 We try to figure out why this says this. What does this mean? Who is this? Why is this happening? What are they speaking about? And we try to kind of piece together different parts of the puzzle. That shouldn't be, as a matter of fact, God didn't intend to be that way. God did not intend for us to struggle and labor through parts of the Bible that he's already covered. What it's like is if you watch a movie and you come in the middle of the movie, or maybe the other way around, you've watched a movie and someone comes in in the middle of the movie and asks you, what's going on? Who is this person? Why do they do this? Why do they say that? And your response would be to them maybe either nicely or maybe frustratedly. If you just watch the beginning, go watch the beginning and you will understand the full gravity of what's happening. You'll understand even better, but try to even tell someone in the middle of the story. So when you do so, it's even hard for you to kind of catch them up. The same holds true with the Bible. When we look at the Bible, when we read the Bible, oftentimes people can get confused because they don't understand what we're reading in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, what we're reading in the New Testament did not just happen. These books didn't just pop up, they're built off of something else. And I heard someone say it like this and I kind of, I agree, I understand the point of having the divisions of the Bible and so forth and even having things broken down in books, chapters and verses and even between Old Testament and New Testament. I get all that. The issue is this though, there's this continuity from Genesis to Revelation and God never asked us to put a break between it. Now we do so for the benefit of our own selves, but knowing what happened in the very beginning is important, which is why Genesis is in the beginning. So what we're going to do is we're going to do a, what's called a Bible survey. This is going to become a bird's eye view as to what's happening in Genesis. We're going to walk through other books of the Bible, but we need to start off with Genesis. Why? Because the book of Genesis is obviously our foundational book. When you read Genesis, you're going to see so many different doctrines. We'll touch on them as we go, but let me just run through some of those doctrines. One, we're going to see the foundation of the Trinity found in the book of Genesis. We're going to find the sovereignty of God, the foundation of that found in the book of Genesis. We're going to see God's attributes begin to be highlighted in the book of Genesis, man's sin and man's fall found in the book of Genesis. Oh, by the way, we're also going to find Satan's methodology found in the book of Genesis, headship in terms of the household as well as ministry found where in the book of Genesis, what is the price for sin found in the book of Genesis? How does God mean to bring us back together? That is found in the book of Genesis. God's desire for reconciliation, I should say. The foundation of God's plan for salvation. Us, that's what this book is about. It's a book of salvation found where? In the book of Genesis, the establishment of Israel found in the book of Genesis, the establishment of Jesus as king found in the book of Genesis. Oh, by the way, how we read the Bible, our hermeneutic should be found in the book of Genesis. If we recognize that the Bible, each book has a purpose, has a reason, has a rationale behind it, then we shall be okay. So let me put this on the screen. We've covered this before and I just want to make sure if anyone hadn't seen this yet, go ahead and take a screenshot of this little timeline, this Old Testament timeline. Obviously, Genesis is either the oldest book or possibly the second oldest book. Now, the reason why I say possibly the second oldest book is because we're not sure which was written first. Genesis or the book of Job. But now, put it back on the screen. We'll notice that the book of Job is not a chronological book. No, the book of Job is actually what we call a complementary book because it's a complementary book. It is written somewhere thereabouts and it would add to what we may already know in Genesis. And what we'll find out in the book of Job is really just more about God and how he deals with man and the sovereignty of God. But that being the case, let's go ahead and jump into it. The question's got to be who wrote the book of Genesis? Well, the Bible gives its own internal account as to who wrote the book of Genesis. As a matter of fact, I won't go through all of them just because we don't have that kind of time. But if you would, and I'll just rattle out some verses for you to look at Exodus 1744, Exodus 24, 4, numbers 33, 1, 32. And what I'm saying is in these books, the writers will indicate that this person actually wrote the book. In these cases, I'm speaking of Moses actually giving attestation as that he was the writer. But then also Joshua 1 through 8, 1 Kings 2 through 3. I'm looking over here my notes, Ezra 6 through 18, Malachi 4, 4. But most importantly, who should we look at to tell us to verify? Because if he says it, then it's clear. Well, Jesus also states that Moses was the author. There are some theories because there seems to be, as some people, as they look at it, that there are some differences in the approach and the writing styles of Moses, which I don't think that's necessarily the case. And people who are far better at it than me, better scholars, people who know this, they wouldn't say the same thing either. But Jesus himself makes the same statement. In Mark 12, 26, Jesus says this. He says, But regarding the fact that the dead rise again, have you not read the book of Moses? And look what he says. In the passages about the burning bush, how God spoke to him saying, I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are greatly mistaken. And the point is that Jesus is verifying that it was Moses that wrote the Bible. As a matter of fact, we have this division of what we call Moses or the law and the prophets. And so even just calling those collections of books, the book of Moses or the books of Moses, those first five books, they had their own title. Sometimes it'd be called a law, the Pentateuch and so forth, or it would be Moses. And so the Bible even gives its own verification that Moses is the author. So we won't spend too much time on that. Maybe at some point in time we'll do an independent study to show that Moses actually is the writer. But that being the case, I want to go ahead and jump immediately into Genesis because we're going to see some things. I'm going to type this in the right way. I've got Genesis in another chapter I shouldn't have up. Genesis one, one, obviously, what does it say in the beginning? And as we look at the Bible, we learn how to read the Bible. Now sometimes it looks on its face like it's clear. And what do we do? We want to take what we already know, what we've heard, and read into the book. But the book may not say what we're reading into it. The book may not say what we think it's saying. For example, if I say in the beginning, well, when in the beginning? Well, the beginning. The problem is, though, as we put back on the screen, and we've covered this before in the Saturday morning Bible studies, in the beginning, if you guys look at this little marketing over here, as a matter of fact, let me make this a little bit bigger so you guys can see what I'm looking at. As a matter of fact, let me make this enormously gigantic so you can see it. If you notice, here we have this base with these two little dots at the bottom. To the right, Reshet is beginning, so we have in the beginning. However, when you want to use the definite article, the, in Hebrew, there's different ways to go about doing it. Let me give you an example. Oh, let's see the earth. Let's find the earth. No, you know what? Let's go with the heavens. If you notice here on the right, you see the word shamaim. The word shamaim means heavens. It's the plural. But if you notice before it, it has the hey, which is the thep right below it. Matter of fact, that's probably not a good example, because it's going to, it's actually showing thep. That's not a good example at all. But I'll tell you what, look at the, look at the marking below it. In this marking beneath it, you'll notice that it's got either a line or it'll have like a little T looking spot, like you see right above it. Well, if you go above to Genesis, I mean, I mean to, in the beginning, these two little dots right here don't mean that it is in the beginning. The base before it