Genesis 4–5

Genesis chapter 4, let's ask the Lord to open our hearts. Father, as we get into your word tonight, as always, it's your word, the spiritual dynamics and the wisdom that are conveyed in it are yours to reveal. And we believe, Lord God, that without your Holy Spirit, those cannot be revealed to men. For our hearts are closed otherwise, our eyes and ears are stopped without the ministry of your Spirit. But we're so thankful, God, that you've given us your Spirit. We're so thankful that when we come to faith in Jesus, we receive the indwelling presence of your Holy Spirit by whom we are enabled to understand, to lay hold of what is in the Word. And so we're inviting you, God, tonight to just minister to our hearts, to feed our souls, to teach us tonight and just to remind us of the things that we need to be aware of. So, Lord, we long to listen to hear your voice tonight. We ask that you would speak to your children in Jesus powerful name, amen, amen. As we get into chapter 4 of Genesis, I think it is important to remind ourselves of what transpired in the previous chapter. Because for mankind, everything changed in the last chapter where we witnessed the origin of what has caused so much of what we talked about just a moment ago when mankind sinned and life forever, forever, changed. For starters, we lost the capacity to connect with God, to really truly connect with God on a spiritual level. Next, we tumbled into the grip of sin from which we are unable on our own to escape. And the separation that we, and I'm saying we collectively as mankind, but the separation that we experienced and have experienced since the propagation of mankind, began to take place and continued on, has now so corrupted the soul of mankind that literally everything, our reason, our emotions, our discernment, those things have all become flawed and distorted. And I'm trying not to overstate the fact and make it sound like, this is just one big bummer of a thing, but we have to see what we need to see in these chapters.

Sin has caused our relationship to God apart from His grace to be cold and distant and we are born into that. We're literally born into a separation from God and because we are separated from God relationally, spiritually, and so forth, we then also find that our relationships with one another are corrupted as well. And that is what we see in this chapter. But it begins in chapter 4, verse 1, by saying,

(ESV) Now, that doesn't mean they sat around talking to get to know one another. The word “knew” there in the scripture is a euphemism that is used often in the Bible to refer to intimacy between a man and a woman, and this is the first reference to it in the Bible. But as I said, is used often and it says that,

Now, I'm sure you probably know that names were given to characters in the Bible for reasons that usually marked an event that was taking place at the time, or perhaps even had some reference to the person who was being born, or the way in which they were born, or something. You might remember that the firstborn son of Isaac and Rebecca was named Esau, because he was both hairy and red, so they named him Hairy. And then he came out and they said, “okay, this one's hairy” and it just happened to also mean red. And so there you go and they named their kids. And then Jacob was born a few minutes later and he was grasping the heel of his brother and so they called him “heel catcher” which is Jacob and so that's the way they named people. Now, in this case, you'll notice that when Eve gives birth to her firstborn son Cain, she names him that because that literally means, “I've got him” or, if you will, “here he is.” It's almost like a declarative: here he is. And it's very possible that Eve assumed that Cain was going to be the one that God spoke of when He talked in the last chapter of her seed that would be born and would ultimately crush the head of the serpent. And it could very well be because Eve just thought maybe this is going to happen right away. She gave birth to this boy, she says, “well, here he is, this is it” and here he is literally is Cain, and there you go. However, Cain was not the one that was going to take care of that sort of a thing, not by a long shot. We'll see that as we get into it further.

