Forerunners Part 1

It's entitled forerunners of the faith. And we're going to be looking at the lives of a great many believers who have come before us Adam and Eve and Abraham some of the names that you are familiar with a stir in David. We might look at some of the different prophets is as well Samuel Isaiah Jeremiah and take a look at the lives of these individuals not simply a through the the books that they wrote are the letters that they wrote but but through the challenges that they faced and today we're going to take a look at the first four runners of the face those who were the first man and woman to place their toe on the starting line of life. So to speak and I think that will learn a great deal from them to take a look at the life of Adam and Eve from a historical perspective. From a personal perspective and from a theological perspective as well. Now question for you. How many of you guys ever heard of the Scopes Monkey trials? Did you guys ever hear that raise your hand up high? If you ever heard of that say Mason had you ever heard of the Scopes Monkey Trial before that the first time you're hearing that let me tell you a little story here before we get started. The Scopes Monkey Trial says it was called began in July 10th of 1925 in Dayton, Tennessee. John Thomas Scopes was a young High School science teacher accused of teaching evolution in violation of Tennessee state law the law which has been passed in March made it a misdemeanor punishable by fine to quote teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine creation of man as taught in the Bible and the teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals to get in 1925 in Dayton. That was the law now. It seems that did they said that they said the teacher scope actually conspired to get charged with this violation so that he can challenge the constitutionality of the law after his arrest the American civil liberties Union mounted his defense. Hearing of this coordinate attack on Christian fundamentalism Williams Jennings Bryan you ever heard that name before the three-time Democratic presidential candidate in a fundamentalist hero volunteered to assist with the prosecution of the teacher Scopes and soon after the great attorney Clarence Darrow who I think Perry Mason was modeled after if I'm not mistaken agreed to join the ACLU in defense of Scopes. The stage was set for one of the most famous trials in US history on July 10th, the Monkey Trial got underway and within a few days chords of Spectators and reporters had descended on Dayton as preachers set up Revival tents along the city's main streets to keep the faithful Steward up inside the courthouse the defense suffered early setbacks when the judge judge John Ralston refuse The defense's request to in his normal practice of opening each day's proceedings with prayer. Outside the courthouse Dayton took on a carnival-like atmosphere vendors sold Bibles toy monkeys hot dogs and lemonade to Champ chimpanzees one dressed like a man in a plaid suit a brown Fedora and white fat entertained Dayton's citizen as the trial went on a supposed Missing Link a man named Jo Vin's of Burlington Vermont was paraded around. It. Sounds like he had kind of a receding hairline and forehead and a jutting out chin. He was paraded around as the actual Missing Link on the judge's orders. The trial proceedings were moved outside on the second day because the judge feared that the wait at the crowd inside the courthouse would collapse the courthouse floor. In front of several thousand Spectators in the open air defense attorney Darrow in a surprising move called only one witness and it was the prosecution lawyer Williams Jenning Bryan somewhat surprised Brian took the stand and Darrow and his questions in a focused and direct assault on Brian's literal interpretation of the Bible. He'll prepared for Darrow's line of questioning Brian stumbled and contradicted himself as he attempted to defend a literal interpretation of scripture. Under cross-examination. His answers were inconsistent and incoherent. Play music man of the crowd are all destroyed Brian's fundamentalist positions on the Bible the case came to a closed after only a brief minutes of deliberation. The jury rendered a guilty plea Scopes was found guilty of teaching a theory that denies the story of divine creation has taught in the Bible, but although Brian had won the case, you've been publicly humiliated and his fundamentalist beliefs had been disgraced five days later on July 26th. He laid down for a Sunday afternoon nap and never woke up. It was a turning point in the history of our country. As what was understood to be a biblical sense of the creation account and the origin of man was brought into open question and not simply that but what was effectively mocked publicly by one of the sharpest attorneys of his day. But the question of where man comes from is nothing to be monkeyed around with.