simply means in. Because it's not a definite article, you would probably read it just kind of in a rough way. You would read it in a beginning. Now it's not a beginning, but we're talking about the beginning, but it does not necessarily mean the very beginning of time, the very beginning of beginnings. Are you with me? So there was something there before the beginning. But the point is, is to reference the beginning that's really meaningful to us, the beginning of really our time when time began. And so he's speaking in the beginning, and it's not a definite beginning. So it's not intended to mean that the reason why that's important is because you don't want someone building a theology or doctrine off of something that's not there. It's not saying it's not meant to be taken as in the very, very beginning in the absolute beginning. That's never what that's intended to say. And I'm saying that just because you can get caught up on certain things. Let me give you an example. Even as we go to the New Testament, you'll hear words that take on meanings that they should not take on. For example, have you all heard the difference between Rhaema and Lagos? And you'll have someone's going to tell you that Rhaema, that is a special kind of a right now word that's powerful and coming from God. Well, the fact of the matter is it's not. It's not. Rhaema, the word in and of itself doesn't have any extra power than the word Lagos. As a matter of fact, Lagos and Rhaema are used interchangeably. The reason for me to bring this out, especially here is because we want to make sure that we use the words that we've been given initially and not make them say or mean more than what they mean are with me. So now I'm going back to it. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. So one common argument that comes up, it's a big fight between Christians and non-Christians, creationists and non-creationists, evolutionists, is how old is the earth? The fact of the matter is the Bible does not tell us how old the earth is. The Bible does, however, and I want you guys to hear me, the Bible, the Bible does tell us how old creation is. Well, why do I say that? Because what do we have in the very first verses? We have the earth was formless and void and darkness over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was moving over. Now, is that prior to day one or on day one? Well, this is prior to day one. So, and I see someone saying 6,000 years. Yes, 6,000 years from the time that God said, let there be. But was there anything for God to say, let there be on? Well, sure. This rock, this earth, the earth was there prior to let there be. How long was it there? Now, I'm not going to tell you that the earth is a million years old. I'm not going to tell you how old it is. I don't know. It could be, it could be 6,000 and one second old. We just don't know. The point is, we don't want to make the Bible say what it didn't say. We don't want to make the scripture say what it didn't say. Are you with me? So, now verse three, then God said, let there be light and there was light, light on what? So, prior to the first day, prior to the first day, what was there? This is, this should be pretty evident. What was there prior to the first day? The earth. And it was formless. It was without void. How long was it formless and without void? We simply don't know. Do we need to know? No. Does it prove evolution? No. Does it disprove creation? It absolutely does not. All we know is from the very first day that God said, let there be up till now, roughly 6,000 plus years. Now, am I saying the earth is billions of years? No, I'm not saying that. Am I saying that dinosaurs roam the earth before then? No, I'm not saying that at all. I am not. So, I don't want folks to think that that's what I'm saying. What I'm trying to get us to see is how we ought to read the Bible. Take it for what it says, because what ends up happening is we start reading into it and speaking into it what someone else told us. When God never told us how long it was, the earth was there, how long was earth formless and void? The Bible never tells us. No, no, I'm not someone to ask, am I open to the gap theory? I'm absolutely not open to the gap theory at all for a lot of different reasons. One, there could not have been any extra civilization prior to these verses. Why? Because the Bible says a couple things. One, sin entered the world through Adam. Two, Eve is the mother of all things living. If there was ever someone that lived before then and they were judged or destroyed, well, that would necessarily mean that sin entered the world prior to Adam and that Eve could not have been the mother of all living things. So, plus, on top of this, when we start reading, the Bible says after he created things, he says and it was good. So, God will say, look at the earth, everything was good. And then we've got these people here who have been killed and destroyed, but they're there. This earth has been corrupted, but it's good. So, it's just not in keeping. Plus, here's the main point. Here's the biggest reason why you could not hold to a gap theory, that there was a race or a group of people that were created prior to this, because the Bible just didn't say. And since the Bible didn't say, well, then guess what we don't say? We won't say that because the Bible won't. And so, what we need to get in the habit of saying and doing is only what the Bible says. Are you with me? We don't want to create doctrines and thoughts and patterns, because I think, I feel like, well, that'll get us in trouble, won't it? So, continuing as we read this, we begin to say, see how God is doing things. We begin to see how, and let me just address this, because I want to, I want to, this is the teacher in me. Iron Mat says, it does, Corey, Exodus 21 says, for in six days, the Lord created the heavens and the earth. What happened? And you're absolutely right. In six days, He created the heavens and the earth. This rock that was there. Are you telling me this rock was not there before? Then what happens is you've gotten so dogmatic about everything has to be six days. Yes, but what about the earth? Literally reading it in is just plain normal, regular reading, sir. In its normal reading, guess what was there before, let there be. Let there be. So, now, it's not a point of contention. It's not an issue to fight, argue, whatever, but just according to what it says here in Genesis, that's what we have to go off of it. We've covered this before, so I won't go into it right now, even as we get to Exodus. But that being said, on that first day, God called the day the light day and the darkness he called night as he devised day and night. And this is, and by the way, all is not always all, not even in English, not in Hebrew and not in Greek, but so now we see the beginning of how God does things. Now, do we have any reason to think that this, that this day was longer than a day? And when I say a day, I mean the day that we understand. How long is a day? Could a day be a thousand days? Can an actual day be a year, a million years? Well, no, for a couple reasons, one, science, but two, who's telling the story? The person that's telling the story is Moses. This is important, guys. The person that's telling the story is Moses. Was Moses there in the beginning? No, he was not. So how does he get the information? Well, God tells him the only person, the only one that was there in the beginning. So he's giving an account to Moses who was then given an account to us. Why is that important? Because when Moses uses certain words, he's using words that the people that he's telling this to can understand. And so how do they understand a day? A 24 hour cycle. If it was longer than a day, if it were years or months or what have you? Well, then guess what I believe Moses would have told him? It's more in life than Moses would have told him. Why? Because they have a concept of what a year and a day and a month is. They have that concept. When Moses is speaking to the Jews, when he's writing this out, one, this isn't the first time that Moses ever spoke and not the first time that Moses ever wrote. And so they understand the same thing we understand. They understand time. They understand space. They understand communication. And so we shouldn't get in the habit of thinking that these people are one step above or one step removed from Neanderthals and they don't really understand it. These people do. Remember, these are the same folks that were around the time of these great pyramids, these structures being created without the sort of machinery that we have. So these are intelligent