u00a0Henry Morris says,] \u201cIt is probable that the figure was much more than this, since people lived to greater ages than assumed and probably had many more children than assumed.\u201d<\/em>\r\n\r\nGenesis 6:1<\/u>, when we get there eventually, will give you indications of a population explosion that was happening just prior to the flood. \u00a0Genesis 6:1<\/u> will and does tell us, \u201cNow it came about when men began to multiply on the face of the land,...\u201d <\/em>\u00a0Why does it say that?\u00a0 It says that because in each of these genealogies, the patriarchs, after the birth of the firstborn, had other sons and daughters.\r\n\r\nHenry Morris says, \u201cThe ancient quibble about \u2018Cain's wife\u2019 is thus seen to be quite trivial. \u00a0Long before Cain died, there was a large population in the earth. \u00a0By the time of the Deluge, 1656 years after Creation by the Ussher chronology,..<\/em>.\u201d [By the way, Ussher is someone that is completely demonized. If you do any work on Ussher, you'll see that he is completely demonized because he is the one that was teaching basically what I'm teaching here. \u00a0There are no missing gaps of generations in these genealogies, leading to the conclusion that the earth is not billions of years old, it's thousands of years old. \u00a0And the reason Ussher's chronology is demonized is Ussher just took away from the evolutionist one of the things that the evolutionist needs for his system to work, which is time. \u00a0The evolutionist has to have time. \u00a0They have to have randomness and they have to have matter. \u00a0Ussher, in his chronology, took that away. Consequently, Ussher is hated by the evolutionary world. \u00a0But anyway, the quote goes on by Morris, and it says]..., \u201cBy the time of the Deluge, 1656 years after creation, by Ussher's chronology, even using the above conservative assumptions, the world population would have have been at least at least 7 billion people!\u201d<\/em>\r\n\r\nSo when Genesis 6:1<\/u> says, \u201cNow it came about when man began to multiply on the face of the land<\/em>,...\u201d You can envision a population of about 7 billion people. So once you start to understand that, then all of a sudden the problems with where did Cain get his wife? \u00a0And why is Cain worried about a vigilante army? \u00a0I mean, those problems disappeared.\r\n\r\nIt's kind of interesting what our Lord said. \u00a0Didn't our Lord say, \u201cAs it was in the days of Noah, So shall it be again<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0 There are an awful lot of similarities between our culture and our society and the days of Noah, not the least of which is the population count. \u00a0It's interesting to me that the population count of the world is basically where it was, if Henry Morris is accurate here, at about seven billion people. \u00a0And if that's true, you start to wonder, how much longer is the Lord going to tarry? \u00a0Certainly the end time events seem to be coming upon us very, very quickly and very, very rapidly.\r\n\r\nSo, gosh, we certainly didn't get very far, did we, today, in our study of the book of Genesis 5<\/u>? \u00a0\u00a0I thought we'd get a lot further. \u00a0But my only point is to explain the pattern that's given in 5:3-5<\/u>, the six elements that are mentioned, and why understanding those six elements is actually a big deal.\r\n\r\nNumber 1<\/strong>, it shows us that these are actual historical people<\/strong>.\r\n\r\nNumber 2<\/strong>, the pattern demonstrates, by giving us details that you find in no other biblical genealogy concerning the age of the patriarch at the time the seed-son is born,<\/strong> that there cannot be genealogical gaps here.\r\n\r\nAnd then number 3<\/strong>, through the repetition of \u2018they begat other sons and daughters<\/em>\u2019<\/strong> helps us explain, actually, it helps cause to disappear the ancient quibbles about where did Cain get his wife and where did this vigilante army come from?\r\n\r\nNow, the next time I am with you, on our next Lord's Day, we're going to be finishing up this list of six, and I'll give you some other reasons why this pattern is so significant. \u00a0Why were people living into their eight hundreds and nine hundreds prior to the flood?\u00a0 And why does he keep saying, \u2018And he died and he died and he died?\u2019<\/em> \u00a0What's the significance of that? \u00a0And beyond that, why is this so monotonous, which was the title of my sermon indicating I thought we were going to get much further than we got. \u00a0We'll have to do \u2018Why is this so monotonous? Part2\u2019<\/em> next week.