The Sons of Promise Part 2

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Grace Family Baptist Church. Gfbc's mission is proclaiming the supremacy of Christ to all men with a view of biblical conversion and comprehensive discipleship. Thank you for visiting Gracefamily Baptist dot Net. Genesis chapter five is our text for this morning, Genesis chapter five. And it's interesting as we look through this book, and you know, my responsibility as the pastor for preaching is to do the rhetorical analysis of the different materials that we're preaching through, to break them into the various teaching sections, and then we sort of dish out the assignments for who's going to reach what. And this is one that nobody really wanted, because how do you preach a genealogy? You know, this guy was the father of this guy, and then this guy died, and then this guy was the father of this guy, and then this guy died. How do you how do you do that? How do you handle this whole genealogy thing. Well, it's very interesting in looking at this text and spending time with this text, it became obvious that there was a lot more happening here than just this guy, fathering this guy and dying. There was a lot more involved in this process, and there's a lot more that we needed to be aware of. So if you'll join me here in Genesis chapter five, Genesis chapter five, let's begin there at that first verse in Genesis chapter five. This is the book of 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 him and named them Man when they were created. When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image, and named him Seth. The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were eight hundred years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Adam were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died when Seth had lived one hundred and five years. He fathered Enosh. Seth lived after he fathered Enosh eight hundred and seven years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years altogether now, and he died when Enosh had lived ninety years. He fathered Kenan Enosh lived after he fathered Kenon eight hundred and fifteen years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Enosh were nine hundred and five years, and he died when Kenned had lived seventy years. He fothered Mahelelo. Kennon lived after he fothered Mahelo eight hundred and forty years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Kennon were nine hundred and ten years, and he died when Mahelalel had lived sixty five years he fathered Jared. Mahelela lived after he fathered Jared eight hundred and thirty years and had other sons and daughters. Thus the days of Mahelalel were eight hundred and ninety five years, and he died when Jared had lived one hundred and sixty two years. He fathered Enoch. Jared lived after he fathered Enoch eight hundred years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Jared were nine hundred and sixty two years, and he died when Enoch had lived sixty five years. He fathered Mathuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty five years. Now immediately we see well, this is a short lifespan compared to the rest of his ancestors. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty five years. Enoch walked with God and was not for God took him. When Methuselah had lived one hundred and eighty seven years, he fathered Lemech. Mathuselah lived after he fathered Lemch seven hundred and eighty two years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty nine years, and he died. When Lemmach had lived one hundred and eighty two years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, out of the ground, the Lord has cursed. This one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. Lamech lived after he fathered Noah five hundred and ninety five years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Lamark were seven hundred and seventy seven years, and he died after Noble was five hundred years old. Noah fathered shim Ham and Jacith. Now, these are the ten generations from Adam to Noah. These ten generations that take place over a period of nearly a thousand years from Adam to Noah. Now, our first tendency when we look at these generations is to do something like this. We're going to look at this passage and we're going to study this passage. Therefore, we're going to pay attention to the individuals in the list who are exceptional. That is why there's usually only two or three guys in this list that we talk about. We talk about Enoch. Why don't we talk about Enoch because Enoch's is the only one in the list who doesn't end with that phrase. And he died, he walked with God, and so much so that he didn't taste death. God took him. He was translated, if you will. And so we talk a lot about Enoch and what it means to walk with God. Newsflash, Genesis chapter five is not about Enoch. Genesis chapter five is not about what it means to walk with God. Genesis chapter five is not even about escaping death. It's not what it's about. Or The other individual that we talk about a lot in Genesis chapter five is Methuselah. And the reason we talk about Methuselah is because