Genesis 11
Hope is an amazing thing. Hope is more than an emotion. It’s more than fantasy. It’s more than just believing really hard.
“Hope is patiently waiting expectantly for the intangible to become reality.” Avery D. Miller said that. Hope is patiently waiting expectantly for the intangible to become reality.
Hope is what keeps prisoners of war from losing their minds. Hope that their rescue will soon come. Hope moves thousands of people every day to our country seeking a better life. Hope brings people to counseling desiring for a relationship to be mended. Hope brings people to a doctor wanting relief from sickness. And hope brings people to Jesus. Hope for forgiveness. Hope for a new direction. Hope for a new life.
But when there’s no hope people get depressed, people despair, and people give up. That’s the leading motivation behind the thousands of suicides every year – that people have no hope that their lives will get any better.
But because of the Lord we have hope! He’s shown us that because of Him in our lives there’s always reason to hope. We can patiently wait for the intangible to become reality. And even when things seem dark and hopeless, the Lord shows us that because of Him there’s always reason to hope.
Tonight’s passage will show us that hope from God loud and clear. But it’s really not one of those passages that we often look to for hope. You see, this is one of those passages that goes through the family line or the genealogy of a particular person. You know, the so-and-so begat so-and-so, and on and on the list goes passages. But in this family line there’s so much hope! So let me give you a little background into the passage of Genesis Chapter 5.
- First Patriarchs
- Covers about 1600 years
- Average lifespan of the first Patriarchs was 900 years
- Passage shows connection between Adam and Noah
- Spiritually dark time on earth
- Ten generations starting with Adam
- Death
- Hope
And we see the dichotomy between death and hope in the beginning of the passage.
[Read Genesis 5:1-3.]
Adam and Eve were created in the image of their heavenly Father:
- Morality - Intellect - Spiritual
- Will - Communication - Eternal
- Emotions - Relational
Seth came forth in the image of his earthly father:
- Moral struggles - Spiritually dead
- Communication issues - Eternal life not guaranteed
- Emotional problems - Relational problems
Adam was created to live and Seth was born to die. Adam was created in God’s image.
Seth was born in Adam’s image. And this sets the stage for the rest of the passage. But remember, throughout all this genealogy of life and death there is hope. But before we get to that, let’s read of the family line from Adam to Noah.
[Read Genesis 5:4-32.]
When you read that passage it seems like every generation had commonalities:
- All had sons and daughters
- All eventually died, (except Enoch)
God created man to live and fill the earth with life, but now everyone dies. But, amongst
all this death there is hope. Three rays of hope that come shining through the darkness.
I. Patriarch’s children
Every one of the Patriarch’s had children. Sons and daughters. And since they lived so long I’ll bet they had a lot, I mean a lot of kids! We don’t really know just how long the women could bear kids back then. But today, women can have children until their middle-aged. Back then middle-aged was 450 years old! Can you imagine how many kids a lady could have? That’s a lot of diapers, Christmas presents and runny noses.
But with every child born there’s hope. Hope that they’ll grow up and be somebody special. Hope that they’ll turn our alright. Hope that they won’t make the same mistakes we as parents make. Children bring hope to any family.
And just think about the hope that Seth brought to Adams family. One son was dead and the other was banished and off living in sin. But this new child brought hope to Adam and Eve.
When Lisette and I look at our kids one of the things we see is hope for the future of our extended families. Like most families, ours is riddle with divorce, ungodliness and strife. Now we love our families. And there are pockets of Christianity on both sides of the family tree. But our kids represent the next generation of the family. We have the chance, through them, to set new standards and trends for the family. Our kids give our family hope.
And it’s because everything’s new for them. They aren’t ruled by history and memories and traditions. They can start out fresh without anything holding them back. Kids bring hope to any family. And with the Patriarchs their children brought hope.
Remember, death was a new thing for them. Man wasn’t created to die. But now man dies. And that’s indicated in every generation mentioned here. And its mentioned for a reason.
It shows an element of despair amongst the Patriarchs. They would live hundreds and hundreds of years but their bodies would eventually give out. Death would come to every Patriarch – but their family would live on through their kids. A ray of hope in a dark time.