beings. How do we know so? Because God created them, which brings us to something else important. As God is creating mankind, a couple of things that are also that need to be brought out. In verse 26, he says something that's pretty controversial. It shouldn't be controversial, but it is. He says, let us make man in our image. According to our likeness in our image. There's a couple of things that are very important here. Let us make man in our image according to our likeness. Well, the first part that we get to is the us. And Genesis, I said before, that Genesis brings to the foundation, brings about a lot of doctrines. We see the foundation of these doctrines here in Genesis. The question is, how do we describe God? Well, God is describing himself and we're going to find out that God is describing himself incrementally, progressively, or you may have heard this term progressive revelation. He's revealing himself progressively through scriptures. He is not giving everything up front. Could he? Sure, he could have, but he didn't. And so we'll just go with that. Why is this an issue? Well, in the issue where he says, let us, the question is, who's the us? Well, that leads to a problem, but it shouldn't, because in the very beginning, when he says, in the beginning, we've got it, we may have an answer to our problem. In the beginning, the word God that shoes there is the Hebrew word for Elohim. In Hebrew, there are three ways that you number three ways. There is the singular, there is the plural, dual. And then there's the plural, the singular, that makes sense. Just one dual, that makes sense. Also to dual, two eyes, two ears, two hands, dual. But then you'll also have what's called the plural. In the dual, you'll have the eyeing or the eye, you hear this eye in Hebrew. And in the plural, you'll have the eyeing. Now the eyeing necessarily means three or more. So if I want to say 20, I would use the plural and you'll hear the yadmin, this eam sound. Or if I want to say 1000, eam. If I want to say three, eam. If I want to say two or one, I would not use the plural. I would use either the singular or I would use the dual. Why is that important? Because this word here Elohim, God, he uses the plural form of God. It is perfectly reasonable to expect that if he wanted to use the singular form of God, he could, by the way, the singular form being L, he could have used that, that is, that is ready at his disposal to use that word. As a matter of fact, Moses does use that word L to describe God. Moses also used the word Lord, I'll and I, to describe Lord or God. He also uses the word Yahweh, which we're going to see in a little bit also to describe God. But the third word of the Old Testament of the Bible is Elohim. Better sheet by Elohim, this Elohim is the plural. Why? Well, does that necessarily mean that God exists in this plural form because of this passage? It doesn't necessarily mean that, but I believe with the problems of the evidence that we have, we'll see that, yeah, that is what he's pointing to. That's what he's getting at, because we're going to see God also, this whole issue of the Trinity shows up in Genesis. We're going to see the foundation of it without him actually spelling out the word Trinity. If you don't like the word Trinity, if that T word also triggers you, that's fine. But what we cannot escape is the fact that God exists in this plurality. God shows up, takes on flesh and even interacts with man and mankind calls him God. We're going to see that in just a little bit as we go. But the first, I mean, the third word that we have is this word Elohim. And so as we drop further down back to verse 26, he says, let us. So who's the us? He is not referring to angels. He's not referring to any other created being. He said, let us. How do I know so? Because he says, let us make man in our image. Who is the our image? Does God share his image with angels? No, he does not. Does God share his image with other people in order for them to create with him? No, he does not. Now we are created in his image, but it's not that God is creating our image. And you would think that that might be a little bit of play on words to say that we are created in God's image, whether that necessarily means that God is also in our image. No, it's not. What this was for is referring to our image, according to our likeness. These two words that are used here is Salem and for image and likeness is the move. This word image and likeness refers to form and function. And when we're talking about a form, it would necessarily mean the spirit side of us. It cannot be the physical side. Why? Because the Bible will tell us later that he does he does not have flesh and bone. He's not a man like us. But the important part also that we also seem to forget is this issue of likeness according to our likeness. So man is made also according to our who's the hour. This plurality who we come to realize is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Like them how? Well, the way they are like is that they are unified. They are one. And we'll hear later when we get to Deuteronomy, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one by the way to use the plural form of our God in that passage. But he's saying that the Lord our God is one. So without getting too far ahead of ourselves in that regard, here we see the plurality of God there in creation. We've already seen going back to Genesis one at the very beginning, we see the spirit of God, the Holy Spirit there as well. So we see God the Father and we see the Holy Spirit also there. Well, who's missing? If I could put it that way. Well, how about God the Son? How about Jesus, the pre-incarnate Christ? We're going to see him show up as well because again I'm telling you that the foundation of the Trinity is also found here. As a matter of fact, while we're there, let's just go ahead and look at some examples. How about we go to, before we go there, let's go to Genesis 16. Let's put up a couple passages to show God's existence, God taking on flesh and then interacting with mankind and then also being called God. Let's go to Genesis 16. You all know the story between Sarah and Abraham and then their their wife, not their wife, their concubine, their maid servant, Hagar, who is now upset and what does she do? She runs away and she runs away verse 7 of chapter 16. Now the angel of the Lord, we're going to find out that the angel of the Lord is also God. The angel of the Lord found her by the spring of the water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shear. And he said to Hagar, Sarah's maid, where have you come from and where are you going? Look what she says in verse 9, what was said in verse 9. Then the angel of the Lord said to her return to your mistress and submit yourself to her authority. Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, excuse me, I will greatly multiply your descendants, that they may be too many to count. How does a regular angel say something like that? It will be difficult to fathom an angel ever. One, we don't ever have that in the Bible. There's nowhere in the scriptures where an angel takes this sort of authority and makes a statement that he will multiply a person's descendants. But then continuing, the angel of the Lord said to her, behold, you're with child and you will bear a son. And you shall call his name Ishmael. Why? Because the Lord has given he to your affliction. Is he saying that he's the Lord? Well, let's continue. He will be a wild, don't give a man. His hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand will be against him. Well, that certainly is born in the future, hasn't it? He will live to the east of his brothers. Look what she says in verse 13. Then she, that's Hagar, called the name of the Lord. She called the name of the Lord, indicating that the angel of the Lord was the Lord. She called the name of the Lord. You are a God who sees, for she said, I have seen, even remain alive even after seeing him. So Hagar is indicating that she is talking to the Lord, who is God, and has seen him and has not died. Is it possible that Hagar could be confused, that Hagar is mistaken? It's possible. The problem is though, Hagar is not the one telling us this story. Hagar is not telling us this story. Moses is the one telling us this story. And so we wouldn't think that Moses is wrong or lying about the story. Oh, by the way, Moses was not there either. Who's telling Moses this story? God is telling Moses this story. And so if it were not so, if this was not God who had seen her face or she had seen face to face, then God would have told us. And we don't have any