Jubilee! (The Genesis Series #22)

Life is a journey.  The road I choose and the steps I take dictate my end destination.  This is for real.  Psalms declares that a life is like a tale that is told. Psalm 90:9:

For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.

Once upon a time lived [plug in your name here]. The penman of the verse above has been gone for nearly 3,000 years.  He passed over into eternity. 

When a child of God is baptized in the Holy Ghost, he or she is then possessed of God’s Holy Spirit and the Spirit onboard is a supernatural, ever-present teacher.  John 14:26:

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

Each of God’s BORN AGAIN children are directly taught by the Holy Ghost.

I have been blessed of God to walk in the faith for well over half a century and have been taught many things of God’s Holy Ghost.  A few examples follow:

1. God’s Holy Ghost taught me, long ago, that all worldly wealth is recycled mud.  Folding money, for example, is wood and cotton and printer’s ink—all products of the earth.  Men kill and steal to gain recycled mud.

2. God’s Holy Ghost taught me that I was recycled mud.  Genesis 3:19: In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Each of us eats a hole in the ground, and when one dies, their hole gets filled back up.  Not very flattering, but true.  

3. God’s Holy Ghost taught me, long ago, that my life was like a story told—…Once upon a time…—and that I will one day stand before the judgment seat of Christ to give an account for what I have done in this body (II Corinthians 5:10).

4. God’s Holy Ghost taught me that I should learn to number my days, for even if I live to one hundred, it will seem as a snap of my fingers (Psalm 90:12, James 4:14). 

5. God’s Holy Ghost taught me, long ago, the marvelous miracle of turning recycled mud into eternal wealth, simply by investing the recycled mud in the Cross of Jesus Christ.  This everlasting wealth is so much more valuable than gold—unspeakably more valuable.  In heaven, gold is paving material.  Our street is made of purest gold. 

6. God’s Holy Ghost taught me that unless I am BORN AGAIN, I cannot see the Kingdom of God.  I needed to be born a most literal second time, this time of the Spirit of God.  As I repented of my sins, believing on the cleansing blood of Jesus Christ and following Him, I began my journey into eternal life.   

Dear visitor, have you yet to be BORN AGAIN?  Jesus said in John 3:3:

Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

Today, you, too, can be taught by God’s Holy Ghost.  In just moments, I will invite you to follow me in a simple prompt, and if you follow from your heart, everything will change for you today.  Today, all your sin and shame will be washed away by Christ’s saving blood.  You will be white as snow.  Today, all of Satan’s bondages in your life will be broken. You will be free—entirely free.  Today, your eternal soul is in your very own hand.  Here is the prompt I promised:  Click onto Further with Jesus for childlike instructions and immediate entry into the Kingdom of God.  NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, Genesis 4:17-22:

17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

18 And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.

19 And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

20 And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.

21 And his brother''s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

22 And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

GOD SAID: Leviticus 25:8-9:

8 And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.

9 Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

GOD SAID: Psalm 2:1-4:

1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,

3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

MAN SAID: I have the knowledge of the world at my fingertips; I just ask my phone!  I’ll follow the science, right from my phone!  I’ll find myself and contentment; I’ll even find immortality without God or His Jesus.  And all it will take is a little pill—and that’s definitely without God and His Jesus!

Now THE RECORD.  Welcome to GodSaidManSaid feature 1242 that will once again certify the bonafides of God’s beautiful Book, the wonder of the universe. All of these faith-building features are archived here in text and streaming audio to edify the blood-bought and to redeem the lost.  Every Thursday eve, God willing, they grow by one. 

Thank you for visiting. May God’s face shine upon you and your home.

