Genesis is the book of beginnings – the beginning of the universe, the atmosphere, the biosphere, man, animals, evil, marriage, family, work, and covenants. Genesis reports on the first murder, the origin of diverse languages at the Tower of Babel, and the origin of the nations that resulted. It exposes the beginnings of sin and its results. It prescribes the nature of marriage, manhood, and womanhood. It displays the judgment of God – banishment from the garden, the flood, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. These are types of the final judgment. There are 165 passages from Genesis quoted in the New Testament. Christ quoted Genesis six times. If you reject the historicity of Genesis, you have thrown away the historicity of the entire Bible and the integrity of Jesus Christ Himself.

Oh Lord, thank you for declaring the beginning to the end. You are the Alpha and the Omega and you're so kind to come and give us the sweep of all things, its origins, its ends. Lord, thank you for letting us know of your plan and declaring why we're here now that you would help us to see your beauty as we observe the beginnings. Amen. Okay, turn to the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings.

That's really the summary of the book, beginnings. There are a number of themes in Genesis that are critical to understand. First of all, let's recognize that Genesis covers 2, 369 years of history, almost a third of the entire time of human history. And so you get this remarkable sweep of documentation of what happened in the beginning, in the first 2, 369 years of history. It is the book of beginnings.

It's the beginning of the universe. And so in Genesis you find a very vivid explanation about how all these things came into being. And no, it wasn't space aliens. No, it wasn't primordial blob that eventually turned into giraffes. It was something a little bit more complex and beautiful and actually easier for the human mind to understand and buy.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. It's so vast, it's so complex, it's so beautiful. Nobody has ever been able to get over it. Nobody walks out at night and looks up at a starry sky and is not absolutely stunned. Nobody on the earth can get over this, okay?

And so the beginning of what no one can forget is declared right here. It's the beginning of the atmosphere, the biosphere, the teeming life on the earth, the animals, and the evil that entered into the world. Why things are so tainted. Why is there so much heartache in the world. It's all explained right here.

You have the beginnings of marriage and the whole formation of the structure and the purpose of marriage is declared in the book of Genesis. And the New Testament writers refer back to this to explain what marriage ought to look like. The whole doctrine of the family, or at least the beginnings of the doctrine of the family, are declared here. And many of the functions of family life are spoken right here in Genesis, right at the beginning. No one needs to be lost in this world if they have a family.

No one needs to be lost in this world if they are a man or if they are a woman. Because Genesis sets forth the fundamental principles for manhood and womanhood and marriage and family. All those are right there, particularly in the first three chapters. But let's recognize also that Genesis, while it does speak of the beginning of the family, it continues on and documents the history of families. You could approach the book of Genesis under the title Families in Genesis, because the narrative structure is formed around these various families.

In Genesis, you have the beginning of work and industry and technology, Music. The beginning of almost everything you can think of. The beginning of God's covenant with man begins in Genesis. There are several covenants in Genesis. There's the first murder.

There's the first language and then it's multiplication by thousands of languages as the nations are divided at the Tower of Babel and one language becomes many and now the people can't communicate as they did before. It exposes the beginnings of sin and all of its outworkings. It displays the judgment of God. The imagery of the Flood in the days of Noah becomes an iconic, prophetic example of what is to come. And while you find many judgments of God throughout the Bible, the Flood is perhaps the most significant and prominent example of judgment that you find in the Bible.

And then you have Sodom and Gomorrah. And these judgments are merely prophecies to help humankind understand that Judgment Day is coming. God gives many small interim judgments in order to warn His people to turn to Him, that they wouldn't think that judgment is not coming. And so God in His kindness reveals various interim judgments in order to prepare your mind to think about the truth that judgment is coming. Anytime you see a judgment in the Holy Scriptures, It's figurative of something ahead.

It's designed to warn man. It's designed as an act of kindness to show him that it's wise if he would turn to the Lord. So Genesis is the Book of Beginnings. Let's talk about the literary structure. Genesis is the first section in what is called the Pentateuch, which means five-part book.

And this five-part book consists of the first five books of the Bible. First, Genesis, second, Exodus, third, Leviticus, fourth, Numbers, fifth, Deuteronomy. Five books called the Pentateuch. And Genesis is called the first section of this five-part book. This literary structure is really dominated by narrative.