reason to believe that one, God would lie or two, that God would hold it from us. He would certainly correct it. If anyone has any misunderstandings or mischaracterizations about God, especially in the beginning, he will let us know. Before we deal with Abraham, Abraham also sees God in Genesis 18, when God, the angel of the Lord, and two other angels show up. And then the two angels go to Lot inside of Gomorrah. But then the Lord stays there and it's told that he's having a conversation with God. Will you destroy them if there's 50 righteous, 30 righteous? And God says, no, I will not destroy them. So we even indicate later that the very person that was speaking to Abraham is God himself. But then also not just there, we see God taking flesh in Genesis 32. Let's go there as well. You all know about this famous story, Genesis 32 verse 24. Then Jacob was left alone and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. And when he saw the head not prevailed against him, the man that was wrestling with Jacob touched his socket of his thigh so that the socket of Jacob's thigh was out or dislocated. Now we drop down a little further. He says to him verse 27, he said to him, what is your name? And he said, Jacob, the man asked Jacob. He said, your names no longer be Jacob, but Israel for you have a student with God who he, by the way, he's wrestling with and with man and that prevailed. Then Jacob asked and said, please tell me your name. But he said, why is that you asked my name? And he blessed him. So Jacob named the place Peniel. For he is said, I have seen God face to face. And by the way, this word is used here over on the right hand side. I want you to notice that this word for Peniel is the word Peniel. This is the, excuse me, before the face of God. That's literally what this word means. Before the face, I'm sorry, face, before the face of God. Alpanim. So here we've had another encounter with God. And Jacob indicates that this is God. So we have this foundation of God showing up. Now, some might think it's not right. That makes sense, what have you. But if God, who is God, by the way, I think sometimes we forget that God is God. He has the prerogative to do what he wants to. God lets us know early on that he is sovereign. He can do what he wants, what he wants, to whom ever he wants, just because he wants, because he's God. You and I don't have that prerogative. We don't have that ability. God creates. We know that he's sovereign. How do we know so? Because he's the one that decided to create the earth. He's the one that decided to create man. Him, he didn't consult with anyone else. No one else said, no one else said that. I think you ought of this. He didn't take, he didn't take the advice of an angel. He on his own did so. We're going to find out even more so that God is sovereign in how he deals with things. We're going to see that in how he chooses, how he chooses Abraham in a second we'll go there. How he chooses this nation of Israel. How he would choose anybody. How he would even supplant the first born for the second born. We see that with Jacob and Esau. Why? Because God wants you to know that he is God. He is not at the beck and call of human beings. He is God. So now one of the passages that we need to take a look at in Genesis, let's go back to Genesis one. Actually let's go to Genesis three. Is what happened with man? What happened with God and their relationship? Because we find ourselves obviously in this condition. Well, what happened? Well, the foundation of man's fallenness shows up in Genesis. And we see what happens when the serpent shows up. And what do we see with the serpent? We see his methodology. We only have a couple of times in scriptures. I shouldn't say a couple of times. We only have three times where we hear the voice and maybe a fourth time where we hear of what he has said. But three times where we literally hear the voice of the devil or hear what he actually says. Here in Genesis three, we also hear him speaking in Job. And we also hear him speaking to Jesus in the Gospels when he takes, when he is trying to tempt the Lord. We hear about what he has said about him saying that I will ascend to the highest and be like the most high. But we don't hear him actually saying so. But still, that still is a good accounting of what he said. But here we see his modus operandi. We see how he does things. And it's the same all the way through, even with Jesus. He does the same trick. He has the same trick with them, with Jesus, and with you. The issue is, will it work? It worked in the beginning. It didn't work with Jesus. A lot of times it works with us. The Bible says in verse one, now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord got it made. And he said to the woman who, by the way, was there herself, she's heard from God. He says, Indeed, has God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the garden. The woman said to the serpent, from the fruit of the trees of the garden, we may eat. But from the fruit of the tree, which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat or touch it. And then here's again, let me just go ahead and address this really briefly with the cover that's before. That she didn't lie. She didn't add anything. Why? Because she's not a liar yet. She's not a sinner yet. She has not sinned yet. The Bible does not account what she said here as sin. If this was a lie, then that would have been a sin, but it's not. But what she stated was, we cannot touch it. We cannot eat it nor can we touch it. So what does the serpent say? You usually will not die. For God knows in the day that you eat of it, your eyes will be open. So he's got two tricks, two main tricks. Did God really say that? And what does he say to us? Is that, does the Bible really say so? Does God's word really say that? And then even if we were to recount what it said, that's not what it means. That's not really what it means. Even to this point, God really didn't have a problem with homosexuality. That's not really what it says. A boy can be a girl. A girl can be a boy. That's okay. There's a lot of things that we've taken society that we discount, but God has already spoken on those things. Remember in the Bible, by the way, since we're talking about foundational issues that are found in Genesis, it was God who says, who said, let us make them male and female. And for this cause, a male shall leave his mother and father and be joined with this female, and the two shall become one. This is God's foundation, not ours. And so we see these things already in place, but now again, we are already told that they are going to be assaulted, but still, we also see man's work. We see man, what does she say? What happens to her? When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit an egg. But what does that tell us about us? We have a desire, even at that point in time, in the greatest of conditions. There's no better condition for a man to be in or a woman to be in than in the garden. No sin, no real work, no real problems. But once the serpent shows up, our weakness also is laid out. She had been looking at it. She hadn't moved on it, but she had been like, she thought it was beautiful. She thought it was desirous to make one wise, and so because he tempts her, she's deceived, and so she takes it, but then gives it to her husband, and then what does the Bible say? Then she took and gave to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then their eyes, both of them were open, and they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made for themselves loin cloths, or loin coverings. Then they heard the sound of the Lord God walking. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking, and it's interesting that the word that's used here is the word chalak, which means to walk or to go, but it seems as though they're pointing out that someone is actually walking, that there's someone moving because they hear the sound. Not that he was coming close to them, but they actually hear the sound. Could this be that this is the first example of the pre-incarnate Christ showing up? We have what's called these theophanies. We have what's called these Christophanies. What it is, it's a showing and appearance of deity. Theophanies, Christophanies. We say Christophanies because we know the deity that was shown would be Christ. Now, as a result of their sin, what does Genesis tell us, and this is guys, everything that we're covering right now is carried forward through the rest of the Bible. And we're going to get to two very, very, actually not two, really four, I think either four or five, extremely important passages that you must, you must remember. Do not forget these because from these passages, everything else flows. Let me say it again. Let me stop. Let me pause for dramatic effect. Everything else that you're going to read, every doctrine, every book, every, everything is going to flow in just a little bit from these important passages that we're going to read. Now, as we're going through this, what we're beginning to see is also some of the attributes of God. God has stated that if you eat of it, you shall die. The question is, when they ate it, did they die? They did not die. Once they ate the fruit, they did not die. At least it looked like they didn't die, but God is a God of His Word. He's a just God and what He says is going to come about. Amen. Well, what did He say? They're going to die. Well, there's three areas in three ways that we're going to find out that mankind has died. Something tragic has happened. The first thing, they did not die physically at that moment, but what began to happen? They began to die, whereas they would have lived forever. As a matter of fact, God said that we must take them out of the garden lest they stick their hand out and eat of the Tree of Life and live forever. So apparently the Tree of Life is what's giving them long-lasting life, and so He takes that away and He says, from the ground, you shall return. We'll get to their punishment in a second, but they began this process of dying. Now, in their case, it took a while. Maybe that has something to do with the Tree of Life, the benefits of eating that fruit, maybe the effects are long lasting. Maybe if somebody can bottle that up and sell it, they'd be a trillion there. But in this case, they're going to start dying physically. There's also this moral death. What do I mean by moral death? There is this, now what's been introduced for the very first time in mankind is guilt, is shame. How do I know? Because what do they do? Their eyes were open. One, they knew good and evil and they hid themselves and they sewed fig leaves as a covering. Because when God asked them, where we hid because we were naked, they were ashamed. For the first time ever. Secondly, I mean, thirdly, the last thing, physical death, this moral death, then there's spiritual death. There's spiritual death, this separation between them and God, which necessarily, and we'll find out later that we could not be in the full presence of God in His full glory. We cannot do so because we have sin. What is that even involved in now? Now they are sinful creatures now and so they could not be in the full presence of God any longer. We find that out when we get to Exodus that man cannot be in His presence like that and live. But God still desires to communicate and so we need to look at and we're getting close to one of these extremely important passages when we go to the punishment. God lines them up and He asks them, what happened? Mr. Adam, what did you do? And Adam is a quick learner and so are we. We get this from Adam. Adam says, it's not my fault. It's the woman, her, it's her that, her, not me, her, that woman that you gave, so I'm blaming her and you. So God, it's not my, it's not really my fault. I'm innocent in all this. I couldn't resist. I couldn't resist. After all, look at her and then you gave her to me, so what could I do? So God pauses for a second and then He goes to, I'm saying pause for a second, He didn't pause. Then God goes to the woman and says to the woman, she's just as quick a learner as her husband. Then God asked the woman, verse 13, what did you do? And the woman says, the serpent deceived me. You know, the serpent. Yeah, the serpent whom you kicked out of heaven and sent him down here. So it's not my fault either, God. I mean, he deceived me. I was, I was deceived. And so now God turns his attention to the serpent. Poor devil, because he has nobody to, he can't blame anybody. But then again, God understands. So God then begins to pronounce curses on them all. We'll, we'll skip what he says to the, to the serpent and let's deal with the more important part that actually does this to the serpent. This is the part. One of the most important passages that you're going to have in the Bible. He doesn't give us a full understanding of it. But as we read throughout the rest of scriptures, we find out this is very important. He says to the serpent, to the devil, I will put in the tea between you and the woman. And he gives clarification and between your seed and her seed. Well, who's her seed? If we go to Galatians 3 16, Paul tells us who her seed is. That is Jesus. And so how so? Well, he says that he, that's her seed, Jesus, shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. What does that mean? Well, there's no way for any of them to know exactly what this is going to mean because they have no clue. As a matter of fact, they'll never see it. At some point in time, Satan will see it. But the man and woman will not. And so he said to the woman, as he passes out their judgment, he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth and in pain you will bring forth children. Yet your desires will be for your husband and he will rule over you. So now we've got this headship already established because of the sin. Now, would this have been the case? Have there not been sin? We don't know. We don't know. Paul does come up, come back and say, it was her that was the seed, but Adam's sin. And he also says, it was the man who was made first. So take that for what you will. Does that also mean that it was always going to be that case? But notice what he says, though. Yet your desires will be for your husband and he will rule over you. There's going to be this constant friction. Not always, not 100% of the time, but a lot of times you're going to see women striving, having this desire towards her husband or this man. But he will rule over you. So that is her punishment as long as well as delivery with child, I mean, childbirth with paid. Then Adam to the man he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten from the trees about which I command you, cursed shall be the ground. You shall not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. You will. Now you're going to have to work. You're going to have to suffer. But also because of your sin, everyone else is going to suffer. Not just you, but everyone else. Now at this point in time, there doesn't seem to be any other human beings. There are no, there's nobody else. So we don't know also how long it took for them to actually sin. We have no idea were they in the garden for a year before this happened? Were they in the garden a week before it happened a month? We don't know. But at this point in time, there had not been a person born. No one has died. I mean, no one has been born yet, but we're going to see this going to happen. And she says that in childbirth, now she could, could she have been pregnant by then? Who knows? But when she does give birth, it's after this fall. And so what happens? Every man born now will have sin. As, as the Bible says, Paul says that sin entered the world through Adam. Because of his sin, his seed is now corrupted. And so every child thereafter is going to be born with his corrupt seed. So another doctor that's firmly planted here is the fallenness of man. Now, even if you don't want to get into how, how fallen, how depraved a man is, that's fine. We won't argue that point, but what we can know is that in the best of circumstances, in the best of situations, the garden, having everything provided for you, and having access and fellowship, literally with God there, what do you do? You steal sin. So even in the best of conditions, that still doesn't nullify who we are, our ability to sin. Amen. So we see that as we go a little further, we're going to find out something about God. God, though he's a just God, and though he's going to pass out of his senses, what God could have done was destroyed Adam and Eve at that very moment, but he did not, which tells us a little bit of something about his mercy. And so after their children were born, we don't, we don't know how much time there's a lot of time that's passed in between this occurrence and their children. And so when they had relations, verse 1 and 4, she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, I've gotten a man child with the help of the Lord, and then she also conceived and gave birth to Abel. And then we find out in verse 3, and this is important guys, this is extremely important. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel also did so. So what do we see? We see offerings being brought to God. We know the story. God was not happy with Cain's offering. Why? Because there's a way to do it. So God brings about a way where there can be reconciliation. You bring this offering. Why? Because you are a sinner, and it's a means of reconciliation. We don't have the full story yet, but God is going to bring about a more permanent way of reconciliation. How do we know? Because God already stated in Genesis 3.15, important passage, that he is going to, basically as we know, defeat Satan. We know that's going to be done through Jesus, and that's going to be the way that we're ultimately reconciled. But there's ways to be reconciled in the meantime, because of our sin. And now God gets upset with mankind and decides to destroy the earth, but he makes a covenant, and this covenant states that he will never destroy the earth again with water. However, we've got to move forward to something that's extremely important. Well, actually, before we get there, because man is sinned, God has determined that the price for sin, he has given us what the price for sin or the payment for sin is going to be, is going to be blood. What courses through our veins is blood. Why? Because it says in Genesis 9 that the life of the flesh is in the blood. And so we're not to eat it. We're not to eat anything with it. Blood is what will be the payment. Now, we're not sure totally how this is going to work in Genesis. We're going to find out in Exodus when he has his atonement, the day of atonement, and how it's done that the blood will be the payment. And we're going to find out even more so in this, in this concept called substitutionary atonement. Why is that the case? Or how do we know so? Well, the foundation of that is found in Genesis 3 as well. Because what does he do? What does God do? God brings about so that they won't have this shame. He brings about another animal to pay for them. When he makes clothes for them, out on animal skin, that animal doesn't have skin just laying around. He didn't, he didn't have extra skin. No, the animal is sacrificed on behalf of this animal. And then even when we're seeing this atonement happening, this offering, I shouldn't say atonement, this offering happening, we see one cane bringing the fruit of the ground, which by the way, the Bible didn't say is a bad thing. But then we also see Abel bringing his first fruit, the animal, the livestock. And so their sacrifice, either the fruit, the first fruit, should have been for cane or for Abel, the animals, their sacrifice is to pay for or to bring about a sort of atonement, even though it's not called atonement yet, but some sort of reconciliation by their offering. Amen. So as you guys hear the cat making sounds, he's not getting in this time. He's just going to have to go away. So let's go to one of the more important passages. And this here, guys, is if you're gonna, I say it over and over again, if you want to write down something, tattoo something, mark something, this is the passage that you need to pay attention to. God has spoken to Abram and he says, Now the Lord God, the Lord said to Abram, go forth from your father's country and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land which I will show you. Here it is. Verses two and three. Ladies and gentlemen, at this stage, this is so important. Everything else is building off of this passage. Every covenant, every other covenant, every any way of salvation is coming from this. God means to deal with and to bless and to benefit all of the people of the earth. Now, all of them won't be benefited from this, but through this, all of the people of the earth can be blessed. How do I know so? Because he literally says that. He says to Abram. By the way, this is God's sovereign choice to do so. Abram was nothing special. Abram was nothing, he was not perfect. He was not so righteous. As a matter of fact, the Bible tells us in Romans that Abraham believed and it was credited to him as righteous. Well, we're going to see did he in fact believe like we were led to believe. Now, the Bible didn't lie. It's just that we may have misunderstood and I'm going to show you in a second. He says, and I will make you a great nation that is Abram. Next to be Abraham. And I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing. And I will bless those who bless you and those who curse you. I will curse. So if you're for Abraham, God is going to bless you. If you come against him, God is going to come against you. Why do we know so? Well, we're thinking about the story of him lying about his wife, Sarah, being his sister to Abimelech because he's afraid. Not a lot of confidence in the Lord's words, huh? And what does God do? Because they were going, they were they were harming Abraham. He closed up all of the wounds of Abimelech and was going to kill him. It tells him in the dream, if you touch her, I will kill you. If you bless Abraham, I'll bless you. If you curse him, I will curse you. But notice what he says. He says, I will make you a great nation. Well, you can't be a great nation by yourself. You necessarily need people. Problem is, there is nobody in his family. He doesn't have any children. And as he says later, his only heir is Eleazar of Damascus. But this goes to show the power and the sovereignty of God. So what happens? I'll make you a great nation. This necessarily means that there's going to be people. That there's going to be land. We're going to see. And there's going to be a kingdom, a rulership, that also comes about this. Now he's not telling them all of this up front, but we're going to see this as it goes. So he says, I will make your you a great nation and make your name great. And you shall be a blessing. And you shall be a blessing. But then going down to three, he says an in you, Abram Abraham, all the families of the earth will be blessed. What does all the families of the earth should be blessed? He's not speaking of his own descendants. He's speaking of those who are not his physical descendants. And he says all of the family and the worth issues here is called Mishpikad. This is literally families, all coal, all of the families of the earth shall be blessed. That means that every single person shall be blessed, but all of the different people groups shall be blessed. In other words, Jews will be blessed. But then also the non-Jews will be blessed. Guys, this is extremely important because upon this, he's going to build even other covenants. That would be the mosaic covenant to come. That would be the Davidic covenant, the new covenant. But this covenant right here is stating that he is going to bless not just Israel, but he's also going to bless Gentiles. Amen. Now, the question is though, what we see in Abraham's travels is that he's not really as faithful as we've been led to believe. Remember, he's having doubts and so forth. But I want you to see when God says that Abraham is now righteous. Because God has told him what's going to happen. He's also told him that his wife is going to have a baby and he's not believing that. As a matter of fact, not only does God not, not only does Abraham not really believe God, he also laughs. Not only does he laugh, but so too does Sarah laugh. And so what does God, since he's got a sense of humor, what is he going to say? I'll tell you what. Since you laugh and she laugh, both you want to giggle, how about we name your son Giggles? Name your son Isaac, which means he laughs, which is just what they do. But before that, Abram is still questioning. Abram is not getting it. In Genesis 15-1, after these things, the Word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision saying, Do not fear Abram. I am a shield to you. Your reward shall be very great. Abram said, Oh Lord God, what will you give me since I am childless and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus. Abraham is not showing a lot of faith. And Abram said, Since you have given me no offspring, one born of my house is my heir. Then behold, the Word of the Lord came to him saying, This man, that is Eleazar, will not be your heir. The one will be someone that's going to come forth from your own body. He shall be your heir. And he took him outside and looked at what he says. Now look toward the heavens and count the stars. If you are able to count them. And he said, So shall your descendants be. Look what the Word says, guys. Then, then, Abraham believed the Lord. And he reckoned to him as righteousness. At that moment is when the faith of Abraham kicks in and God reckons that to him as righteous. What does that mean in the grand scheme of things? Well, first of all, how are we considered to be righteous by trusting