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In
chapters 1 and 2 we observed the Lord’s creation
of the Earth, sun, moon and stars; the wondrous
and varied species of animals and plants forming
an intricate and exquisite ecosystem; the culmination
of creation with the first man and woman, whom
God placed in a magnificent garden called Eden.
Adam and Eve were made lords of the Earth and
given authority over everything, and given the
responsibility to cultivate that special garden.
“But
into this paradise came, uninvited, an extra-terrestrial
being of superhuman powers and intelligence. This
“angel of light” had already brought sin and rebellion
into Heaven and corrupted a third of the angels
with him. Now he intended to spread the rebellion
and extend his evil empire to these newly created
human beings” (unknown quote).
In chapter
3 the Adversary tempted the woman to rebel against
the Word and will of God, which she did. Her husband
Adam followed her. Their sin ruined their relationship
with their Creator, who is the Source of life
and blessing, and brought sin and death and shame
and guilt into the world. The Earth was cursed.
But, the Lord didn’t leave humanity without hope
of redemption. He provided temporary covering
by the death of one or more innocent animals.
He promised that the Seed of the Woman would come
who would destroy the works of the Devil. But,
sin has consequences, and Adam and Eve were banished
from Eden.
What
will life be like outside of Eden? What will life
be like in a fallen world? How will sin affect
the earliest humans? This next part of the Torah,
starting with Genesis 4, answers these questions.
Adam
“knew his wife,” which is an intimate type of
sexual knowledge which must be reserved for marriage.
We are not to know someone that way either before
or outside of marriage.
Kayin,
the first human being was born, and it's possible
that Eve saw in her firstborn son the beginning
of the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Seed
of the Woman who will crush the head of the serpent,
and that the Seed of the Woman was also in some
way God Himself, since Eve’s words can be translated
as, “I have gotten a man - the Lord.” But,
the very first human being born into this world
will not be Immanuel - God With Us, but the first
murderer! The second child, Hevel (meaning breath,
or vanity. And, Hevel’s life, like the
life of all human beings born into this world,
was shortened.), was a shepherd. Kayin was a farmer.
From these two brothers who brought two offerings
we can learn crucial principles about true religion,
and the principles for atonement, and the God-ordained
way to get close to God.
Kayin
specialized in growing plants and brought an offering
to the Lord from the fruit of the ground. Nothing
exceptional is mentioned about his offering. It
wasn’t described as being the best, or as being
exceptionally generous. He brought what was convenient.
Hevel
brought a better offering. He offered some of
the first born - the strongest and best of his
flock. He killed sheep or goats and presented
to the Lord their fat, which was the richest part.
Hevel's offering contained blood. Because his
heart was right with God, he was careful to followed
the way of atonement instituted by God Himself,
who had killed an animal when He clothed Adam
and Eve in garments of skin. He came to God on
God’s terms. Both Hevel and his offering were
acceptable to God. Neither Kayin nor his sacrifice
were acceptable to God. There was something wrong
with Kayin and with his bloodless offering. He
did not come to God on God’s terms, but on his
own terms.
From
this we learn that worship that is acceptable
to God involves two elements: a God-ordained sacrifice
of a living being which contains blood, and a
right heart attitude of faith in God and His Word.
Hevel had both. Kayin had neither. Kayin had a
form of godliness, a form of religion, but there
was no religious reality.
The religion
of most people is like Kayin’s. They come to God
on their terms. They make a show of worshiping
God, but He is not their highest priority. They
bring an offering of whatever is convenient in
terms of time, money or service. They reserve
the best of their time, the best of their money,
the best of their energy for themselves. If they
have something more important to do than gather
with their community to worship, that takes priority.
If there is something left over at the end of
the month or at the end of the year to give, that
is what is offered to God, but the Lord doesn’t
come first in their giving.
Kayin
was angry and depressed that he and his offering
were not accepted by God. He was jealous that
his brother and his offering were accepted. The
Lord knew what was going on and spoke to Kayin.
He told him that the cure for his depression was
to do what is right. Getting close to God, and
doing what is right, with the resulting clean
conscience, helps in the fight to overcome depression.
