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South Bay SDA Church

Genesis

Jeremy Arnall

01 The Creation Account: Let There Be Light

02 Day 2 of Creation: Under Heaven’s Quilt

03 Day 3 of Creation

04 Let There Be Time

05 Day 5 of Creation

06 Day 6 of Creation

07 And God Said, “Let There Be Rest”

08 Media & Mediums

09 The Naked Truth About Righteousness

10 The Naked Truth About Righteousness

11 What Worship Costs and What Love Requires

12 Two Lines, Two Legacies

13 Terms & Conditions

14 The Mantle of Love

It used to be when we lived in Greenville, Tennessee, that to get to our house or to leave our house, you had to go and come through a graveyard.

As I would tell people when I was trying to give them directions, you couldn't see our house from the road, we were back behind a church down in the valley.

I would tell people, well you turn here and people would be, I don't see anything, I just see a graveyard.

Graveyards are intriguing to many people.

They involve a community of people of which most perhaps never knew 1 another.

But all placed there by the same circumstance, death.

Of course they, being dead, know not anything according to Ecclesiastes 9.5.

They sleep as Jesus taught us in John 11, but the markers that remain in those graveyards serve something akin to a bookmark in a grand story, though God should need a bookmark.

These bookmarks contain but few letters, maybe a few numbers, and in some cases maybe a phrase or 2, but when you meander through a graveyard, you're left to ponder based on the dates and the name.

And perhaps that phrase or 2, who was this person?

When you see that the Dates are near each other in proximity.

You recognize that this was a little life that was taken, was gone too soon.

When the dates are far and distant from 1 another, you realize that what magnificent story or what sad story was written by this author.

As we stroll, we wonder, we ponder, noting that some markers are perhaps gone, like a bookmark fallen from a book, but of course, God remembers exactly where it goes.

It's a bit intriguing to me, therefore, that people who love to stroll through graveyards often do not care to stroll through the genealogies of Scripture.

Because in many ways they both contain the same thing, a name and the length of that life.

For like gravestones, often such begats offer little insight into the 1 mentioned.

Today I would like for us to take a stroll through a graveyard, as it were, the begats of chapter 4 and chapter 5 in Genesis.

And I would like for us to ponder what do these stories contain and ask the question for you and me to ask the question that if we were allowed to place upon our marker these few but important words, what would we leave?

In other words, what marker are you leaving?

The title of the message this morning is, 2 Lines, 2 Legacies.

Dear Lord, I pray that you please guide us and lead us.

May they not see me, may they only see you.

And I pray, Lord, that you would hide me behind your glory and that you would wash us and cleanse us and fill us with your spirit that we might behold the Lamb.

That we might behold the author, the creator, and the finisher.

Last week we looked at the story of Cain.

We noted that while the story of Cain and Abel speak to true and false worship.

It also appeals to the greatest need of our day, and that is that we love 1 another.

We find support for this in 1 John chapter 3, where John speaks of the need for love and that if we have Jesus, then love will pour forth.

But if we do not know God, that love will morph into hate.

Because the unrighteous will always be jealous of and thus hate the righteous in their midst.

In chapter 7 of, I'm sorry, in verse 7 of chapter 4, when it says that sin lies at your door and its desires for you, but that you should rule over it.

We noticed last week that indeed the verse can just as easily be translated, a sin offering lies at your door.

And his, that is Abel's, desire for you and you will rule over him.

Meaning, you can, as the eldest son, be reinstated to the position as leader, but you cannot force it.

We saw the same principle illustrated in Genesis 3, 16 and explained to us in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 24 with relation to the husband and his wife.

And inspiration supports, we saw, this interpretation of Genesis 4 in verse 7 rather clearly.

So, those who act with the spirit of Cain use force instead of love to try and take back that authority as we see, saw with the murder of Abel.

