Turn with me if you would now
to 1 Chronicles chapter 1. That's page 556 in my Bible. 1 Chronicles chapter 1. And when you get there, I'll
give you just a second to scan over the chapter. Just take your
eyes and scan over the chapter to see what we're dealing with
here. All right, our text tonight will be the
first paragraph, which is the first four verses. It says, Adam,
Sheth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jerid, Hinnok, Methuselah, Lamech,
Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. That's our text. All right, now
I want to, the Lord has blessed my soul, and I want you to pray
that the Lord will bless your soul I want you to do that because
I was just talking with a brother just a minute ago in my study
how sometimes these things come to, they come in and it is overwhelming. I just am literally beside myself
in there alone. And I want so deeply for you
all to experience what I experience and almost every single time
I just walk out with my head hung thinking they didn't get
what I got. And so I'm just going to ask
you to ask the Lord. Break thou the bread of life
to me. Send your spirit to me. Let me see what you have in here.
Ask the Lord to help you. Ask the Lord to show you this. I stumbled upon 1 Chronicles
1 Monday morning as I was, you know, turning through the scripture,
trying to find where the Lord would have me to be. And what
caught my attention here was the fact that it was only names
I was thumbing through, and I saw this, and my eyes did what I
just told you all to do for a second, and it was only names. This is literally just a chronicle
of names. If you look at chapter two, all
right, just do the same thing. Scan it with your eyes. It's just like chapter one. And chapter 3 is basically the same thing.
Chapter 4, there are bits and pieces of storyline, but it's
pretty much the same thing. This is a register of names and
you can keep looking at chapters 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. It more and more starts giving
accounts of things. It eventually does get into accounts
of things, but this really is a book of chronicles. And I couldn't help but dwell
on the fact for just a minute that God Almighty chose to take
up real estate in His book with these names. God chose to put
all of this in His precious, priceless Word. This must be
pretty important. And we know it is. We know that
it is. Immediately, this statement from
our Lord came to my mind. Turn with me, if you would, to
Luke 24. Luke 24. Verse 27 says, And beginning at Moses and all
the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the
things concerning himself. Verse 44, and he said unto them,
these are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with
you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written
in the law of Moses and in the prophets and in the Psalms concerning
me. Watch verse 45. Then opened he
their understanding that they might understand the scriptures. That right there is what's going
to have to happen if we are ever going to truly understand the
scriptures. God Almighty is going to have
to open our understanding. He's going to have to give us
the sense of the reading that we just read Nehemiah 8 for a
scripture reading, and they gave the sense of the reading. And
God is going to have to open that up to us. And if he does,
this is what it will be. Verse 45. Then opened he their
understanding. that they might understand the
Scriptures and said unto them, thus it is written and thus it
behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third
day. Thus it is written. This is what
is written in the Scripture. This is what the Scripture says.
This is what the scripture's all about. Thus it is written
and thus it behooved Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead
the third day. It's all about Jesus Christ and
him crucified. It's all about every word of
it. In every portion of scripture,
there is a road that leads to Jesus Christ and him crucified. Our business is to find that
road and get on it. But here's the thing about it.
If God does not reveal that to us, this will just be words and
names. That's all it'll be. We will
not have a clue of what the purpose of God was in saying any of this
to us. Any of this. We read these names
and we all wonder, what's the purpose of God in that? What
is he saying in that? Well, God doesn't reveal this
to us. We won't understand what any
of this is saying to us. On any page, we'll get off on
some, you know, hair splitting thought and, and, uh, get caught
up in doctrinal whatever's and we'll be lost. We'll just be
lost. God gave us first Chronicles
chapter one on purpose for a purpose. And I want to show us what that
purpose is, and then I want to ask us a question, all right?
