45. When We Go Our Own Way: Running from the Faithful God

G'.

Day.

Dave Whittingham here.

Welcome to Stories of a Faithful God.

Who do you blame?

Whose fault is it?

Who should we be angry at?

There's so much pain and suffering and sadness in the world, even though the world holds so much promise and hope and delight that goodness gets shattered by selfishness and disaster and.

And death.

Sadly, many people blame God with some kind of variation of the words.

If he's so good, then why did he let some people use it to say God can't exist?

As one famous atheist said, he was angry at God for not existing.

In other words, there obviously isn't a God because there's so much horrible stuff in the world and I'm angry he doesn't exist and fix it all up.

That picture of God failing to be good or failing to use all his power for good is so different to what we saw in the last episode.

In his awesome power, God made a very good world.

He fashioned it with love and kindness, and that kindness was especially on show for humans.

And yet the world is so different now to what it was then.

In today's episode, we'll see that the problem is definitely not the goodness of God.

The problem lies somewhere else.

Thankfully, though, God hasn't changed.

And the ultimate solution can be found in the kindness and good promises of the faithful God.

And so, without further ado, I present to you the next episode of Stories of a Faithful God.

Perfection.

It's so hard for us to imagine, isn't it?

We get a taste of it sometimes, but it never lasts.

Right back at the start of the world, though, everything was perfect.

It had been perfectly created by the perfect God.

He'd made two perfect people, a man and a woman.

They were in perfect relationship with their God.

They were in perfect relationship with each other.

They really had the perfect marriage.

God had put them in a perfect garden and the people were in perfect relationship with this world.

Things were so good, but it only lasted for two chapters of the Bible.

God hasn't told us how long it was between the creation of the man and woman and their fall, but you kinda get the feeling it's not long.

Genesis chapter three begins by introducing us to a creature.

He isn't a second God, a sort of rival deity or equal power to Yahweh.

No, he's been created.

Verse one says now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made.

Cunning can be a good thing, a type of wisdom, but it can be evil as well.

We're not told the backstory of this serpent other than the fact that he was made by God.

Since God made everything good in chapter one, it means he hasn't created this creature as evil.

And yet the cunning, crafty serpent has decided to use his craftiness for evil.

He asks what on the surface seems like a really innocent question, a simple clarification.

As innocent as it sounds, though it's cunningly devised to sow a seed of doubt.

It's a suggestion that God's really nasty, stingy, he's holding out on them.

The serpent asks the woman, did God really say you can't eat from any tree in the garden?

In other words, he's placed you in this amazing garden where there's every type of good fruit that's pleasing to the eye.

And then he told you you can't eat any of it.

That's a bit nasty, isn't it?

What kind of God would do that?

The woman knows that what he's said isn't true.

God's given them abundant food.

She replies in verse two, we may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden.

But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, you must not eat it or touch it or you will die.

Again, that sounds like a simple clarification.

And it sounds like an accurate clarification, as though she's backing God up.

But already in her words, I think there are at least three ways we can see the seeds of doubt are starting to take root.

First, she says we may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden.

When God gave the command, though, he said you are free to eat from any tree in the garden.

He used the word any.

Yes, there's going to be a restriction on one tree, but the way God said it emphasised the abundance.

There are so many trees here and you can eat from them all, just not this one.

Her words sound just a little bit more restrictive.

The second problem is when she says they can't eat the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden.

That's only half true.

In the middle of the garden there are actually two trees, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which they can't eat from, and the Tree of Life.

The first brings death, but the second brings eternal life.

And they're absolutely free to eat from the Tree of life.

God's given them the massive gift of joyful eternity, but it's like she forgets about that.

She ignores the astounding gift and so makes God seem a bit stingy, a bit tight fisted.

The Third problem is when she quotes God's command not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

She says that God says you must not eat it or touch it or you will die.

But that isn't what he said.

He never mentioned not touching it.

She's adding words to make God sound more restrictive.

When you add it all up, you don't so much get a picture of a massively generous God who wants to give good things and protect his people from harm.

Instead, you get a more grudging acceptance that while God's given them stuff, he's still pretty restrictive.

The serpent plays with that feeling, fans the spark of doubt into flames with an outright denial of the word of God.

A denial that says, yes, God is restrictive.

He has evil motives.