You have arrived at the GodSaidManSaid “Genesis Series;” this is Part 22.  Each of these features begins with the following information from the first feature:

According to a 2006 issue of Discover magazine concerning the deceased Carl Sagan: “Sagan approaches religion like any phenomenon.  He isn’t on a quest for life’s meaning, for a comforting philosophy, or even a guide to how we should treat the neighbors.  Sagan seeks truth of a demonstrable kind.  As a puckish example, he wonders why the book of Genesis didn’t include God-inspired truths…” [End of quote]

I recently reviewed an advertisement from a magazine called Free Inquiry that also has a problem with the God of Creation and the first book of the Bible, called Genesis.  Under the heading “Is God Big Enough for the Universe,” Free Inquiry writes:

The authors of Genesis proclaim that God made the heavens and earth in less than a week.  This feat must have amazed these Bronze Age authors, even though they thought the heavens extended only so far as the sky above them.  Of course, they did not know what stars, planets, or galaxies were.  We now know that the universe is so much bigger and so much more complex. [End of quote]

The BORN AGAIN scratch their heads in bewilderment.  Did these folks actually read the book of Genesis? I suppose they did, but God’s revelation is only revealed to the humbled hearts of the children of faith.  This GodSaidManSaid series will be called “The Genesis Series.”  It is our intention to travel through the entire book of Genesis and publish one major God-inspired truth after another.  We will be pulling from previous GodSaidManSaid features and adding the latest information as we go.

Genesis 4:17-22:

17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

18 And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.

19 And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

20 And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.

21 And his brother''s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

22 And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

Life’s pattern is established in Genesis, God’s first book of the Bible.  Adam and Eve were not knuckle-dragging, ignorant, grunting cave dwellers.  The first humans were genius upon genius and possessed very sophisticated skills. When archaeology digs and ancient historians report, man is found to be very sophisticated from the start—a sophistication that soundly contradicts the evolutionary paradigm proposed by today’s academics.  You’ll find the following in Dr. Donald Chittick’s book, The Puzzle of Ancient Man:

In fact, the cultural remains of ancient man are so at odds with the evolutionary picture for man’s origin that a special term has been coined to define these artifacts.  The term is OOPArts, an acronym for Out Of Place Artifacts.  [The following paragraph is from R. Noorbergen’s book, Secrets of Lost Races:]

For the past thirty years, there has been a steadily increasing number of historical and archaeological discoveries made at various sites around the world, which, because of their mysterious and highly controversial nature, have been classified as “out-of-place” artifacts—thus the name OOPArts.  The reason for this designation is that they are found in geological strata where they shouldn’t be, and their sudden appearance in these layers of ancient dirt has baffled the minds of many a trained scientific observer.  They emerge from among the remains of the treasured past sans evidence of any preceding period of cultural or technological growth.  [End of quote]

Man was created in the image of and after the likeness of God.  Adam was highly sophisticated and possessed the world’s greatest mind.  He was a son of God.  The power of his genius is just now being discussed by today’s science.  The following paragraphs are from the GodSaidManSaid feature, “The Critics and Adam’s Penmanship:”

Until recently, skeptical academics rejected the idea that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible because they were certain Moses (whose ministry took place about 1400 BC) couldn’t write.  This would have been quite a surprise to God, who commanded Moses to write numerous times.  According to these skeptics, however, writing had yet to be discovered. 

Following are a few dates that are important to this discussion:

⯈ According to Bishop Ussher and his Biblical record, the creation process begins in 4004 BC.

⯈Adam, at the age of 130, begets Seth, which according to Ussher’s 4004 beginning of creation pegs Seth’s birth year as 3874 BC. 

⯈According to archaeological discoveries, writing dates back to at least 3400 BC.  The following paragraphs are from the book, Evidence for the Bible:

Just as it is no longer possible to claim that the Genesis record does not fit the time in which it is set, so it can no longer be claimed that formal writing did not exist in the time of Abraham.

In 1975, some 20,000 fragments from 7,000 cuneiform tablets of commercial transactions, administrative texts, and royal decree were recovered from the tell (ruin mound) of the ancient city of the king of Ebla in north-west Syria.  These records are dated at the latest to 2250 BC when the city was destroyed.  This is earlier than the Mari texts and predates Abraham by at least a century.  Personal names similar to Abraham, Ishmael, and Israel have been found at Ebla, which is evidence of the names being used at the same general time as Genesis. 

