Lord’s Day, Vol. 12 No. 8

Opening the Book of Genesis (1)

The book of Genesis brings us to know God, that He is the Creator. He is the Creator of all things and we are His creatures. That man is the apex of God’s creation because only man is made in the image of God. The purpose of creation is that God may fellowship with man and man may enjoy him forever.

A relationship that we cherish when God shows and manifests Himself to us and makes Himself very real, as He did to every generation of His people. The Lord God is the Source of life, the Sustenance of life and the Saviour of fallen man. To know the living and true God is the greatest blessing for all men.

The Book of Genesis provides the contrast between a man who knows God, who walks with Him, with those who refuse to know and walk with Him. From the earliest time to distinguish two groups of people, and their lives. As you read through, you’ll be able to see God by His Spirit through the hand of Moses, showing us that indeed there are two different people. Those who know God, walk with Him and are blessed by Him. And those who refuse Him. Those who do not know Him. Those who are lost.

What are the characteristics of those who know God and walk with Him? Those who walk with God, receive His guidance. God guides them through life. And they received His protection. God protected them through all harm and danger in life. What a tremendous blessing it is for the people of God who walk with Him. And there are those who stray and refuse Him. How they reap the sorrow, shame and seal of their destruction.

The book of Genesis, from the beginning, helps us to have a right focus, to see clearly the way by which we ought to live, in connection, in enjoyment, in fellowship, with a living and true God. To be connected and communing with God is man’s only and greatest continual blessing. To be disconnected and estranged from Him is indeed perpetual cursing.

The Book of Genesis and for that matter, all the books of the Bible provided that distinguished difference between the people of God, those who refused and would not acknowledge and follow Him, and those who would walk with Him. But God did not leave the man who strayed from Him without help and hope. He has always shown them the way back. And as we study the book of Genesis, as we see the distinguishing two groups of people that are in the world, what we learn enables us to choose, to choose rightly, so that our lives indeed will be purposeful according to the will of God.

If they receive Him, He makes Himself their God by His unflinching faithfulness toward their care and their comfort. In other words, you are not alone in this world. And that is the reason why from the Book of Beginnings, you see God instituted the family. Adam, whom God created, was not left alone. God made him a helpmate so that Adam could walk with God and enjoy Him together with Eve, his wife.

Adam and Eve can share concerning what they understand God is doing in His creation around them, to appreciate what God has done. And together they worshipped God.

What a wonderful picture of the relationship God models for us in this physical world, so that we would understand what it is to worship God in eternity, forever and ever. God put us into families. Father, mother and children. We understand that familial relationship. How father and mother take care of children. And how children are dependent upon fathers and mothers. This picture shows us God’s care for His people right from the beginning, and His unflinching faithfulness toward their care and comfort. And this He does in spite and despite their weaknesses and inability to follow Him.

The Book of Genesis opens to us three epochs, seen in the lives of three representative men, the writer distinguished, as men who walked with God. We can see, understand and learn the worth of that relationship that we have with the living and true God. And this begins in Genesis 5:22-24, with the man Enoch who walked with God.

Genesis 5:22-24 (KJV) And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.

It’s interesting that the word “God” in the original has a definite article attached to it –  Enoch walked with “the God”, the living and true God. He knew who the living and true God was, Who alone is God. And when we are identified with Him, that’s where life finds its greatest blessing. Out of all the men who were described in Genesis chapter 5, God blessed Enoch. He walked with God. The Bible says that he was not. All died, but he was not. For God took him. The Bible says that he was “translated” in the book of Hebrews. That he did not see death but was taken to heaven bodily. What a wonderful walk, out of the entire chapter of men who lived and died.

In Genesis chapter 4, there was another man by the name of Enoch. This Enoch was not the Enoch of Genesis chapter 5. This Enoch of Genesis chapter 4 was a man who does not know God. He was a descendant of Cain. And how life for that Enoch in Genesis chapter 4 was so debaucherous.

He had descendants and one of his descendants is called Lamech. And Lamech had two wives. Right from the beginning, God has instituted that a man and a woman would come together and that they would be one flesh. Dear friends, do we truly understand the union of the husband and wife? How do they come together to be one flesh? When the Bible uses the term to help us to describe that one flesh, it speaks something very deep of the relationship that God created between the most intimate of relationships between men and how that was broken asunder there. You see that Lamech had two wives. By the time you are at Genesis chapter 4, sin has crept into the life of the people of God. Men had fallen because they had chosen to disobey God. And it’s a frightening thing, isn’t it? Men would stray and on their own, choose not to walk with God. Genesis opens for us to see the development, and how frightening it is when men would stray from walking with God.

The next man recorded walking with God was Noah, described in Genesis 6:8-9 (KJV) But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD. These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God.

Noah walked with God. He was a just man and perfect in his generation. A man who walked with the living and true God. That’s the same phrase that is being used there – “Ha Elohim” in the Hebrew. He knew who God is. Whereas in the world at that time, men were walking their own way, the hearts of men were evil continually (Gen. 6:5). The Lord wants us to know, as we plough through the book of Genesis, a distinguishing factor. Those who know God and those who knew Him not.

And as you trace the man who walked with God, you will notice that it reaches a climax in Genesis chapter 6, with God judging the earth with a global flood. That many chose not to walk with God. And how their end was so severe. How they all died. How the Lord warned them. And by the time we reach Genesis chapter 12, you see that God again began to speak and to appear Himself to a certain man. This man would be given faith to follow Him. The next time the word, “the God” is used is in Genesis 17:18 (KJV) And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee!

It described the man Abraham who walked with “the God”, the living and true God. And that distinguished him. Abraham said unto the God, the living and true God, the one who guides him in his life. Abraham prayed to “the God”.

What are we arriving at? Enoch, Noah and Abraham were men of God. They had a flourishing spiritual life. They knew the living and true God, by God’s grace, was enabled to serve Him. It was not a self-will life but they lived their life according to God’s will. They had the true knowledge of the living and true God and flourished by their obedience to Him. And the Lord wants us to distinguish ourselves to be the people of God. And you would trace this phrase, “the God”, to the words of Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 (KJV) Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

What did Solomon say? Fear “the God” and keep His commandments. For this is the whole duty of men. The word “duty” is in the italics. This is the whole of man. This is how man ought to live.

The fear of God departed from Adam and Eve at that moment of temptation when the serpent came upon them, as we read in Genesis chapter 3, and how evil fell upon them.

Men who fear God, men who walked with God, are men who have the Word of God to guide and teach them. God instructed the kings of Israel to write a copy of the law and to read it all the days of their life, that they may learn to fear the Lord His God and to keep His words and His statutes and to do them.

To be continued…

Yours lovingly,

Pastor Lek Aik Wee