But in verse 2, it says, “And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.” So the first 2 boys born to Adam and Eve were farmers. Abel on the animal side, Cain on the agricultural side of things. But it needs to be made clear right here, because hopefully this will answer some questions later on, that just because Cain and Abel are the only ones mentioned in this narrative thus far, that doesn't mean they're the only ones that were born and you got to understand that. There's no reason to believe that they were the only children born to Adam and Eve, even up to this point. A very common feature of Hebrew literature is to only mention names that are important to the narrative and to essentially kind of ignore names that aren't, or births. And so, the fact that Cain and Abel are mentioned here is because they are critical to the narrative. I have absolutely no doubt there were many other children that were born, but who are not critical to the narrative and so they're simply not mentioned. We'll talk about why this is important to understand in just a moment. But it goes on in verse 3 to say, now, “In the course of time…” and then it's going to go on to talk about how the boys brought something to offer to the Lord as a kind of a sacrifice. But before we read on, give me your attention just for a moment, because that phrase “in the course of time” is important to not skip over because what the author is giving to you and me is an indeterminate time reference. “In the course of time,” how much time? We don't know, A few hundred years, possibly? We don't know, it could be a long time. And it is also very possible that during that time, that many generations are propagated on the earth during those years. So, anyway, we go on, “3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell.” All right. So we come to this first interesting story in the narrative of the offering that each of the boys gave from those areas where they were most involved. Abel was involved in the raising of flocks and so he brought an offering from the flock. Cain was involved in raising crops from the ground and he brought an offering from the ground. Now, the next thing we're told, without any explanation, is that God accepted Abel's offering, but did not accept, and in fact rejected, Cain's offering. Now, if you, like me, if you read commentaries and listen to other opinions of people who talk about these things, there is no shortage of opinions as it relates to why Abel's offering was accepted and Cain's was rejected. And some people say it was, “well, it's easy, it's because Abel brought an animal sacrifice, and that's what they were supposed to bring, he brought a blood sacrifice and that was important.” And, the problem with that is that, when God finally gave the law, grain sacrifices were very much a part of what they were told to do. So there was nothing wrong with a grain sacrifice, nothing wrong with it or unacceptable about the grain offering at all. And others will say, “well, it's because Abel brought the first fruits of the flock and Cain didn't.” Well, maybe, maybe, maybe…, it does say he brought of the first born of the flock. But actually, it's the book of Hebrews that explains this whole thing to us. If we just let the Bible interpret itself. Let me show you this on the screen from Hebrews chapter 11, verses 4 and 6, it says,

By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, (but then it goes on a couple more verses to say) God commending him by accepting his gifts. And without faith it is impossible to please [God]... So, this is the explanation of why Cain's offering was not accepted and furthermore, it is our first introduction to unbelief, or a lack of faith. We can call it what you want, the Bible calls it unbelief. And it seems crazy to think about it, but Cain did not have faith. He did not offer to God his offering by faith. And that's a crazy statement because we're going to see here that Cain actually talked with God, and yet he was a man of unbelief. You think, how's that possible? I'm not exactly sure. All I know is that Hebrews says that Abel brought his sacrifice to God by faith and he was commended. And had Cain brought his sacrifice by faith, he would also have been commended, but he did not.

--- Verse 6 goes on, and it says, “The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?”” This is a reference to something akin to that anger that simmers, that gives way to depression and ultimately, you're going to see worse. And He says in verse 7,

Did you notice in that single verse that sin is almost, well, sin is personified. When we say personified, we are saying it is essentially given personality. And that doesn't mean that sin is a person, that's not what the Bible is saying, but it attributes these personal qualities, such as, having desire. Did you notice that, the Lord said that, “sin’s desire Cain is to have you.” And then notice that also, He characterizes sin as waiting patiently in the posture of crouching, ready to pounce when the opportunity arrives. Now those are personal traits that we would normally ascribe to an individual or to a person, and yet God uses them to speak of sin, isn't that interesting? But what is really interesting is that He says that, “sin desires to have you, its desire is, in fact, contrary to you.” Now, this word, “desire” is the same word that is used in the previous chapter when God is speaking to Eve and He says to her that her desire will be for her husband or, as the NIV says, contrary to her husband. Either way, both usages of the word desire in chapter 3 and in chapter 4 are negative and they are something to be resisted, they are a byproduct of sin. So, what is God doing here, in essence? He's exhorting Cain to give him, if you will, kind of a way out, if you will, a way of escape, if you will. So, verse 8, if you look with me in your Bible, it says,

Now, we know what this is going to eventuate into, but these words suggest that, first of all, Cain rejected the out that God gave him and second of all, he used conversation to lure his brother. And it says,

And the reason we are told and we are shown that Cain not only rejected the alternative, the out that God gave him, and that Cain lured his brother out into a field, is we are being made to show, to know rather, that this is nothing short of premeditated murder, he planned to kill him. And what we learn from the origin of sin through disobedience that came through Adam and Eve in the last chapter is that it took only from parent to child, to go from one act of disobedience to premeditated murder, from parent to child. ---

We also learned that it also didn't take very long for sin to be out of control, completely out of control and it's still out of control. Then God confronts the situation, verse 9, “Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” …” Now, obviously, God never asks a question for which He needs an answer, we all know that. Whenever He's asking a question, He's doing it for a reason and again, the reason here is to give Cain the opportunity to confess his sin and to repent of it. But, that's not what happens, notice the response of Cain, “9 …He said, “I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?” And doesn't that response just kind of smack you in the face? I mean, the unmitigated gall of responding to God in this sort of a way is shocking to say the least, but you can hear, you can hear, in his words, this anger and this rebellion that just has absolute disdain for God. Showing no sign of remorse, no shame whatsoever related to what he had done. I mean, good grief, Cain just ended the life of his brother and it was for the reason of jealousy. He was jealous and that was it, and he appears entirely indifferent to the fact that he killed this man. It's funny, well, it's not funny, it's interesting, I think that the brother, earthly brother of our Lord Jesus, Jude, in his one and only short letter speaks of this same attitude. Check this on the screen from Jude verse 11, he says,

