GENESIS 1-112012 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Genesis 1-11

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Well, this evening we are starting something new. We finished the Old Testament last year.

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And so Wednesday evening services, the teaching will really be an overview, a survey of all of the chapters that we have read since last week. So this week we're going to be looking at chapters 1 through 11.

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Now, you can imagine, you know, we're not going to sit and read Genesis 1 through 11, right? Because that would be the all of our time that we would have together this evening. The idea is you need to be participating and reading the chapters throughout the week and allowing God to speak to you. And then as we come together on Wednesdays, then we are looking at, we're recapping some of the main events of the chapters, some of the details, some of the things that God highlights as we go.

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And God will bring confirmation to you. He'll allow these things to be established in your heart and reinforce those things that he was speaking to you and those things that you learned throughout the week. And so we want to encourage you to continue on with us in the Bible in three years. Now if you...

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haven't started or maybe you started and you kind of wavered a little bit, I just want to encourage you as I did on Sunday, it's not too late to start. Just pick it up today with today's reading. Don't try to go backwards and catch up, but just start today. Read today's chapter and going forward, just read the chapter or the assigned reading each day as we go on.

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day by day through the Bible in the next three years. And so it's not too late. If you fell behind, just skip those chapters you missed. Scratch them. They're gone. What God had for you in those days, those days are gone. Now God has something new for you today. So read today what God has for you. Because what you don't want to do is get bogged down and then the chapters start piling up and then you kind of give up and quit because, well...

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I can never get caught up, you know, and so just remove that, you know. We put these burdens upon ourselves, you know, like we want to check off the box. Like I read every word, every verse, every chapter, all the way from Genesis to Revelation, right? And that's like a big accomplishment in our mind. But that's not what reading the Bible in three years is all about, right?

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It's about connecting with God daily. It's about spending time with him each day. And sure, having, you know, read day by day in all the chapters, it helps complete the picture. But God's going to speak to you and minister to you where you're at, regardless of if you missed a chapter or missed a couple chapters or missed a couple weeks or missed three months or whatever. God wants to speak to you and he wants to do it in a united way. And that's why he's

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put this together for us that we would all be together reading through the scriptures and looking at the same portions. And so I just want to encourage you, just forget the whole thing about checking off the box and, you know, saying with excitement, you know, I did it every day and I finished all the, you know, verses and chapters and just get rid of that and just commit to today I'm going to read

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what God has for me. And then tomorrow I'm going to read what God has for me. And don't worry about getting caught up or, you know, those past chapters that you missed. And so I want to encourage you just, you know, continue along with this. Don't give up, but keep on going and God will minister to you as you read it and then as we recap it on Wednesday evenings. Now going along with

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The Bible in Three Years. We handed out a couple weeks ago, but if you weren't here, if you missed it, there's some more on the back table. It's a Bible study resource on the books of Moses.

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And we'll be referring to the timeline a little bit this evening as we go through the chapters. But this has some, you know, some basic information to kind of help you, to give you a little bit more insight as we are reading through the Bible in three years. It helps you kind of get a little bit of a picture of the timing of different things and

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and visualize it and lay it out. There's a couple maps in there too, so you can kind of see the location of certain things. And it's designed just to help you, you know, to kind of complement your reading. And so I just want to encourage you to pick one of those up. If you didn't, they're on the back table, and they're only $59.95. No, I'm just kidding. They're free. So pick one up and keep it. I use it as a bookmark for myself, you know, and so I just have it with me as I'm doing the reading that I can...

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I can see the different things that are on there. I think there was one other announcement, but I forgot. So we're just going to head right into it. You ready? Genesis chapter 1. And here we go. The book of Genesis. Genesis.

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Genesis

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And the date written is basically the estimated time that Moses lived. So, you know, sometime actually when he was in the wilderness with the children of Israel, that's that time span, 1446 to 1406. Sometime during that wilderness time, Moses wrote the book of Genesis, as well as Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

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Genesis is an interesting book because it covers basically the first 2,000 years of history.

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And sometimes that gets a little bit lost as we're, you know, jumping from, you know, chapter 1 to chapter 2 to chapter 3. And, you know, it seems very sequential. But when you zoom out a little bit and put in perspective, you realize we're covering lots and lots of time here. Just again to put it in perspective, the time since Christ walked the earth till today is about 2,000 years.

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So it's about that span of time that we're covering just in the book of Genesis alone. So we're going to be covering a lot of different time periods, a lot of different things happen in 2,000 years, of course. And so we'll be seeing that as we go through the book this evening and the next couple of weeks. The purpose of the book of Genesis, you could put down a couple things, but I put it this way. It's to record the beginning of the Hebrew nation.

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The Bible has a very specific focus. And this is helpful as we look at some of the things that we'll be studying, as we have questions that come up. We need to remember that the Bible has a very specific purpose. It has a very specific focus. The purpose of the Bible is not to record everything that ever happened before.

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In all places. That's not the purpose of the Bible. If that was the purpose of the Bible, it would be a much bigger book. Right? Covering 2,000 years of history. Lots happened. No. It just hits some of the highlights, but it really focuses on, it focuses on the line of Jesus Christ. It focuses on the promise of the Savior. Right?

