Looking today at the end of Genesis
4, I was going to rush to Enoch, walking with the Lord, there
in Genesis 5. And it's easy to skim over genealogies. It's on purpose. The Lord gave
this to us. He recorded this for us. And
if you look through the New Testament, out of all the things the Pharisees
who prided themselves on record-keeping, on law-keeping, on the Scriptures,
they were students of the Scriptures. They didn't know God, but they
knew the Scriptures, didn't they? Out of all the things they never
picked on him about, he was the son of David. Not once. He's
of the tribe of Judah. Not once. They didn't go after
him, did they? These things are important, but we can learn a
lot from them. It's easy to get lost in the
trees and never see the forest if you go too deep, isn't it?
But it's also easy to just look at a forest and never see a tree.
So, I pray the Lord's with us this morning. He'll bless His
word to us. We remember the Abel came to the Lord and he had a
blood sacrifice. He brought that lamb. The blood
of the lamb. He brought a substitute to God. And the Lord had respect to Abel
and he respected Abel's offering. And then Cain came and he brought
the works of his hands. It was the fruit of the cursed
ground. That's what he brought to God.
He labored hard in it. He worked hard in it. Picked
all those bugs off, watered it, plowed, sweated, maybe bled. He put a lot of commitment and
time into that fruit. And notice how the Lord dealt
with Cain. Here in Genesis 4, verse 5. But unto Cain, and to his offering,
he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth. and
his countenance fell. He was very wroth. That's furious. He was enraged. What do we see
here in the Psalms? Why did the heathen rage? He
was raging. And the Lord said unto Cain,
Fire thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest
well, shalt thou not be accepted? If you do righteousness, if you
do well, if you believe on Christ, if you look to Him, and you love
the Lord, and you praise Him, and you're thankful to Him. You
love your brethren. Believe Christ, love your brethren. Shall that
not be accepted? Shall that not be accepted? The
Gospel has not changed. I've heard a lot of people, especially
where I grew up, they say, well, there's an Old Testament God and a New
Testament God. No, there's not. The Gospel hasn't changed. What Adam told his boys is the
same thing believers in our day tell their children. Their children
say, Dad, why do we do this? Why do we have Passover? Why
are we going to the Lord's table? Then the Lord said, you instruct
your children. You tell them why. Why are we going to church?
Tell them. Man willfully fell in the garden. And we fell in
it. We turned from God. Every one
of us. We're enmity. We're at war. And we hated Him. That's what
happened. And there's enmity between the
woman's seed and the serpent. Christ our Lord, He will come
through that woman's seed. The serpent's gonna bruise his
heel. He's gonna think he's got him. He's gonna think he won.
But the Lord's gonna crush his head. He's gonna crush sin. He's
gonna crush death. He's gonna crush hell for his
people. Those that he died for. Man won't do that. Man's not
gonna defeat sin. You're not gonna overcome it.
You clean up outside the cup, son. You ain't gonna defeat sin. You ain't gonna defeat death.
and you ain't gonna defeat hell by yourself. That's just where
you'll be. That's where you'll reside. That's a punishment we've
earned willfully and rightfully. Man can't do that. The God-man
will. And our covering, our robe, not
just that sin's been wiped clean. That law, oh, I can't keep a
law. He kept the law for me. It's not that we're reset to
zero. That ain't it. We're given a covering. We're
given a new nature. We're given a robe of righteousness.
Given His righteousness by that One who saved us, dying in our
stead. He justified us. He cleansed
us. He robed us in His righteousness. And we're only accepted by the
Lord by coming to Him. on Christ's merit, by coming
to Him in His worthiness, the worthiness of the Son, and not
our own, don't do it. I try my best to tell my children
that. You try to tell your children that. What do you think Adam
was doing? Ain't nothing changed, nothing's
different, is it? Man born of Adam has not changed. The gospel
hasn't changed and man hasn't changed. There's nothing new
on this earth. We may see more of it. We may
be more aware of it. Ain't nothing new. We're so worried
about things that's going on in our times right now. This
is the worst our government's ever been. Now can you imagine
what if the vice president got with an enemy country and said,
I've got with some generals. I got with some national guards
over the states of the southwest of the United States. And they
agreed with me, if you help me, we're gonna break off. And the
Southeast is gonna be my country, and I'm gonna rule it. Do you
think that'd be bad? Do you think we'd be concerned
about that? 1807, our Vice President Aaron
Burr did it. Well, the justice system's more
corrupt now than it was then, isn't it? All charges were dropped. Ain't nothing changed, is it?
