Genesis #5 - Foundations #5 - The Effects of Sin (Genesis 4)

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Genesis chapter four, and we won't read the entire chapter.
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We will read the bulk of it, which is verses one through 16. Genesis chapter four, we're invited to read verses one through 16 with me.
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We are in message number five of our series that we've entitled Foundations, Genesis one through 11, and the
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Story of Everything. And as we come to Genesis chapter four, verses one through 16, we come to a narrative that I would venture to say that if I asked most of you, you would say you know this narrative.
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You at least know the basic storyline. But as I found this week, the more
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I dug into it, there is so much here that is, as it were, beyond the surface.
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And so I invite you to read with me Genesis chapter four in verses one through 16.
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Genesis chapter four, verses one through 16, and if you're able, would you stand with me out of reverence for God's word?
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Genesis chapter four, verses one through 16, and I'll just read. The text says, the man was intimate with his wife
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Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. She said,
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I have had a male child with Yahweh's help. She also gave birth to his brother
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Abel. Now Abel became a shepherd of flocks, but Cain worked the ground.
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In the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to Yahweh. Abel also presented an offering, some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.
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Yahweh had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering.
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Cain was furious, and he looked despondent. Then Yahweh said to Cain, why are you furious, and why do you look despondent?
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If you do what is right, won't you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door.
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Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. Cain said to his brother
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Abel, let's go out to the field. And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel, and killed him.
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Then Yahweh said to Cain, where is your brother Abel? I don't know, he replied.
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Am I my brother's guardian? Then he said, what have you done? Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.
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So now you are cursed, alienated from the ground that opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood you have shed.
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If you work the ground, it will never again give you its yield. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.
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But Cain answered Yahweh, my punishment is too great to bear, since you are banishing me from the face of the earth, and I must hide from your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth.
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Whoever finds me will kill me. Then Yahweh replied to him, in that case, whoever kills
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Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over. And he placed a mark on Cain, so that whoever found him would not kill him.
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Then Cain went out from Yahweh's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Edom.
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Pray that God will bless that reading of his word and grant us understanding. Join with me as I pray and ask for the Spirit's help, and then we dig into this passage.
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Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you so much for this privilege of being able to dig into it and to be informed by it, and not just informed, but transformed by it as well.
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Father, we ask that as we dig into your word and we think about the effect of sin, we pray that your word would grant us help, your word would grant us insight, it would humble us, it would convict us, it would give us hope, even as we read this chapter.
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We ask these things in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen, please be seated.
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Well, our march through Genesis 1 through 11 continues, and today's destination is in chapter number four.
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Last week we looked at the fall, and if that message felt kind of weighty, well, the weightiness, as it were, is not about to let up.
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Excuse me. If you remember back a couple of messages, you remember I said that Genesis 2, 4 through to the end of chapter four is the first of these record sections in your study guide there.
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I've actually listed them. There are these sections that are discrete units within the book of Genesis, and we are closing out this afternoon, this first section.
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And in a lot of ways, this chapter, chapter four, closes out this first section really well.
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As one commentator put it, quote, whereas chapters two and three recount the life of Adam and Eve inside the garden, chapter four will relate a new episode in the ongoing story of the first couple's experience, but now outside the garden.
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As we come to this passage, we come face to face with the painful and destructive effects of sin.
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That's why I've titled this message The Effects of Sin. As you've been reading these first few chapters, you probably notice that there are a lot of firsts.
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The first this, the first that, and in this chapter, there's gonna be a lot of firsts. And unfortunately, the firsts that we're going to encounter here are not good ones.
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Now, a little bit of warning about the structure of this message. The first point of this message is going to be really long.
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The second point will be really short. So if you kind of hear him think, he's been going on forever, how long is this sermon gonna go for?
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I promise you, the second half of this sermon will fly by in comparison to the first. But I need to do that because the first section of our text kind of lays the foundation for the second half.
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If I were to give this message, like I do every message, a big idea, I guess you could summarize it as this.
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That sin has effects on our worship of God, our relationships with others, and the world at large.
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That sin has effects on our worship of God, our relationships with others, and the world at large.
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To help us understand that, I want us to consider two contrasting pairs of narratives in our text.