Come on, you didn't like that one. That was I thought that was a good with Kai cheesy. I don't usually do that but the origin of humankind the question of purpose and meaning where we came from. Why are we here? What is our purpose in life is as fundamental to the very nature of being and it's it's not something that should be handled in a carnival Sideshow atmosphere. And today is we look at the life of Adam and Eve. We look at the forerunners of our faith in the series. We're going to look at those who came before us believers who faced the challenges of living a faithful wife in a faceless world and its We Begin that story as we begin that to survey of the scriptures. We have to really start with Adam and Eve Adam and Eve were the first to set their toes on the starting line. We can learn a great deal from them. Not only where they the first human beings that God created but the decisions that they made change the course of human history and a promise that God made to them change the whole world and yet Adam and Eve are very controversial figures. I can't think of a more controversial story in scripture apart from perhaps the account of of Noah and the flood than the story of Adam and Eve and yet so much hangs in the balance when you look at what that story tells us about who God is and who we are about the world that surrounds us about the value that we possess as creature. I don't know about you if you've been watching the news lately, but the world is changing. edit changing in a much deeper way than any of the political pundits realize America was founded on somewhat Christian principles the men that founded the nation were strongly influenced by the biblical understanding of who God was and whom in work the role of law and the right of the freedom of those who had been made by God and you know this from our own constitutional document created with inalienable rights that were endowed by who by the Creator that when you study history you learn that not all of those men were Christian many of them denied the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the authority of scripture one of them famously had a Bible in which he cut out every sentence that he believed was not true and it's so his Bible was peppered throughout with big gap tapping holes in it because he was the judges scripture as opposed to allowing scripture to be his own judge and yet the shaping of the nation was fundamentally Shay. By Christian thinking it provided the grounds of our legal system in the way that we were called to treat one another and though we certainly did not live up to those calls, very founding documents recognizes slavery in claims that some men had 1/3 the value of others though. It had just a few sentences before claimed that all were created with inalienable rights by a Creator. You can see the contradiction to blatant contradiction there. And yet today things are shifting and changing. As you know over the course of the past 10 20 30 40 years. Our culture American culture has moved entirely away from a Christian point of reference morality even reality has been redefined not in the way that God made it but in the way that we want it to be And the great challenge of that is when you deny that God exists. Then you're forced to seek the ground human being in something else rather than the Creator's intent. You're forced to try and find a ground for justice and morality and law in the hands of men instead of in the hands of God and you will fail It's doing this latest moment, even in our cultural history. We have a great Cry For Justice much of it a quotable and yet on what ground will be found those claims of Justice if we do not believe that God created men and we certainly do not believe that they were created in His image. Then why should we show Justin peaceful attitudes to one another? Why shouldn't I simply dominate you for my own purpose and Power Hit the world in which I live is one that's meaningless that has no measure of right or wrong woven into its fabric by The God Who created it. And so what we're looking at today though, the political pundit see it as simply political upheaval and racial differences bubbling to the surface and betrays a much more fundamental and troubling reality in the life of our culture. The first great question of Justice really innocent Fitz come in this post-christian era and we've seen how it's been carried out in the streets and in public discourse, and it's very disconcerting. We look at the story of Adam and Eve some of those very questions come to the fore. But first I want to look at what the scripture say about Adam. It's interesting. When you go to Seminary, when you go to kind of higher education to study the Bible you get a whole bunch of different perspective on what the Bible teaches one of the first things that you come to hear is that Adam and Eve were not historical figures that they couldn't have been that Adam and Eve were simply a myth or a fairy a fabled Storyteller meant to convey kind of a symbolic Truth for all of us to understand and there's some data is some some some some language even in the biblical accounts that they lean into to make that case Adam. They'll say is the name man and Eve is the name Roman general names as opposed to specific name. So they'll claim see these are just pictures of what men and women might have been it's it's simply Cioppino broad picture of the story of God creating things it was never intended to be a historical account of two concrete flesh-and-blood people. I've heard that case so many different times in the halls of seminaries and publicly debated in in scholarly articles and even from Pastor all candidates and churches as we examine them and try to get a sense of where they're grounded. That's completely understandable position. If you were to open the Bible app and read that story and look back to the pages of History. There's no way that you personally could corroborate the historical veracity