We can send more efficiently in our day. I can drive to that
house of ill repute at 80 miles an hour, but we can go quicker
in our minds, can't we? Ain't nothing changed. We can
do more accusing and excusing, as Paul told us there in Romans
2. More of that's taking place. We can do it quicker. We can
top it now. But what did Cain do? The gospel hadn't changed,
man hadn't changed. What did Cain do? Did he beg for mercy
when he was so wroth? And the Lord came to him and
said, I don't accept you and I don't accept your offering. And he was wroth.
He raged. And the Lord said, why are you
mad? If you do right, won't you be accepted? Do you know the
gospel? Decane begged for mercy. Lord, be merciful to me. I didn't
bring what you required. I know better. Daddy told me
better. I didn't do it. Did he say, Lord, teach me? Teach
me. Show me. That's a hard thing
to be taught, isn't it? If I'm going to teach anybody
something, that means I have something to teach. And you don't
know it. That's a humbling experience. Somebody says, I'm going to teach
you something, Kevin. Boy, my ears start turning off. I want
to hear it. They might be teaching me how
to have a lot of money or something. Maybe I ought to hear it. They might
be teaching me how God saves sinners. I need to hear it. It's
a difference, isn't it? DeCain continues, Lord, be merciful.
Lord, teach me. Show me. Come humbly. It says in verse 8, And Cain
talked with his brother Abel. He didn't speak to God. He went
to his younger brother. He went to his younger brother.
Not talking to the Lord, but his brother. Now Cain can do
the accusing and excusing. Now they can sort this out. How
did that work out for him? Did he cure everything? Did they
meet in the middle? He took vengeance in his own hands. Vengeance is
of the Lord. He killed Abel. And the Lord
said, you are cursed from the earth. He said, obviously Cain
still stayed on this earth, didn't he? Obviously he was still falling
in Adam. You'll curse from the ground up. And he said, you're
going to go plow and the earth won't reap her strength to you.
You're going to have to eat more vegetables. It ain't going to
be profitable. Whatever that was before, I don't
know. Men get their heads wrapped around it. It don't matter. He
said, you'll curse from the ground up. The soil won't yield to you
its strength anymore. And Cain replied to that in verse
13. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than
I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the
face of the earth. He didn't say that, did he? Just
like his mommy, he's adding to it. He said, No, you're cursed
from the earth. I didn't drive you out from it.
And from thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive
and a vagabond in the earth, and it shall come to pass that
everyone that fighteth me shall slay me. And the Lord said unto
him, Therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken
on him sevenfold, and the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any
finding him should kill him." The Lord gave Cain exactly what
he asked for. What do you think would happen
if he came and asked for mercy? What would be merciful to me is sin.
It would give mercy, wouldn't it? Come to him. When you come
to the Lord, don't come demanding things. Don't come asking for
your life to be spared. Don't come asking for the healing.
You ask for mercy. You'll find mercy. Then we come
to the Lord. We cast all our care on Him,
don't we? Lord, You've saved me. If it pleases You, heal me
or heal my children or be gracious to us, pay this lot bill, whatever
it is, don't we? The primary, our need. We cast
our wants on Him. Our need is mercy. Not that our
physical lives be spared or that His providence on this earth
is easier to bear. Not health and wealth, but mercy.
And we beg it from the God we sinned against. Not our family. We don't sort this out with our
brethren. We don't sort this out with other men. We beg God. We ask mercy when we offended
our brethren. The Lord lays that on our heart. But we do that
because the Lord's made us beg Him for mercy. Like that prodigal
son. He didn't say, Daddy, I wronged you. And he wronged his daddy.