For the first three thousand years of writing, there were only two major forms across the Ancient Near East:  Egyptian ‘hieroglyphics,’ meaning ‘sacred writing,’ and Mesopotamian ‘cuneiform,’ referring to its wedge-shaped form.  Which of the two came first is a matter of debate, but some of the earliest hieroglyphic writing is dated to 3400 BC. [End of quote]

3400 BC predates the global flood by about 1,000 years. 

Men could write at least 2,000 years before Moses. 

This feature will attest that writing dates back to Seth, born 3874 BC and most likely back to Adam, 4004 BC. 

One of the most read of all ancient historians is Josephus ben-Matthias, more commonly known as Josephus.  He was born in 37 AD, just a few years after the crucifixion of our Lord.  He was present at the destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem in 70 AD.  He asked for the records and books in the temple and his request was granted.  In Book One of The Antiquities of the Jews, in chapter two, we find the following concerning Adam and Seth:

Now Adam, who was the first man, and made out of the earth, (for our discourse must now be about him,) after Abel was slain, and Cain fled away on account of his murder, was solicitous for posterity, and had a vehement desire of children, he being two hundred and thirty years old; after which time he lived other seven hundred, and then died.  He had indeed many other children, but Seth in particular.  As for the rest, it would be tedious to name them; I will therefore only endeavor to give an account of those that proceeded from Seth.  Now this Seth, when he was brought up, and came to those years in which he could discern what was good, became a virtuous man; and as he was himself of an excellent character, so did he leave children behind him who imitated his virtues.  All these proved to be of good dispositions.  They also inhabited the same country without dissensions, and in a happy condition, without any misfortunes falling upon them, till they died.  They also were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order.  And that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently known, upon Adam’s prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars; the one of brick, the other of stone:  they inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit those discoveries to mankind; and also inform them that there was another pillar of brick erected by them.  Now this remains in the land of Siriad to this day.  [End of quote]

Seth’s father Adam, who was made in the image and likeness of God, would have been the sharpest and freshest of God’s handiwork.  Adam was created a fully mature male and preprogrammed with marvelous capabilities.  As a result of various problems, including detrimental mutations, today’s sons of Adam have fallen several rungs down the I.Q. ladder.  The following excerpts are from the GodSaidManSaid feature, “Dumb and Dumber and 6,000 Years:”

Now consider this headline from the May 2013 issue of Acts and Facts: “Is Mankind Getting Dumber?”  Several paragraphs written by science writer Brian Thomas follow:

Do today’s children have lower I.Q.’s than yesterday’s?  Yes, according to measurements of intellectual and emotional strength gathered from different countries and contexts.  The results show the same basic decline and resist the notion that public or other forms of education are to blame.  Could the cause instead lie within? 

Stanford University professor Gerald Crabtree thinks so.  He published a pair of essays in the journal Trends in Genetics, citing new discoveries that show why the human intellect is “surprisingly fragile.”  This Biblical, creation-friendly notion didn’t sit well with the authors of a rebuttal paper, who countered that the human intellect is “robust.”  What lies at the heart of this disagreement—bad science or bad assumptions? 

Crabtree identified two fundamental processes as the main culprits.  First, human intelligence uses neurons, and these cells can only function properly if their genes stay in top shape.  Second, these genes are susceptible to degradation.  This loss of organization occurs continually as mutations slowly, irreversibly garble genes, and the resulting errors pile up and are not corrected. 

Each generation accrues about 60 new mutations to the gene-coding DNA regions of the human genome.  Crabtree applied this rate to calculate that “every 20-50 generations we should sustain a mutation in one copy of one of our many ID genes.”  As a result, “in the past 3000 years then (~120 generations), each of us should have accumulated at the very least 2.5-6 mutations in ID genes.”  Accordingly, the human intellect “perhaps reached a peak 2000-6000 years ago.” 

This appears to confirm three lessons that can be drawn from the Bible.  First, Adam and Eve’s brains were originally “very good.”  Second, we had our best brains about 6,000 years ago.  Third, humanity has suffered genetic degradation since then under the Curse.  [End of quotes]

Adam spoke from his inception.  He didn’t have to learn to speak.  He was preprogrammed to speak.  His conversation was sophisticated and grammatically correct.  He named all of God’s creature as well as his wife.  He was preprogrammed to speak and there is no reason to believe that he wasn’t also preprogrammed to write, perform mathematical equations, and more. 