And so it is that we see according to prophecy that at the end of time as described in Revelation chapter 13 that this same attitude, this same behavior as it pertains to worship, when the power of God is gone, is missing in one's life, in most of the professed Christian world in fact, that it will be at that precise time that man will turn to brute force to try and root out the hated sect.

In contrast, We see with Abel, a humble and yet faithful spirit.

For we are told that Abel tried to reason with his brother and while he pointed out his sin, He pointed also to the Savior who could save him.

And thus we see in Abel a refusal to simply speak smooth words, but he spoke them the truth in love.

And so with this backdrop, okay, if you didn't hear last week's message you can go back and listen to that.

But with that as our backdrop, we turn to our study today, 2 lines and 2 legacies.

It'll be on the screen today as well, but I want to just really encourage you to open your Bible so that you can kind of make sure you don't lose your orientation, so to speak, to the text.

Okay, Genesis 3 and verse 15, I want you to notice what it says there.

We find in that text these words, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

There would be 2 seeds, 2 separate lines, 2 separate groups.

And not to be misunderstood, there is redemption available regardless of which line you find yourself in.

You are not the victim of your family tree.

There is redemption in all of this if we so choose to say yes to God.

I mean, did God not tell Cain in Genesis 4, 7, if you do well, will you not be accepted?

But that said, 2 distinct classes would develop based on their response to this invitation.

And it is true that often the pattern of the parent is inherited and reproduced in the pattern of the child.

Today, as we walk through these ancient genealogies, I want you to keep asking yourself, what marker, what marker am I leaving?

Genesis 4 and verse 1, We read it last week, let's read it again.

And she conceived and bore Cain and said, I have acquired a man from the Lord.

And it takes several verses to explain the character and why the generations that proceeded from him proceeded as they did.

We're told that Cain was disobedient, that he was rebellious, that he disregarded God and his plan of salvation, that he hated his brother to the point of murder, and that he Refused to be his brother's keeper.

Declaring that anyone who kills him would receive the Lord's vengeance sevenfold.

Praise God he's had that kind of mercy with us.

So that we could see, so that the universe could see the effects of hate and jealousy so that like with Satan, the great controversy could be seen and understood.

Now man would know the effects of allowing sin to propagate.

And so we go to the genealogy of Cain in Genesis 4, notice verse 16, then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden.

That's a key component in why the story goes like it does.

Cain went away from the presence of the Lord.

Verse 17, Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch.

And he built a city and called the name of that city after the name of his son, Enoch.

He has a son named Enoch and builds a city naming it after his son.

So when man leaves the presence of God, we see right off what he does.

He goes, he's pro, we see, let's put it this way, we see what he is prone to doing, and that is to seek to make a name for himself.

To build a monument, a city, a skyscraper if you will, anything that will draw attention to his fame and his fortune.

Notice as the passage continues, verse 18, so Enoch was born Irad and Irad began, isn't this what we should have for scripture reading sometime?

It's like everybody's worst nightmare when you have a scripture reading, you know?

Enoch was born Irad and Irad began Mehugiel and Mehugiel begat Methusiel and Methusiel begat Lamech.

The name of 1 was Ada, and the name of the second was Zillah.

And Ada bore Jabal, who was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock.

His brother's name was Jubal, who was the father of all who play the harp and flute.

And as for Zillah, she also bore Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron.

Then Lamech said to his wives, Ada and Zillah, hear my voice, wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.

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Series

Genesis

12 Two Lines, Two Legacies

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Genesis

11 What Worship Costs and What Love Requires

50m

The Sealing Work and Its Order

1h 18m

Talking Points 2nd Quarter 2022 Genesis: The Creation

03 Cain and His Legacy

30m

I Did It My Way

38m

The Prodigal Son

Despicable Christians

50m

Our Best Intentions

35m

The Danger of Worship

50m

Eschatology In the Book of Genesis: Cain and Abel

52m

Doug Batchelor: The Victorious Life

The Purpose of Worship, Part I

56m

Hebrews 11- Faith

01 The Faith of Abel

37m

Sound Doctrine