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Genesis
4:1-26 “And
Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have
gotten a man from the LORD.
2 And
she again bare his brother Abel. And
Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3
And in process of time it came to pass, that
Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.
4 And
Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat
thereof. And the LORD
had respect unto Abel and to his offering: 5
but unto Cain and to his offering he had
not respect. And Cain was very wroth,
and his countenance fell. 6 And
the LORD
said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be
accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and
thou shalt rule over him. 8 And
Cain talked with Abel his brother: and
it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel
his brother, and slew him. 9 And
the LORD
said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? 10
And he said, What hast thou done? the
voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. 11
And now art thou cursed from the
earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy
hand; 12 when
thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength;
a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. 13
And Cain said unto the LORD,
My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14
Behold, thou hast driven me out this day
from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a
fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that
every one that findeth me shall slay me. 15
And the LORD
said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on
him sevenfold. And the LORD
set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. 16
And Cain went out from the presence of
the LORD,
and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. 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 [Dawn], and the name of the other Zillah
[Shadow]. 20 And
Adah bare Jabel: 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 Tubal-cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and
iron: and the sister of Tubal-cain was
Naamah [Ham’s wife]. 23
And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and
Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a
young man to my hurt. 24 If
Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold. 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 [or Enosh]: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.”
Introduction [Audio
version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED519] “Genesis
chapter 4 begins by saying “And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived,
and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.”
(verse 1) it doesn’t mean he met her in chapter
4. He knew her before this, Adam was
intimate sexually with his wife Eve, “and she conceived, and bare Cain, and
said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.”
King James says “from the LORD,”
it’s “by the LORD,”
“And she again bare his brother Abel.
And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” (verse
2) So we meet these two people, Cain
and Abel, the first human beings born.
Adam and Eve were not born. Cain
and Abel were born. What an interesting
process that must have been, Eve is going through a lot of changes I’m
sure. The fall has taken place, last
week as we looked at the picture, it says the LORD
finally drove them out of Eden. He told
them they needed to go, evidently there was a hesitancy on the part of Adam and
Eve, all they ever knew was the presence of God, all they ever knew was the
Garden of Eden, Paradise, and God drave them, he drove them out of the
Garden. And again, into an empty world,
into an empty earth, two people, driven from God’s presence into a world that
was now fallen, it was now bringing forth thorns and thistles, an empty
world. Imagine you and your wife being
the only two human beings on the planet, driven out from the presence of God,
settling somewhere, probably near the east of Eden, where a Cherubim was
guarding the way to the Tree of Life with a flaming sword. Eve had never been pregnant before. She had no mothering skills from her mother,
she had no modeling. Adam and Eve didn’t
have parents to model parenting for them.
I assume Adam and Eve are genius, they’re programed by God, they’re
created in his image and likeness, that they have a sense of what’s going on. But their senses are not sharpened by
experience, and here is this young woman, a year old [laughter], we’re not
sure. And all of a sudden, ‘I want
pickles, I want ice cream,’ whatever’s going on, just this whole process to
her, the first woman ever, to conceive, and to bring forth. No OBGYN department, no sterile gauze,
somewhere in a field, and we assume that there were still some remarkable
things about their physical frame, they both evidently lived to be about 900
years old. There were some things that
certainly made these deliveries much different from those of you who have been
through that process, in our age and our time.
But somewhere, she brings forth a son.
Adam is there evidently to cut the umbilical chord, and she names him
Cain, which means “acquired.” And she
says, “I have gotten a man from the LORD.” ‘The LORD
has granted to me this man,’ and she calls
him “acquired,” and evidently she thinks this is the fulfillment of the
prophecy in Genesis 3:15, that there would be enmity between her seed and the
seed of the serpent, and she says ‘I’ve gotten a man by the means of the
LORD,
the LORD
has granted it, this is it, this kid, this is it, this is the promise
evidently.’ I
tend to think that was her idea, because when the second son comes, she names
him Abel [Hebrew Hebel], which means “emptiness” or “vanity.” Which tells me somewhere along the way, no
only was she raising Cain, but Cain was raising Cain, and she realizes as he
gets into his terrible two’s or something, this kid ain’t the Messiah. And by the time she has the second one, she
names him “Vanity” because she’s realizing this is not what, ‘LORD,
you made the promise, but this kid is cranky and mean and selfish, this can’t
be, is this the serpent-seed LORD?’ Just this, she’s
facing humanity. And we have these two
young brothers coming on the scene, and they’re the ones that are brought
before us, and we’re going to see some interesting things about them, and some
contention between them. Now look, it’s
just the beginning of what we’re going to see, we’re going to see contention
between Isaac and Ishmael, we’re going to see contention between Jacob and
Esau, we’re going to see contention between Joseph and his brothers,
differences between Moses and Aaron, we’re going to see it between David and
his older brothers. This whole process
of human existence, of the human family, and of their differences brought
before us. But it’s done in a very
interesting way here. These two boys who
come on the scene are more alike than any two humans that ever lived. Because there’s not two family trees
involved, there’s not two gene pools involved.
Eve was taken from Adam’s side, so she’s got the same genes and
chromosomes and DNA that Adam has, Adam married his rib. So there’s only one set of, only one gene
frequency here, there’s only one set of DNA, these two boys no doubt look more
alike than any identical twins that had ever been born, though they weren’t
twins, they weren’t born at the same time.
