You here? Good to see some of
you here. For a season, I hadn't seen you.
It's always a blessing to be together. Well, beloved, we've
had a little run here in Genesis, and next week, Lord willing,
we're going to move into 1 Timothy for a little bit, and we're going
to flip back in two between the New Testament and Old Testament
for a little bit at a time. And this morning's sermon, we're
going to look at the latter part of chapter 4 of Genesis and then
also chapter 5, and we're going to see the exact same message
that we've seen since chapter 1. We're going to see the message
of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of God whom He
has forever loved, eternally. We're going to show, well, the
scripture shows us that Everything, just as the brothers have prayed
and read and sung this morning about the atonement of Jesus
Christ, the sufficiency and the efficacy, that means the fact
that it did something, it worked, of the death of Jesus. We're
going to see that everything, everything that we know about
who God is relates to how He has saved His people. And so
we are to read the Old Testament as we've been instructed through
the lens of the apostles who are the messengers of Christ
to write His word, to write His letters, to teach His church.
And they are the only ones who this present day actually teach
the church. The apostles, their writings
is what instructs the church. And of course we know that anybody
can read the Bible and understand its premise. Anybody. Anybody. and if it's in their language
and they have the ability to comprehend what they hear, can
hear the scripture and come away with an understanding of what
it's saying. Anybody can understand substitution. Anybody can understand
the atonement. Anybody can understand these
things as constructs, as ideas, as doctrines. Anybody. But only those for whom Christ
died, only those by the Spirit who have been made alive in the
transformation of the mind are able to sit securely and rest
in the sufficiency of this revelation and these promises. Faith is
not knowing the facts, but faith does know the facts, and faith
learns the facts. Faith rests in the One who is
true. Now I may be splitting hairs,
beloved, But I think we've come to a place that has always been,
even from the days of Paul, where a lot of heady people sit securely
in their knowledge and not in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
And that's why the beginnings are written for us. To show there
is nothing at all that we can do, at all, to secure our salvation
in any way whatsoever. because Christ alone has saved
His people. God has saved His people. And faith knows this. Faith rests in this. Faith understands and apprehends
and comprehends that resting in the finished work of Christ
is eternal life. Here we have in chapter 4, verse 25, the word of the Lord
saying, And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son, and
called his name Seth. For she said, God has appointed
for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain, I was going
to call him Cable, instead of Abel, for Cain killed him. Tusseth also was a son born,
and he called his name Enosh. And at that time, people began
to call upon the name of the Lord. And this is what we picked
up last week. In chapter 5 are the generations, are the
books of the generations of Adam. Chapter 6 are the generations
of Noah. And so on and so forth as we
see. And there's a lot of gospel truth
in these things. That's the point. Because we
see in chapter 7 what God told Noah to do. We see chapter 8,
God destroying the world and killing people because the world
has grown wicked. And then we see God making a
promise again to Noah, just like He made a promise to Adam and
Eve. He made a promise to Noah. And then we're going to see the
same thing happen in Noah's life that happened in Adam's life.
There's going to be a division through natural will and volition
and desire. Fleshliness always destroys intimacy. Fleshliness and selfishness and
man's wisdom will always destroy the family. It will always destroy
everything that God has put together. That He has said, man shall not
separate. And we'll see even Noah's sons
falling away, one of them specifically. But we'll see God's faithfulness
there. And then we will begin to see yet another world unfolding
and going the same way it went in the first round of population
expansion, whatever you want to call it. And the world in itself goes
to evil. And then we'll see God, out of
that evil world, take yet another person of His affection and of
His desire named Abram, and He'll take Abram out of the darkness,
and He'll set him firmly in the light, and it's not Abram's faithfulness
that matters, it's the faithfulness of God. And that's the message. It really is the message. We've
seen it already 18, 17 times in Genesis 1, 2, 3, and 4. And
we're going to see it. I'm not going to go through all
the genealogies of Adam. Because just like in the first
portion of Genesis 1, this is not for us to take our science
textbooks and walk in footprint. This is not the point of its
writing. It's not the point of its writing to tell a detailed
summary of what God did chemically and organically, ex nihilo, out
of nothing to create the universe and the cosmos. We by faith believe
what the scripture says concerning these things, but the point is
faith rests in the power and the promises of God. So that
there is no way possible for man to have been subject to his
own salvation or a participant in his own salvation, just like
man was not a participant in his own birth, his own conception, and he's not going to be a participant
in his own rebirth. He's going to be the beneficiary
of God's power. And so here, last week, we saw
Cain, we saw the fact that Cain, a descendant of Adam, the elder
son of Adam and Eve, who they thought was God's promise. And Eve, in her hubris, and Adam
in his hubris, they're like, look what, we have created the
man that God has promised to crush the head of the serpent.
Remember, a little conjecture there. And then lo and behold, the one
that they thought was the one of promise became the murderer.
And then we saw Abel crying out from the ground, his blood crying
out for justice, for vengeance, for wrath, because murder is
wicked and evil. And we saw all these things,
and now in verse 25 we see that Adam and Eve were given another
son, and the son's name was Seth, and the name means anointed. Chosen. Appointed. And he becomes the substitute
for Cain. I mean, for Abel. Y'all gotta
watch me today. It's a test. I did it on purpose.
No, I didn't. He becomes a substitute for Abel because Cain killed
Abel. Now see, these stories are written
in such a way that children can hear them and glean their instruction. Why is it so difficult then for
us as adults, as we age, to lose sight of this instruction? Because
we critically analyze things to a large degree. We're trying
to find types and shadows that aren't there. We're trying to
find numbers and sentences and punctuations that leads us like
a hidden road map on the back of the Constitution or something. We look for things that are not
there, and by and large, what we look for the most, we will
find. We can make it work. You ever
thought about that? These people are so smart. How
do they see all that? Because they thought of it and then made
it happen. But the Scripture is written
in a way, especially in this first part of Genesis, that a
child can understand that God created the world. He created
Adam and Eve, distinct from all the other creatures of the world.
