Bruce Collins, Evangelist

The personal website of Bruce Collins

What Can we Learn from the Genealogies?

 

 

1Ch 1:1  Adam, Seth, Enosh,

1Ch 1:2  Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared,

1Ch 1:3  Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech,

1Ch 1:4  Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

 

All Scripture is Inspired

I know that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16).  But what is the profit for us today when we read these genealogies as found in the Old and New Testaments?  I know that the genealogies trace the lineage of the Lord Jesus and prove that He is the Son of David and of Abraham.  We see some real defects among those who were used to give birth to those who gave birth to the Lord Jesus.  We have Judah producing children through a gal he thought was a prostitute but was in fact his daughter-in-law.  We have Rahab the harlot in the genealogies. These people of course teach us something about grace and mercy.   But what I have noticed in the Old Testament that intrigues me is the fact that God lists the enemies of His chosen people by name.  The descendants of Ishmael and of Esau are listed.  The descendants of the Canaanites through Ham are listed.  Nimrod who started heathen pagan worship is listed.  Why?  Why are they just not forgotten?

 

The Book of Life

I have always believed that everyone that is born has a name inscribed in God’s book of life.  When people reject the Lord by rejecting Jehovah in the Old Testament and Jesus in the New, their names are blotted out.  But their names were at one time in the Lamb’s book of life.  Revelation 13:8 is a little confusing when it says, “All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”  But of course the Lamb was not slain from the foundation of the world.  It has been argued that since God planned the slaying of the Lamb from the foundation of the world, it was as good as done from the foundation of the world.  However, I believe that the thrust of this verse is that the names are written from the foundation of the world in the Book of Life of the Lamb that was ultimately slain. 

 

Revelation 17:8 seems to say this more clearly, “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and will ascend out of the bottomless pit and go to perdition. And those who dwell on the earth will marvel, whose names are not (found) written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world, when they see the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.”  Revelation 21:27 is also a little confusing.  “But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.” Again, I would translate this:  “Only those who are found written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.”

 

God’s Love

Why is the listing of God’s enemies by name important?  Because it tells me that when God says that He loves the world (which means the people of the world or the society), He means that He loves the whole world.  And by listing all the names of those who became the enemy of His people and therefore of Him, He seems to show that they were personally and individually loved by Him.  Everyone brought into this world is created by God and is a part of his original masterpiece that was very good before the fall of Adam and Eve.   Anyone who ends up being cast away from God’s presence forever, will only have themselves to blame. They will not be able to say that they were not loved by God.  They will not be able to say that God forgot about them when He devised His plan of salvation.  Not only are we admonished to believe or trust in the Lord for salvation, we are warned that there are consequences when we reject Him.  John 3:18 says, "He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” 

 

God Cares

I don’t know when that final rejection takes place in any person’s life, so I preach as though one can repent and believe until the day of one’s death.  But if one is condemned, they will not be able to say that God had not taken a personal interest in them and that He didn’t care.

 

Bruce Collins

 

Meditation for the week of May 21, 2017

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