The Many and the Few

[0:00] So we're going to read now from God's Word. And we're going to read in Genesis chapter 5 in the Old Testament. And we'll read the whole of the chapter. That's verses 1 to 32.

[0:11] Genesis chapter 5, from the beginning. Hear the Word of God. This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.

[0:23] Male and female, he created them. And he blessed them and named them man, or Adam, when he created. When they were created. When Adam had lived for 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth.

[0:37] The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. When Seth had lived for 105 years, he fathered Enosh.

[0:52] Seth lived after he fathered Enosh for 807 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died. When Enosh had lived for 90 years, he fathered Canaan.

[1:05] Enosh lived after he had fathered Canaan for 815 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died. When Canaan had lived for 70 years, he fathered Mahalaleel.

[1:17] Canaan lived after he fathered Mahalaleel for 840 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Canaan were 910 years, and he died. When Mahalaleel had lived for 65 years, he fathered Jared.

[1:31] Mahalaleel lived after he fathered Jared for 830 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Mahalaleel were 895 years, and he died. When Jared had lived for 162 years, he fathered Enosh.

[1:46] Jared lived after he fathered Enosh for 800 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died. When Enoch had lived for 65 years, he fathered Methuselah.

[2:00] Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah for 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

[2:15] When Methuselah had lived for 187 years, he fathered Lamech. Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech for 782 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died.

[2:31] When Lamech had lived for 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.

[2:45] Lamech lived after he fathered Noah for 595 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died.

[2:58] After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Amen. May the Lord add his blessing to this reading of his own most holy word.

[3:08] Let's again bow for a moment of prayer. Let us pray. Our loving Father, we give thee thanks for thy word and thy truth. And we know, Lord, that sometimes the narratives and the accounts in it are more interesting or involved than at other times.

[3:25] But we know that all of thy word is truth. And we pray that thou wouldst bless it to us and make us grateful for all that thou givest. Help us to see what thou wouldst teach us through thy word.

[3:36] And bless it to us now today. And continue with us, Lord, as we seek to continue with thee. That thou wouldst open our eyes unto thy truth. That thou wouldst open our hearts to receive that which thou wouldst say to us.

[3:49] And that thou wouldst make thy word come alive to us now. Forgive our sins and continue with us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Now the purpose of this fifth chapter in Genesis is to bridge the ten generations between the fall and the flood.

[4:08] And strange as it may seem to you, it is in fact only ten generations between the fall of Adam and Eve and the flood with Noah. Adam is the first generation. Noah is the tenth.

[4:19] And difficult as it may be to imagine, Noah represents the first generation. To be born out with the lifetime of Adam.

[4:30] I'll say that again. Noah represents the first generation to be born out with the lifetime of Adam. The extraordinary longevity of these patriarchs before the flood.

[4:44] And their apparent capacity to keep on reproducing, even as their own grandchildren and great-grandchildren were doing the same. means that the population of the earth.

[4:55] The first generation must have been growing exponentially. Within this rapidly expanding population. We are told the name of only one individual in each generation.

[5:11] Because the chapter is not seeking to give us a detailed and comprehensive description of the entire human race and how it expands and where they all migrated to.

[5:22] But rather the chapter is tracing the descent of the covenant line. Multitudes of people are brought into the world in the course of this chapter.

[5:33] The many. And yet we have the names of only one in each generation. Tracing the covenant line. The few. And within that covenant line, of course, not all of them would be as perhaps godly as they should be.

[5:44] But we'll come to that in due course. We see in chapter 4 particularly something of the early development of Cain's rebel tribe.

[5:56] And we see that defiance and rebellion against the Lord does not mean that one will necessarily be devoid of earthbound skills and abilities.

[6:07] Cain's descendants for all their godlessness became masters of animal husbandry, of iron and metal work and of music as we see there in chapter 4.

[6:19] We can see also that just because Cain's tribe had set themselves in defiance against the one true God. It did not automatically mean that Adam's covenant line was necessarily all that brilliant and devout in its own relationship to the Lord or its own godliness.

[6:38] Any more than say being a citizen of a Protestant country necessarily makes one a devout, Reformation-loving, Bible-believing Christian. You just happen to belong to that particular culture or line.