God, by having faith? Remember, our faith is in Jesus on the cross. That's how we become right. There was no Jesus on the cross for Abraham. Hadn't happened yet. Jesus had, I mean Abraham hadn't even contemplated that. Hadn't been spoken of. So faith in God ultimately is going to be how we are saved. So God, remember, it's God who determines the rules. God dictates this. He is the one who has been offended. So he can determine what can put a person in right standing. In this case, faith in him. Let's continue. Then he believed and he was, it was reckoning him as righteousness. And he said to him, I am the Lord who brought you out of the earth, out of earth of the Chaldeans to give you this land. He said, Oh Lord God, how may I know that I will possess it? Abraham is still not fully convinced, which tells us something. Your faith is not likely ever going to be 100% faithful. As a matter of fact, we rarely find, if ever find anyone in the Bible who has the kind of faith where they never doubt. They're never concerned. They never have any sort of worries. We don't really find anyone like that. We never do. And so if someone were to tell you that you have to have complete faith, well, no, not according to the Bible. And so even here, after God had reckoned his faith as righteousness, he still asks, well, how will I know? How will I know? What will you give me as a sign that say that I will possess this? Well, here's what he says. So he said to him, bring me a three-year-old heifer and a three-year-old female goat and a three-year-old ram and a turtle dove and a young pigeon. Then he brought all of them and he cut them into. And laid each half opposite the other. But he did not cut the birds. The birds, the birds of prey came down upon the carcasses and Abram drove them away. Now here it is. Now when the sun was going down a deep sleep fell upon Abram and behold a terror and a great darkness fell upon him, God said to Abram, know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed for 400 years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve and afterwards they will come out with many possessions. As for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace but you will be buried in old age. Then in the fourth generation I'll leave it right there. So what happened? Go down to verse 17. We need to hear the rest of this story. This is very important. It came about when the sun had said that it was very dark and behold there appeared a smoking oven and a flaming torch which passed between these pieces. On that day, on that day, guys, the Lord made a covenant with Abram saying to your descendants I have given this land from the river Egypt as far as the great river the river Euphrates. Now, why is that important? For a couple reasons. One, that's the time that he made this covenant. He speaks about it initially in Genesis 12 but in Genesis 15 is when he actually made the covenant. What is a covenant? A covenant is a cutting, a passing through a flesh. It's this agreement. There's different types of covenants. You can have a unilateral or bilateral covenant. Unilateral covenant is one person makes a covenant and it can be concerning more than one party or multiple parties. A bilateral covenant is where there's at least two people coming together for this covenant. It can be conditional or unconditional. Conditional means that if you do this, then I'll do that. Unconditional is I'm just going to do that no matter what. In this case, we have a unilateral unconditional covenant. God is the one that makes this covenant. He doesn't ask Abram anything. As a matter of fact, he doesn't even involve Abraham in the covenant. In those days, a covenant is made this passing through a flesh so the two people that are involved in the covenant they will walk through. In this case, who walked through the pieces? Did Abraham walk through? No. He's over to the side, sleep. God walks through in this fiery furnace coming through the smoking oven coming through. He institutes this covenant. He ratifies it and he has determined that he will keep the covenant. What does the covenant stipulate? The covenant stipulates that there's going to be this inheritance for Abraham and his people in Israel, but it also stipulates that all of the families of the earth shall be blessed through him. How does that look like? What does that look like? Well, that means it's going to be in the person of Jesus Christ. And so because of that, other people who are not Jews are going to be blessed through Abraham's descendant, which is Jesus. You remember Jesus, the one who God says, the seed of this woman is going to crush the head of this serpent. And then ultimately, the final enemy, this dragon, this devil, he will be defeated ultimately when he is thrown to the lake of fire, so too with death as well. And so we see the beginnings of this and we see how God is going to work this out. So you need to understand, God for whatever reason, we don't know, but has determined to use Israel as the example of how he's going to bring this about. He's using them. Now, are there other people on the planet? Sure there are. Do they have a story to tell? Yes, they do. Is there a story told in the Bible? No, it's not. The story is simply him showing how he's working with Israel. We see his sovereignty. We see their sin. We see their discipline. We see his love. We see his mercy. We see him bringing them up. We see him, his forbearance and long suffering with him. All to bring about ultimately Jesus on the cross to die for his people. Because again, that was Genesis before there were any Jews, for there were any Gentiles, named Gentiles. We see what he says in Genesis 3.15. There's only two people, Adam and Eve and then the serpent. But what does God want for mankind to be? He wants for them to be who are made in his likeness and made in his image according to his or to their likeness, our likeness. Ultimately that is going to be accomplished in Christ. How so? Through the Holy Spirit, which has not has not shown to be man at this point in time. So in Genesis 3.15, very important passage, Genesis 12.3, also Genesis 15, I'm sorry, Genesis 12.2 and 3, Genesis 15, particularly verses, I'd say from 1 through 17, 1 through 18, very important, vitally important. But now we've got some other parts of the Bible that are just as important. We kind of highlighted or spoke about Jacob. Well, Abraham has his son, I, Abraham has his son, I'm sorry, I forgot his name for a second, Isaac. Then Isaac has his, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I had to remember their names. Isaac then has his son, Jacob. He has two sons, as a matter of fact, Jacob and Esau. He chooses Jacob over Esau. Why? Because he, as Paul says, that God's sovereignty would be shown in his choosing, in his electing. No one can force God to do anything. God has determined this all on his own. But we've seen though that God has decided though that because he's loving and he wants to show mercy, what we've seen is that he is going to do it in a way that man can't. Because he's already instituted this idea, this concept of a substitutionary atonement. Ultimately, there's going to be someone that's going to have to atone for sins, who's going to have to give blood. Well, he's already set this up. We haven't gotten to Exodus yet to where we're going to see how it's done and how God is going to literally carry forward what he's doing now over into the new, into the New Testament with Jesus on the cross doing exactly what the Old Covenant calls for, doing exactly what the law calls for, doing exactly what God calls for, that shedding of blood will be called for. Because even before we get to the law, God has already stipulated in Genesis 9 that blood will be required for blood. So another important passage that we have to get to and we're going to be wrapping up real soon is Jesus and his rulership. Now remember, Jesus, Jesus, God is stating to them or to Abram since he says, how will I know I will inherit this? And he says that know this that your people shall be sojourners in this land. How are they going to get to this land? Well, we know the stories. Jacob has 12 sons. One of the sons is named Joseph who has a dream. They sell him into slavery. He ends up in Egypt, becomes a second in command. But then just all of a sudden without no way to understand how this possibly happened, a famine shows up. Who's in charge of weather? Who's in charge of the rain? Who's in charge of the sun? Who determines if it's going to be hot or cold? Who determines if crops are going to grow or not? Well, that's God. And so what does God do? He brings about this famine and then the people have to come to Egypt. And what do they do? They grow. They prosper. Ultimately, we'll see how they are put in slavery but there's something that needs to happen. There's something that we need to deal with. And this is in Genesis 49. Jacob is passing out blessings because the first three had sinned. They were bypassed. The fourth son is prophesied to and look what Jacob says, obviously through God. