The City of Man

Grace Reformation Bible Church iconGrace Reformation Bible Church

3 views

Preacher: Ross Macdonald Scripture: Genesis 4:16-26

0 comments

00:02
Well, this morning I had struggled to understand how far we should go in Chapter 4 and made the decision in light of Chapter 5 that we would finish
00:12
Chapter 4. As we've said, we've been working in this series trying to look more at the forest than the trees, look more at the thematic overlays of the book of Genesis, keep the momentum going forward and not get stuck in the backwaters and the eddies and the details that are so fruitful, and especially here in Chapter 4 in verses 16 -26, just looking at the creation of Cainite culture, just looking at the
00:42
Song of Lamech, a very interesting boast. These are things that could be sermons in themselves, and yet as we head through the genealogy of Cain, this short list that we have in Chapter 4, and then we look at the genealogy of Seth through Adam in Chapter 5, we want to keep in mind the importance of what
01:02
God is showing us in big, broad strokes, and so that's our goal this morning, to finish
01:07
Chapter 4. We're considering in Chapter 4 the line of Cain. We begin to see here the contrast between Adam's posterity.
01:17
Of course, Abel has been killed, and with him any hope of posterity, but we'll see in this chapter the contrast emerging between Cain and Seth and the descendants of Cain and Seth.
01:29
We're going to see ultimately the contrast between the line of the promised seed, going back to Genesis 3 .15,
01:37
the promised seed that will crush the skull of the serpent who tempted man and woman,
01:43
Adam and Eve, to rebel against God, who brought about the fall and the fallen condition. We'll see that contrast between the line of the promised seed and the line of the serpent.
01:54
We also are going to see the grace and the forbearance of God. We're going to see, I think right away, what we would call common grace, what theologians have called the common grace of God, meaning he sends the rain on the just and the unjust.
02:06
His common grace. Now, someone might quip, no grace is common grace, and I understand what's meant by that.
02:13
But we make the distinction between God's special, salvific grace and common grace. Common grace that extends to all, out of God's goodness, out of his forbearance, out of his long -suffering kindness, but then his special salvific grace, which is toward his elect, toward those that are called according to his purpose.
02:32
He gives good things to fallen men, and we're going to see that in chapter 4. He gives good things to those who don't deserve good things.
02:39
He allows there to be life and light and growth and productivity and safety and joy, even in the midst of a fallen world, even from fallen creatures that are selfish, defiant and misuse the good gifts that he gives them against him.
02:53
And that certainly isn't something that's just stuck in chapter 4. We see that play out day after day throughout the world.
02:59
This is still the case. God rules the world with grace. God's knowledge surrounds man.
03:06
It cannot be hidden from man's sight. It cannot be hidden from man's consciousness. Paul makes this argument in the first three chapters of Romans.
03:13
It can be repressed, it can be resisted, it can be perverted, and it is repressed, resisted and perverted, but it's there.
03:22
It's unavoidable. And this would be true for Cain and his descendants, and we'll see the ways they try to shirk or repress or subvert their knowledge of God, their knowledge of their creator, their knowledge of his creation and their responsibilities to it and to each other.
03:37
Cain and his descendants engage a created world, as every creature on the face of God's green earth does.
03:43
It's a created world. We're surrounded by the works of God's hands day and night. We're continually surrounded by evidence of God's power, the universe in which we live, the manner in which
03:54
God has designed everything. All of this bears down upon the consciousness of man. All of this is meant to lead man to a true knowledge of him in light of the fall to a true salvation from him.
04:05
But tragically, Cain and his descendants will see steward God's world away from God, use
04:12
God's world at odds with God's purposes. And so we begin with verse 17 and following Cain went out from the presence of the
04:21
Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden and Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bore
04:27
Enoch and he built a city and called the name of that city after the name of his son
04:34
Enoch. So Enoch was born Erad and Erad begot Mahujael and Mahujael begot
04:40
Methushael and Methushael begot Lamech. Some of those names, by the way, for you pregnant ladies, those are up for grabs.
04:47
Bring back Methushael. Isn't that just a great name? Cain's lack of repentance is still met with the long suffering goodness of God.
04:57
Remember what we said last week? He he had some sense that he should be killed by wherever I go now.
05:04
They're going to kill me. They're going to seek to kill me. He had some knowledge that because of his murder, he deserves to be killed.
