Bible Study Genesis Part 61-Dynamite

Welcome to the program Study in the Chapel.

God's Word is supreme at Chapel Ministries.

We consider it absolutely essential to a proper relationship with God.

We study it, we love it, we rely on it every minute of every day.

The following program is an edited recording of the regular Bible studies we hold.

And we decided to share these with you in the hope that you too will be able to find inspiration, encouragement, and ultimately salvation through discovering Christ in Scripture.

Our intention is to travel all the way through the Bible.

It will be a challenging journey, but one that will undoubtedly bring you to a decision.

Through this study, you will be faced with either believing or rejecting what God has said to us.

It is our intention to provide you with enough knowledge to make an informed decision about God and his word.

We strongly encourage you to listen intently and diligently, because though at the moment you may not realize it, these things are truly a matter of life and death.

In fact, these are matters of eternal life and eternal death.

Never treat what God has said lightly.

There's truly nothing more important to you.

Now join us as we seek God's will through his inspired word.

We are still doing our best to get through God's word.

It's a big task, but we're going to make every effort to get as far through it as as far through it as we can before Jesus comes back.

That's an important thing for us to understand is when Jesus comes back, is he going to know that we're looking for him?

Well, I can tell you this chapel ministries and those that gather here Wednesdays and now Sundays, I'll announce that later.

But those gathered here will also be ready.

They'll be ready when Jesus comes.

He will be able to see that we have our faith in him, that we are looking heavenward for him to come back.

And in the meantime, we're going to do everything we can to study his word as much as we can.

And we started in Genesis.

We're going to go all the way through the book of Revelation.

We're going to study every single book as much as we can.

And yes, we're going to go verse by verse.

Sometimes that's a lot of work, sometimes it's not so much.

The next few chapters will go much faster than the first few chapters did.

And you're going to see what we're talking about as we move along.

Now we are in chapter six of Genesis, chapter six, we've we've really gotten only started.

In fact, we really haven't dived into any of the verses yet.

All we're trying to do is come up with this opportunity for us to get an understanding of what God is talking about before we get started.

So that's what we're doing now.

That this week, last week, and maybe even the next week, we're going to be talking about general things that come out of the sixth chapter of Genesis and more particularly the Noah story.

I'm going to say right now that I'm desperate.

I'm absolutely desperate, the fent to spend this first part of my chapter six teaching on trying to change the minds of unbelievers.

And listen, I can't start cold with this story.

My cold open can't be Noah's Ark.

I cannot begin my evangelistic efforts standing on the bow of Noah's Ark.

They've already made up their mind about it.

To these unbelievers, this is nothing but fable.

It's a morality play.

So trying to prove the story is an uphill battle.

Trying to tell them this is a true story is an uphill battle.

We don't have that time of that kind of time.

My best hope is to first get these unbelievers to pay attention to their senses, appeal to their perceptions, at least in the beginning.

I mean, they see the story of the flood as coming from the world of imagination.

To them, this has no basis in reality, especially their reality.

Most unbelievers only react to what they experience themselves, or at the very least, to the things they can relate to.

So fine.

That's why we've started the way we have.

I feel like if I can get the unbeliever to at least accept that there was a reason to send the flood, and to get them to see that that reason is starting to show itself again, that there's something wrong with the human race then and now.

Then perhaps if they see all of that, then they'll see that the sick patient can't really heal himself.

I think we're part of the way there.

Listen, I don't think an intelligent person would or could deny that there's trouble in the world.

As we're teaching this, the world is reeling from the events that happened in Israel.

Certainly sensible people, believers or not, would agree that most human beings, the vast majority of mankind, live in a constant state of strife and conflict.

We're pressed in on all sides by forces that seem arrayed against us.

And if we're being honest, those forces look familiar, don't they?

I mean, to quote cartoonist Walt Kelly, we have seen the enemy and he is us.

So, no, I don't think this first step of getting non-believers to see that the world is in crisis is all that difficult.

I could say, switch on the news.

We all agree, believers in Genesis 6 and non-believers in Genesis 6.

No one disagrees that we're in trouble.

The challenge is, the disagreement comes in when we start talking about the origin of the trouble as well as what to do about it.

