[0:00] Please take your Bibles and let's open them up this morning to Genesis chapter 5.! If you are just joining us for the first time, we've been preaching through the book of Genesis.
[0:13] We started chapter 1 verse 1 and we've made our way all the way to chapter 5. And one of the benefits of preaching the way that we do, working through books of the Bible, is that I feel like it really gives us a good understanding of the book as a whole.
[0:27] And it teaches us to read our Bible and understand passages in context. One of the challenges is I can't skip over difficult passages. And that's good and bad.
[0:39] So this morning, we get to preach a passage, I get to preach a passage, that if I were just picking a text on my own, I probably never would wind up here in Genesis chapter 5.
[0:50] But I hope what we'll see as we dive in together is that all Scripture is God-breathed. and is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking.
[1:02] That the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. This Scripture is good for you. The Lord has good in it for us to see this morning. So if you would, let's turn to Genesis chapter 5.
[1:13] And I will read from chapter 5 through chapter 6 verse 8. A little bit of a longer passage this morning. If you're physically able, let's stand in honor of the reading of God's Word this morning.
[1:23] This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God.
[1:37] Male and female, he created them. And he blessed them and named them man when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness.
[1:48] After his image, he named him Seth. 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.
[2:01] When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh. Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died.
[2:14] When Enosh had lived 90 years, he fathered Kenan. Enosh lived after he fathered Kenan 815 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died.
[2:28] When Kenan had lived 70 years, he fathered Mahalalel. Kenan lived after he fathered Mahalalel 840 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died.
[2:40] When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he fathered Jared. Mahalalel lived after he fathered Jared 830 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Mahalalel were 895 years, and he died.
[2:56] When Jared had lived 162 years, he fathered Enoch. Jared lived after he fathered Enoch 800 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died.
[3:10] When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years, and had other sons and daughters.
[3:22] Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he fathered Lamech.
[3:36] Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech 782 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died. When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, Out of the ground that the Lord had cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.
[4:02] Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died.
[4:13] After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth. When man began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive, and they took as their wives any they chose.
[4:34] Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man, and they bore children to them.
[4:52] These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
[5:05] And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.
[5:25] But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of the Lord endures forever.
[5:36] Father, we praise you for your word. We praise you, Father, for your spirit. And we pray now as we receive this word, would you speak to us through the preaching of your word?
[5:49] Would you empower it by your spirit so that we might see Christ in it? We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Well, you may have heard the phrase, big problems require big solutions.
[6:06] Or maybe you've heard it like this, band-aids don't fix bullet holes. Now, the bigger the problem is, oftentimes the more drastic the solution needs to be.
[6:17] And parents realize this as we raise our kids. Sometimes a small infraction just requires a little bit of discipline. But as problems start to mount, instincts ought to kick in.
[6:27] And you ought to realize something drastic has to happen here. Big changes need to be made. You see it in businesses. Every now and then a business will run into issues. They'll start to flounder and fail.
[6:39] And when that happens, sometimes the only hope is that somebody recognizes it before it's too late and steps in and starts to make some drastic changes. We see it happening in our government right now.
[6:52] Whatever side of the political aisle you may find yourself on, we can all agree our current regime recognizes, believes that there are serious issues, and they're taking some pretty drastic measures to correct it.
[7:06] Well, here in our passage this morning, we are seeing with more and more and more increasing clarity that we have a big problem on our hands.
[7:18] Now, we're backing all the way up again, all the way back to Adam, and we're seeing this terrible reign of sin, starting with Adam and continuing on down the line in every single individual born of the line of Adam.
[7:32] Things are not getting better here. Things are getting worse, and we see that a band-aid solution is not going to fix the problem. And the big idea here as we look at our text is that God will judge sin.
[7:50] God will address the problem of sin. And the only hope for sinful people is that God Himself will provide a solution to our sin.
[8:02] That God Himself will be gracious to sinners like us. So let's look at our text, and I want to look first at this genealogy in chapter 5. We touched on it last time.
