Genesis 50 - Thousands & Not Billions - Gen 11:14-26 - 09-12-2021

take our bibles and open them to the book of genesis chapter 11 and verse 14. genesis chapter 11 verse 14 the title of our message this morning is thousands and not billions thousands and not billions and as you know we're continuing on with our verse by verse study through the book of genesis and look at this we may actually and i can't promise it of course but we may actually finish part one today it only took fifty sermons to get here but we've been spending a lot of time in genesis 1 through 11 where we've seen creation god's original design and then we've seen the fall and what went wrong and immediately we see the solution a coming savior jesus christ we've seen how satan tried to stop this coming one by doing something very strange in the pre-flood world and god brought an end to that through judgment the flood and so we learn really two very important things about god thus far he is creator actually three things he is creator he is redeemer he is judge you can't get any higher credentials than that can you and then we made it into chapters 10 and 11 where we learned about the dispersion of the nations from noah's three sons following the global flood but we're kind of left with some questions where did these nations come from and we get an answer to that in genesis 11 verses 1 through 9 the tower of babel which we've worked our way through the origin of the nations and then we come to a genealogy the genealogy starts with shem why shem one of noah's sons because the lineage leading to this messiah is going to come through the line of shem genesis 9 verse 26 and this genealogy is going to go from shem all the way to terror why tara because tara is the father of abram who later will become abraham who is a very special man in the bible because it's through this man abraham that god is going to start all over and he's going to create a brand new nation and through that nation is going to come the messiah jesus christ and so what we have in this genealogy is an outline it starts in chapter 11 and verse 10. and it goes all the way through genesis 11 and verse 26 and so the last time i was with you and i by the way i thank gabe for filling in last week i'm sure you enjoyed gabe's teaching in fact you might have liked it so much you might want me to step down and gabe to step up here to do part two and i would just say lord thank you for that answer to prayer i just appreciate how gabe is developing as a preacher amen here's the pattern we're going to look at as we look at each of these generations in this genealogy we've looked at shem generation number one and then last time i was with you we looked at our fox shot if i'm pronouncing that right generation number two after shem and we talked about the fact that there's a missing name there when you compare luke's gospel to genesis 11 you can see luke inserts a name canaan between our foxsod and sheila and old earth creationists are happy that gap is there because they think if they can stretch out these genealogies enough they're going to get their billions of years but we made the point last time and we really went into depth about this that that missing name is really a scribal error and if you want the explanation on that i would encourage you to take a good look or a good listen to our sermon that we gave on this the last time we were in this study there is no missing generation as i'll try to convince you today in these genealogies genesis 5 and 11 and it's wrong for people to build their doctrine of old earth creationism from a scribal error we talked about that in fact dr henry morris writes this kanan's name should not be included in its insertion in luke 3 verse 36 because it's most likely a copyist's error and we pick it up here with generation number three which is the generation of sheila and so notice if you will genesis chapter 11 and notice if you will verses 14 and 15 as we continue with this genealogy sheila lived 30 years and became the father of eber and sheila lived 403 years after he became the father of eber and had other sons and daughters so looking at our rubric here or our pattern we're now dealing with generation number three after shem this man's name is sheila meaning the sent one and in this genealogy the age of the patriarch is given at the time his seed son is born the seed son being the one who's going to carry on the lineage leading to the messiah the seed son's name is eber and sheila was 30 years old when ibra was born that's a specific detail there and he lived an additional 403 years and that takes the total years of his life up to 433 years and he had other sons and daughters and as we work our way through this i guess i should have told you at the onset what i'm trying to do here i'm going to try to cover this genealogy very fast believe it or not and then we're going to get to verse 26 and you're going to say all right praise the lord the sermon's over and i'm going to say not quite because i'm going to try to if time permits make three concluding observations the next generation and now we're dealing with generation number four is the generation of eber and notice if you will verses 16 and 17 eber lived 34 years and became the father of peleg and eber lived 430 years after he became the father of peleg and he had other sons and daughters so now we're on generation number four following shem this patriarch's name is eber some believe his name literally means cross over and his seed son is peleg and how old was eber at the time peleg was born ibra was 34 years old and notice how specific again the information is eber lived an additional 430 years making the grand total years of his life 464 years and he had other sons and daughters now what's interesting about this name eber is it's most likely the origin of the word hebrew arnold fruchtenbaum in his genesis commentary says