of trivia, Methuselah happens to be the oldest man recorded in the Bible at nine hundred and sixty nine years Lord Hand Mercy. And so we talk about Methusalah and how long Methuselah lived, And if we talk about Mathusala and how long Methusla lived, then the sermon is something about, you know, the age of the Earth and the condition of the antediluvian earth, and what the air was like before the flood, and what the water was like before the flood, and what the nutrients and the food were like before the flood. And that's the angle that we go if we talk about Methuselam, or we focused on Noah of it. Usually we don't focus on Noah Genesis chapter five because Noah's big debut really comes in Genesis chapter six, in Genesis chapter seven, and so all of a sudden, we look at Genesis chapter five and we're either talking about Enoch because he was translated or Methuselah because he was the oldest man in the Bible. Neither one of those is what Genesis chapter five is about. That's not the point. I mean, really, who cares that one guy lived nine hundred and sixty nine years compared to another guy who didn't make get the whole nine hundred and sixty nine What difference does it make how old Methuselah was. Is it an issue. It's an issue, and it's something that we think about, But that's not the point. We have to address this issue of their age because it is an issue. So we'll address that, and then we'll get to the point of Genesis chapter five. Listen to this from John Gill. Though the length of time they live may in some measure be accounted for by natural things, as means such as their healthful constitution, simple diet, the goodness of the fruits of the earth, the temperate air and climate they lived in, their sobriety, temperance, labor and exercise. Yet no doubt it was so ordered in Providence four. Listen to this, the multiplication of mankind for the cultivation of arts and sciences, and for the spread of true religion in the world. And the easier handing down to posterity. Such things as were useful both for the good of the souls and bodies of men. That's why it was important. And so from Gil we get these three issues as it relates to the longevity here, because there is a point about the longevity, and there is a point to the longevity, and the point to the longevity. You know, as much fun as we have talking about, you know, what the canopy must have been like before the flood, and what the conditions must have been like before the flood, as much fun as it is to talk about those things, as I said, that's not the point of Genesis chapter five. And besides, Genesis chapter five doesn't answer those questions. We're just told how long these individuals lived. We're not told why they lived this long. But why would it have been important? And Gill points out these three and I've seen two of them before. But the reason that shows this quote from Gil is because one of them I hadn't seen before, but one for the multiplication of the race, That's why it was important. For the multiplication of the race. You're gonna start the with two people, and you're going to get to where we are, Okay, what is it eight billion now on the Earth. There has to be a multiplication of the race. And if you're going to see multiplication of the of the race and a maximized multiplication of the race, you're going to need extended life cycles so that people can have more children. Amen, So you get the multiplication of the race through these extended life cycles. There's no telling how many children each of these individuals could have been responsible for, or how many children that their children could have been responsible for in these first ten generations. I mean, could we could have had hundreds of thousands, if not millions in these first ten generations from Adam to Noah. We could easily have gotten to millions in the first ten generations from Adam to Noah because of the extent of the life cycles. There's this second issue that he raises, though, and that is the preservation of the arts and sciences. And thought about that one before, the preservation of arts and sciences. Imagine this if you will, Okay, imagine if Da Vinci had gotten three hundred more years. Imagine what Da Vinci could have done with three hundred more years. I mean, there's still great impact because of Da Vinci's work. But imagine if he had had three hundred more years, Or imagine if Einstein had gotten four hundred more years. Think about that four moment. Think about the discoveries of Einstein, and imagine him applying himself and applying his God given gifts and talents and ability for another four hundred years. Think about the great scientists, great musicians. Think about Beethoven. If Beethoven had been given eight hundred years, can you wrap your mind around that one? The kind of music that would have been produced? Mozart if Mozart had been given nine hundred and sixty nine years, can you imagine what would have developed from the mind of Mozart in all of that time as he continued to ply his trade. And so we had Adam, this original man nine hundred and thirty years, the most pristine mind ever on this earth, aside from