Act 3 The King Chooses Israel, Scene 1 A People for the King
Introduction:
Stepping into God’s Story: A Play in six acts
Creation: Sovereign King…Intimate Friend
Fall: humanity’s desire to autonomous… lack of trust in Yahweh
Redemption: initiated by Yahweh to reclaim his rebellious creation

A. Genesis: Prologue to Israel’s History
• Universal Period (Gen. 3 – 11) Cain, Abel, Lamech, Enoch, Noah, Babel…
• Patriarchal Period (Gen. 12 – 50): Abraham, Isaac, Jacob…Dennis will cover next week
o We’ll spend the next 5 weeks in Act 3, Scene 1: A People for the King
• Questions raised tonight: Cain’s wife… Cain’s offering…length of years…Enoch…Nephilim... the flood…Babel?

I. Overview of Genesis 3 – 11
A. Theme: pattern of God’s good creation… falleness of humankind…God’s redemptive activity

B. Unleashing of sin: origin, spread, effects:
From the Garden => humans => every aspect of the human realm (physically, relationally, ecologically, culturally, psychologically…)
• Inside the living body

C. God’s response: a pattern of promise and judgment…
“grace through judgment” – Tim Keller

II. Unleashing of Sin in Human Life (Gen. 4)
A. Goodness of creation enjoyed: family and cultural development
• Cain and Abel: cultivations of crops, shepherding,
• 4:17-22 Culture develops in many directions: Cain…Lamech…Jabal…Tubol-Cain…

B. All polluted by sin: murder, misdirection of cultural activity
• V3 worship and murder! Cain’s heart wasn’t right
Where do you see promise and judgment? Cain spared, given offspring, Enoch…

III. Line from Adam to Noah (Gen. 5)
A. God’s Response: Faithful to the Promise.
• Does God give up on misdirected humanity? 5:1 restates “in the likeness of God”.

B. Godly line holding promise (3:15)
• The genealogy has signs of hope: family, Enoch walked with God (5:24), Noah is born!

IV. Story of Noah: Judgment and Promise (Gen. 6-9)
A. Evil strangling human life: sons of God, the cancer of sin continues to twist God’s good creation

B. Catastrophic flood
• God’s judgment says, “Enough is enough”…Noah is the second Adam.

V. God’s faithfulness shown in Noah (Gen. 6 -9)
A. Noah and ark:
• Noah is called by God: walked with God (6:9)…remnant

B. Noahic covenant: new start…God’s purpose remains constant
• Catastrophic flood is both judgment and grace.
Noah = Adam…Abraham= Noah…Christ= Adam…God brings grace and salvation…

C. Covenant: bond, blood and sovereignly administered
• O. Palmer Robertson… (9:1-17)…Noah is the second Adam; Gen. 9:1, 7 “fill the earth!”
1. Bond: God is bound to them and they to him, covenant = contract, relational like a marriage (Hosea)

2. Blood: serious…public…emphasized sacrifice

3. Sovereignly administered: not equal partners…God establishes the terms of the covenant
• Does this work? No! Noah gets drunk!...
• Ham’s son Canaan (Canaanites) is cursed…Shem (Israelites) is blessed…

VI. Nations and Rebellion (Gen. 10 – 11)
A. Spread of nations (Gen. 10) Sons of Noah…see both good and bad

B. Communal attempt at autonomy (Gen. 11)
• God’s originally command to “fill the earth” is refused…human autonomy!
• Babel, ziggurat, “gate of God”, Hebrew “confusion” (folly, flood)

C. God’s judgment (and the promise)
• God’s judgment actually forces them to obey their original mandate….1:26-28.
• Acts 1 and 2 are an undoing of Babel…Is there any hope? Abraham!

Conclusion
Kingdom and Covenant…Creation/Fall/Redemption… Grace through judgment
• God endures all the evil and pain…there is always a remnant and a hope

Act 3 Scene 1…the Story continues next week: Abraham…Redemption Initiated!