Messianic Viewpoint

Jacques Isaac Gabizon: If they waited so long in such a hostile environment, how did their faith survive during these days? How did Adam and Eve think for over 100 years when they saw that none of their children was coming to faith?

It was all a test of faith for them, just like today, just like how the Lord brings us to test us.

Guest (Male): One lesson we learn from genealogies in the book of Genesis is patience. Patience on the part of parents, like Adam and Eve, waiting to see children come to faith. Don't we face that same challenge today?

Adam and Eve saw then giants, the Nephilim, walking the streets, and that forms for us an incredible imagery as we consider what kind of monsters or giants our own children are facing today as they are confronted with this post-modern concept of relative truth and a demeaning attitude to God and an exaltation of science in His place.

But each of us were once those same children before we came to faith. God is so wonderfully patient. In our congregation in Montreal, we have a Jewish believer whose father came to faith at 96 years old. God waited 96 years.

So, let's not run out of love or patience for our children, but lead them towards the road of salvation. Once shown, they must be the ones to step into that road by themselves. Patience is a virtue, and patience pays out great in reward. Welcome to Shalom Ariel, and welcome to our continuing study in the book of Genesis with Messianic leader Jacques Isaac Gabizon. Be blessed as you listen in and Shalom.

Jacques Isaac Gabizon: Right after, we're told something quite unusual that will show us the marked difference between the world of believers and that of the unbelievers. We're told that Seth was created in the image and likeness of Adam, but what about the other children? What about Cain and the many other children that they had? Were they not all sons of Adam?

How can we understand this information? More than physical appearance, I think that the Bible now concentrates on what it values most, that is beliefs and faith. We have already seen that Adam and Eve understood the promise of God, which tells us that they became believers. According to this genealogy, Seth is the only one of the children who happens to be a believer.

In this sense, he is created in the image and likeness of his father Adam. The others are gone. In fact, even within the line of Seth, only Noah entered the Ark with his sons. It is repeated, if you see in the genealogy, that after each son they had other sons and daughters. What happened to them? They are all gone. This genealogy is one of the image and likeness of a believer to another believer leading to the final last Adam, our Lord and Savior.

This genealogy is given to us in such a unique way that I believe it contains an important practical application for our lives today. Almost all individuals are presented in the same form. It tells us how long the person lived before he had a child and how long he lived after that child was born, and it is repeated over and over. Why?

Let's see the example again. Let's read verses 6 to 11. We're going to see Seth and Enosh. Then Seth lived 105 years and begot Enosh. After he begot Enosh, Seth lived 807 years and had sons and daughters. So, all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died. Enosh lived 90 years and begot Cainan. After he begot Cainan, Enosh lived 815 years and had sons and daughters. So, all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died. It goes on like this for almost all of them. What can we draw from this?

The first thing we see is that each of them waited a good number of years before they had a son that would carry the line of the promise. They all had many other sons and daughters, as we read, but it was only one individual who had to carry the seed, and this one, as we will see, took a long time to come. Do you notice how patient the parents had to be for such a long time? Look at the chart here.

Adam waited 130 years, or at least maybe 100 years or more. Seth, 105 years. 90 years for Enosh. Cainan, 70 years. Methuselah, 187 years. Just to see a believer. If they waited so long in such a hostile environment, how did their faith survive during these days? How did Adam and Eve think for over 100 years when they saw that none of their children was coming to faith?

It was all a test of faith for them, just like today, just like how the Lord brings us to test us. We need to remember that what happened in Genesis chapter 6, verse 1 is parallel. The events are parallel in the lives of the events here. See verse 4 of Genesis 6. Actually, this happened at the same time as Adam was waiting, as each one was waiting.

Chapter 6, verse 4 says there were giants on the earth in those days and afterwards, when the sons of God came to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men of old, men of renown. They were there at the same time. Not only, and for a long time, these godly parents were not seeing any of their children come to faith, but they saw these monsters walking the streets and marrying their own daughters.