These doctrines are couched in stories with real people and their real families and the situations that took place and the mountains and the animals and everything that surrounded them. It's a story of history. It's not mythology at all. The next heading of category has to do with the presuppositions in approaching Genesis. You'll interpret Genesis one way or another depending on your presuppositions.

If you think it's mythology, you'll treat it completely different than if you think it's history. Our perspective is that God does not lie. Genesis is history. And that our faith doesn't rest on archaeology, historiography, it doesn't rely on science primarily. These things ultimately confirm scripture, but We believe that God created the heavens and the earth because God said he did.

That's our presupposition, that these things are true. If you enter into this book without that presupposition, then you can make it mean pretty much whatever you want to mean. Let's talk about Genesis in the New Testament. Genesis is widely quoted in the New Testament. There are 165 passages from Genesis that you find quoted in the New Testament.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself quoted Genesis six times. This is why it is incredibly presumptuous, incredibly unwise to say that Genesis is a myth. Jesus didn't believe it was a myth. If you believe that Genesis was a myth, then you believe that Jesus is a liar. I mean, that's how serious the matter of the historicity of Genesis is.

Once you throw away the historicity of Genesis, You throw away the historicity and the reliability and the integrity of the Lord Jesus Christ Himself because Jesus believed that Genesis explained exactly how things happened in the beginning. So the people who despise Genesis often have warm feelings about Jesus, but they shouldn't. They don't understand that it's a self-contradictory position to hold those two together. Let's talk about the author, Moses. Moses wrote this during the time of the Exodus and in the initial stages of the conquest of the land.

He's compiling these patriarchal records, these documents that describe the movements and the events that took place among the families in whose lives God was working and in whose lives God was using in order to declare his glory throughout the whole earth. As you read Genesis you'll encounter these words, these are the generations of, these are the generations of, And there are a number of things that you should think of when you read those words because you'll read them many many times. First of all, think of the fact that the term generation is the term in Hebrew, toledoth, which means origins. So the whole proposition of Genesis is tied to origins. And as the origins are established, then there are generations that follow.

So Genesis tracks the progress of the generations. And that's why you read, these are the generations of everything has a source. And in Genesis, you'll find that there are many things that we think about today that have their very source in Genesis itself. So Moses is compiling these records and he's writing them down. You know people often say that you know the Bible was put together from memory through oral tradition.

That's not really the way the Bible speaks of it. The Bible makes it clear that these things were written down. Moses was there, he understood the history, he wrote it down. And there's a fascinating study you can make of Who knew who in the book of Genesis? Because people lived a long time.

You have men living over 800 years, over 900 years in some cases. So think about that. You have a 2300 year span of history. And some of these people are living 900 years, 700 years, 500 years, and you can see how there's generational overlap from the time of the very end of the penitut to the beginning. Many of these people, they either knew one another or they knew one another's relatives and they knew one another's sons and daughters.

So it would be quite easy to pass down a written record of these things and that's exactly what happened. Go look at some of the genealogy overlaps in the book of Genesis, and you'll see how close they were. How close, you know, even was Noah to Adam. Extremely close. Though he was almost, you know, two thousand years after Adam.

Because Noah lived quite a long time, and Adam lived quite a long time, and the generation in between lived quite a long time. And so these people were very close to knowing one another. Let's talk about the apologetic value of Genesis. I'm going to read to you what I've taken from Henry Morris's book, the Genesis Record. If you want to own a few books on Genesis that make a commentary of it, I highly recommend the Genesis Record by Henry Morris.

I have it right here in my library and It's a fantastic book. He explains the whole story in the book of Genesis. There are a number of other resources that would be good, but the Genesis record stands at the top of my list. Here's what he says in this book regarding the apologetic value of Genesis. If you understand Genesis, you'll have tools in your tool belt to really defend the faith.

Here's what he says. It refutes atheism because the universe was created by God. Number two, it refutes pantheism, for God is transcendent to that which He created. Number three, it refutes polytheism, for one God created all things. Number four, it refutes materialism for matter had a beginning.

Number five, it refutes dualism because God was alone when He created. Number six, it refutes humanism because God, not man, is the ultimate reality. Number seven, it refutes evolutionism because God created all things. Get to know Genesis and you'll understand how to explain the origins of all things. And you'll find yourself with an arsenal that will help you to refute these various philosophies that exist in most people's minds today.