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And so it's recording the beginning of the Hebrew nation because it's through that nation that God is going to bring the Savior. From the beginning to the end, the Bible is all about Jesus. You remember that Jesus told the scribes and the Pharisees in John chapter 5, he says, you search the scriptures because in them you think you have life, but these are they which testify of me, Jesus said.

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And so the scriptures from beginning to end really are focused on Jesus. And so you'll notice in the genealogies that we'll go through, the genealogy that is followed and focused on is the genealogy of Jesus Christ. There's a couple other families that are mentioned, and we might see their genealogy for one generation or two, but we don't follow it all the way through. There's many more people that were born, but we pay attention

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And so we'll be seeing that as we hit the genealogies and things this evening. And so the purpose of Genesis is really to focus on and to teach us about the beginning, creation, as well as the beginning of the Hebrew nation because it's through that nation that we can see the beginning of the Hebrew nation.

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It's through those people that God will bring the Savior to the world. And so that's the context, that's the overview of what we're talking about as we look here in the book of Genesis. And so we pick it up in Genesis chapter 1.

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Now as we go through the overview of these chapters, there's a couple things that we're going to be doing. First of all, we're going to be looking at a key verse. I pick out, I highlight one verse from each chapter. I call that the key verse to kind of just give a simple picture, a simple synopsis of what that chapter is about, the main point of that chapter. And

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And so if you're interested in that, you want to follow along with that, then there will always be the key verse of the chapter. For Genesis 1, it's Genesis 1, verse 1. And it says this, And that's a nice summary of what Genesis 1 is all about. It's creation.

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It's God in the beginning creating the heavens and the earth. Now, of course, there's some more details there. And so you can look at the chapter and you can see, well, on day one, God created light and darkness. He separated light from darkness. He created the light spectrum. Well, he created light there on the first day. He said, let there be light. And there it was. He spoke it into existence.

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And then on day two, he created the sky and the atmosphere. The things that we see when we walk outside and look up. Again, the atmosphere, the air that we breathe, the protection from outer space around the earth that we have, the ozone layer and such. He created all of that on day two. Day three, he created dry land. He created the seas.

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as well as the trees, began to appear on the earth as God spoke it into existence and said, let it be. And then on day four, he created the sun, the moon, as well as the stars. Then on day five, he created the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. And then on day six, he created the rest of the animals that walk the earth, as well as man. And so that's a little bit of an overview of Genesis chapter one. Now,

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As we go through these chapters, I'm going to be hitting these overviews, kind of just touching on the main, you know, things that happened in the chapter. But as the Lord leads, I'll also be kind of sharing on a little bit of side trails or a little bit of extra thoughts or highlighting certain verses as, you know, the Lord speaks to my heart or as I see things that the Lord wants me to share, I'm going to do that. And so as I was reading through Genesis chapter 1 this time,

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You know, it's so refreshing to go through the Bible in this way because, well, you know, you get to the end of the New Testament and by the time you get to the end of the New Testament, you're ready for the book of Genesis. You're ready for the Old Testament again. It's been the practice and the habit for many years to go through the Bible in a year and

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And so as we completed the New Testament, now it's exciting, it's fresh, and it's like with a fresh set of eyes. Every time I get into the Word and we go through it again, it's like reading Genesis for the first time in many ways. And so there's things that just stick out. There's things that just hit me every time, even though I've read it and studied it many times before.

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And something that always stands out to me, something that always just hits me afresh as I go through the book of Genesis and specifically chapter 1, is this whole idea of creation. You know, we need the reminder that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. We need to be reminded that God is the creator. That he is the one who created

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everything to come into existence. He brought it forth. He spoke it into existence. He is the creator of the heavens and the earth. And it always causes me to kind of gasp a little bit as I consider that, as I consider the magnitude of the creation that he spoke into existence. Here you have a picture of earth from space.

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And you can see the moon there in the background off to the right. This is what God spoke into existence. He created the heavens and the earth there in the beginning.

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Now, the earth is not small, as I'm sure you know. You know, you don't walk around it in a day or two. It's quite massive. It's 24,000 miles around. That's the circumference. I mean, it's a massive, massive planet. Well, unless you compare it to other planets. Now, we're not alone, of course, in the universe, right? I mean, we're not the only planet. Earth isn't the only thing that exists. We exist.

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Well, we live on a planet that exists in a solar system. And the solar system looks a little bit like this. You can see the outline there as you have the sun there in the middle and everything rotates around the sun. Now, from the Earth's perspective...

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It's all about the earth, right? The sun goes up, the sun goes down, the sun rotates around the earth from our perspective. But in reality, the earth rotates, the earth circles around the sun. But we're not alone. We have Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, so on and so forth. And so these different planets God created, he spoke into existence in the beginning. Now that's pretty impressive. I mean, this is...