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We're going to look at two different sets of narratives in this one chapter. And both of these narratives have something to teach us about the effects of sin.
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Consider with me, first of all, point number one. A tale of two sons. A tale of two sons. We can call this sin's relational fallout.
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Sin's relational fallout. The first half of this chapter, like I said, the chapter is not evenly divided.
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The first half of this chapter is devoted to the narrative of Cain and Abel. To help us kind of, excuse me, to help us kind of move through this passage easily.
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I've kind of broken it up some, so we can follow along. Consider, first of all, the birth of the two brothers in verses one and two.
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The birth of the two brothers, verses one and two. So verse one, the man was intimate with his wife,
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Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. Right on the heels of the fall and the pronouncement of pain and childbearing, we see the first discussion of procreation.
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Now, I preach out of the Christian standard Bible, and generally it's a good translation, but I have to say they kind of missed the move here with how they translate this verse.
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The term was intimate actually is the term to know. It's the same term that's used back in chapter three during the fall narrative.
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You're supposed to read this in light of the fall, in light of the fact that the fall has introduced a whole new realm of important knowledge.
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In this case, part of that knowledge is, okay, the awareness that through procreation, this is how the human race will expand.
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And to begin with, it starts off well. Do you see that there in verse one? She said, I have had a male child with Yahweh's help.
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Cain's name carries the idea of being acquired. It's an acknowledgement of God's provision, and I would argue it's an acknowledgement of Eve's belief that the seed would ultimately come through this child.
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The acknowledgement of the Lord's help is also an awareness of the fact that Eve, as it were, is fulfilling her role in God's plan with the hand of God actively at work.
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Well, right on the heels of giving birth to Cain, some commentators would argue
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Abel's a twin. I think there's some merit to that. Verse two, she also gave birth to his brother,
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Abel. Unlike Cain, if you look at verse two, do you catch the sense that Eve doesn't seem quite as elated about the birth of Abel as she is about Cain?
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The text doesn't tell us that explicitly, but even Abel's name is kind of a hint.
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Abel means breath, that which is fleeting, that which is passing. Add to that, he's also referred to in his relationship to Cain, oh, that's
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Cain's brother, Abel. All of this suggests that Moses wants you, the reader, to kind of recognize there's a close relationship here that's important.
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We get an introduction to the two brothers in verse two as well, so look at the end of verse two. Now, Abel became a shepherd of flocks, but Cain worked the ground.
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Two very different careers, and I'm gonna argue that this is where our narrative starts doing things that are deeper than just the surface.
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You see, Cain works the ground. What did we learn about the ground in chapter three? If you've got a moment, turn back with me to chapter three, verses 17 to 19.
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Genesis chapter three, 17 to 19. Genesis chapter three, 17 to 19.
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Excuse me, please. And he said to the man, because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which
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I commanded you do not eat from it, the ground is cursed because of you. You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life.
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It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.
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You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it, for you are dust, and you will return to dust.
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Cain works with the effects of the curse, but what does Abel work with?
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Animals. Why is that significant? Why does the text feel the need to tell you what their jobs were?
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Well, think back to Genesis chapter one, verses 26 to 28. What is man tasked with when he's blessed by God at his creation?
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Genesis one, 26. Then God said, let us make man in our image according to our likeness.
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They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.
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Abel works a profession that's in line with God's original calling, but Cain works a profession that's now aligned with the fall.
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And it's almost as though the author wants to clue you into something here. Which of these do you think is going to end well?
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Well, we move from the birth of the two brothers to an interesting scene as we see, secondly, the worship of the two brothers.
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The worship of the two brothers, verses three to the beginning of verse five. This section is fascinating, as I read this this week, and as you may gather,
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I'm still recovering from a cold that I picked up this week. But I basically spent most of my week lying there, reading this text over and over, trying to understand it.
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This section fascinated me. Brad, you are a legend among men, thank you. Much better, there we go.
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This section fascinated me, not so much for what it said, but for where on earth this information comes from.
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Follow me here. The first question I had this week as I sat and I read this text was, how did they know what time to bring their sacrifices?
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Did you catch that in the beginning of verse three? In the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the
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Lord. Well, I got curious and I started looking stuff up. I noticed that some commentators take this as the beginning of the
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Sabbath observance as we see in the Old Testament. That might be the case. The text isn't really conclusive in saying that.