… “They walked in the way of Cain.” What is the way of Cain? What is Jude saying when he says “they walked in the way of Cain”? Well, they walked in unbelief, they walked in jealousy toward those whom God accepted, and they walked in murder. That's what it is to walk in the way of Cain. Verse 10, “And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground.”” This is another interesting statement, particularly about the blood of Abel, crying to the Lord from the ground. It's interesting that the Bible refers to this quite often actually. In the book of Numbers, you can read about the fact that the shedding of innocent blood pollutes the land. Do you know that when someone, when a murder was found, when someone was found killed, murdered, it was the responsibility of the elders in whatever region that person was found, to investigate that murder and then to do their best to resolve it some way or another or to make sacrifice for it because it was their region that was thus polluted by the shedding of that blood.

It's interesting isn't it, that the shedding of blood, murder, can literally affect a geographical region. That's something we don't think about, we don't think about geography being affected literally by murder. But that's what God's word shows. And that's what He's saying to Cain when He says, “the voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground.” And the Lord now speaks to Cain concerning his actions, saying, “11And now you are cursed from the ground, …” Remember what Cain was doing? He was in agriculture, that's what he did, he raised crops. But He says, “11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” You remember when Adam sinned, what did God say about the ground? He said it would still produce, but it would be tough, “you'd have to work hard by the sweat of your brow, hard labor.” But for Cain, it's not going to produce anything at all, it's going to be zero. And he would be forced to wander upon the face of the earth, presumably depending on others for his daily bread, since he could not grow it himself any longer from the ground. Isn't it interesting? God gave the ground to Cain as a blessing, but he ruined it and so it was taken away. Boy, I wonder how many times in life we've been given something by God and we frittered it away with our foolish actions. I just wonder, I wonder how many things we frittered away that were meant to be blessings from the Lord. Notice Cain’s response to this, verse 13, “Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear.”” Now you need to know something about the word “punishment” there in the Hebrew, that word and in here in the ESV is punishment, but it can also be translated, “sin” or “iniquity,” which means that this word can refer both to the sin and the punishment from sin, it can mean both. So it could be translated, “my sin is greater than I can bear.” But we believe that it is the repercussions or the consequences of his sin that Cain is referring to here. Even so, you'll notice Cain doesn't show any sign of repentance, no sign of remorse. He isn't, responding to the Lord in any sort of a way that would reflect repentance. It doesn't mean that he isn't sorrowful, I have no doubt that he was probably sorrowful, but he wasn't sorrowful in the right way.

And when we get to the New Testament in fact, to Paul's letter to, the second letter to the Corinthians, we actually learn about these differences in sorrow. Let me put this on the screen, it says,

…godly grief (or sorrow, if you will) produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief (or if you again, if you will, worldly sorrow) produces death. So you see, there's a difference and one of them is sorrow over sin and the other one is, “I'm sorry I got caught and now I'm having to deal with the rotten circumstances of my actions.” That's sorrow for sure, but it's not genuine in the sense of life giving. So it goes on here in verse 14, Cain is speaking still and he says, “Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” What's going on here? This is nothing short of self-pity and self- pity is never attractive, I'll just tell you. But it says that “Then the LORD said to him, (the Lord responds here to him in verse 15 and says,) “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him” So the Lord literally declared a vengeance if anyone were to touch Cain and that they would be avenged sevenfold for what they had done by killing Cain. Now it says that “God therefore put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him.” And once again, while opinions abound as to what the mark of Cain is, we don't know. So if anyone tells you, “this was the mark of Cain,” just, you know that they're full of hot air and they're taking their guess and they're trying to pass it along as fact, and that's unfortunate. But you know what we do know about the mark of Cain? It was an act of mercy on God's part. It was an act of mercy, because it essentially was God's protective measure lest someone attempt to hurt Cain. And this was very much an act of mercy from the standpoint that Cain deserved to die for what he did. But when we don't get what we do deserve, that's mercy, that’s mercy. And so this was an act of mercy.