[6:52] This, I would suggest to you, is the significance of the birth of Seth, whose name means appointed. Chapter 4, verse 25, we read, Adam knew his wife again, and she bare a son and called his name Seth.

[7:07] For God said she hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. In other words, for all the increase of Adam and Eve's progeny, there had not until now arisen a man of faith and devotion to the Lord who could replace righteous Abel, as the Bible calls him.

[7:27] With the birth of Seth, there was at last one who would love the Lord and serve him with the faith and fear that Adam would have taught his children.

[7:38] We have to conclude that Adam would have taught his children to serve and to worship the Lord. Because remember, when Cain and Abel are young and they each bring their offering to the Lord, why would they do that? Why would they each be bringing a sacrifice to the Lord unless they've been taught to worship the Lord?

[7:54] And the only person who could have taught them to worship the Lord would be Adam and Eve. Their parents would have taught them to worship the Lord. Not that Seth was the only child, I think we should take it, conceived and born after Abel until Adam was 130.

[8:09] But that he was the first who would be elect and predestined to continue the covenant line with such faith and devotion to the living God as would outshine all the lives of his brothers and sisters before him and after him.

[8:26] Such that, as we said in the genealogy of chapter 5 here, it is as though there were no others. Because that's how it's described. As though there were no others but that individual in each case.

[8:40] We know that there were others. You know, chapter 5 verse 4, The days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were 800 years and he begat sons and daughters. So there were more. But the scriptural record is not concerned with them.

[8:53] It is concerned with the covenant line. And the covenant line is distinguished from all other branches of humanity by its devotion to the worship of the one true God.

[9:04] And this, we said, was the significance of what we read, for example, in chapter 4, in the final verse, verse 26, And to Seth, to him also that was born a son, he called his name Enosh.

[9:16] Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. Not that nobody had ever worshipped the Lord before in the past. We just mentioned that. But that now there was arisen a strand when the human family, in the human family, Which defined itself by this worship of the Lord, the living God.

[9:36] Now, another way of translating verse 26 in chapter 4 might be coming from the Hebrew. Then began men to call upon themselves by the name of the Lord.

[9:47] Or alternatively, then began men to call themselves by the name of the Lord. In other words, they took God's name upon themselves as their defining characteristic.

[10:01] Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. Or to call it upon themselves, or to call themselves by this name. Thus we have, with Seth and his descendants, there is now a people upon the earth who define themselves over against all others by their relationship to the Lord, the living God.

[10:23] This is the covenant line. Those within it, like those within any Christian family or culture or community, might be more or less motivated in their personal relationship with the Lord.

[10:37] But his name, his worship, is their identity. And this chapter is tracing the descent of the covenant line through its first ten generations.

[10:49] The longevity of these pre-flood patriarchs throws up some surprising mathematical facts. We've already mentioned that Noah, the tenth generation, represents the first generation to be born out with the lifetime of Adam.

[11:07] Noah's father, Lamech, is 56 years old when Adam dies. And Seth, the second generation, dies only 14 years before the birth of Noah, the tenth generation.

[11:21] You know, eight generations later. When Enoch, the seventh generation, is taken up to heaven, not only are his son and his grandson still on the earth, but the five previous generations of his forefathers.

[11:34] In other words, every one of them except Adam himself is still alive. Now, if we assume that the other branches of Adam's descendants are as long-lived and as productive as the covenant line, then it means that by the time we get to the Lord's intention to bring the flood that we see in chapter 6 and verse 5, we'll read that, And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

[12:03] And it repented the Lord that he had made men on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth. By the time we get to that stage, the earth is populated then not only by generations of wayward youth, but by multitudes of all different ages and generations, including what we would today consider extremely elderly people, whose vigor and strength appears to be unabated, and whose capacity for sin is likewise undiminished.

[12:42] When the Lord is absent from a life, there is neither grace nor restraint. Infancy does not equate to innocence, and age does not of itself confer sanctity.

[12:56] Any who might trust in their old age and long experience of life to have somehow earned the respect or acceptance of the Lord will find themselves tragically mistaken.

