Good morning, my brothers and
sisters. You pardon me for just a moment while I prepare my electronic
stuff. I was going to ask someone if
this water was for me, but I am laying claim to it, whether it
was or not. I do bring you greetings from
your brothers and sisters who gather at Sovereign Grace Chapel
They are probably only live streaming. They're probably live streaming.
Joe and Paul probably will be from Paul and Paula's home because
we're supposed to have four to six inches of snow down our way.
And that's what I will be driving toward when I leave here. So
just so everyone knows when I'm done, I will probably close with
a prayer. And then you all can have your song, whatever you
have. I'll go back to the back just so I can say goodbye to
everyone. We're not going to linger too long. The weather's
showing it's supposed to be maybe mostly rain, but I don't know
that for sure. And I'm not looking forward to
driving in six inches of snow. Also, thank you so much for the
lodging. I actually slept real well last
night. And Rex, Debbie, and Jenny, thank you for your hospitality.
And we got to socialize a little yesterday evening and got to
know one another. What made it even more sweet
than that was we were able to fellowship in the person and
word of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's always great. I have a
song I want to give you. My fellow pastor at Sovereign
Grace Chapel, Joe Belusick, usually on Sunday mornings or Saturday
evening will send me a song and I'll read it to whoever I'm preaching
to if I'm preaching to someone that Sunday. This is a short
song, it's just the words, that's what I'm going to give you. I'm
not going to attempt to sing it for you. And you can find it, if you wish
to find it, it's number 175 in Gadsby's in-book. It's by J. Adams, and his title is Christ
All in All. His scriptures are Colossians
3, 11, Psalm 18, 2, Psalm 23, and 2. And here's what Adams
wrote. Christ is my all, my sure defense,
nor shall my soul depart from thence. He is my rock, my refuge
too, in spite of all my foes can do. Christ is my all, and
he will lead my soul to pastures green to feed, to his heath supplies
my every want, and will all needful blessings grant. Christ is my
all, where should I go? Without him I can do nothing. Helpless and weak, a sinner great,
yet in his righteousness complete. I like that. The songs that we
sing are to be sung to the honor and glory of our God. And our
songs should be as accurate as the gospel we preach. And I always
appreciate when I go somewhere that there are those people who
want to preach and sing the truth. All right, let me get something
going here. All right, if you wish to follow
along, turn to Genesis chapter 5. That should be fairly easy
to find. I have to confess to you, not
too many Sundays ago, When Paul, Joe, and myself, actually we're
all three at chapel. And of course, we're all three
there on Sunday morning, we all three preach. So we're there
for a good little while. And Paul was preaching for Jonah
and for the life of me, I couldn't find it. I had to turn to the
front of my Bible and see where it was. Shameful, shameful. Okay, everybody, this is chapter
five. Now, before I begin, I want to know if any of you have ever
heard of the story of Jim and George. The title of it is George
Has Pigs. Anybody heard of that? Well let
me try to tell you the story of Jim and George. Jim and George
were both elderly fellows and they had been the best of friends
most all their life. Of course they both where their
spouses were gone and they were sitting on George's front porch
one evening drinking a little tea. Jim looked at George and
said, George, we're the best of friends, aren't we? George
said, yeah, we're the best of friends. Jim said, George, if
you had a million dollars, would you give me $500,000 of it? George
said, sure, Jim. If I had a million dollars, I'd
give you half of it. I'd give you $500,000. And Jim said, Georgia, if you
had two houses, would you give me one of your houses? And George
said, Jim, you know I would. If I had two houses, I'd give
you one of my houses. Jim shook his head and thought
and said, Georgia, if you had two cars, would you give me one
of your cars? George says, Jim, we are the
best of friends. You know I'd give you one of
those cars. Jim shook his head, said, George, if you had two
pigs, would you give me one pig? George looked at Jim and said,
Jim, you know I got two pigs. That may sink in for a minute. Did that go right over your head?