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There might be something, too, that there might not be. What we do know is that there was clearly an appointed time for worship, and they knew it.
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The next question I had was, okay, not only was there an appointed time, how did they know to bring offerings to the
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Lord? So verse three, in the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the
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Lord. And Abel also presented an offering, some of the firstborns of his flock and their fat portions.
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Who told Cain and Abel how to do this? I mean, between chapter three and four, we don't see any information from God about how to do this.
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Again, the text doesn't tell us how. Was this based on what they had heard from their parents?
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Oh, when we left the garden, God killed an animal and clothed us with the skins, and that seemed to be pleasing to him.
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So maybe this is something you should, again, we don't know. The text doesn't say. Could it be that? Was this some act of revelation that God gave later on?
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Well, again, we're not told, but it's worth thinking about. But what's the point?
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Why does the narrative feel the need to include this? I put it to you that the narrative is framed around the act of worship, because the act of worship will be perverted by one of the brothers.
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And it's going to be perverted by one of the brothers in this narrative by making it all about himself.
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So again, look at the end of verse four with me. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering.
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Now, on first consideration, that might seem a little unfair. I mean, they both brought the fruits of their labors before the
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Lord. I mean, I have, is it black thumbs, they say, when it comes to gardening and stuff?
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Like, I can't keep anything alive. Like, God, you know how hard it is to keep green things alive? Cain worked hard.
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Now, before we accuse God on the basis of fallen notions of fairness, pay attention to verses three and four closely again.
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In the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the
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Lord. Abel also presented an offering, some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.
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The text goes out of its way, not just to say Abel brought an offering like Cain did, but that Abel brings the best of his flock, the firstborn and their fat portions, the most tender portions of the flock.
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Cain, I mean, do we get an indication that this is his best? No, the text doesn't seem to say that.
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And it's glaring in its silence about that. Well, at this point, we need the help of the rest of the
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Bible. You can never just read a portion of the Bible and disconnect it from the canon of Scripture as a whole. Keep a finger or a piece of paper or something here in Genesis chapter four.
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Turn with me, if you will, please, to Hebrews chapter 11. Hebrews chapter 11.
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Hebrews chapter 11 and verse four. Hebrews chapter 11 is an amazing chapter, testifying to the faith of God's people in God.
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By the way, if you read Hebrews 11 and kind of read it as, oh, these are amazing things that you could also do if you have faith,
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I'm going to argue you've not read Hebrews 11, right? Hebrews 11 is about their faith in God, even though their faith in God made no sense.
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That's a sidebar comment, but verse four is where I want to go to, verse four. Note what the author of the
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Hebrew says. He says, by faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain did.
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By faith, he was approved as a righteous man because God approved his gifts. And even though he is dead, he still speaks through his faith.
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You see, if you read this text in Genesis chapter four, and you come away with the impression that God was pleased with Abel solely because he brought his best, might
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I suggest you've maybe forgotten how the God of the Bible works? In case you need a reminder, we're in Hebrews chapter 11, so we might as well make another stop.
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Look at verse six with me for a moment. Verse six, now without faith, it is impossible to please
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God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists, and that he rewards those who seek him.
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Oh, so what was pleasing to God was that Abel came, this is the implication of the text,
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Abel comes in faith. That's why it's important to read single texts in light of the whole
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Bible. What made the difference isn't that Abel brought the good stuff and God was like, well done, you worked hard.
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No, it's that Abel does this, offering his best to God in an attitude of faith.
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Think about this with me for a moment. If he's a keeper of sheep, giving of the firstborn, the firstborn in the ancient world, that was the prime stuff.
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You didn't give that to just anybody. But he gives that in faith, trusting
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God that, okay, Lord, this is the best of my provision, but I trust you, so I'm going to give you of my best.
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As we'll see in a moment, not only does Cain not bring his best, but his attitude is entirely off.
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You see, Cain's rejected, come back with me to Genesis chapter four, and Cain's rejection doesn't sit well with him.
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That leads to thirdly, the warning to the rejected brother, end of verse five through to verse seven.
