Genesis chapter 5. Read the last
five verses with me. Genesis chapter 5. The last five verses. Verse 28. Lamech
lived an hundred and eighty and two years and begat a son, and
he called his name Noah, saying, or this one or this son shall
comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hand because
of the ground which the Lord hath cursed. And Lamech lived
after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat
sons and daughters. Now all the days of Lamech were
seven hundred and seventy and seven years, and he died. And Noah was 500 years old. And Noah begat Shem, Ham, and
Jacob. And then begins the story of
Noah and the ark, which we'll begin on Sunday, Lord willing.
But verse 29 is both the text and the title. Lamech called
his son's name Noah, saying... His name means rest or comfort.
This one shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands
because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed. Now, I don't
need to tell you who that's speaking of. Old Testament pictures are
pictures of Christ. He said, they are they which
testify of me. He said Moses wrote of me. And Noah, whose name means rest
or comfort, is a wonderful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
we're going to see that, hopefully, tonight, for our comfort. Our
comfort is in the Lord Jesus Christ. It struck me how that
he said, I'll send the Comforter. How does he comfort? By taking
the things of Christ and showing them unto him. Christ is our
source of comfort. But I love the actual stories
of people like Lamech, like Abel, like Enoch, Noah, and now Lamech. We're going to look at him a
little bit. Men and women who lived in this sinful world. They
lived a long time, these men and women. And they believed
God, they believed Christ, and they looked for His coming. Lamech
was the grandfather of Enoch. And he was in the lineage or
line of Seth, who it said, beginning with Seth and those sons, they
began to call on the name of the Lord, or be called themselves
by the name of the Lord, sons of God. These, I believe, were
the sons of God, and God lists them. And their names, and Lamech
was one of them. He was one of these sons of God.
who called on the name of the Lord, who believed God, who looked
for the Christ to come. Lamech's father was Methuselah,
the man that lived the longest on the earth. Methuselah knew
Adam. And we believe that they lived in the same area up until
perhaps Babel when they were spread out. But we believe they
lived in the same area. in the same area for 800 years,
you're going to know everybody, aren't you? They knew one another,
and Methuselah knew Adam. You know Adam talked to Methuselah
about the law, about the garden, about what happened in the garden.
You know he did. He talked to everybody. And he told Methuselah
about the fall. their sin and the Lord telling
them about the woman's seed and taking that lamb and slaying
that lamb and covering their nakedness and all of that. And you know that Methuselah
told that to Lamech. You know he did. And I don't
know how old Lamech was when he began to call on the Lord,
but there comes a time when every son of Adam must be born of God. That is, every son of God, who
is the son of Adam, must be born from above. So you remember we
looked at Enoch. Enoch walked with the Lord after
he lived 65 years. So Lamech came a time when he
heard the word and the Lord convicted him and gave new birth to him. He began to believe God and look
for the Christ to come and call on the name of the Lord, seek
the Lord, and walk with God like Enoch, his grandfather. And Lamech was fifty-some years
old when Enoch, when the Lord took Enoch, his grandfather.
You know that made a profound impression upon him. If he was
close to his grandfather like we are, ours, most of us, that
one day he went to see him and he was no more. He was not found. The Lord took him. And his grandmother
said, the Lord came and got Enoch. And Lady Mac thought, I don't
know if he was a believer then or not, but he thought that made
a profound impression upon him. You know, when the Lord takes
a man, especially Scripture talks about a righteous man, a righteous
parish, and men perceive it not, they take it not to heart. We
ought to, shouldn't we? Every time the Lord takes someone,
it ought to make a profound impression upon them. But then he lived, and Lamech
lived in this sinful world, walking with God, vexed by sin, vexed
by the world. And 130 years later, he had a
son. He had a son. And it says here,
he called his name Noah. His name means rest, it means
comfort, saying, and here's what he said, this is the one that
will comfort us concerning our work and the toil of our hands
because of the ground which the Lord hath cut. Now, I don't know
why he thought that his son, I think he's talking about nearly
every writer I've read, Gill and Poole and Henry and Matthew
Henry, said, He thought that his son was the Messiah. Now,
I don't know why he thought that. I don't know why except to say
this, and many writers said many things, but they all agreed that
he was so anxiously awaiting the Christ to come, hoping against
hope, This son, and you know, remember when Moses was born,
his parents saw that he was a proper child? Something special about
Moses. Like John the Baptist. And maybe
Noah, you know, was something special. And Lamech thought,
this is he. This is he. Now, before the Bible
was written, The Lord spake to men like Adam and Seth, Enoch. You reckon the Lord told Enoch
of the coming judgment? Flood? Once again, many of the writers
believe that Thuzile's name has something to do with the flood.
