Where is Your Heart?

This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

The Two Lineages in Genesis 4

Before we get into it, let us read the whole passage as we begin with it today. Beginning in verse 17, Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.

To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehugio, and Mehugio fathered Methuselah, and Methuselah fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Ida, and the name of the other is Zillah.

Ida bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-Cain.

He was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-Cain was Nahumah. Lamech said to his wives, Ida and Zillah, hear my voice. You wives of Lamech, listen to what I say. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.

If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold. 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, for Cain killed him.

To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord. That is God's word for us today. Certain things in life are physically impossible for us to do.

For example, man cannot fly without the external helps or accessories, no matter how much you have tried as a child when you jump off the swing, flapping your arms as fast as you can, applying your mind to it.

Gravity always remains that little bit stronger than you, and eventually you would hopefully land on your feet again. Neither can we be in two places at the same time. We know this all too well, don't we?

One of the kids has an event at school, or we have made plans to visit a friend or family member at the hospital. So we have to decide between events, between a birthday and a wedding, whatever it may be.

And so many times it's just simply impossible for us to do both. There is one other thing that man cannot do. It is something that you and I and so many Christians try all the time. We are well aware of the difficulty of it, even the impossibility to do it.

But we are unwilling to stop trying. Once in a while maybe guilt shows its face, but as soon as it leaves we forget all about it and continue on in this ever-repeating cycle. I'm talking about a love for the world and the things of the world, and a love for God.

It's like we're not able to fly, jumping off the swing and are unable to be in two places at once. We cannot love the world and at the same time love the Lord. The two are just simply not compatible. They are mutually exclusive.

It is either one or the other. And yet we try to make them both work, don't we? We're trying to be something we simply cannot be. And so there are only two kinds of people in this world. Every man, woman and child in this room, every person that has ever lived falls in one of these two categories.

Those that love the world and those that love God. And sometimes it seems to me that unbelievers seem to understand this better than Christians. They know they don't believe. They make no attempt at believing.

Many of them don't even pretend to love and worship the Lord. You ask an unbeliever if they're a Christian or do anything related to the faith, and they gladly deny any affiliation. Meanwhile, Christians hide their love for God during the week from unbelievers and their love for the world from their brothers and sisters on Sundays.

Trying to walk this tightrope between two worlds. We claim to only love the Lord with all our heart, mind, soul and strength while harboring and nourishing the secret love for the world. And though we can deceive ourselves and those around us, the reality is we cannot do both and deceive the Lord.

Our text today, the second half of chapter 4, shows us that there are only these two groups of people. Those that place their hearts in this world and those that place it with the Lord. There's no real overlap between them.

Of course, Christians are imperfect, but we're not looking at being perfect. This is a matter of the very affections of our heart. We've seen this distinction develop already a couple weeks ago before we took this small break from Genesis.

We had worked our way through the creation and the garden account. Adam and Eve had fallen into sin and been cast out of the garden. At the beginning in chapter 4, life outside the garden, now with the curses of the fall, in effect continues.

It began with the story of Adam and Eve's children, the brothers Cain and Abel. And right from the beginning, this distinction becomes so apparent. Our brother showed us a few weeks ago in Abel the way of the righteous who had brought his best to the Lord.

From the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions, and then his suffering for his faithfulness at the hands of his own brother. On the other side of that stands Cain withholding his best, murdering his brother in cold blood as an act of retaliation when his offering is rejected by God.

And despite God's grace offered to him, it leaves the presence of the Lord. And that's exactly what we'll pick up today. Cain leaving the presence of the Lord, settling in the land of Nod after having killed his brother.

And what we'll see is we're given these two genealogies here in this section. A brief genealogy of Cain in which we'll see this distinction between the righteous and the unrighteous further develop. The lineage of Cain we'll see has their heart set firmly on this world, separating themselves from the Lord.

And in contrast, on the opposite side, we have the beginning, an introduction to the genealogy of Seth. Which begins with Adam and Eve, continues all the way throughout chapter 5. And what identifies and distinguishes, the distinguishing mark between Cain and Seth is the calling upon the name of the Lord.

And so as we look at these two lines of distendence, the division between them develops as the narrative progresses. And it becomes so clear to us that there are only these two things that our hearts can be attached to.