And as we look at Cain and Abel we tend to think ‘Well, Cain was the
mean guy with the black cape, and Abel was some,’ no, they were exactly the
same, they were both sinners. They were
both born outside of Paradise. They
weren’t Neanderthal men. Where did Cain
get his wife? He didn’t hit some woman
that was half monkey on the head with a club and drag her back to his cave. [Comment:
Neanderthals, from the bones and skeletons extracted in Europe, were
just as sentient and humanoid as the Homo Sapiens, and dwelt on the earth
around the same period of time Homo Sapiens did. Our DNA, we being Homo Sapiens, has some DNA
from Neanderthals mixed into it. There
is much about the record of the rocks and this period of time covered in Genesis
chapters 2-11 where we don’t know how the evidence contained in both records
fits properly together. I for one am
going to admit total ignorance, and wait till the Wedding Feast of the Lamb
spoken of in Revelation 19:7-9 to find out what really happened in Genesis
chapters 1-11, which by the way are written in poetic Hebrew. This doesn’t mean the Genesis account is
inaccurate, it merely means we don’t have all the information. Genesis chapters 2-11 is a mere skeletal
outline of a history that spans the first 2,000 years of man’s written history
in eleven short chapters.] They weren’t
highly evolved, they were highly created, they were one generation from the
image and likeness of God, death had entered in, but they were brilliant, they
were fully developed. In fact, as we, I
have a whole book at home, it’s called Anomalies and Ancient Artifacts, I
love to collect these things, and it’s just strange things that can’t be
explained from way back, some of them from probably before the Flood, alloys of
metal that we can’t explain today, batteries, B.C., before Christ that they’ve
discovered in Iraq and Egypt, with a carbon rod in the center of it. What are they doing with batteries back
then? So they were highly
intelligent. Several places in the Bible
talk about the wisdom of the ancients, what were the pre-Diluvians like before
the Flood? Cain and Abel were
brilliant. We’re going to see this vast
difference between them that has nothing to do with appearance, they’re exactly
the same. But it isn’t like Able went to
a Christian high school and Cain went to a public high school. It isn’t that Cain hung around the wrong
group of kids, there were no kids, there was four of them, Adam, Eve, Cain and
Abel. There were no outside
influences. It’s not like Cain watched
MTV and listened to gangster rap and Abel listened to worship music, there was
none of those influences. It’s very
important for us to see that. [There was
one influence around them, that is around us today, and that is the hidden, the
unseen influence of Satan the devil, who had first influenced and deceived
Eve.] Because one of them defies God and
resists God’s will, with the exact same influence in his life. And one of them yields. They are both free moral agents, they both
have the ability to make choices.
Because we like to say ‘Oh I came from an abusive family, and they
came from a great family, and I got this influence.’ Look, here we are going to have brought
before us these two individuals, with the exact same influences, exact same
surroundings, the exact same instruction from their parents. [Question I have, did Eve spoil Cain?,
thinking if he really was the promised Messiah, did he rate special treatment?] All of this, and we’re going to see two
extremes flow from here into humanity. No
doubt when they were growing up, because Cain was going to offer of the fruit
of the ground, Abel is going to offer a blood sacrifice, no doubt as they were
young boys, the way boys are, running, playing, lizards, flowers, rainbows,
waterfalls, ‘Dad, look at this! Dad,
look at this turtle. Dad look at this
lizard, look at this flower.’ And
many times I’m sure, Adam was ‘Ya, that’s really cool. Ya, that’s good, boys.’ And they must
have at times said to Eve ‘What is with Dad, anyway? He’s the most bummed out guy on the planet,
there’s only four of us, but he’s the most bummed out person on the
planet.’ And Eve must have said ‘Boys,
to try to put into words what it was like on the other side of Paradise, before
the fall, when your father and I were clothed with light, and we walked in the
presence of the LORD,
and we looked into his face, and we fellowshipped with him in the cool of the
day. The things you are excited about
are all part of his Creation.’ People
today worship the creation more than the Creator, but Adam and Eve were
spoiled. And she must have said ‘Boys,
we could never tell you what it was like, we made a terrible mistake, we
sinned. And now, we have a promise that
one day God will turn this all around again, through the death of an innocent
substitute. And that’s why your father
once in a while will take a lamb.’ And
the boys must have watched him, occasionally, after dinner, in the evening,
take a lamb and walk off into the distance, to that gate near the east of
Eden. And they must have heard the lamb
bleating, crying out, as Adam would cut his throat, and then quiet, and watch
their dad come back an hour or two hours later, blood on his hands, with peace
on his face, tears in his eyes, and they must have thought ‘Well, that’s the
happiest he ever looks, look at dad.’
