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Man, the title of my sermon tonight is an overview of the book of Genesis, an overview of the book of Genesis. One thing about reading the Bible in very small quantities or in taking it in small doses is that sometimes you don't see the big picture of what's going on in a book or in the whole Bible itself. And this is why I would strongly recommend reading through the Bible cover to cover at least once a year, because if it's taking you more than one year to get through the whole Bible, by the time you get to one thing, it's like you forgot what you read back here. Imagine reading any other book the way that some people read their Bible. Imagine going to the store and buying whatever the novel is, whatever the fictional work, and just reading one page and then, okay, that's it for the day. And then tomorrow, read two more pages. You know what people would say if you did that? You're not getting into the story. And so that's a lot of the problem with this little read a couple verses or read one chapter a day. It's just not really enough to get into the story and to see connections and things fitting together and so forth. So at least reading the Bible through once a year where you're at least spending like 15, 20 minutes a day in your Bible, at least then you're at least connecting things and you're going to remember the beginning of Genesis by the time you get to the end of Genesis. But I want to give you a bit of an overview tonight. This is good to step back and see the big picture of what a book is about and that's what I'm going to do tonight with the book of Genesis. Now one thing I want to point out first of all is that the whole Bible is about Jesus Christ from cover to cover. The Bible says in Acts chapter 10 verse 47, to Him give, or 10 43, to Him give all the prophets witness that through His name whosoever believeth in Him shall receive remission of sins. That's what all the prophets give witness of and even in a book like Genesis that's pretty far removed from Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, you will see Jesus Christ throughout this book and you'll see Jesus Christ throughout every book of the Bible and so that's always something that's good to emphasize as we study the Bible. Obviously Genesis starts out with the creation of everything, the creation of the heaven and the earth and everything that is in them. Right away we can see a foreshadowing of our Lord Jesus Christ even in verse 26 when the Bible says, and God said let us, notice the plurality there, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth on the earth. Now notice the singular, so God created man in His own image. In the image of God created Him, male and female created He them. You say, well who is He talking to? The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are having that conversation saying let us make man in our image. Also if you just flip right over to Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 you'll find the first foreshadowing of Jesus Christ being the Savior of the world. So in chapter 1 we have the creation of everything in heaven and in earth. In chapter 2 we get a more specific account of God creating the Garden of Eden itself, creating Adam and taking Eve out of Adam's rib and so forth. Then we get to chapter 3, this is where they sin and they eat of the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And after they commit that sin and God is doling out punishments to the man, the woman, and to the serpent, He says in verse 15 of chapter 3 and I will put enmity, speaking to the serpent, I will put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel. So in this prophecy it's prophesied that Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman, will bruise the head of Satan, bruise the head of the serpent, and that in the process his heel would be bruised. And that's a reference to of course our Lord Jesus Christ, in fact it's the first direct reference to the fact that He's going to come and be the Savior of the world. So right away we see that as soon as man has sinned, God immediately is already foreshadowing or making reference to the plan of salvation. Why? Because Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world. That's why when Adam and Eve sinned and they made themselves those fig leaf aprons to cover their nakedness, God ends up killing an animal and giving them the skins of that animal as a covering for them, picturing the fact that their own works or what they made cannot cover their sin but that the Lamb could cover their sin. And so that sacrifice had to be made and they would be clothed in that robe of righteousness that was made for them by God from the Lamb that was killed for them. So there's a lot of foreshadowing of Jesus Christ all throughout the book of Genesis. Then obviously in chapter 4 we have the story of Cain and Abel, and then in chapter 5 we get into the first genealogy in the book of Genesis where it goes through Adam's descendants through the line of Seth, which is just right after God gave us the genealogy of Cain and his descendants. Now let me stop here and point something out. I've had a lot of atheists bring this up. I've had Muslims bring this up and people who don't understand the Bible, they don't believe the Bible, they want to attack or pick apart the Bible and they think they're being really clever and I've had people pull this out and they think they're pulling out some kind of a trump card when they pull this out. And here's what they say, and you might have heard this before too, they say, well if Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel, and then they had a son named Seth, well then where did they get their wives from? Have you heard that before? How can they reproduce if they just have boys and they think they're really smug and they think they've come up with something really clever or it's kind of a gotcha for them. But they didn't really read very far because if they would have just read the next chapter, look at Genesis chapter 5 verse 4. It says, and the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were 800 years and he begat sons and daughters. Notice the daughters. So he didn't just begat just Cain and Seth, he had other sons and other daughters and when you're living another 800 years, you have a lot of time to beget a lot of sons and daughters during that time. So when we see the genealogy of Cain's descendants at the end of chapter 4 there, and when we see the genealogy of Seth's descendants in chapter 5, we need to understand, these are not the only two lines. It's not like, well there's Seth's line and then there's Cain's line. You know what, then there's everybody else because of the fact that Adam had other sons and other daughters. Now you say, well how did that work? Are they marrying their sister? Well here's why that happened. Basically in the first generation, they did marry their sisters and then they married their cousins and then it diversified from there. We see the biggest problem today with someone who would marry their sister or even marry their cousin or someone that's near of kin unto them, someone who's a close relative, is that it's bad for the DNA and families throughout history who've done this, who've intermarried with one another, for example, royal families where they want to preserve their royal lineage so they only marry each other. Or even amongst the Jews, the Rothschilds, Lord Rothschild made a rule for his children that they could only marry their first or second cousins. And many of them were only marrying their first cousin. And in the Muslim world today, you have a lot of people marrying their first cousin. And you say, well what's the problem? You get all kinds of birth defects, abnormalities, mental defects and physical defects from that. And here's why. Let me explain why. Because everyone's DNA has certain imperfections in it, problems in it, damage to it because of the fact that the earth has been around for thousands of years and it's in a process of decay. The earth, the Bible says, will wax old as doth a garment. And just as a person goes through a life cycle, just as clothing is new and it gets old and threadbare, the world itself is getting older and decaying. And so things are not getting better, they're getting worse. They're atrophying. So the way it works with DNA is that you get DNA from your mother and from your father so let's say your dad has a defective gene and you're getting a gene from your mom and your dad, then basically what will naturally be selected is the good gene. So let's say gene number XYZ is wrong on dad's side, you can get the good gene from your mom's side and fix that problem. Whereas if your mom and dad are closely related, they're going to have the same problems on the same genes. And I'm only explaining this as a layman, I'm not an expert, I'm not trying to give a science lecture. I'm just saying your parents will have the same imperfections in their DNA, the same bad genes, the same bad traits that have been passed down and there won't be an option to select the better gene. You just end up stacking up all the bad traits and all the bad genes and all the bad DNA. Whereas marrying someone outside of your family, bringing in some fresh DNA, the child can sort of get the best of both worlds in a sense because it can take the good from both. So that's why people who marry their sister or their cousin or whatever, they end up with birth defects and problems because they're stacking up bad genes and bad DNA. Well here's why that wasn't an issue in the beginning of time and that's probably also why God has given us such an aversion where it's obviously would gross you out to even think about your relatives in that way. But in the first generation what you have to understand is that Adam and Eve were created perfect, they have perfect DNA, it has not decayed or had all this damage to it, all these imperfections on it and they also had a great diversity of recessive traits in their DNA because they're basically carrying the DNA for all of mankind. Since all of mankind descends from Adam and Eve, then they had all different types of people coded into their DNA, it was all there. So therefore their siblings, their children marrying their siblings wouldn't have been a problem genetically and perhaps God didn't give them that aversion until later where it would be repulsive to be with someone that's near of kin unto you, your sister or brother or something would be disgusting to think that way but that's what happened in that first generation and then they marry their cousins and then it diversified out from there. Then by the time you get to Moses given the law in the book of Exodus it says not to approach anyone that's near of kin unto you and then it lists a lot of relatives to especially avoid half brother, half sister. Now some people will challenge it and say, hey the Bible doesn't say anywhere that you can't marry your cousin and they're usually from Kentucky, no I'm just kidding, just kidding. But people will challenge it and say hey where does the Bible say that you can't marry your cousin? Well, it's true that the Bible does not specifically say