In fact, he's even lied to you.

He's nasty and mean and doesn't want you to have what's best.

In verse four, the serpent says to the woman, no, you will certainly not die.

In fact, God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

He's saying God's deceived you.

He's held out on you.

He's kept back what's best because he doesn't want you to be like him.

It's so audacious to say that the one who gave them life is lying about what will kill them.

He breathed life into the man's nostrils.

He carefully crafted the woman out of the man's rib.

He gave them access to the Tree of Life.

As if all that wasn't enough, alone among all the creatures, he gave them the highest honour of all.

He made them his image bearers.

There's nothing on earth that's more like God than this man and this woman.

But is the serpent right?

Is God holding out on them?

I mean, the tree's called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Surely knowledge of good and evil's a really good thing, isn't it?

Surely the good God wants His people to know what's good and evil.

How can they possibly be his image bearers if they don't have knowledge of good and evil?

It's worth considering what sort of knowledge we're talking about here.

It's possible to know things for different reasons.

Firstly, you can be taught something.

I know about ancient Rome because historians have taught me about it.

The man and woman already have this knowledge of good and evil.

God's told them what they can eat virtually every fruit and what they mustn't Eat the fruit that'll mean their death.

So the tree can't give them that sort of knowledge.

You can also know something by experience.

Even if no one ever told me fire is hot, I'd still know.

I've been near flames, I've burned myself.

My experience gives me knowledge about fire.

God told the man about the tree precisely so he wouldn't learn through the experience of dying.

God's like a wise parent.

Parents know there are some things you let your kids experience.

And even though it's uncomfortable that way, they learn through their experience.

But there are other things where you go, yeah, I'm not going to let my kid jump off that cliff so they can learn from their experience.

It's very loving of God not to give them that experience.

And that doesn't seem to be the knowledge the tree gives.

Anyway.

A third way of knowing something is when you decide it.

Later this week, I'll visit my son in Sydney.

How do I know?

Because I've decided to.

I know what I'll have for breakfast tomorrow because I've decided what I want.

So in God's world, who decides good and evil?

It's God.

Just like he decided where the water can go and where it stops.

Just like he decided when it would be night and when it would be day, he also decides good and evil.

God says eating from all these trees is good.

Eating from that tree is evil.

That's the sort of knowledge the tree of, the knowledge of good and evil offers, which helps us understand why the tree is there.

It's there as a statement of faith, a statement of trust.

Do the people trust that God gets to decide good and evil?

Do they trust that he's in charge?

Humans have been given massive privilege and authority.

But it's authority under God.

Will they keep acknowledging their place or will they try to supplant God, try to have complete authority?

Will they try to be the ultimate arbiters of what's good and right?

That helps us understand why death is the consequence of eating from the tree.

Ultimately, the man and woman draw their life from God.

If they reject him, if they try to go it alone, they'll be cut off from their source of life.

They won't be able to create their own life, and so they'll die.

The choice should be obvious.

God is so good, he's given them everything that's good.

His only restriction on them is that they can't actually be equal with Him.

And he gives them that restriction because he loves them.

Without him, they'll die.

The Only reason the choice would not be obvious is if you doubt God's word.

If you don't believe him when he says you'll die, the answer's not obvious.

If you doubt his goodness, if you think he's somehow holding back because he doesn't want you having what's best, the answer is not obvious.

If you don't trust God, if you think he's not faithful in what he says and what he does, if you think you can do a better job with your life than he can the woman who was already wavering in her trust of God looks at the tree.

We're told in verse six, the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom.

Do you remember how God had described all the trees of the garden back in chapter two, verse nine?

We were told the Lord God caused to grow out of the ground every tree pleasing in appearance and good for food.

So when the woman looks at this tree and sees it's good for food and delightful to look at, it's not like she doesn't have that elsewhere.

God hasn't made all the other trees rotten.

She also sees that the tree is desirable for obtaining wisdom.

And yet God is the source of wisdom.

She wants wisdom apart from God, independent of God, which is the true heart of sin, a desire for independent rule apart from God taking the crown from God's head and putting it on our own heads.

I decide what's good, not God.

I decide what's evil, not God.

And with that desire to become like God, she reaches up, takes some fruit and eats.

Then she gives some to her husband who's with her, and he eats.