And through the process of time, Adam and Eve communicated to these boys
what that was all about, what God had asked, substitutionary atonement. There wasn’t a law, there was no “religion,”
there was worship, there was worship, simply that. And God said ‘to approach me, this is
the way it has to happen. Because it
looks forward to the death of an innocent substitute that’s going to come.’ The
Difference Between The Foundation Of True Worship & The Foundation Of
Religion The
boys, sometime in their life, begin to be worshippers themselves. We’re not told a lot of details. Are there other children by this time? Are there sisters, are there others in the
family? We don’t know [that is because
Genesis 1-11 is a bare skeletal outline for the first 2,000 years of man’s
history as recorded in the Bible]. But
it does tell us that Abel was a keeper of flocks, of sheep. He was a shepherd, like Moses, like David,
like Abraham, like so many, “but Cain was a tiller of the ground.” (verse
2b) Nothing wrong with that, God
told them, through their labour and their sweat they would bring forth from the
ground. Even before the fall, Adam was
to tend and to keep the Garden. Work is
something that was divined from the beginning, to take the gifts and the
talents that we have, and do then work which is the best work for us to do as
individuals, and to fulfill God’s will, it’s a form of worship. There’s nothing wrong with work, nothing
wrong with tilling the ground, with keeping the flocks [shepherding is intense
and requires knowledge, see https://unityinchrist.com/pom/AShepherdLooks.htm]. It says in verse 3, “And in process of
time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering
unto the LORD. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings
of his flock and of the fat thereof. And
the LORD
had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
but unto Cain and to his offering he had
not respect. And Cain was very wroth,
and his countenance fell.” (verses 3-5) So in the process of time. We’re not sure what that means, it’s a Hebrew
phrase that says “at the end of days.” Is
that speaking of the seventh day, when God rested, that Adam and Eve were
familiar with, he hallowed the seventh day, it wasn’t a Sabbatical law [the
Jews and Messianic Jews and Sabbath-keeping churches of God would beg to differ
with you on that last statement], but was it that day at the end of the week
when they came, or “at the end of days,” was it the first time as young men,
that they brought their own sacrifice to the LORD? We’re not told, evidently there was a time, a
specific time for worship, something prescribed. Evidently there was a specific place for
worship, because it says “they brought.”
It says that about both of them, so we know there was a time that God
prescribed, there was a place that God prescribed, and it says “offering,” they
offered. So there was a method that God
had prescribed. And it says as they
come, God has respect, that’s not respect they way you and I think of it, he
“acknowledged” Abel and his sacrifice, “but Cain he did not acknowledge, nor
his sacrifice.” It seems that God is acknowledging
both the man and his sacrifice. ‘He
had respect unto Abel and his sacrifice, but unto Cain he had not respect,
neither unto his sacrifice.’ Abel’s
coming with the blood of the lamb. Had
Cain and Abel come many times before this, and had Cain many times brought a
lamb from Abel’s flock, and felt a sense of dependence on Abel, had given Abel
the fruit of the ground in barter and trade?
We don’t know, we’re not given all those details, that’s not what God
wants us to understand. He wants us to
see this clearly, one of them comes with the blood of an innocent substitute,
and God has respect to that. And one of
them comes with the fruit of his own labour and sweat, and God does not respect
that. It tells us this in Hebrews
11:4, it says “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice
than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying
of his gifts: and by it he being dead
yet speaketh.” How did God have
respect to his sacrifice? Hebrews said
God was testifying unto his gifts. Did
fire fall? Did Abel cut the throat of
the lamb, and flay the lamb and lay it out, like many other times in the Old
Testament? Did Eternal fire fall and
consume the sacrifice and honour what he was doing? It says he offered by faith. Jesus tells us this, in the Gospels, in
Luke’s Gospel he said ‘But the blood of all the Prophets which was shed
from the foundation of the world may be required of this generation,’ challenging
the Pharisees and Sadducees, ‘from the blood of Abel, that the blood of
all the Prophets which was shed, from the blood of Abel unto the blood of
Zecharias, which perished between the altar and the temple.’ In Matthew he says it this way, ‘That
upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood
of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias.’
So it tells us there, as we look in the New Testament, that Abel
was a Prophet, that Abel was righteous, that he was justified in his giving,
and we’re told in the Book of Revelation that the testimony of Jesus is the
spirit of prophecy. So there was
something in Abel’s sacrifice right from the beginning, that he understood an
innocent substitute has to die in my place, there has to be death, because
death has come upon the race, then for me to fellowship with God, I can never do
it in my own righteousness, I can never do it in my own righteousness. When the Law is given, the worshipper will
come with a lamb, and the lamb will have to be examined to make sure there’s no
spot or blemish on that lamb. The
worshipper will never be examined to see if he has spot or blemish, only the
lamb, because the worshipper under the Law coming with the lamb is
acknowledging that he does have a spot and a blemish, that he is sinful, that
he has a problem, and that there has to be someone without spot or blemish, an
innocent substitute to shed his blood in his place, so that he can come before
God. In this scene God has respect of
Abel, not because he’s without spot or blemish, but because he’s acknowledging
that he has no right to come before a Holy God, except by the means that God
has prescribed, and that’s through the shedding of blood. Cain is coming finally saying ‘I’m doing
this my own way, I work hard, I’m religious, I come on the same day, Abel’s a
sinner just like me. You mean to tell me
just because he does that stuff with a lamb and I come here, and I work like a
dog and I eek my living out of the ground, and I bring this and God doesn’t
have any respect to me? You mean to tell
me there’s only one way to come to God?’