It went over my head the first time I heard it, too. What's
that even have to do with Genesis chapter 5? What's the relevance
of that? I have no earthly idea. other than to say this, God save
me from myself. God save me from myself. For
my flesh will promise the world to God until it comes right down
to the nitty gritty. It's only the Spirit of God in
me that would move me to ever seek to love the Lord Jesus Christ. Alright, Genesis chapter 5. Now I'm not going to read the
whole chapter. And since the weather is supposed to be a little
better, I'm not going to try to rush through this by any means,
which I would not intend on doing anyway when it comes to the preaching
of the gospel. But I have, I don't mean to scare
you here, but I have 10 major points that I want to give you
this morning. But you'll see why I have the 10 here in just
a moment. But let's read just a few verses, and let me keep
my notes. Let's look at Genesis chapter 5. Look at the first
few verses. This is the book of the generations
of Adam. In the day that God created man,
in the likeness of God made he him. Male and female created
he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam in the
day when they were created." So you see those two verses.
Now look at verse 3. And Adam lived 130 years and begat a son
in his own likeness after his image and called his name Seth. Now look at verse 6. And Seth
lived 105 years and begat Enos. Do you see that? And begat Enos.
Now verse 9. And Enos lived 90 years and begat
Cain. See that? Enos beget Cain. Look at verse 12. And Cain lived
70 years, and beget Mahalaleel. Verse 15. And Mahalaleel lived
60 and 5 years, and beget Jared. And look at verse 18. And Jared
lived 160 and 2 years, and beget Enoch. Now look at verse 21. And Enoch
lived 60 and five years and begat Methuselah. Now look at verse
25. All right, verse 25. And Methuselah lived 180 and
seven years and begat Lamech. Do you see it? Now the last two
verses, verse 28, 29. And Lamech lived 180 and two
years and begat a son. And he called his name Noah,
saying, this same shall comfort us concerning our work and toll
of our hands because of the ground which the Lord God hath cursed. What stands out in those verses
that I read to you? Names. Mostly what stands out. Names. Names. Names. Begat. Begat. Begat. Is that not true? Just names. But names have meanings. Right? Jesus. Call his name Jesus. Why? Here's the meaning of that
name. For he shall save his people
from their sins. Jesus means Jehovah is God our
Savior. What about Isaac? You remember
when Abraham was first informed that they would have a son? Abraham
and Sarah would have a son. You remember what Sarah did in
the tent door? She laughed. And God said, call
his name Laughter. So every time she called that
boy's name, she remembered what she did. His name had a meaning. What about Mephibosheth? Everybody
knows Mephibosheth. Here, I figure you probably do.
You know what his name means? Dispeller of shame. A dispeller
of shame. Here's my title. and this is
my subject as far as titles go, those anti-Diluvian names, not
anti, but anti-Diluvian names. I submit to you that by the direction
of God Almighty, in his holy word, These 10 names, and that's
why I have 10 points, these 10 names, when we look at their
scriptural meanings, their Hebrew meanings, they form a sentence. And that sentence preaches the
gospel. This is not true of all genealogies,
so don't get me wrong. When I first realized, I heard
a Jewish gentleman preach from this subject years and years
ago, and it just caught my attention. caught my attention. So I started
looking up all the other genealogies, and I got tired of looking. Because
none of the others seemed to make sense. But by God's grace,
we'll see how this one makes sense. Look at it. This is the
start, number one. And God called their name Adam. Are you a creationist? Have you
ever said God created Adam and Eve? That's not so. Eve was not named Eve until after
they had fallen, and she was named Eve by her husband. God tells us He called their
name Adam. Isn't that striking? Now, you know
what Adam means? Some of you may know some of these things.