Being distance from our Source of Life and Happiness,
and doing what is wrong, and ignoring sin and
guilt, strengthens depression.
The Lord
also warned Kayin that if he continued cultivating
anger and jealously, sin, like a hungry lion,
was crouching at the door, ready to break through
and destroy him. Sin is a powerful force, almost
like a living entity, but with God's help it can
be mastered. Kayin could have heeded the Creators’
warning, but he didn't. He did not turn away from
hatred and jealousy. He opened the door of his
soul to sin, which entered, mastered him, and
resulted in the first murder. Kayin waited until
he and Hevel were away from anyone who could interfere,
and then with premeditation, he murdered his brother.
Most
people, like Kayin, don't take sin seriously enough.
Then it masters them and turns them into evil,
dangerous creatures. Take sin seriously. Know
what it is - anything against the Word and will
of God, and resist it. Get closer to God and seek
His help, and the help of Messiah’s Community,
to combat it. Don't open the door to sin - not
even a crack. If you feel that you are being mastered
by sin, don’t ignore it. Talk to me and let’s
work on it together with all the resources the
Lord has provided to fight against sin and gain
victory over it.
Then
the Lord spoke again to Kayin and asked him where
his brother Hevel was. Of course, the All-Knowing
God knew where he was, but He asked Kayin because
He wanted him to confess the truth, and to admit
what he had done, ask God for forgiveness and
seek the Creator’s help to be restored. Instead
he lied (“I do not know”) and claimed that
he was not responsible for his brother (“I'm
not my brother's keeper”). But brothers are
responsible to help each other; and in one sense,
all human beings are brothers. We have a responsibility
to help every human being.
The first
human being that came into existence from the
reproduction of fallen Adam and Eve murdered his
brother. This tragic beginning does not bode well
for the rest of human history.
The Lord
didn’t accept Kayin's lie and his renunciation
of the obligations of brotherhood. Murder is a
terrible sin because the life of a precious being
who is made in the image of God, whose life is
meaningful, is cut short. That is a crime that
cries out to Heaven for justice, and must be punished.
Kayin was a farmer. He spilled his brother's blood
on the ground. Therefore it was appropriate that
the penalty fit the crime. The Lord condemned
him to be a wanderer till the end of his days.
Kayin
was concerned he would not be safe while being
a nomad, and someone might punish him because
of what he did to Hevel. But the Lord will punish
Kayin in His time and in His way. And because
the Lord is concerned for even the murderer, He
graciously protected Kayin by giving him the “mark
of Kayin”. Anyone seeing this mark was to understand
that he must avoid punishing Kayin.
God commanded
Kayin to be a wanderer but Kayin didn't wander.
Kayin married one of his sisters (Adam and Eve
had other sons and daughters, and although they
aren’t mentioned until later, they were nevertheless
present), a practice that was common in the ancient
world, but later forbidden in the Torah, and then
built the first city that is mentioned, the city
of Chanoch, which means “initiate” or “dedicate”.
That city was built in defiance of the Word and
will of God. From then on cities tend to become
places where people gather in defiance of God
and where evil tends to accumulate.
Hevel
was the seed of the woman. In Kayin the seed of
the woman became the seed of the serpent. This
is the beginning of two distinct groups of human
beings in human history - the seed of the woman
and the seed of the serpent. Therefore there are
two genealogies in this chapter - one for the
descendants of Kayin, the bad seed, the people
where sin and Satan reign; and another genealogy
for the descendants of Shet, the good seed, the
people where God and righteousness rule.
By the
time that we come to Lamech, who is the sixth
generation from Adam, things were deteriorating
badly. Lamech ignored the “one flesh” principle
of marriage and married two women. His words make
the first recorded poem. It's not a love poem,
or beautiful words about the glory of God. Instead,
Lamech brags to his wives about killing a man.
He rejoices in fighting, violence and death! The
spirit of Kayin is at work among his descendants.
The seed of the serpent is growing.
By the
seventh generation there are advances in livestock
production. Animals other than sheep and goats
are domesticated. Music advances. Instruments
like the lyre and flute are developed. There are
advances in metallurgy and tool-making, using
copper and iron.
