future. Welcome to Ocean Water. We hope you feel refreshed by the Living Water of Jesus Christ as we help people receive drinking water from the ocean for free. Thanks for joining us for this weekend's message and if you enjoy it, please share it with a friend. We install systems that turn ocean water into drinking water for small, marginalized rural communities in the 108 countries of the world that have direct ocean access like here behind me in California where I live.
Now this water is distributed for free for the community and the annual savings goes towards empowering local people towards the things that they need for their future. Now we do this while starting easy to go to beach churches revolving mostly around reading the Bible together each day and eating food and spending a lot of time together.
Now we'd love for you to be involved so I'd like you to email me at ryan.oceanwateratgmail.com because I'd like to send you a book that I wrote about a bicycle ride that I went on for a year. It documented my travels from Canada to Columbia and this journey that began and turned into what we know today as ocean water. It's a really fun read and it documents the beginnings of how we got started. I'd love to get that to you as a gift for watching today's show.
So in the next 12 months we'll go to El Salvador, Indonesia and Bangladesh. I'd love for you to be on one of these trips and so you can go to our website to find out more information. Now when I teach I'm pretty straightforward and this is my approach because it's very important that we understand every word of God in the word of God. Now I like to laugh and I'd love for you to hang out and catch some waves with me or go on a trip to another country or ride motorcycles or grab coffee.
When I teach the Bible I accept that responsibility because this isn't all fun and games. This is actually the most important book in the world. So I want you to come ready to learn every time we get together because it's my job as a pastor to help you grow. So our objective is simple, it's disciples making disciples who plant churches that plant churches. Now today we're looking at Genesis chapter 5 and Genesis chapter 5 is about the descendants of Adam.
Now this is kind of an introduction to a genealogy of Adam that we find in verses 1 and 2. Now this is the book of the genealogy of Adam in the day that God created man. He made him in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them and called them mankind. Now in that day when they were created. Now this genealogy is here for a good reason and it's to believe that the end of this is Adam's direct account which was preserved and passed down to Moses who acted as its editor.
Now the history of heaven and earth compromises the things regarding creation that nobody witnessed and was given by direct revelation to either Adam or Moses. Now this history ended at Genesis 2-4 and from there on to this point we have the record of Adam. And it says that he called him mankind. Now this is the human race. Mankind was the name given man by God from the beginning.
It is not the most gender bias or the most popular name but it was a general heading that all human beings fell under. I have a few thoughts on genealogies. We can arrange the following genealogies in a sequential manner and chart them out kind of on a timeline. However, we can't establish an absolutely reliable timeline with this method because biblical genealogies are not always complete. Sometimes generations are skipped over.
If one takes the genealogies as being without omission, now the time of Adam comes to about 4,000 or 5,000 years before Jesus. Now even with omissions it's hard to imagine that the time of Adam was significantly more than 10,000 years before Jesus. Now this puts the biblical record at variance with findings and assertions of modern science and history. Yet there's good reasons to believe that God created the earth with age built into it as with Adam and the trees in Eden had age built into them.
Adam wasn't built as a one year old. Trees weren't created as a one year old. So in this chapter no one lived less than 365 years. That's a really long time. Methuselah actually lived a total of 969 years. That's a long fruitful life full of juicing and many other things. Some have thought of the ages as figurative or they count as they count months and years yet on this basis it would mean that Enoch fathered Methuselah when he was five and a half years old. Now that's not true.
It's more likely that people did live much longer in this era before the flood. This is because of the degenerate of effects of the fall of sin and the gene pool hadn't yet accumulated greatly and because of the environment in a pre-flood world was so different with the blanket of water vapor surrounding the earth. In the post-flood world life spans quickly came down to the modern life span that we have today which we find the longest humans live around 120 years.
Now during this era the world would be populated quickly. One writer has estimated that if Adam during his lifetime saw only half the children he could have fathered grow up if only half of them had gotten married if only half of those who had gotten married had children then even these conservative rates Adam would have seen more than a million of his own descendants. That's a big family.
Using these calculations it's easy to say at the time of the flood there could have been maybe seven billion people on earth close to what we have today. Genealogies can be very instructive. They speak to us of both the absolute historical character of the scriptures and the powerful testimony to the end of every person on this earth. We all live a life with a beginning and the end.
Charles Spurgeon said have you never heard of the one who as the lesson for the Sabbath day the long chapter of names where it's written that each patriarch lives so many hundreds of years and he died thus it ends the notice of the long life of Methuselah with and he died the repetition of these words and he died woke the thoughtless here to a sense of their own mortality and led to his coming of a savior. We all have such a small life.
Now the descendants of Adam through Seth are talked about in verses three and five. It says that Adam lived 130 years and he got a son in his own likeness and after his image his name Seth he had begot Seth the rest of the days of Adam were 800 years and he had sons and daughters so that the days that Adam had lived were nine hundred and thirty years and he died.
And then it says that he begot a son in his own likeness and after his own image and named him Seth even as Seth was Adam's fallen image and likeness so also is every one of us. We have sons and daughters of Adam born even as Adam was fallen. It'd be redundant to say it but every other person has been born in Adam's image and likeness except Jesus. So and he had sons and daughters. This tells us that Adam had many other sons and daughters who are not specifically named in the biblical record.
These daughters became the wives for the sons of Adam. Now verses 16 through 17 talk about from Seth to Mahalel. Seth lived 105 years and begot Enosh and then they had many other sons and daughters. So are the days of Seth were 912 years and he died. Now Enosh lived 90 years and begot Canaan and it goes on through more of a description of the longer genealogy that exists existed in this chapter because God cares about his original family and God cares about our family now. God is very detailed.