[8:13] We were in Genesis two weeks ago. And what I want to do here is let's just make a few observations here, and then we'll spend the bulk of our time in the first eight verses of chapter 6.
[8:23] So let's look at this genealogy here. And I have three observations for us. For one, I want you to remember here, and this is important, This genealogy is tracing promise.
[8:35] You remember this from last time. The genealogy is a long list of names. It's not just tracing history, although it is history. It's tracing promise.
[8:46] We now know, Genesis 3 verse 15, God has promised us that a sin-defeating, curse-destroying, snake-crushing Messiah is going to come.
[8:58] God promised us this in Genesis 3 verse 15. There is hope now that things won't always be this way. What's been broken will one day be restored.
[9:09] There's hope that on this side of the fall, things are going to get better, even if at the moment it looks impossible. God's promised it. And what we've seen is that this promised offspring will come through the line of Seth, which is why, if we look here again in chapter 5, we're going backwards all the way to Adam, and then he goes from Adam, not to Cain, and not to Abel, but from Adam to Seth.
[9:38] He's tracing this line of promise now through the line of Seth. And from Seth on down the line, ultimately now to Noah. And did you notice just the tone of Lamech as he talked about his son Noah?
[9:53] Did you hear what he said? Look at his words there in verse 29 of chapter 5. He said, This one will bring us relief. This one will bring us rest from our painful toil, relief from the thorns and thistles that have come because of sin.
[10:09] He's longing for the rest and the relief that ultimately only the promised seed of the woman is going to come and to give. So, the line is tracing promise.
[10:20] Another observation here, number two, notice the presence of death. Notice the reign of death over all that are born from Adam. Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
[10:31] Every offspring of the woman here in the line of Adam, here in the line of Seth, came with this expectation that maybe this will be the one, but tragically what we see is death reigns over all of them.
[10:46] It's interesting, you know, as we read this, you know what stands out to us? It's those long spans of life, isn't it? And that's what stands out most to us. We got 930 years of life.
[10:58] These guys are waiting until they're like 500 years before they get married and have kids. 930 years, 807 years, 912 years. That's what stands out to us, but we should remember where we are.
[11:09] We are inches away from the Garden of Eden. We are just steps away from the tree of life and this promise of eternal life. Death is the stranger here.
[11:23] Death is the disruption here. Death is not normal. Death is not a normal part of life. Death is a enemy. And yet we see it reigning here over all.
[11:36] All that is except for one. So third observation here, we notice the presence of hope. Verse 24, chapter 5. The strange story of Enoch.
[11:49] Enoch walked with God and he was not. For God took him. We have this constant refrain.
[11:59] Generation after generation after generation. He was born. He fathered children. And he died. And he died. And he died. And he died. And now Enoch, he was not.
[12:13] For God took him. Now again, I don't know exactly what this looked like, but all I can say is this. Enoch here gives us hope that even on this side of the fall, it is possible, by the grace of God, for sinners like you and me, by the grace of God, to walk with the Lord and escape the curse of sin and death.
[12:37] There is hope here with the story of Enoch. But of course, what we see here is that Enoch is the exception. Sin and death are reigning over all humanity.
[12:47] And as we look now to chapter 6, we get to see just how big of a problem this is and exactly what God is going to do about it. So look there with me to chapter 6.
[12:58] And I have three questions here about chapter 6, verses 1 through 8. And as you read these verses, you probably have a lot more questions than that. All right, but I got three for us and I'll do my best.
[13:11] So we see the effect of sin here in chapter 5. But now we're getting kind of a zoomed in picture, an in-depth look at exactly what's going on here.
[13:22] And I'll just go ahead and tell you, all right, this is my disclaimer to you. These verses are hard, okay? And these are some verses that Christians sometimes back and forth and they don't always agree on the particulars of what's going on.
[13:37] We agree big picture, right? Sin is bad. God is good. God is going to judge sin. We agree big picture. But as we dive in, in the particulars of interpretation here, there are different camps, okay?