And He put them in the middle of the garden where He lived.
And it was a perfect place. And God was awesome. And the
people were awesome. And everybody enjoyed fellowship
together. Nobody was scared of God. Everybody was naked and
nobody even knew it because nobody was ashamed. And God said, you
can have everything that I've created for your life. And if
you just stay here and you stay in the presence of this garden,
you'll never die. But I'll tell you what will kill you if you
mess with these trees over here. If you eat of these trees over
here, I'm going to let you die. And matter of fact, I'm going
to kill you. Because I've told you not to eat of these trees.
I've told you you can have everything in the world that I provide for
your life, but not these two trees. You've got forty hundred
billion, trillion, zillion, quadrillion trees, but these two, off limits. Don't touch them. Don't eat them.
See, He didn't even say don't touch them, did He? That's what
Eve said. God said not to touch them lest we die. And why is
this the case? Because the story shows us that
God is intimate with His people that He created. He called them
good. Why were Adam and Eve good, also
upstanding and right standing with God? Because God created
them to be so, and they were. And then given the opportunity
and the freedom of their will, they chose to die. They chose to die. And that rebellion
is not believing in the promise of God for life, see. It wasn't
a stupid mistake because they were hungry. They had all they
needed. It wasn't a stupid mistake because they felt like God was the killjoy.
They had all the wisdom they needed. It was a stupid act of
rebellion that they felt they would be like God. Just like
Lucifer, in his heart, according to the scripture, says, in his
heart, he said, I should stand next to God. Look at me. That's like your reflection in
the mirror going, you need to come in here and let me come
out there. We'd break that mirror pretty quick, wouldn't we? I'm
sure a lot of horror shows have come to that premise or that
plot. Or if you drew a picture and
it decided to come out and take your place, I mean, you know.
You create something and then it wants to share in your glory?
Nah. That's righteousness. Destroying
that which is not righteous. Getting rid of that which is
evil. Bringing judgment on things that are wrong. That's good. God declares these people good.
He gives them everything that they could possibly ever want.
But God had a bigger plan for all of this because He is showing
that only He can continue and provide and secure life for His
people. if they are left to themselves,
even in a state of innocence, they will fall into sin and rebellion. So in that sin and rebellion,
the natural, just, and loving consequence is that they must
die. That they must die. And so they eat, and they're
tempted, and they eat, and they eat willfully of that fruit,
thinking that they will be like God, and then all of a sudden
they were like God in a sense, and that they knew evil. And
then they died. They knew they were naked, and
then they were ashamed, and they hid from God, because there He
comes. The doorbell, and you're getting out of the shower, and
your robe's nowhere to be found, or you don't own a robe, or whatever
it might be. Oh no, you don't just answer
the door. That's just not the way it works. So they hid because
they were ashamed. They were naked because they were guilty. They
were self-conscious. They knew that if the Lord saw
them, not only would He see their nakedness, He would know their
guilt. They'd done something. God curses them. But in the curse,
He promises what? He promises life through the
Son of the seed of the woman, Jesus the Christ. And then Cain
comes along. Isn't it obvious? Is this the
one? This must be the one. Children would get that. This
must be the one that God has promised. He'll fix all this. The chosen one. And don't we
have many stories throughout history, even contemporary stories,
about the chosen one saving the people? Some of them even dying
and coming back to life. I mean, it's not anything new.
It's been stolen from antiquity from the days of creation. The
Epic of Gilgamesh. Harry Potter. The Chronicles
of Narnia. You name it. Anywhere there's
a witch, there's a savior. So, I mean, you know, you just
sort of look at it, and if there's not a witch, there's a wizard,
and you get the hobbits. You got Frodo. Gonna save his people. So it's natural that we would
think, oh, there's the Savior, came, and we're looking. Imagine,
remember when Zechariah and Elizabeth, when Zechariah went into his
lot, was drawn to give the offering in the beginning of Matthew,
and remember, and Luke and the synoptics, and we see the angel
of the Lord meeting with him and saying, hey, old man, you're
going to have that son that you've been praying for, and his name's
going to be John. And he's going to be the one who's the precursor
that comes in the spirit of Elijah. He's going to come and say, hey,
look, here's the Christ. Here's the one that they thought Cain
was. Here's the one they thought Seth was. Here's the one they
thought Noah was. Here's the one they thought David was. Here's
the one they thought, you know. He's going to come. And what
happens? He doesn't believe him, so he
can't talk. And here is all of these things. Everybody's been
looking for the one. And what does the Scripture say
about John the baptizer? They say that people were in
awe because here is the chosen one. They thought John was the
Savior. They thought he was the Christ. And the Scripture says in a vague
way, doesn't give us any details, but that people were in awe wondering
what this young man would grow up to be and they longed for
the day of his maturity. that He would lead them out of
captivity. See, we're always wanting to
get away from captivity, but we want to get away from captivity
unto our own freedoms. And we want to get away from
captivity into our own ideologies of what we think we deserve to
be able to do in our power and our will. And sometimes we spiritualize
that, sometimes we politicize that, sometimes we secularize
that, but in all times and in all categories, it is humanistic
and it is anti-Christ in everything. I don't care what it is. If constitutionality,
of which I am a huge fan, It is Antichrist, because it usurps
the very foundations of who God is and His sovereignty to rule
over the world. And I'm not saying not to be a steward,
but it's not ultimate. It's just a passing phase. It's
like kids that want to wear their pajamas all day. It's a passing
phase. Well, maybe it's not. Cain came and then Cain was the
murderer. They looked at Cain, they probably
thought, look, this man's going to be our savior. He was the killer. He
wasn't the savior. Abel was righteous. He was approved
by God. He was loved by God. He was affirmed
by God. So all that Abel did was righteous before God and
obedience by faith because he believed the promises of God.