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I can't get into the details this evening. I don't even know all the details. If I knew all of the details, I'd be even more impressed. But this is the idea. God spoke this into existence. I mean, we study it. Mankind studies it and tries to figure it out. We learn more and more. We continue to learn. It's incredible the depth and the extent of God's creation. And this is just our solar system.

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And we look at the sun, and you can see how the sun is, you know, quite massive on this diagram. We look at the sun, and we see, well, it's pretty big. But look at the planets in comparison to Earth. Now, we think it's all about Earth, right? I mean, Earth is pretty big, 24,000 miles around. But you see Earth, it's in the bottom left there. It's like, you know, that big. And then there's Jupiter. It's huge, right?

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I begin to consider, I begin to think about how big God's creation is. As I see earth and then I see Jupiter. I mean, it's massive. What God created is absolutely humongous. But we're not done. I mean, this is just our solar system. Then you look at the sun and look at the...

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from the sun to Jupiter. Remember how big Jupiter was right there? Jupiter's huge, right? You compare it to Earth, it's like, whoa, it's massive. But then you compare it to the sun, it's like, Jupiter's nothing. And then you look at the Earth, there on the right, you can see it, it's just barely a dot. That's the size of the Earth in proportion to the sun. And so God created this solar system with this huge sun, these various planets that are

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circle around it. We're just one of several. And he spoke this into existence. Can you imagine speaking and creating that? Can you imagine the power? Can you imagine how powerful God is? Can you grasp really what that means that he spoke it into existence? I mean, this is humongous. It's huge.

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If I were to tell you, you know, the size of the sun, it doesn't even really register. I looked it up and I was like, I don't even know how to describe that number. It's just, it's huge. That's why the pictures are good, right? Then we can kind of see, whoa, that's big. But you know, as you look at the rest of the universe, you kind of go beyond our solar system.

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you learn that our sun is not really that big. It's kind of a medium to small size star. In fact, there's many stars that are much, much bigger as you can see here on this slide. Now on this scale, the sun is that little tiny dot all the way to the left. That's the sun compared to Arcturus. Now that's a massive star. On this scale, Earth is invisible. You can't even, there's no way to,

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display it one pixel is too big for the earth to to display it on this scale it's just it's incredible these are thousands of light years away and there's these massive stars that in the beginning god spoke into existence he created the heavens and the earth but we're not done so this is arcturus remember that name okay here we go

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Arcturus now, I don't know if you can see it, it's in the bottom on the middle right here, that's Arcturus. See that little tiny dot? We have Betelgeuse and then a little bit bigger Antares. These again are humongous. They're gigantic. The sun, to put it on the scale of what we're seeing here, would be one pixel big. Now we go back and look at in comparison to the earth, the sun is huge. But the whole point that I'm

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Getting at here is just, God's big. He created the heavens and the earth. He spoke this into existence. He said it, it was done. This is the God that we're talking about. This is the God that we are walking with, that calls us to worship Him, that calls us to walk with Him, that invites us into His presence. It amazes me and astounds me every time I consider this chapter because this is the God that we worship.

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The creator of the heavens and the earth. And it's way bigger than what we see when we walk outside and look around. He's a big God. And so here in Genesis chapter 1, we see God speaking it into existence. The creation of the heavens and the earth. But then we head on into chapter 2. And here in chapter 2, the key verse is there in verse 7.

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And this is where it begins to be a little bit more personal towards us. We see the earth in comparison to the sun and the stars. We see, you know, all the different trees and things being created. But here in Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 it says, And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being. And so here as we look at the beginnings, we saw the beginning of the universe and

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The beginning of all things that exist. There in chapter 1. And now we really get to look at the beginning of humanity. The beginning of mankind. God formed man of the dust of the ground. So he took a pile of dirt. He said, hey, it's kind of like Plato. Alright, I'll just kind of form it. I'll just put it into the shape. And then he breathes into man.

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This man he formed of the dust of the ground and then man is given the breath of life. Our very breath is from God. He created Adam, the first man of the dust of the ground. We see here in chapter 2, he also placed Adam in the garden of Eden. He placed him there in the garden with instruction to take care of the garden, to tend to it.

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But then he also saw that it was not good for man to be alone. And so he created woman. And so we have the beginning of man, but also the beginning of woman. And there in verses 18 through 23, we see how God put Adam to sleep, how he took the portion of his side and used that to form into woman whom he presented to Adam. And he said, whoa, man, and the name stuck. It was woman. It's a silly joke, I know.

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Works really good at weddings though. I use that a lot. But woman was created there and brought to man. And we have here now the creation, the beginning of marriage. Husband and wife being joined together.

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Now this is so important because, again, we're looking at the beginnings. We're looking at God's creation. And we can see very clearly, it's God who created the heavens and the earth. It's God who created man. It's God who created woman. It's God who brought them together. He instituted marriage. He instituted this relationship. Because he created you and I, because we are his creation,

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He is our God. He is deserving of our service. He's deserving of all glory. He's deserving of our submission. He is our creator. We exist at his will. He created us. We owe him everything. Without him, we're nothing. We don't exist. We owe God everything. He is our creator.

