Genesis (Part 14)
Bible Study Time 9-14-08
(From James Roberts 11-3-96)
Bible Study Time 9-14-08
(From James Roberts 11-3-96)
In our Journey Through the Scripture, we have been looking at Noah and his family. We have seen that they went into the ark that God had told Noah to build, and there they were kept safe from the flood judgment that God brought upon the earth. God destroyed the earth and all that was in it, but those who were in the ark were safe and secure, and they were brought safely through that flood judgment.
Now since we have started our Journey Through the Scripture there has been a great deal of talk in the national media about the Genesis Project. This is a series of broadcasts that Bill Moyer is planning to do on public television regarding the book of Genesis.
Study groups around the country, especially on the East Coast, have contributed to this study in the book of Genesis, and I want to give you one word of warning about this project. I just read an article in Newsweek magazine which gave some background information concerning these programs.
Generally speaking, the people who are involved in this project and these programs that will be broadcast over public broadcasting are people who do not believe in the integrity of the scriptures. They do not believe in the absolute authority and inspiration of the scriptures.
For instance, they say that the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis are just tales that were handed down from mouth to mouth until someone in the time of David and Solomon saw fit to write them down. They say that they were written down as little moral homilies, and they were written down so that you and I could look at those myths and get some moral application from them.
I want you to know that I believe in the integrity of the scriptures, the wholeness of the scriptures. The Bible is not just a compilation of writings from different men, but it is a compilation of writings by men who wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit of God. Because God is the author of the entire Bible, the scriptures stand in their entirety as an integrated whole.
The Bible, itself, gives us the method by which we should study the Bible. We are not to study any portion of the Bible in isolation, but we are to study each portion of the Bible in the context of the Bible as a whole. Each passage must be seen in its relationship to the rest of the Bible.
The process of Bible interpretation that was used by the Genesis Project is very dangerous. Let me give you a couple of illustrations. They say that there is no mention of sin in the account that is given in the early chapters of the book of Genesis. Their doctrine not only misinterprets the scriptures, but it violates the basic principle that every passage must be seen in the light of the scriptures as a whole.
The book of Romans, Chapter 5, very clearly states that when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they committed an act of disobedience, and that act of disobedience was sin. It also says that when they sinned, they brought the sin nature upon themselves and upon all of their descendants.
The reason that you and I today are sinners by nature, by birth, is because Adam and Eve passed that nature to sin right on down to all men who followed after them. Romans 5:12, says:
Romans 5:12 KJV
12 (For) by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
It is a violation of the scriptures to say that there is no account of sin in the book of Genesis.
Another example of their erroneous thinking is seen in the fact that they blame Noah for not telling his contemporaries about the coming flood. Well, in this they are willingly ignorant. In the book of Genesis, itself, we find that Enoch walked with God, and the book of Jude tells us that Enoch was a prophet. For 300 years Enoch prophesied concerning the coming judgment of God.
Enoch named his son Methuselah, no doubt according to the revelation of God. Methuselah means, when he is dead, it shall be sent. Well, what shall be sent? This was talking about the judgment of God that was going to come.
God allowed Methuselah to live for nearly 1000 years. He lived to be the oldest man that has ever lived on the earth, and this is a great testimony, not to the vengeance of God, but to the longsuffering and goodness of God. God is not willing that any should perish.
Enoch warned the people of his day, but it is also clear that Noah also warned the people. Noah was a preacher of righteousness for 120 years, while the ark was being built. So there was ample warning about the judgment that was going to come.
It would appear that the Genesis Project has no intention of revealing what God has actually said in His word, but rather, it’s intention is to question the character of God. It leaves the clear impression that we today have no reason to fear any future judgment from God. It is true that each person must decide this issue for himself, but we had better decide on the basis of what God has said in the entirety of His word. We should be very skeptical of philosophers and theologians who propagate ideas which are not based on the teachings of the entire word of God.
The book of 2 Corinthians tells us that Satan is able to transform himself into an angel of light and that his ministers pose as ministers of righteousness. The book of 1 John says, prove every spirit to see if it is from God. When men start denying any portion of the word of God, you had better reject their testimony. If you do not believe in the integrity of the scriptures, that all of the Bible is the word of God, then you cannot place your confidence in any part of it.
One of the reasons that men want to discredit the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis is to do away with the historical account of creation. They want to believe that the earth just came into being through natural evolution, but Genesis, Chapter 1, absolutely refutes the idea of evolution.
If evolution is correct then there was no historical Adam who sinned and brought the sin nature into the human race. If there was no historical Adam then there is no reason to think that man is a sinner by nature.