05:11
He deserves death and God spares him. He doesn't allow the earth to swallow him up, though the earth is crying out because it's gagging on the blood of Abel.
05:21
He doesn't cause the heavens to open up and pour down sulfur. He doesn't become a pillar of salt.
05:26
God, in other words, stays his hand. He doesn't immediately kill Cain on the spot.
05:32
He he had to picture the scene here. Of course, Cain, we saw was indifferent, unrepentant, completely self -focused, more concerned about the consequences of his action as he's hovering over the bloody corpse of his brother than he is about seeking repentance and the mercy of God.
05:47
And yet still God not only not kills him, but gives him a sign of protection. I will not allow your blood to be on others hands.
05:56
I will not allow Avengers to take your life. I promise you this protection, as we said, not necessarily a sign on his body, but a sign given to him.
06:04
Almost a covenant made with him. This is striking. But then God, like Adam and Eve, had been driven away from Eden.
06:13
God drives Cain away from the east of Eden. And so he goes further. He goes to the suburbs of Eden.
06:19
We could say he goes to the land of Nod and that that name could be translated wandering. That's self -fulfillment of the curse, right?
06:26
You'll be a vagabond, a wanderer on the face of the earth. So certainly that that land that he settles is named after the fact that he's fulfilling the curse.
06:34
He's wandering in the land of wandering. It gets its name from the curse. God shows further grace to Cain and that the taker of life is now given life.
06:44
Cain knew his wife when she conceived and bore Enoch. I forgot to mention this at chapter four, verse one.
06:52
There's some we don't have any time to cover this, but there's some really wonderful significance to the
06:57
Hebrew verb to know, which is simply to know, to know, to know. But when it's used in the context of childbearing, it speaks of marital intimacy with some real depth there to why that verb became the idiom for marital intimacy.
07:09
And by the way, the NIV completely flattens that out and loses all of it. The NIV, I don't know if this is well, here we are.
07:18
I mean, NIV is translated scripture, right? Genesis 4 .1 is Adam made love to his wife, completely flattens it out.
07:26
It's like Barry White soundtrack or something to that. He knew. And I look at Cain knew his wife.
07:33
Somehow still God's grace is allowed there to be this mysterious intimacy.
07:39
And from it, from it, a further mystery that life comes out of this union, out of this bliss.
07:46
So we're thinking in Ephesians five terms here. But notice Cain, the murderer, the one who took life is now given life.
07:52
The one who robbed the life of his brother is now gifted the life of a child. And he names this child
07:58
Enoch. You see God's kindness surrounding someone so unrepentant, so undeserving.
08:05
And don't we see that play out time and time again? Don't we have atheist co -workers that have a hatred for God and they blaspheme his name almost at will just to get a rise out of us.
08:16
And yet we look at their lives and God has given them many good things. God gives them children and laughter and choice and provisions and shelter.
08:24
And we think all that will come tumbling down upon their heads on that day of judgment. We see it as a bittersweet thing.
08:32
Now this Enoch is not the Enoch that we'll see in chapter five. We have to make sure we separate those two.
08:39
That Enoch is from the line of Seth, not the line of Cain. So apparently the baby name books weren't all that long, all that lengthy.
08:47
We're going to see a few names that are duplicated in the first few chapters of Genesis. And we want to make sure we don't get them confused.
08:52
The Enoch who was not, the Enoch who walked with God is of the godly line. He's of the line of Seth, not the line of Cain.
09:00
This Enoch who has a city named after him is the son of Cain, the son of the murderer.
09:07
Now God's goodness in this instance is not just arbitrary. It's not just that God chooses to bless and to show kindness even to his enemies for the sake of showing kindness to his enemies.
09:18
He certainly wants to demonstrate something of his character in that. But also he brings about his larger purposes through it.
09:24
And we can understand that in the larger plot of redemptive history, Cain needs to have offspring.
09:30
There needs to be this foil, this contrast between the line of the serpent and the line of the promised seed.
09:37
And so there's a there's a reason there's a there's a purpose to God showing patience and kindness toward Cain.
09:44
And we're going to see that Cain's descendants are wiped out with the flood as we move toward the flood.
09:50
So we're going to see what Cainite civilization does as it builds and builds and builds on the way toward increasing wickedness that brings about the judgment of God.