You reckon the Lord told them, I'm going to destroy this place.
It's getting worse. Sure He did. He tells us, doesn't
he? He's told us. He told us a long thousands of
years before it happened. I'm coming again. He's telling
us he's going to destroy this place thousands of years before
it happened. So he began to tell his sons that he was going to
destroy this present evil world. But not all of it. There's going
to be a remnant according to the election of grace. Some are
going to find grace in my eyes, the Lord told them. And there's
going to come a man, I'm going to send a man who's going to
be, as it were, the Savior, and he's going to build a vessel
of mercy that everyone that get in that vessel are going to be
saved from this overflowing scourge of my wrath that's going to,
everybody else is going to perish. But those in that vessel of mercy
are going to be saved. And Lamech was looking for that
man like we are. And then this child was born.
He said, this is Him. I don't know why he thought that,
but he did. No, Lamech, he's not Him, but he's a good picture
of it. He's a good picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, the One
who really will comfort us. I am told to comfort God's people. And there's only one way to do
that, and that's preach Christ. So tonight we're going to see
the one who is the one to comfort us concerning our work and toil
of our hands. And because of this curse, you
can only speak of one person. But I thought about this. Lamech
thought that that boy, this is him. He was waiting so long. How old was he when he was born? 182 years. He waited a long time,
hadn't he? And now this boy was born, and
he thought, maybe this is him. What's wrong with that? Peter
said this, so much more as we see the day approaching, we ought
to be looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of
our God. The more you look forward to something, the nearer it appears.
The more you think upon it, the more real it becomes. Hasting
unto the coming, it's soon. The Lord said that. I mean, even
at the door. You see the signs of the sky,
the times? He's at the door. We ought to
be like men who wait on our God, on our Lord. Hasting His coming. And we ought to, like the layman,
for every single child that's born, we ought to think, maybe
that's the last one. Maybe that's the last delay.
Or when the Lord brings somebody into the fold. Maybe that's the
last one. And he's coming. Huh? What's wrong with that? It's
going to happen. One of these days. The last elect. And the Lord is merciful and
apparently the door is still open. But there's going to be
a day when the very last elect sheep is brought into the fold
and that's it. It's over. It's over. And old
lady Mac had that voice. See it? No? It's going to be
another 600 years. 600 years worth of blood. Now,
here's the real message here. Now, he said this son of the
prophecy of Christ said he will comfort us concerning our work
and the toil of our hands. The work and the toil of our
hands because of the curse. Go back to chapter 3. We've come through this, but
go back to chapter 3, the way of review. Before sin, before
the fall of man, before sin entered the world, Adam and Eve did not
toil. They did not labor. They did
not work as it were. You know, work, to be called
work, must be toil and labor. Someone said, You know, that's
why they call it work. You don't really look forward
to toil and labor, do you? Adam and Eve were just dressing
the garden. They weren't tilling the ground.
There was no sweat. There was no pain. There was
no thorns and thistles. It was fun. It was enjoyable. A time of comfort. They were
comfortable. They weren't toiling and laboring.
But then sin entered. They rebelled against God. And here's what the Lord said
would happen. Verse 16, chapter 3 and 17, unto
the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth
children. And now, we call it when a woman
prevails in birth, call it labor, pain. This is a woman's chief
source of labor and toil. And she suffers through that
and all the days of her life because of sin. Because of sin. And a woman, all that she experiences
physiologically because of that labor and that toil, And then
there's sorrow upon sorrow, sorrow in conception, sorrow bringing
forth children. And it says right on, Thy desire
shall be to thy husband, he shall rule over thee. Women are the
weaker vessel. Women live in a man's world.
There's no getting around that. There's no denying that, is there?