First, the world. Or secondly, the Lord. Our hearts can only be found in one of these two places. So let's begin with firstly, the world. As you remember, we ended our last study in chapter 4, verse 16.

Cain leaving the presence of the Lord after having murdered his brother, settling in the land of Nod. Some of your Bibles may have a footnote there indicating that Nod means wandering. A fitting place for a man who had now been given to being the fugitive and the wanderer on the earth away from the presence of the Lord.

And picking up in verse 17 then we read, in his new surroundings, Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.

We're not told where Cain's wife comes from. And there's been great attack on the scriptures on this point. But it's reasonable to believe, as most commentators point out, that she was likely a sister or possibly some other form of close relative.

Chapter 5, verse 4 tells us that Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters besides Cain, Abel, and Seth. And if all mankind descends from Adam and Eve, and Eve is the mother of all living, for humanity to multiply at the beginning stages, it seems necessary for this type of scenario to occur until a certain number of people populate the earth before God then forbids these forms of relationships later in Leviticus.

And for all men to fall in Adam, as scripture teaches us, all men must descend from Adam. And so God bestows His common grace on Cain, blessing him with a son, sparing his life after he had murdered his son.

And what does Cain do? He goes to the land of Nod, defies God's punishment of having been made a fugitive and a wanderer, and sets up a permanent dwelling in the form of a city, naming the city after his son, dedicating it to him.

Several times in the scriptures we find people naming places, and they name them after an event that has happened there to remember how the Lord has worked, how He has displayed His glory and kindness.

For example, we remember in Genesis 22, when Abraham, in his testing, is told by God to take his son, his only son Isaac, and to go to the land of Moriah and to offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains.

This was the only son that God had said He will fulfill His eternal covenant with. And so Abraham gets his donkey ready, he gets Isaac ready, he takes a couple of his men, and he makes his trip to the land of Moriah.

And they get to the mountain, and he takes Isaac, and he takes some wood that he took along, and a knife, and some fire. They ascend up on this mountain, and while they make their way up there, Isaac, asking his father, knowing the sacrifice, asking about where the land would be for the sacrifice.

And so Abraham, by faith, tells Isaac that the Lord will provide his land. And then once they get to the top, Abraham prepares the altar, puts the wood on it, ties up his son, places him on the altar, raises his hand with the knife ready to sacrifice his son before God stops him.

And then as Adam raises his eyes from the altar, he sees the ram caught in the thicket. I am so lost. I skipped a few pages. And he lifts up his eyes. He sees the ram caught in the bushes. And then in verse 14 of Genesis chapter 22, Abraham, we read, So Abraham called the name of that place, the Lord will provide.

As it is said to this day, on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided. Jacob does a similar thing when he wrestles with God, when he strives with Him and demands to be blessed. And God changes His name to Israel.

And in that place, Jacob then calls that place Peniel. And he says, I have seen God face to face, and yet my life has been delivered. There are places that are given specific names to remember the Lord's good dealings with men.

And in the building of the city, the naming it after His Son, instead of acknowledging the Lord's grace toward Him, in light of a sin, having been blessed with a child, Cain makes so clear that his mind is set on this world.

He can't be bothered to honor the Lord. He had left His presence, left Him completely behind. No praise is given to Him. His mind is set on settling in the land, away from the Lord as well as His family, with seemingly no intention of ever returning.

He's gone from not giving His best to murdering His brother to complete faithlessness with a heart set on this world. And then this worldliness only continues. In verses 18 and 19, four more generations of Cain are mentioned, but they're only mentioned very, very briefly and without any commentary of Moses whatsoever.

We just have one short sentence, a stark contrast to all the information that we have given to each individual and the genealogy of Adam in chapter 5. And so we get to Lamech, and there's a break with the mentioning of Lamech.

But the break is not. It is not for reasons one might hope for. Perhaps to show that he was a man who trusted in the Lord, a man that obeyed the Word of God, a man who'd left the crooked path of his predecessor or of his ancestor and returned to God and worshiped Him, that perhaps despite all of Cain's sin and evil, God had kept His promise of a sea to crush the serpent.