10:00
And all this is very important thematically, not just to understand Genesis, not even just to understand the road from Genesis to Christ and his ministry on earth, but to understand everything, to understand from the judge, a microcosm from the judgment of the flood, a microcosm of our salvation in total.
10:17
Of that coming full day of judgment and salvation. And we're to understand that here.
10:24
So the significance to Cain bearing children and their significance to him building a city.
10:31
This is very, very important theologically. We don't find notice, we don't find
10:37
Cain roaming about endlessly as a nomad because we read he built a city.
10:43
Now, the verb there to our ears, it implies a completed act. He built past tense, quite literally, he began building a city.
10:53
It's aggressive. So the idea is he began, but did not complete a city. He undertook the foundation of a great city.
10:59
And he named that city after the name of his son, Enoch. This is the first instance of a city in the scriptures.
11:06
And that word city, interestingly, comes from a Hebrew word, meaning watchful as in a defensive way, like a watcher on the walls, but being watchful at night.
11:17
That's the root behind the ear. The word for city earring cities, the building of a city in Cain's case is almost a, an expression of his vulnerability.
11:30
I can't, I can't sleep safely at night in a tent. In other words,
11:35
God had given this promise, his life will be spared and he's to go on wandering. That's the curse, right?
11:40
Go on wandering. And there he is. I know what God had said all along. I've known what God has said.
11:45
That hasn't stopped me from doing all these other things. I know what God has said, but that's not enough for me, right? I don't feel safe in a tent.
11:52
It doesn't matter what God has promised me. I can't feel safe. I must do something to protect me. I need to take matters into my own hands.
11:59
I need to surround myself with stones. I need to have a city for my defense. And so all of this is coming again out of a, out of a willful desire for Cain to not trust the word of the
12:10
Lord, his promise protection, but to, to provide protection for himself. He'll do it his way.
12:17
He'll do it according to what he feels is best. What he's most comfortable with. He'll live by sight, not by faith.
12:24
Now, of course, in the biblical world, a city is meant to be defensive. Primarily it's, it's a, it's a region of power.
12:32
It's an accumulation of political and religious power in a city, but primarily it's defensive.
12:38
The whole point is to defend those people and, and objects that are most sacred, that are most important.
12:45
The city of Enoch functioned as an alternative to wandering. And so what
12:51
Cain is doing is he's trying to manage God's curse. At worst, he's trying to subvert
12:56
God's curse. He's trying to subvert God's curse. God said, this is going to happen. No, I don't think so.
13:03
I'm not going to wander. I'm going to, I'm going to plant. I'm not going to wander. I'm going to plant.
13:09
I'm going to build. I'm going to defend myself. I'm going to create a city. So there's no humble dependence upon the
13:15
Lord here. And we see the fruit of this in his lineage. Cain builds his own city and he doesn't name it after God.
13:24
He doesn't dedicate it unto the Lord. He names it after his son. There's this kind of inward bench, not only in Cain, but in his lineage.
13:32
It's about his prerogative, his self -worth, his self -exaltation. My son shall be the heir of this great city.
13:41
Jacques Ellul, a French thinker of the last generation, brilliant, absolutely brilliant, French reform thinker.
13:48
He wrote a very important book called the meaning of the city. And he talks about some of these themes in Genesis four.
13:54
He says every scraping of Cain's shovel deep into the abyss between him and God. As he tries to manage the curse, as he tries to get around it, as he refuses to live by the word and the promise of God and lives by what he can see and what he can do, he deepens and widens that chasm between a holy
14:15
God and himself. Now, a city, we have to say at the beginning, it's not bad in itself.
14:20
The fact that this is the first city, that this is the quintessential city of man. If we can call it that, this is referring back to Augustine, the great city of God, his great work, the city of God.
14:30
He contrasts the city of God between the city of man. This is the quintessential city of man. A city is not bad in itself, but this creates a plot line in the scriptures.
14:41
This city of man, we're going to find expressed in many different ways. The scripture storyline, we'll see it culminate in Babel and then even in Babylon and then in Rome, which
14:51
John takes up in revelation as the great city. The harlot, the harlot that rides the beast, who, who is like the beast?
15:01
The people cry this great city. Look what we've built. Look at what we've done. We've made a name for ourselves. Our, our fame goes throughout the world and that is in contrast to the heavenly
15:11
Jerusalem, the city of God, the city, which is a temple and there's no, there's no sun nor moon.