You know what Adam means? Ready to blush. In the Hebrew, it literally could
be rendered to show blood, in the face. It is a uniquely human
trait. No other creature has the capacity
to blush. Now I've heard some scientists
try to say some other creatures do, but they are lying through
their teeth. I watch these animals. They're
not blushing. It is to blush, to show blood
in the face. Our first word is, the actual
meaning of Adam is man. Man. But note this caveat. God called their name Adam. Listen to me now. This denotes
absolute headship. Adam was the head of Eve. The man is the head of the woman. Christ is the head of the man,
and God is the head of Christ. Listen to me now. There is a
circumcised Jewish man seated right now at the right hand of
God the Father. And that circumcised Jewish man,
seated at the right hand of God the Father, has a bride. And
they all, they all, all who are members of that bride, they all
bow to his headship. His name is my name. His name is your name. The Lord, our righteousness. Anybody who hates headship, in
any of its places, in any of its facets, anybody who hates
headship, hates Jesus Christ. Period. I don't like that man
beating the head of the woman, then you hate God. Because I
am Christ's bride. And he is my head, and I like
it to be that way. What about you? So, the first
word in our sentence is, man. Secondly, Adam called his name,
his son's name, Seth. Seth means this, appointed. Another
instead of, and you actually see that if you read, what is
it, chapter 4 and verse 25. And Adam knew his wife again,
and she bare a son, and called his name Seth, for God said,
She hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel." That's
the meaning. Look all these up, if you will.
Look them up in the concordance. You don't have to have Hebrew
scholars. You don't have to look in deep
Hebrew books. Just get you a strong concordance.
Look up these names. You will see these meanings.
I got them from Hebrews. or from the scripture. Seth means another instead of. So our sentence thus far is man
is appointed. But notice this caveat about
Seth. Look at it in verse 3. And Adam
lived 130 years and begat a son of his own likeness after his
image. Now we see the fall of mankind
solidified completely. I'm not saying man hadn't fallen
completely. I'm saying it is solidified in
this young son's name. They were acknowledging, we are
fallen. We are everything we bring forth. Adam brought forth who? Seth. What did he bring forth? A fallen
creature just like himself. God's ordained order is still
being carried out when God originally created this world. He said that
everything will bring forth after its own kind. Evolution is a
lie. and we were brought forth from
the loins of Adam. His name also suggests Messianic
hope. I'm not going to spend much time
there in this, but in chapter 3, verse 15, when the first promise
of the Messiah was given, he is clearly declared that he will
be a man, a male. It calls him he. The seed of
the woman is called a he. And it looks as though, if you
read chapter 4 verse 1, verse 8, and verse 25, that originally
Eve thought that possibly Cain might be the Messiah, because
she said, I've gotten a man from the Lord. Then she had another
son, Abel, but then Cain killed Abel. So now she knows neither
one of those is the Messiah. The Messiah would not be slaughtered,
or would he? Anyway, I jump ahead. Those two
boys are gone now. Cain's gone to her physically,
spiritually. Oh, he was a worshipper of God,
but he refused to worship God according to God's ordained order.
And she realizes neither one of these are the Messiah for
sure. And then she has Seth. God's appointed me another what?
She thought this was Him. And I was taught when I was young
and in religion that these people way back there, they didn't know
nothing about Messiah, Jesus. They were just a bunch of poor
ignorant people running around offering sacrifices to some God
up in heaven. These people were longing for
the coming of the Messiah. Third name. It says here, Seth
begat Enos. Verse 6. You know what Enos means? Feeble, frail, mortal, subject
to death. Think of the sentence. Man is
appointed to death. Does that not ring a bell? Does
that not ring true to your soul? Man is appointed to death. Yes, Genesis 3.19, God Almighty
let Adam know that he would physically go back to the dust. But there
was even a more profound death. that had already occurred. And God commended. I want you
to go back sometime and look at it. Look at the words. Genesis
2, 16 and 7. God was giving Adam command. And He said, In the day thou
eatest of the fruit of that one tree, thou shalt surely die. And when Adam ate of that fruit,
Adam did die that day. But note this particular caveat
concerning Enos. Look at chapter 4, verse 26.