If you think you have it hard today, I think that Adam and Eve will get the gold medal for hardness and suffering. Imagine poor Eve. She thought to have given birth to the Messiah, but all she saw, at least for a hundred years or more, is chaos over chaos. She saw her children going adrift and literally marrying monsters.

This waiting period, we see it also with other godly parents. Abraham and Sarah, how long did they wait to get the promised son? Hannah waited long to see her son Samuel. Even Elizabeth and Zechariah waited a long time before they saw John, who became John the Baptist. What do we learn here? What is obvious right here, right from the start, is that faith, hope, and patience is that one thing God wants His people to have. Do we have enough of it?

God is waiting. He can wait a long time. These things will equip the believer no matter what the circumstances are. You know that they were all very well rewarded at the end. I'm not talking in heaven, but on earth because, looking at the genealogy again, you will notice that Adam and Eve, after waiting over a hundred years, spent much time with their new line of children.

For instance, Adam and Eve were so blessed that did you know that they knew Lamech, the father of Noah? They must have been so happy. They also knew Enoch. He must have been their favorite grandchild as he walked with God, it says. Later we will find out that Noah himself knew Abraham. For 58 years actually, they were contemporaries. God is good.

This is why they didn't have the word of God there. You want to know something about the word? Go see Grandpa Noah or Grandpa Abraham. I'm sure that Abraham must have had a long conversation with Noah. It doesn't say that, but this I'm convinced of. Noah must have told him everything from A to Z. Sometimes you ask where did Abraham get his faith from, right?

See how the genealogies open up the scriptures for us? They open up history. But one thing we learn from this genealogy especially is patience. Patience and hope in God. At the end, it pays. I heard that during the training of fighter pilots in the Marines, they teach them how to survive in case their airplanes crash in the waters or if they find themselves in deep waters after an accident.

Often after the impact and in the water, pilots must become confused, that is disoriented, not knowing where is up or down, and you know they have not got much time to make a decision. What they teach the pilots is to look at the air bubbles. The air bubbles will always go up, right? So, when you see the air bubbles going up, going whichever direction, this is the direction you go.

Sometimes we find ourselves surrounded by confusing options, too deeply immersed in our problems to know which way is up. When this happens, we too can remain calm, waiting for God's gentle tug to pull us in the proper direction. Our air bubble perhaps is other believers or scriptures or some other leading from the Spirit of God, from the Ruach HaKodesh.

But the key is to recognize our dependency on God. Adam, Eve, Jared, Enoch all knew that the way up was the way of salvation. This is how we hear about them even today. Let us remember they lived in a society that was so corrupt, but they highly succeeded. This genealogy shows us that no matter the circumstances, no matter the environment, we can succeed.

There's much more to this, by the way. More than man's patience, it is something much greater. In here, in this genealogy, you're going to see God's patience. His patience here could be seen in many, many ways. Let me bring you to the longest-living person ever. It is there in the genealogy. Methuselah. He lived 969 years. Why do you think he is the longest-living person?

Let's try to see, actually, the historical context as much as we can. First, he is the last man, apart from Noah, to have survived until the day of the flood. Do you know what his name means first? His name contains two Hebrew words. The first is die, the Hebrew Mût, and the other Selah, like in the Psalms when you read Selah means to stop, that means the end. Put together, it means when he dies, it will end.

Did you know that according to genealogy, the flood came the same year that he died? So this man was an evangelist. With this unusual name, people must have asked, "Metu what? Methuselah, can you explain us?" "Yes." That opened the door for evangelism. Isn't it extraordinary that this man lived the longest? Doesn't that tell us God's wonderful patience?