[13:51] So let's read it again and then I'm going to give you my best shot, all right? Look there again to chapter 6, verse 1. And I want to ask this question. What's the problem?
[14:03] Question number one is, what's the big issue here? What's going on? What's the big problem? When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose.
[14:23] Then the Lord said, My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years. And the Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them.
[14:38] These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The problem, we can agree clearly, is that the sons of God married the daughters of man.
[14:50] What's not so immediately clear is who these two groups of people are. Who are the sons of God and who are the daughters of man and why is this a problem? So I'll tell you one popular way to understand this, one popular interpretation, and then I'll tell you why I don't think that this is the best way to understand it.
[15:09] Okay? The one popular belief is that the sons of God are fallen angels and the daughters of man are human women.
[15:23] And so in this view, in this interpretation, these fallen angels, they see that the human daughters are attractive, they marry them, and then the product of that relationship, verse 4, is the Nephilim, which in this view is this hybrid race of like half angel, half human, giant warrior people.
[15:44] Okay? That's one interpretation. And so verse 3, in response to this, God saw this as wicked and he brings judgment on the earth for this sin. Now again, just so I'm clear, there are many who hold this view.
[15:59] Many who are much smarter than me. Okay? And that's not saying much, but many who are more intelligent than me hold this view. People I respect, people that have studied into this probably deeper and harder than I have.
[16:11] If you hold this view, we can still be members of the same church, that we can still be friends, we can still get along. Okay? But let me tell you why I don't think this is the best way to understand it. For one, Jesus tells us angels don't get married.
[16:29] Matthew 22, verse 30, Jesus tells us that in the resurrection, people are like angels. How are they like angels, Jesus? They are like angels in the sense that they don't marry or are given in marriage.
[16:45] That's one. Another reason. Verse 4 clearly tells us that the Nephilim, whoever they are, whatever they are, they are not the result of this relationship.
[16:57] Read it again. Verse 4. He tells us the Nephilim were on the earth in those days. What days? in the days when all of this happened. When the sons of God bore children with the daughters of man and also afterward.
[17:13] So the Nephilim, are you tracking with me? The Nephilim can't be the result of this relationship because he tells us they're already there. Both before and after.
[17:24] They're these mighty warrior men, this warrior race of violent people that the Israelites would have been well familiar with. One more objection here. And to me, this is the biggest issue for me here.
[17:38] If this is the problem, if the problem is that angels are coming down and marrying human wives, then why is God's judgment not directed towards the angels?
[17:52] We know what's coming, don't we? We know what's coming next. Everything that follows is that God is going to wipe away the entire population of the earth.
[18:03] All mankind will be destroyed with a flood of God's judgment with the exception of Noah and his family. Clearly, this judgment isn't directed towards angels and their wickedness.
[18:17] It is directed against humans and our wickedness. Why? Because, verse 5, the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil.
[18:36] Continually, we'll come back to that. So, if that's not what's happening here, then what's the problem? What's going on here? And this is, again, this is why context is so important.
[18:49] Church. The Bible is not just a bunch of loosely connected, mishmash, just assembly of random stories. The Bible is not like a greatest hits album that's just composed of singles and put together in one CD here.
[19:07] The book holds together. And if you ever wonder what a passage means, what a difficult passage means, question number one for you ought to be, well, what would context lead me to believe?
[19:21] The problem in my understanding here, the problem is that the one supposedly godly line, the line of Seth, the line of promise that was supposed to be a glimmer of hope in the midst of a dark and fallen world, this line of promise is now intermarrying with non-believers.
[19:47] They are proving themselves to be just like everyone else. In my understanding, the sons of God here aren't fallen angels, the sons of God who, as we saw last time from chapter 4, these are those who began to call upon the name of the Lord.
[20:05] The sons of God are the chosen line of Seth. They are the faithful, at least they're supposed to be. And the daughters of man are those who are faithless, the ungodly, and the wicked.