The words that he was with her ring out across history as one of the most monstrous revelations of all time.

What's the husband said or done while his wife was talking with the serpent?

Nothing.

What's he said or done to stop her eating the fruit?

Nothing.

What's he said or done to stop her giving him the fruit?

Nothing.

In the last episode, I talked about the timing of when God gave the command not to eat from this tree.

He gave it before the woman was made.

He spoke the command to the man.

It was the man's job to teach his wife what he'd heard from God, and he refused to do his job.

He didn't correct the serpent.

He didn't correct his wife.

He didn't stop the act which he knew was evil.

He that's why the apostle Paul in Romans 5 puts the ultimate responsibility not on the woman, but on the man.

In Romans 5:12, he says, Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin.

In this way, death spread to all people because all sinned.

In other words, the man was the representative of all humanity.

He had the responsibility, which means he had the failure.

And so he condemned all humanity to death.

This whole disaster's played out in fundamental opposition to how God made the world, in defiance of the roles God gave to his creation.

The beast, the creature who's meant to be ruled by the woman and the man, becomes the ruler and leader of the woman and man.

The wife, who is meant to learn from the husband, becomes the teacher of the husband.

And the husband, who is meant to be the teacher, becomes the passive receiver of what he knows to be evil.

And the humans together, man and woman, created equal in the highest dignity possible, made in the image of God, try to usurp God, their creator and King Sa.

The effect of humanity's rejection of God is immediate and devastating.

Having eaten the fruit, we're told in verse seven, then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew they were naked.

So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

It isn't that they'd thought they were clothed before, it's just that they didn't even really think about it.

There was no shame or embarrassment.

They felt no danger from each other, no fear.

Now they've grasped after the sort of knowledge that belongs to God, but instead they've gained a knowledge that only brings them shame.

Their eyes have been opened to a darker reality.

In hoping to gain more freedom, they've actually lost their freedom.

And so they make coverings for themselves.

Pathetic coverings.

Fig leaves are pretty big, but there's a reason they're not popular today as clothes.

Again, they've tried to grab knowledge, but they don't even have the knowledge to deal with the shameful knowledge they've now acquired.

Then they hear something.

Verse 8 says they hear the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, which is, or should be, such a beautiful scene.

It's summer here in Australia, and the days have been pretty hot.

But when the evening breeze comes through, it's such a pleasure to be outside.

Here's God enjoying one of the millions of beautiful facets of his creation.

But the beauty of the scene is about to be shattered when they hear Yahweh coming.

The man and woman hide from God, just like their marriage relationship is broken and they have to hide their bodies from each other.

So their relationship with God is also broken and they have to hide from him.

The Lord God calls out to the man, where are you?

Even though the creation order's been upturned by the serpent and the woman and the man, God's not playing along with that.

He goes straight to the one who has the most responsibility.

First, the man replies, I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.

The joy of perfect relationship has been replaced by fear.

God says in verse 11, who told you that you were naked?

Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?

They have hidden themselves from God, but nothing can be hidden from God.

He immediately jumps to the heart of the problem.

Now the blame game begins and the people are keen to blame anyone other than themselves.

The man replies, the woman you gave to be with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate.

At first it sounds like he's blaming the woman, and he kind of is.

But he's also aiming at a much bigger target.

The woman you gave to be with me.

It's your fault, God.

You messed it up.

Everything was fine until you put this woman here with me.

Can you see how quickly the man's thinkings become twisted and distorted and selfish?

Before God made the woman, it was not good for the man to be alone.

God knew it, and the man certainly knew it.

Remember his joy at seeing the woman for the first time.

This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.

He was so excited.

Now the man, so quick to blame God for the good woman he made, and yet so quick to ignore the good command God gave.

This is what sin does.

It makes even very smart people's thinking ludicrous.

In a desperate attempt to to justify our actions before passing any judgment, God first speaks to the woman.

He asks in verse 13, what have you done?

She plays the blame game as well.

The serpent deceived me and I ate.

Yes, the serpent deceived her.

He lied.

He cast doubt.

But it wasn't like she didn't have enough information to spot the lie.

For both the man and the woman, they've seen the character of God.

They've seen the abundance he gave them.

They've seen the dignity he gave them by creating them in his image.

They've seen the lavish love he's poured out on them.