The August 2014 issue of Scientific American published a six-page feature titled, “Accidental Genius.”  In the article, research addressed the concept of acquired savantism.  Through an accidental blow to the head or a traumatic experience of some kind, people have been known to emerge from that experience with unearthly, and unlearned, savant-like skills in music, math, or other subjects and still retain normalcy.  Following are a few excerpts from that feature:

Discovery of this unusual phenomenon raises the possibility that dormant potential in some artistic or intellectual realm—an “inner savant”—resides in each of us.  If so, perhaps a way can be found to tap these buried abilities in the absence of disease or injury. 

One plausible explanation for the hidden talents that emerge in savant syndrome—whether early in life or induced by injury—is that these reservoirs of skill and knowledge must be inherited in some way.  We do not start life with a blank slate that subsequently gets inscribed through education and other life experiences.  The brain may come loaded with a set of innate predispositions for processing what it sees or for understanding the “rules” of music, art, or mathematics.  Savants can tap into that inherited knowledge far better than the average person can.  [End of quotes]

Adam was the most capable of all and was preprogrammed by God with amazing abilities.  I think it would stretch credulity to suggest Adam couldn’t write. 

Seth, his son, could write and left a record.  And, of course, Moses could write and wrote the first five books of the Bible. 

The skeptics continue to criticize, but God’s Word remains true and righteous altogether.  God’s Word is the place to build a life that will last forever. [End of quotes]

Life’s patterns are established in Genesis.  We find pre-flood man mastering agriculture, animal husbandry, city building, tent making, music-making, metallurgy, and more.  But some cataclysmic event took place (Noah’s flood) that washed away many of their achievements.  Again from The Puzzle of Ancient Man:

The unprecedented explosion of knowledge five thousand years ago, they believe, may have been foreshadowed by an earlier society whose cultural remnants have long since vanished. 

In a fascinating book discussing the accomplishments of ancient civilizations, one author (Noorbergen) succinctly summarizes the situation as follows:

A closer look at the strange artifacts now suggests that the OOPArts originated in a man-made civilization—one that antedated known history—one that attained an elevated degree of development, but was destroyed to such an extent by a devastating catastrophe in the distant past that only a few remnants of its science and technology survived among the inferior cultures that succeeded it in history.  [End of quote]

Genesis 4:21 tells us the father figure of music was Jubal:

And his brother''s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

His name, Jubal, means “horn” or “ram’s horn,” which was blown to announce the Jewish jubilee.  The Oxford English Dictionary says this of “jubilee:” orig., it seems, “ram,” hence “ram’s horn” used as a trumpet, with which the jubilee year was proclaimed.  Jubilee is obviously rooted in the name of the father of the harp and organ, Jubal. 

Regarding Genesis 4, Dr. Chittick writes:

From this passage, we observe that in just seven generations from Adam, early man had made significant developments.  Antediluvians were not struggling and barely surviving primitive hunters living in caves as the naturalism (evolutionist) picture would have us believe.  Instead they carried on organized agriculture including animal husbandry.  Verse Twenty mentions cattle.  In the Bible, the word cattle refers not just to bovines, for example milk cows or beef animals, but to domesticated animals in general.  Sheep and goats would also be included in this term. 

Continuing with the list of antediluvian accomplishments we find that “Jubal was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.” Music was clearly a part of the culture as indicated by mention of both stringed and wind instruments.  Archaeologists have uncovered musical instruments from very ancient times, although we cannot be certain about exact dates for them.  Some of these ancient instruments are not crude or “primitive” but are highly crafted.  Even with our modern technology, we do not know how these ancient instruments might be improved to make better music.  Evidence indicates that music itself is very ancient.  