That’s the picture, that’s the picture. There is only one way to come to God. And today people are coming to God either
like Abel or like Cain. People are
coming today with their own sweat and their own labour and with their own
righteousness, ‘I go to church, I do religious stuff, I put the stained
glass windows in the church, I give to orphans, I pay my taxes, I only sleep
with the woman I love, when I sell drugs I give everybody a full count,’ everybody’s
got their own righteousness. And God
says the only way to come is through the blood of an innocent lamb, the blood
of an innocent substitute is the only approach to God, those are the only two
religions, and these are the two fountainheads of what we see on the planet
today. Every single thing we see on the
planet today, and how many are there that sit in church every week that have no
understanding of the fact, because I did it for years, my dad was Catholic, my
mom was Lutheran, I had no idea, that as an individual, I had to come to God
through the blood of his Son. Not till I
was born-again, until I was saved, I never understood. I thought it was enough as a young teenager,
I would put on a tie and choke myself every Sunday, that that must have meant
something. Here’s these two boys, they
look exactly the same, their influences were the same, their parents are the
same. One’s not with a bad crowd and one
with a good, what it shows us is that as an individual, you can make a
choice. You may come from an abusive
situation, with mean-spirited abusive parents, and you can choose to worship
God the way he prescribes. Or you can
come from the best parents, you can come from the purest understanding of
Christ and decide you’re going to do whatever you want, and ruin your life and
be lost forever. Because there’s three
influences in our lives, in your life and in my life, one of them was Adam,
everybody in this room is affected by their fallen nature [and that fallen
nature, often called “human nature” is composed of “the spirit in man” under
the direct influence and filled with the attitudes of Satan the devil, and the
apostle Paul speaks of this in Galatians 5:19-21, the works of the flesh],
everyone in this room has a traitor that lives within, everyone in this room
under pressure is inclined to do things carnally and in the flesh, that’s one
influence we have. Secondly, our role
models, everybody has been affected by their surroundings to one degree or
another. I see kids all the time in
church who laugh just like their parents.
I watch them. I see a father
talking to the mother, and the mother says something, and I see the father roll
his eyes, and then when I’m with their kids and say something and they roll
their eyes. It’s like Gail Irwin says, “I
try to teach my kids to eat with table manners, but they all eat like me.” So with kids, more is caught than taught,
we all have those influences. And if
we’re here tonight as believers, the third influence that all of us have is the
Holy Spirit [Romans 8:1-16, Galatians 5:22-23], the new birth, Christ is within
each of us. And whenever we get in a
jam, whenever we get in a tough situation, and I struggle with the same thing,
I can either just react in my flesh, or I can react some way I saw my mom or
dad react, or somebody I admire, or I can react under the Lordship of Jesus
Christ, with the Holy Spirit, I can let what God wants me to do in that
circumstance come from the influence of God’s Spirit and God’s Word. And here are these two boys, no differences,
that you or I could ever imagine or measure, both of them with a different
compass inside, by their own choice. Abel
comes, he brings the lamb, and he does it in faith, and God respects that. Cain comes, and somehow he’s decided ‘I’m
going to do whatever I want, you tell me there’s only one way to come to God,
don’t give me that, that’s narrow, I work, I’m a good man,’ he comes with
the fruit of his labour, of the ground, and God doesn’t respect that. And it says “that he is boiling, his anger is
smoking, he’s furious, he’s seething” in his anger. 1st John says this, “For
this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love
one another, not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his brother. And why slew he him, because his own works
were evil, and his brother’s works were righteous.” Because his own works were evil, there was
something wrong in Cain’s attitude, where it says God had no respect for Cain
or his offering. He had respect for Abel
and his offering, it says. And when God
did not favour Cain, it says he began to smolder, and his countenance fell, his
countenance fell. “And the LORD
said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?” (verse
6) Isn’t
it amazing? My kids at home, you know,
Kathy will say to me, ‘Something’s wrong, did you see the look on his face?’
because we live with them their whole lives.
I come here and Frank says to me ‘Are you ok?’ I say ‘Ya,’ he
says ‘You liar.’ He’s looking at
my face, I feel bad for him, for over twenty-five years he’s looked at my
face. So we’ve just been around each
other long enough to know when somebody’s countenance is down. Isn’t
it interesting, the LORD
stoops to Cain, he doesn’t just say ‘You knucklehead, I should smack you up
side your head, bringing those stupid apples to me, don’t you remember this is
about blood?’ He stoops down and
says ‘What’s wrong? Why is your
countenance fallen?’ God will do
that to you, even when you’re in rebellion.
If you listen and you’ll hear his voice, he’ll speak to you. “If thou doest well, shalt thou not be
accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and
thou shalt rule over him.” (verse 7) Septuagint says “If you sacrifice
correctly,” or “If you offer correctly.”
Sin is lying at your door, looking for the opportunity, and the
challenge is, but you should rule over it.
How are we approaching God? Can
we be mad at somebody all week, can we be seething and just come [to church]
like nothing’s wrong? I think we need to
keep our accounts current. I constantly
need to be in the frame of mind ‘Lord, what’s wrong with me?’ because I
can spend my whole life thinking about everything that bugs me and everybody
who bugs me, ‘Lord, what’s wrong with me, what needs to change in my
life? Lord, if I stood before you this
afternoon, what would be those things I’d have wished I had taken care of,
before we see each other face to face Lord?’
And he says to Cain, ‘This is not over, the door’s not shut
here, if you do well, you’ll be accepted, if you do what’s right,’ I
think he knew that Cain knew. But he
says ‘but if you do wickedly, if you do wrong, that’s not gonna happen,’ so
he knows that Cain knows what he should do, ‘if you do not well, it’s
because sin is lying right at the door.’ Cain
Murders His Brother Abel Now,
it says Cain, the scene changes, we’re not told how long, how much time goes
by. “And Cain talked with Abel his
brother: and it came to pass, when they
were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.”