He took his inheritance and squandered it. It was wrong. He said, I've
sinned against God and I've done it in your sight. Forgive me. I've asked God to forgive me.
If you ask the Lord to forgive you, what's our brother going
to do? Well, you still owe me. You want to lay something to
charge of God's elect? It's God that justifies. It says
in verse 16, And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord
and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. Whenever
Adam fell in the garden, the Lord sent him forth from the
garden. Adam, get out. You are sent forth. And the cherubims came. He wasn't
allowed back in. Cain went out from the presence
of the Lord. I asked him for what I wanted.
He gave it to me. I'm leaving. The Lord didn't send him out. He went out. Cain went out from
the presence of the Lord, and he willfully left the presence
of the Lord, and he went out to the land of Nod. That's the
land of vagrancy, the land of wandering, the land of unrest. That describes Cain. He was a
man of unrest. Now, he went and built a city,
and I'm sure he lived there, but his heart and his mind was
wandering. It was just bouncing all over the place. He could
not rest. He could not have comfort. He
couldn't have peace. Always thinking, always doing.
Something else has got to, well, we've got to handle this. Land
of unrest. Have you ever felt like just
a tent just flopping in the wind? Have you ever seen a corner of
a tent come untied from a stake? It's just flopping. That unrest
is hard to deal with. And without Christ, without the
church's one foundation, our shore, nail on a shore place,
our shore rock, man cannot be at rest. He will have a wandering
heart and a wandering mind. Always will. It would do us parents
good to give our children this foundation. If the Lord's pleased
to save them, that's His doing. He'll have to do it. And His
will be done. But I want my children, I want
them to go into this world at least having a carnal understanding,
at least in their minds, in them that the Lord's a ruler of heaven
and earth. He's the ruler of the universe. He's sovereign
in all things. He's the first cause of all things.
He's the end cause of all things. He's the Alpha and Omega. He
does what pleases Him and we ought to honor Him and ought
to praise Him. I pray He lays that to their
hearts, but the best I can do, Do everything I can to show them
that example and put it in their heads, isn't it? Give them that
understanding. Willfully leaving the Lord, wandering,
can have generational effects. This can happen all through time.
And we'll see that in a minute. But Cain did not have that rest.
He didn't have that understanding. He didn't bow to the Lord. There's
no fear of God there. And his children did not either.
Look here in verse 17. And Cain knew his wife, and she
conceived and bare Enoch. He built a city and he called
the name of that city after his son, Enoch. He called the name
of that city after his son, Enoch. He loved his son. There's a lot
of people I don't like. They love their children. Their
children love their parents. I don't approve of what they
think, I don't approve of what they do, but they love their children.
Cain loved Enoch. And he said, you know what, I'm
going to name a city after him. Boy, we read throughout the scriptures
of God's children. Not those that willfully left,
not those that had enough and walked away. Jacob, he was sleeping
on that pillow of stones and the Lord came to him and gave
him a dream. And he didn't know that the Lord was there. And
when he woke up and he called the name of that place Bethel.
the house of God. That's where he dwells everywhere.
Moses' children chided after him and picked on the children
of Israel and he called the name of that place Massiah and Meribah
because of the chiding of the children of Israel and because
they tempted the Lord saying, is the Lord among us or not?
Is the Lord going to do something or not? And Moses named that
place, named that city, after what happened. God provided a
lamb in the place of Isaac. Abraham was about to kill his
son. And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-Jireh.
The Lord will provide. Children of God in old times,
they named places and they named cities after their experience
with the Lord. good or bad, whether it was something
that was shameful or not, named it after the Lord. They honored
Him. Cain was given names to things after his own doing, after
his own fruit, and he wanted to establish a name for himself.
But the Lord's children will seek His honor and His glory,
don't they? So the natural eye appears that
to be a blessing for Cain. It looks good. An abundance of
children. Prosperity. Prosperity always
seems to be a blessing from God to our old man, doesn't it? Boy,
the Lord's just blessed you. We're so blessed, isn't it? Just as Jonah bought that ticket
to Tarshish. The Lord said, you go to Nineveh. And he went down
to the down to the docks, got him a ticket to Tarsus. Well,
if the Lord didn't want me to go, he'd have sold the boat out.