No, it's nothing like this. Rather, it shows this continuation and increase of wickedness. The first thing that we learn about Lamech is that he took two wives, a blatant violation of the marriage covenant that God had established in Genesis 2.

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. God had instituted the marriage covenant between one man, singular, and one woman, singular.

Jesus affirms this again in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 19 when He responds to the Pharisees when they ask Him about divorcing for any reason. He said,. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife.

And He says,.

And the two shall become one flesh. There is not the slightest remnant of godliness to be found. Even five generations later, things have gone from bad to worse. Lamech defiles, disregards the marriage covenant.

It seems that even Cain upheld that much. Now what's interesting is the meaning of the names of his two wives. The exact meaning of it is a little bit uncertain and we have to be careful not to exegete biblical names and read too much into them.

But several scholars and commentators have suggested that Ida is related to the Hebrew word for ornament and that Zillah, the name of the second wife, is related to shade or tinkle or perhaps even symbol and that they point to the beauty and hence the sensual attraction behind Lamech taking them as his wife.

This vanity of beauty, this sensual desire of the world have taken a foothold in Lamech. Nevertheless, he too, you'll see, is blessed by God's common grace with children. Four in total in verses 20 and 22.

And society, it seems, even progresses and prospers through them. He's given three sons. Ida, it says, bears him Jabal and Jubal, his brother. Zillah gave him Tubal-Cain and a daughter called Nahum. His sons are said to be the fathers of those who dwell in tents, have livestock, those who play the lyre and pipe as well as those who make instruments of bronze and iron.

This means that they were the first ones to practice these things, perhaps the inventors of them that would then pass on their knowledge to future generations. We still use this figure of speech sometimes today.

For example, Carl Benz is often referred to or considered the father of the car as we know it because he was the first to invent an internal combustion engine in the first gas-powered car. And so in the same sense, Lamech's sons were considered the fathers of these industries listed here.

Similar to their father, who is known for his sin, they are famous not for their godliness but rather for their ingenuity. The earthly life was all they were occupied with. It's the only thing they're known for.

And in the context of these two genealogies that we see here side by side, it makes sense. Abel was righteous, offered a pleasing sacrifice to the Lord. Cain was unrighteous, murdered his brother. Lamech takes two wives, as we'll see shortly, will boast about his sin.

And in Seth, in verses 25 and 6, his lineage, they call upon the name of the Lord. And that faithfulness will then continue through to Enoch, who walked with God, and to Noah, who was a righteous man.

We have this comparison here between the line of those who call upon the Lord and those who do not, between the ungodly and the godly. And as good as these inventions and things may have been in the life of the people, they were not used for the exercising of God-given dominion or His glory.

One Puritan commenting on this writes, worldly things are the only things that carnal, wicked people set their hearts upon and are most ingenious and industrious about. So it was with this impious race of the cursed Cain.

He were a father of shepherds and a father of musicians, but not a father of the faithful. One of the reformers said, pleasure is indeed to be condemned unless it be combined with the fear of God and with the common benefit of human society.

There is no fear of God found in them. So we see this worldliness and all these different facets. No God were thought and earthly mindedness and work and pleasure without any regard for God. And all of that reaches its climax in verses 23 and 24.

Theologians have called this section Song of the Sword. Lamech addresses his two wives. He's saying, listen up. I got something to tell you. This is what I've done. And his words here are put in a form of song or poem.

You'll see how the first two lines are almost identical in what they're saying. Ida and Zillah in the first, and then you wives of Lamech in the second. You see the same thing with hear my voice and listen to what I say.

And the same thing is repeated in the third and fourth line. It's this literary device. It's called synonymous parallelism. It's where a line in a poem or song describes the same thing as the first line simply with different words.

Poems were in ancient Israel often used as a means of learning where memories and incidents that were significant enough to be remembered were put into this form. And so it's just like how it's more easier for us to remember a song than perhaps a section or a portion of a book.

And so Lamech is describing his sin in a way that is easy to be remembered. It takes time and effort to turn speech into poetry. It just doesn't happen by accident. And so he mentions both of his wives using this form of poetry, beautifies and boasts about his killing a man and caps it all off with this last line, If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold.