of Adam and Eve's existence. We live for thousands of years later. You're not going to dig up the bones of Adam and take him into a a scientific research facility in test his DNA and say or hears Adam or hears Eve. That's not how you determine whether or not historical people existed. And it was interesting as Believers is that we have a witness that does trance in that historical Gap Jesus Christ. In Matthew chapter 19. Jesus was approached by the Pharisees and the Pharisees. Ask Jesus about divorce Jesus. Is it okay for us to divorce our wives for any and every reason and listen to what Jesus said to them? He said this in verse for have you not read? But he who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So they are no longer two, but one flesh what therefore God has joined together, let not man separate. Who was it that made that statement? That was Jesus Christ and what he said to his here's have you not read. What book was he referring to in the Bible? Genesis chapter 1 and Genesis chapter 2 Genesis, 1:27 and Genesis 2:24. Jesus directly accounts recount Moses his account of the creation of Adam and Eve as the very grounding of marriage. Jesus saw Adam and Eve as historical figures. In fact, all of the scriptural accounts do and what's very important about Jesus's playing we as Believers believe what about Jesus that he was God In the Flesh the one person with a trans historical perspective on the events of human history reaching back to the very beginning. What is the Book of John say about the nature of creation? It says that the world was created by whom by the word that all things were made through him that nothing that is is that was not created through him. In fact the Book of John begins with those very words in the beginning just as the Book of Genesis does Jesus Christ? The second person of the Trinity was the very Asian by which God the father created the world. And so when Jesus gives us historical testimony of the history of Adam and Eve as a Believer frankly that settles the question. So what does that mean for us as Believers? Well, it's a a truth that affirmed time and time again in the scriptures Luke when he gives us the genealogy of Jesus in Luke chapter 3 traces. Genealogy all the way back to the very beginning. Here's what Luke rights in Luke 3 verse 37 and 38 a Jesus began. His ministry was about 30 years of age Luke rights in 3 being the Sun as was supposed of Joseph and it begins a genealogical list the sun if he like the son of the son of Levi and it goes on and on again the son of Methuselah the son of Enoch the son of Jared the son of Mahalia the center of pain in the center of Enoch the son of Seth the son of Adam the Son of God Jesus affirms the historicity of Adam Luka firms the historicity of Adam Jude the brother of Jesus and Jude chapter 1 writes this about false teachers. It was also about these false teachers that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied and then he goes to quote a statement against false teachers, but Jude Jesus's brothers affirms the historicity Athena one of Adam's great-grandsons and by inference the historicity of atom is swell. That was interesting is that many Old Testament Scholars will question the historicity of Adam? As I Was preparing for this message and looking over some of those conversations. I was disappointed to find the following quote from tremper Longman Tripper Longman is Was An Old Testament scholar at the college that I went to he came in after I left actually sold Mercedes cars with his son who sat across from me many years after graduating and he's a great Old Testament scars in many ways. I really benefited from a lot of his work. When I first began to teach in high school to teach the Old Testament. I was reading through his survey to get a sense of how to teach the Old Testament to my students. Listen to what tremper Longman PhD very intelligent man and a Christian believer writes about Adam. The description of how Adam was created is certainly figurative triple writes. The question is open as to whether there was an actual person named Adam who was the first human being or not? Perhaps there was a first man Adam and the first woman Eve designated as such by God at the right time in his development of human beings or perhaps Adam whose name after all means human or man hits himself figurative of humankind. In general, I have not resolve this issue in my own mind except to say that there is nothing that insist on a literal understanding of Adam in a passage. So filled with obvious figurative description. Now before we're done today, I will prove to you that Adam was a historical figure and Adam was not a historical figure that there is no gospel. I will show that to you definitively that was disappointed to read that from from a Tripper Longman who's otherwise a pretty solid teacher in so many ways, but but let's look at the personal story of Adam as opposed to just the historical question. Of course, you've got to begin with the historical 1/2 frame it but the personal one think about this man if we talked about forerunners of faith. I want you to stop and think and we're going to view Adam is a historical figure because that's what the scriptures teach we open up the Book of Genesis. What do you find when you read this in the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth and the Earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep right away in the pages of