Christ, of course, the most pristine mind ever, the most unpolluted mind ever, perhaps the keenest human intellect ever, because it was completely unhindered. And he gets nine hundred and thirty years for what, Well, he's got to learn how to hunt, he's got to learn how to gather, He's got to learn how to build shelters. He's got to learn how to organize a family, he's got to learn how to organize a community. Can you imagine how effective and efficient you would become at those basic things over a lifespan of nine hundred and thirty years. Here's the way the world works now. The way the world works now. A great mind comes along, and that great mind applies its trade for maybe forty or fifty years in whatever area, technology engineering, in whatever area. For forty or fifty years, they get to ply their trade, and they get to pass that on to as many people as they can. Perhaps not even for those forty or fifty years, because in their early years they're not passing those things on to anybody. They're just working and they're making money. It's only at the end of those careers that they're passing it on to other people. So all of a sudden, at the end of their life, they get to pass on whatever they've developed to a few people, maybe over the period of two decades, and then people learn as much as they can from them, master it as best they can, and take it a little bit further. And then they get forty your fifty years to do that, and then another person, and another person and another person, and eventually we get these unbelievable breakthroughs as far as science and technologies and the arts. But take that forty your fifty year period and turned it into seven hundred, eight hundred nine hundred. You get in the picture, You get better at what you do, and you influence exponentially more people than you would have influenced otherwise. And thirdly, this idea of multi generational faith, multi generational faithfulness, the idea of passing on the faith without the breaks. Think about yourself. You may have people, some of you have discovered some of you came from families where you weren't raised as a follower of Christ. Your parents weren't followers of Christ. But then you did some searching on your own genealogy, and perhaps you found two three generations ago, there were pastors, and there were missionaries and all of these people. What's your first thought, Oh, I wish I could have met great great great great great Grandpa so and so who was this unbelievable godly man. But somehow that was broken and then you came along. Listen, this is what just blew my mind when I did this, and I know many of you have already done this. You got kids, and most of the kids in this church or homeschool kids, so you figured this out a long time ago. Just let Pastor Vote have his moment. Okay, I'm doing the math, and I'm going Okay. By the time Lemmock was born, if you do the math, Adam was only seven hundred and seventy four years old. There's only one person in this whole list that Adam wouldn't have been alive to see born, and that's Noah. Everybody else would have had a minimum of one hundred and fifty years with the first man created, with a man who walked with God in the garden in the cool of the day. Enich didn't have to hear about Adam from somebody else. Enoch could have known Adam in his prime, because Adam would have just been a little more than halfway through his life by the time Enoch was born. So the first nine generations from Adam, they're not hearing about what Adam did. They're not hearing about the fall. They're not hearing about it through stories and fables that were preserved in perfectly through other generations before them. They had the opportunity to sit at the feet of Adam themselves. Now that's multi generational faithfulness. Amen. Some of you have told stories, and a lot of people around here just sort of envy those of you who sit here and talk about great grandparents that you have who were godly, and then grandparents who are godly, and then parents who are godly. And some of you have had the opportunity for your grandparents or great grandparents to even tell you some of your family history. And it is an unbelievably rich experience, and all of us listen to it, you know, and we try not to violate the think commandment and cove it, but we can't help it because we just covet that, Oh, what it would have been like to sit down and hear my great great grandfather talk about the old days and to give me that information firsthand. Lemck is nine generations removed from the man who was created by the hand of God, and he had one hundred and fifty years to get to where Adam was and to listen to him personally firsthand. So for at least these three reasons, those long lifespans are very important. And we could go on and on and on about why these lifespans were so long. And that's great. I'm not devaluing that at all. It's wonderful. But it's not the point. What's the point in Genesis chapter five? The point is the unbroken link between Adam and Noah. That's the point, the unbroken link between Adam and Noah. That's what Genesis chapter five is about. It begins with Adam and it ends with