Cain did not believe the promises of God. Cain believed that he
in himself was a zealot for the Lord and that he would do all
that was necessary and that he would secure the promises of
God in his own life. Remember Hagar and Sarah? Remember John the Baptist's demise? What happened? He was arrested. Inherit in his boastful arrogance,
the king of nothing, I'll give you whatever you want, because
I'm that kind of guy. What you want? New horse? New
hair bow? Lobster? I want John the Baptist's
head on a platter. Oh, oh. Couldn't go back on his
word, he looked like a punk. So John gets the word, and what
does John say? I'm going to die? I knew I had to decrease. I got
to get out of the way. I'm going to walk next to him
or behind him or 300 people back. I didn't know I was going to
have to die. I got to decrease. He's the bridegroom. He gets
the bride. I'm just the messenger. I'm just the announcer. Hey,
wedding's coming up. Here's the bridegroom. Here he
comes. Here he is. The Lamb of God takes
away the sins of the world. And what does John do? Hey, he
starts texting some folks and messaging some folks and TikToking
some folks. He's like, dogs, y'all got to go out there and
figure out if this Jesus is really the guy we think he is because
they're about to cut my head off and I don't really want to
die for nothing. If he is, I settle myself. If he's not, let's just
double check. John the Baptist was not the
Christ. He even confessed that. And no man born outside of being
the Son of God could ever lead his people to freedom. And beloved, freedom is not liberty
in this life. Freedom is not an internal righteousness
of perfection or godliness or religion that we walk in a way
that pleases the Lord to the point that we become more like
Jesus. That's like taking, this is gonna
be very crude what I'm about to say, but this is how I think
right now. I got a lot of sleep last night. That extra hour I
love these days. That's like going outside and
picking up a plop off the ground for your dog, molding it into
a steak, and serving it. You can make it look, you can
season it. It's still poop. It's dung. Beloved, we are never
anywhere close to the real thing. Jesus Christ and His righteousness
is credited to our account. The theological term for that
is imputation. It's imputed to us. We're not made righteous. We're declared righteous. By
what law, by what standard, by what justice are we declared
righteous? Jesus, who sinned not, born not
of a man in this world, but divinely brought into the world through
a virgin, took the credit for our sin. He was not guilty of
sin, but the sin and guilt of His people was imputed to Him,
was credited to Him, and then God crushed Him on the cross.
He died, but He could not stay dead in His flesh because He
was not guilty of sin. For the wages of sin is death.
Jesus had no sin, so He died in the place of someone else
as a substitute. He died in the place of His people.
And when He died, their sins were paid for forever and ever
and ever, and every sin for which He died is paid for, and any
sin for which He died, God the Father cannot condemn. So, He
substituted Himself for our guilt, and then He substitutes His righteousness
to us. Double imputation. Again, the
guilt of our sin to Christ, He does on the cross, and the perfection
of Jesus Christ and His divine human self, His perfection, His
glory, all of it credited to His people. It is credited to
his people. So the birth of Seth points to
this. Children can understand this. Well, Cain wasn't the guy. Abel, of course, is not the guy.
He's dead. Seth, the substitute. Seth is a substitute. Seth is
the promise of life. Seth is the Savior to come. That's the point. And then in
verse 26 of chapter 4, we see that people begin to worship
and call upon the name of the Lord when Seth had his son. Now, we know the lineage of Seth. Through Seth comes Noah. And
we've read Peter, right? We've read Peter's letters. We
know what Peter tells to his Jewish brothers and sisters in
Jesus Christ, that Noah was a type of Christ. that the flood of the earth was
like a baptism of judgment, and that Noah escaped, and his family
escaped judgment, not because they were smart enough, or wise
enough, or quick enough. I mean, it took him 100 years
to build a boat, for crying out loud. That's like me putting
in closets in my house. My great-grandchildren will have
that house where there's a closet in it. You know, and so, then the
boat in and of itself is like a Christ. It's a shadow of Christ,
because only those who are found in the ark are the ones who will
not die by just wrath. You see, when you teach our children,
when we learn these stories, we're able to tie them together
to Jesus, clearer and clearer the more they learn them. But
the best thing we could do is read the Bible for ourselves,
not study it. I remember I used to teach when
I was in my early 20s. I had a mentor in ministry. I won't
say the faith, but I had a mentor in ministry who every few months
he'd call, and he'd always remind me of this adage that the difference
between reading the Bible and studying the Bible is that when
you study, you have a pencil. Snap that in half. I don't believe that, and I haven't
followed that precept but maybe just a few months, because I
found myself academically parsing my wisdom into the knowledge,
into Scripture, rather than letting the Scripture just do its work
in me. See, God says that His Spirit will teach us through
the reading of the Word. We don't have to dive into all this stuff. We don't have to. Nothing wrong
with it, unless it takes precedence over the reading of Scripture.
But beloved, if your children are familiar with the narrative
of the New Testament, just the Gospels, they'll know more theology
and have a handle on the expressions of theological truths than any
doctorate peer that I have. I can prove it to you. Just let your children read the
Bible. Here's Seth. Why was Seth given? Chapter 5, the generations of
Adam. When God created man, he made
him in the likeness of God, male and female. He created them and
he blessed them. He approved of them. He loved
them and named them man when they were created. When Adam
had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness after
his image. and named him Seth. Now keep
in mind how long that was. 130 years. They aren't two-month
years. In the Jewish calendar, when
Moses wrote years, he, in this genealogy, he got the ages correct. And we can look at antiquity.
We know people used to live a long time. But Seth was a long time coming.
And all of a sudden, here's Seth. And then the days after Adam,
he fathered Seth, were 800 more years, and he had many other
sons and daughters, thus all the days that Adam lived were
930 years, and he died. I have said it out of my own
mouth before, oh, you ever want to go to sleep, read the genealogy
of the Old Testament. That's a joke, you know that, right?