this the line of shem begins in verse 21 and unto shem the father of the children of eber eber in hebrew is evil and is the source of the hebrew word for hebrew to be the father of the hebrews is the main significance of the line of shem so it sort of stands to reason that you start to see the origin of the word hebrew here with this particular name particularly since the whole point of this genealogy is to lead to the hebrew people the nation of israel that will be birthed through abram and that nation is very significant because it's through that nation the messiah is going to come and we continue on with verses 18 and 19 and now we're in the fifth generation and this takes us to peleg notice what verses 18 and 19 say it says peleg lived 30 years and became the father of rue and peleg lived another 209 years after he became the father of rue and he had other sons and daughters so generation number five we have this man peleg his name actually means division why is that because we learned earlier in genesis 10 that it was in his day the earth was divided more on that in just a second his seed son's name is rue and how old was peleg at the birth of his son rue the seed son he was 30 years old and the bible is very clear that peleg lived an additional 209 years which makes him 239 years notice that you see how the life spans of people are starting to shrink the last patriarch lived 464 years and now this particular one that we're speaking of only lives 239 years and he had of course other sons and daughters and it was in his day the earth was divided you might recall genesis chapter 10 and verse 25 it says two sons were born to eber the name of one was peleg for in his days the earth was divided and his brother's name was jokton something very interesting happened in the days of peleg the earth was divided and there's a lot of interesting conjecture on this i just got back from a conference with a lot of young earth creationists there and they talk a lot about the division of the continents happening at this point the continents split it's a very interesting discussion and maybe it happened that way i'm just not so sure it fits the context the context of chapters 10 and 11 is the division of the earth due to the confounding of the language not the splitting of the earth because we learn from genesis chapter 11 verse 1 now the whole earth use the same language and the same words and so when you get into this whole discussion about continental divide which is very interesting um i'm just not sure that that's what it's talking about i think what it's dealing with is not the division of the continents but the division of humanity because god confounded the language and the workers at the tower of babel could not cooperate with one another arnold fruchtenbaum argues that this is probably the point based on context contextually dr henry morris says the most obvious interpretation of this verse is the division was the division of the peoples at the tower of babel as discussed in genesis 11. he goes on and he says these verses seem clearly to refer to a linguistic and geographical division rather than an actual splitting of the continents leupold says the event referred to must be the one under consideration the confusion of tongues even john calvin i think gets this right he says in those days the languages were divided so you know it's always interesting to come to the bible with our questions about science and the division of the continents and how that happened it just becomes a little difficult when we try to make the bible force something we forced it to say something it probably isn't saying but there's a lot of debate on that so here we come to the sixth generation this is the generation of rue and notice what it says in chapter 11 verses 20 and 21 it says for rue lived 32 years and became the father of sarag and rue lived 207 years after he became the father of sarah and he had other sons and daughters so now we're at generation number six after shem and this particular patriarch's name is roo and the meaning of his name in hebrew is probably friend or neighbor and his saved son is named sarig and notice again the specificity here the age of the seed son or the age of the father i should say at the time the seed son is born is 32 years and then he lived an additional 207 years which would take the total years of his life up to 239 years did he have other sons and daughters yes he did and then we come to the next generation and this is generation number seven this is the generation of saric and notice if you will verses 22 and 23. sarah lived 30 years and became the father of nahor and serg lived 200 years after he became the father of nahor and he had other sons and daughters so now we're dealing with generation number seven the name of this patriarch is named serg his meaning of his name in hebrew is sort of unclear we're not sure what that means and he had a seed son named nahor and saric was exactly 30 years old when the was born he lived an additional 200 years taking the total years of his life up to 230 years and he had other sons and daughters now as we're going through this i just want to remind you of something that all scripture is god-breathed and profitable amen even things that we might not find particularly tantalizing and if that means what it says and says what it means and it does we have to give our attention to all of the word of god so now we come to generation number eight getting near terror here can you believe it verses 24 and 25 this is the generation of nahor and it says nahor lived 29 years and became the father of tara now we're getting close to the end of this because who is the father who was the father of abraham a man named tara nahor lived 29 years and became the father of tara and lived 119 years after he became the father of tara and he had other sons and daughters so now we're on generation number