not to marry your cousin but it does say not to marry anyone near of kin unto you and we know that in 2017 just from a genetic standpoint it's even worse to marry your cousin than it would've been back then because we've gone even further down the road of this genetic decay but not only that it does tell you not to marry your half brother or your half sister which is pretty much tantamount a cousin genetically speaking if you think about it. You have about the same shared DNA with a half sibling as you would with say a cousin so you can kind of just read between the lines folks. Can you diversify that gene pool a little bit and just marry someone that you're not related to for crying out loud? So anyway, but I just wanted to show you that in Genesis 5. So we see these genealogies at the end of chapter 4, beginning of chapter 5 showing Cain's descendants, showing Seth's descendants and then there were other lines and family trees that we're not aware of. Then in chapter 6, God looks down upon the earth and the wickedness of man is very great upon the earth and the thing that comes up over and over again is that there's great violence in the earth. The whole earth is filled with violence the Bible repeatedly tells us and it talks about the fact that the imagination of man's heart is only evil continually. Now it says in chapter 6 verse 1 it came to pass when men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took them wives of all which they chose and the Lord said my spirit should not always strive with man for that he is also flesh yet his days shall be 120 years. Now when the Bible says the sons of God and the daughters of men, some people will say the sons of God are angels. I do not believe that and one of the biggest reasons I don't believe that is that in Hebrews chapter 1 verse 5 it says for which of the angels said he at any time thou art my son this day have I begotten thee and again I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. So in Hebrews 1, 5 and 6 it makes it clear God never said at any time to any of the angels you are my son I've begotten you or I'll be to you a father you'll be to me a son. So that doesn't make any sense. Also the Bible tells us that that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit and angels are ministering spirits and man is flesh. Number three every time the word sons of God is used throughout the Bible it's always referring to believers. It's referring to people that are saved. That's something that's consistent all throughout the Bible that the saved are called the sons of God. Behold what manner of love the father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God. And what the Bible is explaining here is that those people who are saved who were mainly the descendants of Seth because of the fact that they passed down a godly lineage Seth and Enos in their days man began to call upon the name of the Lord referring to salvation that the people who are saved ended up marrying the unregenerate daughters of man whether Cain's descendants or just other non-believers and they intermarried with them and pretty soon the whole world's wicked. What's actually happening here is that when God's people marry ungodly people or unsaved people you end up with all wickedness. You end up with the whole earth becoming corrupt. Also because there's not a criminal code to punish murder with the death penalty. That's another reason why the earth is filled with violence. That's why the first thing God does when they get off of Noah's Ark is institute the death penalty to cause there to be a consequence and a stronger criminal code so that the earth would not descend into violence again. Now look at verse 4 the Bible says there were giants in the earth in those days and also after that when the sons of God came in under the daughters of men and they bear children unto them the same became mighty men which were of old men of renown. Now this is the verse that they will turn on its head in order to get this doctrine of angels mating with humans and creating hybrids. And the reason I say they're turning this verse on its heads because if you actually look at what the verse says it says there were giants in the earth in those days and also after that when the sons of God came in under the daughters of men and they bear children to them the same became mighty men which were of old men of renown. The Bible is clearly saying that the giants were in the earth before the sons of God went in under the daughters of men. Because then it says also after that when the sons of God went in under the daughters of men they bear unto them these men of renown. Now why is that relevant? A man of renown a mighty man in the earth is someone who is a leader someone who is running things. So what he's saying is that the product of these sinful unions are basically the men of renown in the earth the powerful men in the earth and obviously everything rises and falls on leadership. The Bible says in verse 5 God saw 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 made man on the earth and it grieved him at his heart and the Lord said I will destroy man whom I've created from the face of the earth both man and beast and the creeping thing in the fowls of the air for it repented me that I've made them but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord. Notice that there's no anger toward any angels no anger toward hybrids or oh man the gene pool has been messed up the DNA is messed up from this this hybrid thing. That's not what the Bible is saying. God's angry with who? Mankind. Who's he going to destroy? Man and the