He presumes on the grace of God. Lamech is saying Cain killed his brother, who had done him no wrong, and the man that was to kill Cain would receive vengeance from the Lord sevenfold. He says, I have killed a man and he's done me harm.

In other words, I had reason to kill him so the Lord will enact vengeance seventy-seventy-fold on the one who would kill me. Cain had lived and prospered after his murder. How much more do I deserve the grace of God?

Of course, God never made such a promise to Lamech. So he boasts of his murdering, justifies himself, presumes on the grace of God. And this is the characteristics of this first place that we can play so hard.

Calling on the Name of the Lord

The world separating ourselves from God with no faith in Him, consumed with the things of this world, loving and justifying one's sin while presuming on the grace of God. Secondly then, I promise we'll get to some application.

Secondly then, opposite of all that we see, the second place a man can place as hard is with the Lord. And we'll see this now in this lineage of Seth. Look at verses 25 and 6. 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, for Cain killed him. To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.

After the account of the ungodly descendants of Cain, we return now in this narrative to Adam and Eve. And we find out they're giving another son whom they named Seth, God, which actually means appointed one.

And Eve tells us herself why she names her son Seth.

She says,.

God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him. Remember chapter 3 and verse 15. We've been coming back to this verse over and over. I hope you begin to see how it becomes this thread almost weaving its way throughout the scripture until it's fulfilled in Christ.

But God has promised a seed, a particular offspring. And I think because we have the full revelation of God and most of us know how redemptive history progresses, this can be so easily overlooked by us.

But imagine for a moment being in Adam and Eve's shoes. After having forfeited the garden of Eden, having fallen into sin, having received the curses for their sin, there's this promise. And you believe it.

And though you hold on to it, you don't exactly know when it will be fulfilled. And so the Lord gives you a couple of sons. You likely hope one of them is the offspring that will crush that serpent. But then the older goes and murders his younger brother.

And so the firstborn has disqualified himself, separates from God, while the second lies dead in the field. And none of the oldest son's descendants seem to be it either. But then the Lord gives them another son.

And the faith of Eve and the promise of God is kindled again. That's why she says, God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel. And though Seth is not the offspring that will finally crush the serpent, his lineage is appointed to eventually, a few thousand years down the road, bring that promised seed into the world.

So he serves as this foreshadowing of Christ who was appointed to ultimately fulfill that purpose. And so what Cain had taken, the Lord now provided. And so verse 25 then gives a new hope to Adam and Eve.

And the search for this offspring continues in Seth. God's promise, despite the evil of man, is not being prevented from being fulfilled. And so faith in the Lord continues. Seth himself then is given a son and calls him Enosh.

And notice this addition. This is where it all comes down to. At that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord. It may just be one sentence and the end of this short paragraph, but the magnitude of this sentence is tremendous.

The contrast between Cain and Seth's lineage couldn't be much clearer. Seth and his descendants, there's no mention of any civilized progress, no being the father of some human invention, no earthly status or fame, nor apparent desire for what this world has to offer, no boasting in sin.

Instead, they're known for one thing and one thing only, calling upon the name of the Lord. Now, what does it mean to call upon the name of the Lord? It's this figure of speech. We find it often in the Psalms and the prophets and some of the poetic books.

It's something that evildoers do not do. In Psalm 14, verse 4, it says,. Asaph, when he refers to likely the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem. In Psalm 79, he cries out to the Lord,. Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you and on the kingdoms that do not call upon your name.

It's also used as a conveying of praising God and crying out to the Lord to be saved from harm and have one's life preserved. King David uses this language in Psalm 18. After he's saved from all his enemies and Saul, who had wanted and attempted to kill David several times and over and over as David fled, he cries out to the Lord, who did not give him into Saul's hand.

And then he writes,. In other places, it is a plea for God's mercy. Another psalm says,. It is a seeking of the Lord for pardon and turning from sin. Isaiah in chapter 55 of his prophecy writes,. And to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

And then lastly, it involves a being saved from his wrath and judgment. The prophet Joel speaking about the day of the Lord, describing this army that will arise to bring judgment on the people with great devastation, urges them to repentance before the great day of the Lord comes.