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So come back to our text, and our text says, if I can get there in just a moment, there we are.
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The Lord had regard, end of verse four, for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering.
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What's Cain's response? Cain was furious, and he looked despondent.
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Am I the only one who reads this and thinks, the sheer audacity of this guy.
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Now, I know in Christian circles, it's really popular to say, well, I would do the same, I'm no better than him.
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I don't think that's the implication of this text. The choice of words that the author, who
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I believe to be Moses, uses here denotes that you're not supposed to respond to this with a sense of, this is understandable.
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The word for furious here denotes more than just a mild annoyance. I'm from the UK, as you've probably gathered.
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In the UK, we have a word for mild annoyance. It's one of my favorites. It's the word miffed,
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M -I -F -F -E -D, miffed. Not quite angry, not quite cool about it.
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I'm just mildly annoyed. That's not this word here. Cain is not just being a tad bit miffed, as we'd say back home.
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No, he's in a full -on rage, according to this passage. Not only is he in a full -on rage, the text says he's despondent.
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Again, I love the CSV. Don't think they did a good job here. Literally, the text says, and his face fell.
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Some try to say that he was depressed in this moment, but that's not the meaning of this term. The meaning of this term carries the idea of embarrassment.
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Not only is he angry he's rejected, he's taking it personally, and now he's embarrassed. Is it too much to say that the text intends us to look at Cain as the portrait of the self -obsessed person?
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He's angry at God, he's annoyed he's been embarrassed in front of his brother, and he's seemingly self -justified in that stance.
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At this very moment, what is God's response? Is it
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God's response to chide Cain, as it were? I'll admit that's my general response.
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This is one of the many ways in which I am not like God. I'm not always long -suffering, I'm not always patient with people.
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My expectations for humanity are often higher than reasonable, myself at the front of the list. But is that what we see here?
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I would put it to you that God's response beautifully serves to illustrate the reality that I'm not
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God, and neither are you. Pay attention to verse six. Then the Lord said to Cain, why are you furious, and why do you look despondent?
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Much like with his father at the fall, God approaches the sinner with a posture of grace.
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You see, just like in the fall, the questions are not for God's benefit. It's not that God doesn't know any of this, as much as he's seeking to bring
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Cain to realization about his lack of faith in God. Verse seven goes deeper into why
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Cain's offering wasn't accepted. Verse seven, if you do what is right, won't you be accepted?
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Now, to be fair, this is actually a very hard verse to translate. The word for accepted in verse seven is okay, but once again,
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I have to give it to another translation, in this case, the New American Standard, if anybody's got that with them this afternoon.
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It translates it like this. If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?
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It's the counter word to the despondency of verse six. It's almost as though God is saying,
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Cain, if you do the right thing, won't you experience the opposite of what you are experiencing right now?
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Cain had just brought any fruit to the ground with no consideration to who he was offering this to and to what his standards were.
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Abel wasn't perfect. Remember, he's a fallen son of Adam as well, but he had approached this in simple and God -honoring faith.
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Cain had approached this issue from entirely the wrong vantage point, but God isn't done with Cain yet.
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But before I get there, don't miss the grace of God in these words. God is still initiating conversation with Cain.
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There's still an opportunity for restored relationship. There's still opportunity for Cain to be lifted up.
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God has, as it were, folded his arms, scowled on his face and said, nope, I'm done. I have nothing more to say to you.
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No, his arms, as it were, are still outstretched towards Cain. And in this instance, his fatherly call is pretty straightforward.
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Look again at verse seven. If you do what is right, won't you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door.
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Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it. The picture here is sin as a lion.
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It's kind of biding its time on the prowl, on the hunt for its next prey. Cain's wrong choices and his lack of faith had left the door open for the adversary.
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And what did the adversary do? Now he plays on indwelling sin in the heart of Cain. Sin's desire was to consume
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Cain, to eat him up, as it were. But Cain still had a choice.
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He could repent. He could get right with God and find rest and peace with him.
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Isn't it something? Isn't it something? When we read the Bible, doesn't it amaze us that God sets before sinful, imperfect human beings a choice?
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Do you wanna read chapter 30? Turn there with me real quick. Let me show this to you for a minute. Do you wanna read chapter 30?