There's room for him. This must be his will. It might
be the Lord's permissive will to put John right where he wanted
him, wouldn't it? He didn't fool God. He didn't trip him up. It
says in verse 18, And to Enoch was born Irad, and Irad begat
Mehuzel, and Mehuzel begat Methusel, and Methusel begat Lamech. And
Lamech took unto him two wives, The name of one was Ada and the
name of the other, Zillia. This is the first recorded act
of polygamy. Sin leads to sin. Sin begets
sin. It just grows. It wasn't always
that way. The Lord told us in Matthew 19,
He said, from the beginning it was not so. This will be for
another day, but there's something we can learn of these multiple
marriages in the Old Testament stuff. If a man had a multitude
of wives, he had multiple wives, and the Lord saved him, he wasn't
to cast them all away but the first one. He said, you keep
your wives, you feed them, you provide for them, keep them housed,
but don't you marry another one. So he had to live the rest of
his life, and those wives had to live the rest of their life
reading these scriptures. Seeing this, didn't they? We'll look
at that another day. As far as children and populating this
new city, everything seems to be going in the right direction.
Seems to be prospering. And so what would you think would
come next? Big business is going to spring up. Look here at verse
20. And Ada Bear Jabal, he was the
father of such that dwelled in tents, and of such that have
cattle. And his brother's name was Jubal,
He was the father of all such handled the harp and the organ.
And Zilla, she also bore Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer
in brass and iron. And the sister of Tubalcain was
named one. You've got cattle ranching. That
means there's cheap steaks, cheap red meat. That's appealing in
our day, isn't it? Oh, steaks are on sale. Go to it. Entertainment
and music. fun things to happen. Good schools,
good schools. Tubalcain was an instructor of
every artificer. That means it was an inventor's
school. Fabricators, industrial advancements. In our day, what
would that be? That would be like if you took
Silicon Valley and Las Vegas and just meshed them together.
It looks like a booming, prosperous metropolitan area, isn't it?
That's desirable now, too. Something to be known for. Be
famous. Make a name for yourself. Well, look what we've done. Every
time we read of Abraham, what do we read of? The Lord. Every
time we read of Isaac, what do we hear of? The Lord. What the
Lord did. What the Lord did for his people.
Every time we read of Jacob, what do we hear? A word from
the Lord. Cain's descendants, what do we hear about them? Entertainment,
fine dining, technology, advancements. All the things that have to do
with satisfying the flesh. That's what we read about. And
some might say, well, what's wrong with that? With Christ,
nothing. We ought not to do those things.
With Christ, in Him, not a thing's wrong with it. What do you tell
Peter? Peter, rise, kill, and eat. Go eat what you want. Make
yourself a ham sandwich. You'll be fine. Your friends,
down and out, got a heavy heart, give them strong wine. It's alright. Give them a glass of wine. Sing
praises unto the Lord. Be merry. Rejoice. With God,
there's nothing wrong with it. But without Christ, departing
from His presence, Proverbs tells us, the plowing of the wicked
is evil in His sight. Plowing. Tilling the ground. What you doing? Putting in the
garden. God says that's evil in His sight. That's the difference
between being in Christ and out of Christ. That's the use for
the lust of the flesh. There's only one difference between
the Pharisees and doubting Thomas. The Pharisees said, Lord, show
us a sign and we'll believe you. Thomas said, if I can touch his
side, I'll believe him. There's only one difference between
a bold-faced liar, just a pathological liar, and by faith, Rahab the
harlot. There's only one difference between
Uzziah becoming a leper, because he went and burned incense in
that temple, and David and his men going and eating all the
showbread. Nothing happened. The only difference between those
two is being a child, being a child of God. If Cain ever taught his
children anything about worship, anything about the way the Lord
saves sinners, He puts them in Christ. He's a substitute for
His people. If he taught them anything about
worshiping and honoring the Lord, fearing Him, it was wrong. Billions of people trillions
and whatever comes after quadrillion quadrillions of people how many
people's lived on the face of the earth? Bunches of them have taught
them children good moral lessons They've taught them children
their children stuff about the scripture stuff about God and
every bit of it's wrong Surely not surely. So here's a whole
city God's Word wasn't in it Now we come to the second murder
verse 23 And Lamech said unto his wives,
Ada and Zillah, hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech. You hearken
unto my speech. Y'all listen to me. Pay attention,
women. I did something, you need to
be aware of it. For I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young
man to my hurt. That's translated in, a young
man struck me, a young man wounded me, and I killed him. Not an eye for an eye, was it?
