Finish Well

There is something that has always struck me in the Bible -- that is the number of people living in a godless society that STILL managed to live for God. Joseph, Daniel and his three friends, David, Moses, Paul, the apostles, all the prophets, all the godly kings...they all lived in a godless world and they all chose to be different, to go against the grain, to stand up in the face of opposition and say, “No! I will not back down, I will not sit down, I will not give up, I will not give in, I will not walk away from God and my responsibility to Him.”

Here is another person who had this mindset: Adam.

You say, “Wait a minute preacher! Adam is the reason we’re all in this mess! He sinned and plunged us into sin. His failure is why we sin, get sick, grow old, and die.” Yes all that is true. You may also say, “He was a failure as a father. One of his sons willingly disobeyed God, killed his brother, refused to repent to both failures, and walked away turning his back on God. Adam should have done a better job in raising his children.” Again, all this is true, BUT you are forgetting one important thing: Adam didn’t quit.

A wise man once said to me, “It’s one thing to start right, its another to end right. It is more important to finish well than to start well.” Adam started off well all the advantage, lost it in his fall, felt in the loss of his sons, but thank God he didn’t quit. He had a slow start but thank God he had a great finish. Read… Genesis 4:25-5:5

Genesis 4:25–5:5 KJV 1900

25 And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. 26 And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. 1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; 2 Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. 3 And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth: 4 And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: 5 And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.

Church, Adam messed up, he was not perfect, BUT thank God, he never gave up on God — and better yet, God never gave up on him.

Listen, you may fail God, you may mess up, you may fall down, but don’t you ever give up on God because He will never give up on you.

There is a lot we can learn from Adam. We learn first of all to...

Keep Moving Forward 4:25

They had lost their son Abel, never to see him again, they had lost their son Cain to the world, never to have him restored again, but they had not lost sight in the promises of God! Adam had learned one thing from his failures: That God will never fail!

Adam knew. That God is a Promise Keeper

“And Adam knew his wife again...”

For many the loss of a child is a pain too great to bear, and I fully appreciate how they must feel, and I thank God that I have never had to face such a tragedy

But my friends the real tragedy is not in losing the child, it is in giving up.

Adam didn’t give up on God because He knew God was a promise keeper!

God had promised Adam’s race redemption from sin, and if Abel was the only possibility then all hope was lost, but Adam kept moving forward

When Eve gave birth to a son she called his name “Seth”

Seth means - appointed

She declared that God had appointed her another seed in place of Abel

They kept moving forward

This called faith!

Hebrews 11:1–3 “1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

The word “substance” means confidence or foundation

Faith is what we as believers build our lives upon

Adam and Eve had faith in God, and so can we!

I want you to understand something. The world Adam and Eve living in was terrible, worse than our’s. You say, “That can’t be so!” Read what God said about it in Genesis 6:5-7

Genesis 6:5–7 (KJV 1900)

5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. 7 And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

The word wickedness means evil, contemptible, reprobate, traitorous. It was so bad that God destroyed the entire planet, every living creature, changed everything in it because of the evilness of mankind. Yet, in these conditions, Adam kept moving forward. He didn’t stop living, he didn't’ stop having children, rather, there is evidence that he changed his approach to fatherhood. Notice my last point, from Adam we learn to keep moving forward and to...

Keep Making Godly Choices 4:26-5:5

Genesis 4:26 KJV 1900

26 And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.

In Adam’s lifetime he had lost two children to sin — one in death the other as a reprobate, but from his mistakes he learned the invaluable lesson to make and to keep God first. Adam was 130 years old when Seth was born and he would be 235 when his grandson Enos was born. Adam would live nearly 700 more years and would see something greater than Cain’s reprobate godless civilization, he would live to see a time when his descendants would begin to “…call upon the name of the LORD.”

If you read all of chapter 5 you will notice ten men are listed, starting with Adam and ending with Noah. What this passage shows us is the importance of a godly heritage, and that begins at home. This passage teaches us that Adam learned from his mistakes with Cain and Abel, that when Seth was born he poured his life into teaching him to know, love, and to serve God and, most importantly, to take what he had learned and to teach it to his son, and grandsons, and great-grandsons.

According to this timetable, Adam would have lived through the birth of Lamech - Noah’s father, and Now was born just fourteen years after the death of Seth. My point?

Do not think that the names listed belong to the only people born at this time. Rather, these are the names of those who were faithful in this time of apostasy. We read that each of these men had sons and daughters, but we only read of one from each family who was faithful to God. Adam had a rough start, but he had an amazing finish.

Conclusion:

If Adam were here today and could give us some advice, I would imagine it would be: Keep moving forward and keep making godly decicions. He would encourage us to never lose faith and to teach our children and grandchildren to call upon the LORD.

Friends, here is the truth — we are at war and we’re acting like we’re on a picnic. God is calling us, right where we are, to stand up for Him, to be faithful, to raise our children to know and call upon God. Are you willing to rise to this challenge?

Maybe you can’t rise to this challenge because you don’t know the LORD as your Savior, why not take care of that today?