But discuss it, we must, because the most effective cure is to always attack the disease at the source, pull out the root, and the rest of it dies.

I'm sad to say, however, that that's not the common approach to many of these sub-problems that currently plague our society.

For example, city governments, in an attempt to address the drug abuse epidemic, have decided that giving away free needles and setting up so-called safe injection sites will provide the much-needed path to recovery.

Similarly, to come to combat jail overcrowding, prosecutors have decided to reduce the types of crime they're willing, not the people, the prosecutors are willing to prosecute.

As if to say that crime isn't what's putting people in jail.

Catching them is.

Stop arresting people and voila, no more full jails.

So as those who believe in Noah's flood, we are faced with a gigantic challenge.

We know why the world is in such a mess.

The problem is we won't be taken seriously, just like Noah.

What you doing, Noah?

Building a boat?

Building a boat?

That doesn't look like a boat.

Looks like a building, a big building.

No, it's a boat.

Well, why would you be building such a big boat in the middle of Mesopotamia, which literally means between two rivers?

I mean, a little to the left or a little to the right would make more sense, wouldn't it?

Anyhow, why build it in the first place?

Because I have faith in what God has said and I want to be obedient to him.

He said disaster is on the way, and for some reason he's asked asked me to be a part of the solution.

It's just a silly, foolish thing.

So I can do my best to teach it.

Did you go to Bible school?

No.

Do you have a church?

No.

Are you even ordained?

No.

Okay, then let me ask it again.

Why?

Because I have faith in what God has said, and I want to be obedient to Him.

He said disaster is on the way, and for some reason, He's asked me to be a part of the solution.

Listen, I'm on a mission.

It's not a one-man mission.

Sometimes it feels like it, but it's not.

There are lots of people engaged in this effort.

In fact, some of you are in this with me.

We are on a mission to get people to take their Bibles off the fiction shelf, dust them off, open them up, and re-examine them.

The world is in such a mess, and everything mankind has tried to do to straighten out it out has failed.

Maybe, just maybe if we take a closer look at what God has to say, we'll put two and two together and come to an important conclusion.

That conclusion being that human effort to write the ship has time and again only made things worse.

In eighteen fifty, Alfred Bernard Nobel met fellow chemist Ascanio Sobrero.

Three years earlier, Sobrero invented the highly volatile substance nitroglycerin.

Despite, and perhaps due to its potential power many times greater than gunpowder, the Italian chemist strongly opposed its commercialization.

Nobel thought differently.

He eventually took the substance, patented it, and combined it with the naturally occurring and inert diatomaceous Earth, and invented what we today know as dynamite.

Nobel decided on that name because it is derived from the well-known, well known to this audience, Greek word dunamis, which means power.

He had hoped, Nobel had hoped, allegedly, that the invention would be used for strictly peaceful purposes, particularly mining.

But he eventually became incredibly wealthy as the world's militaries saw dynamite's potential to kill lots of people in a rapid and efficient way.

He somehow rationalized this business venture by assuming that eventually the heinous level of destruction wrought by his new invention would in the end lead to a realization that war would be too costly in terms of lives and should be avoided.

Before World War One, chlorine was a practical and inexpensive compound used in the German dye industry.

Eventually, chemist Fritz Haber insisted that it would be an ideal battlefield weapon.

On April twenty second, nineteen fifteen, seven thousand casualties were reported on a battlefield in Belgium after fifty, seven hundred canisters of the poisonous gas were released.

From then on, chlorine would play a key role in the carnage of the Great War, even eventually being mixed with phosgene, which makes it odorless and therefore a particularly sneaky, undetectable murder weapon.

Just as a quick side note, that things have changed.

Today, war has proven so successful that now it's the battlefield that's become the laboratory and test tube of devices and substances that are later developed for the everyday consumer, the exact opposite to what's happened in the past.

The GPS technology that tracked your morning run was once used by the military to precisely guide bombs, missiles, and artillery shells.

Everyday items such as duct tape, freeze drying, microwave ovens, and of course the internet all have similar origin stories.

Once the technology is profitable enough on the battlefield, it makes its way to Amazon, but with less lethal configurations most of the time.