animals. It says in verse 9 these are the generations of Noah and Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations and Noah walked with God and Noah begat three sons Sham, Ham and Japheth. The earth also was corrupt before God and the earth was filled with violence and God looked upon the earth and built it was corrupt for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth and God said unto Noah the end of all flesh has come before me and he's mentioning it now for the third time for the earth is filled with violence through them. That was the problem and behold I will destroy them with the earth. He tells him to make the ark. In chapter 6 he's given instructions to make the ark. In chapter 7 he's taken two of each animal seven of the clean beasts. Chapter 8 that you know that God remembers Noah he's on the ark the floods there and on and on he comes off the ark in chapter 9 and God puts the rainbow in the clouds and basically promises to never destroy the earth with the flood again. So that's where we are in the story is that there's the first world and man gets corrupt. God destroys everything with the flood and just starts over with Noah and his three sons and their three wives and they have to just repopulate the earth from there and at that they don't have to marry their siblings they only have to marry their cousins this time when they get off the ark. So then in chapter 10 he explains how these three sons would have various children that would go on to found different cities and nations and different kindreds of the earth and this explains to us in chapter 10 where the nations of the earth come from and it talks about the sons of Shem the sons of Ham and the sons of Japheth covering all the nations of the ancient world where they came from. In chapter 11 the Bible tells in verse 1 the whole earth was of one language and of one speech and it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plane in the land of Shinar and they dwelt there and they said one to another go to let us make brick and burn them thoroughly and they had brick for stone and slime had they for mortar and they said go to let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven and let us make us a name lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth and of course they build that great tower of Babel and it's a one world system. God had wanted them to spread out and to be in separate nations but instead they have a one world system they have one language one government one religion working their way to heaven and God comes down and confounds their languages forcing them to split up and go to different areas and do their own thing this is one hundred years after the flood that this story takes place in Genesis 11 with the tower of Babel and in the end times we're heading toward a tower of Babel that people out in the world call the new world order and we see it in scripture where there's going to be a one world system of worshipping the antichrist and the mark of the beast and all that and in that modern day Babylon which you know obviously Babylon derives from Babel this end times global empire that will eventually give power to the antichrist and that's a whole sermon of itself I believe that the earth is heading back toward one language because we can see that happening and there's no debate on what that language is it's English I mean every sci-fi story will prove that to you because in the year 2300 or whatever they're all speaking English whenever they're communicating with other planets case closed no I'm just kidding no but honestly anyone you talk to knows that English is the world language and I've seen this change dramatically just in the last 15 years I mean I remember when I went to Germany back in 1999 and in the year 2000 they didn't speak English the young people the teenagers did not speak English nobody spoke English you go there now the teenagers are proficient in English even in the schools that are not as advanced because in Germany they split them into three schools not everybody goes to the same school like they do in America they test them and the smart kids go to the smart school the the the the challenged kids go to no I'm just kidding but anyway they break them into three schools based on how smart they are and even the kids in the low end school now speak English proficiently and you go to these African countries they speak English and their own language I believe will eventually be completely gone just as the Native Americans in Arizona less and less people speak Navajo Apache these other languages they're slowly going away that's going to be the same thing you know depending on how long it is until the second coming of Christ we don't know when that's going to be but if you were to give it a hundred years I mean these countries in Africa are all going to be speaking probably nothing but English at the rate things are going and probably a lot sooner than that in fact so we're seeing a Tower of Babel forming linguistically it's like an electronic Tower of Babel where the whole world is going to be united together and that's a whole nother sermon on entice Bible prophecy now there's a major shift in the book of Genesis because I'm giving you an overview of the whole book when we get to chapter 12 see chapters 1 through 11 give us the origin of our earth mankind in general how we got on this earth where all the nations of the world come from but then when we get to chapter 12 we start to deal with just one man and his family just one family so Genesis 1 through 11 is dealing with the whole world Genesis 12 through 50 is dealing