Last year (2020), as Christmas approached, Amir Fakharian, CEO of RexRoi manufacturing, decided to create an ornament which reflected the year. As you remember, that’s when the Corona pandemic terrorized the world. There were riots in the streets, and it ended with a contested election, which 59% of the US electorate today believe was a fraud according to a recent Rasmussen pole (12/23/2021). Now, whether you agree with three-fifths of the country, I think most would agree that 2020 was a terrible year, and 2021 seemed to descend into further chaos.
The popular ornament captured the mood of the moment. It was a literal dumpster fire, complete with battery-operated flames lighting up one side (Hannah Frishberg, “Dumpster fire Christmas ornaments are ‘a perfect way to commemorate 2020,’” New York Post, 11-13-20; www.PreachingToday.com).
Our world is in a mess! So how did we get here and how do we get out of it? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 5, Genesis 5, where we find the reason for the mess and How to get out of it.
Genesis 5:1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God (ESV).
God made Adam like Himself, righteous and holy.
Genesis 5:2-3 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth (ESV).
Adam was created in the likeness of God – righteous and holy. Seth was born in the likeness of Adam, and therein lies the problem. After God created Adam, Adam sinned. Adam chose to rebel against God. And now, Adam bears a son like himself, not someone who’s righteous and holy, but someone who is a sinner and a rebel, and the same is true of all of Adam’s descendants.
WE ARE CORRUPT.
All of us are depraved. All of us are sinners, born in the image and likeness of our father, Adam.
Romans 5:12 says, “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.”
That’s the problem, my friends. We are NOT sinners, because we sin. We SIN, because we are sinners. Even in our sleep, we are still sinners. We are sinners by nature, because we inherited that nature from our father, Adam.
Now, this is no little irritation, no little annoyance. On the contrary, it is a HUGE problem.
Several years ago (January 2005), Patrick Lawler thought he had a toothache. So, for a week, he tried painkillers and ice packs to reduce the swelling, but nothing he did brought relief. Finally, he went to the dentist, who took an x-ray of his mouth. Do you know what he found? Patrick didn’t have a little toothache. He had a four-inch nail in his head.
As it turns out, six days earlier, Patrick was working with a nail gun that backfired. A nail shot into his mouth and embedded itself, just missing his right eye, but Patrick didn’t realize it. All he knew was that all of a sudden he had a toothache and blurry vision. He even tried ice cream to soothe the pain.
Fortunately, surgeons at a Denver hospital were able to remove the nail in four hours of surgery. Later, one of the surgeons commented, “This is a pretty rare injury,” but “this is the second one we've seen in this hospital where the person was injured by a nail gun and didn't actually realize the nail had been embedded in their skull” ("It's a Pretty Rare Injury," Sydney Morning Herald, 1-17-05; www.PreachingToday.com)
A lot of people deal with their problems like they’re a minor toothache. They buy self-help books, go to seminars, or listen to podcasts. Others say, “Fix the 2020 election,” “Vote the bums out,” or “Get a vaccine.” But the problem is much bigger than any of that. Everyone has a four-inch nail in his or her head, so to speak. Everyone has a sin nature, which is killing all of us. We are not only corrupt…
WE ARE CONDEMNED.
There is a death sentence in all of us. Look at the record.
Genesis 5:4-5 The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died (ESV).
Adam died because of his sin, and so did the rest of his descendents.
Genesis 5:6-8 When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh. Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died.
And so on throughout all the generations. They live so many years, have a son, live some more years, and they die. Like a broken record, the story is always the same.
Verse 11 All the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died.
Verse 14 All the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died.
Verse 17 All the days of Mahalalel were 895 years, and he died.
Verse 20 All the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died.
Verse 27 All the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.
Verse 31 All the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died.
Nobody escapes. They all die (except for one person, and we’ll look at him later).
George Bernard Shaw once said: The statistics on death are quite impressive. One out of one people die. And there is nothing anybody can do to stop it, even though some have tried.