So go with me back to 1 Chronicles 1. 1 Chronicles 1. Every name right here has a meaning,
a definition. Just like the name of our Lord
has a meaning, Lord Jesus Christ. Lord means sovereign. That's what it means. Jesus means
Savior. Christ means, when you look up
the exact translation of that word, it means anointed. The
sovereign Savior anointed. Anointed by God. The one chosen
by God to sovereignly save His people. That's what the name
Lord Jesus Christ means. And that's what all the scripture
is about. The sovereign mediator for sinners. Man's only hope
before God. That's what all the scripture
is about. That's what every name and every word in this book is
pointing us to. Now let me give you the meanings
of these 13 names. In these four verses, and let's
see if God will give us the true sense of this. Open up our understanding. Let's see if we can see the gospel
of Jesus Christ and him crucified in this. Verse one says, Adam,
Sheth, Enosh. Do you by chance know what the
name Adam means? It means red. Do you know what Sheth means
if you just go around looking up definitions and happen to
know? Sheth means, this is amazing
to me, it means substitute. And do you know what the name
Enish means? It means man. Red, substitute,
man. What comes to your mind when
you think of the color red? Blood. Listen to this. Blood substitute
man. That's how the book of First
Chronicles starts. That's the first verse of the
whole book. It starts with a blood substitute
man. I could close the book and go
home. What more do we need to hear? A blood substitute man. Verse one for this whole book
declares Jesus Christ and him crucified. Verse one completely
declares salvation for centers. Verse one completely, fully,
clearly declares how God can be just and justify his sinful
people. Here's how. He provided a blood
substitute man. Blood because blood had to be
shed. Blood had to be shed. The wages
of sin is death. People think the wages of sin
is You know, well, I'm going to have to do better. I'm going
to have to turn over a new leaf. I'm going to have to this. I'm
going to have to that. The wages of sin is death. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sins. God required it. The law demanded
it. There could be no salvation and
no life without death's shedding of blood, wrath's shedding of
blood, justices' shedding of blood. There had to be blood. But what that meant was all of
God's people had to die because they were all sinners. So how
could they be spared and saved and allowed to live in redemption
with him? Here's how God provided a substitute. God provided a death for his
people. They had to die. So God provided
them one. He provided a death for his people. God provided a bearer of wrath
for his people, a substitute sacrifice, shedding of blood
for his people. Who was it? Who did God provide?
He provided himself. Half of you said Christ, you
have the right answer. God provided himself. Abraham told Isaac as they were
walking up to Mount Moriah, he said, my son, God will provide
himself a lamb for a burnt offering. I'll never
forget the first time that that got a hold of me. I always read
it that, you know, God will go get his own lamb. God will provide
himself a lamb. But the first time I realized
that God would provide himself to be the lamb, God will provide
himself a lamb for a burnt offering. God himself said, I lay down
my life for the sheep. All right now, how could God
do that? God can't die. Can God die? How can God do that? Mortal man
sinned against him. Men and women sinned against
God. Men had to die. God is separate
from man. Man is separate from God. God
is separate from sinners. Man was in the wrong. Man had
to die. That's justice. That's justice. How could God die in the place
of a man? Here's how. God became a man. God made himself to be a man.
His men and women had to die. Blood was required. Death was
required. So what did he do? He made himself
to be a man. God Almighty manifest himself
in the flesh so that he could take the place of his people. He could be in the stead of his
people as a man. and offer himself as a man for
men who had sinned against God. He could offer himself as a sacrifice
for their sins. That's how salvation came. God
provided a blood substitute man, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus Christ,
our Lord, our Savior, our substitute man, our God. All right, that's verse one. Let's go to verse two. Verse
two says, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jerid. Kenan means possession. Mahalaleel means the praise of
God. And jirid means descent. It means to go down, to come
down, to march down. It means to send down, to willingly
lay down, to cast down, to cast the enemy down. What did this blood substitute
man accomplish in His coming? Here it is. He accomplished the
purchase of His possession. His purchased possession. That's
us. That is His people. His chosen
people. The elect. That's what He did
for us in His coming. He secured us to be His own possession. He came and got us. Possession. What did this blood substitute
man accomplish in his coming? He accomplished the praise of
God. Everything that Christ did was
to the praise of the glory of God's grace. Everything he did. What did this blood substitute
man accomplish in his coming? He accomplished his own descent. His own casting down, His own
marching down, His own willing laying down of Himself. He accomplished
His own humiliation and in that He accomplished the casting down
of His enemy and our enemy which is sin and the adversary who
provoked it and the death that resulted from it. and the eternal
torment that could not ever consume it, he accomplished the casting
down of all of that, every bit of that. When he met with Moses
and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration, they spoke of his decease, which
he should accomplish, his own descent into death. Which he
should accomplish for his people. That's what the blood substitute
man accomplished in his coming. The purchase of his own possession. The praise of his own glory. And the absolute descent of everything
that was the enemy of him. And his people. Verse 3. It says he knock or Enoch. Methuselah, lamech. Henoch means dedicated. It means committed. It means
faithful. Methuselah means the sword, the
piercing dart. It means man of the dart. And lamech means all powerful,
all powerful. What this blood substitute man
has started, he will finish. If he has begun a good work,
he will perform it. If he has purchased his possession,
he will keep it. All the way to the end, he is
faithful. He is faithful. He's so faithful. If he has chosen a center and
redeemed a center, he will call that center to himself. And the
call of his word is quick and it's powerful. It's all powerful
and it's sharper than any two edged sword. When he calls, we're
coming. He came to redeem his people.