And he says, shall be saved. The New Testament tells us that Saul had authority before he became Paul to imprison all those that called upon the name of the Lord in Damascus. When Paul is arrested in Jerusalem, stands before the tribune to make his defense, he recounts his conversion and says that Ananias had told him to be baptized and have his sins washed away by calling upon the Lord.

In Romans, he quotes from Joel when he speaks about the salvation for all men, whether Jew or Gentile, through Christ. All those, later he says, the saints, those that are sanctified in Christ, are those that call upon the name of the Lord.

And so to call upon the name of the Lord means true worship of God, including recognizing one's need and crying out to him for mercy and pardon, true repentance to be saved from his judgment and giving him thanks and praise.

It is a genuine act of faith and trust in the Lord, casting oneself on him for protection from harm, for salvation and earnest crying out to him in time of need, not trusting in one's own righteousness or might.

And so we see the godless and the righteous side by side, the ungodly Cainites and the godly men of Seth. One sets up the kingdom of this world and the other the kingdom of God. And this distinction remains to this day.

Where Is Your Heart?

Now, some application. If we put all of that together, if we see them side by side, the ungodly, those that love the world, and those who call upon the name of the Lord, what do we do with that? I want to give you four points to think about and consider.

First, the question that each of us has to answer is where have I put my heart? Where does my heart really lie? For some of you, your heart is still fully set on this world. By God's grace, you're here, but your heart remains far from him and you're very much still in love with the world.

You don't give honor to him for his goodness to you. You spend all your time and energy on building your own little earthly kingdom, making the most money you can, chasing the next best job, trying to keep up with the Joneses, and if you could, hoping to surpass them.

You know you're not obeying the Lord. You delight in your sin, and like Lamech, you presume on the grace of God. You say, you tell yourself, he's a kind God and this loving God. He spared the life of wicked Cain and allowed Lamech's sons to prosper.

Don't presume on the richness and kindness and patience of God. It's when to do one thing, and that's to lead you to repentance and not to harden your heart by thinking God has blessed you and bestowed his divine favor on you.

Remember, all of Cain's lineage has been wiped out by the flood later in chapter 7. And so those of you who have placed their heart in this world, I'm urging you, Christians in this room, we're urging you to examine yourself, to seriously examine yourself and to turn from the world, to turn from your sin.

That having your transgressions washed away through Christ by calling on him is worth infinitely more than these vain riches, gain, and beauty that you'll find in this world. Secondly, brothers and sisters, we must part with the world.

I trust most of you here do call upon the name of the Lord. And for us, the question is not so much as where lies our heart, but how much of the world do you still try to hold on to? How much of your heart do you still give to it?

As mentioned, we often try to do both, don't we? Love the world, love the Lord. I ask you, why are you trying to do the impossible? You cannot unite these two completely opposing things. Your heart cannot walk this tight rope trying to balance.

Your heart cannot be divided. Two of its chambers cannot love the world, while the other two love the Lord. If we love this world now, do you really think we're going to enjoy heaven much later? Why do we still give ourselves to it?

We know this world will pass away. But the longer you let your heart take up root in the things of this world, the longer you tie it up in wealth and reputation and whatever else, the harder it will be to take it out.

I've been reading Thomas Watson's book on the doctrines of repentance. And he says the world so engrosses men's time and bewitches their affections that they cannot repent. Brothers and sisters, we must part with the world before we cannot find repentance.

Our heart in the world, giving parts to it is like think of it as the sapling of this tree. It's easy to still tear it out of the ground when it is small and still growing after it's just been planted.

But if we keep watering it, we keep watering it, we let it grow and it eventually grows, becomes this massive, tall, strong tree. We can't just simply wrap our arms around it anymore and rip it out of the ground.

We must part. We must part with the world. We cannot give parts of our hearts to it. And we're not simply talking here about what some people may call these big and obvious sins. Like Cain murdering his brother, Lamex, sexual depravity and all other sorts the world so blatantly engages in.

But this love for it that can almost creep in unnoticed if we're not on guard. I came across this illustration before I fleshed out this point and so if I was going to ask these questions, my conscience would have been bothered that I've been borrowing from this illustration without giving mention to it.

It's not my own. I borrowed it and slightly modified. Somebody asks this. Which disturbs you most? A soul lost in hell or a scratch on your new car? You're missing the worship service or missing a day's work or a sports event?