(verse 8) They were in the field,
they were talking, we’re not given a lot of details. Because we’re told that Abel is a Prophet,
I’m assuming the point of contention was that Abel was saying ‘Look, this is
the way we’ve been taught to worship, this is not from mom and dad, this is
from God, before they left Eden, this is what the LORD
asks of us.’ and it gave rise to that old
contention. Don’t be surprised in your
family if you tell loved ones or relatives who are religious, they go to church
and they’re not saved, and they say to you ‘You’re nuts, you go up to that
Mall, to that meter factory, wear jeans to church and so does your stupid
pastor, and you think just because you believe in Jesus you’re going to heaven,
and your mom and I have been religious our whole lives, we give money in the
offering,’ you go through those things, and there’s a hostility, when you
try to give them a testimony of Jesus, you try to bear testimony about Jesus,
try to tell them about Jesus, that he loves us, he’s died for us, he’s the only
way to approach God. But he is
the way to approach God, there is a way, the door is open, he died for us, he’s
paid for us, it’s not remarkable there’s only one way, it’s remarkable that
there is a way, mom or dad, or Aunt Suzie, it’s remarkable there
is a way, we can go to God, the price has been paid. But Cain, it says, rose up and killed
him. It tells us in 1st John that
he slew his brother, it’s very interesting there in 1st John,
chapter 3, verse 12, you don’t have to turn there, where it says ‘We’re
told to love one another, not as Cain who was of the wicked one, who slew his
brother,’ the word “slew” there is “to cut the throat.” So did he think, ‘I’ll make you a
sacrifice, I’m going to cut your throat and see how God likes that.’ He rose up, he slew his brother. How long this is after church, I don’t
know. First human corpse on earth, first
human blood shed on the planet. And
where does Abel go? He leaves his
physical frame, the Hebrews say it’s a place, Sheol, which is the unseen realm,
it could be of the grave itself, it could be of a darker place where it was a
general term that described the unseen realm, which in time would be described
as Abraham’s bosom for those who died in faith would go. He’s the first one to enter into that
place. He rose up and he slew him. “And the LORD
said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?” (verse 9) Now isn’t that interesting? He lies to God, and then he SmartMouths
God. Look, you have a brother you want
to kill? You have a brother you’d like
to hurt, you have a brother you’d like to rise up against? Here’s the picture. Am I my brother’s keeper? Ya you are, that’s what Christianity is all
about. Ya you are. We all are.
We’re to both live our lives other-centered. And he lies to God, I don’t know where he’s at.
And God said, “And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy
brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.” (verse 10) first time
blood’s mentioned in the Bible right there.
Isn’t it interesting, there’s been an injustice, the first human blood
shed, ‘it’s crying to me from the ground,’ God says. Here’s the interesting thing, I think Cain is
mentioned like 13 times in this chapter, and Abel’s mentioned 6 or 7. This is really the story of Cain in some
ways. We certainly have the comparison
of the brothers in their worship. But
there’s a picture of God’s grace here.
This is not at the alter at the east of Eden, this is God going out into
the field, to the center, to the murderer, and questioning him. He’s not asking him because he doesn’t know
where Abel is, because he says his blood’s crying to me from the ground. This is like when he comes to Adam and says ‘Where
are you?’ Not because he didn’t
know where Adam was, this is God again pursuing the sinner, in his grace, ‘Where
are you, what have you done?’ giving him the opportunity to
answer. He says ‘Am I my brother’s
keeper?’ and God said ‘What have you done, the voice of your
brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.’ “And now art thou cursed from the
earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy
hand; when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her
strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.” (verses 11-12) Now isn’t this interesting, it seems that
Adam, as he continued to labour, though it was the sweat of his brow, the earth
would yield to him. Part of the curse
that God puts on Cain is, you can work all day, and the ground’s not gonna
yield anything to you, because your brother’s blood is crying from the
ground. Isn’t it interesting? He says ‘You’re going to be a fugitive
and a vagabond,’ now listen, you and I are not fugitives and
vagabonds. We are strangers and
pilgrims. A fugitive is someone whose
running from home, a vagabond is somebody without a home. A fugitive is running from home, a vagabond
has no home. A stranger, a foreigner is
away from home, and a pilgrim is headed home.
You and I are strangers, foreigners and pilgrims, that’s what the New
Testament tells us. We’re foreigners in
that we’re away from home, and we’re pilgrims because we’re headed home. He says to Cain, ‘You are a vagabond
with no home, and a fugitive fleeing from home.’ What a terrible way to live, what a
terrible way to live. Because if you’re
here tonight and you’re not saved and you don’t know Christ, I don’t care how
religious you are, if you haven’t approached God through the blood of his Son,
you’re a fugitive and a vagabond. You’re
fleeing from home, the place that God would call you to, and in this world, you
have no home. God says to us once we’re
saved, you’re a foreigner, you’re away from home, and you’re a pilgrim, you’re
headed home. And he says our time in
this world is to be spent as Ambassadors representing him. But interesting, God says to Cain, ‘a
fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth, sin always separates us
from God.’ “And Cain said
unto the LORD,
My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from
the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a
fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that
every one that findeth me shall slay me.” (verses 13-14) Instead of repentance he’s worried about
punishment. “Everyone that findeth me
shall slay me” so evidently he’s talking about brothers and sisters. He’s talking, because there’s only, that’s
all there was. I encourage you, if you
have all these questions, because in verse 17 it’s going to say “Cain took a
wife” and all of you are wondering ‘Where did Cain get his wife?’ guess
she was mail-order. Now, for all of you
who are wondering where did Cain get his wife, listen, if you’re really
interested, get Henry Morris’s commentary for the Book of Genesis, it’s called The
Genesis Record, he’s a scientist, a PhD.