And I realized this week as I was reading through these things,
that's not, we are not to take lightly the genealogy of the
Old Testament. We are not to ignore them. They're not for
us to put up on a family tree and try to figure out all these
timelines. That's not the point of it. Where's Cain's genealogy?
We just read it last week, didn't we? And then it just sort of goes
away. There's a point there, and I'll make it at the end of
the sermon. But there's a point here, too. Adam died. Abel died. Cain's gonna die. Seth's gonna
die. Everybody's gonna die. Anybody out of the image of man
is gonna die. Anybody born in the image of
man is going to die. Because everybody born in the image of
man is corrupt and depraved and sinful. No matter how they act
or what they do, they're sinful. And here is the reason. Let me
just go ahead and tell you. Here's the reason Seth was born
is because God had made a promise to His people that through the
seed of the woman shall come the Savior. And there are thousands
of years, thousands of years from Seth to Jesus, but it is
through this promise that Jesus the Christ comes. And not everybody born into Seth
was eventually converted or regenerated or saved. Not everybody born
into Abraham, of course we know that because Paul teaches us
that to the Romans as well as to the Galatians and others.
We know that everybody born into Abraham is not Abraham's children,
are not Abraham's children. I've got to get my verbs correct.
But only those who are in Christ are the true children of Abraham.
Abraham wasn't a people anyway. He had no genealogy. We don't
see the land of Ur through Abraham. We don't see the Chaldeans up
to Abraham. It starts with the promises of
God. So man, as we work and live in
this earth, We do, and go, and do, and we have our own ideas,
and our own philosophies, and our own understanding, our own
wisdom, and our own traditions, our own religion, our own expectations,
our own interpretations, and we just look at here, look at
here, look at there, and somehow we think that populace, or historical
record, gives some sense of solidarity, or security, or worse, authority
to what we know about certain topics. But it's not the case.
God alone is the authority. And the simple reality is that
the Word of God alone as written is the only means through which
God will show us Himself and give us the rest by His Spirit
to sit still and be at peace in His salvation, in His promises,
in His power. God loves His people. God loves
His people. He loved Adam and Eve, He provided
for them a bloody offering and covered their nakedness as a
symbol of Jesus Christ who would be the ultimate and only true
bloody offering. And we're going to go to Hebrews
9 and Romans 5 today, and we're going to talk about these things.
I said many times over, but recently I've said that the opposite of
love is indifference, and that is a fact. It's not an opinion. It's not love and hate and cold
and hot. I mean, this is elementary. Think
for a minute. Love relates to passion, relates
to affection, relates to desire, relates to focus, relates to
attention, relates to something active. It's not a feeling, it's
an action. Love has never been anything
we feel. That's called butterflies, anxiety,
diarrhea, indigestion, whatever it is. It's what we do. I would say
that the feeling of affection is, can I say this in the economy
of grace? Idolatry. Okay, that's what that
is. And I love it. I love it. I love it when my
family and my friends and my brothers and sisters in Christ
just tell me they love me. It's good, don't you love it?
That's why Facebook's so profitable. Who ever thought that would be
the biggest drug in the world? Yet in the 90s when somebody
went, you think, that dude needs to get a life. It's just prophetic. But love is what we do. It's
an action. Indifference. God was indifferent to Cain. He had no regard for him. Because
he did not love him. That's a picture of that. That
sovereign God receiving His people is an act of love, an act of
blessing. Now I know we can talk about temporal ideologies and
things of that nature, but for the theology imposed upon us
in sovereignty in Genesis chapters 1-5, we have to stick to these
firm understandings and these firm definitions. Because God
knows His people and that for knowledge is love. That's why
we use the word when Adam knew his wife. It's an action. It's intimacy. And Cain was born,
and then Abel was born, and then Seth was born, and then Cain
knew his wife, and then Enoch was born. It differences the opposite of
love because even hate is a result of passion, love, and interest,
and affection. We hate that which opposes that
that we love, right? We love. Our family, someone
bothers our family, we hate them. We love our stuff, someone bothers
our stuff, we hate them. Hurricanes blow off, we love
our roof, hurricane blows off, we hate hurricanes. God loves His name, loves His
holiness, loves His glory. He hates sin. He hates sinners. God loves His people. He hates
those who are not His people. See, we think that sometimes
these words are mutually exclusive, and in certain contexts they
must be, but not in every context. Now this is a beginner's, what
I've just done is sort of like a beginner's activity in philosophical
thinking. And in it, it holds no credibility.
It holds no authority. The Word of God holds the authority,
not how we process it. We love God as truth. We love
God's truth. Therefore, we hate that which
opposes God's truth. As God's people, do we not? You
ever had a family member that somebody started talking about
in town? Or worse, get this, they don't know it's your friend
or family. You ever had somebody come up to you? Oh, and their
face, you know, it's like priceless. If you could have like eyeballs
that recorded videos. You know that's my cousin, right?