A sermon ten minutes too long or a lunch half hour late? Your church not growing or maybe your garden not growing? Your Bible unopened or your text, emails and social media unread? The church work being neglected or your housework neglected?

Missing a good Bible study or your favorite TV program? The millions who do not know Christ or your inability to keep up with your neighbors? The cry of the multitude for bread or your desire for another piece of cake?

Your tithes decreasing or your income decreasing? Your children late for Sunday school and church or late for public school? Which really disturbs you most? And this is the kind of love for the world that we're so prone to.

These quote-unquote little things that are mostly hidden in the depths of our heart. I'm not saying if you do or don't do any of these things you are and aren't a Christian but it is good for us once in a while to take inventory as it were and if need be to correct the course and I suggest to you that we should do so gladly.

And that when we find this worldliness in us don't you gladly confess it to the Lord and throw yourself at the foot of the cross? Part with the world. Don't give the smallest piece of your heart to it.

Third point of application. Proclaim the name of the Lord. If we think about the lineage of Cain it's as if we're reading about our own culture, isn't it? Not much really if anything has changed since the beginning of mankind.

There really is nothing new under the sun. People separate themselves from God. God has been removed from much of our society and so Lamex depravity is alive and well. We see people enter into these romantic relationships with two or more people at once regardless of gender whether it is male or female trying to raise children in such an environment.

A boasting of sin is encouraged like it probably has never been before. People are supposed to be proud of their sin. There are videos out there. I looked this up this morning with a somber emotional piano background music and people share how proud and how glad they are about having ended pregnancies and they receive an applause.

Lamex boasted about murdering the one who wounded him and now we see people boasting about murdering the innocent in the womb. Nothing has changed. And so Christian, our response to the ungodly is not to condemn them.

Yes, they are in sin and we ought not to minimize it by any means but we have the same need for Christ as they do. And as the Lord's people we are called to proclaim the name on which we call. No one will call on Him without hearing of Him and they will not hear of Him if we don't tell them.

Let us go.

Let us go if we need to. First with repentance to the Lord but then asking Him for boldness and courage and let us tell them. Let us tell them not of the shadow that is set but Jesus Christ, the one who was appointed, whose lineage preserved by God through the flood despite all the sin in the world throughout all the generations so that at the right time He might die at the hands of sinners for sinners such as us as well as them so that they may call upon the name of the Lord and be saved from their sins.

Let us not be so enchanted by the world so much that we don't care about the ones that are on their way to hell at full speed. I know it's difficult. I know it is a fearful task but their souls are worth more than our earthly riches, comfort and reputation that we can lose in the process of proclaiming Christ to them.

So let us with boldness proclaim Christ to them.

With the love of God.

Persevering When the Wicked Seem to Prosper

And then fourthly and lastly we must persevere no matter the cost. Lamech's sons gained earthly riches and renown. They seem to have prospered. Again, no such description is given of Seth and his lineage, not even all the way throughout chapter 5.

Doesn't it so often seem to us that the wicked prosper and we don't? They seem to live worry-free and without cares. And then there is us, often suffering, afflicted and trying to hold on for dear life when this false perception, when this comes and it seeks to entice you to go after the world.

Don't listen to it. It's not worth building an earthly kingdom. Scripture does not usually speak well of those who gained a worldly standing. The greatest honor bestows on those who call on the Lord, those who are faithful to Him until death, even if it meant losing it all in the process.

Think of Hebrews 11. It gives us plenty of examples of this. It even speaks of Abel's faith and how through his faith he still speaks. Even from the very line of Seth, it speaks about Enoch, we'll hear about him next week, who by his faith had pleased God.

And Noah, who by fear of the Lord built this ark and through his faith became an heir of righteousness. And it goes on to speak of all those who suffered, were mocked and flogged, were chained and imprisoned, stoned, sawn in two, killed with the sword, the list goes on.

Brothers and sisters, persevere in seeking, in the seeking of His kingdom and His righteousness, not being enticed by the things of the world to leave Christ. The scribe in Matthew 8, he came to Jesus and said, Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.

And Jesus said to him, Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head. Calling on the name of the Lord doesn't come with riches. It doesn't come with honor in this life from this world.