I'd like to also speak about comparing Genesis with Revelation. You hear people speak about the whole counsel of God from Genesis to Revelation. Have you ever heard anyone say that? Well, the reason that people say that is because there is this consistent testimony from Genesis to Revelation. And if you read Genesis and Revelation together, you'll notice that there are many, many commonalities, and that one serves the other.

You know, one looks forward to the other, and Revelation itself looks back to Genesis, and the connections are made. And the whole story in between is integrated into the messages that you find in Genesis at the beginning and in Revelation at the very end. The Lord Jesus Christ said he was the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. And Genesis and Revelation read together make this very very clear. Let me read to you what Logos says about this connection.

Genesis begins with creation. Revelation ends with the new creation. In Genesis we have the first Sabbath. Revelation closes with the Holy Rest in the new creation. How about that?

Genesis gives us the first Adam, head of the old humanity. Revelation leaves us with the second Adam, head of the new humanity. Genesis gives us Eve, the wife of the first Adam, sinning, condemned and sorrowing. Revelation leaves us with the second Eve, the bride of Christ, exalted, holy, and glorious. In Genesis we have exclusion from the tree of life.

Revelation leaves us with access to it, with authority over it. In Genesis we have an earth cursed in Revelation. We have the earth fully delivered from the curse. In Genesis, Satan is tempting and bruising. In Revelation, we leave him bruised and in the lake of fire forever." In Genesis we have the first sob and a tear.

In Revelation, all tears and sighing are forever gone. You see the connection? The beginning and the end are declared here. The end is declared in figures at the beginning and at the end it is confirmed and fulfilled for what was said at the beginning. So this book of beginnings is critical, and it sets forth the whole matter of Christianity.

Let's talk about the significance of Genesis. Well, I think we could say many different things about the significance of Genesis. But what I'd like to communicate more than anything is that Genesis really is the key to the whole Bible. Genesis will lead you through the rest of the Bible because these fundamental foundations are there in Genesis and you'll find them being illustrated in various ways all the way throughout history in the Bible. The first 12 chapters contain all the major doctrines of the Christian faith.

So let's open up to Genesis. Let's look at Genesis 1. In Genesis chapter 1, you find the very beginning of history in creation and all that took place as a result of that. In Genesis 3, you have the fall. In Genesis 12 and Genesis 15, you have the beginning of the covenant.

Let's talk about the covenant here in chapter 15, verse 6. After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision, saying, Do not be afraid, Abraham. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward. But Abram said, Lord God, what will you give me seeing that I go childless? And the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus." Then Abraham said, "'Look, you have given me no offspring.

"'Indeed, one born in my house is my heir.' "'And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, saying, "'This one shall not be your heir, but one who will come from your own body shall be your heir. Then he brought him outside and said, look now toward heaven and count the stars as you are able to count them. And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. And he believed in the Lord and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And this is the beginning of the disclosure of justification by faith alone.

Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness. And here at the very beginning we get the very beginning principle of justification by faith. First, that it is God and God alone who justifies. Secondly, he justifies not according to your works but by your faith. Thirdly, when he justifies he makes you fruitful and you multiply.

Fourth, and when He makes you fruitful and multiply, He makes you glorious. Many, many just as the stars of the sky. This is justification by faith alone. Now I'd like to talk about the structure of Genesis a little bit. There are 11 divisions marked out by the word generations.

Genesis 2 verse 4 says, these are the generations of the heavens and the earth. In Genesis 5, 1 we read, this is the book of the generations of Adam. In Genesis 6, 9, we read these are the generations of Noah. In chapter 10, verse 1, the generations of Shem. In 11, 27, these are the generations of Terah.

In chapter 25 verse 12 these are the generations of Ishmael, and in chapter 2519 these are the generations of Isaac. And you'll read the same word in Genesis 36.1 and also in 36.9. So you can read through the book of Genesis by looking for these markers, these 11 divisions of generations, and that will help you order your reading. But there's another way to think about it. And this is a little bit easier way that I got from the walk through the Bible people.

You can conceive of the whole outline of Genesis in the following ways. Four great events and four great patriarchs. And that's the book of Genesis. Four great events. Creation, fall, flood, scattering of the nations.

Four great patriarchs. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Now that's a much easier way to organize the material in the book of Genesis. And so in chapters 1 through 11 there's the beginnings and then in chapters 1 and 2 there's creation. And let's read the creation account, at least the first three verses in Genesis 1.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, let there be light. And there was light.