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You see, looking at the book of Genesis and understanding where we come from, understanding what God did, helps us to gain or hold on to a proper perspective on life. When we lose focus that it's God who is our creator, that we're nothing without him, well, we focus on ourselves, we live for ourselves, we live to pleasure ourselves, we make it all about us.

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Or even if we try to be noble and we make it all about somebody else, it's still lesser than what we were created for because we were created by God and for God. And we learn through understanding that He is our creator, that He's the one who formed us of the dust of the ground. We learn that you and I will never, ever, ever be satisfied. We will never be fulfilled. We will never know what life is really about until we live God.

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Until we live to bring him pleasure. Until we fulfill the thing which he created us for. And that was relationship with him. And so it's not just the story of how he began. How mankind was created. But it's also the refocusing for ourselves. A reminder that I am God's creation. I live in God's creation. I am God's creation. He created me to have relationship with him. That's my purpose in life.

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That's the meaning of life. That's the whole point of why we exist. And that is what we must pursue. It needs to be the passion of our heart, the passion of our life. But we also see along those same lines of thought, the first marriage here. Marriage is a popular subject these days because of what is being promoted, what is being discussed.

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Pushed through the courts and the political systems and attempting to redefine what marriage is. But here's the thing. God created marriage. He's the one who invented it. He set the parameters. Only he can change it. If marriage was an invention of humanity, we could change it. We could redefine it. We could do whatever we want with it because it's our invention. We created it.

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But the Bible is very clear. God brought woman to man. And there in verse 24, Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. There was a joining together. There was a unity. This marriage took place. It was God's idea. And so those of you who are miserable in marriage, understand.

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God's the manufacturer. Read the manual. Go back to what he says. Find out, you know, just like if your car is not working or your coffee maker is not working, right? You go back to the manual. You go back to the manufacturer and you say, look, it's not working. You told me it was going to work this way. It's not working this way. And then they tell you, well, it's user error. You're doing it wrong, right? And that's what God does, right? You take your marriage back to the Lord and you say, God, it's not working. It's not doing what you said it was going to do. And God says, user error. You're doing it wrong. You're doing it wrong.

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Do it the way I've told you to do it. And then we find, whoa, God knows what he's talking about. God created marriage. He knows how it works. He's the one who put it together. He designed it. He invented it. And so we can't redefine it. We can't decide, well, now we're going to allow, you know, men and men to be married. The state can call it marriage, but it's not marriage. God created marriage. The state doesn't have the right to redefine what that is.

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And so here as we look at the beginnings, we see the beginning of man, the beginning of woman, the beginning of this union together that God has blessed and he's called marriage. Well now we head into chapter 3 and we see in chapter 3 the key verse is verse 6. Of course here in Genesis chapter 3 we're talking about the fault.

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Verse 6 of Genesis 3 says, And so there in the Garden of Eden are Adam and Eve. And they are given a wide variety of wonderful vegetables and fruits and things probably more glorious than we could imagine. And they are given a wide variety of wonderful vegetables and fruits

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And they're in the Garden of Eden and there's one tree that God says you cannot eat of this tree. It's the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And this tree is the forbidden fruit. This tree you are not to eat of. We talked about this a couple weeks ago, I think on a Sunday morning, how in order for us to have a real relationship with God, God had to give us a choice. And so that's what we see here in Genesis 3. God is giving Adam and Eve choice.

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He created them to have relationship with Him. He created them to walk with Him, to know Him, to exist with Him. But He also gave them the choice to walk away from Him, to disobey Him. This is amazing. As we look at the universe and the size of the different stars and we go, wow, look how big God's creation is. That's pretty impressive. It's pretty amazing. Then you come to Genesis chapter 3 and you consider God created us.

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He gave us life. He could have created us differently if He wanted to, but He didn't. He created us the way that we are with the option, with the opportunity, with the capability of spitting in His face, hating Him, fighting against Him, and running away from Him. He gave us that. I mean, as big as the universe is, this is a bigger deal. God gave you choice. He gave you the opportunity to decide.

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whether or not you will walk with him. He gave you the opportunity to decide your eternal fate. He gave you choice. Now, Adam and Eve made their choice. And what choice did they make? Well, it says there in verse 6, she saw the tree, looks good for food. She thought, wow, it's pleasant to the eyes. It's appealing. It looks nice. And it's also going to make me wise. Sounds great. I mean,

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Two or three witnesses, right? That sounds like a good deal to me. So she takes of the fruit and she partakes. She eats. And then she gives it to Adam and he eats. And humanity now has fallen. Mankind has sinned. That relationship with God where they were in perfection now has been broken. And God begins his evening walk, his evening stroll with them. And he's looking for Adam. He says, Adam, where are you? Of course, God knows where they're at. But

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He's giving Adam an opportunity to fess up, you know, to do it right. But where's Adam? He's hiding. You've read the story, I hope. They sewed fig leaves together trying to cover themselves and they're hiding there in the bushes because they're naked. God says, who told you you were naked? Did you eat of the tree? Adam says, well, you see what happened was Eve gave it to me. It's that woman you gave me, Lord. And

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And he says, I can't believe you. No, it's the serpent. The serpent deceived me. The serpent had no one else to look to. So the serpent took the brunt of it. But they began to blame. They began to hide. To try to water down the choice that they made. And so we have the curse. The curse that we all experience. That we all know about as a result of their fault.