And he does a very interesting thing, he calculates, he says, as we
figure the age of Adam and Eve, they lived to be 900, we’ll get some of the
ages of the ante-Diluvians, let’s figure the average age was 400 years, and
let’s figure that each family had six kids, he says before Cain was too old to
die there would already be a 120,000 people on the planet, conservatively. He said if he lived to be 900 like his
father, and each family had 12 kids, Kathy and I by the time I was 40 we had
four. That means by the time I was 80
I’d have 8, by the time I was 160 we’d have 16, by the time I was 320 we’d have
32 kids, just kind of multiply it out, get to be 500 and my wife’s saying ‘Not
again, number 230 you know.’ So all
of this taken very conservatively, he says by the time Cain takes a wife
there’s 120,000 people on the planet.
His estimates, and he takes Unger’s chronology up to the Flood, I think
which is 1,645 years by Unger’s chronology, he says taking things
conservatively, there were over 6 billion people on the planet when the flood
came. So all of you are wondering where
Cain got his wife, there was no problem.
The Law that would be given in the days of Moses, that forbid incest,
marriage within a family, was thousands of years after this, 2,000 years after
this. Any of you who have studied
biology, you know what gene frequency is, you know that at this point, because
these people are living to be 900, they’re both from Adam and Eve, disease has
not developed, gene frequency is pure, there’s not the problem with dominant
and recessives genes the way there is today, that disease is produced in a
family where there is a recessive gene that’s troublesome and so forth. So there was no problem here, marrying. In fact, Abraham would marry Sarah long after
this, after the Flood, 1,500, 1,800 years after this, and she was his
half-sister. When the Law is finally
given, because of how frail and diseased the human race is, it is forbidden at
that point in time, and wisely so. But
where Cain got his wife, she was one of his sisters, nieces or his great niece
or his great, great granddaughter or something.
Family tree, she was somewhere on one of the branches. But the LORD
says ‘You’re going to be a vagabond,’ and he says ‘Those
who find me will slay me,’ that family, they’re going to say ‘You’re
the one, you killed Uncle Abel?’ “And
the LORD
said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on
him sevenfold. And the LORD
set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.” (verse 15) Now we have no idea what that is. Some Hebrew scholars say it really says the LORD
made a sign for Cain, was it something for him to convince him he would be
safe? Most feel he set something upon
him, some kind of visible mark upon him, we don’t know, but evidently everybody
knew then, there was still family, he set a mark upon Cain that no one should
kill him. “And Cain went out from the
presence of the LORD,
and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.” (verse 16) Now Jude verse 11 will warn us of the way of
Cain, “the way of Cain,” and here it is right here. Cain went out from the presence of the LORD. You see at this point in time, Cain could
have come back to God, taken a lamb, gone to the entrance of Eden, cut the
throat, repented and said ‘LORD,
I understand, I’m such a sinner, I murdered my brother, somebody needs to die
in my place.’ There
are people in our fellowship that were away in prison for Murder 1, involuntary
manslaughter, that are here forgiven, washed and cleansed, and all of that is
as far removed from them as the heavens, as the east is from the west, God
still does that for us. Cain could have
come. But the way of Cain was, he had
been stubborn all along, ‘he went out from the presence of the LORD,’
“and he dwelt in the land of Nod, on the
east of Eden.” (verse 16b) where some of you are
on Sunday morning, I notice that. I’d
rather have you nodding here than somewhere you shouldn’t be. He dwelt in the land of Nod, it’s a Hebrew
word that means “unrest,” or “wandering.”
Without the LORD,
that’s the only place you can live, no matter what it’s called, in the land of
unrest. And it was on the east of Eden. The
Line Of Cain “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.” (verse 17) He was intimate
with her. Now this is not the Enoch from
chapter 5, who is part of Seth’s line, this is a different Enoch, Enoch here
means “to be dedicated,” it means “to teach,” it has different ideas. “and he builded a city, and called the
name of the city, after the name of his son Enoch.” So he names the city Enoch. How big was it? It wasn’t Philadelphia, you know, a million
and a half people. It was a village,
something walled, he builds a city. Now
we’re going to follow Cain’s line to the seventh from Adam in Cain’s line,
which is Lamech, and that’s where it will end.
But it’s going to give us the beginning of this family under Cain. “And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad
begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat
Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.”