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And verses 19 and 20. Do you wanna read chapter 30?
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Moses has spelled out the covenant blessings and curses. He's gone into quite some depth about the covenant curses.
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And in light of that, verse 19, I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.
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Choose life so that you and your descendants may live. Love the Lord your
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God, obey him, and remain faithful to him. For he is your life and he will prolong your days as you live in the land the
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Lord swore to give to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. You don't need to turn to this next reference, but if you're taking notes, you can write it down.
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Isaiah chapter one, verses 18 through 20. Come now, let us reason together, says the
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Lord. Though your sins are scarlet, they will be white as snow. Though they are crimson red, they will be like wool.
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If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land. But if you refuse and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the
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Lord has spoken. Beloved, I heartily affirm the sovereignty of God in salvation. I fully believe in predestination.
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I have no qualms with the total and meticulous providence of God over all things, but I also read this
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Bible and I see God extending his well -meant offer of salvation to sinners, sinners like Cain, to sinful people like you and I who are in the process of being sanctified.
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And we must be careful when we read texts like this not to confine them to the, as it were, the mold of our theological system, but to allow the text of Scripture to speak for itself.
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Well, coming back to our text, Cain is now faced with a decision. God has given him the warning. Will he heed
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God's warning? Will Cain fight his sin, as it were, and find rest in the open arms of God? I wish
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I could say that, but look with me at verses eight through 10 as we witness fourthly the murder of the righteous brother, the murder of the righteous brother, verses eight through 10.
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Verse eight is pretty matter -of -fact. Cain said to his brother Abel, let's go out to the field.
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And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
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Does this sound almost like what happened in the fall in Genesis 3 -6, where it's just very matter -of -factly said with the same shocking bluntness we saw there?
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Just as Cain tells his brother, hey, let's go out into the field. And then he kills him. Now, growing up in Sunday school,
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I heard people say he picked up a rock and did it. The text doesn't actually say that. Hebrew has a word for striking someone.
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It doesn't use the word here, just says he kills him. Because again, the details are not the issue here.
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The act is the issue here. By the way, did you catch it as we read Genesis 4 -16?
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How many times Abel is referred to as Cain's brother? If you weren't counting, four times.
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Four times. And that's not by accident. Maybe I should illustrate this for a moment.
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I have two brothers. One has passed away and one's still alive. My brother who's still alive,
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Joshua, Joshua knows how to push my buttons like few human beings alive. He's very frustrating.
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But never, and I love my brother, actually. We actually have a better relationship these days. But when we were younger and we practically wanted to kill one another, never in the most seething rage did
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I ever think, you know what, I've had enough of this kid. I could take care of him so easily, so easily.
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That thought never crossed my mind. And so when you read this, the text is pulling on that feeling within us that some of us look and say, no,
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I can't do that. That whoa, this has gone way too far. You're supposed to read this and think, this is, whatever's happening here, this is bad.
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The heinousness of this act is laid painfully bare. And in the midst of this,
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God calls out to Cain. And once again, he asks a probing question. Verse nine, then
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Yahweh said to Cain, where is your brother Abel? Sound familiar? Genesis three, nine through 11.
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So the local called out to the man and said, where are you? Now, where was
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Adam in Genesis chapter three? Gave God a common sense answer, kind of.
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Cain's answer is shocking. Then Yahweh said to Cain, where's your brother Abel? I don't know, he replied.
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Am I my brother's guardian? Cain seems to think that God doesn't see everything.
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In fact, it would seem that God was ignorant from Cain's perspective. And so he wasn't about to implicate himself.
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But of course God knew, verse 10. Then he said, what have you done? God asked
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Cain the exact same question he asked Eve back in Genesis three, 13. God knew exactly what
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Cain has done. See the end of verse 10? Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.
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This becomes the foundation of a motif that we see in scripture about blood that defiles the earth.
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Abel's blood is said to scream from the earth, crying out for, we'll get to what it's crying out for in just a moment.
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Later on in the Old Testament, keep something here, tell me to Numbers 35. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Numbers chapter 35.
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Numbers 35, verses 33 and 34. This is what God says to his people when they are in the land. He says, do not defile the land where you live, for bloodshed defiles the land, and there can be no atonement for the land because of the blood that is shed on it, except by the blood of the person who shed it.