And to Seth, to him also there was born a son, and called his
name Enos. You see that next phrase? Then
began man to call upon the name of the Lord. Amazing, astounding
statement. Let me tell you something. God
Almighty, by His grace, must show you and me that we are lost
and helpless and damned before He will ever make us to know
He has found us. God will never clothe a man in
His righteousness until He stripped that man or woman of their own
self-righteousness. God's never saved a good person. No good person will ever be saved
because there is none good right now today. In this congregation,
in this building, there is none good. No, not one. So, What we have so far? Man is appointed
to death. You see it? Man is appointed
to death. Here's another name. Enos beget
Canaan, verse 9. Canaan. Amazing name. You know what I mean? Nest. That's
one of the ways it can be translated in the Scripture. Nest, or fixed
dwelling. A habitation. sentence starting
to make sense now. Man is appointed to death as
his fixed habitation. Now you think of some of these
old Jews years ago reading these names in this passage. Think
of those in Christ's day when they opened the scroll of Genesis
and began to read this chapter. They knew the meaning of the
names. And Messiah was right there before
them, an actual one-line sentence declaring the truth of God and
the gospel of Christ. And it went just like that over
their heads. It had no lodging in their souls
because it takes an act of God in free, sovereign, saving mercy
to bring us out of our fixed habitation of death. That's where we're at. How fixed
is our death? We are called, we are said to
be dead in trespasses and in sins. But let me move on. Here's
another name. Here's the fifth word. Cainan
begat Mahalaleel. You know what that means? The
praise of God. We have two words and they're
in our Bibles in the English. Two words that are the equivalent
of that. Hallelujah. That's what my hallelujah
means. Hallelujah. Or, praise be to
God. Or, hallelujah. And hallelujah
is actually rendered it that way in Revelations 19, 1 through
6. When God's people, one day, one day, we as God's people will
cry out in thanks to God because He has finally crushed forever
the great whore that has spread her abominations across the face
of this earth." Mahalaleo. But let's move on. Here's the
sixth name, or the sixth word in our sentence we could say.
Mahalaleo begat Jared. Do you see it? Mahalaleo begat
Jared. Now, think of this one. Jared
means descent. To come down. to condescend. Is the sentence ringing a bell
yet? Think about it. Our sentence
thus far is this. Man is appointed to death as
his fixed habitation, but the praise of God shall condescend. The praise of God shall come
down. I smell a little hope in the air.
My heart begins to flutter with a little bit of hope in God's
grace. I am fixed. My habitation is spiritual death
before God. But the promise of God is that
the praise of God himself shall condescend. Seventh name or word. Jared begat Enoch, verse 18. Think about this now. Enoch means
to narrow, to teach, or to disciple. Ah, here it is. In particular. The praise of God, He did come
down. God was made flesh. That's a condescension. The love
of the Father, the blessed eternal Son, the praise of God condescended
and was made flesh. That's a coming down indeed. He became what we are. Now if that's not enough to float
your boat, then you don't have a boat. And he did teach. Matthew 5, Matthew 5 in verse
42. Matthew puts it this way. And
Jesus began to open his mouth and teach the people saying.
Why didn't he just write, and Jesus taught the people saying?
Because God's, God has intended that through doing what I'm doing
this morning, that he would save his people. It pleased God by
the preaching of, The foolishness of preaching. It said Jesus opened
his mouth and taught the people, saying, if you've ever read Matthew,
Mark, Luke, or John, we know that Jesus Christ taught a lot
of things. But I want you to turn to Mark
chapter 9 for a moment. Turn to Mark chapter 9. I want
to read this one to you. So you bear with me. We're not
going to rush through this. Mark chapter 9. Mark chapter 9, look at verse
30. And He charged them that they
should tell no man of Him. That's all I'm saying in and
of itself. And He began to teach them that
the Son of Man must suffer many things. See how He's bringing
the teaching down now? He's narrowing this thing down
to the nitty-gritty. He's narrowing it down to where
the birds come to roost. And He began to teach them that
the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected of the
elders and of the chief priests and the scribes and be killed
and after three days rise again. He began to teach them plainly.