With
the birth of Shet and his son Enosh, the seed
of the woman gets a fresh start. More men begin
to call on the name of the Lord. They know the
Creator and worship Him and pray to Him.
In the
world before the Flood there were two groups of
people - the seed of the woman and the seed of
the serpent. While the people that came from Kayin,
by building a city, and developing worldly arts
and business and technology were laying the foundation
for the kingdoms of this world, the family of
Shet were building the kingdom of God.
Genesis
5 records ten generation from Adam to Noach. The
ten generations from Adam to Noach cover some
1656 years - if no generations were omitted (and
I strongly suspect they weren’t). This genealogy
is important because it gives us the line of the
ultimate Seed of the Woman, the Redeemer, the
Messiah, who will reconcile us to HaMakor - the
Source of life and blessing, and end our death-producing
alienation from our Creator.
The average
life span of these men who lived before the Flood
was over 900 years. This could be due to the water
canopy that covered the Earth, screening out harmful
radiation. Perhaps there were plants that existed
before the Flood that extended life, that later
became extinct. Perhaps people lived longer simply
because creation was fresh, new, and full of vitality.
Even
though they lived approximately 13 times longer
than we do, this genealogy tells us that sin affected
all men because each man died. God’s decree -
“you will surely die” worked its way into all
of humanity. The only exception is Chanoch. He
was dedicated to the Lord (Chanoch means dedicated
or initiated, or trained the right way) and lived
the way His Creator intended him to live. He enjoyed
a close personal relationship with the living
God.
Then
His Heavenly Father took him from this world to
another realm, bypassing death, as He would later
do for the prophet Elijah. Chanoch, like Elijah,
was a prophet, and a prophecy of his is recorded
in the book of Judah (see Jude 1:14-15).
The genealogy
of the good seed leads us to Noach and his three
sons: Shem, the father of the Shemites and the
Jewish people, through whom the Savior, the Seed
of the Woman will come; Cham, the father of the
peoples from Africa; and Yafet, the father of
the Indo-European peoples.
In chapter
6 we come to the events surrounding the Flood.
Keep in mind that the Son of God told us that
as things were in the days of Noach, so they will
be right before He returns. So, by considering
conditions before the Flood, we will know what
will happen in the period that immediately precedes
Messiah’s return.
Before
the Flood, human beings multiplied rapidly. Although
Noach is only the 10th generation from Adam, when
you have medium sized families, population can
increase very fast.
Before
the Flood, the “sons of God” were on Earth. These
sons of God are either angels or men. "Sons
of God" can refer to angels (see Job 1:6,
2:1, 38:7). Angels can take on a human body for
a time, but are not allowed to engage in sexual
relations (see Genesis 18-19, and “some have entertained
angels and didn’t know it”). If these sons of
God were angels, this was a terrible transgression
(see 2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 1:6). If the “sons of
God” refer to people, we have an example of the
descendants of Shet, the seed of the woman, the
righteous line of human beings who knew God, intermarrying
with the bad line, the sons of Kayin, the seed
of the serpent. When the righteous marry the unrighteous,
the majority of the time the righteous end up
farther away from God. Young man, young woman,
don’t marry someone who is not a committed follower
of the Lord! Don’t think that you will change
him or her, and win them to the Faith! In most
cases, they will bring you down. You will not
bring them up. You are most likely making a terrible
mistake that you will regret later.
The N’feeleem
- the "fallen ones” were also on Earth in
those days. They were powerful men who could be
the result of the union of fallen angels and women
(this is an ancient Jewish understanding of this
passage. Both Targum Jonathan and Josephus give
this interpretation. Interestingly, the mythology
of ancient Greece and Rome told of the gods who
had relations with human women, and the result
was powerful human beings). Are the present day
reports of “abduction cases” by UFOs a repetition
of what happened before the Flood? Or, the N’feeleem
could be ordinary human beings, “fallen ones”
in the sense of falling upon others, as a tyrant
falls on those he oppresses.
Before
the Flood there was a battle between the sinful
desires of the flesh and the Spirit of God for
the control of man and the flesh was winning.