with the story of Abraham Isaac Jacob and the twelve patriarchs for the whole rest of the book now let's look at the key passage here at this gear change in Genesis chapter 12 verse 1 the Bible says now the Lord had said unto Abraham get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred and from thy father's house unto a land that I will show thee and I will make of thee a great nation and I will bless thee and make thy name great and thou shalt be a blessing and I will bless them that bless thee and curse him that cursed thee and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed now from the very beginning when God chooses Abraham and consistently all throughout this story of Abraham Isaac Jacob and then after that the nation of Israel coming out of Egypt all throughout the Old Testament all the way into the New Testament consistently from the beginning it's crystal clear that God chose Abraham not just because he just loves Abraham so much and he just wants to just spend the rest of his life just you know falling all over himself just just how great the Jews and Israel and Abraham are like you guys are just the chosen I mean look it right away you can see in Genesis 12 here that the whole point of Abraham being chosen is not just for his own self glorification or for the glorification of his nation it is clearly to be a blessing and a benefit to other people does everybody see what I'm saying he didn't choose Abraham and Israel to be his chosen people just so that there just be just two kinds of people I mean you're either just one of the chosen or you're everybody else and as if God just has some special love or just some special excitement for these certain people I mean people just have a really weird view of the Jews not weird sign the right word it's sick it's a sickness it's it's it's it's like it's like a teenage girl going backstage at a rock concert that's what they're like if they get around Jews or rabbis or something it's unhealthy it's not normal it's like the child who has the poster of the rock star on the ceiling when a glow-in-the-dark shining on it and they lay in bed at night worshiping their idol and that's what Israel has become that's what the Jews have become an idol unto Christians where they they lose the emphasis on Jesus and the gospel and Christianity and they obsess over the Jews all things Jewish you know I even heard a preacher recently and I used the word preacher very loosely he was more like a book salesman advertising his book table just it was all about selling merchandise in the house of God which is another sermon but he said we have a Jew living inside of us I mean that's blasphemous we have a Jew living inside of us and he said that's why it's just normal for us to just love all things Jewish the culture the language everything Jewish we get excited about he said that's natural and normal because we have a Jew living inside of us and he said if you don't feel that way as a Christian you're the oddball and here's what he said that in the last days the Bible said they'll be without natural affection so he to him without natural affection means that you don't want to go like you know like if we're not into all this Jewish and I don't think I did that right but if we're not if we're not I'm I don't have that natural affection that I should have for that you know so if we're not hawking phlegm and Shabbat Shalom and throwing down glasses and saying mazel tov we're without natural affection but it's like they go so far in twisting scripture just every scripture is about worshiping the Jews you know when I read the Bible every scripture points me to worship Jesus and to call Jesus a Jew living inside of you that's false Jesus Christ is God you can't just put him in this box of being this certain nationality you know okay when he walked on this earth was he Jewish absolutely when he walked on this earth he was born of the seed of Abraham and he was born of the tribe of Judah and when he walked on this earth he was Jewish but you know what he's been glorified beyond that folks in 2017 he rose from the grave thousands of years ago and in his glorified form he's not a Jew okay he's God Almighty and to sit there and try to pin some weird culture on him that's not even the same culture they they had back then that you know depends on modern New York Jewish culture on him is ludicrous and to say hey if you don't like that stuff you're without natural affection it's unbelievable but look what the scripture says friend and look I don't want you to take my word for it look at your Bible it says right here the whole point of choosing Abraham is not just you know I've always wanted to just have one guy that I could just elevate above everybody else I mean is that what God's saying I just really want to pick one guy and show him special treatment I really just want to pick a certain nation and treat everybody else like dirt and just really fall all over myself is that what God's saying here no the whole point of choosing Abraham at the end of verse 2 is so that he would be a blessing not to just bless Abraham but that Abraham would be a blessing what does it mean to be a blessing it means he's being a blessing to someone else everybody see what I'm saying he's not just being blessed see there's being blessed and then there's being a blessing being blessed is receiving blessing being a blessing is blessing someone else that's why I look at the end of verse 3 and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed it wasn't just about blessing one guy it's not just about elevating one guy and showing him favoritism