I mean, did you just get constipated instantaneously? That's what
they look like. They don't know what to do. And it aggravates you. Why are
you talking trash about my loved one? Don't talk about my mama. You know, in the third grade,
fourth grade, that was what wars were started over. And you didn't
have to say anything. You just had to say, your mama,
you know. And it was on. Fires, nuclear weapons, fallout,
all of it. It was over. It's just a dog. We hate those who hate those
we love. God. We love God. Why? Because He
first loved us. So we do hate the things and the actions and
the attitudes and the people who oppose Him by default. But yet we're told to love our
enemies, to serve them and to give to them and to pray for
them and to care for them. Oh, wow! How strange is that? And here
we live in this life. Here we have chapter 5 when the
generations of Adam began the whole human race. Here we are. And every single person at some
time in their life, no matter where they are, have gone through
the same little exercises that we've just gone through, insecurely
and unprofitably. But what chapter 5 really shows
me is that God loves His people. And that God's love is the action
of redemption and the promise of creating a people and A people
for himself, a people for his glory, ultimately through these
people shall come his son that will actually, literally, and
effectually deal with sin once and for all. Satisfy his justice
and his wrath and his judgment and appease his hate. So chapter 5 is a record of the
information about God's people. Those He created and through
whom He promised to make His people fit for Himself. In Exodus
33, we see these very things. In Isaiah 45, I'll just read
verses to you. It says, the Lord says to Moses,
Exodus 33, this very thing that you have spoken, I will do for
you have found favor in my sight and I know you by name. The Lord says to Cyrus in Isaiah
45, I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hordes and
secret places that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God
of Israel, who call you by your name. See, that's interesting. But
some people, well, you know, this is the Old Testament. These
are prophets, you know, God's people. And how about Jesus in
John 10? I know them. And I know them
by name. It's what I've always told my
children and other young people throughout the years who have
been related to our household. And they always come and say,
you know, my friend, my friend, my friend, my friend, it's always
my friend, my best friend, my best, best friend. What's their
name? Oh, Sally, John. Oh, yeah. What's their last name?
See, we don't even really know the people we call friends, do
we? What about middle name? But the Lord knows us, and I'm
not talking about names. The point of this is that God
is intimate with His people, individually and corporately.
Christ did not blanket die for a generalized people that would
fit into a number. He specifically died for a specific
and particular people named individually and together as the elect. The Word of God is showing us
now a line of people who has shown us a line of people who
hate God, the Canaanites, and then all of Genesis is going
to show the interaction of that, and then the Old Testament is
going to show the people of God who are at odds with the people
of the serpent. even in a temporal sense, even
in a cultural sense. You're gonna see people who hate
the Lord and people who worship the Lord, and what is the condition? What is one thing that is absolutely
guaranteed? It reminds me of Paul individually,
but as guaranteed to the people of Israel throughout their entire
existence, and it was that God promised them Messiah, and God promised that they would
suffer greatly because of it. And everywhere Israel was left
to themselves, they always chose the world. And God corrected them because
He loved them by disciplining them. And how did He discipline
them? Through the Assyrians, through the Babylonians, through
the Egyptians, and through thousands of years of slavery, abuse, death,
and destruction. But there was always salvation
in the midst of all those things. This is the Old Testament story.
There was a remnant for whom God had favor and He saved them
out. He pulled them out of darkness
and set them into the kingdom of His light. This is a picture
and this is what Genesis 1-5 has shown us. And then after that we're going
to see an entire line of people who hate God and live according
to the flesh and who will fill the earth. Yet God always has
a remnant that He will prepare for the wilderness journey, and
at the end of the wilderness journey is always a Sabbath rest. The day that has no end. The
hope of Jesus Christ, the Messiah. The majority of the world falls
into the category of the line of Cain, if you will. The majority
of the world falls into the line or the category of unbeliever. The majority of the world falls
into the category of reprobation. The majority of the world falls
into the category, but it is not a distinct difference between
the people who are in reprobation and those who are in the covenant
of grace. The only difference is God's
will. I will have mercy on whom I have
mercy. You see the difference in the
good news versus a good opportunity? We're going to talk about that.
Good news is God saying, I will save you. And then God declaring
to the apostles, I have saved you. Versus, you better do this
if you want to live. How did that go with the first
couple in innocence? Not too well. How does it go through the prophets?
You ever read the prophets? Oh my, you have to really thumb
through to find the Jubilee, right? It's like, you know, I
love to go to the prophets and the Psalms before service and
read preachers, but sometimes you just land on something in
the prophets you just don't want to start a worship service with. Because you have to read, you
have to keep reading until you find the promise, you find the Jubilee,
you find the redemption, you find the hope, you find the good
news, you find the good report, you find the gospel of Christ. Self-wisdom, self-righteousness,
humanitarian goodness, religion, all sorts of wickedness and fleshliness
and selfishness. The flood is going to come and
provision is only going to be made for eight people. And no
matter where you fall in the line of that, the picture of
that is very clear. God made provision to save those for whom
He had mercy. And for a hundred years, Noah
preached righteousness, and preached the gospel, and preached salvation,
and preached, dude, just get in the boat. And not only were
they unable, they were unwilling. Because that's an insane thing.
Because when we build our lives, and we build our treasures, and
we build our faith, and we build our theologies, and we build
our doctrinal walls, and we think that we've got it sound, God's
going to step on them like an ant hill. But even ants bite
us. There's not going to be a contest when God steps on our false religions. and our labels and everything
else. The flood is coming, but God's
going to only make provision for eight. Seth is a type of
this provision for a few people, for the remnant, who in and of
themselves are nothing but sinners, worthy of all wrath and justice,
but by God's love for them, His foreknowledge for them, His eternal
grace and hope for them, He will save them. So Seth is born a
sinner after his father Adam, and there's a lot of theology
here. I could get into the imago dei, the image of God. I think
I've settled that. The only human being that exists
in the image of God is Jesus Christ, and the imputation of
His righteousness to us credits us. And we could talk about thinking,
we could talk about rule, we could talk about all these other
things. The pictures are shadows. Beloved, we are sinners. And if we're not found in Christ,
we're not in the image of God. Seth is a sinner after his father
Adam. Yet he's also a sign after the
promise of the Father. And he's also a Savior as a shadow
of the promise of Christ. And this proves that God is faithful
and that God has the plans of men in His hand, and none of
the plans of men will divide God's true people from Himself."
You see that Romans 8, it's become cliché. Isn't that sad that Scripture
becomes cliché? Isn't it sad that we use Scripture
to such a degree to illustrate an absolute truth that it becomes
almost so redundant that it's, oh yeah, it's like coffee table
Scripture or needlepoint Scripture or bumper sticker Scripture.