[13:09] Cain was given his whole life in which to repent, but we never read that he did. We likewise are given our whole lives in which to repent and turn to Christ.

[13:21] And whether those lives be long or short, this life is given to us that we might be reconciled to the Lord. But without Christ, we are simply, as Ezekiel says of Jerusalem and Samaria in chapter 23, at verse 43, we're simply old in adulteries.

[13:41] That is our spiritual infidelity against the Lord. And as Isaiah said in chapter 65, verse 20, the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed.

[13:52] Now, if you are now of a senior age, and have not yet closed in with Christ as your Savior, then allow me in all love as a friend to impress upon you the urgency of your need.

[14:11] All of your life, you will have been putting off this commitment to Christ. Waiting for what? Waiting till you were old? Well, when does old become old enough?

[14:24] You know, when you're young, you believe in all sincerity, and it's not a joke, when you're young, you believe that old age begins about 30. I remember thinking that myself, that people start being really old when they hit 30.

[14:38] And as we go through life, some people have passed the flower of their youth, putting off the challenge, believing that commitment to Christ will somehow become easier with age.

[14:50] But it doesn't, does it? Like learning a new language or passing your driving test, it doesn't get easier. It's just as hard, if not harder, and it's just as much a life changer as ever it was.

[15:04] The idea that if I come to Christ and I'm old, it won't change my life too much. It's going to change your life. It's going to change your life no matter when it happens. But it can be done.

[15:16] Because Christ will give you the strength and grace if you ask Him. It can be done. It can be done. And it must be done. For though I cannot, in truth, tell you that it's easier now to come to Christ in the seniority of your age, I may certainly assure you that if anything, it is the more urgent.

[15:38] What do you wait for now if you're outside of Christ? Damascus Road? Well, you have no promise of Damascus Road, nor did I, nor any other saved believer.

[15:52] They might get it, or they might not. But we have no promise of it. But we do have this. The infallible Word of God, the Word which He has committed to writing, which we may present before Him at His throne at the last day, and say, It said, Ask, and it shall be given you.

[16:14] Seek, and ye shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth, and he that seeketh findeth, and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. That's what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount.

[16:27] Matthew 7, verses 7 and 8. So ask, and ask, and ask again, like the Syrophoenician woman. In the coasts of Tyre, who would not give up, despite the rebuff she received from Jesus, not once, but twice.

[16:43] And still she kept asking. The infallible Word of God tells us, John chapter 6, verse 37, All that the Father giveth me, shall come to me.

[16:54] And him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out. Damascus Road is but a means to an end. You have no promise of that particular means, but you have a promise of its end.

[17:08] It's objective. If you will ask, and keep on asking, ask, seek, knock, hammer at the door of heaven, implede the throne of grace, and give the Lord no rest nor peace.

[17:24] If we can say that in all reverence. Give the Lord no rest until he fulfill his infallible Word in you. Old age does not make the task easier, but it lends an urgency.

[17:38] Not because we know how many days are left to us, but because we can see for a certainty how many have passed, and how quickly.

[17:49] We cannot then, as we look at this chapter, we cannot examine in detail everyone named in this genealogy, but I would suggest we look in passing at four of them.

[18:02] Four particular names. Firstly, Enos. Third generation. Verses 6 to 11 there. The exact meaning of whose name we don't know, but it comes from a root which is a poetical designation for man or mankind.

[18:19] A closely related word in Hebrew means inclined towards someone. Friendly, sociable towards them. It may only be wishful thinking, but is it too much to speculate that with the birth and naming of Enoch, his own father Seth, who was the replacement for righteous Abel, remember, might have been envisaging the hope of mankind made new, inclined towards the Lord in friendship and faithfulness.

[18:52] Perhaps the new man that Paul writes to the Ephesians in chapter 4, verse 24, and that he put on the new man, he writes, who after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

[19:05] Of course, we cannot say this for certain, that that's what Seth is thinking of when he names his son Enos, but we do know for a certainty that with the birth of Enos in chapter 4, verse 26, the last verse of the previous chapter, a branch of Adam's seed was confirmed and established that identified itself by its relationship to Jehovah the Lord, calling themselves by his name, calling upon his name, calling his name down upon them.

