Thurs.’s Devo- The Forty’s

Read: Genesis 5:1-7:24; Matthew 3:7-4:11; Psalms 3:1-8; Proverbs 1:10-19
God calls all the men and women created: “Adam”, which means “human beings, or mankind”. God gives us Adam’s genealogy that doesn’t even mention Cain or Abel as if they didn’t exist. He counts Adam’s generation from Seth. Man didn’t walk with God until Enoch. Once Enoch had his first born son, Methuselah, he began to walk with God. Enoch lived 365 years and was raptured. Methuselah’s name means “when he dies, it will be sent.” The day Methuselah died, Noah entered the ark and the flood began. Methuselah was the father of Lamech who lived 777 years.
God sent angels down to earth to teach man of righteousness but they were given the ability to sin and that they did. They fell for the women of the world and married them having offspring that were warriors and had authority. Some think these became demons. Instead to teaching man righteousness, they taught them evil. The Book of Enoch says that they taught them how to make weapons of mass destruction, hallucinagenics from the chemicals in the earth and all sorts of bad things. Their seed multiplyied on the earth and threatened to altar mankind so God in his sovereignty and love had to destroy the earth. He found one man who had not polluted his body with this DNA of demons. The Bible says of Noah that he was “perfect in his generations” so God chose him to be the savior of the world. What a picture of Jesus.
Noah’s story has so many references to the Children of Israel through the wilderness and the end of the ages. Enoch is a picture of the true church being raptured before judgment comes and Noah is a picture of the new believers who will go through the Great Tribulation with Jesus. They will be put in the ark or tabernacle of God and saved from the elements of the world. The flood took 40 days for all mankind to die just as it took 40 years for all the rebellious Israelites to die in the wilderness. This is a picture of the Tribulation of the end of days. God always preserves his people in a place of safety like the ark.
The waters of the ark and the waters of the Red Sea were a type of baptism to cleanse the people of sin. John the Baptist came with the call to repent and be baptized because he knew if they chose to kill their flesh in the waters of baptism they would escape the fire of the next judgment.
God used Jesus’ baptism to announce his coming to the world. He was cleansed from the filth of the world so he could be led into the wilderness to be tempted and stand. Remember, Jesus was half human, half God, just like we are if we are born again. The devil tempted Jesus by attacking his identity saying, “IF you are the son of God.” He tempts us the same way. He will use the very things God has called us to to intimidate us. He will question us with whether God sent us or not. We have to use the Word of God and our confidence in God against him.
Lord you are a shield around us. You share your glory with us and lift up our heads. Let your blessings be on your people today.