let's see what are we on number eight is that right the name is nahor now nahor's name actually means river why would his name be named river well because it's probably named after the euphrates and the tigris which is where the tower of babel existed and it's where god confounded the language and so a lot of people probably remained in that part of the world the two great rivers there the euphrates and the tigris and that may mean or that may give us an indication why nahor's name means river but his seed son is a man named tara and how old was nahor at the birth of terror it tells us right there in verses 24 and 25 he was exactly 29 years old and he lived an additional 119 years which brings the grand total of his life up to 148 years and he had other sons and daughters and finally we get to the very end of this verse 26 generation number nine and what does it say there in verse 26 tara lived 70 years and became the father of abram that's our guy you should have him circled in your bible tara lived 70 years and became the father of abram nahor and haran so now we're at generation number nine and we finally come to tara and what does terra's name mean it means moon why would you name a kid moon i think a lot of it had to do with paganism these people are all steeped in paganism even when abram was called from the ur of the chaldeans to follow god he was steeped in paganism paganism always worships the creation rather than the creator and this is actually the background of abram which means that when god called abram abram was not a perfect person he didn't have his theology straight he didn't have his life figured out and god called him because god's specialty is calling the unqualified amen and if god's specialty is doing great things through the unqualified that means i can apply for the job god does not call the qualified because there are no people that are qualified rather he qualifies the called because your bible teaches that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of god god is not looking for perfect people to use because there are no perfect people other than of course jesus christ he's not looking so much for pedigree and ability as much as he's looking for availability and you see this over and over again in the bible whether it's moses or in the book of judges gideon or any number of people right down to abram none of them are qualified but god calls them because god uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines which means you should not dismiss yourself as being unqualified to be used by god the only thing god is looking for is a willing heart i mean look at me for example i mean my former profession is a lawyer you talk about someone totally unqualified to be used of the lord and the fact of the matter is god can use anybody he can even use an attorney he can even use someone that works for the irs a tax gatherer like matthew he could use someone that has a pagan education like daniel he could use someone that's steeped in paganism abram and so this is why i find this so so interesting so we're dealing here with generation number nine the name is tara the name means moon probably because of being steeped in paganism and that by the way is why god brings forth light genesis chapter 1 verse 3 before he forms the sun and the moon and the stars on day four of creation light genesis 1 verse 3 sun s-u-n genesis 1 verses 14-19 the big question there is how can there be light without the sun the answer is god deliberately did it that way because he wanted humanity to understand that he is the true source of light he does not need the sun in fact there's coming a day in human history where there will be no sun and moon did you know that it's in the eternal state you'll find it in revelation 21 verse 23 and revelation 22 verse 5 we won't need the sun s-u-n in that day because the eternal state will be illuminated by the sun not s-u-n but what s-o-n jesus christ paganism always reverses this and they want to worship the created thing rather than the creator deuteronomy 4 verse 19 warns us against this and it says beware not to lift up your eyes to heaven and see the sun and the moon and the stars and all the hosts of heaven and be drawn away and worship them and serve them those which the lord your god has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven don't worship the created thing worship the creator and if you want to get a good historical record on why not to do that read genesis 1 where light came into existence before the sun existed and read revelation 21 and 22 where light will exist in the person of jesus christ without the help of the luminaries the sun and the moon and the stars and yet tara's name actually means moon because he was steeped most likely in paganism now tara has three sons one is named abram one is named nahor and one is named haran and how old was tara when abram was born he was 70 years old and if you drop down to verse 32 you'll see that tara lived an additional 135 years bringing the grand total of his life up to 205 years and other than abram did tara have other sons and daughters yes he did so it's interesting that abram's name means exalted father nahor's name means river and haran's name mountaineer interesting stuff let's close in prayer no not quite very fast i want to give you these three concluding points or observations showing you that what we just read is really a big deal one thing to understand is this genealogy is a big deal because it's the only genealogy we have connecting the promises given to shem to abram if we didn't have this genealogy we would have no reason as to understanding why god called abram and formed a new nation through him god called abram and formed a new nation through him because he is the beneficiary of the promises given to shem that the messiah is going to come from shem's line we know from genesis 3 verse 15 that this