The Spirit produces love for God, love for true
religion, love for human beings; happiness in
spite of circumstances; peace in the midst of
a tumultuous world; patience under trial; kindness
to those who aren’t always kind to you; faithfulness
to God, to His Word, to vows and commitments;
gentleness; and self-control. The desires of the
flesh include things like sexual immorality, drunkenness,
drug abuse, jealousy, anger, hatred, fighting,
false religions and erroneous philosophies. Most
human beings were increasingly opposing God’s
Spirit, and they were living according to the
flesh.
And,
they were without excuse since for much of the
time from the Fall to the Flood, father Adam himself
was present. Throughout the lives of most of the
generation before the Flood, to the generations
of Methuselah and Lamech, Noach's father - Adam
was alive and able to tell them from his unique,
firsthand knowledge about the great Creator God,
and about creation, the Garden of Eden, the creation
of the first woman, the Serpent, the knowledge
of good and evil, Fall, the principles for true
worship and atonement. Adam's grandson Enosh,
only two generation from Adam, was still alive
when Noah was alive. Yet humanity only grew more
evil all the time.
Our post-Christian
society today is also engaged in a battle between
the flesh and the Spirit and the flesh is winning.
Any society that chooses to oppose the Spirit
and live according to the flesh must eventually
degenerate and perish. Likewise, each of us are
in a battle to live according to the Spirit or
according to the flesh. As believers, capable
of being empowered by the Spirit of God, we can
choose to put to death the corrupt desires of
the flesh, and live empowered by the Spirit, in
a way that honors the Spirit, honors the truth,
honors what is right. Is that you? If not, make
an appointment to meet with me, and we will talk
about how you can live according to the Spirit
and not the flesh.
Before
the Flood, almost the entire early civilization
became corrupt and violent. People were constantly
thinking about and getting pleasure from the wrong
and violent things they were doing. The Lord,
who is a Person, and who has emotions, was grieved
by the corruption of those precious human beings
who were made in His image, and His grief caused
Him to act. Things had deteriorated so badly that
radical action was necessary, and the Lord decided
He would have to destroy that degenerate human
society with a world-wide Flood. But the Creator
was gracious and gave that first civilization
120 years to turn away from their corrupt ways.
He did not bring judgment immediately. (Peter
tells us that the patience of God kept waiting
in the days of Noach - 1 Peter 3:20). And,
as we have seen before, God’s judgments often
are part of His mercy. By bringing judgment on
a corrupt world, He would give humanity a fresh
start with godly Noach and his family.
Noach
was righteous: he was in a right relationship
with God and he consistently did the right things.
Noach was blameless: he was without fault in his
character and conduct. Like Chanoch, Noach walked
with God. Noach thought about His Creator. He
got up in the morning and spoke to Him. He continued
speaking to Him, and living for Him, throughout
the day. Noach’s right relationship to God, and
his good life were in contrast to the rest of
his society. Noach didn't have society to support
his relationship with God, and encourage him to
do the right things. If Noach could walk with
God in the middle of his corrupt society, can’t
we in ours?
A flood
was coming, and Noach and his family needed to
be able survive. The Lord gave him the dimension
of the Ark and the materials from which it was
to be constructed. It was to be box shaped since
all it needed to do was float. It was to be waterproof.
It was to be covered with pitch inside and out.
It was to be huge - roughly the size of a modern
ocean liner. In fact, from the time of the Flood,
another ship this size was not built until 1884.
It was 450 feet long, 75 feet broad and 45 feet
high. Its carrying capacity was equal to 522 railroad
cars. It could have held 45,000 sheep-sized animals.
All the 17,000 species of animals could have gotten
on the Ark. There was more than enough room for
all the animals, Noach's family, and food.
Chapters
7 and 8 tells us about one of the greatest events
in the history of the planet. It was not a local
flood, as the skeptics assert. It was a devastating
world-wide Flood that left its marks on the world
to this day. We know this by:
The need
for a Flood: All of humanity was corrupt, and
all of humanity needed to be destroyed. That means
a world-wide Flood, not just a local flood.