15:19
The lamb is its light. You see, there's this great plot line that's beginning here in Genesis four between the two cities, the city of man, as opposed to the city of God, the kingdom of man, as opposed to the kingdom of God, Sean McDonough, who
15:34
I've, I've had the privilege of sitting under, uh, for a few courses. Um, excellent, excellent new
15:41
Testament scholar, and has an excellent little book that I would recommend to you. Um, especially now that we're in Genesis, I would highly recommend it to you.
15:48
It's not too hard of a read. It's a, it's a relatively thin book and it's called creation and new creation. Simple as that.
15:55
And what he tries to do in his book is look at the scriptures in this way of beginning with creation and then thinking through all the logic of the fall and God's redemption in light of creation.
16:06
And so he has a fourfold scheme, not uncommon to reform thought his fourfold scheme begins with creation and then in light of the fall and what we have here in chapter four, the very beginnings of counter creation, now fallen man is working counter to God, counter to God's purposes, counter to God's will for man.
16:25
So you have creation and then counter creation, and then you have decreation, which is a fancy way of talking about God's judgment upon those who are against him,
16:36
God's judgment upon counter creation. The reason he calls it decreation is as you move throughout the scripture storyline, whenever God brings about cataclysmic disaster, whether upon other nations or even upon his own people, he often uses decreational language, stars falling out of the firmament, floodwaters rising up, it's going back to the chaos instead of the order out of which creation was made, you see?
17:00
And so it's a decreation language, it's judgment. And then through that judgment, salvation, new creation, new creation.
17:08
So these are the categories he uses. Very, very helpful to think about, especially here in chapter four, in traditional categories, counter creation is simply the doctrine of sin, right?
17:19
It's just sin against God, sin against man, sin against the created world. It could easily be called counterfeit creation, and I think that's what we're going to see here with Cainite civilization, man's attempt to harness the world to his own ends and toward his own purposes, creating an order after his image in his mindset, according to what he needs and what will fulfill him.
17:41
So it's not creation unto the glory of God, but harnessing God's creation unto the glory of man, unto the fulfillment of man.
17:49
And this is ironic because they can only do so by parasitically using what God has already created, right?
17:56
God is the only creator. We just manipulate what he's made. God's the only true creator.
18:04
He created all that is out of nothing. We can't create anything out of nothing. We can only manipulate.
18:10
We can only utilize what has already been made. And that's what we do. Evil is parasitic on the good counterfeit creation is parasitic on creation.
18:21
Now we have the first inkling of this rebellion, this cosmic rebellion of the fall in Genesis four 17 with the city.
18:29
A lull going back to a lull says Babylon, Venice, Paris, New York.
18:34
They're all the same city thinking biblically. There's one Babel and it begins with a mortal wound and the mortal wound.
18:43
He's, he's not necessarily talking about able so much as he's talking about the fall, he's talking about the fall.
18:50
The tower of Babel makes this dynamic as clear as it could possibly be. Look at Genesis 11, four, because we won't be there for some months.
18:56
Come, let us build ourselves a city, a tower that reaches to the heavens. This is the epitome of cosmic rebellion, right?
19:03
A tower that reaches to the heavens. That we can make a name for ourselves, the faithful by contrast throughout the scripture storyline, do what, what does
19:14
Abraham do? He dwells in tense. He looks for a city. Who's builder and maker is God. He recognizes though, though it's dim, he recognizes that he's the citizen of a heavenly country and he looks and he lives for that country, for that city.
19:31
You see the contrast, what a contrast. Here we have Cain at the head of the non -elect line, the line of the ungodly.
19:40
We have him developing culture. Notice as we'll see that he's developing technology through his sons, the fathers, he is the father of all those who tend sheep, the father of all those who play an instrument.
19:52
In other words, they're the founders. They're the inventors. There's ingenuity here.
19:58
There's originality here. They create these things that are part of human culture. This is technology, techne.
20:06
This is to see what's been going on the news headlines lately. This is big tech. This is the beginning of big tech.
20:12
Big tech is a dangerous thing, isn't it? Notice that technology comes from the bad guys, according to Genesis.
20:19
What does that make us think about Silicon Valley? It's interesting in the writing. There's a writing that was written.