Noah. It is about how we got from Adam to Noah. That's what Genesis five is about. Genesis five contains long lifespans. Yes, is five is not about long lifespans. Genesis five is about the sons of promise. That's what it's about. The significance of genealogy is about the sons of promise and how we get from one to the other. That's the answer to the question what's Genesis five about? So how do we get there? And what do we learn about the sons of promise? First of all, we learn that the sons of promise are revealed when the promise is fulfilled. The sons of promise are revealed when the promise is fulfilled? Quick, what's your genealogy? You think about it? Right now? Right now? Right now, right now, what's your genealogy? Well, if I ask you that question, what's your genealogy? The first thing you do is you go to your parents, and then you go to their parents, and then you go to their parents. You always go up. You don't go down with your genealogy. You always go up. So the significance of your genealogy is how did you get to you? That's the significance of your genealogy. The significance of anybody's genealogy is how did they get to me? How did we arrive at me? And so you go through that list and ask the question, how did we arrive at me? When you find a genealogy in the Bible, here's the question. There is a person whose genealogy is being given, How did we arrive at that person? And what is significant about how we got there? This genealogy is about how we arrive at Noah, the Great Deliverer, and how Noah is a descendant of Adam. But not just any descendant of Adam. He's a descendant of Adam through the line of Seth. Here's what's important. Go back with me to that first verse. This is the book of the Generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God, male and female, who created them and blessed them and named them man when they were created. When Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image, and his name was Seth. It's interesting doesn't say his name was kin. He says his name was Seth. It also says he had many other sons and daughters as well as everyone else in the list. They had many other sons and daughters. But which son? Because you trace these genealogies through sons. If a guy's got ten sons or in these cases, you know one hundred and fifty two hundred, four hundred. However, many sons? Why this one? Why this one? For example, when you talk about Seth, the next one after Seth is Enosh. Why' is Enosh next in the list? It says Seth had many more sons and daughters. So why is the next one in the list Enosh and not some other son or some other daughter. I'll tell you why, because we're trying to get to Noah. That's why these names are only important because they're the link between Adam and Noah. Do you see that. That's what we're trying to get to here. It's not about how many kids each individual had, because we don't have those numbers. It would have been just as easy for God to give us the number of children Adam had, and the number of children Seth had, and the number of children Enus had, the number of children for Cannon and for Jared, and for Maheedelal and for Mathuselah and for Aakin. It would have been wonderful, and it would have been easy for us to get the number of children that each of them had. So we can then go back and do the math, and we can go by the time the flood came, there were this many millions and hundreds of thousands and billions of people on the earth by the time the flood came. Great, what's that have to do with my redemption? What does it have to do with the glory of Christ? Nothing? Just a nice little piece of trivia, the stuff in your head. This chapter is not about trivia that you stuff in your head. This chapter is about the sons of Promise. This chapter is about how we go from Adam to Noah. That's what this chapter is about. That's why the only sons mentioned are the sons who are part of the unbroken chain between Adam and Noah. You can only understand the significance of the sons of promise and the identity of the sons of promise when the promise is fulfilled. Secondly, the sons of promise are determined by covenant, not merit. The sons of promise are determined by covenant, not merit. There's only one guy in here. And this is where we look at Eni o' gi verse twenty one. When Enoch had lived sixty five years, he fathered Methusela. Enich walked with God after he had fathered Methusla three hundred years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty five years. Enoch walked with God and was not for God took him. I mean, you look at that, don't you think there could have been more there? That's this juicy He walked with God. What does that mean tell us about his life? We get a little bit of a glimpse, for example, in Jude, about the life of Enoch, but other than that, we don't get this picture and the writer of Genesis, Moses, does not give us the deeds of Enoch and why Enoch was godly. You notice that we don't get that. We don't get the deeds of Enoch, and we don't get why Enoch was godly. Why because Genesis chapter five is not about Enoch. It's about the link from Adam to Noah. Enoch is important in Genesis