The number of years of Methuselah tells us much about God's grace and about God's love. Furthermore, have you noticed the chart again? A marked increase of years as we approach the time of the flood. They waited longer and longer, right? Jared's 162 years before the birth of Enoch, and Methuselah, he waited 187 years. Why this sudden increase when, in fact, Enoch was 90 years and Cainan, 70 years? Because our God is so patient and loving and wanting to have many to come to a saving knowledge of Christ.

All this information becomes so vital when we consider that their situation is so similar to the one we have today. Have you ever wondered why has God waited 2,000 years since the resurrection before Christ comes? I mean, He didn't come yet, but He's coming soon. Actually, you know that God did not have to. Right after the resurrection of Jesus, the Messianic kingdom should have been established.

The reason Peter tells us in 2 Peter, chapter 3: "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some count slackness, but longsuffering," that means He's very, very, very patient, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

Guest (Male): Don't go away. We'll be right back with the second half of our program coming up just after this message. As we wind up for the second part of our program today, we would like to remind our listeners how blessed and privileged we feel to be part of your radio day. We pray that the messages you hear will instruct you, edify you, and encourage you to love the Lord more and follow Him into obedience in even greater ways.

We are all changed by the challenges and transformed by the trials of life, and as we walk them together, we keep looking up to Him who is mighty to break down the walls of Jericho that stand before us and to hand over to us the spiritual victories in life. Yeshua has broken down the greatest barrier, the greatest wall that has separated us from God the Father.

Thank you listeners for joining us in prayer and in financial support for this ministry. If you have it on your heart to give to this ministry, then you can by logging on to our congregation website at BethAriel.ca. That's B-E-T-H-A-R-I-E-L.ca. And if God leads you to contribute from the treasures that God has blessed you with for the continuation of this radio ministry, Shalom, Shalom as we begin part two of today's program.

Jacques Isaac Gabizon: In the meantime, we're here waiting for the end, but we need not to be impatient. Like with Enoch and Methuselah, we live in a world that is hostile to God, but we need to go forward and be patient and loving and understand what the Lord is allowing us to go through.

Guest (Male): And talking about patience and time, we need to properly understand time. Time is definitely not something we want to kill. Yet the way we often use it makes us feel that we're always on a race against the clock. While we do need to be good stewards of time, we also need to respect that we are not serving time itself, but God.

When we see time as a means only for performance and accomplishments, we can become legalistic joy-killers and in fact destroy our capacity to be with people that God has called us to be with. I think I fit into that category too often. Alex McKenzie in his book, The Time Trap, wrote it well. He said, "Time is a resource. Time cannot be accumulated like money or stockpiled like raw materials. We are forced to spend it, and we spend it at a fixed rate of 60 seconds every minute. Time cannot be turned off and on like a machine. It is irretrievable."

Let's take the example of Yeshua Himself. Though the world was still full of people with needs, just before the cross, Yeshua could pray, "I glorified You on earth by completing the work You gave Me to do." God had given Him enough time to do what He was called to do, and that was what mattered. Let's not overburden ourselves with projects, but use the time to enjoy people rather than have it as a tyrant over our lives.

So the next time somebody asks you to add yet another project to your already filled schedule, don't trade performance for peace. Just enjoy some time off. I think that's what I'm heading to do right now. Shalom, and welcome to Shalom Ariel as we continue our study in the book of Genesis with Messianic leader Jacques Isaac Gabizon. Be blessed as you listen in and Shalom.

Jacques Isaac Gabizon: Have you ever wondered why has God waited 2,000 years since the resurrection before Christ comes? I mean, He didn't come yet, but He's coming soon. Actually, you know that God did not have to. Right after the resurrection of Jesus, the Messianic kingdom should have been established. The reason Peter tells us in 2 Peter, chapter 3: "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some count slackness, but longsuffering," that means He's very, very, very patient, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

God is not slack. He's not slow, but He waits and waits. It is because He wants that all should come to repentance. Enoch understood this and he called his son Methuselah, maybe prayed this says, "Lord, let him be, let him be as long as possible, live as long as possible." And we are all Methuselahs, by the way, this is our names. Being believers and having our citizenship in heaven, we should have been home already, but our name is Methuselah. So we need to stay here. Like him, we need to show that God so loved the world that He wants them to come to repentance.