20:26
It's an apocalyptic writing written before revelation and it's first Enoch, not, not inspired by the spirit, but interesting because it shows us the mindset of at least
20:36
Jewish thought around the time of the apostles and in first Enoch demons teach the descendants of Cain how to use technology.
20:44
It's very interesting. The technology is seen as something that's, that's created or meant to articulate rebellion against God.
20:53
Now, of course, technology is not inherently evil. Aren't you glad you can go home and you have a dishwasher?
20:59
Most of my married life, Alicia and I, you know, we're scrubbing plates and pots, we didn't have a dishwasher until we moved into the condo and hardly a night goes by where we don't thank
21:09
God for that dishwasher, especially now that we have children. Engineering in and of itself is a wonderful thing.
21:16
It's, it's a wonderful thing. Technology is not inherently bad, but it's also not inherently good. That's very important that we understand that as everything in life, there's no neutrality.
21:28
Technology isn't inherently good just because we can make something more convenient for our life. Doesn't mean that that's a good thing to do.
21:36
Smartphones ironically have made dumb people, right? We become dumber. The more we use smart technology, the dumber we become.
21:44
I grew up. Most of you young people won't understand this. I grew up where if you wanted to call a friend, you know how you had to do that.
21:51
You had to have their phone number memorized. You actually had to remember it. And I had a little laundry list in my head of phone numbers.
21:58
If you didn't have it written down, I knew all my best friends, phone numbers. I don't think I know Alicia's number off the top of my head now, right?
22:06
Smartphones is like all other forms of technology, not inherently good, not inherently bad, capable potential of good or evil.
22:14
And we have to understand that this is true of all forms of human culture. Human culture is a wonderful thing.
22:20
In many ways, it's, it's, it's a gift that's given to us by virtue of being image bearers of God. This is what it means.
22:26
Humanity is expressed in society and human relationships. And from that, there's material culture.
22:33
There's, there's artistic expression. There's material objects and, and productions, architecture, plays, music.
22:40
Uh, Johann Sebastian Bach, right? There's these, these wonderful deposits of human culture.
22:46
Culture is not inherently good, but it's not inherently bad. There's such a thing as a godly culture.
22:53
There's certainly such a thing as ungodly culture. Engineering of the kind that builds a city has a certain ring, doesn't it?
23:00
Of domination over the earth. And that's what God intended. His image bearers had always been intended even before the fall,
23:07
Genesis one 28 to, to exercise dominion over the, over the earth. But here came to sentence our exercising dominion over the earth, building a city, engineering, creating human culture, not unto the
23:19
Lord as Genesis one 28 intended as the creation mandate intended, but against him, against God, against his people and against his purposes in the world, in other words, humanity's creative capacity, our ingenuity as human beings is part of the creation mandate.
23:38
And that can be used for good, but it is often used for evil. It is often used against God and against man.
23:47
So this was not a city of God. Enoch was not a city of God. It was a city of man, perhaps the city of man, a kingdom in a dark world, a fallen kingdom.
23:59
It was a civilization that was formed to try to thrive and flourish, though it was under the curse of God.
24:05
It would try to find its own way to thrive and flourish irrespective of the path of repentance, irrespective of the awareness and knowledge and worship of God.
24:15
This would be a for us, by us kind of city. And look at Cain's line in verses 19 through 22,
24:22
Lamech took for himself two wives. The name of one was Ada. The name of the second was
24:28
Zillah. By the way, you did fabulous in your Hebrew pronunciation. As far as I could tell, uh, in reading and Ada bore
24:36
Jubal, he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was
24:41
Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the harp and the flute. And as for Zillah, she also bore
24:47
Jubal Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron. And the sister of Jubal Cain was
24:52
Nema. Notice that in Cain's line, we have the first instance of a departure from the marital norm that God had given at creation.
25:03
And Jesus draws back to this in Genesis 19, in Matthew 19, doesn't he? Verse eight, from the beginning, it was not.
25:10
So from the beginning means Adam and Eve, literally the next generation in the line of Cain, five generations down from Cain, you already have this departure from what
25:21
God had given. God had given for one flesh and one flesh to be united. A man and a woman shall become one.
25:28
Here, Lamech says, I don't think so. He shirks what God had revealed, what God had will.
25:33
And he takes for himself two wives. And the language here is very aggressive. He took for himself.