So whatever the mark of Cain was, verse 16, “Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord…” Now, I got to tell you something, honestly, we're not entirely sure what all that really details. It most certainly refers to a separation of Cain from the Spirit of the Lord, His presence, His influence in Cain's life. And we're going to see, as we go down through the descendants of Cain, that separation, that coming out from the presence of the Lord is going to have just, again, terrible, ongoing repercussions for the descendants of Cain. But we're told that he “…settled in the land of Nod, …” which, interestingly enough, may or may not be an actual land at this particular point, because Nod literally means “wandering.” So, he could just be referring to the fact that he settled in a constant state of wandering. But either way we're told, “east of Eden.” But life goes on for Cain, verse 17, it says, “Cain knew his wife, (there's that same euphemism for intimacy) and she conceived and bore Enoch…” And this is not the godly Enoch that we're going to read about here and a little bit later, but it says, “17 …When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.” And there you go. Now, why did I make the point of telling you earlier that the Bible is typical in that it does not mention people who are born because they're not part of the narrative while it only talks about those that are part of the narrative. Well, it's because we come to this issue in verse 17, which frankly stops people dead in their tracks and they go, “where'd Cain get his wife?” Because they're reading this thing in this literal sense where Cain and Abel are the only children of Adam and Eve and then suddenly it says, “Cain knew his wife” and it's like, well, where'd she come from? Well, I believe that Adam and Eve had many other children and in the ensuing years, many generations had actually already progressed and had been born and you guys know how quickly a family can balloon. I mean, some of you right here in this room you got married and it was the two of you and then you had children, and then your children got married, and they started having children, and some of you have grandchildren in the teen numbers, and that's just in one generation. You've already, well, two generations, I guess if you count the parents to the children to the grandchildren, but, how long did that take? 40 years maybe. And you and I imagine this happening and then multiplying exponentially, oh good grief. Cain probably had lots of choices for a wife by the time he took a wife. Let's say he waited 100 years before he got married, you know for somebody who's going to live 900 years, what's the hurry, right? It's like “hey, I'll wait till I'm 250 before I take a wife, big deal.” There's a lot of time, for generations to propagate on the earth. So anyway, what we have in the following verses are the genealogy of Cain through his son Enoch and we're told in verse 18 that,

And I want you to notice something about this man, Lamech, because it says in the very next verse,

And this is the very first mention in the Bible of polygamy and you will note that it occurs among the descendants of Cain who are outside the presence of the Lord. Now, that does not negate the fact that as the Bible goes on, there are many godly people later on who practiced polygamy as well. That is an undeniable fact and I get that question pretty regularly, “why did God allow polygamy in the Bible?” Well, the fact that God allows something for a period of time doesn't mean that he approves of it and when we get to the New Testament, we find Jesus making it abundantly clear that polygamy was never part of God's original intention for marriage. Jesus underscored what is given to us in Genesis chapter 2 and that is that “a man and a woman, the two, shall become one flesh.” It doesn't say the three, the four, or the ten, it's the two and that was God's intention in marriage. It was always God's intention in marriage, but there were times in the Bible that He bore with certain areas of disobedience and sin. Anyway, we're told that, this man,

Now you remember, I've told you this many times, when the Bible references someone as the father of something, it means they were the originator of that thing. When Jesus calls Satan, “the father of lies” you know what He's saying, you know what the idea is. And these are the people who started these things. These are the original references to these things in the Bible. And we're told in verse 22 that

Now check out this boast of Lamech. “23Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me,…”” And by the way, the Hebrew word there for “killed” means “to slaughter” okay, so he's boasting. “23 …a young man for striking me.” And then he says this, “24 If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold.” Yeah. So Lamech is a really cool guy. In addition to being the first bigamist in the Bible, he also has the place of expressing some of the most shocking arrogance that you're going to read frankly in the Word of God, which, illustrates how quickly this godlessness apart from the presence of the Lord, just propagates and grows and escalates. And what it appears that Lamech is saying, is essentially, that he could produce a greater revenge than God if anyone were to attempt to punish him for murdering another man. “God said He would avenge Cain if anyone killed Cain 7 times, well, if anyone touches me, I have the power to avenge them 77-fold or whatever.” It’s ridiculous. But what we can see here in this is that the author of Genesis is painting a picture of what it is for a culture, prosperous though it may be, to tumble into this incredible, sinful corruption when they defy God and His Word and instead seek to live for their own pleasures and their own self-indulgence. Doesn't that sound familiar? It’s the world we're living in today. But the chapter ends essentially by saying, “25 And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, (or if you will, in the place of Abel) for Cain killed him.”” And once again, and I believe Adam and Eve most likely had many children between probably Abel and Seth but Seth is mentioned here because of what we read in verse 26, he's critical to the narrative. And then as the narrative goes on, it tells us, “26 To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh…” And the reason Enosh is important in the narrative is because of what we read at the end of that verse. It says, “26 …At that time (or if you will, in those days) people began to call upon the name of the Lord.” Now, there are some who believe that a better translation of this is that “people began to proclaim the name of the Lord.” It's not necessarily a popular translation, but it is considered by some to be actually better. It is difficult to know exactly what calling upon the name of the