messiah is coming genesis 9 verse 26 tells us he's coming from shem's line and shem is connected to abram the nation of israel why is israel such a big deal because she is the beneficiary of this messianic blessing when the messiah comes into the world he will not be a southern baptist he will not be a methodist he will not be a presbyterian he won't even go to a church that plays the organ during worship time he won't be involved in a contemporary service he will be jewish to the core a physical descendant of abraham isaac and jacob and this is why jesus you can find him in the gospel of john making five trips to jerusalem why does he keep going to jerusalem because that's what hebrews are supposed to do to celebrate certain feast days you'll find that in leviticus 23 the hebrew calendar jesus is walking in accordance with the hebrew calendar because that's who he was he was a hebrew he was not an american he was a hebrew he was jewish he had jewish blood coursing through his veins that's why this genealogy is such a big deal because it connects israel who is about to be formed genesis 12 to the promises of shem going right back to the garden of eden genesis chapter 3 verse 15. now having said all that let's let's make a few observations here observation number one is there are no missing generations in the genealogy that we just read how do we know that well when we go back to the genesis 5 genealogy which connects noah back to adam when we were studying that i don't know about 15 years ago probably we made the point that there were no missing names in that genealogy why is that so well one reason we know is seth received his name from adam and eve and obviously it's the parents that name the children so there's no missing genealogy between adam and seth and then also in genesis 4 verse 26 we know that seth named enosh and so obviously there's no missing name between seth and enish and then we get to genesis 5 verse 29 and lamech named noah i mean if parents name children i know there's a lot of aggressive grandparents out there but usually the way it works is the parents name the children there's no missing name between lamech and noah and then jude comments on that genealogy and he talks about enoch 7th from adam jude verse 14. and just start with enoch and go seven backwards and you'll come right to adam so jude who wrote under the inspiration of the holy spirit apparently didn't feel that there were any missing generations in the genesis 5 genealogy arnold fruchtenbaum of that genesis 5 genealogy says it gives the years before and after the birth of the seed sun this is something you don't find in any other biblical genealogies other than the one in chapter 5 and chapter 11. the detail that's given and you're aware of that detail because we just read through the whole thing is mind-numbing it gives the years before and after the birth of the seed sun it tells you exactly how old the father was when the seed son was born you find that nowhere in any other biblical genealogy so arnold fruckenbaum says of the genesis 5 genealogy so this type of language simply does not allow gaps to occur arnold fruchtenbaum makes the exact same point with the genealogy that we just read through he says in shems genealogy as in the previous genealogy of adam genesis 5 the language does not allow for gaps in the genealogy since the text does not merely say beget but it is more specific giving the age of the father when the seed son was born and how many years the father lived thereafter you find no such specificity anywhere else in the bible other than the genealogies in genesis chapter 5 and genesis chapter 11. so with that being said why does everybody want there to be missing names here generational skipping it has to do with something james barr said now who was james barr he was a great hebrew scholar and he didn't believe one millimeter of this book came from god which put him at an advantage it allowed him to simply articulate what it says you see the problem with an evangelical is bound by the bible is once they come up with an interpretation of the bible they have to live under it and so if you have an evangelical that's been influenced by billions of years and charles darwin they're the ones that are compromising because whatever they come up with by way of interpretation they're bound by james barr had no problems declaring the bible for what it says because he was a liberal and didn't have to live under his own conclusions because he never felt that this book came from god so james barr is one of those interpreters of the bible that's completely without bias and this is what he wrote probably so far as i know there is no professor of hebrew or old testament at any world class university who does not believe that the writers of genesis 1 through 11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that a creation took place in a series of six days which were the same length is the 24-hour days we experience today b that the figures contained in the genesis genealogies which we've just looked at provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in biblical history and see noah's flood was understood to be a worldwide phenomena and extinguish human and animal life except for those in the ark or to put it negatively the apologetic argument which supposes that the days of creation to be long errors of time the figures of years not to be chronological and the flood to be merely local a local mesopotamian flood are not taken seriously by such professors as far as i know close quote in other words let's just read it for what it says the flood cover the whole earth the genealogies themselves have no gaps in them and the earth therefore is about 6 000 years old because the creation days were 24-hour days now james barr says i'm a liberal i don't have to live under this but that's what the book says and once you start to understand this