[19:36] And this cannot be without significance. So firstly, Enos. Secondly, Enoch. Seventh generation, verses 18 to 24.

[19:48] Despite the similarity of their names in English, or in Gaelic for that matter, Enos and Enoch come from very different words in Hebrew. Enoch means teacher or tuition.

[20:01] And we know from the book of Jude that Enoch was very much a preacher and a teacher, though doubtless his message was not popular in his generation. Jude, verse 14 and 15.

[20:12] Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints to execute judgment upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against them.

[20:33] Not mincing his words, then. We know from the letters to the Hebrews that Enoch was a man full of faith and that he pleased God in his life and witness.

[20:44] Hebrews 11, verses 5 and 6. By faith, Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him. For before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God.

[20:59] But without faith, it is impossible to please him. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

[21:10] From these New Testament passages, we know that the wickedness for which God eventually destroyed the world was already rampant in the human race at least 700 years before the flood.

[21:27] and that in testifying against it, Enoch was all but unique. Covenant line or not, his own sons and daughters or not, he alone is the one we read of that he pleased God and was translated because of it taken up to heaven.

[21:45] A preacher of righteousness, yes, but all but unique amongst that line in that day. A lone voice of godliness in a dark and evil world.

[21:57] In being taken to glory without tasting death, Enoch was glorified of God, consequently, and the truth of all his teachings borne out. Elijah, of course, was likewise taken to glory without death, but he's the only other one.

[22:11] That's only two people in the entire human history. Of all the other patriarchs, we read the solemn roll call of their mortality like a slowly tolling bell.

[22:24] We see at verse 5, all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. Verse 8, all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died.

[22:35] Likewise, verse 11, and all the days of Enos were 905 years, and he died. Likewise, at verse 14, all the days of Canaan, 910 years, and he died, and so on.

[22:47] In each case, each one is living for almost a millennia, but they still die at the end of the day. No matter how long they lived or how many children they begat, the curse from the garden would catch up with each one of them, and he died.

[23:04] This is so, even of the one recorded as being the oldest man that ever lived. So we'll look thirdly, our third example then, at Methuselah, eighth generation, verses 21 to 27.

[23:16] His age at death was 969 years, well and truly the record for humanity, although, I have to say, just a personal note, I always feel a bit sorry for Jared, I think that's his grandfather, who, you know, only seven years short, at 962, and nobody ever remembers him or gets a look in, but we're digressing here.

[23:36] He lived 969 years, that's the record for humanity, and yet still he died. Not only so, but death was written into his very name, which roughly translates as, he dies, and descending forth, or he dies, it is sent.

[23:57] We can't say it exactly, because as you're translating from one language to another, there's different ways that you could apply the particular word. So he dies, it is descending forth, or he dies, it is sent.

[24:07] Remember that Methuselah's father was godly Enoch, who at 65 was comparatively young when Methuselah was born. If anyone was in a position to bestow a prophetic name upon their son, it was Enoch.

[24:23] And of course, if you do the arithmetic from this chapter, with the age of Noah when the flood came, who is 600, as we know, and chapter 7, verse 11, you can see that, you'll see that Methuselah was indeed 969 in the year the flood was sent.

[24:39] Now, Jewish tradition holds that Methuselah died seven days before the flood struck, at the very time when God told Noah to enter the ark.

[24:50] Chapter 7, verse 4, for yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights, and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth.

[25:00] God is giving Noah a week's warning, and Jewish tradition is that Methuselah died with that week to go, seven days before the flood came.

[25:11] Well, it's possible, of course, but it's ultimately speculation. The old man may indeed have been a true worshiper of God, but apart from Enoch and Noah, we can only ever speculate as to the true godliness or otherwise of any in this early part of the covenant line.

[25:29] There were many kings of Israel, for example, in the ancestry of our Lord, but few enough of them were men of God. We have to reckon with the very real possibility that Methuselah may indeed have died in the flood.

[25:44] In chapter 7, at verse 1, when we read, the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark, for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

[25:55] It could simply be a reference to Noah's own generation, possibly the 10th generation since Adam, but at chapter 6, at verse 8, we read, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.