scripture. We're giving a very different account of the world in which we live in the secular account that we find raining in our society today our society claims either an agnostic approach to whether or not God exists or more often and atheistic approach the idea that there is no God, but there is a world that came as a result of some kind of a big bang it over the process of thousands and thousands if not millions and millions of years complex life randomly through mutation and natural selection generated. First from inorganic life to organic life in the up the chain of complexity until ultimately we have human beings who have become an expression of those random mutations and natural selection overtime, but the biblical account is very different the biblical account claiming very plainly from the very beginning that there was a god before there was the world in which we live. But there was nothing and then God created all that we see the heavens and the Earth that they were without form and void and there was Darkness until God spoke. And by the power of His word all things came into being Fundamental distinction between the claims that the world makes about the origin of man and the claims that scripture makes but ultimately the world in which we live is created by God for his purposes. And for his glory that all that takes place within it takes place under his Sovereign Authority that the systems that were brought into being at the very beginning. We're systems that Kean design that he implemented it was not simply a random process of natural selection, but it was a Divine process of God selection of each and everything that would come to pass were told from scriptures a little bit scripture a little bit later in the Genesis account that he created animals in their kind as he made them. What's interesting is as we look yet that the biology of life we find that truth revealed that animals exist in their kind. And even though our strongest theory of development, atheistically agnostically that there's this evolutionary process that moves from one kind to another kind of oddly enough. And this was true. Even when Darwin wrote the Origin of Species, we don't ever find that transitional being from one kind to another Even in our own experience. We can take a dog and breed it with other dogs. We can take a cat and breed it with other cats and there's a myriad of variations within that genetic kind but you cannot take a cat and breed it with the dog. Don't go home and try to prove me wrong. It won't be a pretty sight, right. because God created these animals in their kind that what interesting is Darwin said in the Origin of Species that if my theory is true, then we will find a variety of these transitional species working every single transition from one degree of complexity to another and yet since he wrote those words so many years ago. We've not find a single example of that. Now what that means in the scriptures is that God is the one who created all things and he created them in a specific way for specific purposes on the Sixth Day scripture tells us that he created man and woman in a unique way at least that's the account that we read in Genesis one. Here's what the scripture tells us. Then God said Genesis 1:26. Let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the Sea and the birds of the heavens and the livestock over all the Earth and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in his own image in the image of God. He created them male and female he created them. What the scripture say about what took place on that day that you men kind man and woman was created in the image of God in a unique way that distinguish them from the other biological creatures that God had made and what is it that distinguish them? Was it the hair on their head or the nails on their fingers was in the blood that beat through their circulatory systems know it was God imbue them with his image that they were created with his image and we learn more about that in the chapter that follows but he says this about them and God bless them and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth and subdue it have dominion over the fish of the sea the birds of the heavens over every living thing. I given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the Earth and every tree with seed and its fruit. You should have them for food and every beast of the Earth every bird of the heavens everything that creeps on the Everything that has Breath of Life, I have given every green plant for food and it was so and verse 31 and God saw all that he made and behold. It was very good and there was evening and morning the Six-Day now what's interesting is when the Genesis chapter 1 account comes to a close and you turn the page to Genesis chapter 2, you're presented with a second of how God created human beings. It's almost as if that first chapter is a wide shot of the creation of the world in a Boston and chapter 2 is a is a tight shot. When did zoomed-in much more closely on what God had done. Until we hear this in Genesis chapter 2. These are the generations chapter 2 verse 4 of the heavens and the Earth and when they were created with no Bush of the field was yet in the land of no small plant of the field had sprung up the Lord. God had not caused it to rain on the land and there was no man to work the ground then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the Breath of Life. And the