SPEAKER_00: My name's Mark.
SPEAKER_00: I'm one of the leaders here at City.
SPEAKER_00: You're very welcome.
SPEAKER_00: If you are new or visiting, we uh it's our normal practice that we go through books of the Bible, and so sometimes you come across a passage and think, well, what can we learn from that?
SPEAKER_00: And it turns out quite a lot.
SPEAKER_00: So why don't we pray and uh we'll dive right into it.
SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you uh that all scripture is indeed uh breathed out by you and profitable for our learning, uh, that we as men and women of God might be competent, equipped for every good work.
SPEAKER_00: So would you uh be about that work by your spirit through this passage in Jesus' name?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Think about your your natural disposition.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, are you a uh a glass half full or a glass half empty sort of person?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm probably glass half full most of the time.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but what about what about you?
SPEAKER_00: Glass half full, glass half empty.
SPEAKER_00: You mostly optimistic, mostly hopeful?
SPEAKER_00: You mostly kind of think, no, this will probably not work out.
SPEAKER_00: Mostly think, no.
SPEAKER_00: Bad will triumph over good.
SPEAKER_00: What about our world?
SPEAKER_00: What about the news that you digest?
SPEAKER_00: Does it tend to be optimistic or pessimistic?
SPEAKER_00: It tends to be pessimistic, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh everything is a crisis.
SPEAKER_00: You have the Brexit crisis, you have the farmers crisis.
SPEAKER_00: You've been uh aware of what's been going on in the countryside in Ireland.
SPEAKER_00: You have a constitutional crisis.
SPEAKER_00: Pick your country, pick your constitutional crisis.
SPEAKER_00: You can have one in the UK, or apparently there's one every time Donald Trump speaks in the US.
SPEAKER_00: There's a constitutional crisis.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is a crisis.
SPEAKER_00: Human beings are destroying the world.
SPEAKER_00: The climate crisis.
SPEAKER_00: Brexit is a racist disaster that's gonna destroy the UK's economy and our economy, the Brexit crisis.
SPEAKER_00: Everything's a crisis.
SPEAKER_00: It's wearying.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give you some good news stories.
SPEAKER_00: If you take nothing else away, I've brought balance to the force of all of these crises, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you three good news stories from this week, right?
SPEAKER_00: First, there is a new drug that has just been approved by the FDA in America called Aducanimab, or a Duncanamab, named after Duncan over here.
SPEAKER_00: Aducanimab, that it's been approved by FDA for human trials because it stems the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good news story, right?
SPEAKER_00: Second, there are more trees on the planet today than there were 35 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: We've been planting trees.
SPEAKER_00: That's a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's like, we're losing all the trees.
SPEAKER_00: We've got more trees than we did 35 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's reporting it.
SPEAKER_00: There you go, good news story.
SPEAKER_00: Lego.
SPEAKER_00: Need to say any more.
SPEAKER_00: That's my favorite one.
SPEAKER_00: Rather than it sticking to my foot, I get paid to ship it back to Lego.
SPEAKER_00: So it would help other children.
SPEAKER_00: Because the world isn't just all crisis.
SPEAKER_00: There's joy and there's beauty.
SPEAKER_00: But it isn't just all beauty.
SPEAKER_00: There's tragedy and suffering.
SPEAKER_00: It's just awful.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Sarah was praying this week for or praying just now with the people who suffocated to death in the back of a container, Laurie.
SPEAKER_00: It's just awful.
SPEAKER_00: Just tragic.
SPEAKER_00: But the world isn't just suffering and tragedy.
SPEAKER_00: You see, if you're a glass half empty sort of person, if you're a pessimist, your tendency can be to lose sight of the goodness that's in the world, of the hope, the joy, the beauty that there is.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a glass half full sort of person, if you're an optimist, what's your problem?
SPEAKER_00: Your problem is you can be given to a little bit of naivety.
SPEAKER_00: You not really prepare yourself for suffering and tragedy coming your way.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 5, rather than just being a list of names to be read and forgotten, outlines the rhythm of our world, the double heartbeat of joy and tragedy, blessing and curse, life and death.
SPEAKER_00: So Genesis 5 shows us.
SPEAKER_00: It's always been true.
SPEAKER_00: It was true for these generations, and we're no different.
SPEAKER_00: This double rhythm pulses away in our world still yet.
SPEAKER_00: So what can we learn from this?
SPEAKER_00: First of all, blessing endures.