And certainly not grace. It was a slap to a murder. Not
an eye for an eye. And that wasn't turning the other
cheek, was it? Verse 24, If Cain shall be avenged
sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold. See how boastful
and arrogant that is? Someone disrespected me, they
made me look bad, and I slew them. And if the Lord put a hedge
around my dad, The Lord put a hedge around Cain. My hedge must be
taller. I'm going to be avenged 70 times
7. No one can touch me." Lamech didn't understand the curse that
God put on Cain, did he? He was boldly justifying himself. and did not even have a hint
of the fear of the Lord. Not that I've shed innocent blood,
not that I've shed blood. What will the Lord do? Will He
call on me? Will the ground speak forth to
God? Will He hear that? All He had
was a false expectation. I'm doing just fine, what I think
is right, and the Lord ain't going to touch me. Nobody else
is either. Cain refusing to bow to God, Cain refusing to beg
for mercy, and willingly leaving the presence of the Lord where
he was, it had lasting effects. In just a few generations, we
got the whole record of Cain's descendants here, just a few
generations has wiped off the face of the earth. Noah comes
through Seth, the flood came and they're gone. What we do
and the decisions we make can have impacts for generations
to come. They talk about generational
wealth, things people talk about, physical health for your children
and your grandchildren, things going on. But especially leaving
the Lord's presence, leaving where his gospels preached, where
his people gathered, that can have lasting effects. And Cain's
children, they mirrored Seth's lineage to Noah. Some of them
were named the same or close to the same, weren't they? And
they were people working, Seth's family. They worked, they held
jobs, they were being productive for those around them. They were
producing, like they're supposed to be, for themselves, their
families, and the others. They had children. Just like Cain's people. But
Cain's lineage, Cain's house, Cain's city, it appeared to be
so blessed, but Christ wasn't in it. There wasn't a feared
God. We have here this record, and it goes all the way to his
grandchildren, and then the floods come. And no more on this earth
is his name mentioned. His bloodline stopped. The Lord
ended it. Lamech was the last recorded
for Cain. And Lamech of Seth. Seth had
a Lamech too. That was Noah's father. That's
what the Lord used. Every one of us are the offspring
of Seth. Everyone sitting in this room,
we come from Seth. So pay attention. For you're still alive. We'll
leave Cain alone now. For you're still alive. You're still breathing
air. Hope's not lost. Hope's not lost. We're in a bad
situation. People say, Kevin, maybe you
ought not talk about sin so much. Maybe you ought not say blood.
Foolishness! That's what we are. That's what
God saved us from. And we're in need of a Savior
who bled and died for His people. We need to hear that, don't we?
Look here in verse 25. Here's the hope. And Adam knew
his wife again, and she bare a son, and called his name Seth.
