WEBVTT 00:00:01.524 --> 00:00:03.850 Thank you for us continuing our Thanksgiving on Tuesday. 00:00:03.850 --> 00:00:09.005 Well, welcome to Route 66,. 00:00:09.005 --> 00:00:15.006 And we're not in Chicago, yeah, and we're not in LA either. 00:00:15.006 --> 00:00:31.672 Well, we're in the book of Genesis and beginning tonight and going through all the Sunday evenings that we have we don't meet during holiday weekends on Sunday night and other things come up, you know, like VBS preparation and things like that. 00:00:31.672 --> 00:00:41.070 So 66 weeks of studies, of course, are going to stretch out to probably a year and a half, but we're right at the launching point in the book of Genesis. 00:00:44.143 --> 00:00:49.744 The most basic question in life may well be why is there something rather than nothing? 00:00:49.744 --> 00:00:52.652 Why is there anything at all? 00:00:52.652 --> 00:01:12.561 Well, you could ask people that question and you would talk to people who are naturalists and they would sort of laugh at you for thinking that kind of question was a relevant question, because they might say something like well, everything that existed always has, and so they would just sidestep the question. 00:01:12.561 --> 00:01:17.753 They wouldn't even consider the question why is there something rather than nothing? 00:01:17.753 --> 00:01:19.361 Well, something's always been. 00:01:19.361 --> 00:01:37.790 The difficulty is is, as astronomers are studying the universe, they're realizing that it's expanding, and ever expanding, from what was once a compact coil and that, if they think about it, brings them back to the very same question why is there that something rather than nothing? 00:01:37.790 --> 00:01:41.209 And of course they have their own theories as to why that might be. 00:01:41.209 --> 00:01:47.772 But can there be something from nothing? 00:01:47.772 --> 00:01:51.286 Some people say no. 00:01:51.286 --> 00:02:00.945 Maria von Trapp in the movie Sound of Music was in the gazebo with the captain singing and she says nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever can. 00:02:04.581 --> 00:02:09.652 But Christian theism believes that there is a God who is personal and transcendent. 00:02:09.652 --> 00:02:12.846 He's the creator of the universe and he's the creator of us. 00:02:12.846 --> 00:02:18.522 And it answers the question why is there something rather than nothing? 00:02:18.522 --> 00:02:23.409 In fact, the Bible's opening sentence answers that very question. 00:02:23.409 --> 00:02:27.481 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 00:02:30.086 --> 00:02:38.604 But that question is not the only question humans ask, that we ask what about the beginning of us, the human race? 00:02:38.604 --> 00:02:41.090 Who are we? 00:02:41.090 --> 00:02:42.973 Were we made for a purpose? 00:02:42.973 --> 00:02:48.170 Does our existence have any meaning outside the short limits of our birth and our death? 00:02:48.170 --> 00:02:55.131 Some of those questions really get into our hearts and minds. 00:02:56.602 --> 00:02:57.546 But there are other questions. 00:02:57.546 --> 00:02:59.847 What is our relationship to creation? 00:02:59.847 --> 00:03:03.387 Is it here for our use? 00:03:03.387 --> 00:03:06.467 Are we simply one of everything else? 00:03:06.467 --> 00:03:10.448 Equally, none of us more privileged than the other. 00:03:10.448 --> 00:03:13.926 Was the world created for us? 00:03:13.926 --> 00:03:18.292 Are we just an accident of chemical and biological processes. 00:03:18.292 --> 00:03:25.387 Even more questions Is there something beyond the physical? 00:03:25.387 --> 00:03:33.174 Is what we see all there is, or is there something else beyond our senses? 00:03:33.174 --> 00:03:35.600 What about God? 00:03:35.600 --> 00:03:36.442 Is there one? 00:03:36.442 --> 00:03:40.145 If he is, what is he like? 00:03:40.145 --> 00:03:41.067 How do we relate to him? 00:03:41.067 --> 00:03:41.167 Like? 00:03:41.167 --> 00:03:42.207 How do we relate to him? 00:03:42.207 --> 00:04:05.293 These are questions that people ask and the book of Genesis, not addressing every one of those questions, fully answers every one of those questions directly, because the Bible is the word of God. 00:04:05.334 --> 00:04:06.680 Genesis is the foundation of that book. 00:04:06.680 --> 00:04:10.626 In Genesis we learn of God's creation, we learn of human rebellion, we learn of God's pursuit to redeem us. 00:04:10.626 --> 00:04:16.545 We run into people who are familiar to us now Adam and Eve, noah, abraham, joseph and so many other people. 00:04:16.545 --> 00:04:25.531 Genesis begins with creation and it ends with Israel and his sons and their wives and children in Egypt. 00:04:25.531 --> 00:04:29.548 Tonight I want to introduce you to the book of Genesis. 00:04:29.548 --> 00:04:44.175 Some of this you will know, some of it you may not know, but in any case we'll all come to a realization of its significance within the context and the corpus of the Bible and where it means to bring us. 00:04:44.175 --> 00:04:48.987 So I'm going to answer some basic questions who, when, what, where, why, how, those kind of questions. 