Fri.’s Devo - God’s Perfect Timing

Read: Genesis 5:1-7:24; Matthew 3:7-4:11; Psalm 3:1-8; Proverbs 1:10-19 Adams’s descendants were called mankind because God made them after his kind. Adam lived 800 years after they had Seth and he and other sons and daughters. After Seth the line went: Enosh, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, then Methuselah. Everyone lived to be around 900 years old. *** When Enoch had Methuselah, Enoch began to walk with God. Enoch walked with God right off the earth. Methuselah’s name means “when he dies, it will come”. The day Methuselah died, Noah walked onto the ark and the flood came. Methuselah had Lamech, and Lamech had Noah. Noah was born 93 years after Enoch left the earth. Lamech lived 777 years and died. That tells me that everything about Lamech’s life was completed. Noah didn’t begin to have children until he was 500 years old! I wonder how old his wife was. They had Shem, Ham and Japheth. *** Chapter 6 gets interesting. Jude tells us that fallen angels come down to earth and had sex with human women and their offspring were famous. Many believe they were the gods of the Olympian myths. They were the giants who ate all the animals and plants until they became scarce so they begin to eat humans. The Lord saw this wickedness and that every thought of man was evil. It grieved the Lord that he had made man. God wanted to destroy the men and the beast they had produced, but Noah found favor with God. Noah walked closely with the Lord. His generation had not become tainted with the DNA of demons. *** God told Noah to prepare an ark three stories high with a window and to put the door on the side. God would destroy the earth with floodwaters, but he would establish his covenant with Noah and his wife and his sons and their wives. He would also preserve the birds and animals. They would come to him - two of every kind and seven of the clean animals and the birds to keep their species alive on the earth. *** In a week it would begin to rain and it would continue forty days and nights. Everything on the earth would be destroyed. This happened on the six hundredth year of Noah’s life on the seventeenth day of the second month. Noah and his family entered into the ark that day along with all the animals and God shut the door. *** Water came up from the ground and down from the heavens. It filled the whole earth and everything died. The waters stayed on the earth 150 days after the waters stopped. *** In Matthew, John the Baptist noticed a group of Pharisees and Sadducees had come to watch him baptize. He called out to them, calling them vipers, and asked them who had warned them of the wrath to come. He warned them to repent. Just because they told each other they were safe because they were descendants of Abraham, they were wrong. That wouldn’t save them. God would put his axe to the very root of their generations and chop down every person who was not bearing the fruit of righteousness. *** John proclaimed that he was only baptizing with water, bur one was coming who would baptize in fire and the Holy Spirit. He would separate the chaff from the wheat and clean up his “church”. He would gather the righteous into his safe arms and burn up the rest with fire. He is doing that very thing right now. God is cleaning out his church, the government, and the whole earthly system. *** Jesus came to John to be baptized and when John was hesitant, Jesus told him that he had to to fulfill all righteousness. John was satisfied with his answer and baptized him. When he brought Jesus up from the water the heavens opened and John saw the Spirit of God descending on him like a dove and alighting on Jesus. John heard the voice of God say, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” *** Jesus was then led into the wilderness to fast and to be tempted for forty days and nights. The devil came to him and gave him three “ifs.” “If “he was the Son of God, he could command the stones to become bread. “If he was the Son of God, he could throw himself down front the pinnacle of the temple and not die. “If” you would worship me, I will given you all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.” Jesus answered all of them with quotes from God. Man lives by God’s word and cannot be tempted. He told Satan to leave because he would worship the Lord and serve him only. The devil left and angels came and ministered to Jesus. *** All the temptations that Jesus was given by Satan were the promises God had given to him. He would become the bread of life that was once on written on stone tablets. He would be thrown down to the earth in death and rise again. One day the kingdoms of the earth would be the kingdoms of God and Jesus would rule them. Satan was trying to give him the promises of God before it was time. Satan’s way would have bypassed the cross and the only one saved would be Jesus. But Jesus came to save the world! ***Thank you, Jesus, that you endured the temptation to take the fast way to the throne. Thank you that you chose the hard way - God’s way - through the cross that brought salvation to us all! May we remember this in our lives when we don’t see the answers to our prayers immediately. There is a better way through waiting on You and your timing.