The praise of God condescended and began to open his mouth and
preach things that had never been spoken before, only in prophetic
utterances in the Old Testament. But now his teaching begins to
be what? Narrowed. Folks, there is but
one message that will ever cure your soul, and that is the preaching
of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can be right on everything
else. If you miss that, you will perish. If I miss that, I will perish. Let's move along. Let's note,
though, Enoch means to narrow, to teach or to discipline or
to disciple in particular. So the praise of God come down,
the praise of God did teach, and the praise of God narrowed
down his teaching. But let's notice something else
about Enoch. He was not. God took him. God took him. Hebrews, the writer
of Hebrews in verse 5 calls it translation. Paul puts it this
way in 1 Thessalonians 4, 13-18, to be called up. Blessed God,
God's people will be with Christ whether they are dead before
he comes or living when he comes. The dead in Christ will be raised
first and then immediately his people will be changed and Where
some of us, it may be none of us here, I do not know, but some
of our brothers and sisters, maybe it's us, maybe it's not,
but some of our brothers and sisters want to be in it. Let's
take a nap. Take a nap. I like that. You know why I like that? Because
it gives my soul comfort. Because no matter where I find myself,
dead or alive, if I'm in Christ, I'm okay. Even though my reputation
is fixed and death is where I dwell in and of myself, the praise
of God came to him. He narrowed down his teaching
and he told us what really matters. And if we're in here, we're okay.
We're okay. So what is our sentence? Man
is appointed to death as his fixed habitation, but the praise
of God shall condescend and teach in particular. Here's the eighth
name or the eighth word in our sentence. Enoch, verse 21. Enoch begat Methuselah. This is interesting. Methuselah,
of course, most of you here probably know Methuselah is oldest, recorded,
living human being that we know of. There could have been thousands
that lived longer than that, but God's pleased to tell us
about this one man. And what was it, 960 or something like
that? He lived a long time. Let me
just bring this down here to where we stand. Do any of you
really want to live that long? I'm getting tired of myself the
way it is now when I'm 60. Can you imagine putting up with
yourself for almost a thousand years? My problem ain't you. My problem ain't those people
out there. My problem is right here, this
man. That's my only real problem is me. I don't want to be a George. I don't want to have great swelling
words of love for Christ and it not be real with me. I hope you all get to be with Christ,
but I desire that for me too. Is that selfish? I don't know.
I don't know. But I know my soul deserves to
be abandoned in the midst, in the blackness, in the darkness
of the lake of fire forever. And if God puts me there, I will
have no recompense against Him, because I deserve it all. But the praise of God came down.
But here, let's get back to Methuselah. You know what Methuselah's name?
A dart. An arrow. If you translate out
what Strong said, you must actually translate out this. It can be
translated like this, one who pierces, or it can be translated
this way in Hebrew, one who is pierced. Does this message start
to make sense to you now? One who is pierced. That indeed,
my brothers and sisters, is possible. Now we have the gospel message
in this one sentence condensed down to its finest point, its
most important point, pierced, pierced. The praise of God, Jesus
of Nazareth, that man appointed by God, stood in our stead and
he was pierced. just like the citizens of these
nations said he would be. Pierced by men? Yeah, he was. And don't think of it just as
a literal piercing, though he was literally pierced, was he
not? But they, they pulled out his
beard. I had to pluck a stray whisker
near my nose and in my eyes with her. He had just got handfuls
of his beard. And then they slapped him, and
it wasn't one of those. They hit him, sir. And then they
said they buffeted him. I mean, they popped him. They plaited a crown of thorns
on his head. When I was young, I thought,
you know, they just kind of set it up. I guarantee you, they took
that thing and stuck it down on top of his brow. It went into
his skull and the blood streamed down. He was beaten so severely
in the face that the book of God says he could not be recognized. And they weren't done with him.