00:04:48.987 --> 00:04:59.447 I'm going to buzz through most of them very, very quickly in order to sort of land on some that I think we'll slow down for a minute and really find out what the significance of Genesis is. 00:05:00.228 --> 00:05:00.889 First of all, who? 00:05:00.889 --> 00:05:03.882 Genesis is the first book of the Bible. 00:05:03.882 --> 00:05:08.432 It's the first volume in a five-volume work called the Pentateuch. 00:05:08.432 --> 00:05:15.492 It provides an introduction to us by way mostly of a life of Moses. 00:05:15.492 --> 00:05:26.372 Exodus, chapter 2, he's born, at the end of Deuteronomy, he dies, and so four of those five books really are wrapped around the life of Moses himself. 00:05:26.372 --> 00:05:41.771 Moses is regarded by the biblical record as the author of Exodus, numbers, leviticus, numbers and Deuteronomy and, by implication, also Genesis. 00:05:43.161 --> 00:05:44.607 Where did he write it? 00:05:44.607 --> 00:05:50.062 Also Genesis, where did he write it? 00:05:50.062 --> 00:05:56.220 Well, he must have written it somewhere between Mount Sinai and the banks of the Jordan River, where he died before the people crossed over into the promised land. 00:05:56.220 --> 00:06:03.889 So all that he wrote in the book of Genesis would have been from the perspective of that journey from one point to the other. 00:06:03.889 --> 00:06:06.331 When did he write it? 00:06:06.331 --> 00:06:23.783 Well, obviously he must have had some sources, but he compiled those sources and wrote while the people were in the wilderness, wandering somewhere around the time of 1446 to 1406 BC, the 15th century BC. 00:06:25.446 --> 00:06:28.793 Why did he write the book of Genesis to the people in their wanderings? 00:06:28.793 --> 00:07:08.870 What he was doing was bringing the cosmic and universal implications of this exodus that the people were on and showed how what was happening to them is rooted in human history not just a deliverance of one man, moses, from one evil man, pharaoh and helping them realize that God had a purpose plan for them by pulling them out of Egypt and shows them that God's global purposes of redemption were to be, they were a part of and they were discovering and seeing for themselves. 00:07:08.870 --> 00:07:16.629 That kind of moves into the why of Genesis a little bit, but we'll get more deeply into that in just a moment. 00:07:16.629 --> 00:07:22.351 As we get into the why, we understand that the book of Genesis comes from the Hebrew. 00:07:22.351 --> 00:07:35.091 The Hebrew book we call Genesis is called In the Beginning and it takes those very first words from Genesis Bereshit. 00:07:35.091 --> 00:07:37.040 In the Beginning. 00:07:37.040 --> 00:07:48.930 The English title, genesis, comes from a Greek word which means origins, which means origins, and we'll talk about exactly where that comes from in just a moment. 00:07:48.930 --> 00:08:11.271 And so we recognize that this book, Genesis, provides for us an understanding of origins the origin of the universe, the origin of the earth, the origin of animate life in general, the origin of humanity, the origin of history, the origin of the fall, the origin of promises of redemption a lot of beginnings in the book of Genesis. 00:08:11.271 --> 00:08:20.689 It's a very foundational book, foundational to the Torah, foundational to the Old Testament, foundational to all of the Scripture. 00:08:20.689 --> 00:08:31.285 It serves as an introduction to us and is indispensable in our understanding to know what the rest of the Bible is about. 00:08:31.285 --> 00:08:48.321 The book narrates the origins of the people of Israel, the people through whom God was going to bless the world and focusing on his promises through them to restore his creation back to the way it was at the beginning. 00:08:48.321 --> 00:09:02.922 And so we learn more in the book of Genesis, not just about Adam, but moving very quickly to Abraham and slowing down dramatically to learn about his children, his grandchildren and their children. 00:09:05.267 --> 00:09:06.590 How is this book structured? 00:09:06.590 --> 00:09:11.794 Well, if I was to ask you that question, I think many of you would come up very quickly with an answer. 00:09:11.794 --> 00:09:17.389 We have the first 11 chapters of Genesis and we have chapters 12 to 50. 00:09:17.389 --> 00:09:20.403 How many of you would have thought that would have been a good way to divide it up? 00:09:20.403 --> 00:09:25.573 How many of you are afraid to do that Because I'm asking you the question, right. 00:09:25.573 --> 00:09:49.255 Well, I think that's not a bad way to do it, and I think it's a very good way to do it, because we have the origin story in Genesis 1, and we move up through to chapter 11, and we have just moving, you know, into the table of nations and some of the genealogies there, and then boom, there's Abram and everything seems to focus on him and slows quite a ways down. 00:09:49.255 --> 00:09:51.388 So it'd be easy to see a division there. 00:09:52.380 --> 00:10:24.726 But there's something going on to the book in Genesis which might not be quite so apparent to everyone, because interspersed within Genesis are 10 repetitions of a word, toledotot in Hebrew, and that word can be translated the account of lines of descent, the descendants, the genealogical record, the family line, something along that line, and you will see it. 00:10:24.726 --> 00:10:29.525 For instance, let's go to Genesis, chapter 2 and verse 4. 