you begin to understand why evangelicals are obsessed with finding gaps in these genealogies because there are seven men that rule the world from the grave these are people that had godless philosophies they are dead and gone but their ideas reign supreme in our world to the point where you don't dare question these things because if you question these things you're considered anti-intellectual unscientific so who are these seven men that rule the world from the grave by the way you should know these men and you should know what they taught because this is the philosophies being forced into the minds of your children and your grandchildren as i speak and as a parent you need to be able to deactivate what's happening in those little mines one name is karl marx who gave us communism karl marx is dead and gone but my goodness look at the trajectory of the united states it's almost as if karl marx's theories are alive and well another one is julius velhausen [Applause] who taught the documentary hypothesis that the first five books of the bible were not written by moses but written by someone long after the time of moses then there was a man named john dewey who gave us a educational compulsory public education system with god completely pushed out of it thank you john dewey all of these people put christmas tree presents under your christmas tree every day when you wake up there's a karl marx present for you just waiting for you there's a well housing christmas present waiting for you there's a dewy present waiting for you and a lot of these guys you wouldn't even trust them to babysit your kids when you look at their personal lives let alone imitate or emulate the philosophies they espouse then of course there's sigmund freud we know about him basically a sexual deviant a sexual pervert who described all human behavior through the lens of sexual repression and things of that nature and then there's john maynard keynes who says the way to prosper as a nation is to go into debt in fact one of our presidential candidates actually said that and you can probably guess which one i'm talking about he has a little difficulty with his memory but he remembered this he says we've got to spend money to prosper why would he say that thank you john maynard keynes and you have seren kirkegaard i'm a little more hazy or fuzzy on him i believe he gave us more relativism situational ethics in other words ethics are not absolute they're determined by the situation and right at the top of the list the man that rules the world from the grave by the way these are all described for you in a wonderful book by dave the late dave breeze seven men who ruled the world from the grave required reading if you haven't read this right at the top of the list is charles darwin charles darwin taught the holy trinity we have a holy trinity don't we that you have to accept by faith as revealed by god charles darwin had a holy trinity his holy trinity is time plus matter plus randomness time matter randomness equals design in other words if you took and i've used this illustration before if you took cards numbered one through 52 and you put them in a bag and you numbered them once just one side one through 52 put them in a bag shook up the bag threw him on the ground what is the chance that those cards would line up in a straight line all number side up chronologically ordered starting with number one to 52. what are the chances of that happening well it's impossible it's not improbable it's impossible but darwin came along and he said you know what if you did that for a billion years eventually it would work out and this is how the darwinist explains the design in our world without god how can you get randomness and matter to equal design how can you get a tornado to go through a junkyard and assemble a 747 aircraft how can that happen give it enough time it'll happen give it a billion years it'll happen so there is no such thing as darwinism without the issue of time this is their explanation for the origin of the complexity of life the dna molecule the fact that all of our fingerprints are different all of our personalities are different given enough time it'll happen this is how they explain creation without the creator so time in darwinism is a big deal and so when christianity was confronted with this in 1859 when darwin published his origin of the species the christian church adopted a strategy by the name of a man named w.h greene who basically articulated backward christian soldier in fact there are biographies of this man w h green he was one of the most elite erudite professors of old testament at princeton university at the time which used to be believe it or not a bible-based institution and you can watch or read the biographies of green's sons describing the anguish that their father was under when darwin's origin of the species with its assumption of time was becoming popular as an evangelical he had no idea how to handle this and so the biographies of his sons describe him on the porch on the balcony just pacing back and forth back and forth what are we going to do with this issue of time that the scientific world is telling us is a scientific fact and finally green wrote an article saying i figured it out there's gaps in the genealogy of genesis 5 and genesis 11. so what we can do is we can stretch out these genealogies like an accordion and eventually we're going to come up with hundreds of thousands of years now today they're saying billions of years so the genealogies are only going to stretch so far so what people today have gone into is well then the creation days are not 24-hour days they're ages and they articulate a missing age in between genesis chapter 1 verse 1 and genesis chapter 1 verse 2 there's a billion years between those verses it's called the gap theory so using the gap theory using the day age theory using the genealogy stretching the