25:40
It's aggressive language. He didn't say, you know, it just happened to work out in the best way that he came across another.
25:45
And, you know, his wife was just this is all aggressive. This is all part of the dominion gone awry.
25:51
He took for himself two wives and the wives here. The Hebrew names are noted for beauty.
25:56
Of course, if you had a daughter, you would want to name her something beautiful. You wouldn't want to name her, you know, poison oak or something.
26:02
But the name here, I don't know why this is beautiful in Hebrew culture. One would be like simply, you know, fragrant or blooming.
26:11
The other one would be the sound of tinkling, which might have been like a stream trickling, maybe in reference to like a sweet voice.
26:19
And that would be Zillah. And so he has these two wives. And so we see this this lust.
26:24
I can't be content with what God has given. I need more and I'll take for myself what I need.
26:30
There's there's this lust that we see in Lamech's life. This this refusal to be content, this refusal to recognize the good things that God has given, a desire to arrest for himself what he declares to be good.
26:41
And we see that even still God blesses even fallen men and fallen women, fallen situations.
26:49
He gives blessing. Children are born. It's a gift to give from God. And ingenuity in these children, one is able to perhaps craft the tense dwelling in tense, articulating new forms of agriculture and cattle, cattle production.
27:07
And then the other becomes a musician, an artist, skill and playing music. It's not interesting to think, you know, so so against evolutionary theory.
27:16
There's no utility to to music. And yet here we have someone originating music, how that came to be.
27:23
Who knows? But he created instruments and there was a beauty. There was something there for a man to discover. This is part of being the image of God, to tap into the beauty of God's creation and and exert some of our own efforts in articulating that beauty and drawing out that beauty.
27:44
And we see Tubal Cain is sort of an engineering. He's our stem guy, Tubal Cain, good with bronze, good with iron.
27:52
That name instantly, you know, interestingly, it relates later to a lance or to a sword, to weaponry.
27:58
And we'll see how that relates to Lamech. We see Lamech at the end of this procession returning to him, this this violent man.
28:09
And so we begin, as it were, the line of Cain with bloodshed, the dead body of Abel.
28:15
And as we'll see later, we end it with Lamech. We begin with Lamech right after Enoch and yet after the fifth generation.
28:22
And yet it returns back to Lamech for that song. It's almost encapsulating the lineage of Cain.
28:27
This is a bloody lineage. This is a violent lineage. We would expect, of course, in between that, that those who are made in God's image are going to be creative.
28:39
They're going to replicate God in that way. It's part of how we exercise dominion. It's a good thing.
28:44
It's a good thing that music was created and enjoyed. It's a good thing that ore was brought up out of the earth and it was forged and made useful into tools of implementation.
28:55
It's a good thing for for there to be ingenuity and how to manage cattle and how to manage pastures and agriculture.
29:01
All of this is good things. But again, the Cainite civilization, though it will be renowned for work of art, renowned for engineering, renowned for achievement, all of this is against God.
29:12
Now, it may seem to us, and this is often the case in the scripture storyline, that the Cainite civilization is outcompeting the
29:20
Sethite civilization. In other words, what I'm saying is Cain's descendants, if we could call them worldly, they just seem to be doing better in worldly skill than the descendants of Seth.
29:31
No doubt the descendants of Seth are enjoying some of these things, too. But generally speaking, the world does it better.
29:38
Generally speaking, their products, their ingenuity, their things that are used to usurp what
29:43
God has given, it tends to be better than what Christians produce. Now, historically, that's not necessarily the case, but I think it rings true in many ways.
29:54
We have to, in other words, be cautious to not think that if it's if it's Christian, it's good. If it's non -Christian, it's bad.
30:00
That's that's not the case here. It's it's an important thing to recognize.
30:05
The image of God is still true here. God's common grace is still true here. I love what
30:11
Jeff Thomas observed. He said the devil took Jesus up to the top of a mountain and showed him the world in all of its glory.
30:17
And Christ didn't contradict and say it wasn't glorious because it was all made by men and women who bore the image of God.
30:24
There is a glory to what man produces. There is a glory to the ingenuity and the achievement. There's a glory to that.
30:31
But the glory isn't given in the right place. It's not given to God. It's not recognized that the glory and the ingenuity is coming out of being his image bearer.