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It applies to the woman, it applies to the serpent, it applies to the man. We also have here in Genesis chapter 3, the first prophecy there in verse 15. We talked about it a couple weeks ago on a Sunday as well. Where he tells the woman that, well actually the serpent, that between the serpent's seed and the woman's seed, there's going to be enmity. And the serpent will bruise the heel of the woman's seed.

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But the woman's seed will crush the serpent's head. It's a prophecy of Jesus Christ. It's a prophecy really of the cross. And how at the cross, Satan bruised Jesus' heel. He was crucified. He was put to death. But then he was resurrected. He conquered sin and death. And he gave the final blow, the crushing blow to the head of the enemy. And so we see here the prophecy of Genesis 3.15 speaking of Jesus and his victory at the cross.

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Well, at this time as well, man is put out of the Garden of Eden. It specifically tells us he's put out of the Garden of Eden so that he would not partake of the tree of life there in verse 22. For mankind to live forever, that is to continue to partake of the tree of life and continue to live, if they were to do so in a fallen condition, that would be terrible. God kicking man out of the garden was really a

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the best thing for humanity. It was the best thing for mankind. Because to live forever, can you imagine living forever in this sinful, fallen body? Where every day it's a fight, it's a struggle, sometimes just to get out of bed, but to walk with the Lord.

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To draw near to him, to do what's right. Could you imagine for all of eternity having this battle? No, we have the hope. We have the promise that we won't live forever in this body. That this body will die and then we will have a glorified body that we will get to spend eternity with the Lord without the burden of sin. Without the curse of sin.

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And so he puts man out of the garden so that he does not live eternally in that fallen condition and in a fallen world. And that is Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 4, moving right along. Verse 8 is a key verse here of Genesis 4. It says, Here we have the first children.

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Again, Genesis is the beginnings, right? This is the beginning of kids, Adam and Eve. They have Cain and then they have Abel. And it's also the beginning of sibling rivalries. The first murder takes place between Cain and Abel there. Of course, you know the account, you read it.

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They both offered offerings to the Lord. God received and accepted Abel's offering but rejected Cain's offering. Cain was upset about it and so he strikes down Abel and puts him to death. We also have here in Genesis 4 the recording of Cain's family.

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As I mentioned at the beginning, we see a little bit of Cain's genealogy here, a little bit of recording of his family, but we don't follow it. This is kind of the last time we hear about it. So it just records a little bit of information, but the Messiah doesn't come through Cain, so we do not follow it all the way through. Again, the Bible has a very specific focus. And so we see there at the end of verse 25 and 26,

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of chapter 4 the focus back on the messianic line with the birth of Seth verse 25 says and Adam knew his wife again and she bore a son and named him Seth for God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel whom Cain killed

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Now remember the prophecy was about the woman's seed there in Genesis 3.15. And now she says, God's appointed for me another seed. We're following now Seth is going to carry on that seed to carry on that line of the Savior that God had promised. And so God has appointed another seed and the Messiah comes from the line of Seth.

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Now one common question of course in chapter 4 is where did Cain get his wife? And the answer is very simply in Genesis chapter 5 verse 4. It tells us, talking about Adam, after he begot Seth, the days of Adam were 800 years and he had sons and daughters. And so Cain, Abel, and Seth are not the only children that Adam and Eve had. They lived for about 900 years and had other sons and daughters. And so

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That is where Cain's wife came from. He married probably his sister or his niece. But somebody had to marry their sister at some point there in the beginning. Now we look at that and we go, that's weird. Or we go, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, the Bible says you can't marry close relatives like that. How is that possible? Well, remember, we're talking about the beginning.

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Why is it today that close relatives cannot get married here in our state? Why is that a law? Why is that illegal? Well, the primary reason is because when people who are too closely related marry, there is a very good chance that any children that come from that relationship will have deficiencies, deformities, all kinds of difficulties and problems.

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And so it is forbidden, it's outlawed, really because of the result of those relationships that are too close together. The law that God gave for close relatives not to be married was given in Leviticus chapter 18. Now, Leviticus chapter 18 is just a couple books over, but keep in mind, this is about 2,500 years after Genesis chapter 4.

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And so it's like 2,500 years later that God gives that command. It wasn't forbidden before that because in those days, right there at the beginning, mankind had just fallen. The...

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Deficiencies in our DNA, the deficiencies in our bodies were not the way that they were, you know, they weren't there at that time. And so it would have been safe for them to have those types of relationships. And so at the beginning, that's how it was. As the nation became established, then that's when God forbid it. And that's why it's still forbidden today because of the offspring that would be affected by it.

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Genesis 5 now, we have our first real genealogy, looking at the messianic line. Here in Genesis 5, verse 1 is the key verse. It says, this is the book of the genealogy of Adam. In the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.