00:10:29.525 --> 00:10:56.905 Right after we have the first chapter and a bit in the book of Genesis, we come to verse 4 and it says this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, and there we see the Toledot, or the account of, or the lines of descent of, or the descendants, or the geological record of creation. 00:10:56.905 --> 00:11:13.605 And then you go to chapter 5 and verse 1, in verse 1, and you will see this is the written count of Adam's line and it uses the exact same word. 00:11:13.605 --> 00:11:15.671 And I'm not going to take you to all 10, but chapter 6. 00:11:15.671 --> 00:11:29.450 In verse 9, you'll see that about Noah, chapter 10, in verse 1, you'll see it about Noah's sons, and then it splinters into one of Noah's sons in chapter 11 and verse 10, the genealogy of Shem. 00:11:29.450 --> 00:11:45.028 And then, right before chapter 12, in Genesis 11 and verse 27, you read this is the account of Terah, who is the father of Abram. 00:11:45.028 --> 00:11:54.418 You get to chapter 25 and verse 12, the genealogy of Ishmael, chapter 25 and verse 19,. 00:11:54.418 --> 00:12:06.835 The genealogy of Isaac, chapter 36 and verse 1, the genealogy of Esau, and then chapter 37 and verse 2, all the way to the end of the book, the genealogy of Jacob. 00:12:10.386 --> 00:12:17.740 These 10 divisions, these 10 statements of the word Toledot are what give us the structure of the book of Genesis Toledot, t-o-l-e-d-o-t-h. 00:12:17.740 --> 00:12:27.187 And they don't say quite so isish as we do, so right. 00:12:27.187 --> 00:12:47.235 However, this is where we get the book, or the name of the book, genesis, from, because the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, every time Toledot is stated in these 10 places, they use the word genesis, genesis, genesis. 00:12:47.235 --> 00:12:54.850 So instead of saying Toledo, transliterating it into Greek, they use the word genesis. 00:12:54.850 --> 00:13:03.397 And this is why we call our first book of the Bible Genesis, because it comes from these 10 statements. 00:13:03.397 --> 00:13:10.692 Because it comes from these 10 statements and the term Genesis in Greek carries a larger meaning than what Toledot does. 00:13:10.692 --> 00:13:17.812 It means birth or beginnings, birth or beginnings. 00:13:20.187 --> 00:13:22.559 Now, why this structure? 00:13:22.580 --> 00:13:24.042 Why these 10 statements? 00:13:24.042 --> 00:13:25.243 Well, there's several reasons. 00:13:25.243 --> 00:13:29.086 First of all, it stresses the importance of origins. 00:13:29.086 --> 00:13:32.110 Genesis meaning birth or beginning. 00:13:32.110 --> 00:13:36.274 Obviously, this is the birth or the beginning of each of these lines. 00:13:36.274 --> 00:13:49.284 So we can see that and it works well with the beginning of creation, the beginning of humanity, the beginning of family, the beginning of work, the beginning of humanity, the beginning of family, the beginning of work, the beginning of sin, the beginning of the promises of God. 00:13:49.284 --> 00:13:54.480 But there's a deeper reason, I think. 00:13:54.480 --> 00:14:06.775 By using this sort of family tree structure, all of humanity is able to find its roots and its origin in one couple Adam and Eve. 00:14:06.775 --> 00:14:23.109 Because everybody, as branched out as we are, returns back here, every variety of humanity, every way we divide ourselves, we can bring ourselves back to one couple. 00:14:24.080 --> 00:14:30.548 And when you get to Genesis, chapter 5 and verse 1, we read something about this first couple. 00:14:30.548 --> 00:14:37.909 It says to us this this is the written account of Adam's line. 00:14:37.909 --> 00:14:40.706 That's all of us, mind you. 00:14:40.706 --> 00:14:46.293 When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 00:14:46.293 --> 00:14:49.620 He created them male and female and blessed them. 00:14:53.866 --> 00:15:01.142 During the times of the writing that Moses wrote, only royalty would claim any divine origin. 00:15:01.142 --> 00:15:13.352 They would trace their line back to the gods in order to give them some sense of dignity and sovereignty and right of dominion. 00:15:13.352 --> 00:15:17.663 What does the Bible say? 00:15:17.663 --> 00:15:26.716 Every single human has an origin from royalty. 00:15:26.716 --> 00:15:43.613 Every one of us, not just the kings, not just the rulers, not just the powerful people who sway nations, everybody, everybody, everybody, everybody. 00:15:43.633 --> 00:15:50.235 This structure of genealogy also shows us the significance of descent, which is important in Scripture. 00:15:50.235 --> 00:15:55.878 This is why, in two of the Gospels we have a genealogy about Jesus. 00:15:55.878 --> 00:16:02.546 That line of descent is very important. 00:16:02.546 --> 00:16:07.894 Something else here Moses is able to trace not only the historical roots of all humanity. 