He keeps track of all of the things that are necessary for a family and then it talks about Jared and Mahalel. They lived 830 years and they had sons and daughters and Mahalel was 895 years and he died. Now in verses 18 through 27 it picks up and says that Jared lived 162 years and begot Enoch and Jared had lived 100 years he had more sons and more daughters. He actually lived to 962. Now Enoch lived 65 years and begot his children. Enoch walked with God 300 years and had sons and daughters.
So the days of Enoch were 365 and Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. Methuselah lived 187 years and begot Lamech and he begot Lamech and when Methuselah lived 782 years and he had sons and daughters so all the days of Methuselah were 969 years and he died. Now Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. Enoch the son of Jared was carried away to God in a miraculous way while God speaks of a true deep relationship.
St. Charles Spurges said you can't consciously walk with a person whose existence is not known to you. When we walk with a man we know that he is there for we can hear him. We have a very close perception that there is such a person at our side. Now he also said if I wish to find a man's most familiar friend it would surely be one with whom he daily walked. In walking friends become communicative one tells of his trouble the other strives to console him and imparts him his own secret return.
You see God longs to walk with us and have a relationship with us. Enoch walked with God. He walked by faith and not by sight. He walked in agreement with God. Now after walking like this with God one day God told him you don't need to walk home why don't you just come home with me. So God actually took him to heaven. Now God took him a very remarkable expression. Perhaps it did it in some visible manner.
Perhaps he made an example of him to everyone around of how close of a relationship he wanted to have with us. Now there was some distinct taking up as if this one choice would bring him up to God in heaven. Hebrews 11 5 tells us that the foundation of Enoch's walk was with God by faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death because God was watching out for him and that he pleased God. You see we can't walk with God or please God apart from having faith in God.
If we walk contrary to the things of God we contradict the things of God. God wants us to walk closely with him and tightly with him and as close as we possibly can in our journey here on earth. Our whole goal is to get as close to God as possible in this life not as close to sin as possible in this life. God wants us to walk with him and talk with him and breathe with him.
And it says that Enoch walked with God it says that Enoch walked with God in a special way after the birth of his son Methuselah. The name Methuselah means when he is dead it shall come. Now at the birth of Methuselah Enoch had a special awareness from God that judgment was coming and this was one of the things that got him closer in his walk with God. Jude 14 says that Enoch was a prophet even from his vantage point long ago he could see the second coming of Jesus.
Now Enoch walked with God after Methuselah had been born 300 years and doubtless he had walked with him before. Now what a splendid walk. He got to walk with him a hundred years. Hundred years of a daily close relationship with Jesus. That is the type of relationship that God wants for us to have a daily close walking relationship with Jesus. So all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred and sixty nine years and he died.
Methuselah's long life was no accident it was because of the grace of God. When Methuselah died the flood came. God kept him alive longer than anybody to give people as long as possible to repent. Now verse 28 to 32 it says from Lamech to Noah. Lamech was a hundred and eighty two years and he had a son called Noah. That means this one will comfort us concerning our work and all the toil of our hands because the ground which the Lord has cursed.
Now after he begot Noah Lamech lived a hundred and ninety five years and had sons and daughters so the days of Lamech were seven hundred and seventy seven years and he died and Noah was five hundred years old. Noah begot Shem and him Japheth. Now Lamech lived a hundred and eighty two years and had a son and he called his name Noah. And these genealogies are consecutive. Noah was born only 14 years after the death of Seth, Adam's son.
Seth died in year 1042 from creation and Noah was born in year 1056 from creation. And the genealogies are consecutive and without gaps. Now it's remarkable to think that Noah could have known and spoken with Adam's grandson Enosh and his other grandchildren. This is how long they lived at that time. And Abel and Seth in Genesis. It's even possible and timely that Noah spoke with with one of them and he died. And the overwhelming emphasis of Genesis is that five of these men died.
They were all under sin and subject to death. Now some of them many of them were great men but none of them was the deliverer that God had promised. Martin Luther wrote this is the greatest glory of the primitive world that it had so many good, wise and holy men at the same time. We must not think that these are ordinary names of plain people but next to Christ, John the Baptist they were the most outstanding heroes this world has ever produced.
And on the last day we shall behold and admire their grandeur. Now that concludes our time in Genesis chapter 5 today. Now every time we finish I'd like us to pray together and I'd like us to say right now would you pray with me say God would you help me to follow you today? Would you help me to turn away from the things that keep me from doing your will? I want to do your will in my life. I want you to transform my life. I want you to help me walk with Jesus every single day.
I ask you to forgive me. I ask you to come into my heart and fill me with your spirit in Jesus name. Amen. Now I always want to thank those of you for your generosity, for giving and generosity as part of our worship. What enables us to do all of this work here at Ocean Water. My prayer is that you discover the joy that happens in your life when you connect your generosity with serving the poor.
Now as your pastor I always want to pray and ask, I want you to pray and ask the Holy Spirit what to do and then to go and do it. Apply this principle to your finances. In fact I'd like you to pray right now, God what do you want me to give? How do you want me to worship you with this part of my life, my finances? Whatever he puts on your life today go and give it at OceanWater.com.
You'd like more information about Ocean Water Church, how to join us on an upcoming trip, how to be part of one of our Clean Water projects, how to financially support our movement or even information on how you can start an Ocean Water Church yourself. Please look us up at OceanWater.com.