But they were so quick to believe the lie that he was holding out on them as though he was refusing to give them what was best, when in fact he was just trying to save their precious lives.

The serpent doesn't get a chance to give his own explanation and join in the blame game.

God interacts with his image bearers, but not with this lowly creature.

Instead, he just passes judgment.

He pronounces a curse on the snake.

Verse 14 says, so the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal.

You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life.

At the start of the chapter, we read about how the snake was more cunning than all the animals God made.

Now God says he'll be more cursed than all the animals.

I said, how cunning could be a good thing or a bad thing.

And now the way the snake's used his cunning, it's led to his curse.

He's gone from a kind of exalted beast to.

To the most cursed beast.

Because he tried to use his cunning to overthrow God, he's failed.

He'll have to eat dust all the days of his life.

In the Bible, that's a phrase that means you're a defeated enemy.

Which means although the defeat of Satan is described multiple times in the Bible, it's locked in even here at the beginning.

And Gog goes on to describe the ultimate defeat of the serpent.

In verse 15, he says, I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

He will strike your head and you will strike his heel.

This isn't talking about hostility between all humans and all snakes, although we certainly know about that in Australia.

No, it's looking forward to a particular singular offspring, an offspring who will strike the head of the snake, but who will at the same time be struck by the snake.

In a sense, the rest of Genesis, and indeed the rest of the Bible is a search for that offspring.

Next, God speaks to the woman.

For both the man and the woman, God's going to give them devastating news.

But also, unlike with the snake, there's grace for them as well.

They both get to keep the blessing of certain roles God's given them.

But the blessing will be harder, more painful for the woman.

That's childbirth.

God says to the woman in verse 16, I will intensify your labor pains.

You will bear children with painful effort.

Childbirth is such an astounding event.

And yet now that wonderful event is often filled with trauma and pain and sometimes even death.

There's the grace of God in that the woman still gets to give birth, but there's pain because of their rejection of God.

That grace isn't just for women, though.

It's for all of humanity.

God saying, despite what you've done, humanity will continue.

Children will be born to you.

I will continue with people.

It's especially great when you consider through childbirth, in one particular offspring, a saviour will come destroying the serpent.

Just like with the serpent, though, the woman will also face defeat.

God says to the woman, you desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.

It's a funny sort of phrase, your desire will be for your husband.

It sounds like she can't wait to ravish him when he gets home.

But that's the realm of men's fantasies, not women's difficulty.

The words desire and rule are used later in chapter four, when Cain's thinking about killing his brother.

In chapter four, verse six, God says to Cain, if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door.

Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

The desire of sin is to control him, to make him submit to evil, to conquer him.

For the woman, it's this sort of desire she'll have for her husband, a desire to lead, to rule, to set the agenda, just like she did with the fruit.

The man isn't told he must rule over her.

The woman is simply told that he will rule over her.

The treatment of women by men throughout history, even today, is horrific.

It's not good, it's not justified, it's evil.

Men use women all the time.

And even in this day and age, when women are supposedly treated as equal, the oppression continues.

An oppression that didn't exist before the Fall, before man and woman rejected God in all his goodness.

Then they'd been in perfect relationship.

Now the battle of the sexes goes on, always to the defeat of women.

Then God turns to the man.

He makes it clear that what's happening is because of the man's failure.

Failure to take responsibility, failure to believe the word of God, failure to teach the word of God.

He says in verse 17, because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, do not eat from it.

The problem is not simply listening to his wife.

Husbands listen to your wives.

The problem is that he listened to his wife when she encouraged him to do what's evil.

And so, just like with the woman, he'll get to continue doing one of the good things that God made him to do.

But that thing will be harder.

God says to the man, the ground is cursed because of you.

You will eat from it by means of painful labor.

All the days of your life, it will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

Notice that even though God cursed the serpent, he hasn't explicitly cursed the man and the woman here, though God said to the man, the ground is cursed because of you.

This is what responsibility looks like.

God made the man to work the garden and ground.

He gave him the great privilege of working like God worked.

He gave him authority to rule over the ground like God rules over the world.

Now, because the man's failed in his responsibility, the thing that was under his responsibility is cursed.

When people wonder why work is so hard, why the world has thorns and thistles and tornadoes and cyclones and floods and droughts and all these things that seem to get in the way of human productivity, the problem isn't God.