As far as I’m concerned, if I could not believe in the historical, Biblical Adam, I think I would find it very difficult to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven’s glory to live as a man on the earth. If there was no sin in the world, why would Jesus Christ leave the glory of heaven? He came first and foremost to save the world from sin. The Lord Jesus Christ, this second Adam, came down and was made in the likeness of sinful flesh in order that you and I might have eternal life.
I say this to you as a word of warning. Be careful what you hear. False doctrine can come in the garb of religion. It would appear that these philosophers and theologians are trying to get Jews and Christians and Muslims to come together in one religion, and this would do away with the most basic doctrine of the Bible which states that there is no other way to come to the Father except to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Men may work ever so hard to bring human beings together as one, but the Bible still remains true. The Bible tells us that the Jesus Christ was the God of glory in human flesh. He was Emmanuel which means God with us. Jesus Christ came to the earth to open up a new and a living way for man to come to God. Jesus Christ was not just a prophet, He was not just a good man, but He was and is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. Jesus said:
John 14:6
6 . . . I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me.
There's only one way whereby man may approach God. It’s not through Islam; it’s not to Judaism; it’s not through Christendom. It’s through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only way.
In the Old Testament, the tabernacle had only one door; there was only one way to enter into the tabernacle. The ark that Noah built had only one door. Likewise, there is only one door that leads to heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ said:
John 10:9 KJV
9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
There’s only one door to heaven, and if you don’t enter in through that one door, you’re not going to make it. The Lord Jesus Christ is that door.
1 John 5:12 KJV
12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
As time goes on, there will be all kinds of movements and cults that will try to seduce people away from the one door that leads to heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. It may be today that you are depending upon church membership or some ordinance to get you into heaven. But unless you have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you do not have eternal life. The Lord Jesus said:
John 3:16 KJV
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Who is it that is of the antichrist? It is the one who does not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you find any kind of doctrine or religious activity that does not hold to the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fact that He bore the sins of the whole world when He died on the cross, you can count that as a false religion. That is the standard, the plumb line, by which we can judge false doctrine. This is the standard that God has given to us to judge between truth and false doctrine.
I say these things in love but I say them as a warning. Satan can transform himself into an angel of light, and his ministers may appear as the ministers of righteousness. Be careful what you hear. Prove the spirits to see if they are of God. Test all things by the integrity, by the wholeness, of the Bible.
I see that our time is already gone, and we didn’t get very far on our Journey Through the Scripture today, but we will take up again with the book of Genesis, Chapter 9, next week. Until that time, we bid you goodbye.
Church links:
Now since we have started our Journey Through the Scripture there has been a great deal of talk in the national media about the Genesis Project. This is a series of broadcasts that Bill Moyer is planning to do on public television regarding the book of Genesis.
Study groups around the country, especially on the East Coast, have contributed to this study in the book of Genesis, and I want to give you one word of warning about this project. I just read an article in Newsweek magazine which gave some background information concerning these programs.
Generally speaking, the people who are involved in this project and these programs that will be broadcast over public broadcasting are people who do not believe in the integrity of the scriptures. They do not believe in the absolute authority and inspiration of the scriptures.
For instance, they say that the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis are just tales that were handed down from mouth to mouth until someone in the time of David and Solomon saw fit to write them down. They say that they were written down as little moral homilies, and they were written down so that you and I could look at those myths and get some moral application from them.
I want you to know that I believe in the integrity of the scriptures, the wholeness of the scriptures. The Bible is not just a compilation of writings from different men, but it is a compilation of writings by men who wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit of God. Because God is the author of the entire Bible, the scriptures stand in their entirety as an integrated whole.
The Bible, itself, gives us the method by which we should study the Bible. We are not to study any portion of the Bible in isolation, but we are to study each portion of the Bible in the context of the Bible as a whole. Each passage must be seen in its relationship to the rest of the Bible.
The process of Bible interpretation that was used by the Genesis Project is very dangerous. Let me give you a couple of illustrations. They say that there is no mention of sin in the account that is given in the early chapters of the book of Genesis. Their doctrine not only misinterprets the scriptures, but it violates the basic principle that every passage must be seen in the light of the scriptures as a whole.
The book of Romans, Chapter 5, very clearly states that when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they committed an act of disobedience, and that act of disobedience was sin. It also says that when they sinned, they brought the sin nature upon themselves and upon all of their descendants.
The reason that you and I today are sinners by nature, by birth, is because Adam and Eve passed that nature to sin right on down to all men who followed after them. Romans 5:12, says:
Romans 5:12 KJV
12 (For) by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
It is a violation of the scriptures to say that there is no account of sin in the book of Genesis.