00:16:07.894 --> 00:16:18.748 He's able to sort of use this branch structure to focus his attention rather rapidly on one part of it. 00:16:18.748 --> 00:16:28.613 We see Adam and all the people, and then we see him pulling a thread out of that and tracing it there, and then it spreads, and then he grabs another one and says this is the one we're going to focus on. 00:16:28.613 --> 00:16:44.708 So it brings all of us very quickly to a place where we can concentrate on one line out of all the lines of humanity and realize our connection to that one line, and that's where the narrative slows down. 00:16:44.708 --> 00:16:49.019 Line. 00:16:49.019 --> 00:16:50.302 And that's where the narrative slows down. 00:16:50.302 --> 00:16:55.152 The first five of these genealogies moves us rather rapidly and the last five slow us down dramatically. 00:16:55.152 --> 00:17:07.512 The last five take up some 80% of the book of Genesis and this is why we have that 1 to 11, 12 to 50 division. 00:17:07.512 --> 00:17:09.134 That's very common to us. 00:17:09.134 --> 00:17:16.071 Now let's focus on what I think is more significant than these things. 00:17:16.071 --> 00:17:17.481 This just gets us to a point. 00:17:18.304 --> 00:17:20.166 What do we discover in the book of Genesis? 00:17:20.166 --> 00:17:29.403 Well, the first thing that we discover is the reason for reality, that big question why is there something rather than nothing? 00:17:29.403 --> 00:17:31.887 The reason for reality? 00:17:31.887 --> 00:17:37.772 The answer in that very first, the very first words in the beginning, god created the heavens and the earth. 00:17:37.772 --> 00:17:43.488 These are the first words, not just of Genesis, but of the Old Testament, of the whole Bible. 00:17:43.488 --> 00:17:46.032 Everything is based on this. 00:17:46.032 --> 00:18:01.165 These seven Hebrew words speak about the seven days of creation and the seven pronouncements of good that God makes in those days. 00:18:04.932 --> 00:18:23.423 Genesis, in a masterpiece of literature, opens us up to all of God's purpose plan for humanity, and you can feel the threads of it echoed in John's prologue in the beginning. 00:18:23.423 --> 00:18:28.589 It opens up for us a picture of God's magnificent accomplishment. 00:18:28.589 --> 00:18:48.261 There, in the first chapter we discover in very intimate ways of a personal God and his creation, and it gives us an understanding, a theological understanding of reality that the world is a product of God's deliberate purpose. 00:18:48.261 --> 00:19:03.534 By God's deliberate plan and his intimate activity, creation and reality materialize at the voice of God, at his command. 00:19:03.534 --> 00:19:20.803 He speaks, and immediately it is so, and he speaks, and immediately it is so, and we see it all work together in beautiful symmetry as these six days sort of paralleled, three against three, capstoned by the seventh day of rest. 00:19:20.803 --> 00:19:24.125 You might ask yourself why am I making a point of this? 00:19:24.125 --> 00:19:34.201 Because this discussion about the existence of reality, the way the scriptures describe it, is quite a contrast to the literature of Moses' day. 00:19:35.546 --> 00:20:03.558 If you were to go over to Babylon or to other places in the Near East and read their literature of the origins of all that we know, you would discover that there were gods who were often rather angry with one another and fighting, that the sun and the moon and the stars were important deities and that there were sea monsters in all of the oceans that were demonically energized. 00:20:03.558 --> 00:20:38.903 And if you were to go to the British Library, as I have, and see the Enuma Elish, which is the epic of creation by the Babylonians, and you would find there that Marduk conquers Tiamat and he takes Tiamat and crushes her skull, splits her in two and takes part of her body to make the heavens and part of her body to make the earth. 00:20:38.903 --> 00:20:52.856 Her tears drop and make the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, and her tail thrown into the expanse is what has made the Milky Way. 00:20:52.856 --> 00:21:12.023 If you were to read further in the Epic of Creation, you would find that Marduk took her consort and that killed him and then took some of his blood and mixed it with the ground and formed humanity. 00:21:15.391 --> 00:21:18.641 What does the Bible have to say about that kind of creation view? 00:21:18.641 --> 00:21:40.413 Instead of a big warfare, instead of deities at enmity with each other, fighting chaos and rage, with all sorts of other sordid things that I won't even get into tonight, we see that God speaks and things are. 00:21:40.413 --> 00:21:43.900 He doesn't have to fight to bring about creation. 00:21:43.900 --> 00:21:45.864 He simply commands it to be so. 00:21:45.864 --> 00:21:47.713 He simply commands it to be so. 00:21:47.713 --> 00:21:59.698 Instead of those raging, demonically controlled beasts in the oceans, the whales are playing away, as God made them to be the sun and the moon. 00:21:59.698 --> 00:22:08.451 They're not deities, they're simply instruments to guide the seasons and to bring light the stars. 00:22:08.451 --> 00:22:12.891 They hardly get a mention at all in the book of Genesis. 00:22:12.891 --> 00:22:17.439 The world isn't divine itself. 00:22:17.439 --> 00:22:20.605 It's just a reflection of God's divine glory. 00:22:20.605 --> 00:22:25.295 The world is not a dangerous place of chaos. 00:22:25.295 --> 00:22:29.142 It's not a place full of vengeful wrath and conflict. 00:22:29.142 --> 00:22:32.872 It was made safe, it was made secure. 