SPEAKER_00: Optimist, we're gonna start in glass half full, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Blessing endures.
SPEAKER_00: And that's no small thing, right?
SPEAKER_00: So Genesis 5, 1, this is the book of the generations of Adam.
SPEAKER_00: When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Maid and female, he created them and blessed them and named them man where they were created.
SPEAKER_00: So we're looking back, we're looking back to Genesis 1.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking back pre-fall.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a big deal considering where we've just come from, because we've come through Genesis 4.
SPEAKER_00: What happens in Genesis 4?
SPEAKER_00: Cain kills his brother.
SPEAKER_00: First human being born into this world, Adam and Eve were created.
SPEAKER_00: First human being born into this world is a murderer.
SPEAKER_00: And then, second half of Genesis 4, you get Lamek.
SPEAKER_00: Lameneck's not a nice guy, right?
SPEAKER_00: Lamek, he kills a young boy from the essentially for a scratch on his cheek.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis 4 is blood soaked.
SPEAKER_00: It's full of suffering and darkness and death.
SPEAKER_00: And God doesn't give up on humanity.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't just go, do you know what?
SPEAKER_00: This isn't working for me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna start again.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't give up on humanity.
SPEAKER_00: That's no small thing that God would endure with humanity.
SPEAKER_00: He blesses us even in our sinful state.
SPEAKER_00: He blesses us in three ways.
SPEAKER_00: I think this, well, in many ways.
SPEAKER_00: I think this passage lists or explains three ways.
SPEAKER_00: Let me give them to you.
SPEAKER_00: Three ways in which God's blessing endures in humanity.
SPEAKER_00: One, we're still image bearers.
SPEAKER_00: We still bear God's image.
SPEAKER_00: And that's a huge deal.
SPEAKER_00: Because that means that we have a value and a dignity and a worth that is inherent, that cannot be taken away by circumstance, that is not based upon our achievement, it's not based upon our ethnicity, or our race, or our sexuality, or our age, or any of those things.
SPEAKER_00: It is bestowed upon us by God.
SPEAKER_00: We are still image-bearers, each and every one of us.
SPEAKER_00: That is wonderful news for humanity.
SPEAKER_00: God creates Adam in his image, and when it says in verse 3 that Adam fathered a son in his own likeness, what it's communicating is that that image-bearedness is being passed on down the generations and it comes to us now.
SPEAKER_00: Human beings, you and I, after the fall, after Genesis 3, we're we're like we're like mirrors.
SPEAKER_00: Being from Northern Ireland, I have to say that word very carefully, or else I just say myrrh.
SPEAKER_00: We're mirrors made to reflect God.
SPEAKER_00: But we're mirrors that have been cracked by sin.
SPEAKER_00: And so we reflect something of his image, but it is distorted.
SPEAKER_00: It is not as clear as it could be.
SPEAKER_00: It is not perfect.
SPEAKER_00: But we are image-bearers nonetheless.
SPEAKER_00: And that dignity, that value endures.
SPEAKER_00: That's God's blessing to us.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that that explanation for how human beings are, I think that that's actually a better explanation than the major contenders that might rival it.
SPEAKER_00: So the first one would be something like evolution, right?
SPEAKER_00: Evolution would say that what matters is survival.
SPEAKER_00: What matters is winning.
SPEAKER_00: Survival of the fittest.
SPEAKER_00: Self-preservation.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, what does self-preservation look like?
SPEAKER_00: Self-preservation looks like Lamek.
SPEAKER_00: Lamech was a survivor.
SPEAKER_00: Lammock was one who he won.
SPEAKER_00: He went on to perpetuate his genes with not one but two wives.
SPEAKER_00: Evolution would prioritize self-preservation, survival, winning, but it cannot account for self-sacrifice, altruism, beauty.
SPEAKER_00: Being an image-bearer means, though, that while we are marred by sin, while that image is tainted and distorted and broken, there is still beauty and kindness to be seen.
SPEAKER_00: The other contender for what people believe about human beings would be described in humanism.
SPEAKER_00: Humanism is the idea that human beings in and of themselves are essentially good.
SPEAKER_00: And the human problem is one of circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: That what we need is more education.
SPEAKER_00: We need more opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: We need better circumstances, and then human beings will flourish.
SPEAKER_00: What's the problem with the climate?
SPEAKER_00: The problem ultimately is education.