The need
for an Ark: why have an Ark if there wasn't a
world-wide Flood? If it was a local flood, it
would have been far simpler for Noach to move.
The length
of the Flood: the initial phase of 40 days and
nights of constant rain. The Flood lasted over
a year. This was no ordinary flood.
The depth
of the Flood: all the high mountains were covered.
The forces
at work during the Flood: huge subterranean and
atmospheric forces were at work. This was no ordinary
rainstorm. Even if all the water in the present
atmosphere precipitated, the amount of water would
cover approximately four inches over the surface
of the Earth. The Biblical downpour necessitates
much larger amounts of water than is present in
our current atmosphere. What happened is the “waters
above” the atmosphere that formed a water canopy,
were released.
The devastation
caused by the Flood: everything on Earth outside
of the Ark died.
The consequences
of the Flood: A new kind of atmosphere was produced.
(1) Sedimentary rock covered most of the Earth.
There are oil, coal, and salt deposits around
the world. Oil comes from buried plants and animals;
coal comes from buried plants; salt deposits can
come from ocean water in which the salt quickly
precipitated. For fossils to form, animals and
plants need to be rapidly buried by sediment.
In sites throughout the world there are fossil
graveyards, where there was a virtual mass burial
of thousands or millions of animals at one place
and time.
It’s
important that we believe that the Flood was a
real, historical event because it really happened,
and because this part of the divinely inspired
Torah teaches it and because the rest of the Word
of God teaches it (2), because there are flood
traditions in many other cultures (3), and because
of the important moral and spiritual lessons that
are to be learned from the Flood.
The evidences
for the Flood - things like the changed atmosphere,
sedimentary rock, oil, coal, salt, fossils - should
be a constant reminder that God hates sin, and
sin brings judgment, and we need to turn from
anything that goes against the Word and will of
God and be in a right relationship with the Lord.
Whenever you use natural gas, gasoline, oil, coal
you are using the remnants of debris from the
Flood and you should think that God will surely
judge sin. When you season your food with salt,
and most salt is taken from salt deposits on land,
you are using something deposited by the Flood.
Whenever you see fossils or sedimentary rock you
should think of the Flood and judgment. Whenever
you consider this post-Flood atmosphere, you should
think of the Flood and the sureness of the Lord’s
judgment of sin.
This
great judgment of the past should also remind
us that another great judgment is coming in the
future. When the Seed of the Woman finally came,
He told us that there will be many similarities
between days of Noach and the world of the Last
Days. Therefore we can expect a rapid increase
in the population, technological advancement,
the pursuit of pleasure and the desires of the
flesh along with a rejection of the values of
the Spirit; an increase of the demonic; an increase
of violence; many of the righteous falling away;
the majority of the world rejecting the call to
repentance and ignoring the warnings of coming
judgment.
We don’t
want to be among those who, in the Last Days,
make fun of the hope of the sure return of the
Messiah, denying that powerful divine intervention
has happened and will happen again. Creation happened.
The Flood really happened. Messiah will come to
save His chosen ones and judge the God-ignorers
and God-opposers, and that the present Heavens
and Earth are being reserved for fire, kept for
the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly
men (2 Peter 3:3-7).
Notes
1. During
the Flood, the water canopy collapsed quickly,
and the uniform temperature all over the Earth
would have quickly changed. A sudden and permanent
temperature drop would have resulted in the polar
regions. Do we find evidence of this? Yes. "Hippopotamuses,
sabertooth tigers, elephants and other low-latitude
animals are found buried in the tundras, freshly
preserved... some are even edible today. This
requires that the animals were frozen quickly
after burial... Furthermore, the climate reversal
must have been permanent or the animals would
have completely rotted during the following summers".