God's not a respecter of persons when God chooses people he's not choosing them because he's gonna have them be better than everybody else he chooses people for service he chooses people to be used by him to carry out his eternal purpose and you know what his purpose is his purpose is to save anyone who will call upon him he wants to save everybody he loves all the nations of the world he wants them all to be saved he didn't just pick one guy and people have this warped view well in the Old Testament is this only about the Jews getting saved and then in the New Testament you open that up to everybody else false from day one it's all about blessing all nations all families go to Genesis 22 we continue through the life of Abraham for sake of time I'm gonna skip the story of Sodom and Gomorrah it's not politically correct anyway so you know we should just skip that and I even talk about it but anyway let's go to let's go to Genesis 22 amen you know so Abraham's life it continues and so this is a key event when we get to Genesis chapter 22 where Abraham is willing to sacrifice his son Isaac right and this is where the promise to Abraham is reiterated this is a really cool story because of all the parallels with Jesus Christ of course it says in verse number one and it came to pass after these things that God did tempt Abraham that means to test him and sent him Abraham and he said behold here I am and he said take now thy son thine only son Isaac whom thou lovest and get the end of the land of Moriah and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of and I'm sure that that was the same mountain in the land of Moriah either of one of two places or it could be both okay either number one the site of where the temple would be built later on or could have even been Mount Golgotha itself where Jesus Christ was crucified and perhaps maybe even the first temple was in that place who knows but probably it was one of those two places probably either the temple site or Christ crucifixion ground because both of those places were significant and God tells him it's a specific mountain that I'm going to show you Abraham rose up early in the morning saddled his ass and took two of his young men with them and Isaac his son and clave the wood for the burnt offering and rose up and went under the place of which God had told him then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place so far off and Abraham said unto his young man abide ye here with the ass and I and the lad will go yonder and worship and come again to you implying we're both going to come again to you and Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering watch this and laid it upon Isaac his son and this is a picture of when the cross was laid upon Jesus Christ and he carried the cross and Isaac spake unto his father in verse 7 and said my father and he said here am I my son and he said behold the fire and the wood but where is the lamb for burn offering and Abraham said my son God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering so they went both of them together now keep your finger here and go to Hebrews chapter 11 keep your finger in Genesis 22 go to Hebrews chapter 11 so we've seen chapters 1 through 11 in Genesis just explaining where the world came from getting us up to the point of Abraham and then the main subject of Genesis is the story of Abraham Isaac Jacob and their 12 sons that's what the book of Genesis covers now we're at a pivotal moment where Isaac is is about to be offered as a sacrifice by his father look what the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 11 verse 17 by faith Abraham when he was tried showing that tempted means tried again because it said tempted in Genesis here it says tried offered up Isaac and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son of whom it was said that an Isaac shall thy seed be called accounting that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from whence also he received him in a figure so the Bible tells us in Hebrews 11 that the reason why Abraham was willing to slay his son is that he believed that God was able to raise him from the dead see he knew that whatever he was doing was foreshadowing our Lord Jesus Christ who would die and be buried and risen again and he knew somehow he didn't really understand everything he saw through a glass darkly but he knew somehow that what he was enacting had something to do with our Lord Jesus Christ the Savior of the world and so he accounted that God was able to raise him from the dead which is why he willingly offered up Isaac now that's not the way it ended up happening the Bible says there in Hebrews chapter 11 from whence also he received him in a figure so he did not literally die and come back to life but in a sense he received him from the dead in the sense that he was about to be killed and he ends up being spared that death go back to Genesis 22 now with that in mind so of course the angel stops him right when he's about to plunge the knife into his own son he stops him and he says in verse 12 lay not thine hand upon the lad neither do thou anything unto him for now I know that thou fearest God seeing thou is not withheld thy son thine only son from me and Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns so this ram also represents Jesus because the ram is substituting for Isaac instead of Isaac being killed the ram is the sacrifice the ram takes his place and his horns are caught in the thicket which pictures the crown of thorns on the head of Jesus the ram having his head stuck in the thorns and Abraham went and took the ram offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son now look at verse 15 the bible says and the angel of the lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time and said by myself have I sworn saith the lord for because thou has done this thing and has not withheld thy son thine only son that in blessing I will bless thee and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is upon the seashore and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou has obeyed my voice keep your finger there go to galatians chapter 3 galatians chapter 3 you see because Abraham believed God and because he had the faith to go through with taking his son up there and laying him on the wood and going through all this that God reiterated his blessing and his promise to him and he says to him that because of this in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou has obeyed my voice look what the bible says in galatians chapter 3 remember what it said in hebrews 11 he accounted that God was able to raise him up even from the dead look at galatians 3 8 the bible says and the scripture says in the chapter 4 seeing that God would justify the heathen through faith preached before the gospel unto Abraham saying in thee shall all nations be blessed so there's no debate here when God said to Abraham in thee shall all nations of the earth be blessed back in again in chapter 22 we don't have to wonder what did he mean by that because he tells us what he meant by that when he told Abraham that all nations will be but it's through Jesus because it said foreseeing that God would justify the heathen by faith so when we read genesis 12 1 through 3 the scripture in that place is foreseeing that God would justify the heathen by faith now let me ask you this do these dispensational teachers when they read genesis 12 1 through 3 are they foreseeing that God's going to justify the heathen through faith no here's what they say here's their interpretation they say well the reason all nations will be blessed is because if they bless Israel God will bless them because he told Abraham I'll bless those who bless you so therefore if if the U.S. gives money and missiles to Israel will be blessed so all nations can be blessed just by licking the boots of the Jews I mean what a warped sick doctrine what does the bible say Galatians 3 said that God is foreseeing in Genesis and and this should help us to understand that the whole bible is about Jesus chapter one Jesus is already in the picture chapter three verse 15 he's in the picture chapter four he's in the picture over and over again through the book of Genesis it's all pointing to Jesus as what the one who would die for us the one who would die for us he didn't he didn't come to earth and and he's coming to be a king but then they rejected him so then he died for us no no he came to die came to die for us that was always the plan that was that they tried to take him and make him a king by force and he didn't let them he said no he's there to offer his life as a sacrifice the father sent the son to be the savior of the world that's what the bible tells in john first john so it's pretty clear what the blessing is the bless the blessing is Jesus the fulfillment of Genesis 12 one through three is Jesus and that's on the authority of Galatians 3-8 now if you would go back to the book of Genesis and let's jump forward in the book of Genesis to chapter 37 so obviously there are a lot of specific stories in the book of Genesis but we're doing an overview tonight we're kind of stepping back and getting the big picture we're not we're not looking at every detail every story else we'd be here all night the overview is that Genesis one through 11 gives us the history of the world up until Abraham chapters 12 through 50 the focus is all on Abraham and his family and his descendants Abraham begets Isaac Isaac begets Jacob Jacob has 12 sons that are the 12 patriarchs who become the 12 tribes of Israel now one of the big parts of the end of the book of Genesis is to really focus in on Joseph he's the main character and this is a really powerful story throughout the end of the book of Genesis about Joseph and his brethren but I just want to quickly point out that again the story of Joseph is strongly foreshadowing Jesus Christ and his ministry and we don't have time I could show you how every chapter in the book of Genesis is pointing to Jesus in some way shape or form but in the life of Joseph there's some really strong parallels with the life of Jesus and I you know this is not even exhaustive I'm just going to give you a few parallels you know we could sit here and read the whole story and it's just parallel after parallel after parallel the Bible is truly an amazing book but let me just show you some highlights okay first of all look at Genesis 37 verse 8 the Bible says and his brethren said to him this is the brethren of Joseph speaking to him shout thou indeed reign over us or shout thou indeed have dominion over us and they hated him yet the more for his dreams and for his words so Joseph has these dreams where the sun the moon and the 11 stars bow down to him and where these different sheafs that they're binding all of his brethren's sheaves they bow down to his sheep but if you look at what his brethren say you know shout thou indeed reign over us and how they hated him this calls to mind the life of Jesus he even gives a parable where he talks about the man who goes off into a far country and he gives the talents to his servants this is from the book of Luke and it says but the citizens of the country they wrote to him and said we will not have