(verse 18) So Irad is Cain’s
grandson. Now “El” is on the end of
Mehujael, that’s God, we we’re not sure what influence the rest of the family
may have had, Mehujael, and Methusael, “El” on the end of that one too, and
Methusael, that’s not Methuselah, that’s the next chapter. And Methusael begat Lamech, so this is seven
generations from Adam. It’s bringing us
to Lamech, because there are some things that God wants to say to us here about
that man. “And Lamech took unto him
two wives: the name of the one was Adah [Dawn], and the name of the
other Zillah [Shadow].” (verse 19)
Here we go, trouble in Enoch. You
know, God had said ‘for this reason shall a man leave his mother and
father, and cleave to his wife, the two shall be one flesh,’ it’s all
in the singular, one man, one woman, Jesus says that was God’s design from the
beginning. Here Lamech, he takes two
wives. That’s two mother-in-laws
[laughter], the Bedouins in Israel are the same ‘One wife is too much, ten
is not enough,’ just for your information, that’s what the Bedouins say,
talk to a Bedouin if you want to understand better. The name of his one wife was Adah, which has
the idea of a beautiful ornament, most feel [Hebrew, Dawn], and
the name of the other was Zillah, which means to be protected or shaded [Shadow,
some scholars feel Adah, Dawn, was white, and Zillah, Shadow, was
black, or dark-skinned]. We notice
there’s no El there, Godzilla [laughter], two wives. “And Adah bare Jabel: he was the father of such as dwell in tents,
and of such as have cattle. And
his brother’s name was Jubal: he
was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.” (verses 20-21) So Jabel, born of Adah, one of Lamech’s
wives, the seventh from Cain, now there’s the development of animal husbandry,
dwelling in tents, raising cattle and flocks.
His brother’s name was Jubal, he was the father of all of such that
handle the harp and the flute, King James “the organ.” So artistic value, highly developed. This is not a cave man, this is not what the
evolutionists would portray these people like.
[Comment: What gave mankind the
huge mental capacities animal brain does not have is the “spirit of man,” or
the “spirit in man” that God places in the mind, the brain of each living human
being, from Adam onward. If God
theistically “evolved” mankind to the homo sapien level of Adam, until God
placed the human spirit in man’s brain, man would have been of a far lower
mental capacity than present man, an ape in mental capacity, with the body of a
man, from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapien.
The spirit in man that God places in our brains makes us creators, just
like God is a Creator, but on a far lower level than God. The word “Evolution,” in the sense of God
evolving the species and life itself is a term more like what we’d use for
mankind’s evolution of say the radio, from simple tubes, to semiconductors, and
then miniaturizing it down, along with inventing the rudimentary tube
televisions, and miniaturizing them down and combining them into a cellphone
video camera. That is not blind-chance
evolution, nor is mankind’s evolution of the aircraft from what the Wright
Brothers created, to the modern jet aircraft and spacecraft we have today, they
all “evolved” through the creativeness of mankind, which was placed in human
brains by God placing the “spirit in man” or “spirit of man” into the human
brain. That is what the word “evolution”
means in the way it is used for the term “Theistic evolution.” There are three separate theories Biblical
scholars have about how God created which was recorded in Genesis 1:1-31, one
is the young-earth, literal 24-hour day for day explanation, one involves the
Gap Theory, which Pastor Chuck Smith goes for and describes in his Word For
Today Study Bible, and the other is the Theistic evolution theory for Creation. We won’t really know which method God used
for Creation until the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, prophecied about in
Revelation 19:7-9.] “And Zillah, she
also bare Tubal-cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubal-cain was
Naamah [Ham’s wife].” (verse 22) So
Tubal-cain is someone who develops the ability of metallurgy, alloys, of
copper, of brass, of using different metals.
And the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.
I’m not sure why she gets in there.
Adah and Zillah are the first of Eve’s daughters that are named, or
granddaughters, whatever they were, the first womenfolk we have given names
from Adam and Eve down, is Adah and Zillah, and now this girl Naamah, the
sister of Tubal-cain. There’s industry. [Somewhere, I believe scholars have said that
Naamah became the wife of Ham, one of Noah’s sons, so Naamah, from the line of
Cain, survived the flood with her husband Ham, if this is true.] A
Little Understood Ancient Biblical Limerick About Lamech Slaying ‘A Man To My Wounding,
And A Young Man To My Hurt’ “And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and
Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a
young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be
avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.” (verses 23-24) I should try that at home, to Kathy, ‘Hear
my voice, thou wife of Joseph,’ [laughter]
Don’t do it guys, we’re just joking now, don’t try that. This is before women’s lib, there’s none of
those things. And what the grammar says,
it seems that it was in self defense, he has slain a young man who wounded him
in some way. It seems by the way, this
is given us, that this was not a necessary reaction, he evidently could have
subdued this young man without killing him.
The Hebrew says that he has killed a young man, “to my hurt” the
idea is, ‘that wounded me.’ So
he’s telling them that now he’s committed murder, and he says “If Cain shall
be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.” (verse 24) And Cain is evidently still alive, and he
knows of his great, great, great, six times grandfather. He says that if Cain would be avenged
sevenfold for murder, I’ll be avenged seventy times seven for
self-defense. [Comment: Some Hebrew scholars have interpreted this as
a limerick describing an event that took place during a major war that is
suspected was taking place between the line of Cain and the line of Seth just
before the Flood during the time of Noah.
The limerick is meant to convey that Lamech had just killed Cain, “a man
to my wounding,” and that he had also killed Tubal-cain, “and a young man to my
hurt” i.e. that it hurt him to have to kill his son Tubal-cain. I don’t know, this whole span of time from
Genesis 2 through Genesis 11 is the barest of skeletal outlines covering the
history of almost 1,500 to 2,000 years.