SPEAKER_00: If we educated people, then the world would get better.
SPEAKER_00: What's the problem with social dysfunction?
SPEAKER_00: It's education.
SPEAKER_00: If we educated people to know how to how to act and all of these the values that they should have, if we educated them, then things would get better.
SPEAKER_00: But people are essentially good.
SPEAKER_00: They just need to be taught how to live, they need to be given the opportunities for flourishing.
SPEAKER_00: And that's true to a certain degree, but again, it is just half the story.
SPEAKER_00: Human beings are capable of incredible feats, but they are also capable of great evil.
SPEAKER_00: And again, this idea that we're image bearers, image bearers after the fall, with this broken, distorted image, I think that makes better sense of what human beings are like and what they you know, what we see in the world around us than the other narratives the other worldviews offer.
SPEAKER_00: We reflect the beauty of God.
SPEAKER_00: And yet it is distorted and twisted by our own self-love.
SPEAKER_00: Human beings, though, are blessed because we are still image bearers of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing.
SPEAKER_00: How are we still?
SPEAKER_00: How does blessing endure?
SPEAKER_00: We're still his image bearers.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, how does blessing endure?
SPEAKER_00: Fruitful multiplication.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the genealogy shows.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2 reminds us of that that he blessed them.
SPEAKER_00: What was that blessing?
SPEAKER_00: That blessing was to fill the earth, subdue it, have dominion.
SPEAKER_00: And here we see in this genealogy, it's coming to pass.
SPEAKER_00: God again hasn't given up.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say, Well, you know, you're not having, uh you're not multiplying.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want any more of you.
SPEAKER_00: He said, No, fill the earth with these image bearers.
SPEAKER_00: The genealogy follows a particular line.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's Adam, Seth, Enosh.
SPEAKER_00: It's coming down a particular line because we're going to get to Noah.
SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of deliberate in that sense.
SPEAKER_00: But one of the repeated phrases here is that they had other sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_00: And so there's just exponential growth filling the earth.
SPEAKER_00: To have more of us is a good in and of itself.
SPEAKER_00: To be a human being alive right now is good.
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's important to say because some people say things like human beings are a cancer on the planet.
SPEAKER_00: That's an awful thing to say.
SPEAKER_00: What do you do with cancer?
SPEAKER_00: You eradicate it.
SPEAKER_00: In the Bible's mind, in God's mind, it is good to be to be you.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to be alive.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to have all seven or so billion of us alive.
SPEAKER_00: Dan Salvage is a uh social commentator and activist uh from the USA, and he was in Australia a few years ago at a uh at an ideas festival, and he was asked to give a talk on um the most controversial idea that he could think of.
SPEAKER_00: The idea being that you would present a controversial idea and uh defend how if it were implemented society would flourish more.
SPEAKER_00: Dan's controversial idea was this.
SPEAKER_00: Uh call him Dan, like Mr.
SPEAKER_00: Savage.
SPEAKER_00: Uh his controversial idea was this.
SPEAKER_00: So he said, I am pro-choice, but in my darker moments, I am anti-choice.
SPEAKER_00: My controversial idea is that abortion should be mandatory.
SPEAKER_00: There are too many damn people on the planet.
SPEAKER_00: His idea is that there actually should be fewer human beings.
SPEAKER_00: That that would be a good.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the Bible's mind.
SPEAKER_00: Quite apart from whether or not you believe the Bible, I think that's a profoundly anti-human idea.
SPEAKER_00: But the God of the Bible says that you being here, all seven billion of us being on this ball, is a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's worth remembering how good that is.
SPEAKER_00: In all of our diverse expression.
SPEAKER_00: The third way that blessing endures is long life.
SPEAKER_00: You can't have you can't escape it.
SPEAKER_00: Adam lives for 930 years, Methuselah, for 969 years.
SPEAKER_00: What's going on with that?
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: That can't really be true.
SPEAKER_00: Like you can't really believe that, can you?
SPEAKER_00: Well, I think you've got three possibilities when it comes to the ages.
SPEAKER_00: First possibility is that the writer, which I take to be Moses, because Jesus said it was Moses, and if it's good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh one possibility is that Moses got his years and his months mixed up.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you take 930 years and say, no, it's actually 930 months, you kind of say he's about 81.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's plausible.
SPEAKER_00: 81 still, it's a still a fair stretch, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it's not quite 930.
SPEAKER_00: So that's your first option.