chapter five because he's seventh in the chain from Adam to Noah. That's why Enoch is important here. We learned something from Enoch and for about you know, translated, we learned something about that. We learned something about that theologically, and we'll get to that in a moment. But the point here is about the sons of promise that bring us to the fulfillment of God's covenantal promise. And the sons of promise are determined by covenant and not by merit. And why is Enix so important in that regard? Because Enix the one who's who's talked about here as walking with God. Now here's what we would think. We would think that you get to be a son of promise by being a person who walks with God. And so God looks down and he says, Okay, this one's walking with God, therefore I will make them the next link in the chain. Okay, now that one's walking with God, therefore I will make them the next link in the chain. Okay, that one's walking with God, therefore I will make them the next link in the chain. Nope, Nope, not at all. Some of these guys probably scoundrels. Look at the genealogy of Jesus. Was it just all the most godly people in the world who earn the privilege of being in the genealogy of Jesus. Nope, you got scoundrels in the genealogy of Jesus. You don't earn your way into being a son of promise, because it's the promise of God, not the promise of man. They're determined by covenant and not by merit. Let's look at a couple of these. There's Ishmael and Isaac. Go with me to Genesis chapter seventeen and look at fifteen to twenty one. There's the same principle. God said to Abraham, ask for Sarah, your wife. You shall not call her name Sarah, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her and Moreover, I will give you a son by her I will bless, and she should become nations. Kings of peoples shall come from her. Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child? And Abraham said to God old that Ishmael might live before you, sartainy got a son named Ishmael. Right, he's the first born. Certainly, the son the promise would be the first born, right. I mean that's the one who traditionally gets the blessing and gets the inheritance. So certainly it would be the firstborn. God said, no, but Sarah, your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac. I will establish. Listen to this my covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him. Could Isaac have done anything before he was even conceived by Sarah to earn his way into being a son of promise. Absolutely not. It's not about merit, It's about covenant. Isaac was the son of Promise because God said so, not because Isaac was worthy of it. It's about Covenant. Next Jacob and Esau. Look at Genesis twenty five. Oh, actually, we're not gonna look at it. Genesis twenty five twenty one to twenty three is where you see this promise about Jacob and Esau. But go to Romans chapter nine, where this promise is repeated and we get some theological ramifications of his promises. Genesis chapter nine, I mean Romans chapter nine. I'm sorry, Roman chapter nine. And let's look at verses six through thirteen, among the most controversial passages in the whole Bible. Romans chapter nine gives people fits. And listen to this beginning of verse six. But it is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel, and not all are children of Abraham because they are his offspring. But through Isaac shall your offspring be named. This means that it is not the child of the flesh, or the children of the flesh who or the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring. For this is what the promise said about this time next year, return and Sarah shall have a son. And not only so, but also when Rebecca had conceived children by one man, our forefather, Isaac, though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad, in order that God's purpose of election might continue, not because of works, but because of his call. She was told the older will serve the younger. As it is written, Jacob I loved and Esau I hated, the sons of Promise are determined by covenant and not by merit. They're determined by covenant and not by marriage. These individuals in the lineage between Adam and Noah are not there because they earned the right to be there. They are there because God is working out his plan, and he determined to use them in the process. Amen. Finally, finally, we see this born out in the choosing of Israel over other nations. Look at Deuteronomy, Chapter seven, Deuteronarmy seven, Verses six through eleven. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession. Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you are more in number than any other people that the Lord has set his love on you and chosen you for you are the fewest of all the peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your father's that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. Know therefore that the Lord your God, is God, the faithful God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him, and keep his commandments to a thousand generations, and repays to their faith those who hate him and destroy excuse me by destroying them. He will not be slack with one who hates him. He will repay him to his space. You shall therefore be careful to do the commandments and the statutes and the rules that I command you today. I chose you people, not because of what you do. I chose you because of a promise I may be your forefathers. Not because this world was the greatest, in fact, that this world was the weakest. Not because his world was full of perfect people and therefore they got to be in the line. No, there are many of you today who are the result of the promise of God to faithful people generations ago, Amen, not because of your merit. Fourthly, the sons of promise reveal the providence and justice of God. We see that also here in Genesis chapter five, there was a phrase that we repeated. We repeated that phrase eight times as we read Genesis chapter five. It was said of Adam and all of the rest of his descendants, with the exceptions of two Enoch and Noah. By the way, Noah gets his in chapter six. And that phrase is and he died. What's that statement about? That statement is about the justice of God. You eat from this tree and you will surely die. Really have we experienced much death up to this point in Genesis chapter five, well, Abel was killed by Cain, and so maybe it could have been said, well, yeah, because of that, a person can die. And you know, Kine's killed Abel, and yeah, because of that that he dies. But we got these long lifespans. We believe that every person has to die. Do we really believe that Adam lived in nine hundred and thirty years? But this phrase is said of Adam and he died. It's said of everyone who comes after that, and he died. We see the justice of God, no matter how many years you get, you will die. Every one of us in this room will eventually die unless the Lord returns for us. First amen, come Lord Jesus. But it's inevitable we will die. How many times have we heard, for example, of people who were in the greatest shape of their life, because maybe we say, okay, but if we just stay in great shape, we can live for a long time and we'll get one hundred years, and this and that and the other. What you know, we hear about these individuals who are marathon runners, best shape in the world. You look at them and they're just their elite athletes, and they go out for a run and never make it home. They die. They die. Every time we go to a funeral, we're reminded of the justice of God. Everyone dies, without exception. They die. It's the justice of God. But the sons of Promise also remind us not of the justice, but also of the providence of God. We see the providence of God in two ways here. Number one in that we get from Adam to Noah, and who's Noah's the deliverer. So there's the providence of God. So the justice of God says you're going to die and all of your descendants, they're going to die. But the providence of God says, I'm going to bring about a deliverer. But here's the providence of God also, And here's where Enoch is important. If there is no Enoch in these first ten generations, what of these people believe about death? You live and then you die, You're dead like a dog. There's nothing beyond that. But God takes eni as if to say to all the people then, and all the people, now, death is not the end. The providence of God. He provides for us in life and in death. That's the providence of God. People. So through the sons of Promise we see the justice of God in that they all die. Why do we need this link between Adam and ultimately between Noah, Because everybody's going to die between Adam and Noah, and Noah's going to die too. The justice of God will be meted out. But all of a sudden we also see the providence of God. God has made a promise is Genesis three and verse fifteen, and Lemmak understands this promise. Listen to his first phrase here in chapter five and verse twenty nine, and he called his name Noah, saying out of the ground, the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. Where does he get this phrase? Remember, at least one hundred and fifty years he's alive. While Adam is alive. Adam was there and heard the curse from God, and the curse was about this toil in the land. Lemock believes that there's going to be a deliverer because in Genesis, chapter three and verse fifteen, we have the proto evangel if you will, the first Gospel proclamation that there's going to come a deliverer. The enemy will bruise his heel, but he will crush the enemy's head. Lic believes that, and he names his son in accordance with that, believing that a deliverer will come, and a deliverer does come. Noah's a deliverer. He's a son of promise. Enich is a sign of the promise that there is something beyond death. That this is not as good as it gets. This is not the be all to end all the end. Finally, not only are the sons of promise revealed when the promise is fulfilled and determined by covenant, not merit. Not only do they reveal the justice and the providence of God, but finally, the sons of Promise are always a foreshadowing of Christ. Noah's a foreshadowing of Christ. The theological term is he's a type of Christ. Not that you know, he's one type. Jesus is another type. No, that