Sunday, March 3, 2013

Genesis 5 & 6

 

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Genesis 5: This chapter leads into civilization. God created man in His own image. Male and female. I believe this is referring to more than the emotional attributes of God, which would include a leader and a nurturer. I believe our actual likeness resembles God’s form. Yes, I know God is a spirit… but He is a speaking spirit. All through the Bible we are told we are to “speak” as well… and to call those things that be not as though they were, just as God called the world into being by speaking. I believe the “Male and female” aspects are part of God’s nature as well. God is strong, and powerful, and determined… yet He is also sensitive, caring and nurturing.

He created them male and female, and “He blessed them.” (v.2) I love that part… a blessing STRAIGHT from the Lord. So often we lose sight of the fact that we have that too. Each of us were fashioned and created by the Master.

And then Adam had a son… born in HIS likeness. And so humanity began. … and the rest of chapter 5 leads us through the family tree. We meet Enoch.. Methuselah’s father. His legacy is that he did NOT die. He was 365 years old when God “took” him, because he WALKED with God. The Hebrew word for “took” here is laqach, which means to snatch out, to remove, to capture, to carry off. Oh to be such a friend of God’s, that He just snatches you out of this world, body and all. He walked with God… and God spared him from the curse of death. Further down the family tree, we are introduced to Enoch’s great-grandson, Noah.

Genesis 6… This chapter appears to be where God’s heart starts breaking. In vs. 3 He comments that He realizes man is flesh. In vs. 5 He reveals that He sees EVERY intent of the thoughts of man’s heart is toward wickedness and evil. Does that change anything for you? Does that change how you live your life? Do you have a grasp of the fact that God knows EVERY intent of your heart??… and He loves you anyway… in spite of it all. So often we are afraid to let other people see who we really are, because if they saw us they might reject us. But not God. He sees… His heart may break, but it is out of love for you.

We are given one of the most basic principles of the Bible here. When you connect yourself with the world, you drift away from your God. In verse 2 we are told that the sons of God married the daughters of men. Matthew Henry’s Commentary explains this passage as this:     “The sons of God (that is, the professors of religion, who were called by the name of the Lord, and called upon that name), married the daughters of men, that is, those that were profane, and strangers to God and godliness. The posterity of Seth did not keep by themselves, as they ought to have done, both for the preservation of their own purity and in detestation of the apostasy. They intermingled themselves with the excommunicated race of Cain: They took them wives of all that they chose. But what was amiss in these marriages? (1.) They chose only by the eye: They saw that they were fair, which was all they looked at. (2.) They followed the choice which their own corrupt affections made: they took all that they chose, without advice and consideration. But, (3.) That which proved of such bad consequence to them was that they married strange wives, were unequally yoked with unbelievers.”
Compromise. When we begin to compromise in any area of life, we begin to fall away.

Vs. 6 may be one of the saddest verses in the Bible. God saw that man was evil… and He was grieved in His heart, and sorry that He made man.  May I never grieve the Lord again… may He never be sorry that He made me.
So it’s time to wipe the earth clean and start over… so back to Methuselah’s grandson.  God chooses Noah… a righteous man that God says is “Blameless in his time.” God gives Noah precise detailed instructions on building the ark. God is truly a God of order… and precision. Lord, may I not miss the blueprint you have designed for my life! Thank you for sparing my life, Lord, when I was doing foolish things and walked away. Thank you for forgiving me.
spontex-moppets-noahs-ark-small-90346 (photo: Spontex Moppets print ad)

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