\r\n\r\nThere's a reason for the monotony. \u00a0The monotony is there, as we will explain, to show a pattern. \u00a0And then when you get to the names Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech, you'll see something outside of the pattern. \u00a0You can't see something outside<\/em> of the pattern until you first are exposed to the monotonous pattern. \u00a0You see the monotonous pattern recycled, recycled, recycled, and then something happens outside<\/em> of the monotonous pattern, and immediately your attention is drawn to it. \u00a0So something very abnormal to the pattern is going to happen with Enoch, with Methuselah, and with Lamech, the father of Noah, and the Holy Spirit has inserted those nuggets for us to further us in the faith; to further edify us. \u00a0And so we'll be taking a look at that next time.\r\n\r\nIf you're watching today, and you don't know Christ personally, our exhortation to you is really what our church is all about: the proclamation of the Gospel. \u00a0The Gospel is revealed as early as Genesis 3:15<\/u>. \u00a0It was always God's intention to bring forth someone into the world to fix our problem. \u00a0Our problem is described in Genesis 3<\/u>, and what we're reading about is God's gradual solution to the problem:\u00a0 a genealogy leading to Jesus Christ who would fulfill Genesis 3:15<\/u>, Jesus crushed Satan's head. \u00a0He crushed the head of the serpent by stepping out of eternity into time. \u00a0And bearing in His body a sin debt that we could never bear or never pay back. \u00a0Christ's final words on the cross were, which is a translation of the Greek term tetelestai<\/em>, which means \u201cpaid in full<\/em>\u201d\u2014Christ's final words on the cross, John 19:30<\/u> is \u201cIt is finished<\/em>.\u201d\r\n\r\nThe seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent conflict that we see spelled out in Genesis 3:15<\/u> has now been brought to an end as Satan's head has been crushed. \u00a0He is a convicted criminal. \u00a0The only thing remaining for him is his sentencing, which is yet future. \u00a0But as I speak today, he is a convicted criminal, and his power over the human race has been broken.\r\n\r\nGod has made things so simple for us because He's asked us to simply trust, which is another way of saying believe, simply trust or believe what Jesus did for you 2,000 years ago. \u00a0Jesus authenticated this transaction through His bodily resurrection from the grave, and the only thing God asks us to do is to fulfill a single condition. \u00a0You'll see that condition in many passages:\u00a0 John 3:16, Acts 16:31, Ephesians 2:8,9<\/u>. \u00a0You'll find it everywhere in the Bible\u2014Romans 4:4,5<\/u>. \u00a0The single condition is simply to believe, which is another way of saying trust, or rely upon or depend upon what Jesus accomplished for you and me on the cross 2,000 years ago.\r\n\r\nAnd the moment you're trusting in what Christ has done rather than what you do for yourself is the moment that you can receive a pardon which has your name on it, which ushers you into a right relationship with the Lord.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit per John 16:7-11<\/u>, has come into the world to convict the world of their need to respond to this message. \u00a0And no doubt that convicting ministry of the Spirit is at work now in the lives and the hearts of many people listening, even as I am speaking. \u00a0And so our exhortation to you is to respond to that convicting work of the Holy Spirit by placing your trust for your eternity and your future in Christ alone.\r\n\r\nAnd if it's something that you need more information on, I would encourage you to notify us here at the church, send us an email that we can help you with this. \u00a0But it's really a matter between you and the Lord, or the Lord convicts you, and you respond to it by trusting in the provision of Jesus Christ. \u00a0That provision which starts getting outlined as we've been trying to explain today, very early on in the book of Genesis.\r\n\r\nSo with that in mind, I want to thank you for watching, and I pray that you'll share this message with your friends. You can do some very simple things by letting others know about our ministry here so that they, too, can sit under the teaching of God's Word, and if they're a Christian, they can be edified or fortified in that. \u00a0Or if they're an unbeliever, they can receive Christ as their personal Savior and be saved.\r\n\r\nLet me close this in a word of prayer. \u00a0Father, we're grateful for today, grateful for the work of the Holy Spirit, grateful for your truth in your Word, grateful for the details. \u00a0But it all points to one thing Jesus, and help us to be faithful to that message in these final days of the age of the Church. \u00a0We'll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. \u00a0We ask these things in Jesus\u2019 name, and God's people said, Amen!<\/em>\r\n\r\nThank you for watching. \u00a0God bless you.\r\n\r\n ","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t