[26:10] It doesn't say anything about Methuselah. It doesn't say that he found grace in the eyes of the Lord. It doesn't say that God found him righteous in his generation, and the one thing we can definitely say that whilst at chapter 6, at verse 8, when it says Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord, there's still a hundred years to go before the flood comes.

[26:29] Methuselah still has a hundred years to live, and while Noah was a preacher of righteousness, 2 Peter 2, verse 5, no doubt witnessing while he was working on the ark, let's be charitable, yes, and hope that Methuselah did indeed die the week before the flood, for one thing we can say with certainty is he definitely wasn't on the ark with Noah.

[26:57] He definitely wasn't saved by the ark, but rather, as his name suggests, he dies and descending forth, or he dies and it is sent.

[27:09] Either way, he dies. Fourthly, and finally then, of these characters, we'll look at Noah himself briefly. Tenth generation, whose name means either comfort or rest, or one might interpret as some modern translations do, than relief.

[27:27] Now, given that his father Lamech would have lived through 95 of the 100 years of the building and preparation of the ark, one can only take it that the comfort or rest that Noah would bring would be a rest from the intensive toil and labor of the ground by focusing on the toil of building the ark.

[27:49] You know, if we're going to turn away from the world and turn to the Lord, it doesn't mean you get an easy life. It doesn't mean that your work stops. It just means that your work changes. The nature of the focus of your work changes.

[28:00] Something which alone, working on the ark, something which alone would save human life when the flood came. The flood which, of course, put an end to all human labor and toil for that generation, at least.

[28:14] One is reminded, of course, of the voice of heaven that we read of in Revelation 14 at verse 13. I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth.

[28:27] Yea, saith the Spirit that they may rest from their labors and their works do follow them. They may rest from their labors and their works do follow them.

[28:38] Hebrews chapter 4 verse 9 tells us that there remaineth there for a rest to the people of God. But that rest is to be found only in Christ.

[28:49] It's not idleness and inactivity. You know, when Naomi says to Ruth, My daughter, will I not seek rest for you in the home of her husband? It's not going to be that she's going to be lying back on the couch letting everybody else do all the work.

[29:03] It would be a hard slog being a wife and a mother in Palestine in those ancient days. If Ruth is going to find rest in the home of her husband, if we are going to rest from our labors, it's not going to mean idleness.

[29:16] It's going to mean being in the safety and protection of our kinsman, redeemer, of the lover of our souls, of the husband of our heart, being under his protection and care and, as it were, giving of ourselves in labor for his sake.

[29:33] Giving of ourselves in joyful work. I don't know what we'll be doing in heaven, but I certainly know we won't be just idly twiddling our thumbs. We will be taken up with the love and service and delight in the Lord.

[29:46] It won't just be idleness, but there remaineth a rest to the people of God, but that rest is found only in Christ. Noah was a forerunner, a prefiguring of the Savior who was to come.

[30:00] He, by his obedience, would save his own family from the deluge, and although multitudes would have been invited, though many would have been invited into the ark during the long preparation of its building, none would come in the end save Noah's own family and children.

[30:20] And none but Christ's own shall respond to him at the last. His children, his bride, in other words, like Noah, his wife and his children. That's who will come to the Lord.

[30:31] That's who will come into his ark. That is who will receive and respond to him. There is the many who are invited. There is the few who will come. And Noah is a forerunner, a prefiguring of Christ in this way.

[30:45] Christ, of course, is their Savior and all else will count it beneath them to respond to his invitation, to repent and believe, to quote Hebrews again, chapter 3, verse 19.

[30:57] So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief. That's a reference to the Israelites entering the promised land. It could just as easily be a reference to the people in Noah's day.

[31:07] Entering into the ark could just as easily be a reference to us. Entering in or not entering in to the salvation that the Lord has prepared for them that love him. So we see they could not enter in because of unbelief.

[31:22] All your life you work, you toil, you struggle. What was it all for? Would you not love to have such a Savior of whom it might be said, this same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands because of the ground which the Lord hath cursed.

[31:42] Want to give meaning and purpose to your life, to your labor, to your toil? There is such a Savior and his name is Jesus. There is a purpose to your life and it is for him.