Well, there are many scientific and social implications and philosophical conclusions that you can reach by just reading those first three verses. Here's one practical thing that you can derive from these first three verses. God was always there and He always will be there. God is in control of everything. He created everything that there is.

He created you. He knows where you are at this very time. And when God said, let there be light, He was declaring something about himself and something about the world as well. That in this world, man can have light. It's the most wonderful thing.

Think of a world without light. Well, God didn't create a world without light. He created a world where light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overwhelm it. This is His power at work in the world. So in the very first three verses, we learn that even though people may not believe that God is there, He was there from the beginning.

He is there throughout time, and He will be there at the end. And then the fall, The next major event that takes place in Genesis, in chapter 3, and in chapter 3 verse 1 we read, Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And He said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden. God has said, you shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it lest you die.

Then the serpent said to the woman, you will surely not die. For God knows that in the day that you eat of it, Your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, She took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God from among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called Adam and said to him, where are you? So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself." Here we find the disastrous decision of Eve and her husband. We learn from the New Testament that Eve was deceived, but Adam was not.

We learn here of the way that the devil is always working on all people and again we find the beginnings of the ways of the devil in your life because the ways of the devil haven't changed that much. The devil is always saying to us the same thing that he said to Eve, God is not sufficient. You need something better than God. You need something different. You need to expand your horizons beyond the things of God.

The things of God just aren't adequate. They just don't get you what you need. That was the message of the serpent. And Eve took the bait. And what happened was the unleashing of the poisons and the disappointments, the heartbreaking effects of sin.

And then the next major event after this is Noah's flood and his descendants. And here God sees the earth and he finds that every intent of every man's heart is continually evil. And in his design He's going to save one family and He is going to destroy the rest of the world. And He's going to mark that destruction with a rainbow in order to declare that God will always protect His people and God will not flood the earth again. But the primary message really of the rainbow is God's faithfulness to his people.

And you'll read about the flood in different places in scripture. You'll read about it in Isaiah chapter 54. You'll read about it in the gospels where the Lord Jesus Christ says that the end will be like the days of Noah where they were eating and drinking and it came upon them so fast that they had no idea. Even though they were warned for a hundred years, Noah warned them. Noah built the ark for a hundred years and no one would listen.

You know, Noah didn't have any outward sign of any rain, and yet he continued to labor for 100 years in order to build the ark. Then, in chapters 10 and 11, the next major event in Genesis is the scattering of the nations, And this is the whole story of the Tower of Babel, where the people desire to make a name for themselves, identifying what is almost always man's greatest downfall, the desire to exalt himself. This is human pride. It's to make a name for yourself. And this distinguishes the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian.

A non-Christian cares only for his own glory. A Christian desires to glorify God. A Christian desires to make a name for God. A non-Christian desires to make a name for himself. And that provides a great distinctive between the Christian and the non-Christian heart.

And so as the people desired to make themselves great, they built a high tower in order to declare their grandeur, to make a mark in this world. It's the greatest impulse in the breast of mankind is to go make a mark, to be somebody, to do something significant. You even find this in all of mankind, Christian or non-Christian. The Christian version is, I want to do something great for God. The non-Christian version is a little bit more honest.

I want to do something great for myself. But in the scattering of the nations, you find that God allows them to build the tower and then he divides them by language. And so now you know the origin of the languages. Why are there so many languages in the world? The reason there's so many languages in the world is that God has desired to hem evil in by a language group so that it doesn't spread throughout the whole network of humanity.

God divided language so he could divide people so that he could protect peoples from the spread of wicked propositions and lifestyles. And so now the cultures have a stopping point so that the evil of one culture is not so easily passed on to the next culture. Now, we live in a day and age today where the Internet provides a freedom of evil to move in ways that God was restricting here in the scattering of the nation through languages. But God desires to isolate evil and my understanding of the scattering of the nations is that God saw how quickly evil would run, how comprehensively pride could spread, and the desire to exalt oneself could be shared by so many so that all of them would be bound together in this one effort to exalt themselves. And so God divides the languages.

Now when you get to chapter 12 in Genesis, you've arrived at the second great division of the narrative in Genesis. And this second part of Genesis spans from chapter 12 to chapter 50. So the rest of the story of Genesis has its focus on the families of Genesis, the generations that continue on all the way up to Joseph. And so in chapter 12 you have the call of Abraham and the patriarchs. Now remember in this second section you have four great patriarchs.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. That defines everything that you'll read about in chapters 12 through chapter 50. And remember the first part, four great events. Creation, fall, flood, scattering of the nations. That is recorded in chapters 1 through 11.