SPEAKER_00: The problem with that is there's no other examples of anybody getting their years and their months mixed up.
SPEAKER_00: Um and Roses writes other genealogies and doesn't seem to get his years and his months mixed up there.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not too sure about that one.
SPEAKER_00: Second one, this only works if you're a mathematician, right?
SPEAKER_00: I'm about to kind of I'm about to kind of run up right to the very edge of my ability to comprehend mathematics, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um apparently, if you are operating, so we operate in base 10.
SPEAKER_00: Don't even know what base the what that phrase base 10, what that means.
SPEAKER_00: Don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But that's what we operated in, but the ancients, they operated in base 60, like 60 minutes, right?
SPEAKER_00: Apparently, if you operate in base 60, you can do some acrobatics with the with the ages and come up with something else, right?
SPEAKER_00: And you can say that they're symbolic ages.
SPEAKER_00: I'll leave that to the mathematicians.
SPEAKER_00: You can go and find the secret Bible code and come and let me know what it is.
SPEAKER_00: But you're probably wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Um the third option, the third option that's open to us is that they're literal ages.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the thing about accepting them as literal ages.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a skeptic here this morning, we're so glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: Like we like engaging with people's questions, and people, people when they're exploring Christianity, have legitimate questions, right?
SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't be just, thus says the Lord, and just believe it, right?
SPEAKER_00: People have legitimate grievances.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing that Christianity stands and falls on.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity stands and falls on whether or not Jesus was raised bodily from the dead in history, right?
SPEAKER_00: The resurrection of the Easter.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Christianity stands on or crumbles on.
SPEAKER_00: And I happen to believe that that's true.
SPEAKER_00: I happen to believe that a physical man came back from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: He was actually dead and he actually came back to life.
SPEAKER_00: And I think there's really good reasons for that.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: If I accept that, a little problem with God extending the life of people for 930 years.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a supernaturalist anyway.
SPEAKER_00: I already believe the miracles happen.
SPEAKER_00: So why do I really have a problem with the age?
SPEAKER_00: I believe in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, but 930 years of that I couldn't accept.
SPEAKER_00: Like, come on.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of string like gnats and swallowing camels at that point, you know?
SPEAKER_00: We believe that there is a God who stands behind that stands behind the laws of this universe.
SPEAKER_00: What is a miracle?
SPEAKER_00: A miracle is tinkering with the laws of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: God has both the power and the prerogative to do that.
SPEAKER_00: If he wishes to extend the life of Methuselah to 969 years, then he can fill his boots.
SPEAKER_00: Regardless of whether or not you go for two or three, the reason why these long ages are, why these people lived such long lives, is because in the Bible's mind, long life is always a symbol of God's blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Length of days is always a sign that you have been blessed by God.
SPEAKER_00: We might not be able to reach the heights of Methuselah and few of us would want to.
SPEAKER_00: But it is a reminder that each of our days, each of our years, is given to us by a gracious God who continues to bless us, even though we so often turn our backs on him in treason and run after other things.
SPEAKER_00: It's such a gracious reminder of his patience to us.
SPEAKER_00: I've cut out a bit, but I'll put another bit in.
SPEAKER_00: There's a great story of a guy called Polycarp.
SPEAKER_00: Polycarp was the Bishop of Smyrna.
SPEAKER_00: He was basically one of John's disciples, so apostles to John, and then Polycarp, the Bishop of Smyrna.
SPEAKER_00: And they came to him, he was about 85 years old.
SPEAKER_00: And they came to him and said, Recant your faith, or we're gonna burn you at the stake.
SPEAKER_00: You know what Polycarp said?
SPEAKER_00: He said, eighty young, eighty long years I have served my Lord who has loved me.
SPEAKER_00: How can I not turn my back on him?
SPEAKER_00: Each year that we have is a blessing from God.
SPEAKER_00: And so they burnt him.
SPEAKER_00: That leads me, actually, by easy stages, into our second point.
SPEAKER_00: The while blessing endures, death reigns.
SPEAKER_00: That's the thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: There's much to be thankful for in our world, and yet death reigns.
SPEAKER_00: There's this rhythmic reality check all the way through this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: Thus the days of Adam were 930 years, and he died.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8, thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 11 Thus all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died, and he died, and he died, and he died, and each of those.
SPEAKER_00: And he died, and he died, and he died, are supposed to land like a hammer blow.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're only two chapters parted from the fall of humanity.