And look at Enoch now. You know, beginning in verse 24, we read that Enoch walked with God and he was not, God took him. Wow, how can we what is this? How can we get this there? Twice, by the way, we are told that he walked with God, here and in verse 22. That's a lot when you consider that the whole of chapter 5 covers a time of many thousands of years. Yet the Spirit repeated twice what is important to Him: when a believer walks with God.

And what made this man Enoch so special? Let's try to gather this information that we have across the scriptures, and here you're going to see the best example of a Christian life. Funny, we have to go to Genesis to see this. He's right there.

First, we see the way he lived, as we just read. He walked with God. To walk with God shows love, shows holiness, shows the right life to walk the right path. Later in the book of Hebrews, Hebrews gives us more information about Enoch in chapter 11, which is the cloud of these witnesses. Verse 5 to 6 says: "By faith, Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, and was not found because God had taken him. For before he was taken, he had this testimony that he pleased God."

Why was he taken? Because he pleased God. This is another way to tell us that he walked a godly life. A godly life attracts the attention of God. And the verse, did you see the word testimony? The Hebrews mentioned his testimony. What is this? That is his ministry, his work, and probably his work of evangelism since the word in Greek means to bear witness. He was witnessing to the others.

And this we can see in that he named his son Methuselah and, having taught the precepts of God to his son, he also became an evangelist. And then we can go to Jude, the half-brother of Jesus. He tells us what he actually preached, and it's extraordinary actually what he said because he preached the second coming of Christ at the time of Genesis. Right? You see history, you can zip it in, right?

Look at verse 14. "Now Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men and said, 'Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints, to execute judgment on all, to convict all who are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have committed in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.'"

It's extraordinary that so long ago he already spoke of the second coming of Christ. Enoch must have been such, I want to tell you, a bold evangelist. You know who he was speaking this to? Monsters. Literal monsters, actually. You know these giants we're going to see next week in Genesis 6. He must have been a bold evangelist because there were these giants on earth at that time, and he wasn't scared of them. Why? Because he saw the right thing.

He walked with God. He saw God. You know, when you know God, you won't be afraid of anything. Again, I remind you what happened in Revelation. When John the Baptist saw Jesus in chapter 1, he fell dead. In chapter 13, when he saw these humongous four animals, giants or whatever it is, he didn't budge. Why? Because he saw the right thing. We need to get close to God.

So while these lived thousands of years ago, their work, their experience is so similar to ours. In fact, if there's one moment in history where another body of believers would identify with Enoch and Methuselah, is our generation. Jesus mentions them for the end times. Both were living very near the very end as we are today.

Enoch, by the way, may remind us of the church. Why? Because he's taken away. We will be taken away also at the rapture because the particularity of the church, of people of the church, are those who walk with God. What we see in Enoch is the very concept behind the rapture, that the Lord will not allow His own to undergo judgment because tribulation is a time of judgment. And we can see the same concept throughout the scriptures, not only there.

For instance, with Lot. Do you remember when the angels came to him and in Genesis 19, and he said to Lot, because Lot was a righteous man, he says, "We can't do anything unless you get out of here." Why? Because judgment cannot come upon us. We were judged on the cross. This is what we learn with Enoch.

If Enoch is a type of the church, Methuselah may represent Israel at the end. While the church will be raptured like Enoch was taken, Israel will stay on earth like Methuselah. The same thing with Daniel and John. John is taken away, representing the church. Daniel is on earth. They see both animals, but on the other side, I mean, opposite side.

And we can add another individual in this pair. Noah. He too can symbolize Israel, the Israel that will survive the tribulation and, like Noah, will usher the new world in the millennium. How close is chapter 5 of Genesis to us today?