Man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the East and there he put the man who he had formed and out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is Pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil. This is the story of the first floor Runner of our fade and I want you to stop and think for a moment about that experience. We're told that God made the Majesty of all creation. Have you ever gotten a new phone or a new TV or are some new thing that you really were interested in and you and you open the package home when you open it up for the first time and it's brand new Haven to phone or Sim you get to pull off that little see-through thing and Untouched by human hands without a drop or a scar than you pick out you drop it on accident and mess it up almost immediately, right? I got something to the other day within a few minutes. I did turn the screw it and it got scratched all of it. All you know is created by God in the midst of this brand he kneels down to the dust of the land at 3, anthropomorphic language and he breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of the man that he has created that he might become a living being. Can you imagine in the moment is Adam open his eyes up for the first time and saw all that God had made. And it's a very interesting statement that comes a little bit later in the Book of Genesis. You may be familiar with it. It it doesn't come until after the fall. And and this is what we're told when Adam and Eve fell they hid And what does the account say? It says that they hid and as the Lord God was walking in the cool of the day. He called to Adam Adam. Where are you? What's that a picture of it's a very strange picture of the God who made Adam and Eve that that dog will walk in the garden in the cool of the day shouldn't say something like that. The Holy Spirit was floating through the garden of voice boom down from the heavens. Where are you at? You know, it's probably a picture of the preincarnate Jesus Christ there in the garden. The very one who would later come to redeem Adam and Eve from their sin there with them personally the Son of God the second person of the Trinity the one through whom God always create communicates with his creation that they're Adam created by God In His Image for the first time. I've seen the glory of creation. It doesn't say this in the biblical record, but I'm drawing some inferences from other things that says in that very chapped in Chapter 2 and 3 did very well. Jesus Christ is the one who showed him the things that he had made who showed him the Dominion that he would have who encouraged him as we read in Genesis 2 to name the animals for which he was held responsible. Pic of the life of Adam and he saw all of this for the first time and he explored the depths of creation. You must have been a remarkable experience. No sin in his heart to divide him from the relationship of the Creator who made him eating evil in 10 or activity with since Cynthia magnificent opportunity of glory and all that. God has made it. Enjoy the depth of creation. Otherwise never explored by any other human being And yet is he explores all those things? We learn in Genesis that after naming each and every one of the animals which God had him do he names all of these animals and when he gets to the very end, what are we told? No suitable helper for God for for Adam was found in those animals and the Lord said and scripture here. It is not good for the man to be alone Genesis Chapter 2 Verse 18. I will make a helper fit for him. It's a very interesting personal experience and which atom enjoys the that the breath of creation the physicality of Christmas mountains in the rivers in the streams in the trees. Can you imagine what creation was like before the fall of thin fell upon it and it was distorted. And enjoy all of those things and Eman gots it hears all the animals that I've created ever watch the nature Channel and seen all the different crazy looking animals many of which have gone extinct since that time. I've seen some crazy looking at colors than you know the way to act and it's just amazing to deceive that the breath of God's creation of Adam was brought every one of those animals to see it then to to name it to get to know it to watch it and then get at the very end. He knew that not a single one of those Adam animals could be a companion for him. Your dogs are great companion, but it's very different than another person. It's almost as if God was teaching him. It's something greater was needed the Lord tells us it was not good for the man to be alone. And he would make a suitable helper for him and they were told the story in Genesis chapter 2 verse 21. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon demand and while he slept he took one of his ribs and a closed up a place with flash and the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Been the man said this at last is bone of my bones and Flesh of My Flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. That's the quote that Jesus you speaking to his the people around him and the man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. forerunners of Fate Adam and Eve standing on the precipice of a brand new creation untainted by sin or death or disease had perfect communion with God walking with him in the cool of the day Berry. Probably I would say almost certainly Walking With Jesus Christ the pre incarnate Christ before he took on flesh and blood but in bodily form each and every day in a relationship that we will not experience until we enter into heaven. They experienced there in the guard the forerunners of faith that have come before us. Was Adam a historical figure? Well, there's really no getting around that truth from the pages of scripture will take a look up a little more at that next week as I continue the case for that and move on to another historical figure as well before I leave us and leave Adam and Eve in that story. The story takes a deadly turn is your very well familiar. One of the creatures that the Lord God had made who was more crafty than any other appeared. And he said to Adam and Eve continue eat from the fruit of this tree, you know the story and the woman told the serpent something that she apparently had heard from Adam because it's not told directly to her. We cannot eat from the fruit of this tree nor shall we touch it or we will certainly die something terrible will happen to us. And I got to assume because of who God is that not only did he tell them it's something bad would happen to them. I've got to assume that God made it very clear that that the fruit of this tree will bring death not only to you but to your children and your children's children and bring about a wave of inequity and Injustice that you cannot even fathom. I'm sure that God was clear with him about the Restriction that he placed on them and yet they're in that moment. We were told from the scriptures that has the serpent tempted Eve and Adam who was standing there with her. She saw that the fruit was pleasing to the eye and in desirable for wisdom. And so she took some were told and she gave some to her husband who was with her and they ate and everything changed. For the Lord came in the cool of the day calling to them because they hit immediately as they heard his footsteps and he called them before him there in the garden now broken. And he gave a curse to each and every one of them to the serpent first. He spoke because you have done this curse that are you above all livestock and above all Beasts of the field on your belly. You shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. Listen carefully. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your Offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. the obviously on that day we know from the pages of scripture at further Ron from Genesis chapter 3 that that was not simply a reptile slithering around in the garden with John in the Book of Revelation says that Satan was the ancient dragon the serpent from of old that this is a a mighty confrontation between this creature of gods who had fallen could become crafty and Despicable and this new created man and woman that God had made in His image in the temp to destroy and deface all that. God loved and desired the serpent brought them to temptation to sin and get in that very moment. God calls down a curse on Satan in which one of The Offspring of this woman would have crush his head sometime in the distant future. And a very story of redemption is written in its first lines in the garden as God promises that though the serpent has brought evil in this moment with the serpent has meant for evil. God will use for great good that's actually this the theme of the story of Joseph at the end of Genesis, but it's a statement not simply about the acts of Joseph's brothers, but about the act of the serpent himself what Satan intended for evil God was going to use for a good Satan could never have bad as the Redeemer the son of Adam the Son of God would come to redeem all of humankind from their sin. The forerunners of our faith those who have come before us. Who experienced a relationship with God in a difficult contacts have been Faithful Inn faceless world who have made great mistakes and in witness great victories My Hope for this series as we look at the lives of these men and women that we can be encouraged and we can also be said that he's letting sometimes when we see our own failures we can think we're irredeemable that we sing of Amazing Grace and yet we'll see from each and every one of these men and women that they did not live perfect lives, but they serve to perfect and merciful god. What's closed in a word of Prayer? gracious and holy God we give you thanks for the fact that we are not simply floating around on a orb in the midst of the universe with no purpose or meaning. But in a mighty Act of Creation you made the world out of nothing. If you don't just tell us fantastic stories and myths and fables to make us feel good, but you made out of and even your image and you impressed upon them to build the ability to understand the world to love you and to love one another. And even in the face of their sin as they fell in the whole of creation was fractured in the lives of their children was sold into the slavery of sin. If I cursing the serpent, you claim that one day your son would come every Diemer with all the serpent would strike his heel at the cross would ultimately crush the head of the evil one that your sons and daughters might be redeemed. We're so grateful for those forerunners of Faith who knew you long before we were born. We asked Lord that you would teach us to be faithful even issue walked alongside of them that we might glorify you in the creation that you made and give you praise for the Redemption that you brought in Jesus Christ Our Lord in Jesus name we pray. Amen.