Another example of their erroneous thinking is seen in the fact that they blame Noah for not telling his contemporaries about the coming flood. Well, in this they are willingly ignorant. In the book of Genesis, itself, we find that Enoch walked with God, and the book of Jude tells us that Enoch was a prophet. For 300 years Enoch prophesied concerning the coming judgment of God.
Enoch named his son Methuselah, no doubt according to the revelation of God. Methuselah means, when he is dead, it shall be sent. Well, what shall be sent? This was talking about the judgment of God that was going to come.
God allowed Methuselah to live for nearly 1000 years. He lived to be the oldest man that has ever lived on the earth, and this is a great testimony, not to the vengeance of God, but to the longsuffering and goodness of God. God is not willing that any should perish.
Enoch warned the people of his day, but it is also clear that Noah also warned the people. Noah was a preacher of righteousness for 120 years, while the ark was being built. So there was ample warning about the judgment that was going to come.
It would appear that the Genesis Project has no intention of revealing what God has actually said in His word, but rather, it’s intention is to question the character of God. It leaves the clear impression that we today have no reason to fear any future judgment from God. It is true that each person must decide this issue for himself, but we had better decide on the basis of what God has said in the entirety of His word. We should be very skeptical of philosophers and theologians who propagate ideas which are not based on the teachings of the entire word of God.
The book of 2 Corinthians tells us that Satan is able to transform himself into an angel of light and that his ministers pose as ministers of righteousness. The book of 1 John says, prove every spirit to see if it is from God. When men start denying any portion of the word of God, you had better reject their testimony. If you do not believe in the integrity of the scriptures, that all of the Bible is the word of God, then you cannot place your confidence in any part of it.
One of the reasons that men want to discredit the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis is to do away with the historical account of creation. They want to believe that the earth just came into being through natural evolution, but Genesis, Chapter 1, absolutely refutes the idea of evolution.
If evolution is correct then there was no historical Adam who sinned and brought the sin nature into the human race. If there was no historical Adam then there is no reason to think that man is a sinner by nature.
As far as I’m concerned, if I could not believe in the historical, Biblical Adam, I think I would find it very difficult to believe that the Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven’s glory to live as a man on the earth. If there was no sin in the world, why would Jesus Christ leave the glory of heaven? He came first and foremost to save the world from sin. The Lord Jesus Christ, this second Adam, came down and was made in the likeness of sinful flesh in order that you and I might have eternal life.
I say this to you as a word of warning. Be careful what you hear. False doctrine can come in the garb of religion. It would appear that these philosophers and theologians are trying to get Jews and Christians and Muslims to come together in one religion, and this would do away with the most basic doctrine of the Bible which states that there is no other way to come to the Father except to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Men may work ever so hard to bring human beings together as one, but the Bible still remains true. The Bible tells us that the Jesus Christ was the God of glory in human flesh. He was Emmanuel which means God with us. Jesus Christ came to the earth to open up a new and a living way for man to come to God. Jesus Christ was not just a prophet, He was not just a good man, but He was and is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world. Jesus said:
John 14:6
6 . . . I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me.
There's only one way whereby man may approach God. It’s not through Islam; it’s not to Judaism; it’s not through Christendom. It’s through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the only way.
In the Old Testament, the tabernacle had only one door; there was only one way to enter into the tabernacle. The ark that Noah built had only one door. Likewise, there is only one door that leads to heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ said:
John 10:9 KJV
9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
There’s only one door to heaven, and if you don’t enter in through that one door, you’re not going to make it. The Lord Jesus Christ is that door.
1 John 5:12 KJV
12 He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.
As time goes on, there will be all kinds of movements and cults that will try to seduce people away from the one door that leads to heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ. It may be today that you are depending upon church membership or some ordinance to get you into heaven. But unless you have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, you do not have eternal life. The Lord Jesus said:
John 3:16 KJV
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Who is it that is of the antichrist? It is the one who does not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you find any kind of doctrine or religious activity that does not hold to the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ and the fact that He bore the sins of the whole world when He died on the cross, you can count that as a false religion. That is the standard, the plumb line, by which we can judge false doctrine. This is the standard that God has given to us to judge between truth and false doctrine.
I say these things in love but I say them as a warning. Satan can transform himself into an angel of light, and his ministers may appear as the ministers of righteousness. Be careful what you hear. Prove the spirits to see if they are of God. Test all things by the integrity, by the wholeness, of the Bible.
I see that our time is already gone, and we didn’t get very far on our Journey Through the Scripture today, but we will take up again with the book of Genesis, Chapter 9, next week. Until that time, we bid you goodbye.
Church links:
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