The problem is that we thought we could run the world better without God.

And look how that's worked out.

And just like the serpent and the woman are defeated, so the man is also defeated.

God says to him in verse 19, you will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it.

For you are dust, and you will return to dust.

He tried to be like God, but he's really just dust.

God actually made him from dust to be like God, to share in eternity, to share in rule of the world, to share in perfect relationship.

The man wanted all that, just without God.

But God is his only source of life.

And so without God, without the breath of life that only God can give, he'll just return to dust, just like the faithful God said, if you eat from that tree, you'll die.

At every funeral I've run, I've said the words, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Death is the ultimate sign that we've abandoned the God who gives life.

How wonderful that this same God, in the greatest act of grace and mercy in the universe, would send his own son into the world to invite us back to him, back to life.

How amazing that Jesus could go to a funeral and declare all I am the resurrection and the life.

The one who believes in me, even if he dies, will live.

He didn't say that because we deserve it.

We deserve to go back to the dust we came from, since we rejected the rule of the God who gave us life from the dust.

He simply did it because of who he is, the loving, gracious, faithful God.

The grace of God becomes apparent when the man names his wife.

He gives her the name Eve, which means living or life.

A strangely Ironic name, given the fact that the man and the woman have just died, and yet by God's grace, life will continue.

The man gives her the name Eve, or living, because she'll be the mother of all the living.

It doesn't matter where you are on the planet, if you're Chinese, Afghani, Inuit, Zimbabwean, Madagascan, it doesn't matter if you're black, white, red, yellow, purple, green.

All humans have come from this one mother.

We're all one race, we're all one species bearing the image of God.

We get another sign of God's kindness in verse 21.

Remember, the man and woman have been wearing their ridiculous coverings of fig leaves.

Now God provides something better.

Verse 21.

The Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them.

If gods made the clothes from skins, presumably an animal's died to provide the skins.

This is the first time we see the need for a death to heal the consequences of sin, because death is the ultimate consequence of sin.

In verse 22, God says, Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat and live forever.

So the Lord God sent him away from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.

He drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming whirling sword east of the Garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.

It's just one more reminder that the humans had it so good they weren't missing out, God wasn't holding back.

But by grasping at autonomy from God, they only gained disaster and decay and death.

By God's grace, we get to meet the first offspring to come from the mother of all the living.

And Eve knows it's by God's grace when her first son Cain is born.

She says in chapter four, verse one, I have had a male child with the Lord's help.

Could this be the Saviour offspring who'll crush the head of the serpent?

Well, soon another contender arrives.

Eve bears another son, Abel, we're told in verse two.

Now Abel became a shepherd of flocks, but Cain worked the ground.

In the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the Lord.

And Abel also presented an offering, some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.

The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering.

Cain was furious and he looked despondent.

The problem is not the Offerings as such, it isn't that meat is somehow better than vegetables and grain, no matter what barbecue lovers think.

Hebrews 11 tells us it's a matter of faith.

Abel trusts God.

He actually wants to offer him things and give thanks to him for his good gifts.

Cain doesn't have faith, which means, I presume that his offering is like every other pagan offering, an attempt to placate or bribe God while not accepting that God's good.

There's a grudging acceptance that he has more power than you, so you have to kind of trick him into liking you.

You see that in Cain's response, he doesn't go back to God and say, oh, please forgive me.

Help me understand why you weren't pleased with my offering.

No, he's just grumpy that it didn't work.

He doesn't really care about God's opinion.

God points out the obvious, or at least the thing that should be obvious, if Cain wasn't so blinded by selfishness and pride.

In verse 6, God says, why are you furious?

Why do you look despondent?

If you do what is right, won't you be accepted?

But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door.

Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

How often is that people's response to being called out on their sin?

Instead of changing to do what's right, we can just go into angry, defensive mode.

Cain certainly doesn't want to hear this advice from God, even though God's trying to help him and care for him.

Despite Cain's lack of faith, God is still kindly opening the door for Cain to come back to him.

Instead of listening, Cain invites his brother out into the field.

Even though there aren't many humans around yet, Cain still wants to hide what he's about to do from them.

So he brings his brother to this lonely place and there attacks and kills him.