[20:18] The problem here is that there is no distinction between the righteous and the wicked. They've all become wicked. All of them are polluted with sin.
[20:30] Now you see how this is a big problem. I mean, just think about going forward throughout the rest of Scripture, how the Lord makes it abundantly clear there must be a distinction between the righteous and the wicked.
[20:43] Between my people and between all the rest. He says, purge the evil from among you, he says in Deuteronomy. As we go to the New Testament, 2 Corinthians, Paul tells us, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers.
[20:59] A Christian ought not marry a non-Christian, Paul says. Why not? He says, for what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? These things don't go together.
[21:12] What fellowship has light with darkness? There's a difference. There's a distinction. What accord has Christ with Belial? What portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?
[21:22] What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we, church, are the temple of the living God. As God said, I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people.
[21:38] Therefore, go out from their midst and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing. Then I will welcome you and I will be a father to you and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord God Almighty.
[21:55] Do you hear the distinction the Lord's making? There is to be a dividing line, a clear and obvious distinction between the righteous and the wicked.
[22:10] In fact, this is what was happening here in the local church. This is what church membership does. It's an affirmation that you belong to the Lord.
[22:20] You are marked off from the unbelieving world. The church are those who have been brought out of darkness and into his marvelous light through faith in the Messiah.
[22:31] God. The problem here, I believe, is that this faithful, this line of promise is now intermarrying with non-believers. They are not marrying within the believing community, those who call upon the name of the Lord.
[22:45] They are going outside of those who worship Yahweh and picking for themselves wives, whatever wives that they want. They aren't seeking mates primarily based on spiritual priorities, but rather based on external appearance.
[23:01] And you recognize this is the same sin of the garden repeated, isn't it? Just as Eve saw that the fruit was to be desired, saw that it was good and she took it, so now the sons of God see the forbidden women, they see that they look good and they take for themselves wives as they choose.
[23:27] You see the issue. all are wicked. All are ruled by sin. There is no distinction whatsoever.
[23:39] So now question number two. What is the Lord's response? What is the Lord's response? Look there with me to verse five, chapter six.
[23:51] The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
[24:01] Can we just stop there? Let us let that sink in. How bad has it gotten? Every intention of every thought, of every heart, of every man is only evil all the time.
[24:21] That's the problem. the problem here is that all men and women and children have within them this dreadful sickness of sin.
[24:36] And friend, apart from the grace of God, that is our problem. the second London Baptist confession says it like this, says our first parents, Adam and Eve, by this sin fell from their original righteousness and communion with God and we in them, we in them, whereby death came upon all.
[25:07] You want to know why we die? This is why. All becoming dead in sin, not just physical death, spiritual death, and wholly defiled in all the faculties and parts of soul and body.
[25:21] Every intention of every thought, of every heart, of every man, only evil all the time. Our own statement of faith says something similar, says this, here's what we confess to believe, as a result of the disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, all humanity are now sinners, not by constraint, but by choice, being by nature, utterly devoid of the holiness required by God, and completely inclined to evil.
[25:55] Every intention, of every heart, of every man, is only evil all the time. Do you see that for what it is?
[26:07] Do you believe that to be true about you, apart from the grace of God? Do you believe that to be true about you naturally, by nature and by choice, apart from God's grace? This isn't just a them problem, this is us, apart from the grace of God, by nature.
[26:23] Every intention, of every thought, of your heart, and my heart, is only evil all the time, apart from the grace of God. Do you believe that?
[26:33] sin is not like what Thomas Aquinas and the Catholics said. They said that sin just wounds us.
[26:47] It's a wound, a wound that can be patched up and covered up and cleaned up. It's a wound that can be bandaged. We prefer to think about it like that, don't we?
[27:00] Because we want something that we can just improve upon and make better and just dust off and try harder tomorrow and everything will be okay. The biblical understanding of sin is not that optimistic.
[27:17] The Bible tells us sin has not just wounded us, sin has killed us. By nature, we are dead in our trespasses and sins.
