These birds back here!

Jordan was a young man working in the Mobile Rescue Mission when Brother Reynolds taught him “one of the most fascinating things.” He recalls, “I never really appreciated it back then but in later years I came to realize this thing is SOMETHING!”

Genesis 5 starts with, “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” It compares with Matthew 1 that starts, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ.” There are only two of those books in the Bible.

“Everybody in that chapter in Genesis dies except Enoch and he’s taken because God took him,” explains Jordan. “Everybody in Adam’s lineage dies because in Adam all die, but in Christ all should be made alive. So when you go to Matthew 1 and the book of the generation of Jesus Christ nobody dies, but he says, “Abraham begat Isaac.”

“Everybody in Jesus’ genealogy in the book of the generation of Jesus Christ gets life; everybody in Adam’s genealogy gets death. And you go, ‘Hmm . . .’ You know why that is? As in Adam all died. As in Christ, all shall be made alive.

“It’s fascinating the way the people are listed here. First there’s Adam. The name Adam means ‘man.’ The next guy, Seth, means ‘appointed.’ The next one is Enos; his name means ‘mortal.’ After him is Cainan and his name means ‘sorrow.’ Mahalaleel means ‘the blessed of God.’ Jared means ‘shall come’ and it’s the idea of come down. Enoch means ‘teacher or teaching.’ Methuselah means ‘his death brings.’

What happens with Enoch is God gave him a revelation because Enoch walked with God until after Methuselah was born and when that guy dies he’s 969 years old. Methuselah’s the oldest guy that lived and when he died, that’s when the Flood came.

“So God had a man in the earth who demonstrated His longsuffering in the days of Noah. After Methuselah, in the text is Lamech and Lamech means despairing. After him, Noah (no. 10) means ‘comfort or rest.’

“Think about that: ‘Man, appointed mortal sorrow, but the blessed God shall come down teaching; His death brings the despairing rest.’ You see what I did? I made a sentence out of their names. You go figure, there isn’t any way under God’s heaven or the devil’s hell that you could arrange the names of a bunch of guys in Genesis 5 that share the gospel message like that! You can’t know that message until you come to the Apostle Paul!

“In I Corinthians 2, Paul says that there was some info about the Cross (and that info in Genesis 5 is it) but that it couldn’t be known--it was kept secret because if it wasn’t kept secret they wouldn’t have crucified the Lord of glory.

"But God had it encoded into the Word of God in such a way that once you come over here and you know it, and then you go back and start reading and studying, you uncover, ‘Wait a minute, in the names of these birds back here in Adam’s line he’s got the secret message encoded for you!’ ”