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Do not make the land unclean where you live and where I dwell, for I, Yahweh, reside among the
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Israelites. You begin to see this theme through scripture of the ground being accursed because of violence that takes place on it.
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Cain, as it were, has added curse to curse. Remember, God cursed the ground in Genesis chapter three, and now he has added defiling the ground to a ground that was already cursed.
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But it's striking that God says that Abel's blood was screaming to him literally from the ground.
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Puritan wordsmith Matthew Henry puts it like only he can. Quote, he speaks as if the blood itself were both witness and prosecutor because God's own knowledge testified against him and God's own justice demanded satisfaction.
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And as you read the Bible, the blood of Abel will become synonymous with the attack of the wicked on the righteous.
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So Jesus will refer to righteous Abel as the first person killed for righteousness' sake, Matthew chapter 23, verse 35.
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So all the righteous blood shed on the earth will be charged to you from the blood of righteous
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Abel to the blood of Zacharias and Aberakai whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar.
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In the parallel passage in Luke chapter 11, verses 50 to 51, Jesus says exactly the same thing and then he ends it by saying, yes,
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I tell you, this generation will be held responsible. And so this theme of Abel's blood becomes the blood that speaks condemnation.
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The blood, as it were, speaks to people's righteous judgment. But here's the good news.
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Later on in the New Testament, the author of Hebrews will contrast the cry of Abel's blood and its cry for vengeance with another powerful cry.
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This one you should see. I know I'm having you turn to a lot of passages, but I want you to see some of these with your own eyes. Hebrews chapter 12.
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Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews chapter 12.
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And as the author to the Hebrews warns not to reject the grace of God, he says, listen, you've not come to a mountain that couldn't be touched, referring to Deuteronomy chapters four and five, where God came down on a mountain, it was terrifying, and people said, okay, listen, we can't deal with that.
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He says, you've not come to that. Verse 22. Instead, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living
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God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of angels, a festive gathering, to the assembly of the firstborn, whose names have been written in heaven, to a judge who is
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God of all, to the spirits of righteous people made perfect. Verse 24 is where I want you to really pay attention.
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And to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which says better things than the blood of Abel.
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I need to pause here for a moment. I can't just skip past this as though it's not important. Abel's blood becomes a type of the, excuse me, the condemnation that sin calls for.
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Think about it. You and I both know when we sin, there is this gnawing feeling that we have broken
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God's law. There is this unrelenting cry that says, you deserve to be punished. That cry has been in every human heart since the beginning of time, and it comes to personification, as it were, as you read the
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Bible, in the blood of Abel that is shed. Whereas the cry of broken law, as it were, can only speak vengeance, the authors of the
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Hebrews would have us to understand that we have a better voice that speaks for us, that we have a voice that silences the cry of vengeance with a cry of its own.
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Here's the thing. The text doesn't tell me what Abel's blood actually said, but can
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I put it to you that the text does tell me what the blood of Jesus says? It tells me it in three words.
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It is finished. And as a result, we can be freed from that condemnation that we so rightly deserve, not because we have done something righteous, but because somebody has stepped in with a righteousness that we could never have achieved on our own.
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I'd get more excited about that, but I need to kind of keep my voice together. I draw your attention back to Genesis chapter four, though, because we come back to Genesis chapter four, and whereas you believe
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I have the voice of Christ who speaks for you, it would appear here that Cain has no voice to speak for him.
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Now he will come face to face with the very judgment of God. That's the final little scene in our text here.
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The punishment of the wicked brother, verses 11 through 16. The punishment of the wicked brother, verses 11 through 16.
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God's pronouncement is very swift and very severe, verses 11 and 12. So now you are cursed.
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Doesn't even wait to hear an explanation from Cain. So now you are cursed. Alienated from the ground that opened up its mouth to receive your brother's blood, you have shed.
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If you work the ground, it will never again give you its yield. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.
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Unlike the fool where the ground is cursed, but the man and the woman are not explicitly cursed, Cain is directly cursed.
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And again, it's so important. I'm gonna talk about this later on in the message. But it's important when you read these texts, they're assuming you actually paid attention and listened to everything beforehand.