Now, despite what you may think, this broken race of mankind is not interested in peace, in peace and humanity.

They're not their highest priorities.

Mankind is a dark, self-motivated, pleasure-seeking race.

Jeez, John, thanks for the uplifting message.

But what does this have to do with Genesis 6?

And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth, both man and beast, and the creeping thing and the fowls of the air.

Now you'll probably never hear this on a Sunday morning, but the connection between Genesis chapter six and the state of the world today is summed up in one sentence.

Listen to me.

God will and must punish sin.

You know, I'm really getting tired of hearing you say that.

I'm sure you are, but this is a vital link that cannot be ignored, no matter how unpleasant it may be.

Imagine if you went to your dermatologist and she noticed a mole on your face, she just knew it was cancer.

She recognized it through her many years of experience and was convinced it was deadly.

But she also knew by experience that the news would be very shocking and quite upsetting.

And well, she didn't want you to think poorly of her, or she didn't want you to stop coming to visit her, so she decides to say nothing.

After all, a cancer diagnosis, a cancer diagnosis is unpleasant news.

You're not going to be happy about it.

Ignorance is bliss.

You get my point, I hope.

You see, this thing is so desperate, so dug in, so seemingly unresolvable, that it leads one to believe that the problems of mankind are well inherent.

They run in parallel with man, they seem to come from within.

Isn't that what God is saying here?

He's even given the name a problem.

Now you have to be open to this.

If you're truly exasperated, and if you're not, I don't think you're paying close enough attention.

If you seem to be at your wit's end about, well, everything, don't you think you should listen and not reject?

Hasn't mankind's track record proven he doesn't have the right answers?

He doesn't even know what's wrong with himself.

God says our problem is sin.

Why do you keep coming back to that?

Have you ever noticed that the law came first and then the gospel?

Thou shalt not and thou shall come before salvation without works.

Have you ever noticed that?

Why do you think that is?

Well, we get a clue as to why when Paul referred to the law as a pie dagagos.

Now I use the Greek word poorly, of course, because the English translations refer to it as a schoolmaster, and that's misleading.

A Pai Dagagos is what Paul said, and a pie dagagos is not a schoolmaster.

A pie dagagos is not an educator, but it is someone who's engaged in educating children.

The population of both the ancient Roman and Greek societies were largely made up of slaves.

Slavery was very integral, though lamentable, part of society.

Slaves performed vital functions at almost every level of society, but they were especially important in the home.

A paidagos, a paidagagos, which Paul refers to, compares to the law to, a paidagagos, was a slave in ancient Greek and Roman society assigned in part, in part, to assist the children in achieving their education.

But their role, the role of the Pie Dagagos, was very specific and rather simple, just like the law.

The role the Pie Dagagost assumed in the education of the children, listen to me, was nothing more than leading the way to where education, where learning could be found.

You and I might imagine a schoolhouse or some similar meeting place, something specifically designed for the enrichment of the children.

The Piedagogos brought the children to the place where they could learn.

That was their function.

Now, I'm being purposely a little descriptive because I want you to see what Paul was trying to get at with this metaphor.

Now, let me quickly read the relevant passage.

It's Galatians 3, starting at, I guess it's just verse 24.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster.

There's the word that shouldn't be there.

It's Pie Dagogagos.

Well, why didn't we find another word?

Because we don't have a word for it.

The closest the translators could come to was schoolmasters, but schoolmaster, but that's misleading.

Our schoolmaster to bring us, our Pie Dagogles to bring us unto Christ.

That is what Galatians 3 24 says.

Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster, our Pie Dagogles.

To bring us unto Christ that we that we might be justified by faith.

The words to bring us are in italics in the King James, indicating that they were added by the translators, but the uh the addition works very nicely.

The law given to us by Moses was only meant to assist in our education.

The law was only to bring us to where we would learn all we needed to know about ourselves.

The law took us to our Savior.

Therefore, the law had to come first.

We have to talk about sin over and over again, because if we don't, we will never be able to meet the true Christ.

Why?

Because we won't feel the need for him.

Even if we believe all he was there to do was teach us morality, if we don't think we need a lesson from Jesus on morality, we'll ignore him.