You don't want to talk about t-shirt Christianity. But the power behind
the reality that God cannot even separate us from His love because He has separated His
Son from life and satisfied His own wrath. Nothing can separate
us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. And what happens in these situations
is there's some things that invade us, historically invade us. Emeraldism
and all this other kind of stuff. He's a French theologian. And there's all types of philosophies
that come along to theological ideas to make God work for humanistic
ideology and thinking and all this. The thing is, is that some
people think that salvation falls into one of several categories.
That Christ died for everybody and everybody's going to heaven.
The Bible doesn't say that. That's called general salvation
or general atonement. So we think about the substitutionary
picture of Seth. He's to substitute for Abel,
but really he's a picture of who Christ is, who will be born
through the Virgin Mary, who will substitute for His people
as an object of wrath. See, and I can make parallels
showing that we're all Cain and Abel is a type of Christ. I can
also show that the elect are like Abel and the world is like
Cain. I can also say that the elect
are going to die because Cain can represent sin and we die. You see? We can pull these parallels
together and would be correct. The application is the same in
all of them is that we trust and hope in the power of God
and His sovereignty to save us from our sins through Jesus Christ
alone. This is it. This is why Paul said so eloquently,
not. He even said, I don't speak eloquently.
I can barely speak in a mumble and a stutter and all these other
things. But I stand to know Christ and Him crucified alone, and
I preach that lest the cross of Christ lose its power. If
I preach anything else other than the Christ and what He's
accomplished, then I have actually stated by my preaching that there
is something else beside Christ that can accomplish it. Some
people believe in a general atonement. Atonement meaning at one. So, in other words, if I could
put it in a simpler term, the way we are made right before
God is that Christ died for our sin and we are at one with Him. That's where that word comes
from. We are at one with God and in His presence. We are not
kicked out of Eden, we are back in Eden. And we are still sinners
and we are still guilty, but that guilt has been satisfied
and now we have been credited the righteousness of Christ so
that we can be in the presence of God. We have to wear the right
stuff to be in the presence of God. In Christ Jesus and His
righteousness is the right attire. Some people think that everybody's
sins are paid for because Jesus died for everybody. This was predominantly pushed
forward in history by a man named Jacob Arminius, but it was happening
in Paul's day. Then some people think about
the atonement in a hypothetical way, hypothetically universal.
In other words, you know, everybody has the opportunity or everybody has I don't want
to get into the dort and all this kind of stuff, so I'm trying
to reserve what I say, but let's just put it this way. The cross pays for the sins of
the elect, but then yet there's a supremacy to which it is sufficient
for every human being in the world, and we just have to stand
in that mix. strange because the Scripture
teaches specifically and particularly the efficacy of Christ's redemption. Now, we can debate these things
and talk about them. Some people think that the atonement
is limited. That means it's limited only
to those for whom it was intended. That means when Christ died on
the cross, He actually died for certain people individually and
collectively certain people because the atonement by definition means
that there is expiation, there is forgiveness, there is redemption,
there is satisfaction, there is propitiation, wrath is satisfied,
guilt is satisfied, debts are paid, life is granted. So if
the Bible were to be looked at and the instructions of the Old
Testament promises and the New Testament apostles were to teach
us about the atonement, then which of these, and there are
more views, there are many more views, but which of these views
are most biblical? And the answer is limited atonement.
That Christ literally died for all who belong to Him. Now that's not my opinion. And
you can go back and listen to the teaching of John's gospel.
You can go back and listen to the last two weeks of my Romans
reading. And you can go back and listen
to John 6 and some other places. Jesus teaches this. Because the Scripture says that
all for whom Christ died, the Father has given them to Him,
and all that the Father has given to Him, they will come to Him. They will believe in Him. When? When is my husband going to believe?
When is my son going to believe? When is my wife, or mother, or
grandmother, or friend, or neighbor, or enemy, or co-worker going
to believe? When the Lord has appointed that. Preach the gospel. Let God be
the author of salvation. Knowing that you have eternal
life is not discovering that you are an elect person. It's
believing in the promises of God for His elect people through
Jesus Christ. Resting in that. That's what
faith is. It is a divine work of God whereby He changes the
mind. That's called what? Repentance. And He grants faith. The mind is no longer worrying
and working to its own ability, but it's resting in the power
of God and His ability. Wow, I finally see it. Praise
the Lord. I've been working so hard for
this. Regeneration is knowing that
you belong to Christ. Your mind has been changed. You're
no longer tossed to and fro or whacking stuff. We're resting. And I think, where
do we go with this? What's the point? The point is,
this is the beginnings of the Word of God. This is what God
has written down first. This is to put the foundation
under our feet when we're climbing the stairs of life. We're not
falling to the bottom anymore. And if we do, we're standing
on the same step that we will stand in the day of glory because
it's a level playing field. We thought we were climbing,
but we're really sitting still. We're standing in the promises
of God, and that's become cliché. Just like Paul would say to the
Corinthians, you build and build and build, and your ministry
is doing all sorts of things, but when you build your ministry,
when you build into the lives of people, when you invest around
people with material that's not the gospel of free and sovereign
grace, it's going to burn. That's why Paul dares us to fight
over words and to be divided over things and to backbite and
to make our own stomp feet and play elsewhere type mindset.