What's she calling Seth? Four. Because God, she said,
hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
Seth's name means the appointed substitute. The appointed substitute. Me and Cameron was talking about
this the other day. How would you handle that? Growing up your
whole life. Come here, substitute. Come here,
fill in. We would take that hard, wouldn't
we? Boy, we'd be bitter, be upset. I wish they'd give me a nickname
or something. Why would they call me the substitute? I don't
want to be a substitute. I want to be the firstborn, don't
I? How about God's appointed substitute? How did He react
to that? Christ, the appointed substitute. Before the world was, before
man was created in the likeness of God, He willingly became His
people's substitute. He willingly took our sin upon
Him, became His bride, was slew for His bride, and gave His righteousness,
His holiness to His bride. The Hebrew writer said, happily,
for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross. Happily,
for the joy set before Him. What an amazing thought. The
Lord has joy saving His people. He has joy being a substitute
for His people. He delights to show mercy. That's someone you
want to beg mercy from. We ought to beg mercy from the
Lord. He's not harsh. He's not stoic. He delights to
show mercy. What a loving, caring God we
have. What's the offspring of Seth? How did they fare? How
does God's children fare in Christ? Our incorruptible seed. What's
our end state? We build big cities and buildings
and name it after ourselves and boy, look at all we did. Look
at verse 26. And to Seth, to him also they
were born a son. And he called his name Enos,
the son of Seth. Then began men to call upon the
name of the Lord. Then they began to call upon
the name of the Lord. When does a person begin to call
upon the name of the Lord? We looked Wednesday night at
people calling in Christ, believing in Christ, or believing on Christ.
When does somebody start believing on Christ? When does somebody
start calling upon the name of the Lord? When they're born by
the appointed substitute. That's when they'll do it. Born
of God. When they're made His children. Created anew. We've left Cain and his offspring.
When we looked at them, we saw that success and growth, everything
named after them, all the things they taught, all the advancements
they made. And what does it say about Seth's children? What did
Enos do for a living? Where did he live? I don't know. He called on the name of the
Lord. That's all that's recorded in it. Now we have true worship. Not things of the flesh, not
things that please the eye and the mind and the body. but calling
on the name of the Lord. Did the sons of Seth, did Enos
and his lineage, did they have jobs? Of course they did. Or
put man on this earth to be productive. Yeah, they had jobs. They had
to eat, didn't they? They ate food. They sang songs. There
was entertainment. They whistled. They had tools
to use. They had decorations. Well, that
looks pretty. Let's put that in our living
room. Of course they did, didn't they? But that's not mentioned. The
only thing that's mentioned of his people, the children of the
appointed substitute, is they called upon the name of the Lord.
They worship God. When I die, when you die, you that believe
on it, you children of Seth, you children of that appointed
substitute, I want to be known as someone that believed God.
Someone that trusted him and worshipped him. There's a whole
lot of true things people could say about me. But I want to be,
the most remembered thing to be is, I worship God. Our brother
Lindsey Campbell was took home last week. The Lord called him
to glory. And I think Lindsey sold insurance. I'm not real
sure. I don't really know what kind.
And he did pretty good at it. He fed a family. Pretty successful
at it. I think that's what he did. And
that's fine to know stuff about each other. You can talk about
things. I don't know what Lindsey did, but I know God made him
faithful for decades. Right there in Daniel. The Lord
had him singing his praises three times a week. That's what I will
be remembered for. Several of the commentators here
says that this was the beginning of public worship, the assemblies
of the churches. They gathered together in the
name of the Lord, called upon Him. And that text there can
be translated, men began to be called by the name of the Lord. When God calls a sinner, when
He gives life to them, They're given his name, the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. There in Jeremiah we read, and
this is the name whereby he shall be called the Lord our righteousness. We read later on there in Jeremiah
33, here's the name where she shall be called, the church,
his bride, those he died for, the Lord our righteousness. My name's Kevin. Y'all talk to
me, come up and say, hi Kevin. The name the Lord's given me,
my surname, my last name is the Lord our righteousness. I'm wed
to Him. Isn't that something? Isn't that
something? Given to me by another. My last
name's Thacker. I didn't earn Thacker. That was
given to me by my father, given to me by birth. That's the name
where she shall be called. It goes on there in Genesis 5-1,
I'll hurry. This is the book of the generations,
plural. This is the book of the generations,
plural, of Adam. In the day that God created man,
in the likeness of God, made he him. The Lord made Adam in
his likeness. And every offspring of Adam was
in the likeness of Adam. And Adam had a whole lot of generations.
How many? All the way to us. All the way
to Job back there in the nursery. That's a lot of generations.