21 years ago (2000), the town council of Le Lavandou on the French Riviera passed a law prohibiting people from dying in town. Why? Because the town cemetery was full. There was absolutely no more room to place any more bodies.
The law actually said, “It is forbidden without a cemetery plot to die on the territory of the commune.”
Did that stop anybody from dying? No, of course not. People still died. They just found other places to house their bodies (Chicago Tribune, 9-22-00; www.PreachingToday.com).
Rex Humbard tells the story of a woman who was terminally ill. She spent some time in the hospital, but then came home where she was confined to bed. Her eight-year-old daughter did not know she was dying.
Then one day, the little girl was standing outside her mother’s bedroom door when she overheard the doctor speaking to her mother. He said, “I’ll be honest with you. The time is not too far off. Before the last leaves have gone from the trees, you will die.” Nobody knew that the little girl was there.
Later, her father found her in the front yard. His heart was broken as he watched her picking up the leaves that had begun to fall. Using some thread, she was tying them back onto the branches of the tree (Illustrations Unlimited, pp.141-142).
She thought that would keep her mother from dying, but it didn’t. Sooner or later, all of us must die. We have an evil, corrupt sin-nature, which is killing all of us.
That’s the reason for the mess we’re in, but there is a way out. In the midst of death, there is the assurance of life. Genesis 5 would totally depress you, if it were not for two people in it who really stand out. The first is Enoch. Look at him in verse 21.
Genesis 5:21-23 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years [and he died].
Is that what your Bible says? No! But that’s what you’d expect it to say after reading it six times in a row. Instead, the text surprises us with the unexpected.
Genesis 5:24 Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him (ESV).
I like the way one commentator put it: Enoch and God were walking along, and one day they went so far that God just said to Enoch, “You’re so far away from home, why don’t you just come home with Me.” And that’s exactly what he did! Enoch did not die. He simply walked with God into glory, escaping the sentence of death, and so can you!
The Bible says, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Jesus Himself said, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live” (John 11:25).
Do you want eternal life? Do you want to live even though you die? Do you want to escape the sentence of death? Then by faith, just like Enoch…
WALK WITH GOD.
Don’t go it alone. Instead, go with the Lord through life. Enter into a personal relationship with him through faith in Jesus Christ, His son.
There was once an old Scotsman who got very sick. The family called for the pastor. He came to the sick room and sat down, noticing another chair on the opposite side of the bed. It was drawn close, just like his chair, and the pastor commented, “Well, Donald, I see I’m not your first visitor for the day.”
The old man looked up, puzzled at first. Then he realized that the pastor was referring to the empty chair. “Let me tell you about that chair,” the old man said. “Many years ago I found it quite difficult to pray, so I shared this problem with my former pastor. He suggested that I sit down, put a chair opposite me and imagine Jesus sitting in it. Then talk with Him as I would a friend.” The old Scotsman added, “I’ve been doing that ever since.”
A short time later, the old man’s daughter called the pastor with the news that her father had died. She was shocked, because she didn’t expect it so soon. She said, “I had just gone to lie down for a couple of hours, and when I returned, he was dead.” Then she added, “Except now his hand was on the empty chair at the side of the bed. Isn’t that strange?”
The pastor replied, “No, it’s not so strange. I understand.” (James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited, p.416)
Like Enoch, the old man walked with God through life. And when he came to the end of his life, he put his hand in God’s and walked with Him right into glory. Now, there are a lot of people who can walk with you through life – your friends, your parents, your spouse. But only God can walk with you through the valley of the shadow of death. Only God can walk with you into eternity.
So start walking with God today. Trust His Son, who died for your sins and rose again. Just ask the Lord to become your friend, and He will!
Dr. Ken Canfield talks about a time when he had to correct one of his daughters during a family vacation. His daughter, Sarah, had gotten a little ornery and pushed her sister, Hannah.
“Did you push your sister?” he asked.