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet. That didn't make any sense since there are no kings of Israel. How's there going to be a scepter? Well, because what he's bringing in, what he's introducing, is that Jesus is going to be a king. We're going to see this borne out and spelled out specifically in what's called the Davidic Covenant. We haven't gotten there yet, but the scepter shall not depart Judah. So this lineage that we hear about, that's spoken of, this seed of this woman in Genesis 315, that will also help to ratify, to make in full effect, Abrahamic Covenant is going to be brought through this seed that is ultimately going to work its way through the tribe of Judah, who will sit on the throne. We won't go to that part yet because we haven't gotten those parts of the book. But he makes this statement he makes this statement that this king is going to come through through this lineage and the scepter shall, look what it says, the scepter shall never depart from Judah. The scepter, lo, the Hebrew word for it is not going to, it's not going to happen. He will be king. He will never, ever cease to be king. Why? Because he's God. Now, just interestingly enough, we also see that it says that he'll come in on this cult. I think that's probably, I think that's pretty cool how even in the Old Testament it speaks of this cult that's going to, they're going to ride on. We don't know fully how it's going to work out, but even the Old Testament prophesies of cults. I think that's, to me personally, it's just me, I just happen to notice that you make it what you wish, but to me, I think that's pretty cool. Riding in on a cult. Amen. Praise God. Even though my team is going to be horrible this year, I've got to find ways, got to find ways to make myself feel good. It's going to be a long year, but the book of Exodus, Exodus, the book of Genesis is necessarily important. Think about, again, the foundational things that we discover in this book, everything that we talked about, and there's a lot more obviously, because we're just doing just a bird's eye survey, everything that we talk about how we use in Exodus, in Leviticus, in Malachi, in 1st and 2nd Samuel, in 1st and 2nd Corinthians, in John, 1st and 2nd, 3rd John, in Philemon, in Revelation, everything that we're going to discover that we're going to read about, the foundation is found here in Genesis. So if you want to tell somebody, someone says, hey, where is a good place to start? I want to start reading the Bible, take the more series. Where is a good place to start? I suggest that you start in the beginning. Why? Because it's in the beginning. There's a reason why God put it in the beginning. It's our foundation. And when God starts through the scriptures, starts mentioning certain things here or here or here, and then we scratch our head, what are they talking about? What are we getting at? Why? For example, I've covered this before. I'll go ahead and mention it because we mentioned certain passages and we don't really think too much about it because it's just not our culture. It's not what we think of. In John 14, he says that he's telling the disciples and it should be clicking. Not sure if it fully clicks, but he says to them, I go and prepare a place for you. He says, listen, don't be this hard. Don't be troubled. Don't let your heart be troubled. I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if I'm going to prepare a place for you, then I'm coming back for you. Rest assured, you need to understand that in my father's house, there are many rooms. Some version might say, man, there are many rooms. There are many dwellings. Well, for us, regular Gentile people, it just sounds like he's given an assurance of him coming back to get his disciples to get us. But he's making a bigger statement. He's making a bigger point that Jews, especially Jews at that time, would understand because what happens when a son is getting ready to be married, the father brings the bride to the son. The father chooses or gives the bride to the son. A marriage date is set. However, the son doesn't set that. The father does. That's why Jesus makes a statement. When will these things be? He says, I don't know. Only the father knows. Why? Well, could Jesus certainly know? Yes, he could. But he's making a point. The point is in this custom that the father is going to determine when the bride and the bridegroom are going to be together. He is going to blow a trumpet. And then they will go and bring about the bride to the son. In the meantime, what is the son doing? The son is preparing the room that he and his bride will be in or the rooms, either on the property itself or in the house. And so when he makes this statement, I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place, then I'm coming back. Well, these Jews understand that. That's their custom. That's their tradition. And so it gives them great confidence. As a matter of fact, it gives them great peace in their heart to know that if he's leaving and he said he's leaving to go for me to build a room for me, then he's not going to do so in vain. He's coming back for me that I will be in that room with him forever. And so when the father makes the announcement, a trumpet is blown and then they come and then they share together four in this room for how many days? Four, seven days, which is why you see this number seven popping up. Now, why is that important? Not necessarily for that story. By the way, the story is important, but having some insight and building off of, building insight off of what we already know, it helps us to understand even more so the Word of God. So the reason why we go over this stuff, somebody might say, well, Corey, you might give a little, that was too much information. Someone literally told me, I forgot the video and the topic, but that I gave a little too much. I made it more confusing. Well, no, I want to give you as much information as possible, one to check my work, but also so that you can be confident and assured yourself because I want you, just like I want me and everyone else to be guilty of jumping into the Scriptures as much as we possibly can and seeing God's Word unfoldable for us and that we don't have no excuses, guys. And when I say no excuses, no excuses not to know what God is talking about because what He tells us in His Word, He means for us to understand. It's not written in code. I promise you, it's not in code. It's not written some deep, hidden meaning. None of that. It's written the way to where even us common people can understand. So just as my sister Marie or Mari says, never too much, never too much. Amen. I know where she's getting that from. And but that's truth. There is no, there's never too much information that you can get from the Scriptures, but we need to learn how to use it. And so all of these foundational tool, all of these foundational things are found in certain matters. In fact, truth be told, really in the first 12 books of the Bible, because I heard someone say that you got to have the first 11. No, it's not the first 11. That 12th book, I mean that 12th chapter of the Bible is vitally important, vitally. When you look at how the old cover, the Mosaic cover is put together, it's piggybacking off of the new cover. I mean off of the Abrahamic cover, same thing with the Davidic cover, same thing with the new cover. Everything relating to salvation is piggybacking off of that. So the first 12 books, especially, but even other passages throughout Genesis. So guys, I hope this has been beneficial every, so often, hopefully every week we'll have another book to do a Bible survey over, and it will be added to the Bible study packet. But you need to make sure that you get a good understanding of what's happening in the book of Genesis. Most importantly, the person that's telling the story is Moses, but he's not really the author. This is what you call it. It's like a biography. Moses is really kind of a biographer, so to speak. I know it's not really a biography, technically, but he's only recounting the story because he wasn't there. God is telling the story. And so everything that God is saying, one is true, two is meant for our edification. Amen. Amen.