That's a lot of layers, isn't it? But there's one other place
in the Scriptures that the wording of this is the exact same. Turn
over to Matthew chapter 1. This is the only other time in
Scriptures this phrasing is used in this order. Here in Matthew
chapter 1 verse 1. Matthew 1.1 says, The book of
the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of
Abraham. The book of the generation. That's singular, isn't it? There's
no S on the end of it. Everything that came from Adam
through Seth, all these generations, that's all of us. And we have
parents, and we have grandparents, and we have great-grandparents,
and there's place given to those before us, isn't it? It's not
so much in our culture respecting your elders. burning up like
a piece of paper in a fire. Pretty quick, isn't it? But we
give place to our elders, those born before us. Give place to
our mother and our father. Honor you, mother and father.
We know that. That's physical, isn't it? That's
the generations of Adam. That's what man can see and man
can understand and man can enter into. I'm older than you. Y'all
listen to me. We like that. Accusing and excusing, isn't
it? But the Lord posed a very strong question to them Pharisees,
didn't he? He said, didn't David say, the Lord said to my Lord,
sit thou on my right hand. Now if the Lord is his son, how
does he call him Lord? They couldn't understand that.
They didn't have ears to hear that. They didn't have eyes to
see that. But when it speaks concerning
the Lord Jesus Christ, it's one generation. This is the generation. One family. One body. One brothers
and sisters. That's on a plane, isn't it?
One inheritance. Shared by them all. Same to them.
Just one. One generation. Throughout the
Bible, we have the first Adam and the second Adam. Pictures
and types all throughout. Shadows. What Adam brought forth
and what Christ brought forth, didn't we? We read there in Romans
5, for by one man's offense, death reigned by one, much more
they which receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness
shall reign by the life of one, Christ Jesus. Just as we fell
in Adam, there is one that we live in, one appointed substitute
for his people, for his body. That's who we fear. That's who
we worship. That's who we call upon is Him. Do you see the wisdom
of God having the whole human race? We've been going through
Genesis here. We've been looking at the first
Adam and the offerings of Cain, the offerings of Abel. Do you
see that the wisdom of God having all mankind fall in one man?
One man became a sinner and all were sinners. One man sinned
to become a sinner and all became sinners. Do you see the wisdom
of God in that? People will say, well, that ain't fair. It ain't
fair, but it's wise, isn't it? No matter what we think, no matter
what, we don't know what fair is. It's wise. That's what it
is. It's the wisdom of God. That
way we may be called the sons of God and our appointed substitute. His sinful people, His fallen
people can be made righteous in one. For by one man's disobedience
many remain sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be
made righteous." Adam made Seth in his own likeness. That's all
we can do. I have children, they're the
spitting image. They're the spirit and the image
of me. They look like me, they act like
me, they think like me. Just as sin reigned into death,
even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life
by Jesus Christ our Lord, by our appointed substitute, those
born of Him. We think like Him, act like Him,
or look like Him. Why? We're going to be conformed
to His image for eternity, predestinated unto Him, made like Him. I look
forward to that day. I'm not in no rush to make it
any quicker. The Lord has appointed time for
me to leave this world, and that's just fine. I don't want to accelerate
it any. But there'll come a day when this old man, this Cain,
is burned away. He dies, he goes, and death and
nastiness and all the pain and trials is gone, and I'll be conformed
to his image. I'll see him face to face, be
made like he is. That ain't my doing. But the
praise comes from my mouth, don't it? Thank you, Lord. Thank you.
The first Adam was created from the dust of the ground. The second
Adam is the Lord from heaven. The first one brought sin in.
The second one brought in righteousness. The first one brought in death.
The second one came with eternal life for his people. The first
one broke the law. The second one kept it. Children
of the first are all born dead to God. And children of the second
are all made alive unto God. And the first Adam, we're called
by His name and His likeness. And in the second Adam, we're
called by His name and His likeness. Lord willing, next week we'll
look at Enoch walking with God. You know, when you read through
Enoch, Seth's Enoch, not one thing's missing about what he
does for a living, about what he looked like, anything, is
just that he walked with God. I pray, Lord, have us walk with
him. It would be good, wouldn't it? Amen. Let's pray together.