And then chapters 12 through 50 speak of these four great patriarchs. So let's look at chapter 12. This is the call of Abraham, the beginning of salvation from the perspective of justification by faith. Now the Lord said to Abram, get out of your country from your family and from your father's house to a land I will show you. Now let's just stop there.

Somehow it's not very hard to sympathize with Abraham. There he was, he was living in a foreign land, and the Lord comes to him in a pagan land, which is marked by its paganism, and the Lord speaks to him and he says, get out of your country. And Abraham must have asked why. Why should I leave my country? And then he tells him to leave his family and his father's house to a different land.

And Abraham obeys. That's his name at this point in the story. The New Testament tells us that Abram left Ur and he didn't know where he was going. Abraham was a man of faith. He obeyed God.

You know, I picture Abraham at this time as the man who's running in the fog. You know, I grew up in Southern California and we'd often run on the beaches of Southern California. And in the early morning time there's typically fog. And sometimes the fog was so dense you could barely see in front of your face. And I remember running in the morning from time to time there on the beach, thinking about Abraham, running in the fog, not being able to see beyond the end of his nose hardly.

But he knew that there was another step to take toward the direction that he was going. And Abraham left her even though he didn't know where he was going. And this is what happens with the Christian as well. You don't know where God's taking you, except this. You know that God will superintend every step of your feet all the way to the Promised Land.

That you know. What is going to happen in between, you don't know. And so this is reason to trust God while you're running in the fog, in the sense that Abraham was. Abraham at least understood that God was going to take him to a land, as it says in verse 1, to a land I will show you. So God did promise him that he would show him.

He wouldn't leave him in the dark. He wouldn't shut the lights off. He would just make the fog thick enough to where he would have to follow God every step of the way to the land that he was going to show him. And then verse 2 he makes a promise. I will make you a great nation.

I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing and I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. These are marvelous promises. He promises his success in spiritual matters. He promises that he'll spread blessing through his family and he promises them that the blessing would spread significantly. And then in verse 3, we learn even more, I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed." So Abram departed as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him.

Abraham was 75 years old when he departed from Haran. So this is the beginning of the second great division in Genesis chapter 12. When you think about Genesis You want to think about Genesis 3, the fall. You want to think about Genesis 9, the flood. You want to think about Genesis 11, the scattering of the nations.

And those are the first four great events. But now you want to think of Chapter 12 to the end. Chapter 12 is a pivotal, critical chapter in the reading of the book of Genesis because it establishes Abraham as the carrier of the covenant that God will fulfill and He will use that covenant to bless all the families of the earth. And I take that to mean that God's covenant, His covenant promises, His laws, all of the things that God has spoken are designed to bring blessing to the nations. The most blessed nation is the nation where the faith of Abraham exists and the word of God is there for all to see.

And then in chapter 15, There's an even more specific ratification of these words. Chapter 15, verse one, where God appears to Abram, and he says, do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward. But Abram said, Lord, what will you give me, seeing that I go childless? And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus." Here is where God ratifies His covenant.

He swears by His own name and He, in a terrifying night vision, God reveals to Abraham His covenant. And you have this sacrifice and you have these various elements. Chapter 15 is really critical. Here's one of the most important things about chapter 15. God's covenant is based on God's faithfulness alone.

It stands on God's name, not on your emotions, and it declares the power of the Covenant. And then in that same chapter, verses 7 to the end of the chapter, we read about exactly how this covenant was inaugurated. And then in chapters 22 verse 20 to chapters 25, 11, we hear the story of Isaac and Rebecca. Up to that time, the story is about Abraham and Sarah. So Abraham and Sarah from chapter 12 to chapter 22 verse 19.

And then you have Isaac and Rebecca from chapter 22 20 to chapter 25 11. You have these marvelous stories about Isaac and Rebecca that take place there. In chapter 25 verse 12 through verse 18 you hear of the generations of Ishmael. Ishmael that wild donkey of a man, his mother Hagar. Ishmael is a picture of pragmatism.

Ishmael is a picture of jumping ahead of God as Abraham and Sarah would not wait. While you can understand why they wouldn't wait, they were very, very old. Abraham, 100 years old. No child. Sarah was an old woman as well.

