The Godly Line Series

Genesis (12) (The Godly Line)

Text: Genesis 5:1-32

By: Ken McKinley

Go ahead and open your Bibles to the Book of Genesis, as we’re going to be continuing on with our study of this great book of the Bible. Genesis chapter five; and as you’re turning there I’ll go ahead and recap what we’ve covered so far. In chapter 1 we talked about the six days of creation and the creation ordinances of marriage, labor, and the Sabbath. In chapter two we saw God’s blessings to mankind and the covenant of works established. In chapter three we talked about the saddest moment in all of human history, when Adam and Eve fell, and we learned that sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin. We also talked about this spiritual war we’re now engaged in. Then we looked at chapter four, and we saw the consequences of Adam’s sin and the first casualty of this spiritual war, and we also saw that God’s strategy for fighting this war is by having godly parents raising godly children and training them up in the way they should go.

So this morning we come to Genesis chapter five, and we’re actually going to be reading verses 1 – 32, and we’re going to hear Moses recount for us the original creation, and then tell us the effects of sin on the human race, but he’s also going to tell us about the godly line of Seth, so take your Bibles and please follow along with me as I read Genesis chapter 5:1-32 (Read Text).

Those first three verses are recounting for us the story of creation. And we are reminded that God created man in His own image – and again; this is first and foremost where we develop the idea of human dignity. You see; there is nothing wrong with taking care of our planet, and there’s nothing wrong with being kind and compassionate to animals, but when you elevate those things in priority over taking care of your fellow man, you’re missing the mark. When we have people whose desire to save the whales is so strong that they put human lives in danger, then they are missing the mark. Or when you have people whose desire to save the forested areas of North America is so strong that they are willing to burn down buildings and put peoples lives in danger, then what you have is someone whose missing the mark. And I want you to notice there in verse two, that when God created male and female, He named them man, or literally – Adam. And that reminds us that both men and women express the image of God, and that it takes both male and female to express what God means by humanity. And I also think its pretty interesting that we only are given a glimpse of these people’s lives until we get to Seth. Even the ones that seem interesting, like Enoch… we’re told very little about them. And basically the record of the details of their lives are basically forgotten, but what was important to God, was that they were in this godly line of faithful people, and that they raised godly, covenant children. Now if that doesn’t add some perspective to things, I don’t know what will. Also; in just those few verses we see that even though we were created in the image of God, when Adam sinned in the Garden, sin entered the world, and now we have to deal with it. We see that, when it says, we were created in the image of God, but when Adam had a son, it was a son after his image. And we know that means sin, because as we read further and look at what happens to these people, we see death; even though they are in the godly line… They are born, the live, and then they die. The only exception was Enoch. If there was no sin, there would be no death.

Now in verses 3 – 32 we see this godly line progress. This is sort of a bridge from creation to the flood. And I want to focus on the people in this godly line. In verses 3 – 5 were going to look at Seth, in verses 21 – 24 we’ll look at Enoch. In verse 29, we’re going to look at Lamech and compare him to the Lamech in Cain’s line, and then in verses 29 – 32 we’ll finish up by looking at Noah.

But before we get to that I want to point out one other fact, and that is that in Genesis chapter 5 no one from the line of Cain is mentioned. We’re told about Cain’s line in chapter 4, but now Moses by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is focusing on the seed of the woman.