As much as women would like to change that, it ain't going to
change. It's a man's world, a strong
survival. And women have bore the brunt
of abuse at the hands of men for thousands of years, toiling
and laboring under abusive men. And in this world, it's subjection,
submission, and labor and sorrow. Verse 17, said unto Adam, because
of sin. He said unto Adam, because thou
hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and eaten of the
tree I commanded thee say, and thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed
is the ground for thy sin, and sorrow shalt thou eat of it all
the days of thy life. Horns also, and thistle. Verse
19, sweat of thy face. sweat and hard work and labor
and toil in the field or in the shop or wherever it is. The man
is to labor and to provide for his own, but he falls short,
doesn't he? He feels like he fails. He tries
to build things and do things. They break down. He tries to
lead. He feels like a failure. He tries to protect. He can't
do that. It's just labor and toil and
suffering. I was going to read Ecclesiastes,
John. You beat me to it. But all through the book of Ecclesiastes,
it talks about man's labor, his labor. Everything's full of labor.
And he said, you labor all your life. And he said, I got to where
I hated my life because it's just nothing but hard work. Then
you die. Then you die. Because of sin. Because of sin, we've been sentenced
to a lifetime of hard work. There is no easy way out of it.
Young people today and many other people feel like they try to
get out of work. You can't do it. You can't have
anything. You can't get out of work. The Lord says that we're to work
with His hands. That's what Psalm 90 we read,
that's why I read it cheaply, is it says the days of our year,
3, 4, and 10, or 80, and there's strong labor and sorrow, and
it would cut off and fly away. And then there's this in Lamentations,
listen to this, it says this, why does a living man complain? Here it is, Lamentations 3. Why
does a living man complain, a man, for the punishment of his sins? This is what you're going to
do. You're going to labor. You're going to labor. You're going
to work hard and toil and suffer. In this world you shall have
tribulation. Born of a woman, your days will
be few and full of sorrow, labor, toil, suffering. Why? Sin. Sin. And you won't take anything,
you won't get anything out of it. You won't get anything out
of it. Work all your life, you won't
retain one thing. Not one. Came naked, and that's how you're
going out. That's how you're going out.
You remember when we looked at the disciples and their nets?
How the Lord revealed Himself to them in the beginning? And
in the end, remember how it was when he came to them? He said,
we toiled all night and caught nothing. Well, then in the end,
same thing. They toiled all night and caught
nothing. And all they were doing all the
time was either washing nets or mending them. That end, that,
same thing, same thing. And so, was that it? It's that
all there is. Well, then there's this, and
I was going to go through Ecclesiastes, but I just told you what it said. Then there's a work that men
and women try to do to get some peace and some happiness because
of this lifetime of toil. It's in religion. Men and women
try to seek some sort of comfort and rest and peace from their
labors and their toil by religion. They read the Bible that says,
this do and live. And so they try to do that. They
read the Bible that says, here's the blessing. Do all this, you'll
be blessed. Do all this, you'll be cursed.
So they try to do this. Try to do all that. You remember the rich young ruler?
He came to the Lord one day and he said, and many believe, we
believe that it might have been Saul of Tarsus, young Saul of
Tarsus, the rich young ruler. But anyway, he came to the Lord,
who was zealous and was religious all his young days, but didn't
know the Lord. And so he was miserable. Dad
used to say, most people have just enough religion to make
them and everyone around them miserable. But the rich young ruler came
to the Lord and said, good master, what good thing must I do to
have eternal life? Apparently he's frustrated. He
can't seem to find What he can do to get this peace that he
wants, this comfort in all his toil. And the Lord said, basically,
keep the law. What does the law say? Do it. Fool, he said, all these things
I haven't done for my youth up. What like I yet? Oh man, you're
talking about self-righteous. Then the Lord told him, now,
sell everything you have. Follow me. Oh, I can't do that. Well, I heard a man, once again,
I looked, someone had preached on this and couldn't find any
of our brethren that had. I know they have, but I didn't. Been a long time. But I just
picked a couple of fellows at random that I don't know, and
meeting one of them, and we were both pretty sad. But one of them
kept emphasizing that we must do what the Lord tells us to
do. That we'll be blessed if we do what the Lord tells us
to do. Well, we will, if we could. And I try. And there's nothing wrong
with trying. But we can't, can we? Then another fellow, I thought,
well, maybe he'll say something good, because he kept talking
about Christ and there being peace only in Christ, toil and
labor. He said that. Then he said, here's
what he said. He said, if you just follow Christ,
just follow Christ, you'll have peace and comfort. Well, that
sounds good, doesn't it? But what about when you quit
following him? What about when you go astray? What he was basically
saying was, if you do like he did, you'll have the peace that
he had. That didn't comfort me at all,
because I can't do like he did. I can't do like he did. I'm full
of sin. He couldn't be tempted with sin.