He accomplished the redemption of His people, and He will keep
His redeemed people. You'll never believe what the
name Noah means. Any ideas? It means rest. Just rest. Verse 4 says, Noah,
Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Noah means rest. Shem means name,
His name. It means His reputation, His
glory. Ham means hot, heat. I can't help but think of the
day of God's judgment, the burning heat and fire of God's wrath
when the day of his judgment come. This is what he said in
the first four verses. He said, because of the blood
substitute man's accomplishment. In purchasing his people to the
glory of God, in the putting down of all his enemies, and
because he is faithful, who has promised to call you and keep
you safely in himself, just rest in his name, his name of salvation,
when the heat of his judgment comes. The gates of glory itself have
been opened unto you. The last name here, Japheth,
means opened. It means opened wide. It means
spacious, plenty of room, God hath enlarged. That's amazing,
isn't it? That's amazing. That's amazing
to me, all of that was said in these 13 names. Four verses now,
let me close with this question, I told you I wanted to give you
these definitions and I wanted to ask you a question, all right,
so let me close with this question. When I saw all of these names. No storyline. OK, no storyline. Just all of these names. Knowing
that these names pointed us to Christ, I already knew that before
I ever looked up one definition, I knew all of these names point
us to Christ somehow. But this thought went through
my mind, whether you want to say shamefully, whether you want
to say curiously, however you want to say it, whatever the
reason is. This thought came to my mind. Wanting you to be
blessed whenever I come here. I do not want you to not be blessed. I do not want you leaving here
thinking I was not blessed. Wanting you to be fed. I do not
ever want any person to leave here thinking I was not fed. Not seeing a storyline. Not seeing
any commandments. Not seeing any words of encouragement.
Just names. This thought, just for a fleeting
moment, went through my mind. Is just seeing Christ enough? Do you understand why I would
ask myself that question? I defend me asking myself that
question. Say it shamefully if you want
to, or however you want to say it. But the thought went through
my mind, is just seeing Christ enough? Is that enough? Is that enough
of a message? Is that enough of a service?
Is that enough? Is just getting a glimpse of
Christ from a word enough? Is that enough to bless God's
people and to feed God's people and to make them glad they were
in the house of the Lord? I immediately said, as I always
do when I have questions of doubt, I immediately said in my heart,
in my mind, absolutely it is. Absolutely it is. And then that
was proven to me when I looked up the definition of these names.
As I looked up each one and started writing down each one, curious
to see what the next one would be, I was so blessed. I was just
so fed. But I tell you that because I
believe that's a good question for all of God's people to ask
themselves. Is seeing Christ enough? I believe that's a good question.
I believe that's a clarifying question on what true worship
is, on what feeds God's people. It's a good question to ask because
The answer will come immediately. God's people will receive the
answer immediately and it will be confirmed in their hearts.
Yes, Christ is everything to me. Christ is, if I can see him
in a word, that's everything to me. Is seeing Christ enough?
Are you kidding me? That's eternity. That's heaven. All I want to do is see Christ. Just seeing Christ is everything
to us. If we can see him in this word, we will see all we need to see
for all eternity. Every time we meet together,
I pray God will reveal to us the blood substitute man. I pray he will. All right, let's
all stand together.