The doctor continues concerning Tubal-Cain:

Tubal-Cain was an “instructor of every artificer of brass and iron.”  Here “brass” comes from the Hebrew word meaning base or common metals such as copper, as opposed to the more valuable noble metals such as silver or gold.  The term “brass” could also include alloys of base metals.  [End of quote]

Highly esteemed ancient historian Flavius Josephus writes in The Antiquities of the Jews:

Now Jared was the son of Enoch; whose son was Malaleel; whose son was Mathusela; whose son was Lamech; who had seventy-seven children by two wives, Silla and Ada.  Of those children by Ada, one was Jabal; he erected tents, and loved the life of a shepherd.  But Jubal, who was born of the same mother with him, exercised himself in music; and invented the psaltery and the harp.  But Tubal, one of his children by the other wife, exceeded all men in strength, and was very expert and famous in martial performances.  He procured what tended to the pleasures of the body by that method; and first of all invented the art of making brass. 

You can be sure the sophistication of pre-flood man would, in many cases, have exceed that of man today.  Final excerpts from The Puzzle of Ancient Man:

One area where ancient technology has been studied in great detail is that associated with the Egyptian pyramids.  For example, the pyramids of Giza in Egypt are not only very, very large; they were also accurately constructed.  One observation in support of that is the fact that the pyramids have survived for more than 4,000 years.  Shoddy and inaccurate construction would not have contributed to such an enduring monument.  In addition to that, a good foundation is absolutely essential for such a large and high-quality building project.  In the case of the Great Pyramid, for example, a level and very flat base was required.  The pyramid builders prepared one.  Such a task required high-quality skills.  From The Crystal Sun: Rediscovering a Lost Technology of the Ancient World by Robert Temple:

The first thing you have to do if you want to survey anything is establish a level.  If you can’t do that, you can’t go any further.  Measurements which are not taken from a level base are useless.  Could the Egyptians establish a level?  Well, the immediate answer is of course they could, since the northern pavement adjoining the Great Pyramid, for instance, was perfectly level.

Careful modern surveys of the pavement and the pyramid base show that they were indeed flat, but how flat is flat?  A scholar who has been conducting an ongoing research program has made the following observation concerning the flatness of the base of the Great Pyramid:

With an error of only 7/8-inch over the entire thirteen-acre base, over a distance of one foot the amount of error would be only 0.001 inch—less than half the thickness of a human hair!  To detect the 7/8-inch error in the base of the Great Pyramid, even if the base were perfectly flat originally, the ancient guardians would have had to have been in possession of some remarkably advanced measuring equipment. 

The Great Pyramid thus attests to the fact that the builders were highly skilled and an intelligent body of people.  C. Dunn, author of The Giza Power Plant writes:

The pyramid builders were as intelligent as we are.  How they applied their knowledge may have been different, but it is obvious that they possessed sufficient knowledge to create an artifact having a distinct feature that, so far, we have not been able to repeat.  The bald fact is that the Great Pyramid—by any standard old or new—is the largest and most accurately constructed building in the world. [End of quote]

All the patterns of life are established in Genesis, God’s first book of the Bible.  It’s words are the laws of life that permeate all with which we have to do, from creation to occupation.  For those looking for God-inspired truths in Genesis, this is feature 22 in the Genesis Series (approximately 177 pages of content), and we are just in Chapter Four. Genesis has 50 chapters. 

Be of good cheer, child of God, your Bible is true and righteous altogether, surely a place to build a life that will last forever. 

GOD SAID, Genesis 4:17-22:

17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

18 And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.

19 And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.

20 And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.

21 And his brother''s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

22 And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

GOD SAID: Leviticus 25:8-9:

8 And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.

9 Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land.

GOD SAID: Psalm 2:1-4:

1 Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,

3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.

MAN SAID: I have the knowledge of the world at my fingertips; I just ask my phone!  I’ll follow the science, right from my phone!  I’ll find myself and contentment; I’ll even find immortality without God or His Jesus.  And all it will take is a little pill—and that’s definitely without God and His Jesus!

 

Now you have THE RECORD.

 

 

References:

Authorized King James Version

Blumner, R., Free Inquiry

Chittick, D., The Puzzle of Ancient Man, Creation Compass, 2006

GodSaidManSaid, “The Critics and Adam’s Penmanship”

Josephus, Josephus, Complete Works, Kregel Publications, 1960

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