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And so here's a little bit of a visual on what that genealogy looked like. You have Cain, who begot Enoch. You have Abel, who of course was killed by Cain. You have Seth, and then his line all the way down to Noah, and then Adam and Eve's other sons and daughters. Now, the Bible doesn't give all the details. We have what we have here in chapter 5.

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And so those are the names of the sons. And again, the primary focus here is we're following the line of the Savior that God is going to be bringing. And so that Savior, I did it in red, so it's kind of like the scarlet thread through the scriptures, you know, so that we're following that scarlet thread through the generations from Adam and Eve all the way to Christ. And so we have Seth, then Enosh, then Canaan, then Malil and Jared and Enosh.

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Methuselah and Lamech and Noah. And these are the generations from Adam to Noah. Pretty simple, pretty straightforward. There's some other details if you want to check out Chuck Missler. He goes into some of the meanings of the names and puts together a gospel presentation, a gospel message here from Genesis 5. But we don't have time to get into that this evening.

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Now inside the books of Moses handout that I was talking about earlier is a timeline and here's a picture of it. And so this far as we look at Genesis chapter 5, again just a reminder, we're covering about a thousand years of history as we look from Adam through Noah.

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We're covering a big span of time here. And during this time, these guys lived for close to a thousand years. And so they were living for a very long time. Their lives were overlapping for a long time. And so we cover a great deal of time here right in the beginning of Genesis here in chapter 5. So you can check out that timeline and consider that later on. But now we go on to chapter 6, verse 5.

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It says, So now as we head into chapter 6, for the next few chapters, we're going to be talking about the situation on earth, which was that mankind had become completely corrupt.

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That the wickedness of man was great. That their thoughts continually were evil. And so there's this great corruption that has taken place upon the earth. It started out just a few chapters ago in perfection. There in the Garden of Eden with God and walking with God. Then of course the fall in Genesis chapter 3. And again we're talking about a thousand years of history have taken place. Probably more like 1500. And

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And in that time, man has fallen to a great degree. And so God is now sorry that he has made man. He loves humanity. He wants relationship with us. But he was sorry that he created us. That's how wicked things were in those days. But there was a glimmer of hope there in verse 8 and 9. We see that Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. And so God...

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decides what he's going to do. He's going to wipe out the entire population of the earth and save Noah and his family. And so he gives him the instruction here in Genesis chapter 6 to build the ark. He gives him the dimensions. He gives him the materials. He tells him how to do it, what to do to build this ark that will preserve him and his family through the storm that is going to come.

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In verse 14 through 16, you have the description, the dimensions, the things that God tells them to make. And so people throughout the years have put together models. There's even some life-size versions that exist throughout the world. But here's a couple pictures just to kind of give you a sense of what the ark might have been like, just based on the dimensions that are given.

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And so we have here on the top the drawing or the picture of the ark with the animals coming in, two by two as God describes. And you can see, you know, it's quite massive. You can see the giraffes there towards the back and, you know, they're kind of dwarfed by the size of the ark. The ark was actually really big. I know in the coloring books, it's not that big, but...

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in real life it was really big. And so there's a little bit of a scale there on the bottom. There's another model of the ark there. And you have that big ship that's there. That's the Pinta. You remember the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria that Columbus sailed over to America on? That's a model of the ship that came to America. And so you compare it then to the ark and you realize...

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It was big. This was a very big project. It was something I would not want to do for sure. And then you also see on the table there a little box car. And that is, you know, when you're sitting there at the railroad tracks and you're counting the cars that go by, one of those cars is that size compared to the ark that God instructed Moses to build.

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So the arc would have been in the most conservative, you know, estimations because it's based on cubits. The conservative estimation of a cubit is 18 inches. And so based on that, it would have been 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high, which equals out to what you see there.

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It would have fit, it would have been about the same volume as 569 of those railroad cars. So many people wonder, how could all those animals fit on the ark? And I think you can see there, it would not have been that difficult because it was incredibly massive. Now it's interesting because they've done many studies on these dimensions before.

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and found that it's like really perfect ideal dimensions, proportions for a ship, for a boat in order to survive the waters, especially turbulent waters that probably existed during the flood. And many ships are built today on those same proportions. Also, another interesting thing is this is about the biggest that mankind has ever been able to build a wood boat.

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We can build much bigger boats with steel and the materials of today. But as far as wood is concerned, this is about the biggest that you can get. And so God did it perfectly. He gave him the dimensions. It would hold up. It would last the weather. And it would keep him, his family, and all of the animals safe. And so there's a little bit of an idea of what the ark might have looked like back when Noah built it.

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Well, now we head into Genesis chapter 7, and here's when it really begins to come together. Verse 12 of chapter 7 says, And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights. And so now the ark is built. Noah and his family, they enter the ark. God brings the animals. The animals enter the ark.

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God seals them in and then the flood comes upon the earth for 40 days. The waters are pouring onto the earth. They're in verses 17 through 20.