Waters Above pp. 187-88
Frozen
mammoth carcasses have been found throughout Siberia
and Alaska. In the inhospitable wastes of Siberia,
where neither tree nor shrub will grow, there
are found below the ground vast quantities of
bones of elephants. It is inconceivable how elephants
could ever have survived there under present day
circumstances. Some of the carcasses of these
huge animals have been so well preserved in the
frozen tundra that bears and wolves, and in some
cases even men can feed on them. Phenomena like
this suggests a catastrophe of continental proportions,
a sudden deep freeze that happened thousands of
years ago and which has never been unfrozen to
this day. How can a climate suddenly change at
a rate rapid enough to deep freeze many of the
animals and permanently change the climate of
an entire continent from a semi-tropical one to
a arctic one? The Waters Above pp. 312-14
The Bereskova
mammoth found in 1901 had meat that looked fresh
enough to eat. The dogs of the expedition willingly
ate it. The most amazing discovery of all was
when they opened up the stomach the scientists
found 24 pounds of vegetation in it, some in an
excellently preserved state. For plants to be
preserved in an elephant's stomach, the temperature
would have to have been lowered dramatically in
a very short time. Otherwise the digestive juices
in the stomach would dissolve them. The fact that
there were seeds in the vegetable matter indicates
that the elephant was peacefully grazing in late
summer. Within hours it had been frozen and never
thawed until 1901. If the meat was bad the dogs
would have gotten ill. For meat to be frozen and
still good temperatures would have had to drop
to the -100 or -150 degree range. Yet there in
the stomach is the presence of summer flowers!
The Waters Above pp. 311-408
2. We
have the testimony of King David: The Lord
sat as King at the Flood (Psalm 29:10). We
have the Testimony of Isaiah: This is like
the days of Noach to Me; when I swore that the
waters of Noach should not flood the Earth again
(Isaiah 54:9). We have the testimony of the Ezekiel:
Even though these three men, Noah, Daniel and
Job were in its midst, by their own righteousness
they could only deliver themselves (Ezekiel
14:14). Noah was a real historical person. We
have the testimony of Simon Peter, one of the
Apostles: by the word of God the Heavens existed
long ago and the Earth was formed out of water
and by water, through which the world at that
time was destroyed, being flooded with water
(2 Peter 3:5-6). Most weighty of all is Messiah
Yeshua's reference to the Genesis Flood. As the
Messiah, and the supreme Prophet, and the infallible
Son of God, Yeshua's attitude toward these events
should be final and authoritative. And just
as it happened in the days of Noah, so it shall
be also in the days of the Son of Man: they were
eating, they were drinking, they were marrying,
they were being given in marriage, until the day
that Noah entered the Ark, and the Flood came
and destroyed them all (Luke 17:26-27).
3. Over
270 cultures retained a memory of the Flood -
but the only completely accurate account is that
which is recorded here in the Word of God. Gleason
Archer compares the account of the Flood in the
Bible to the flood stories of other cultures.
"One notable feature of the biblical account
sets it off from all other flood narratives discoverable
among the nations. Flood sagas have been preserved
among the most diverse tribes and the nations
all over the world: the Babylonians (who called
their Noah) by the name of Utnapishtim), the Sumerians
with their Zuisidru, the Greeks with their Deucalion,
the Hindus with their Manu, the Chinese with their
Fah-he, the Hawaiians with their Nu-u, the Mexican
Indians with their Tezpi, the Algonquins with
their Manabozho. All these relate how this lone
survivor (with perhaps his wife, children, and
a friend or two) was saved from the destruction
of a universal flood and was then faced with the
task of repopulating a devastated Earth after
the flood waters had receded. But of all these
accounts, only the Genesis record indicates with
the exactitude of a diary or ship's log the date
of the inception of the Deluge (when Noah was
exactly 600 years old, on the seventeenth day
of the seventh month of that same year), the length
of the actual downpour (40 days), the length of
time that the water-depth remained at its maximum
(150 days), the date at which the tops of the
mountains became visible once more (on the first
day of the tenth month), the length of time until
the first evidence of new plant growth was brought
to Noah in the beak of his dove (47 days, according
to Gen. 8:6-9), and the precise day of Noah's
emerging from the Ark onto Mount Ararat (his 601st
year, the first day of the first month). Here
we have a personal record that apparently goes
back to Noah himself." The other accounts
are less detailed and are more garbled accounts
of the original which has been preserved in the
Bible. Encyclopedia Of Bible Difficulties
p.83.
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