And what you find here is a miracle baby. There's a child that comes out of a miracle and I want to suggest that this miracle child is a foretaste, is a prophecy of the miracle child, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so this child is born. However, Ishmael, the child Ishmael that is not born according to the promise was a curse. And Ishmael was born out of pragmatism and fear and jumping the gun.

Whenever you do things out of fear and panic you end up with an Ishmael and that's what happened in that family. Then you have the generations of Isaac in chapters 25 19 through 35, 29, and then in chapter 36, 1 through chapter 37, 1 you have the generations of Esau. And this brings us to the whole matter of Jacob and Esau. And this too speaks of the whole doctrine of salvation and justification by faith, and particularly election. Because the doctrine of election is so clearly communicated in this section of Jacob and Esau that it's easy to understand the testimony of election in the New Testament because This is quoted in the New Testament in order to prove the doctrine of election.

Here we encounter those words, Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated. This is election. There in this family, this family that had dedicated itself to God, you had both Jacob and Esau in the same family. This happens. You will find families where you will have Jacob's and Esau's in that family.

Why? Because justification is by election and it is God who ordains the elect and who does not. In Romans 9 the Apostle Paul explains this even further. And he says, it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. And that's the nature of election.

If anyone finds their heart turning toward God it's because God has moved. He has elected them and by his grace and election he gives them impulses, desires, hungers to follow God. And Jacob was given that. Esau was not. And what you find from here on out is a conflict between Jacob and Esau.

It's a picture of the conflict between the religious unbelievers and the believers. And then finally, in chapter 37 through chapter 50 to the end of the book there, the generations of Jacob. Now the story of Joseph in this section is one of the most beautiful, inspiring stories in the entire Bible, And it's hard not to just want to stay in the story of Joseph. There's so many things to learn from Joseph. His purity, his responsibility.

He's a man who keeps his word. He's a man of tremendous accomplishments and capabilities. But he's a man of God, and it's very, very clear all throughout. He's sold into slavery. He's put into prison.

And yet what he does is he serves God with all of his heart no matter where he is. It's one of the most remarkable stories in the whole Bible. Nothing negative is ever said about Joseph. And when you get to the end of Joseph's life, after he had been wronged by his brothers, after they had sold him into slavery and then came to him begging for money, because there was a famine in the land and he was now the King of Egypt, or second in command. They came and He was engaging them over a period of time.

And this scene is so remarkable at the very, very end of Genesis, where you find Joseph forgiving his brothers and caring for them. Here's what we read in chapter 50 verse 18 that his brothers also went and fell down before his face. And they said, Behold, we are your servants. Joseph said to them, Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? But As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive.

Now therefore do not be afraid. I will provide for you and your little ones." And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. So Joseph dwelt in Egypt. He and his father's household. And Joseph lived 110 years.

Joseph saw Ephraim's children to the third generation. The children of Machir, the son of Anassah, were also brought up on Joseph's knees. And Joseph said to his brother, and I am dying, but God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel saying God will surely visit you and you shall carry up my bones from here so Joseph died being 110 years old and They embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. So the book of Genesis begins with the beginning of the universe, the beginning of the family, the beginning of manhood and womanhood, beginning of marriage, beginning of everything.

And it ends in a coffin, a coffin in Egypt. And interestingly enough, In the very next book of the Pentateuch in Exodus, you go from a coffin to another baby. Another baby, baby Moses, the Deliverer. And this is how God works when you think Everything is falling apart. It's not.

You're standing there and you're looking at a coffin. And whenever you do that, you have to understand that God has a baby next. He has a new beginning after that. And this really brings us to the whole messianic nature of Genesis. In the first three chapters, we're introduced to the Lord Jesus Christ and his incredible creation that he superintended with his father.

We encounter the messianic nature of the glory of God that we read about in chapter 3 where we read what will define all of history until Jesus Christ comes again and judges his enemies. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He shall crush your head and you shall bruise his heel. Now everything in the Bible all the way to the end of the book of Revelation is a fulfillment of this one single verse, Genesis 3.15. And it proclaims the centrality of Jesus Christ and his absolute superiority over all evil and he will crush the head of the serpent.

The purpose of history is that God in His kindness would rescue sinners and He would crush the head of the serpent that has poisoned their lives and He'll take them to glory. And all of this is prefigured in Genesis, the book of the beginnings.