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So much so that verse 20 says that the mountains were covered. It wasn't just a localized flood or just a certain section, but the whole world was flooded at this time and the mountains were covered. And verse 23 is careful to point out, only Noah and those who were with him on the ark remained alive. So of all the inhabitants of the earth, only Noah, his family, and the animals with him survived.

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It was a complete destruction of everyone else, of all the wickedness that was going on. Jesus even testifies to that in Luke chapter 17. If you want to check that out later on, you can see he believed that. And if Jesus believed it, well, that's good enough for me. All humanity, all living things were destroyed there in the flood of chapter 7. Where did the water come from? This is a diagram I put together. This is...

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somewhat speculation so you can take it with a grain of salt but in Genesis chapter 1 verse 6 it tells us that God says let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters and

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And so from that, many have taken it to understand that originally there was a canopy of water that surrounded the earth, that protected the earth. It allowed for light to come through, but at the same time, it blocked out UVB rays and other harmful rays. And it contributes to a couple different things. First of all, the lifespan of humanity before the flood was very long.

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And that could be explained by partially the blocking out of those harmful rays that take such a toll on our body. But also that water canopy would have provided really a tropical type of climate around the earth that would have allowed really good growing and living conditions for

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And so that water canopy could be the reason why people live so long. But it's also probably where the water came for the flood. Genesis chapter 7 verse 11 tells us that the great deep was broken up and the fountains came bursting forth. And so some of the water for the flood came from within the earth, from the deep, and these waters burst forth. But also it says that the windows of heaven were opened.

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And so it's very possible that it was at this time that this water canopy was basically drained. You know, God pulled the bathtub plug, right? And all the water went down and poured out upon the earth. And that's where the waters came for the earth. Now again, that's somewhat speculation. So you can kind of take it with a grain of salt and consider it and reject it or keep it, whatever you want to do with it. Genesis chapter 8 verse 1 says,

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Then God remembered Noah and every living thing and all the animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over the earth and the waters subsided. So they're out there on the water and now the flood is over. The 40 days of pouring rain have finished. But it takes some time for the waters to recede. And so in verse 1 we see the beginning of this process as the wind now comes upon the earth and the waters begin to subside.

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And it comes to the point there in verse 15 through 19 that Noah and his family are able to leave the ark. Keep in mind, this is about one year and 10 days after they entered into the ark. So it rained 40 days and 40 nights, but it took a long time for the waters to subside, for the land to be dry again, for them to be able to safely exit the ark.

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And then God makes a covenant there in verse 21 of chapter 8 with mankind that he will not destroy the earth with a flood again. He will destroy the earth, but just not with a flood. Pretty tricky God is, huh? Chapter 9, verse 1. So God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. So now God blesses them. He says, all right, we're starting from scratch. Noah, you, your sons,

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This is it. You're all of humanity. So be fruitful, multiply, refill the earth. Again, repopulate the earth. And that is exactly what they begin to do as we'll see in the next chapter.

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So God blesses Noah. He also gives a sign to the covenant that he made. Of course, you're familiar with the rainbow and that's the covenant or the sign of the covenant that God will not destroy the earth with a flood again. And so we have that promise and we're reminded of it every time we see the rainbow after the rain. Well, then we also have here in chapter 9 the promise

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The other side of Noah. You know we look at the glories of you know how he built the ark. And he preached righteousness. But we also see how he stumbled. And we see in verse 20 through 27 how he planted a vineyard. He partook of it. He got drunk. He ended up you know naked in his tent.

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And, you know, it was a shameful part of his life. And so even our great heroes of the Bible have those weaknesses, those, you know, shameful things in their lives. And it gives us all hope.

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I was listening to Bob Coy teach recently and he was talking about, you know, the coloring pages that you never see in Sunday school, right? And he says, you know, you always see Noah at the, you know, the front of the boat, you know, he's like, hey, you know, with all the animals and it's all exciting, right? But, you know, he was pretending, right? He's like, hey kids, you know, in the next chapter I'm going to be drunk and plastered and laying naked in my tent, you know? You never see that coloring page. You just, it's never taught in Sunday school, is it?

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Genesis chapter 10, now we have another genealogy, and this is the genealogy of the nations. It's where really all the nations come from, because now all that's left is Noah and his sons.

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And so from these three sons, the whole earth is populated and all nations descend from these three guys. In fact, all of us, everyone here, you and I, we, if we could, we trace our lineage back to Noah. So you and I are all related through our great, great, great grandfather, Noah.

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Genesis 10.32 says, These were the families of the sons of Noah according to their generations and their nations, and from these nations were divided on the earth after the flood.

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So this is the accounting of the nations. And so you can look at the genealogy of Noah and his sons and how the sons, the different directions that they went. We'll talk about that in a second. But you can also see there the scarlet thread. So through Noah, his son Shem, he carried on the line of the Messiah. And then Shem carried on the line of the Messiah through his son Arphaxad and Ammon.

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Through Arphaxad, Jesus will be born many, many years later. Looking at the timeline there of Genesis chapter 10, Noah, Shem, Arphaxad, they're kind of right in the middle there, you know, on either side of the flood. And so that's where we're at in the timeline. So already we've covered, you know, about 1,500, 2,000 years of history just already.