30:41
Rather, it's against him. Look what I have made. Look what I have done. That's where man becomes idolatrous.
30:46
That's the issue here. The Lord, in other words, acknowledges that there are many accomplishments in the line of Cain. I don't read these accomplishments as though this is that this is part of the castigation of the rebuke.
30:57
And then he created this and he created that. Isn't this terrible? That's not the sense here. There's a recognition that good accomplishments have been made.
31:05
This is all the outflow of God's common grace. This is what Derek Kidner says. A biased account would have ascribed nothing good to Cain.
31:12
If it was just Seth good, Cain bad, we wouldn't have Genesis 4, 16 through 24.
31:18
We wouldn't. A biased account would have ascribed nothing good to Cain.
31:24
The truth is more complex. God was to make much use of Canaanite techniques for his people from semi nomadic discipline itself to the civilized arts and crafts.
31:35
The Bible nowhere teaches that the godly have all the gifts. And we recognize that as we live throughout the world, we recognize that there's a balance here of appreciating human creativity.
31:49
But we as Christians appreciate it because it's a divine gift. We appreciate it as a divine gift.
31:59
Technique and technology are not a replacement for the life of God, the rather further evidence of the life of God in the soul of man.
32:08
And so what we do as Christians is we don't reject or turn a blind eye to the good things of this world, but we also don't be lulled to sleep by the good things or somehow put a ceiling over them, irrespective of God.
32:23
It's like this. We're we're looking through the goodness of this world to the goodness of the world to come.
32:29
And that has to frame our present reality and our enjoyment of the world. So as Matthew Henry says, and this is so brilliantly put, worldly things are the only things that carnal, wicked people set their hearts upon and are most ingenious and industrious about.
32:44
No wonder the Cainites were so, so intelligent, so creative.
32:50
It's all they cared about, manipulating the earth, building what they could build, making a name for themselves.
32:55
It's what consumed them. But we shouldn't be surprised that such it is with all the worldly. The worldly things are the only things that carnal, wicked people set their hearts upon and are most ingenious and industrial about industrious about.
33:08
So it was with the impious race of cursed Cain. Here was a father of shepherds and a father of musicians, but not a father of the faithful.
33:17
He was one to teach in brass and in iron, but not to teach the knowledge of the Lord. Here were devices how to be rich and how to be mighty and how to be married, but nothing of God.
33:28
Do you see the contrast? Cain's family is a microcosm of the pattern of technical prowess and moral failure, and that's been true from the beginning.
33:42
Technical sophistication, moral degradation. Look how mighty we are.
33:49
Look how advanced we are. Look how morally depraved you are. We we can triangulate things all over our galaxy.
33:58
We have the ability to search distant moons and the bottom of the ocean floor.
34:04
And yet all that technological sophistication has not done anything to keep us away from the barbaric practice of dismembering children at the rate of thousands of day, thousands of a day.
34:17
Think about that. It's Canine civilization played out in large.
34:22
It's the city of man as opposed to the city of God. Helmut Teilek, a
34:29
German theologian of the past generation, this is kind of bringing in the French and the
34:34
Germans all coming together today. He has this really, I think, insightful thought about human ingenuity.
34:41
He says, The strange thing is, the closer we come, the more clearly we see the red thread that runs through like a pulsing, bloody artery through the myriad figures of the world.
34:53
This earth on which even the greatest of men walked, on which they erected cities and cathedrals and monuments, has drunk the blood of Abel.
35:01
And this blood of the murdered and the abused and the innocent appears in stains and rivulets everywhere, including in the greatest figures.
35:09
Cain, the great brother, the progenitor in many ways of mankind, betrays his presence everywhere we look.
35:16
Somewhere in every symphony, there's this tone figure of death somewhere on every Doric column.
35:22
This mark is to be found in every tragedy. The lament over injustice and violence rings out.
35:27
You see what he's saying? There's this stain, this stamp of humanity, of human guilt, of Cain's guilt upon even the greatest works of man throughout the world.
35:40
And that's what a city tries to repress. That's what Cain and his descendants try to repress. They they boast in what they made because they don't boast in the
35:47
Lord. They boast in skyscrapers and in gardens and in public works and avenues and parks because they have to cover up and atone for their guilt.
35:58
They have to look to their ingenuity to provide for themselves because they cannot recognize God as their provider. They must create.