00:22:32.872 --> 00:22:40.325 It was made as a place to thrive, to flourish, to rest, to relate. 00:22:40.325 --> 00:22:44.094 You see how important that is. 00:22:44.855 --> 00:22:50.785 We read this and we're asking questions that the Bible's not answering at the moment. 00:22:50.785 --> 00:23:04.396 It's giving us a different apologetic God's good purposes of creation, not done in chaos, but done with controlled consent and determination. 00:23:04.396 --> 00:23:08.843 What else do we learn in the book of Genesis? 00:23:08.843 --> 00:23:45.578 We learn of relationships, relationships, ultimately our most important relationship, that of the regal one, the creator, with us, his viceroys, his representatives, taking his sovereign rule and exercising it on his behalf on earth, where he created us, when we get to day six of creation, we see the climax of God's days of forming all things Day one, day two, day three, day four, day five. 00:23:45.578 --> 00:23:48.799 Everything is made by God's command. 00:23:50.151 --> 00:23:53.882 But there's something different about this last creation of humanity. 00:23:53.882 --> 00:24:03.682 God speaks, not a word of command but a word of relationship. 00:24:03.682 --> 00:24:39.102 Let us make man in our image, let us make man in our image, and in this moment we see that humanity emerges from the divine relationship of the Father, the Son and the Spirit that we were made for relationships, by a relationship, by a relating God, and he makes us male and female so that we might be, side by side, fruitful and multiplying, filling the earth and having dominion in it. 00:24:39.102 --> 00:24:46.982 As I said a moment ago, in the world of the Bible only kings claim to be made in the image of God. 00:24:46.982 --> 00:24:51.073 Of the Bible, only kings claim to be made in the image of God. 00:24:51.073 --> 00:25:06.617 But Genesis here states that every one of us are, every one of us are put here as God's representatives, bearing his royal status, exercising his dominion, but to do so in relationship with him and in glad relationship with one another. 00:25:06.617 --> 00:25:24.892 You see, that divine-human relationship turns into a human-creation relationship, and we are to exercise that relationship. 00:25:24.912 --> 00:25:32.183 When we acknowledge the first relationship, the relationship between God and humanity is focused in on. 00:25:32.183 --> 00:25:40.711 In chapter one, we have the bigger picture. 00:25:40.711 --> 00:25:54.114 In chapter two we zero in just on this couple and we see God acting like a potter to take up dirt and forming a man, but then we see him acting like an artisan and taking part of Adam and shaping a wife for him, eve. 00:25:54.114 --> 00:26:01.265 Not only do we notice that, but we also see that the words for God are changed. 00:26:01.265 --> 00:26:16.356 When he's creating everything else, he's Elohim, he's God, but when he speaks with humanity, he's Yahweh, he's a covenant-keeping God, he's a God of relationship with us. 00:26:16.356 --> 00:26:46.279 In a way, he's not in relationship with other things, and we show that this sovereign God, this creator God, condescends to have relationship with us, A theme that runs all through Scripture I will be your God and you will be my people and it's evidenced most intimately in Jesus. 00:26:46.279 --> 00:26:50.039 And the word became flesh and dwelled among us. 00:26:59.211 --> 00:27:06.538 The first Adam and Eve were created to maintain the garden, to develop it to its fullest potential. 00:27:06.538 --> 00:27:09.739 They were allowed to have free run of creation. 00:27:09.739 --> 00:27:19.894 They could eat and enjoy everything there was on earth, except for one tree, tree of knowledge and good and evil. 00:27:19.894 --> 00:27:43.255 The tree that represented the sin of moral autonomy, the tree that would be the place where they would seek to erase the boundary between God and humanity and by eating that forbidden fruit, they would seek for themselves the autonomy to determine what was right and what was good. 00:27:43.255 --> 00:28:00.944 But as it was originally designed, the garden was a place of relationship, of enjoyment, of bountiful work, fruitful work, and of rest, and of rest. 00:28:00.944 --> 00:28:04.798 What else do we learn in the book of Genesis? 00:28:04.798 --> 00:28:11.791 We learn of ruin, not just reality, not just relationship, but also of ruin. 00:28:11.791 --> 00:28:21.453 The avalanche of sin and death comes flying down the mountain of creation very quickly, and we see it in Genesis, chapter 3. 00:28:21.453 --> 00:28:37.342 The writer, though using colorful ways of describing it, tells us about real people in a real place, tempting to really eradicate a divine human relationship and boundary. 00:28:39.090 --> 00:28:44.143 The serpent, the first speaker and his first topic is God. 00:28:44.143 --> 00:28:46.776 He's the first theologian. 00:28:46.776 --> 00:28:52.071 Someone said he's the first person in the Bible to talk about God. 00:28:52.071 --> 00:28:52.593 He's the first theologian. 00:28:52.593 --> 00:29:00.151 Someone said he's the first person in the Bible to talk about God, and he calls into question God's character when the divine prohibition is raised up for discussion. 