They weren't done piercing him yet. They stripped him naked
and turned his face to a wall or a pole or something. We're
not told that part. And they laid open his back with a whip. They were torturing him to death. Roman crucifixion didn't start
with just being crucified. In this case, it started with
him being pummeled half to death. So much so, my brothers and sisters,
was he pierced. Remember, he couldn't bear physically
as a man. He couldn't bear the weight of
that cross going up that hill river. Somebody took the cross. And then when he hung there,
They literally pierced him when they put him up there. They took
a spear and pierced his side. Don't misunderstand me here.
I can say this the wrong way, but that means nothing compared
to the real piercing that happened here. Thousands of other convicts probably
died that way under Roman rule, folks. Right? They didn't save
nobody. Awake, O sword, against the man
that is my fellow. God the Father plunged the sword
of justice into the soul of his son. So much so that His soul
was made an offering, not just His body. Yes, His body too,
but His soul was made an offering for sin. He felt our condemnation within
Himself. Our sins were put in his body. That's what Peter said. He bore
our sins in his body. And that's what God the Father
did to him. He didn't just allow all of this stuff out here to
happen to him. God pierced his very soul. You know how God did
that? By God. By God. That's how God pierces the son's
soul. He abandoned the son when he hung on the tree, so that
me and you would never be abandoned by God. Now, folks, if that don't
ring a bell, you're clapping for me. That's the gospel. That is the gospel. But our sentence is not quite
complete yet. So we've got two more names.
Bear with me, we've got two more names. Here's the ninth name,
or the ninth word. Methuselah Begat Lamech. This is an interesting one. That's
verse 25. Remember, Methuselah Begat Lamech.
I read and heard a few things about different Greek scholars.
They say well Lamech possibly means a servant because Melech
means a king and Lamech is just the reversing of that name. So king, the opposite of it,
you reverse it, it would be a servant. Now that certainly would fit
our sentence. That didn't really tell the truth about what the
word Lamech means. Do you know what the word Lamech
means? Nobody knows. It has no meaning. Lamex name is a big ol' fat zero. Any zeros in the house today?
Any nothings in the house today? Any nobody in the house today? Brethren, you see, recall that
not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble are called. The
majority of those God loves send His Son to die for. are the nothings,
the nobodies. Their name don't mean squat. We are the off-scouring of the
earth. Our names have no significance. Hmm. Any nobodies in the house
today? Here's one. Here's one. You know, the sad thing is I
can be proud and confessing that that's how bad I am. I find a little hope in hearing
myself say that when I know my only hope is the praise of God
that was pierced on the tree. My confession doesn't wipe away
my sins. He did it on the tree. You hear
me? My faith doesn't take my sins
away. My faith is God giving me something
wherewith I can then lay hold of Him who did take away my sin. Our sentence thus far is this. Man is appointed to death as
his fixed habitation. But the praise of God shall condescend
and teach in particular that his piercing through shall bring
the nothings." Bring the nothings. Bring the nothings what? Noah. Noah. And that's the tenth name. Lamech, Beget, Noah. And the
book tells us what that name means. It's one of three that
actually give us an idea about the name. Verse 29, let me read
that one. He called his name Noah, saying,
this stage shall comfort us. You see, comfort, that's what
the name means. Noah means comfort or rest. And see when God, every time,
Every time God is so pleased to let me once again by faith
see the praise of God pierced for me, I can rest. I find comfort everywhere
else I look. Don't you kid yourself you do
either. We look at a lot of other things trying to find a little
comfort and rest sometimes. Now don't we? Come on now. You don't have to get up on the
floor and confess that. Just confess to God where you're
at. Our only place of rest and comfort
is in the praise of God who has pierced through for us. What did Paul say to the Thessalonians? Do you hear her trouble? What
did He say? Rest with us. Heavenly Father, open our eyes and our minds and our
hearts anew. God, show us Jesus Christ, our
Lord. And Lord, sweetly and sovereignly
and mercifully force us to bow. to him who is our head and rejoice
in him. In Christ's name, amen. Okay,
I'm finished.