The first two human offspring, one, a godly man who has the potential to be a blessing to the world, has his life cut short.

The other, the firstborn, becomes a murderer, just like the serpent was a murderer.

Murder is the ultimate act of wanting to become like God, because God's the one who has the power of life and death.

Cain's tried to claim that right for himself, not for any righteous cause, but simply because he's jealous.

God asks Cain where his brother is.

Cain replies with the same grumpiness he had before, am I my brother's guardian?

It's a lame deflection again, trying to hide his Evil.

But like we saw before, nothing can be hidden from God.

In verse 10, God says to him, what have you done?

Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.

So now you are cursed, alienated from the ground that opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood you have shed.

If you work the ground, it will never again give you its yield.

You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.

Adam's work on the ground was made hard, and the ground was cursed because of him.

But now God explicitly curses Cain himself.

His work won't just be hard, it'll be impossible, and he'll have to go wandering.

Cain's been cut off from his livelihood and from his place in the world, and he's in shock.

He cries out in verse 13, my punishment is too great to bear, since you are banishing me today from the face of the earth, and I must hide from your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth.

Whoever finds me will kill me.

Should he be shocked, though, the consequences he's facing are exactly the same consequences his parents faced for their sin.

A broken relationship with God, a broken relationship with the land, and a broken relationship with people that will ultimately lead to death.

Cain's getting exactly what he deserves.

And yet again, the kindness of God kicks in.

His gracious love giving help to this sinner, we're told in verse 15.

Then the Lord replied to him, in that case, whoever kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.

And he placed a mark on Cain so that whoever found him would not kill him.

This is not what Cain deserves.

He deserves death.

And yet the mercy and kindness of God shines out again, easing his sentence just like it did for his parents.

There is still a sentence, though, and we're told in verse 16.

Then Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Nod literally means wandering.

He's in the land of wandering, never settling, never resting, cut off from the God who gave him life.

God is faithful in providing offspring to the humans.

From verse 17, we're given the genealogy of Cain through his sons, we get to trace through seven generations.

From Adam, we're told Cain was intimate with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch.

Then Cain became the builder of a city, and he named the city Enoch, after his son Irad was born to Enoch.

Irad fathered Mehujael, Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech.

There isn't much detail in there other than the fact that Cain built a city.

Perhaps that's his attempt to fight against the curse of God that sent him wandering.

Other than that, though, this is fairly positive.

God blessed humans and told them to multiply and fill the earth.

And that's what's happening.

When we arrive at the seventh name on the list here, Lamech, we get more detail.

Some of the detail shows how humans are becoming like God in their creativity and working of the earth.

It's a really positive thing.

At the same time, though, we see here in the seventh generation the culmination of evil.

We see that the sin which began in Adam and continued in Cain has traveled down from generation to generation.

It begins with bigamy.

Lamech, instead of being content with one wife, as God planned, it takes two wives for himself, Adah and Zillah.

Lamech likes taking things, things that he has no right to.

The children of these two women are where we see the growth of human creativity and ingenuity.

In verse 20, we're told Adah bore Jabel.

He was the first of the nomadic herdsmen.

His brother was named Jubal.

He was the father of all who play the lyre and the flute.

Zilla bore Tubal, Cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools.

Tubal, Cain's sister, was Naama.

Those are all good things.

But we mustn't fall into the trap of thinking that advancement in technology and adaptability are somehow linked to advancement in goodness, in godliness.

Pretty much every society has equated their own technological advancement with moral superiority.

But we see the lie of that in the words of Lamech the Taker.

Not content with taking two wives, he also takes the life of another man.

Just like his father, Cain.

He gives this terrifying rant proclaiming his power and self righteousness to his wives.

In verse 23, he says, Ada and Zilla, hear my voice, wives of Lamech, pay attention to my words.

For I killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.

If Cain is to be avenged 7 times over, then for Lamech it will be 70.

7 times 7 implies completeness.

Cain would be avenged completely.

More importantly, Cain would be avenged by the just and fair God.

Lamech is different.

Lamech the taker, the seventh in line from Adam, who first took the fruit from his wife.

This man, having taken wives and taking a human life, now takes the place of God.

He avenges himself not with justice, but with over the top anger and power.

77 times in the same family, where cultural innovation is flourishing, we see that Sin reaches its completeness.