christian church went into backward christian soldier because that's the only thing w h green knew how to do to keep up with the findings of so-called science the game changer was in 1960 when henry morris and john whitcomb came along and changed the strategy the strategy is articulated in a book called the genesis flood you should have it on your bookshelf you should read it it's a classic because henry morris the scientist and john whitcomb the hebrew scholar said enough is enough we are not going to keep rewriting genesis to keep up with science you know what we're going to do we're going to go out and challenge science because first timothy chapter 6 verse 20 in the good old king james version talks about science falsely called in other words there's a lot of things concerning science that have been foisted upon us that are really nothing more than pagan philosophy and they went out and they challenged the idea of the missing link you know the alleged link between apes and man and they said you know what y'all you know why it's called the missing link because the missing link is still what missing science hasn't explained that they went out and challenged radiometric dating carbon 14 dating that everybody was using to argue that the earth is old and they began to interpret the fossil record not over billions of years but through a sudden catastrophe a sudden deluge called the global flood and they began to hold the findings of so-called science hostage to the bible which was the opposite of what w h green was doing he was not doing forward christian soldier he was doing backward christian soldier and he was trying to rewrite the bible to keep up with so-called science and so a lot of people email us and ask can how do we recognize a a good church a good bible teacher and the first thing you want to figure out is which strategy does that bible teacher use to explain the difference between what the bible says and what the scientific community is saying are they using the old outdated wh green strategy of genealogy stretching day age theory gap theory are they adopting the new 1960 genesis flood model from whitcomb and morris obviously you've listened to me long enough to know what camp we are in here at sugarland bible church we are not going to rewrite the bible to keep up with so-called science what we're going to do is we're going to take the findings of the natural world paganism and hold them hostage to the bible and come up with an interpretation of those things that harmonizes with the bible so this issue of missing names in the genealogies is actually one of the hottest most controversial things ever debated within christianity we are not the first generation that's had to wrestle with this particular issue this goes back to w.h green in 1892 1893 roughly so one of the things that green said is you know what let's look at matthew's genealogy there's gaps in matthew's genealogy you know the genealogy leading from abram to jesus christ there's gaps there and if there's gaps there missing names which there are there must be missing names in genesis 5. there must be missing names in genesis 11. in fact none other than norm geisler argues for this position now i've used norm geisler's name before i use it with great reverence and respect because i essentially agree with almost everything norm geisler says but not on this he is a big advocate of what is called old earth creationism which in my view is a compromising strategy geisler is the one that built his interpretation of a missing generation as i tried to explain last time from a scribal error and here he goes again quote if there is one gap there may be more indeed we know there are more for example matthew so he's going now all the way into the new testament for example matthew chapter 1 verse 8 says jehoram the father of uzziah but the parallel listing in 1st chronicles 3 verses 11 through 14 illustrates missing generations between jehoram and uzziah namely ahazia joash and amazia just how many gaps there are in just how many gaps there are in biblical genealogies and how much time they represent is not known even so gaps there are and hence complete chronologies cannot be made only accurate genealogies lines of dissent are given translation there's gaps in matthew's genealogy if there's gaps in matthew's genealogy maybe we can find enough missing names in genesis 5 and genesis 11 to stretch this baby out like an accordion and finally harmonize the bible with what so-called science darwinism is saying about the age of the earth when you compare matthew chapter 1 verses 8 and 9 to 1st chronicles 3 verses 10 through 12 you clearly see there's gaps in matthew's genealogy so what's the response the response is that geisler and others are making an apples and oranges comparison you cannot compare the genealogies of genesis 5 and genesis 11 to matthew's genealogy those are two different animals for one thing matthew is summing up because he's writing in the new testament era a huge chunk of history aren't you glad there are gaps in matthew's genealogy or how big would your bible be i mean it would read like the united states tax code but in genesis 5 and genesis 11 you only have a summation of a much smaller segment of human history that's why there could be genea gaps in matthew 1 but not in genesis 5 and genesis 11. now what do the genealogies in genesis 5 and genesis 11 do that matthew's genealogy does not do they give you mind-numbing detail such as the age of the father at the time the son is born you have nothing like that whatsoever in matthew's genealogy so geisler is making an apples and oranges comparison the way to understand what's happening in matthew's genealogy connecting abraham to jesus is to look very quickly at matthew chapter 1 verse 17. and what does it say there thus there were 14 generations in all from abraham to david 14 from david to the exile to