this man to rule over us which is talking about the Jews they said and this is what the new testament says in the book of luke we will not have this man to rule over us what does it say here about joseph's brethren shout thou indeed reign over us his brethren rejected him he came unto his own referring to the nation of Israel the Jews and his own received him not and so it's the same thing with joseph just as joseph was not believed on and not respected by his brethren jesus went through the same thing his brethren mocked him and ridiculed him in the book of john chapter 7 they didn't believe on him until after he rose from the dead then they believed on him so joseph and jesus had that in common both hated despised rejected by their brethren but not only that what happened his brethren eventually they do bow down and that pictures the fact that eventually to jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that jesus christ is lord of the glory of god the father and it's in the life of joseph every knee bowed to him when he was second in command to pharaoh not only that but when joseph's brethren end up laying hands on him and beating him up they throw him into a pit and the bible specifically tells them verse 24 there in genesis 37 they took him and cast him into a pit and then it gives us this detail the pit was empty there was no water in it which is interesting because that term is used elsewhere in the book of zechariah the pit wherein is no water a reference to hell and so again jesus christ the bible says this spake he of the resurrection of christ that his soul was not left in hell neither did his flesh see corruption not only that but the brother who actually sells him into slavery is judah and what's the greek version of the old testament name judah judas in fact judah in matthew chapter one is called judas because it says you know isaac begat jacob and jacob begat judas and his brethren so judas sells joseph into slavery then when they want to show the dad that joseph has been killed they don't want to admit that they sold him into slavery so they lie to their dad and say oh we found this coat and it's a coat that they dipped in blood and what's jesus going to be wearing when he returns in genesis chapter 19 he's wearing a vesture dipped in blood so the coat dipped in blood is another similarity so joseph goes down into egypt well isn't it interesting jesus also went down into egypt that the scripture might be fulfilled out of egypt have i called my son not only that but joseph when he's thrown into prison wrongfully when he's wrongfully convicted just as jesus was wrongfully convicted he's with two other prisoners that are criminals and one of them is spared and one of them is destroyed jesus is crucified with two thieves one of them gets saved and is forgiven and goes to heaven the other is condemned and is in hell right now not only that but joseph was 30 years old when he began his ministry as the vizier of egypt and jesus was 30 years old when he began his ministry and of course uh joseph forgives his brethren a picture of the forgiveness of jesus i mean the parallels just go on and on and on in the life of joseph i mean there's much more than that it's it's it's fascinating and so this shows you that the book of genesis is very relevant to us today in the new testament first of all it gives us the origin of so many things and we can trace so many doctrines all the way back to the book of genesis but not only that it has so many teachings on jesus and so many pictures of jesus christ the whole bible is like that but just from what i showed you in the brief time that we have tonight you can see that genesis is an amazing book fascinating book and i hope that this will encourage you to read your bible and and read the book of genesis on your own and obviously read the whole bible but it all starts with you know reading genesis amen and i know it's not january 1st but if you haven't read genesis you need to dig in and read genesis and there's a lot to learn and god has a lot of truths in this book i'm constantly learning new things from the book of genesis even though i've read it so many times even though i've been saved for decades there's there's so much here and so we should never cease to marvel at god's word and we should read it study it love it every single day why because if we read it we'll know the truth and when people come at us with these crazy doctrines we'll know that it's a lie when they try to tell us oh man it's all god's god's whole program is just all about the jews the whole bible is just about the jews start to finish no it's like wrong buddy the whole bible is about god wanting to save everybody that's what the bible is about and he's just using certain people to do it look god doesn't love me any more than he loves someone else okay that's that's doing the work of the lord i'm a tool okay god is using me to get his work done and if you do the same work that i'm doing god's gonna feel the same way about you as he feels about me or anybody else he doesn't play favorites he's not a respecter of persons he loves us and he wants to use us to reach everybody with the gospel and he does it's it's not like you get two points for winning a jew to the lord and one and one point for winning everybody else oh you get extra rewards here let's throw in an extra crown you should get extra rewards for winning the jews because they're so hard to get saved since they're so hard-hearted and stiff-necked but they're not any different than anybody else and if you read the bible you know that let's borrow and have a word of prayer