00:29:00.151 --> 00:29:03.915 He speaks lies about God. 00:29:03.915 --> 00:29:15.112 He speaks insinuating questions about God's character and God's goodness and God's purposes behind the prohibition. 00:29:15.112 --> 00:29:22.931 But when he speaks about God, he goes back to that creator language, elohim. 00:29:22.931 --> 00:29:31.644 He doesn't use the word Yahweh, he doesn't use the covenant name of God, because he doesn't know God relationally. 00:29:31.644 --> 00:29:39.344 He only knows about God and so he can only speak about him as Elohim and not the Lord God. 00:29:39.344 --> 00:29:42.838 He doesn't know him in personal relationship. 00:29:45.490 --> 00:29:47.596 And Adam and Eve chose to sin. 00:29:47.596 --> 00:29:51.042 They chose the things of this world rather than the things of God. 00:29:51.042 --> 00:29:58.942 They chose to be the determiners of what is right and good rather than to listen to what God says about what is good and what is right. 00:29:58.942 --> 00:30:11.863 And the unity of our relationship, as we were designed, was broken, and immediately flooding in was shame and guilt and accusation. 00:30:11.863 --> 00:30:15.155 They sought to hid their nakedness from God. 00:30:15.155 --> 00:30:17.561 They tried to improvise it with some clothing. 00:30:17.561 --> 00:30:19.894 They hid from God among the trees. 00:30:19.894 --> 00:30:27.053 What was once a joy, god's presence, is now to them a threat that they want to be rid of. 00:30:27.053 --> 00:30:38.445 God enters in and calls them all to question and judgment and curse results, first to the serpent, then to Eve and then to Adam. 00:30:38.445 --> 00:30:42.852 We'll get to the serpent in just a moment. 00:30:42.852 --> 00:30:47.174 But Eve and someone said this and I said it so well, I'm just going to read it. 00:30:47.955 --> 00:30:53.901 The woman, which the Hebrew word is Esau or Esau, made from man, esh. 00:30:53.901 --> 00:30:57.544 So you can hear the cognitive connection there. 00:30:57.544 --> 00:31:00.727 Esh and Esau, they're so closely related. 00:31:00.727 --> 00:31:29.070 The same word one's just masculine, the other one's feminine, ending Was made to be a companion and a co-ruler with Adam and because of the fall she becomes a competitor and an opponent and she can only bring life by suffering Adam. 00:31:29.070 --> 00:31:46.423 Adam made from the earth, adamah Once, given the earth to rule, now has to struggle with the earth to live and the earth finally wins because Adam would return to Adamah, the dust. 00:31:54.970 --> 00:31:56.313 We see them banished from the garden paradise. 00:31:56.313 --> 00:31:57.315 We see them removed from the tree of life. 00:31:57.315 --> 00:32:02.144 We see them exiled from the presence of God and from the rest of Genesis on. 00:32:02.144 --> 00:32:07.619 God speaks not in the garden but from heaven down to earth. 00:32:07.619 --> 00:32:10.163 So separated are we from God. 00:32:11.990 --> 00:32:18.874 And we see the snowballing effect of sin in Genesis 1 through the rest of the way through chapter 3, 4, all the way to 11. 00:32:18.874 --> 00:32:24.284 Chapters 3 through 9, the word curse is mentioned five times. 00:32:24.284 --> 00:32:28.863 In Genesis 4, we see the first murder In the flood. 00:32:28.863 --> 00:32:33.336 We see the world gripped by violence and bloodshed After the flood. 00:32:33.336 --> 00:32:44.478 We see the Tower of Babel constructed as humanity tries to storm heaven once again, to erase any kind of divine human relationship and boundary. 00:32:44.478 --> 00:32:53.474 We see humanity in all of its community, in all of its ability, in all of its technology set dead against God. 00:32:53.474 --> 00:33:00.164 All of our skill and all of our craft is marred by sin and death. 00:33:00.164 --> 00:33:09.560 This once pristine creation now becomes a source of pain and degradation and death. 00:33:09.560 --> 00:33:20.218 By the time we get to the end of chapter 11, we have to be asking ourselves is there any solution to the way we are? 00:33:20.218 --> 00:33:32.852 And that brings us to the fourth thing we discover in the book of Genesis Not just reality, not just relationship, not just ruin, but redemption. 00:33:33.492 --> 00:33:39.267 Redemption From the earliest moments after humanity's revolt. 00:33:39.267 --> 00:33:41.952 We see God is merciful. 00:33:41.952 --> 00:33:48.451 He told them that when you eat of this tree you will die. 00:33:48.451 --> 00:33:50.746 Did they die that day? 00:33:50.746 --> 00:33:53.145 Physically, they did not. 00:33:53.145 --> 00:34:06.648 God held back the full display of his furious wrath and let them live, let humanity continue to exist. 00:34:06.648 --> 00:34:13.713 Yes, the effects of the fall were there and death was marching its way to their death. 00:34:13.713 --> 00:34:19.572 And yes, they were separated from God and their spiritual death was very real and palpable. 00:34:19.572 --> 00:34:23.786 But there was mercy in judgment. 00:34:23.786 --> 00:34:30.581 Even in that first expression was mercy in judgment, even in that first expression. 00:34:30.601 --> 00:34:38.454 And then, when God turns his attention to the serpent, he speaks to Adam and Eve words of hope that something was going to happen. 00:34:38.454 --> 00:34:46.552 When he speaks and curses the serpent, he expresses a limitation of its power. 