Lord means. Literally, it could mean just that they started to pray at that time, at the time of the birth of Enosh. It's very possible that up to that point, men only talked to God when they were spoken to. They only responded to God when God spoke to them, it's very possible. And it could be that this means that at this time men began to pray. It also could mean that men began to worship the Lord because that is another sense that we get from this idea of calling upon the name of the Lord. Either way, we see this through the godly line of Seth. And so, do you see this thing we're seeing here? We've seen these descendants of Cain and we've seen the ungodliness that it produces; the bigamy and the murder and the incredible arrogance and so forth that is just tumbling on and on and on. And not to say that the line of Seth is sinless or perfect in any way, but at least the progeny of Seth shows us that men have continued to connect with and reach out to God. And that is an important statement for us to see. Now, we're actually going to do Genesis chapter 5 here tonight, but we're going to, it's really just, we're going to read it. And I'm going to make very few comments because, honestly, what we find here in Genesis chapter 5 are just the descendants of Seth leading up to Noah. Now, again, the reason Seth was mentioned, was because, not only is he indicative to the narrative, but the narrative leads to Noah, who, of course, is the primary character of the narrative to come. So, we're just going to kind of read through these and it says,

Isn't that interesting? We're not even told about the previous boys, but here we are with Seth because that's the narrative, the name connected to the narrative.

That's a long time to live, that's a long time to make babies. And you're going to have a really big family and I can only imagine what Thanksgiving was like. I mean, that would be a train wreck, right? All right.

--- “6 When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh. 7 Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years and had other sons and daughters. 8 Thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died. 9 When Enosh had lived 90 years, he fathered Kenan. 10 Enosh lived after he fathered Kenan 815 years and had other sons and daughters. 11 Thus all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died. 12 When Kenan had lived 70 years, he fathered Mahalalel. 13 Kenan lived after he fathered Mahalalel 840 years and had other sons and daughters. 14 Thus all the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died. 15 When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he fathered Jared. 16 Mahalalel lived after he fathered Jared 830 years and had other sons and daughters. 17 Thus all the days of Mahalalel were 895 years, and he died. 18 When Jared had lived 162 years, he fathered Enoch.” Now this is a different Enoch from the line of Cain and “19 Jared lived after he fathered Enoch 800 years and had other sons and daughters. 20 Thus all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died. (wow!) 21 When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. 22 Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. 23 Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. 24 Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.” Now this is a little bit clumsy phrase in the English, to say that “Enoch walked with God and he was not” and we read it and we go, “he was not what? Did he leave out a word?” No, it simply means, and suddenly he was no more. And the reason is because God took him. In other words, Enoch, we have no record of his death, in fact, we believe he did not die because God took him. “25 When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he fathered Lamech. 26 Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech 782 years and had other sons and daughters. 27 Thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died. 28 When Lamech (and by the way, this is a different Lamech) had lived 182 years, he fathered a son 29 and called his name Noah, saying, “Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.” 30 Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31 Thus all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died. 32 After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” And that's where we're going to stop for tonight. So we're going to pick it up, we'll get into the narrative of Noah and the global flood next, so let's pray.

Father, we thank you so much for giving us your word. It's incredible to sit and read these names. There are people who were born 100 years ago whose names are completely forgotten and here are people who were born, probably 6,000 years or more before, and we have a record of their names. And the reason we have that record, Lord, is because you've preserved it. And you've preserved it for us that we might understand it and grow from it and be nourished by it and we thank you for that. And we pray, Lord God, that as we continue to seek your face through prayer and through the Word of God, that you would reveal yourself to us and that we would grow in grace and understanding and live our lives for the glory of God. We thank you Lord that we're living in exciting times, really similar to the days of Noah. And our hearts long for the appearance of our Savior, come, Lord Jesus. We thank you and praise you in the precious name of that Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, and all God's people said, amen. God bless you. ---