“No.” Sarah denied it. That kind of thing was becoming a growing pattern for her, so Ken decided to take a walk with her to get to the bottom of things.
“Sarah,” he told her, “I'm really disappointed with your behavior. What do you need to do about it?”
Ken Canfield expected Sarah to tell him she needed to stop lying or apologize to her sister, but instead, with tears in her eyes, she said, “I need to ask Jesus to come into my heart.”
Ken says, “There I was, zeroing on behavior modification, and my 6-year-old daughter was dealing with the bigger issues of needing forgiveness, cleansing, and internal spiritual change. I was focused on morality, she on the spirituality that makes morality possible and sincere” (Ken Canfield, "The Heart of a Father," Men of Integrity, July 2001).
Ken’s little girl knew the answer to the big sin problem in her own heart. It was asking Jesus to come into her heart and to change her from the inside out. That’s the answer for you, as well. Won’t you do it today? Ask Jesus to come into your heart right now. Then walk with God through the rest of your life. If you want out of the mess we’re in, walk with God. Then…
DEPEND ON HIS WORD.
Trust his promises. Believe everything he tells you. That’s what Lamech did, the 2nd man who stands out in Genesis 5.
Genesis 5:28-29 When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the LORD has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands” (ESV).
He remembered God’s promise of a Deliverer in Gen 3:15, and he was hoping that his boy, Noah, would be that Deliverer. He was hoping that his boy, Noah, would be the one to bring “relief” or rest from the curse.
As it turns out, Noah was not that Deliverer in the ultimate sense. Sure, he delivered his family from the flood, but he could not deliver human beings from the curse of sin. That was something Jesus had to do thousands of years later.
Even so, Lamech believed the promise. He depended on God’s Word, and that’s what you must do if you want to find rest from the curse in our own life. Just walk with God and believe everything He tells you.
In the early days of our country, a tired traveler came to the banks of the Mississippi River for the first time. There was no bridge. It was early winter, and the river was frozen over, but was the ice thick enough to hold the traveler’s weight? He didn’t know.
Night was falling, and he had to get to the other side. So after much hesitation and with great fear, the traveler began to cautiously creep across the surface of the ice on his hands and knees. He was hoping to distribute his weight as much as possible to keep the ice from breaking beneath him.
He got halfway across when he heard the sound of singing behind him. He looked, and there was a man driving a horse-drawn load of coal across the ice and singing his heart out as he went his way.
The traveler was on his hands and knees, trembling for fear that the ice would break underneath him. On that same ice, the other man, with his horses, his sleigh, and his load of coal was enjoying the trip.
Many Christians creep along on God’s promises, afraid that those promises will break beneath them. But God’s promises will never break. They are stronger than the thickest sheet of ice. So trust them. Depend on them. Believe them and enjoy the trip! It’s the only way to experience God’s peace. It’s the only way to experience God’s comfort and rest in this messed up world.
Just walk with God and believe His Word.
Rick Ezell, in his book Seven Sins of Highly Defective People, talks about receiving a recall notice in the mail. It looked like any product recall notice, but this one was much more personal. Stamped in big red letters were the words, IMPORTANT RECALL, which had this message underneath:
“The maker of all human beings is recalling all units manufactured, regardless of make or year, due to the serious defect in the primary and central component, the heart. This is due to a malfunction in the original prototype units, resulting in the reproduction of the same defect in all subsequent units. This defect has been technically termed Subsequential internal non-morality, or more commonly known as SIN, and its primary symptom is a lapse of moral judgment. If one is susceptible to loss of direction, foul vocal emissions, lack of peace and joy, or selfish behavior, then one is inflicted with the defect. The manufacturer, who is neither liable nor at fault for this defect, is providing factory authorized repair and service, free of charge, to correct this SIN defect, at numerous locations throughout the world (Rick Ezell, Seven Sins of Highly Defective People, Kregel, p. 5).
Please, take advantage of this recall notice if you haven’t done it already. Just surrender yourself to the Lord and let Him fix the SIN problem in your life.