I am. And I thought, I need someone,
I need something to comfort me. concerning my work, my failure,
that is, to do the work. A failure. I failed to do what's
required of me. I have, I do. Then there's this
curse of the ground which the Lord cursed. The curse of the
ground. He talked about, back in chapter
3, thorns and thistles. All because of sin. The curse
of the earth. The earth is cursed, literally. The ground was cursed by the
Lord. And before the fall, there were no thorns, no thistles,
just fruit for the glory of God and for the happiness of man.
But then when sin came, there were more thorns and thistles
and fruit, didn't there? Spring up from the earth everywhere. And you spend all your life pulling
them up. Trying to eradicate them. And
try as you may, you can't get rid of them, can you? You feel, you spray it, and up
comes that old sage grass or goat weed or thorny thistle or
whatever it is out there. Huh? We planted flowers. We planted all these little beds,
you know, controlled. We didn't really control them.
And one day I went out there and the flowers were this high.
Well, the weeds were this high. Thorny. I've got a splinter in
my hand right now from trying to pull out one of those weeds.
Ah! Out in the middle of those beautiful flowers. Roses have thorns. Everything
in this world, in the midst of the beauty, and like, remember,
Clay said, the water was both punishment and the blessing.
both punishment and a blessing. With earth, we receive our food
and everything from it, but yet it's a curse. It's a blessing
and a curse. And bad things happen. Man calls these things that happen
bad luck. When everything just seems to
go wrong. Murphy's Law. Murphy's Law. If the worst can
happen, it will. God calls it a curse. Because of sin. Our Lord said,
in the world you shall have tribulation. Because of the curse. You live
in this cursed world. This world is cursed by God.
You will have tribulation. Nothing but thorns and pistils.
Remember, Paul the apostle said, the Lord sent me a thorn in the
flesh. I begged him three times to remove it and he wouldn't
do it. All he would say was, What does he say? My grace is sufficient. You need
this. It's no coincidence by divine
design that our Lord had a crown of thorns placed on His head
and made a curse for us. Thorns, thistles, curse because
of sin. Every day, little thing, big
thing, curse. We'll go back to our text. Look
at verse 28. Now here's the gospel here. Lamech
lived 182 years and begat a son and called his name Noah. Well,
our living God begat a son and called his name Jesus Christ
the Lord. Sent by the Father to do a great
work of salvation, the work of righteousness. And Jeremiah,
believe it or not, said the work of righteousness shall be peace.
Comfort. The Lord was sent to do a work
on behalf of the Father. What's that? To give us rest. To give us comfort. He was sent
to do a law work. We can't do it. We try. We can't do it. We're under the
curse. And we can't do it. He was sent
to do the work. He stood on this earth. And in
the last day, wouldn't he cry? Remember? One of those last days,
he said, Hey, can't a man labor? and heavy laden, come unto me. I'll give you rest." That man
said, follow Him. Well, you come to Him first. You look
to Him. You trust Him. You cast all your
care upon Him. Then you follow Him. There's
a difference. There's a difference. You come
to Him. You look to Him at all times.
Even if you fall away, you still look at Him. Come unto me, He
said, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give
you rest. Here's comfort. Not by works
of righteousness, which we have done. Salvation is not by works
of righteousness. We say this so much. But it's
real comfort. But it's according to His mercy.
We're going to be saved, not by our works, but by His works. You remember that story of the
man who told that woman, said, there's a big difference in your
religion and mine? Yours consists of two letters,
mine of four. Yours is D-O. Do. Mines D-O-N-E. Done. There's rest when the work's
done. What is rest, anyway? When the
Lord rested from His works, that means there was nothing left
to be done. The Lord saw that it was good. Well, the Lord is
satisfied. He shall see the travail of His
soul and be satisfied. And by His work, Christ. He'll
justify that. We just look to him. Is that
all we have to do? That's it. Rest. Rest. And one of the brethren
years ago said, hang a sign on my door. Do not disturb. I'm
resting. Tell all the legal people that
approach you that. And Isaiah wrote this, he said,
Lord, listen to this, talking about this work of our hands,
this labor and toil. Listen, Isaiah wrote, Lord, thou
wilt ordain peace for us, for thou hast wrought all our works
for us. I'll never forget when I first
read that. You'll ordain peace for us because you've done it
all for us. How about if you were laboring and heavy laden
and toiling and you never could get the work done and it was
a job way above and beyond anything you could do and a man came along
and said, you just go over there and sit down and I'll do this
work. How would you like that? Huh? You'd love it. That's why
he came. He said, you just lie down and
stand still to see the salvation. David wrote this. Oh, I love
this. David said, Lord, thou hast made me glad through thy
work. I will triumph in the work of
thy hands. Well, what about the curse? I'll
close with this. Go over to Galatians. You know
these verses, but let's look at them again for our comfort.