We’ll find out for sure at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb (cf. Revelation
19:7-9).] That ends, now, as we come
there, the line of Cain. We don’t have
any more after that [why? Because the
line of Cain died in the Flood during the lifetime of Noah.] As we get to verse 25, it says “And
Adam knew his wife again;” now evidently that had gone on many times,
because there’s women, all these names, “and she bare a son, and called his
name Seth:” which means “appointed,” “for God, said she, hath
appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” She’s not saying now “a man,” like she
said earlier, “another seed instead of” notice, “Abel.” Imagine this poor mom, all the heartache
she’s gone through, the first two sons, she must realize in the process of
time, that Abel has way more potential than Cain, ‘Here I thought Cain was
the one, a man that God had given me, he was the Promised seed, and he ends up
to be trouble and rebellious, and Abel, whom I named vanity, he ends up to be
the one that has a heart to God and to worship that way God wanted to be
worshipped,’ and she goes through that heartache with her son murdering her
other son, and then Cain leaving, disappearing, and leaving the presence of the
LORD. And here somewhere in her life, is she 300,
400, 500 at this point in time, we don’t know.
She has another boy, and she recognizes somehow through God, this is the
line, this is the line that the Messiah would come through. This is the One, he’s appointed. There was something about it. This is your family tree and my family tree,
Seth, because Seth goes to Noah, and everybody in this room, like it or not,
they could take a picture of this sanctuary right now, and for everyone here,
it would be a family picture. So you
better get over any problems you have with anybody else who doesn’t look like
you or talk like you, because everybody got off that boat with Noah. And this is our family line, Seth, all of
us. “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.” (verse 25) the seed that would crush the head of the
serpent, this is the family line, this is the child, as the lineage goes,
instead of Abel, notice, not Cain. “And
to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos [or Enosh]: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.”
(verse 26) “Enosh”
which means “mortal.” But then it says ‘but
then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.’ We’re going to pick up in verse 25, if the
Lord tarries, next week. So I encourage
you, do this, read the last two verses in chapter 4, read all of the boring
verses in chapter 5, because you’re going to look at chapter 5, and say ‘begat,
begat, begat, begat, begat, begat, put me to sleep,’ we’re going to look at
something very interesting though, as we go through the genealogy, we follow
the names, Adam, Seth, Enosh, Lamech, Mahalaleel, and we look at those names,
we’re going to find out that they spell out a sentence, that says Man,
Appointed, Mortal, Sorrow, But, The Blessed God, Will Come Down. Teaching that his death shall bring the
afflicted comfort. Hidden in the
genealogy of chapter 5. No Jewish rabbi
would do that, God put it there. And
that will take us to chapter 6, you should know this by now, in any book of the
Bible chapter 5 always takes you to chapter 6, if there’s that many chapters. So, read ahead, the end of chapter 4, the
entirety of chapter 5, into the beginning of chapter 6, some remarkable things
as we come to Noah, the conditions before the Flood. Jesus said the last days would be like the
days of Noah, there are some things there for us to look at. I’m going to ask
the musicians to come, and we’ll sing a last song. And look, this evening, two ways to worship,
the wrong way and the right way, that’s all.
But God made this so simple, that only we could mess it up. If you come to God through the blood of the
Lamb, Jesus Christ, you’re accepted, because your attitude says ‘I can’t do
this on my own, an innocent substitute has to die in my place, and I accept
your means of worship, God.’ Then
there is respect for the worshipper and the sacrifice. If you say to God, ‘No way, I’m not a bad
person, I’m not like that jerk that lives next door, I work hard, I want to
talk to the man upstairs, when I see him face to face I’m going to give him a
piece of my mind,’ you ain’t gonna give him nothing. You’re gonna fall down and glorify the name
of his Son Jesus Christ, that’s what the Bible says, every knee’s gonna bow and
every tongue’s gonna confess. But
listen, I’m gonna do that willingly. Are
you going to do that willingly? If
you’re here tonight and you don’t know Christ as your Saviour, we’re not
talking about church, we’re not talking about religion. I’ve spent too many years in religion, and
never knew God loved me and never knew the way to be forgiven. Do you know Jesus, have you approached God
through the blood of the Lamb? You’re no
different than any other person on the planet, no one’s better than you, no
one’s worse than you, we’re all part of the same family, there’s one way to
come to God, through the blood of the Lamb.
If you have never done that, this evening as we sing this last song,
we’re going to lift up our hearts, we’re gonna worship, lift our voices. If you’re here saying ‘I don’t know, I
want to know if this is true, and that God loves me, and he’s made a way for me
to be forgiven of all of my sins, and to go to heaven when I die, I want in, I
want to know, I know that I’m a sinner, I know I need forgiveness.’ If that’s you, and you’re willing to come
to him tonight as we sing this last song, we would ask that you just come and
stand here as we’re singing. If a friend brought you here tonight, he’s going
to say ‘Come on, I’ll go down with you.’
It’s a rainy night, maybe there’s no one here who doesn’t believe,
maybe you have to believe to come out in a torrential rain storm to hear a
Bible study, I don’t know. But per
chance there’s someone here who doesn’t know Christ, if you want to change that
this evening, we welcome you to come. We
would love to have the privilege of praying with you, and seeing you ask Christ
to be your Saviour, your redemption.
Let’s stand, let’s pray…[transcript of a connective expository sermon on
Genesis 4:1-26 given by Pastor Joe Focht, Calvary Chapel of Philadelphia, 13500
Philmont Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19116] related
links: How
a shepherd works, see
https://unityinchrist.com/pom/AShepherdLooks.htm Audio
version: https://resources.ccphilly.org/detail.asp?TopicID=&Teaching=WED519 |