Lamech has declared absolute power and autonomy from God.

He's telling his wives, there is no greater power than me.

There's no greater judge than me.

There's no greater authority than me.

And it's terrifying.

This is where sin takes us.

Not to some happy home where we can celebrate freedom away from God, but to evil and selfishness and pride.

But all is not lost.

We know that God still has good plans for humanity.

And.

And we see that when we go back to Adam and eve.

In verse 25, we're told God's graciousness.

It says, Adam was intimate with his wife again and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth.

For she said, God has given me another offspring in place of Abel since Cain killed him.

A son was born to Seth also, and he named him Enosh.

At that time, people began to call on the name of the Lord.

God gives.

He gives another offspring.

How different to Lamech the taker.

And as God's grace becomes apparent, people start to realize, hey, we need God.

They start calling on him, trusting him.

And so now we get a new genealogy again from Adam, but this time through Seth.

And it's like a new beginning for humanity.

And so chapter five, verse one, takes us back to the beginning and back to God's good plans for humanity.

It says, this is the document containing the family records of Adam.

On the day that God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.

He created them, male and female.

When they were created, he blessed them and called them mankind.

Despite the sin and evil that's now overtaken humanity, God's good creation plans still stand.

He hasn't been thwarted, despite people's attempts to discard him.

Now in this family line, we get to see the blessing of God, but we also see the effects of the fall.

It starts like this.

In verse 3.

Adam was 130 years old when he fathered a son in his likeness according to his image, and named him Seth.

Adam lived 800 years after he fathered Seth, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

So Adam's life lasted 930 years.

Then he died.

Creation and fall, blessing and death.

Seth is born in Adam's image, which means he's in God's image.

God's image passes on into the rest of humanity.

And Adam doesn't stop there.

He has other sons and daughters, just like he was made to do.

And he has an incredibly long life, 930 years.

But then he dies, just like God said he would.

He hasn't escaped sin or the consequences of sin.

In all these descendants, we see they have incredibly long lives and lots of people don't want to believe the numbers.

They say it must be symbolic.

But you've got to ask, symbolic of what?

There are significant symbolic numbers in the Bible.

We've already seen the importance of the number 7.

12 is another one and 40 is another.

But 930, there's no symbolism in that.

This was Adam's actual lifespan.

It's like the effects of the fall take a while to really kick in.

It's only after the flood, which we'll look at in the next episode, that ages really start declining.

So let me read the rest of the genealogy and you'll hear the pattern of long life and the creation of new life in offspring, but also death.

The pattern continues until the seventh generation, where something dramatic happens.

Here it is, from verse 6.

Seth was 105 years old when he fathered Enosh.

Seth lived 807 years after he fathered Enosh, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

So seth's life lasted 912 years, then he died.

Enosh was 90 years old when he fathered Kenan.

Enosh lived 815 years after he fathered Kenan, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

So enosh's life lasted 905 years, then he died.

Kenan was 70 years old when he fathered Mahalalel.

Kenan lived 840 years after he fathered Mahalalel, and he fathered other sons and daughters to.

So Kenan's life lasted 910 years, then he died.

Mahalalel was 65 years old when he fathered Jared.

Mahalalel lived 830 years after he fathered Jared, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

So Mahalalel's life lasted 895 years, then he died.

Jared was 162 years old when he fathered Enoch.

Jared lived 800 years after he fathered Enoch, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

So Jared's life lasted 962 years, then he died.

Enoch was 65 years old when he fathered Methuselah.

And after he fathered Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and fathered other sons and daughters.

So enoch's life lasted 365 years.

Enoch walked with God, then he was not there because God took him.

Doesn't it just jump out at you in the seventh generation through Cain's line?

It's like evil reached its natural high point.

But here in Seth's, line.

In the seventh generation, there's a man who seems to have an excellent relationship with God, and then he escapes death.

God takes him away.

Lamech took life through murder.

But this is something different.

This is something great.

God's taking of Enoch means he doesn't die.

And if Enoch can have that sort of relationship with God, then why not others?

It doesn't seem to be the norm, though, that people will walk with God in this way.

And so the family line continues in the same pattern until we get to a name that even lots of children are familiar with.

And this person, again, seems to hold out some hope for humanity, hope for overcoming the curse that sits on the world.