Galatians. It's not a grievous thing to tell you the same thing. I only had one message anyway.
Galatians 3. Here's the curse, look at verse
10, Galatians 3, you have it? As many as are of the works of
the law are under the curse, because it is written, curse
it. Is everyone to continue it? Not in all things that are written
in the book of the law. Every jot and tittle, not just
what we know. But so, he says, verse 11, that
no man is justified by the law in the sight of God. It's evident
that the just shall live by faith. That is, looking to Christ. That's
what faith is. Faith, in a word, is looking
to Jesus Christ. The law is not faith. The man
that doeth them Do is what the law said, but now, verse 13,
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made
a curse for us. It's written, Cursed is everyone
that hangeth on a tree. My, my. What about this curse
of the ground? Well, Christ has removed it from
us. Go back to Genesis. Look at this. Look at this. We don't work for
salvation. But Christ did the work to save
us. We rest in Christ, His person
and His work. And look at this. This is good. Over in chapter 8, this is wonderful. Chapter 8, after the flood, Noah,
verse 20, built an altar under the Lord and took habit, chapter
8, 20, And he built an altar unto the Lord, and took up every
clean beast, every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on
the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet
savor." Now, that's Christ, isn't it? Sweet smell and savor of
Christ. The Lord said in his heart, I
will not again curse the ground anymore. For man's sake. I'm satisfied. Been reconciled. That's wonderful. That's wonderful. There's going to come a day when
our Lord is going to come back and every clean, every one of
His, He's going to take with Him. And we're going to behold
Him as a Lamb that has been slain. It says God's going to no more
curse anymore. If God will wipe away all tears
from their eyes, no more death, no more sorrow, no more crying,
neither shall there be any more pain, no more thorns, no more
thistles, no more curse, no more sin. Why? Because our Noah, our
Christ, our rest had to remove the curse from us. What about
Lamech in closing? What about Lamech? Was he disappointed
in Noah? He thought he was the Messiah,
but he found out very soon that he wasn't. He's a sinful son. Boy, just like I was. Was he
disappointed? No. He said he would comfort
him concerning the toil of our hands. We asked the question,
Stan asked the question, what was Noah's occupation? I forgot.
We know what his occupation was. Peter told us. He's a preacher. He was a preacher. Part-time
art builder. Full-time preacher. That's what
he said. He was a preacher of righteousness. And apparently,
he started preaching at an early age. What did he preach? Well, if he preached righteousness,
he didn't preach man's righteousness. He preached God's righteousness. He preached the Lord Jesus Christ. Did that comfort all they met?
Concerning the toil, the work of his hand? About the curse?
Oh, yeah. Lainek was comforted every time.
Noah? Let's hear that again. And he
preached that message of comfort to him. And then it says he was
777 years when he died. Someone asked me the significance
of that, and I said, I don't know. I don't know. But it's a number of perfection. I thought about this. You mark
the perfect man. The end of that man. Now, Lamech
was looking for comfort, looking for rest from all his labor and
all his toil and to be out from under the curse. Well, 777 years
later, he entered into this. Mark the perfect man. The end
of that man is peace, rest. If your hope is in our Noah,
the Lord Jesus Christ, you have that comfort too. Okay, stand
with me. Our Lord, thank You for Your
Word. Again, we thank You for it. What little we know of it,
it gives us great joy, peace. We know in part, we preach in
part, But we thank You for that part You've given us. It's a
revelation, Lord. You have revealed these things
unto us and our children. The secret things belong to You.
There's so much still a mystery to us. And if You tarry for a
few more years, Lord, we ask that You would continue to open
our eyes, break Thou the bread of life to us in the Word concealed. the Lord, we pray, for our comfort
and our rest. And our children, Lord, like
Lamech and others, Lord, we look for the same for our children,
for their rest in Christ and their salvation. May it be pleasing
to Thee. In Christ's name, we meet here
tonight. Amen.