[27:29] We are not just in need of a bandage. We need to be born again by the grace of God. We have to understand the depth of this condition that runs through each and every one of us because apart from this, we will never understand the Lord's response to our sin.
[27:47] Look there to verse six. It says, the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart.
[28:00] Now, you all know I like to be theologically precise and theological precision requires here that I say something like God is totally sovereign and a sovereign eternal God has no regrets.
[28:19] God is infinitely satisfied, infinitely happy. He is happy within himself, within the Godhead for all of eternity and an infinitely happy God feels no grief like we do.
[28:34] That's correct. But don't miss the point that he's making here. What he's doing is he's using as the Bible often does in an attempt to explain to finite creatures with limited understanding.
[28:52] The Bible often condescends to our level of understanding in order to describe to us an infinite and incomprehensible God. He's using human experience, human language and human emotion to communicate a truth to us that we don't need to miss.
[29:12] Our sin grieves the Lord who made us. God is grieved by our sin. He is opposed to our sin.
[29:25] He's offended by our sin. He sees it and it grieves him. He's against us in our sin. Clearly this is a big problem and that big problem requires a big solution.
[29:38] So here the Lord says, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land. Man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens for I am sorry that I have made them.
[29:52] Verse 3, My spirit shall not abide in man forever for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years. In other words, the time is set. Problem won't go on forever.
[30:06] The Lord has set a day. The Lord has set a time. The rebellion will not last forever. The sin will not endure forever. God will address it in 120 years.
[30:17] The clock goes off and judgment will come upon the world. By a flood of judgment, he will wipe mankind from the face of the planet.
[30:29] I wonder, does that sound severe to you? In the coming weeks, Lord willing, we'll get a sense of just how devastating this was, this worldwide flood.
[30:42] All but eight people. But you can imagine it now. The whole world. This is an undoing of creation. He is just wiping the slate clean.
[30:52] He told them that the day they ate of the fruit of the tree, they would surely die. And now, he says, within 120 years, that bill is going to come due. Whatever your sense of how devastating and terrible that was, know two things.
[31:09] For one, that judgment was 100% just. Our sin deserves judgment. And two, this flood, as horrible, as devastating as it was, is just a small, small picture of a greater judgment to come at the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[31:34] Let me read to you this passage from 2 Peter. We read part of it this morning already. He's referencing the flood. He says this, scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
[31:50] And they will say, where is the promise of his coming? Where is Jesus? You said Jesus was coming back. Where is he? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.
[32:06] They deliberately overlook this fact that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
[32:23] Listen to this. But by the same word, the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
[32:39] In other words, there is a greater day of judgment yet to come. There is a more horrible moment of God's wrath yet to come.
[32:50] There is a greater destruction of the ungodly and the wicked yet to come. When we look back at this and we're in horror of a global flood that wipes out all but eight, we ought to look forward to this day of God's wrath and tremble.
[33:04] There's a day of judgment yet to come. we should look at this wickedness and realize by nature this is our wickedness.
[33:17] Every intention of every thought, of every heart, of every man, always evil all the time. That is us. We should look at God's posture towards this sin, towards our sin and realize by nature, God is opposed to us.
[33:39] We should look at this promise of coming judgment and realize there is a greater judgment yet to come. And if we are wicked, friend, it is coming for us.
[33:52] This problem is our problem. And if that is true, then we have to ask, is there any hope at all for the wicked? Is there any hope at all for sinners like us?
[34:05] All of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Every single one of us is guilty. Is there any hope at all for a sinner? And we know, those who know the gospel say, praise God, the answer is a resounding yes.
[34:22] So question number three, what is our hope? Friend, our only hope is the grace of God towards sinners like us.
[34:35] The only hope for a sinner like me is that God would be gracious to me, a sinner. That God would show mercy to me. In the midst here of this universal wickedness and coming judgment, there is a single ray of hope here in verse 8.