We cannot do that and call ourselves sovereign grace believers in
good conscience. If our conscience bears witness
to that action, I question your conversion. But yet I'm not God,
so I can't say. What I can say is the Bible says
we deal with these things accordingly. No matter the justification,
the pharisaical justification of self-righteous fools who dare
spit in the face of Christ who paid for their sins. You see? And that's the tone of self-righteousness. Wow, that's strong! Because that's
the tone of pride. Humility cowers and crumbles
in the face of grace. Not as one who is fearful and
ashamed, but one who is broken and glad. Thank You, Father,
for Your grace and for Your mercy. In chapter 9 of Hebrews, let's
read chapter 9 of Hebrews, verses 11 through 28. But when Christ,
and there's a but there, so we got eight and a half chapters
to deal with, but we read through that a couple of years ago. But
when Christ appeared as high priest of the good things that
have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made
with hands, that is, not of this creation. Listen to that. That's
important. Not of this creation. Christ entered once and for all
into the holy places, the presence of God, not by means of the blood
of goats and calves, but by means of His own blood, thus securing
an eternal redemption. He bought it and it's His. What is that it? Us. He purchased
the people. For if the blood of goats and
bulls, or the offerings of Cain, or the religion of reformers,
or the doctrines of theologians, and all these other things, if
these things, if attitudes and actions and intentions and affections
all mattered, What, if the blood of goats and bulls and the sprinkling
of defiled persons with ashes of a heifer sanctify for the
purification of the flesh, in other words, it washes you ceremonially
for the right type of worship, what does that mean? We've seen
that. That only through death comes the remission of sins.
The sacrifices of the temple were to remind the priest and
the people that the wages of sin is death and that the work
of man will never suffice and that God requires it continually
death, death, death, death, death to appease His wrath and an eternity
of sacrifices will never satisfy the wrath of God. Yet one sacrifice
How much more will the blood of Christ, verse 14, who through
the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, purify
our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. Therefore He is the mediator,
He is the go-between of a new covenant, so that those who are
called may receive." See, mediation brings people together. That's
atonement. He is the mediator of a new covenant,
of a new promise, of a new contract, so that those who are called,
effectively snatched and dragged into the person of Christ, may
receive the promised eternal inheritance, something that you
deserve by blood. Not death, but since the death
has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed
under the first covenant. For where a will is involved,
the death of the one who made it must be established. The man
who made the will must be dead. For a will takes effect only
at death, since it is not enforced as long as the one who made it
is alive. Therefore not even the first contract or promise
or covenant was inaugurated without blood. For when every commandment
of the law has been declared by Moses to all people, he took
the blood of calves and goats with water and scarlet wool and
hyssop and sprinkled both the book itself and the people. saying,
this is the blood of the covenant that God commanded for you. And
in the same way He sprinkled with the blood both the tent
and all the vessels used in worship. Indeed, under the law, almost
everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood,
there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus it was necessary for the
copies, for the shadows, for the substitutes of the true heavenly
things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things
themselves with better sacrifices than these. For Christ... What is the better sacrifice?
Verse 24. Here it is. For Christ has entered not into
holy places made with hands, which are copies, which are shadows,
which are fake representations of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to
appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly
as the High Priest enters the holy places every year, year
after year, with blood not of His own. Isn't that amazing that
the blood of humanity was not even sufficient to be the shadow?
Because a goat and a squirrel and a dove and a sack of flour
has more sacrificial power than the blood of a sinner. Nor was it to offer Himself repeatedly. As the high priest enters holy
places, verse 25, year after year, not with blood of his own,
for then he would have to suffer repeatedly since the foundations
of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at
the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself,
Jesus Christ. And just as it is appointed for
man once to die, and after that comes the judgment, that has
been taken out of context a thousand times from Sunday, so Jesus Christ,
having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear
a second time, not to deal with sin, but to bring those to Himself
who eagerly await for Him. What is faith but resting in
the promises of God and waiting for that day? Waiting for Christ. Waiting for life. Who is Jesus? And it's not just what we see
in Hebrews 9, it's all over the place. Romans 4 talks about Abraham
being justified. Verse 4 of Romans 4 says, What
then shall we say was gained by Abraham our forefather according
to the flesh? For if Abraham was justified by works, he's
got something to boast about, something to brag about, something
to talk about, but not before God, because none of that matters. For what does the Scripture say?
Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
Now to the one who works, when you work, you earn your wage.
His wages are not counted as a gift, but what do him? And
to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies
the ungodly, his faith is counted to him as righteousness. Why?
Because we're resting in the promises of God. The power of
God unto salvation. The power of God to create His
people. The power of God to secure life. The power of God to satisfy
His own justice and wrath. Why? The power of God to love
His people effectually. And to present us and make us
fit for His presence. This is what faith looks to. And we don't work for that. We
don't do anything. There's no trigger. There's no
trigger that causes Jesus to die for us. There's no trigger at all that
we do that causes the atonement to work for us. It's worked for
us. And God's word can be boiled
down to this. Trust my promises. Trust my promises. And you'll live. Just as David also speaks of
the blessing of the one to whom God counts righteousness apart
from works. Listen to this, verse 7 and 8 of Romans 4. Blessed
are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven. And this is from
the Psalms. And whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man against
whom the Lord will not count his sin. How can God not count
my sin against me? Because he counted Jesus guilty
for it. and crushed Him. It's that simple. But it's not
easy. It's not in our power to rest
in that. Only the Spirit of God can cause
us to believe. So what does this show us? The picture of Cain ends. The
picture of Seth begins. Seth's line continues as a picture
of God's glory that is promised to all the children of God in
Jesus Christ. The wicked die and the righteous live by faith
and the power and the promises of God alone. This is a simple
summary. So now the question is, and I know I've gone long,
so what? What now? Who cares? What difference does
it make? Here's the point. And we have the apostles to thank
for this. We are a people for God's glory by His power. And
God has established His people to be together under the prescription
of His Word. That is why there is a genealogy
of families, not just a list of faithfuls. Because it is a picture of what
the church will be eternally. God is faithful to save His people.