[31:57] He can gather up your labor, your toil, your burdens and turn them to his glory and give meaning and purpose and fulfillment and rest. There is such a Savior and there is an urgency about his invitation and his call as each generation rises and passes away.

[32:23] Now we may tend to think, oh but the Lord has passed me by. The Lord hasn't blessed me the way he's blessed other people. Well let's just look at Noah for one second before we finish here. Remember that Noah here, it says he was 500 years old and he begat Shem, Ham and Japheth.

[32:39] Now we are not to take it they were triplets necessarily but whether we take it that he didn't have any children until he was 500 years old or by the time he was 500 years old he still only had these three sons because we don't have anything in scripture to suggest there were more than them.

[32:55] that makes him practically barren in biblical terms because everybody else even in the covenant line let alone the rest are churning out kids like there's no tomorrow.

[33:08] For him to be that age and have only three sons makes him practically barren and he would be thinking why haven't I been blessed? As other people, look at all the children they've got, look at all their families expanding and the wealth increasing and here I am slogging away for a hundred years building a boat on dry land everybody laughing at me only my family paying any attention working away we don't know what for but we go by faith not by sight it would have seemed as if he was as unfruitful as anything and yet what benefit was all the fruitfulness all the blessing all the wealth all the children grandchildren great grandchildren of all the lost more souls to be lost in the deluge when it came and after the flood of course the Lord did bless Noah and his posterity he did increase them and the whole earth was overspread with his descendants so the Lord knew exactly what he was doing and the Lord knew exactly the timing that he intended to bring and you may be in the position of thinking well the Lord has passed me by

[34:19] I'm not fruitful I'm not profitable I'm not doing much at all even though I'm trusting in the Lord what good is it doing me everybody else is being blessed everybody else is I'm barren here I'm not doing much I'm not able to do much look my life is so empty God knows exactly what he is doing you must trust him just as Noah trusted him the many will not the few will do so here in this chapter we have ten generations represented how many generations do you think we have sitting here in this church my own mother is going to be 93 this year if she was with me in church today she's not she lives in a different part of the country but if she was here with me in church today and so was my wife and my children and those of my children who have children that would be four generations now that's quite a chunk all to have in one one place at one time I don't think we've got that amongst any of us here four generations all sitting together in church and it's unlikely even in the Lord's providence that she would be spared long enough to live to see her infant great grandchildren grow up and have children of their own so I wouldn't expect to see more than four generations if we could squeeze them all in the one place but what do we have really here two three generations at most in this chapter we've got ten how many here our generation begins when we are conceived in the womb our generation ends when we breathe our last breath and overlapping with that generation is all those who are old when we were born and all those who are babies when we die and all the different mixture in between it means that regardless of who may rise or fall or come or go we can truthfully say this is your generation this is your day this is the day that the Lord has made now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation this is your hour your opportunity ten generations four generations three one two this is your generation this is your day and this is God's word and the offer that he makes to sinners whatever their age or stage in life don't listen necessarily to the words of men but listen to the word of God this is his word hear him and let him determine whether you will be with the many or the few let us pray our gracious and loving

[37:11] Lord we ask thee now to bless thy word to us and to make us so Lord to pay heed and attention to that which thou dost reveal for we see within even that which may seem the most bland or obscure of thy word and thy truth that is rich minds of grace Lord that we may exploit and discover riches therein for ourselves help us we pray bless to us all that we receive and continue with us now forgiving our sin for Jesus sake amen we'll just close reading a few verses again from metrical psalm number 24 metrical psalm 24 I'll read the verses 3 to 6 who is the man that shall ascend into the hill of God or who within his holy place shall have a firm abode whose hands are clean whose heart is pure and unto vanity who hath not lifted up his soul nor sworn deceitfully he from the eternal shall receive the blessing him upon and righteousness even from the God of his salvation this is the generation that after him inquire oh Jacob who do seek thy face with their whole hearts desire amen thanks be to God we'll stand for the benediction now may the grace of our Lord

[38:28] Jesus Christ the love of God our heavenly Father and the communion of God the Holy Ghost rest upon you and remain with you each one this day and forevermore amen thank you