Another ray of hope amongst all this death is:
II. Enoch’s translation, (rapture)
[Read Genesis 5:21-24.]
For 365 years Enoch did what all the other Patriarchs did – have kids. He even gave birth to the man who would live longer on the earth than anyone else ever did. (Methuselah who lived for 969 years.)
But Enoch is described differently than the others here. He’s described as a man who walked with God. Not just that they were exercise buddies who enjoyed a stroll through the land every morning. But a man who “walked” or “lived in fellowship” with the Lord. It’s a phraseology used many times throughout the entire Bible to describe someone’s faith.
[Read Genesis 6:9, 17:1.]
To walk with God means to live a life of obedience and fellowship with Him. Enoch was someone who’s life was typified by his walk with the Lord. And probably for this reason the Lord decided to show him some grace and bring him directly to Heaven without dying first. Amazing. Now this doesn’t mean that he was the only godly person back then. Remember as we talked last week it seems like some sort of spiritual revival happened with Seth’s family. But it seems like Enoch was a special person who had a seriously close and strong walk for the Lord. So the Lord took him directly from earth to his eternal home.
[Read Hebrews 11:5.]
Centuries later the Lord did much of the same thing when He took Elijah from the earth and spared him from a human death. You can read about that in II Kings chapter two where in dramatic fashion God raptured Elijah from the earth just like He did for Enoch.
So when we look at the way that God raptured Enoch from the earth because of his walk with God, we get a glimpse of the way that God will some day rapture from the earth the ones who truly walk with Him.
[Read I Thessalonians 4:13-18.]
If we’re alive when Jesus comes back, we’ll experience the rapture just like Enoch and Elijah did. Wouldn’t that be cool? Sure it would! And there’s hope in that realization.
But even if we pass on before the rapture happens, just like all the Patriarchs who died, we have a hope that there is an eternal life because of God. Most people have to die to get to eternity – but there is life after this one. There is hope when you walk with God. That hope is represented in Enoch, by faith, passing into an eternal existence with the Lord.
In this passage of death we see hope. Hope in the Patriarch’s children and hope in Enoch’s translation. And finally we see hope in the connection between Adam and Noah. There’s hope in:
III. Noah’s ‘rest’
[Read Genesis 5:28-32.]
When you read about the hope that Lamech had in the birth of his son Noah you get the idea that life was hard for the Patriarchs. Lamech, at 182 years old, was obviously tired of working and tired of living with the curse of sin. Life was hard. Work was tough. Dealing with sin gets old at times. Can you imagine living in these dying, sinful bodies for 900 years? No thanks! And Lamech was feeling the pressures of life at the tender age of 182. But there was hope for a ‘rest’ through the life of his son.
I don’t think Lamech had any idea of what kind of ‘rest’ Noah would bring to the people of the land. But he had hope that through Noah things would be different. Noah would bring peace and rest to the people.
Ironically, when the flood came in Noah’s day, it looked like anything but rest and peace. It looked like chaos and judgment. (And it was!) But it was something necessary so that the ultimate rest and peace could come through Noah’s family line as God used him to repopulate the earth. That ‘rest’ and that victory over the curse would come to pass through the line of Noah in the person of Jesus Christ. The one who gives rest for our souls and victory over the curse of sin.
In this chapter of death we see hope through the life of Noah. Now of course, that’s actually easy for us. I mean, we know the end of the story. We know about the flood. We know how Jesus comes through the family line of Noah. We know how Jesus died and rose again for our sins. But Lamech didn’t. All he saw was a son. A son whom he believed would bring rest to him and the others of the earth. What Lamech said was prophetic. God did use Noah to bring that ‘rest’ for mankind from the curse through Jesus. The hope we all enjoy today.
This little chapter of genealogies is just so rich with reasons for the Patriarchs and even us to hope. Why? Because of God.
- God was the One allowing them to continue to bring forth children.
- God was the One who raptured Enoch.
- God was the One who would use Noah to bring forth the Savior.
- God.
The same God we have today. The God over all creation who has no limits on His power
or His love for that matter. Because of God there’s always hope.
[Friend’s, (Lisette), broken relationship with a friend and restoration.]
Because of God there’s always hope. What do you need to hope in God for? Then patiently wait for the intangible to become reality because of God.