Therefore, we should be able to. Let me just list some things
off. We should be able to, as God's people, rest in an eternal
Sabbath. We should be able to know God
in truth through the Word. We should be able to be righteous
in Jesus Christ and understand that when we sin, it does not
affect that standing, but it is evil. We should be able to
have unity in the grace of God, in the gospel of Christ. We should
be able to labor in our worship, which includes serving one another,
which is the only, only, let me say this again, only way we
can actually serve Christ. You can't serve Christ by lighting
a candle and praying and reading a devotion. You can't serve Christ
by watching a sermon. You can only serve Christ by
being with Christ's people and helping one another. We're able
to, deal gently with one another because God has dealt gently
with us and harshly with His Son. We're able to forgive one
another. We're able to rejoice in trials.
We're able to understand and patiently teach each other the
truth. We're able to learn with discernment
and admit when we were wrong. We're able to hope in God's promises.
We're able to be content, to be gentle, to be kind, to be
in Christ. We have the mind of Christ, therefore
we are able to put away paranoia and suspicion and assumption
which is all of Satan, period. All the time. We're able to put
away these things. We're able therefore to make
right judgments by keeping the gospel continually in our hearts
and minds and then serving as we're called to do because God
first loved us. Because we've been created by
the Word of God. who spoke and all that He said came into being,
who spoke and declared it all good, who spoke and prophetically
revealed the fall, who spoke and promised life in Himself,
who spoke and established the covenant, the promise, the contract
of grace, who spoke and all that is became, and who spoke and
His Word became flesh, and who spoke and we know who He is and
we know Him now, and we have seen Him, He who has spoken and
He who continues to speak, and in Him we rest, And this is eternal
life. Creation of our eternal life
by the Word of God now is outside of our knowledge. It is spoken
into us by the creative power of God. It is outside of our
power. It is spoken into us by the power
of God alone. It is outside of our desires
and our abilities and our transformation and our information and everything
else. It is outside of us. Our redemption is outside of
us. It is all of God. who is set apart because He is
not us. That's what holy means. So now
we are set apart and now we are holy because He has set us in
Himself. We will be holy for He is holy.
We will be set apart for He is set apart. We will be brought
to Himself because we cannot accomplish a relationship with
Him or intimacy with Him or contact with Him outside of Him bringing
us to Himself. And He has already set us apart
and there will never, ever be death in us. Beloved, until He
sets apart our minds and repentance and faith and regeneration, we
cannot claim to be alive because we only know life through the
Creator. We can only have life through
the Creator. We cannot look at the Creation and say, OK, I can
figure this out. We cannot figure this out. God has established
it. So God is speaking now to show His people all the things
related to life and to godliness. And the Word of God is like a
two-edged sword. It is living and breathing, and
it causes life for the people of God. And it causes things
for the people of God. It causes faith. And if it's
not effectual, it's because that's what God determined in that moment. If it is effectual, then we praise
Him for it. We rejoice in anything. So in this birth of Seth, we
see Adam and Eve were not able to even create life. God must
do it. Salvation, proof of regeneration
are not what we have done and what we have come to conclude
about what God has provided, but salvation and proof of regeneration
is resting in what God has promised and it is our landing zone, it
is our promised place, it is our Sabbath rest, it is the presence
of the Divine. It is our truth. It is our hope.
It is our wisdom. He is our righteousness. So in
all of that, we are able to know we have eternal life because
of Christ. And beloved, I'm going to tell
you something. It's the only thing that really will keep us moving
in this world. And I'm not talking about spending
days becoming theologically rich. I'm talking about spending every
moment of every day as we have opportunity rejoicing in the
sufficiency of the death and the life of Jesus. His loving
mercy. Remember we talked about at the
beginning about how sometimes the feeling we have, we mistake
with love. Beloved, I would not want that
feeling to ever leave me in regards to the Lord, but it does. You
ever felt like you just weren't loved? Thank God it's not about
how we feel, but it's about what Christ has finished. And He's
finished it by laying His life before the Father in His humanity
perfectly, accomplishing all that the Father sent Him to do,
and dying on the cross as a substitute for His people, as the appointed
one, as the anointed one. And that is what the table does
for us. It brings us together, reminding us that we are all
alike in two ways. We are all worthy of wrath, but
we have all received mercy through Christ. And we remember Him,
and so it's important, it's important for us to take these things truly
as the Lord intended them, and to remember the Christ who has
given His life for His people. Prepare our hearts for the table
together, beloved. Let's pray. We thank you, Father, for Jesus
Christ. We thank you, Father, for the
gospel, for teaching us the good report. Thank You, Father, for
the glory that You've set before us, for helping us to see, Lord,
that even when our hearts and our minds and our bodies fail,
Father, even when we are in despair, even, Father, that we find times
in this world where we just are so uncertain and we have anxiety
and we have anger and frustration. Father, we know that it is sin,
but Lord, You carry us through. And You've promised us that when
we are together as the body, and Your Word is taught, that
You will secure us in the truth and You will correct us and teach
us. You will correct and teach Your elders, Your under-shepherds
to oversee the joy of Your people. Father, You will help us all
to grow to maturity. For none of us are mature, but
we will grow. So help us to grow. And Lord,
the foundation of that growth is the joy and the sufficiency
of the peace of Jesus Christ to which the world does not grasp. does not comprehend, but Father,
You cause us to comprehend it. Lord, help us be about ministering
to each other. First and foremost, Lord, to
cause us to share this grace with one another, to encourage
each other in the faith, to keep running the good race and fighting
the good fight and competing in the good competition, knowing
that You alone have already set across the finish line. Jesus
Christ, your Son, has set across the finish line. He has torn
down the ribbon. He has broken down the curtain.
He has torn away all the opposition. He has disposed of the debt of
death. And the letter has come to its
end. And the Spirit that you give us is life. Lord, your people
have ears to hear. Help us to hear. And Father,
we pray for supernatural work in our hearts and minds and in
those around us that we labor before You, that You would be
glorified in all that You're going to do. In Jesus' name,
Amen. You can come. you.