But that isn't his purpose.

He said it himself, Luke 19, 10.

For the Son of Man is come to seek and to save that which was lost.

Now that means everyone, but you and I would have never known that we were among the lost if we were, if it were not for the law.

The law brought us to the realization, the education that we are lost.

Again, we go to Paul.

Hey, I thought we were studying the Old Testament.

We are, and good thing, too, because we have no idea what Paul was talking about when he says this, Romans 7, 7.

What shall we say then?

Is the law sin?

God forbid.

Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law, for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

Now listen to me.

Never attend a church that refuses to consider you a lowdown sinner.

Never go to a church that says the law is ill irrelevant to a Christian.

Never ever listen to a preacher who's eager to tell you that Jesus loves you, but lacks the willingness and the courage to say that Jesus hates your sin.

Oh, that's a little bit strong, John, don't you think?

Yeah, it might be, but I don't know how else to characterize this.

I mean, as that first lash tore into his back, what do you think Jesus was feeling?

Was he just super excited to be as that crown was forced down on his head?

Do you think he was just watching the butterflies flip by?

Let me suggest that as the first spike broke through the metatarsals of his foot, he was at least thinking, I sure wish John Tomasi wasn't such a sinner.

The only way any discussion of Noah's flood will have the proper impact is to get you to see what brought us to it.

The only way to appreciate, okay, call it Good Friday if you want to, the only way you can truly understand the passion of Christ is to see that you caused it.

Listen, the reason why fewer and fewer people are accepting Christ is because they stopped living in fear of the wrath of God.

The reason Noah's neighbors didn't roll up their sleeves and help them get that boat done, the only reason they laughed at the old man was because they ignored the warning.

At the very least, they could have never imagined that the warning was really meant for them.

Few of you can't imagine that the law was meant for you.

You don't need a mirror placed in front of your face.

You're doing pretty good in your mind?

So I'll just ignore the Noah story.

Doesn't have anything to do with me.

The law and indeed all of the Old Testament are here to present you a startling fact.

We are all lost sinners.

But also in the backdrop of that is the clear, unmistakable message that God doesn't want us to stay that way.

He doesn't want us to stay at a distance from him, he doesn't want us to be repugnant to him, he wants it to be fixed.

The other clear message in the Bible is that there's hope.

In fact, the very existence of the Bible means that God's not done with us.

If the sin of Adam and Eve finished the race of men forever, there'd be no need for God's word to reach us.

It would do no good if I was halfway to the floor of the Grand Canyon only to hear you scream, watch out, there's a loose rock on that edge.

I don't need that warning anymore.

And it'd be a waste of your time to offer it to me, which is really how we should view the sixth chapter of Genesis.

Before the raindrops.

I know I've painted a pretty bleak picture for you, but if you've been paying attention, you should see that as a good thing.

You see, it's only a bleak picture if you believe it.

The world's not going to say to you the things God's word does.

And the world is going to try and convince you to ignore God.

Well, the ones who survived the flood were the ones who took God at his word, and the ones who didn't, well, they're just like the ones who do the same thing today.

And the sixth chapter of Genesis is here to get you to see the value of being on the inside of the ark and not on the outside.

So for right now, all I ask is that you admit that there's a sin problem.

It's a sin problem because every sin affects someone, and sin is a problem because we can't stop.

If you admit all of that, then the story of Noah's flood just might take on a greater feasibility because you'll start to see that this story is being told as much to Noah's time as it is to ours.

If you think that is at least possible, then you should continue with us as we dive further into this fascinating section of God's word.

For you to turn around now would be a huge mistake.

If you're just starting to see that sin is in control and we're not, and we have no hope.

You if you're starting to see that, you must stay with us as we dig into this book.

And not just here in Genesis 6, all the way through.

Genesis 6 is just the beginning.

Start here with us, continue on with us.

Well, that's probably enough for tonight.

We'll pick it up right there next time.

See you then.

I hope.

We hope this study has blessed you.

God's word is a great treasure, and it's our belief that a thorough, purposeful study of it will bring all of God's children to an understanding of his eternal plan of redemption.

It is our prayer that this will be so for all of our listeners.

Please join us again soon.

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