Genesis 5-11

As we continue our trip through GENESIS, let’s recap …

LAST WEEK’S MESSAGE

In Chapter 1, the first thing we learned was God is. Not that God is this, or God is that, but simply that God IS, and that God is eternal. We also discovered that, even though we act like we are the creators, He is the one true Creator of all things, including us.

Chapter 1 shows us the power of God’s spoken word and the beauty of His earthly creations. In Chapter 2, we saw a detailed account of how He made mankind. He spoke everything into existence with His powerful Word, except for man. With us, He took the time to lovingly touch us and mold us; to gently kiss the breath of life into us.

As we progressed into Chapter 3, we saw that because of our sin, everything that was beautiful in Chapters 1 & 2, was destroyed in Chapter 3. We went from the fall of man in Chapter 3, to the very first murder in Chapter 4. We saw the nature of our sin when God asked Cain where his brother Abel was, and Cain disrespectfully replied, “I don’t know – am I my brother’s keeper?”

Chapter 4 says Cain was cursed and God made him leave the area where he killed his brother. But we saw that even while God was punishing him by making him leave, God also loved Cain enough to protect him so others would not murder him.

The next thing we want to look at is the genealogy that began to populate the earth.

CHAPTER 5 – From Adam to Noah

To be truthful, genealogy can get kind of boring. Starting in Chapter 5, we have a list of who-begat-who, starting with the creation of Adam and continuing until the time of Noah. Most of us tend to skim over these lists, but we must be very careful, because sometimes we will find the most interesting things buried in these passages.

A quick example is fouind in 1 CHRONICLES 4. That passage is verse after verse of who begot whom, and right in the middle of that list, there are two verses that stand out like a neon light. In these two verses, we hear about a man names Jabez who prayed a prayer that was so powerful, it is still affecting millions of people today. And then it goes right back into the list of genealogy.

Many people wonder why the Bible would include a boring list of genealogy. Here is a story that might explain it better than I can.

There was a man by the name of Gideon Miller. He was about 5’6” and had size 16 shoes. To say the least, Gideon was a very intimidating fugure. He was married to a German woman who had been a member of the Hitler Youth. Now, that was odd, because Gideon was a Jew.

After WWII, Gideon and his wife made their way to America and ended up in Las Vegas where he became a gambler. He soon realized that he was an alcoholic. He was not well liked. He was considered a dangerous type of man who could not be trusted in business or personal dealings.

He eventually started going to Alcoholics Anonymous, which was being held in a back room of a church on the Las Vegas strip. One evening, he got to the meeting much earlier than anyone else, so he began looking around for something to read while he waited on the others to get there. He found a Bible and began to thumb through it. He took the Bible home with him after the meeting and kept reading it.

Gideon said he wasn’t getting too much out of it at all, until he came to the genealogy of Jesus. He said he suddenly realized that Jesus wasn’t a Christian; He was a Jew – just like Gideon was! He said that was the one thing that turned the Bible into a personal testimony for him.

That long line of “who-begot-who” made Jesus real to one man and brought him to accept Jesus as Savior. So, we must be very careful when deciding to skip any part of Scripture, because all of it has God’s unbelievable power to change our hearts.

Let’s now talk about more consequences of our sin. Let’s go proceed to …

CHAPTER 6 – The Account of the Flood

In GENESIS 6:1, we read where man had begun to increase in numbers on the earth. That would tell us that many generations had come and gone; enough to populate much of the known region in those days. We also learn about two lines of people; the Godly line and those who were evil. The Godly line married into the line that was not godly, causing them to become ungodly, too.