babylon and 14 from the exile to the messiah matthew is going to summarize jewish history by looking at three groups of selectively picked 14 generations he's not covering every single generation he couldn't or else matthew 1 would read like first chronicles chapters one through nine have you ever tried to read first chronicles chapters one through nine that's what matthew one would read like if he didn't have gaps so matthew is saying i'm not gonna give you every name what i'm going to do is i'm going to give you three groups of 14 selected people the first group is going to go from abraham why start with abraham because he was the first jew to david why stop with david because the messiah has to come through whose line david's and then i'm going to give you 14 more names from david to the exile in babylon why give us 14 names to the exile in babylon is just to show that at the height of israel's greatest disobedience when god put them into captivity the messianic promises were never canceled and then i'm going to give you an additional 14 names not every name not comprehensive just selected and it's going to go from the days of the babylonian captivity and it's going to go to jesus christ now why 14 matthew why don't you give us 15 names why don't you give us 13 names i mean i thought the biblical number was seven why don't you give us seven names why are you focusing on 14 names times three it has to do with the purpose for which matthew wrote matthew is the very first new testament book that we have it is most likely other than james the very first and the earliest new testament book and put yourself in the shoes of the people that received matthew's book they were not gentile they were jewish they were jewish christians who had believed in yeshua the hebrew name for jesus christ the whole early church to whom matthew wrote is jewish in fact you don't even have a gentile convert in the church age until a man named cornelius and that doesn't happen until acts 10 and 11 and the gentiles don't gain ascendancy in the church until paul's first missionary journey into southern galatia acts 13 and 14. you have to put yourself in the shoes of a jewish christian to understand matthew's gospel a jewish christian who has believed in yeshua for personal salvation is wondering have we really believed in the right messiah because i don't see the kingdom on the earth that was promised so matthew strategically writes a book to tell them yeah you've got the right guy you believed in the right messiah but the kingdom is not canceled but in a state of what postponement well what's going to happen in the interim until the kingdom comes matthew begins to describe this interim period of time which has been lasting for 2 000 years called the inner advent age later described as the age of the church the hebrew christians knew nothing about that so the problem is they were hitting the panic button wondering have we believed in the right messiah and matthew painstakingly shows that jesus is the guy you believed in the right messiah but his kingdom is not canceled it's currently in a state of postponement and that's why matthew's genealogy starts with abraham the first jew or hebrew and then to david through whom the messiah will come the davidic covenant and ultimately to jesus christ himself now having said all that there's something called gematria in ancient languages ancient languages you could take numbers excuse me letters and attach the right number to the right letter add up the digits and everybody's name could be reduced to a number i think this is the mystery of 666. revelation chapter 13 when the antichrist comes you'll be able to spell out his name in greek attach the right letter to the right number add up the total and it will yield the total 666. this is called gamatria it's true not just with greek but it's also true with hebrew and and guess i won't even put the slide up yet i'll let you guess what do you think the gematria is for the hebrew word david could it be 14. you spell out david in hebrew you attach the right number to the right letter you add up the digits and david's name is 14. that's why matthew picks not 15 names [Applause] per group but 14. you see what's going on here he has skillfully put together something that the ancient hebrews would understand that jesus is the guy jesus yeshua is the guy to inherit the davidic covenant that's why matthew uses the number 14. it's a literary device that's why matthew skips generations coming up with this number 14 three groups of 14 it's just another way of telling his hebrew christian audience that you believed in the right messiah the only thing you're confused about is not the messiah but the kingdom and don't worry about that that's coming too it's just not coming on your timetable it's coming on god's timetable the early disciples what did they say to jesus in between the resurrection and ascension forty days what are they asking kim about are you going to restore the kingdom to david at this time remember that yeshua jesus says to them it's not for you to know the times and the seasons that the father has set by his own authority he never challenges them on the belief that the kingdom would come he never challenges them on the belief that jesus is the right messiah the only thing he calls attention to is their their timing is off because we're in a new age now where god is doing a new work and everything in matthew's gospel is going to relate to that purpose and once you start understanding that everything in matthew's gospel starts to make sense right down to the number 14. having said all that there's nothing like that going on in genesis 5. there's nothing going on like that in genesis 11. it is simply a straightforward chronology that's so detailed that it gives you the age of the father at the time the son was born no literary device no number 14 no number gematria or no