God
drew me to something really amazing in His Word on Saturday. Even how He got me
there gave evidence of His precise timing: a few seconds difference and I would
have missed it. I was busy with garden produce in the kitchen. At the same
time, I was feeling a deep need to be edified in my spirit and to be in an
attitude of worship before God. I rarely listen to music, but I suddenly
decided to go to Google and type in “YouTube hymns.” I would listen to some of
the old-time hymns and allow them to carry me into a deeper awareness of God’s
continual presence.
Soon
I was back at my work, now with my kitchen full of grand choir music. I’d
probably been back at my work an hour when the phone rang. I hurried into my
office and hit “pause” so that I could hear whoever was calling. I can’t even
remember who called, whether it was a telemarketer or my own dear husband—what
followed so carried me away that everything else was forgotten.
I
returned to my desk intending to click “play” again. The particular link I had
selected had a playing time of two hours. There were various
graphics streaming with the music, changing every minute or so. Not yet having
turned it back on, my attention was caught by what was frozen on the screen. It
looked like the back of a CD cover, about that size and those dimensions. It
was green and just had some plain text on it. The word “genealogy” jumped out at
me. This was interesting: God and I have had a private joke lately about
genealogies, because I told Him one morning a while back as my Bible reading
brought me upon the long list of “begats” at the beginning of Matthew that it
was boring and I didn’t really feel like plowing through it this time. He
immediately began to show me very much the contrary. Ever since, it seems He
has taken every opportunity to give me a little good-humoured dig about the
riches that are buried in such unlikely places.
The
title read, “The Gospel in Genesis 5 – Genealogy.” The text read as follows:
Did you know that the gospel message is contained in the genealogy from Adam to Noah that we find in Genesis Chapter 5? In the list below, I have included the Hebrew names from the genealogy along with their English meanings. This is incredible…
Adam (Man)Seth (Appointed)Enosh (Mortal)Kenan (Sorrow)Mahalalel (The Blessed God)Jared (Shall come down)Enoch (Teaching)Methuselah (His death shall bring)Lamech (The despairing)Noah (Rest or Comfort) If you put it all together, you get a sentence that reads something like this: “Man is appointed mortal sorrow, but the Blessed God shall come down teaching, and his death shall bring the despairing rest.”
Wow.
I was so astounded, so moved, all I could do for the first few minutes was sit
there and worship God, tell Him how amazing He is. How I wished that there was a reference on the
graphic so I could check out the source. I wanted to know who had discovered
this, and certainly to give credit where it was due.
Then,
my vegetables completely abandoned, I grabbed my big old Strong’s Concordance
and started double-checking the meanings of these names. The first three names
checked out, but I ran into a glitch with Kenan (or Cainan). Strong’s said it
meant “fixed”; also “an antediluvian,” meaning “before the Flood.” Now that in
itself would be crazy: this was still six generations before the Flood. Nobody
knew that it was going to happen, except God. So back then if someone named
their kid “Before the Flood,” it was directly inspired by God, like all the
other names in this list seem to be.
But
it troubled me that this meaning for Kenan didn’t match. I hoped that someone
hadn’t just tried too hard to see what they hoped to see in this passage. Was
there possibly another source I could find, for the meanings of Biblical names,
that would give me a second opinion? I googled “Bible: Kenan means sorrow,” and
bingo, I found myself at the site of the man who had written the original
article, over 20 years ago, from which this except had been taken. His name is
Chuck Missler, and I found him at http://www.khouse.org/articles/1996/44/.
He
explained, to my satisfaction, some things about finding the meanings of these
old names, passed down orally for centuries before they were ever written down
by Moses.
In
his summary, he also made this general comment: “The Bible is an integrated message system, the product of
supernatural engineering. Every number, every place name, every detail, every jot
and tittle is there for our learning, our discovery, and our amazement. Truly,
our God is an awesome God.”
Truly He is.
What were the chances of the phone ringing and
causing me to pause the video on that particular screen shot, smack in the
middle of more that two hours of streaming? I went back to the YouTube hymns to
discover exactly how long that image was on my screen. Just 45 seconds.