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10 chapters this evening. So we're covering quite a bit of time. Lots of things happened, I'm sure, but God records what he wants us to know. Here on the screen you have a table of nations. I'm not going to get into the details. We're just about out of time three minutes ago. So you can check it out later. In fact, this

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This presentation that I'm going through this evening, it's available on the website. If you go to the Bible in three years page, it's there. You can click on it. So if you want to look at it later, you can. But this records for us, it describes in chapter 10, the sons, but also where they went.

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And this is very important later on in the scriptures because God will refer back to the people who inhabited certain places. We remember things by place names like Riverside and Corona. But God refers back to the people who originally populated those areas. And that's how we learn in Ezekiel 38 and 39 that it's Turkey and Iran and Russia that are grouped together against Israel and things like that. So those things come...

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Important later on, and I'm sure we'll revisit those when we get there. And we finish it up in chapter 11, verse 8. It says, And here in chapter 11, we have the account of the Tower of Babel.

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There in verses 1 through 9, it's recorded for us. The Tower of Babel, there built and kind of led by Nimrod, the great hunter, the mighty hunter before the Lord. What we need to understand about the Tower of Babel is that this was not just a, you know, an ambitious building project. This was really a rebellion against God.

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They said in verse 4, come let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens. Let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. This was the beginning of false religions. It wasn't just a tower that would reach up to heaven that would be really tall, but it was a tower from which they could worship the heavens.

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It was a tower that they could be gathered together instead of being spread out upon the earth. As God instructed Moses to be fruitful, to multiply, and to fill the earth, they said, no, let's gather together and stay here all in one place. And so they're involved in this really rebellion against God, and God sees what's happening.

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And so what he decides to do is to change their languages. You know, I can imagine God just kind of smiling a little bit like, huh, this will be fun. You know, watch what happens. And so he scatters, well, he scrambles their languages and then he scatters them abroad from there over the face of the earth, it says in verse 8.

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And so that's how the Tower of Babel concludes. It's not completed because their languages are changed and they're scattered across the earth. Then we also have here recorded for us Shem's descendants and then Terah's descendants.

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This is what it looks like. I'm sure you can't read it all the way, but basically it records Noah through Shem, through Arphaxad, through Salah, through Eber, through Peleg, through Ru, through Sirig, through Nahor, through Terah, through Abraham. And we're recording here that scarlet thread of

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from Adam all the way through to Jesus Christ, the Savior that God had promised. And so this is a record. That's why these genealogies are important because we're looking at, we're documenting the line of the Messiah who would save the world. And that's what we see here in Genesis chapter 11. Finishing up this evening, what I'd like to end with, sorry, playing with my slides here,

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There's the timeline. And so we're just about to the end of timeline wise. We're just about to the end of Genesis. Isn't that interesting? We're already at like 2000 BC, right? We've covered about 2000 years of history. The rest of Genesis, we're just going to cover a couple hundred years. So we kind of zoomed through a bunch and now we're going to take our time that we hit Abraham and slow down quite a bit. Well, finishing up this evening, there's a lot of things we could talk about, but I just think in verse...

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chapter 11 verse 4 and 8 is something for us to walk away with. And so Genesis 11 4, the people say, come let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens. Let's make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. Their intention, their goal is let's do this so that we're not scattered abroad. Let's try to prevent, let's try to not be scattered abroad.

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And then what I think is so interesting is there in verse 8. So the Lord scattered them abroad. They're working so hard building this impressive, incredible tower so that they're not scattered abroad. So the Lord scattered them abroad. We started at the beginning looking at God's creation. Listen, God's big and you can't fight against Him. You'll never succeed. You'll never be victorious. And you can try really hard with all your might and get together with lots of smart and strong people.

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But you cannot defeat God's plans and purposes. You cannot win against God. And so I want to encourage you this day. Just surrender to God. Don't fight against Him. He's going to win. You can try not to be scattered. You can try not to do what He's called you to do and do what He said. But He's going to win. His will will be done. You can't fight against it. So surrender to Him. Amen?

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Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word, these great reminders for us of who you are, and Lord, how we owe you absolutely everything. And God, we're nothing without you. And Lord, you are far greater than we can even begin to imagine. It's hard enough for us to comprehend the earth and the size, and then to consider the solar system, and then to

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Consider the galaxy and then the multiple galaxies and then the universe. It's just, it's more than what we can comprehend and understand. And yet, God, that's just your creation. You spoke it into existence. Lord, you're even much bigger than all of that. God, we just cannot understand.

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And yet, you being the almighty God, you desire that relationship with us. And so God, I pray that you would help us to not fight against you, not run from you. Lord, even though we sin, help us not to be like Adam and hide from you. But Lord, help us to go into your presence by faith in Jesus Christ because you took care of that sin issue that we might be reunited with you in that relationship.

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And so God, teach us not to fight. Teach us not to run. Help us, Lord, to draw near, to surrender, to allow you to do your will because you know what's best. You know the beginning from the end. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.