00:34:46.552 --> 00:34:56.844 You will be on your belly, you will not be as powerful as you think you are right now and you will come to a final end. 00:34:56.844 --> 00:35:04.762 In Genesis 3.15, I'll put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. 00:35:04.762 --> 00:35:09.528 He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. 00:35:09.528 --> 00:35:23.108 Those words that were not addressed to Adam and Eve must have caused them to wonder what's the next chapter going to be like? 00:35:23.108 --> 00:35:25.831 When is that going to happen? 00:35:25.831 --> 00:35:26.411 Chapter going to be like? 00:35:26.411 --> 00:35:28.695 When is that going to happen? 00:35:28.695 --> 00:35:35.748 This promise of victory of humanity over the one that brought them into the very place of their demise? 00:35:35.748 --> 00:35:44.891 Conflict between the seed of the woman and the serpent would eventually end in the death of the serpent. 00:35:44.891 --> 00:36:01.454 So Adam and Eve were told to look for one who would come from woman, who would be the one who would end the serpent and restore the conditions of paradise. 00:36:04.681 --> 00:36:16.068 Interesting in Luke, chapter 10, in verse 17, jesus had sent out emissaries, two by two, to proclaim the kingdom of heaven. 00:36:16.068 --> 00:36:21.590 And they came back to him and said Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name. 00:36:21.590 --> 00:36:27.409 And he replied I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 00:36:27.409 --> 00:36:35.311 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and overcome all the power of the enemy. 00:36:35.311 --> 00:36:36.994 Nothing will harm you. 00:36:36.994 --> 00:36:51.293 There was something about Jesus' name that meant that snakes and scorpions, and the evil one, were put on notice, that death was on its way for them. 00:36:51.293 --> 00:37:02.672 And so Paul picks that up in Romans, chapter 16 and verse 20, and says the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. 00:37:02.672 --> 00:37:08.713 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you, under your feet. 00:37:08.713 --> 00:37:10.420 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. 00:37:11.760 --> 00:37:22.237 And then, in that vision of eternal things Revelation 12 and verses 9 to 11, the great dragon was hurled down, that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. 00:37:22.237 --> 00:37:25.929 He was hurled to the earth and his angels with him. 00:37:25.929 --> 00:37:46.853 And I heard a loud voice in heaven say now has come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah For the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God, day and night has been hurled down, and they triumphed over him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony. 00:37:46.853 --> 00:37:50.269 They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. 00:37:50.269 --> 00:38:09.152 This first announcement of the gospel, announcing the conflict of the seed of the woman and the serpent, would truly end with the death of death and the death of the introducer of death to humanity, the devil himself. 00:38:09.152 --> 00:38:20.719 This conqueror would be a human, a human descendant, and so the Toledot genealogies, the family lines of humanity. 00:38:21.242 --> 00:38:22.967 Those are important statements. 00:38:22.967 --> 00:38:25.567 Where would this one come from? 00:38:25.567 --> 00:38:28.429 Would it be this line or this line? 00:38:28.429 --> 00:38:30.744 This line or this line? 00:38:30.744 --> 00:38:34.592 Where would the threat of redemption trace itself? 00:38:34.592 --> 00:38:39.123 This is why Genesis is written the way it is. 00:38:39.123 --> 00:38:47.594 It shows us that ultimate triumph of the seed of the woman would come through this genealogical structure. 00:38:47.594 --> 00:38:54.143 One day, people wondered if they were part of it. 00:38:55.365 --> 00:39:00.161 Adam cries out I've gotten a man, the Lord, could it be him? 00:39:00.161 --> 00:39:01.302 It wasn't. 00:39:01.302 --> 00:39:07.634 Noah's father names his son in hope that he would be a deliverer. 00:39:07.634 --> 00:39:15.050 Was he Only in picture form, not the actual one who would crush the head of the serpent? 00:39:15.050 --> 00:39:25.690 Abraham was given promises, promises that the day would come through him, and so we see the narrowing of that statement of promise. 00:39:25.690 --> 00:39:29.862 Come through him, and so we see the narrowing of that statement of promise. 00:39:29.862 --> 00:39:33.028 The word blessing is used often instead of curses when God speaks to Abraham in chapter 12. 00:39:33.028 --> 00:39:43.894 Curses, curses, curses and curses again in chapters three through nine, but blessing, blessing, upon blessing in chapter 12. 00:39:43.894 --> 00:39:46.643 Upon blessing in chapter 12. 00:39:46.664 --> 00:39:48.447 Abram represents for all of us. 00:39:48.447 --> 00:39:53.313 Something about him brings us the way back to paradise. 00:39:53.313 --> 00:40:00.148 What's that going to look like? 00:40:00.148 --> 00:40:01.251 Through his descendants? 