SPEAKER_00: Humanity was destined to live forever, to eat from the tree and enjoy presence with God forever.
SPEAKER_00: And now, because of their treasonous turning, they taste the bitterness of death.
SPEAKER_00: And then he died, and then he died, and then he died.
SPEAKER_00: This is the double-edged sword of our human experience.
SPEAKER_00: Curse and blessing walk hand in hand in this life.
SPEAKER_00: Those who we love.
SPEAKER_00: Those who we admire.
SPEAKER_00: Great men.
SPEAKER_00: Great women.
SPEAKER_00: They all have or will taste death.
SPEAKER_00: For some of you, death has visited your household already.
SPEAKER_00: In tragic and painful ways.
SPEAKER_00: It is a relentless force.
SPEAKER_00: Why do zombies walk slowly?
SPEAKER_00: I don't mean one time.
SPEAKER_00: There aren't any out there.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't the start of a zombie apocalypse.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, in the Romero movies or The Walking Dead, if you're a fan like me, why do they walk slowly?
SPEAKER_00: Because they don't need to rush.
SPEAKER_00: They'll get you eventually.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually you'll wear out.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually you'll wear down and they'll get you.
SPEAKER_00: Death like that.
SPEAKER_00: Death doesn't need to rush.
SPEAKER_00: It'll get you eventually.
SPEAKER_00: Have a great afternoon, everyone.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know?
SPEAKER_00: The pessimist, the glass half-full sort of person, will see this relentless creep of death and just be driven to despair.
SPEAKER_00: The optimist will try to forget it.
SPEAKER_00: Try to pretend that it's not a reality.
SPEAKER_00: Not really think about it, not really contend with it.
SPEAKER_00: It's the optimist that that pens poems like, I'm not dead, I'm just in the other room.
SPEAKER_00: Then why does grief feel so hard?
SPEAKER_00: What's the Christian response?
SPEAKER_00: The Christian, rather than being driven to despair or pretending in naivety.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian, rather, will weep.
SPEAKER_00: The Christian will weep at the consequences of sin, just as our Lord Jesus wept at the grave of his friend.
SPEAKER_00: He or she will weep for the life that they have lost.
SPEAKER_00: They will weep for the pain that they endure.
SPEAKER_00: They will weep for the grief that feels so unbearable.
SPEAKER_00: And then they will wash their face.
SPEAKER_00: And they will go back downstairs, and they will continue to hope in God.
SPEAKER_00: That's how the Christian deals with the double heartbeat, the double rhythm of our humanity.
SPEAKER_00: We weep.
SPEAKER_00: We hope.
SPEAKER_00: Do not be blindsided by the reality of suffering and death.
SPEAKER_00: But do not let that darkness steal your joy.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, darkness so consumes people.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know those people, those widows, those widowers?
SPEAKER_00: Who no light ever shines in their eyes again.
SPEAKER_00: What is it that Galadriel says to Gimli when they reach the forest of Lothlorien, after they had lost their friend Gandalf?
SPEAKER_00: Galadriel looks at Gimli and says, Do not let the darkness of Khazadum fill your heart, Gimli, son of Gloyne.
SPEAKER_00: As a Christian, do not let the darkness of death fill your heart.
SPEAKER_00: There is still hope.
SPEAKER_00: And hope shines in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Because while the rain of death falls as a hammer blow through most of this passage, the narrative is disrupted, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21.
SPEAKER_00: When Enoch had walked for sixty-five years, he fathered Methuselah.
SPEAKER_00: Enoch walked with God after he had fathered Methuselah for three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_00: Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.
SPEAKER_00: Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 21, when Enoch had lived for 65 years, he fathered Methuselah.
SPEAKER_00: Enoch walked with God after he'd fathered Methuselah.
SPEAKER_00: Every other person says, so look up verse 19.
SPEAKER_00: Jared lived.
SPEAKER_00: Mahalel lived.
SPEAKER_00: Canaan lived.
SPEAKER_00: Enosh lived.
SPEAKER_00: Seth lived, but Enoch walked with God.
SPEAKER_00: It's possible to live and to not be alive.
SPEAKER_00: It's possible to live and not be alive if you don't walk with God.
SPEAKER_00: See the contrast?
SPEAKER_00: Many people were alive.
SPEAKER_00: His whole city is full of people who are alive, but so few of them walk with God.
SPEAKER_00: Enoch walk with God.