Just consider that from Adam, just to bring history together, from Adam to Abraham, there is about 2,000 years. It goes by portions of 2,000 years. From Abraham to Jesus, there's another lapse of about 2,000 years. From Jesus to us, what is it? 2,000 years, even more. God is patient. Adding these three phases, we have 6,000 years.

What about the seventh year? I believe the 7,000th year could be a Sabbath year. It is a Sabbath year. It is the millennium, and I believe we're there. We're coming there. You know, the Rabbis in the Talmud seem to believe so. We read in the Avoda Zara in Babylonian Talmud: "The world will last 6,000 years: 2,000 years of chaos, 2,000 years of Torah, 2,000 years of the time of the Messiah, but because of the abundance of sin, what has passed has passed." They almost, almost got it. They almost were there.

They first thought that there was 2,000 years of chaos, that is the time before Adam and Abraham. This is the history of humankind. Then they saw 2,000 years of Torah, that is the history of Israel when they lived under the law. But then they saw something I'm not sure they realized. They said that the last 2,000 years is that of the Messiah. They are right.

It is the time of the church. It is the time of the body of the Messiah. And adding the last part of the eschatological calendar, the millennium, a thousand years that is about to happen soon, the Messianic times, these years will be the years of the Messiah, which makes it a perfect week of years, 7,000 years.

In the meantime, we're here waiting for the end, but we need not to be impatient. Like with Enoch and Methuselah, we live in a world that is hostile to God, but we need to go forward and be patient and loving and understand what the Lord is allowing us to go through.

I will conclude with a true story that touched my heart, one that brought me to realize how much of a difference actually we can make in our community. In the 1920s, a sociology class at Johns Hopkins University made a study of children in a deprived neighborhood in Baltimore. They identified 200 children who appeared doomed to spend years in prison.

After 25 years, another study was made to discover what had happened to these particular children and, surprisingly, only two were incarcerated, two were in prison. As these men and women were interviewed over and over again, a name came back: Aunt Hannah.

The sociologists were correct in their prediction. By all indication, the children would have been the dregs of society, but there was an intervention: Aunt Hannah, an elementary teacher who loved them so much and spent so much time with them. Yes, the prophecies are right. Things will happen the way God said they will, but we can change our environment.

We can change it. Amos himself twice saw prophecies in his mind. God says, "This is what I'm going to do," and Amos says, "Lord, You can't do that." And God said, "Okay, I won't do it." Twice. Prophecies are going to happen. Again, we can't change the course of the world. It's gone too far, but we can change our community. We can actually go and do good things for the people around. We can be the Methuselahs of Montreal, right? Let's bow our head in prayer.

We thank You, Lord. We thank You, Lord, for the witness, the cloud of witness that we have just in Genesis chapter 5. Lord, this is like a light, a light in the midst of corruption. Heavenly Father, we pray that we can be like Methuselah, we can be like Enoch because yes, we will be taken. This is Your promise, Heavenly Father, but help us to see Your signs, to see Your hand on us, to understand Your will in us, and Lord help us to bring as many as possible to a saving knowledge of Yourself because we are here for this purpose. Give glory to You and to bring people to a saving knowledge of Yourself. We pray in Yeshua's name. Amen and Amen. May the Lord bless you and keep you all.

Guest (Male): Shalom Ariel is a daily radio program emphasizing the Jewish perspective of scripture. God is not through dealing with Israel, nor will He renege any of the promises He has made to her. Our teacher for this program, Jacques Isaac Gabizon, is a Messianic Jewish believer and Messianic leader at Beth Ariel congregation right here in Montreal.

If you've been encouraged by the messages, we'd love to hear from you. Give us a call at 1-888-685-5902 or you may write us at info@bethariel.ca. That's B-E-T-H-A-R-I-E-L all one word, .ca. You are also welcome to join us for our Saturday morning services. We are located at 6297 Monkland Avenue, corner of Madison in NDG.

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