word type means he's a symbol of Christ. Noah comes and he's the Son of Promise. And it's through this Son of Promise that deliverance and rescue comes. He's the son of Promise. Christ is the ultimate Son of Promise. And so when we see Christ in Matthew, where do we begin and what do we begin with? A genealogy? A genealogy just like in Genesis chapter five. This genealogy, though in Matthew connects Jesus to whom David because Matthew is trying to demonstrate that Jesus is the son of Promise as it relates to Israel and the throne. Amen, Holy you praise the Lord. He is a king, just like David was a king. That's what Matthew says. But then we get to Luke. That's my favorite genealogy. Why because Luke goes back further than David. He goes back all the way to Adam. What is he saying when he gives the genealogy of Jesus and goes all the way back to Adam. Here's what he is saying. There was a promise made in Genesis chapter three that a deliverer would come and crush the head of the adversary. And throughout this time of covenant between God and man, there have been signs as God has raised up a deliverer to say I'm still God, and my promise is still real. When Noah came and the floods came, Noah was God's way of saying, i Am still God, and my promise is still real. When Moses came as the deliverer from Egypt, God was saying, I'm still God, and my promise is still real. But we read in the Book of Hebrews that Jesus is superior to everyone who came before. Why because they were just types, and they were just shadows. But there is one ultimate son of promise, and his name is Jesus. And just like God gave us a genealogy to show us that Noah was a son of Promise. They're in the Book of Luke genealogy to show us that Jesus is the Son of Promise, and every other son of Promise was merely a foreshadowy of this Son of Promise. That's what Genesis five is about. So when we get bogged down in what it would take for a man to live this long, we're missing the big picture. The big picture is Jesus. I don't care how long Methusela lived. He's not going to live longer than me, Amen, because I will live forever with the ultimate Son of Promise, Jesus Christ. What's a thousand years to the Lord a thousand years as a day and to day as a thousand years. By the way, I don't run from two Peter three to nine. I don't run from that at all. The Lord is not slow the way some consider slowness concerning his promise. By the way, this comes right alongside that statement about a day being as a thousand years and a thousand years being as a day. No, he's not slow. Patient. It's not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. And people look at that and they go, well, wait a minute, if it's God's will, then everybody come to repentance. How come everybody doesn't go to heaven? That's interesting. Maybe we're reading the verse wrong. Who's the all there? All those in the lineage of the Son of Promise. I look at two Peter three nine, and here's what I read. Everybody's looking for a deliverer. Noah comes and he's the deliverer, and everybody's going now. No, not now. Moses comes and he's the deliverer, and everybody's going now. And here's what I see. God's not slow concerning his promise. And you wish, and I wish that God would just sort of sum this thing up. But in the mind of God and in the economy of God, I just happen to believe that there's a little God by the name of Asher that he desires to see come to repentance, and he ain't summon it up yet because that hadn't happened. Because if it's in the plan of God that before things are wrapped up, little Lasher comes to faith in repentance, it's not gonna be wrapped up until little Asher comes to faith in repentance. By the way you can put in the name of any little person or older person for that matter, that you're praying about coming to faith. God's not slow as it concerns his promise. If he hadn't wrapped things up yet, He's not finished yet, amen. Second Peter three nine is not about God pining, Oh oh, I just hope. Oh I just hope, Oh I just hope. No. Second Peter three to nine is about God saying, I am in control of the sons of Promise, and I am in control of the Covenant and the children of the Covenant. I am in control of how history works itself out, and it is not rent. I was in control from Adam to Noah. I was in control from Noah to Moses. I was in control from Moses till David, and I was in control from David till Jesus. And I'm still in control until I wrap this thing up and the number of my elect are complete. That's the God I serve, not some weak, pining God, but the God of the universe, who works all things according to the counsel of his own will. And when we look back through the corridor of time, we can measure that through the sons of Promise and through the covenants that God makes with them. That is what Genesis Chapter five is about. You've been listening to the podcast or Gracefamilybaptist dot NEBT. Grace Family Baptist Church is located in Spring, Texas. For any questions or comments regarding Grace Family Baptist. Church, calltol Free at eight seven seven six Five one eighty eight fourteen, or go online to Gracefamilybaptist dot net