SPEAKER_00: Enoch walked with God, verse 24, and was no more.
SPEAKER_00: There's a disruption in the narrative.
SPEAKER_00: It's not, and he died, and he died, and he died.
SPEAKER_00: He said he was no more, for God took him.
SPEAKER_00: Death was not the final word over Enoch's life.
SPEAKER_00: And Enamuk stands as a contrast to Lamanek back in chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Because they are both the seventh generation.
SPEAKER_00: Lammonek is the seventh generation from Adam done in the Canaanite line.
SPEAKER_00: And Enamuk is the seventh generation from Adam dumb in the seventh line.
SPEAKER_00: And we're supposed to compare them.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because Lamnech's life spoke of death.
SPEAKER_00: But Enoch's life.
SPEAKER_00: It speaks of eternal days, of intimacy with God.
SPEAKER_00: And what motivated Enoch to walk with God?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the book of Hebrews tells us.
SPEAKER_00: Because Enoch shows up in that great list of those who have faith.
SPEAKER_00: Let me read it to you.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5 of Hebrews 11 By faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death.
SPEAKER_00: And he was not fine because God had taken him.
SPEAKER_00: Now before he was taken, taken, he was commended as having pleased God.
SPEAKER_00: What motivated Enoch to walk with God?
SPEAKER_00: It was his faith.
SPEAKER_00: He believed in God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 6 says, And without faith it is impossible to please God.
SPEAKER_00: For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
SPEAKER_00: That's what faith is.
SPEAKER_00: Believing in the God who is, and entrusting yourself to him by faith.
SPEAKER_00: Enoch entrusted himself to God.
SPEAKER_00: He established with him an intimate relationship.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because we're told that he walked with him.
SPEAKER_00: Other people like Moses, God comes to Moses and says, Walk before me and be blameless.
SPEAKER_00: But he comes to Enoch and says, Walk with me.
SPEAKER_00: Walk with me, friend.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go for a hike through eternal days together.
SPEAKER_00: Enoch stands as a beacon, a beacon of hope in this genealogy.
SPEAKER_00: That the reign of death is not permanent.
SPEAKER_00: That curse is not the final word.
SPEAKER_00: In this genealogy, the reign of death is disrupted.
SPEAKER_00: But he not points to one in whom the reign of death will be destroyed.
SPEAKER_00: The reign of death comes because of sin.
SPEAKER_00: What is sin?
SPEAKER_00: Sin is self-love.
SPEAKER_00: We're supposed to love God and love others, and we love ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: We are turned in on ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: That's the essence of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Sin is self-love.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Augustine says.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that self-love, because of that sin, we die.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus steps into our history, and his death pays the penalty for that sinful self-love, so that, though we may die physically, death will not have the final word over our lives.
SPEAKER_00: The curse endures in our earthly experience, but it is not our final destination.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus' death and resurrection not only interrupts the narrative, it destroys the dominion of death.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that the dominion of death is being destroyed?
SPEAKER_00: The power of death has been destroyed over your life?
SPEAKER_00: While you might die physically, that just as he rose you will rise.
SPEAKER_00: And you will walk with God through eternal days.
SPEAKER_00: Does that not give you hope?
SPEAKER_00: Does that not lift your weary head as wave upon wave of suffering breaks over your back?
SPEAKER_00: That's what you need.
SPEAKER_00: In order to put one foot in front of the other, spiritually speaking, through this life.
SPEAKER_00: It's no good to go through this world being naive, thinking that suffering won't visit your door.
SPEAKER_00: I pray that happiness does.
SPEAKER_00: But when suffering comes, what will make you wash your face and walk back downstairs?
SPEAKER_00: Is it not the hope of the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: Is it not the hope of death destroyed?
SPEAKER_00: Is it not the hope that pain and grief will one day be counted amongst the former things?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it the hope that one day all things will be made new?
SPEAKER_00: The hope of restoration?
SPEAKER_00: The hope of reunion?
SPEAKER_00: The hope that we will see him face to face.
SPEAKER_00: The one who destroyed death.
SPEAKER_00: And he will wipe every tear from our eyes.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that Enoch walked with.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that Enoch walk with walks with still.
SPEAKER_00: That is the hope that we have as we endured this broken world.
SPEAKER_00: So that we might not be given to despair.
SPEAKER_00: And that we might not go through life with a blind naivety, but with a confident and assured and a humble hope until we reach that everlasting shore.