Perhaps he could be the one to crush the head of the snake.

I'll read from verse 25 with Enoch's son, Methuselah.

Methuselah was 187 years old when he fathered Lamech.

Methuselah lived 782 years after he fathered Lamech, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

So methuselah's life lasted 969 years.

Then he died.

Lamech was 182 years old when he fathered a son, and he named him Noah, saying, this one will bring us relief from the agonizing labor of our hands caused by the ground the Lord has cursed.

Lamech lived 595 years after he fathered Noah, and he fathered other sons and daughters.

So Lamech's life lasted 777 years.

Then he died.

Noah was 500 years old, and he fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

And that's where the genealogy ends, wondering if this Noah could be the one, the one to bring relief from the curse.

And that's a good time to take a break and consider what we've come to.

There's a deep tragedy to human existence.

So much of life is wonderful and joyful and good.

We have a taste of the goodness that God made us for.

And yet we also face pain and suffering and death.

We face pain from the earth with its thorns and thistles, its diseases and disasters, its refusal.

After thousands of years of us trying to bring it under subjection to be at peace with us.

It's under a curse because of human sin.

We face pain from each other.

Hatred and anger and selfishness and pride and anxiety and defensiveness.

People do it to us and we do it to them.

The sin that came into the world through the one man has been passed down through his seed.

And we continue in his evil leading to our constant suffering.

Most of all, we face pain from our disconnection with God.

If you only see one thing in this episode, I hope you see the constant goodness and kindness and mercy and love of God.

In declaring our autonomy from God, that's who we've lost.

All our other pain springs from that fatal choice.

And now, far from being freed from a despotic God, we've been enslaved to evil and sin and death.

We've lost the freedom and joy we had when we lived under God, guarded by his goodness, guided by his love, directed by his wisdom.

And so God sums up our situation in these words in Romans 3:10.

There is no one righteous, not even one.

There is no one who understands.

There is no one who seeks God.

All have turned away.

All alike have become worthless.

There is no one who does what is good, not even one.

And yet there's the promise of the faithful God.

He said to the serpent, I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

The search for that one who can crush the head of our great enemy, the snake is constantly frustrated.

In Genesis, it wasn't Seth, it wasn't Enoch.

And spoiler alert, it won't be Noah either.

The search is frustrated throughout the entire Old Testament.

As we get more of an insight into the lives of the great heroes of the Old Testament, the more we see that they, too, are bound by sin, unable to escape the lies of the snake.

But in the New Testament, a new man arrives.

A man who's both a son of Adam and the son of God, the Lord Jesus, who, though faced with every temptation by that same serpent in the wilderness, never gave in to the lies he kept.

Trusting the word of God, the devil bided his time looking for a way to destroy this human who wouldn't listen to him.

Eventually, he entered Judas Iscariot, and like a striking serpent biting Jesus heel, he had Jesus killed.

And yet, in that death, Jesus crushed the head of the serpent.

He won salvation and freedom for all who trust him.

Freedom from the lie that kills.

Freedom from the sin that robs us of our joy.

Freedom from death, even.

He saves us back into perfect relationship with God, and he's taking us to his perfect home that resembles but is even better than the Garden of Eden, where we'll be in perfect relationship with God, perfect relationship with each other, and perfect relationship with the new creation.

Listen to this wonderful description of the new home we'll have with God from Revelation 22:1 then he showed me the river of the Water of Life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

Down the middle of the city's main street, the Tree of Life was on each side of the river, bearing 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month.

The leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations, and there will no longer be any curse.

The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will worship him.

They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads.

Night will be no more.

People will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, because the Lord God will give them light and they will reign forever and ever.

That's what's coming for everyone who trusts Jesus.

Back in Genesis, though, God's about to show the dreadful consequences of not trusting him, of choosing death over life.

Even then, though, we'll get to see the goodness and grace and mercy of the faithful God.

But that's a story for next time.

Thanks everyone for listening in.

I hope you're finding these episodes helpful.

I'd love for you to let me know through the website what's helpful, what isn't, and just go to faithfulgod.net and get in touch if you do find it helpful.

It would be great if you could write that in a review either in your listening app or at the website.

It helps other people who find the podcast have confidence to press play for the first time.

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Keep trusting Jesus.

Bye for now.