gamatri i should say so my point is to compare the genealogy in genesis 5 and genesis 11 to the genealogy in matthew 1 you're mixing two things together that don't belong together beloved that's why this argument from norm geisler who is the best and the brightest of evangelicalism whose respect for him from me is off the charts this is why it's bewildering to me that someone of his intellect and countenance could make such a rudimentary and fundamental and basic error oh well there's gaps in matthew's genealogy there must be gaps in the genealogy in genesis 5 and genesis 11. you just took two things that don't go together at all and you mix them up as if they're one and the same and in the process you're confusing the christian public into thinking that genesis 5 and genesis 11 are saying something that they're not saying one of the arguments is well three groups of 14 those are kind of nice even numbers three groups of 14 even numbers they're kind of a symbol well don't you have that in genesis 5 and genesis 10 or excuse me genesis 5 and genesis 11 where it's just 10 patriarchs leading to three sons three groups of 14 lots of gaps why can't we have that in genesis 5 and genesis 11 10 patriarchs in genesis 5 leading to three sons noah's three sons ten patriarchs in genesis 11 leading to tarah's three sons i mean can't we just keep these large numbers with gaps in them and the answer is no because how many patriarchs are featured in genesis five ten ten patriarchs leading to three sons how many patriarchs are in genesis 11 leading to three sons not ten but what nine nine does not equal ten and ten does not equal nine so that's simply another way of saying that what is happening in genesis 5 and genesis 11 is completely and totally and fundamentally different than anything happening in matthew chapter 1. and you start talking like this as i said before and suddenly you're not invited to a lot of the liberal cocktail parties because everybody within neo-evangelicalism that's following the wh green model is trying to get the bible to harmonize with darwin i mean that's how you stay relevant that's how you stay hip and that's how you stay cool and how you get invited to hang around with the in crowd you don't get invited to hang around with the in crowd by saying the earth is six thousand years old and so this genealogy stretching is very very popular in evangelical circles as is the day age theory as is the gap theory and i'm trying to tell you what james barr said that is not what the text says by simple arithmetic you come up with a 6 000 year old age not just for man but for the cosmos itself and if it's thousands and not billions you just took away a member of the holy trinity from darwin which involves what time and that's why these things actually are such a big deal so the next time i'm with you which will be next week i'm going to tell you how to work backwards and come up with an exact date for the origin of this world and i'm also going to show you how adam came on the scene not billions of years later but he came on the scene right after god brought the heavens and the earth into existence so i'll be giving you an exact date when adam got his belly button in fact that might be my sermon title for next week as i'm thinking about it all of this is very significant because what's important is the first adam got us into a world of trouble who rescues us out of it the last atom if the first atom was a literal historical figure then so was the last atom the first atom is the problem the last atom is the solution humanity can be divided into those two groups you are born under the curses of the first adam whether you want them or not that is your condition jesus yeshua came into the world to reverse what the first adam had inflicted he came to rescue us and when a person exercises faith in the person of jesus christ and they're no longer trusting in themselves and their own works of righteousness for salvation in a nanosecond they're saved that's why i'm passionate about this my fear is compromise interpretations related to the first adam are eventually going to remove from the minds of people the rescue operation accomplished by the last adam because you can't understand the rescue operation unless you see the problem the problem is the first adam and we're under his curse we are careening for judgment but jesus yeshua came into the world as the last adam to reverse that and he says look don't trust in yourself for the rescue operation trust in me and that's what his death burial resurrection and ascension we're all about and so anybody within the sound of my voice can in their heart of hearts exercise faith in this man jesus christ which means trust and in a nanosecond their position changes and so our hope and prayer here at sugarland bible church is for people to trust in the savior it's something you can do right now as i'm speaking it's not a matter of walking an aisle joining a church giving money but rather it's a matter of privacy between you and the lord where the lord convicts you of your need to do this and you trust in the savior you can do it now as i'm speaking if it's something that you need more explanation on i'm available after the service to talk shall we pray father we're grateful for early genesis help us to handle it correctly because if we don't we know that there will be compromises of interpretation down the road help us to understand that your word is like dominoes in a row if one falls the rest topple it's a seamless tapestry and it's so easy to compromise here in early genesis help us not to be the type of church that does that help your name to be lifted up and glorified we ask these things in jesus name and god's people said

Channel: Lean-into-God

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Id: M5XJ_1suvu8

Length: 71min 57sec (4317 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021