00:40:01.251 --> 00:40:14.773 We read in the book of Genesis that they came into the land just as Abram left his own to come to this place of promise, and he builds an altar there, staking a claim for God in that land. 00:40:14.773 --> 00:40:27.231 But, interestingly enough, as his progeny unfolds in the land and eventually leave it for some time, the only land that the families buy are plots for burial. 00:40:27.231 --> 00:40:32.806 Doesn't seem like they're owning the land at all. 00:40:32.806 --> 00:40:45.905 But they die in hope, even wanting their very bones to be brought back, because they think that promise is going to be fulfilled. 00:40:48.481 --> 00:40:58.472 We see in the patriarchal stories the seed of the woman triumphing over infertility, over captivity, over oppression and even over famine. 00:40:58.472 --> 00:41:01.226 This family won't die. 00:41:01.226 --> 00:41:04.347 It keeps going on. 00:41:04.347 --> 00:41:17.510 It keeps going on and we find, at the very end of it, that Israel speaks to one son, judah, and tells him that he would rule the nations. 00:41:17.510 --> 00:41:33.278 And again we're given a hint of where to look for this seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent, for this seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. 00:41:33.280 --> 00:41:44.449 Eventually we get to a person named Jesus, who was introduced to us by way of genealogies, and we discover that he's a son of Adam, he's a son of Abraham, he's a son of David, he comes from the tribe of Judah. 00:41:44.449 --> 00:41:48.320 He's the one, he's the one, he's the one. 00:41:48.320 --> 00:41:59.666 And Paul brings up a recognition to us that this is not just Jesus the Christ, but he's also described as the second Adam, the second Adam. 00:41:59.666 --> 00:42:17.891 And he tells us that all who are in the first Adam die because he disobeyed, that all who are in the first Adam die because he disobeyed, but all who are in the second Adam live because he obeyed and he died to cover our disobediences. 00:42:17.891 --> 00:42:26.585 So we learn of reality, we learn of relationships, we learn of ruin. 00:42:26.585 --> 00:42:27.480 We learn of relationships, we learn of ruin. 00:42:27.480 --> 00:42:30.449 We learn of the Redeemer in the book of Genesis. 00:42:30.449 --> 00:42:33.748 But there's one last thing, if time will allow me. 00:42:33.748 --> 00:42:36.668 Bob said I only had 30 minutes, so I'm trying to get this done. 00:42:39.280 --> 00:42:40.547 What do we see in the book of Genesis? 00:42:40.547 --> 00:42:42.666 We see the beginning of the end. 00:42:42.666 --> 00:42:53.425 In Genesis 1 and 2, we see creation, the cosmos, humanity, relationship with God, all things in pristine condition. 00:42:53.425 --> 00:43:00.983 We see us relating with him and one another and the rest of creation in perfect harmony. 00:43:00.983 --> 00:43:06.574 God places Adam and Eve in the garden that contains the tree of life. 00:43:06.574 --> 00:43:13.112 We see Adam and Eve there in all of life's fullness and abundance. 00:43:13.112 --> 00:43:21.869 And we see in Genesis 1.28, god blesses them and says be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and govern it. 00:43:21.869 --> 00:43:36.213 We see God's blessings on them, yes, complicated by chapter three, the fracture of that relationship and the story of the Bible all the way up until Revelation, chapter 20. 00:43:36.213 --> 00:43:43.487 But the last two chapters of the book of Revelation bring something else in. 00:43:43.487 --> 00:43:54.492 When you read the last two chapters of Revelation, you discover all the language of Genesis 1 and 2 coming right back again. 00:43:54.492 --> 00:44:28.085 And there it is, at the very end that the end of the Bible brings us back to the beginning of the Bible when we started with everything in harmony with us, in perfect relationship with the covenant creator, god, who is condescended to relate to us and to bless us, because that's what he wants to do and that's where we're going. 00:44:28.085 --> 00:44:31.085 And the story starts here. 00:44:31.788 --> 00:44:37.469 Let's pray, our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the word of God. 00:44:38.661 --> 00:44:54.989 We thank you for how it opens up to us something we could never devise of our own, a recognition of all that has been made and why and how you are so intimately involved in it and in us as your creation. 00:44:56.753 --> 00:45:05.887 We thank you, father, that your purposes are pure and right and holy and full of love and mercy and grace. 00:45:05.887 --> 00:45:24.974 Lord, I pray that, as we continue down this road of Route 66, that all of these things that have been introduced to us in the book of Genesis will become more real, more significant, more influential in our lives. 00:45:24.974 --> 00:45:39.670 More influential in our lives that we might live our life the way we ought, in relationship to you and faith and obedience, recognition for full and necessary dependence upon you for everything life, breath, eternity. 00:45:39.670 --> 00:46:00.550 And that, father, we might find our lives ordered more and more by your purpose plan, as we come to know you better, by visiting each and every one of the books that you've given to us to read and to understand and to live by, and we pray Father, it would truly bring you glory in this place. 00:46:00.550 --> 00:46:02.503 In Christ's name, amen.