[34:54] Look there with me. You see what it says? Judgment is coming, but Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
[35:05] just like Enoch, Noah here gives us hope that even on this side of the fall, even here outside of the garden, even here with sin running rampant through us and everybody else, there is the possibility that God might show favor to sinners like me.
[35:30] We'll see soon enough that Noah is a sinner too. Noah has the same problem that we do. He has the same sin running through his veins that we do.
[35:40] He is just as deserving of the wrath of God as I am and everybody else, but Noah by the mercy and the grace of God, a sinner found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
[35:55] God. This is the glorious grace of God on display and this is our only hope. This but Noah, it can be phrased in a different way and I want you to think about it like this because the emphasis isn't so much on Noah.
[36:13] The point is the astounding grace of God toward a sinner like Noah. Read it like this and you tell me if it sounds familiar to you. Noah was as good as dead because of sin, but God showed favor to Noah.
[36:27] Noah is a sinner deserving judgment, but God showed him unmerited, undeserved favor. Noah had earned himself death, he was guilty, but God gave him life.
[36:41] If you're a Christian, that ought to sound real familiar to you because that's your story. Your story, Christian. is what we sang just a few moments ago.
[36:53] I once was lost in darkest night. I thought I knew the way, the sin that promised joy and life led me to the grave. I had no hope that you would own a rebel to your will and if you had not loved me first, I would refuse you still.
[37:13] But as I ran my hellbound race, indifferent to the cost, you looked upon my helpless state and you led me to the cross. You did it.
[37:24] And I beheld God's love displayed. You suffered in my place. You bore the wrath reserved for me. Now all I know is grace.
[37:38] Hallelujah. All I have is Christ. Hallelujah. What's the response? Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Jesus is my life. That is the anthem of the Christian soul.
[37:51] I was dead. I deserve judgment. I'm guilty. I am wicked to the core. But God has been gracious and has shown mercy to me a sinner. Paul says something similar in Ephesians chapter 2.
[38:07] You were dead not wounded. Dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked. Not sick.
[38:18] Not wounded. Not hurt. Not able to brush yourself off. Not in need of a band-aid. Not able to turn over a new leaf. You were dead. Following the course of this world.
[38:30] Following the prince of the power of the air. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh.
[38:42] Carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind. But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses made us alive together with Christ.
[39:05] By grace you have been saved. Raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
[39:23] Is that your story friend? Do you see here your wickedness? Do you see here your sin and your depravity?
[39:36] Do you see your guilt and God's response to your sin? Do you see it? Do you see your need for grace? If so call out to the Lord and ask him Lord would you would you show mercy on a sinner like me?
[39:55] Would you be gracious to a sinner like me? Would you would you lead me to trust in the only provision for my sin which is the Savior Jesus Christ? Big problems require big solutions.
[40:12] God's solution for the problem of sin ultimately as we'll see over the next several weeks is not a flood. This flood as terrible as it is is a band-aid on the bullet hole of our sin.
[40:28] The problem of sin it needs a much bigger solution than that to crush the head of the serpent. God will crush his own son in our place.
[40:40] To peel back the curse of sin Christ Jesus himself will become a curse for us. On the cross for our sake for sinners sake he made him who knew no sin to become sin for us so that in him by faith in him sinners like us might become the righteousness of God.
[41:05] God's solution for the problem of sin is the gospel of Jesus Christ. The perfect life, the sacrificial death, the victorious resurrection of the promised seed of the woman so that by grace undeserving sinners like us by faith in him can now walk with God and escape the curse of sin and death.
[41:32] Amen. Father we praise you for the gospel. There's no hope for sinners like us apart from your grace. There's no hope for us apart from the sacrifice, from the life, from the resurrection of Jesus.
[41:50] So we thank you and we praise you Lord for this fulfilled promise, the seed of the woman who has conquered sin and conquered the grave and defeated our enemy. And we pray Lord if there are any who don't know you Lord who are still wicked in your sight God would you by your grace call them to put their faith in Christ even this moment.
[42:11] We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.