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Because there's so many little details that are meant to connect back. Think back to Genesis chapter three.
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Who was the only person directly cursed in the fall? It's the serpent.
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In this particular instance, Cain has already defiled the ground. Any further punishment would be excess. But in being cursed directly,
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Moses wants the reader to understand that from God's perspective, Cain is directly in the line of the serpent who has risen up in enmity against God's people.
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Cain prided himself on being a farmer, but now he was locked out from the ground, condemned to a life of wandering.
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Now for a moment, if you were Cain, what would you do in this moment? I mean, probably don't wanna visualize being
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Cain, but let's presuppose you were Cain. What should have happened in this moment?
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Well, what should have happened in this moment was Cain should have got on his face and begged for mercy.
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The pride and the self -absorption that has brought him to this point, he probably would do well to get rid of.
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And at first glance, you look at verse 13, and it sounds like a cry for repentance. So verse 13, but Cain answered
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Yahweh, my punishment is too great to bear. Lord, this is a bit intense.
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But before you start thinking that this is repentance, can I talk to you for a moment about the difference between repentance and remorse?
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Now, remorse isn't necessarily a bad thing. The dictionary defines remorse as a deep regret or guilt for a wrong committed.
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But that's not repentance. Here's how our fathers in the faith define repentance.
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1689 Confession says, saving repentance is a gospel grace by which we are made aware of the many evils of our sin by the
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Holy Spirit. By faith, we humble ourselves over our sin with godly sorrow, hating of it, and self -loathing.
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We pray for pardon and strength of grace and determine and endeavor by the power supplied by the
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Spirit to walk before God and to please him in all things. Does that sound like where Cain is right now?
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Before you answer that, let me give you a biblical reason to kind of question this. Second Corinthians, you don't need to turn it, but I'll read it.
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Second Corinthians chapter seven, verses nine and 10. Paul's writing to the Corinthians who he had had to write a severe letter to and they got the message.
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It got through. And so he says, I now rejoice, verse nine, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance, for you were grieved as God willed so that you did not experience any loss from us.
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Here's verse 10. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, but worldly grief produces death.
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Pay attention to that and come back to Genesis chapter four with me for a moment. Which outcome do you see in this passage?
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May I put it to you that I see a man who is wallowing in self -pity with no remorse after getting caught and getting punished.
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Pay attention to verse 14. Since you are banishing me today from the face of the earth and I must hide from your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, whoever finds me will kill me.
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What's missing from what Cain has just said? Think about it with me for a moment.
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It's kind of a glaring omission. Am I the only one who read this this week and wondered,
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Cain, don't you have a single thing to say about your dead brother in a field somewhere? Cain doesn't show even an ounce of remorse, talk less of repentance.
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He's just sorry he has to bear this intense punishment and doesn't wanna get killed because of it. Kind of ironic.
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And yet, despite what I would argue is the clear selfishness and self -absorption of Cain, God extends mercy and grace to this most ill -deserving man, verse 15.
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Then Yahweh said to him in that case, whoever kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.
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And he placed a mark on Cain so that whoever found him would not kill him. God would have been right, just, and perfectly within his bounds to let
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Cain reap the righteous rewards of his sin. And yet, God is merciful.
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He places a mark on Cain to ensure that no one would come up to Cain with violent intention.
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Text doesn't tell us what the mark is, don't think it's really important for us to speculate. Verse 16 ends this narrative.
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Then Cain went out from Yahweh's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
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East of Eden? Isn't this where Adam and Eve were expelled from?
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Now he's expelled even further. Cain is sent away from God's presence.
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When he says God's presence, it's simply referring to God's, excuse me, God's provision and power.
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And he's sent away just like his parents were. No longer would he enjoy the favor of God. He would now be forced to fend for himself.
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You see, the relational effects of sin are tragic. And what they do is that we've set the necessary background for the next few verses we're going to read.
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You see, we've seen the relational effects of sin in the tale of two brothers, but secondly, can we talk briefly about the tale of two bloodlines?
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Tale of two brothers, now a tale of two bloodlines as we look at sin's global fallout. Verses 17 to 26.
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These verses close out the first major section after creation. And it's interesting that we have two genealogies.
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I'm a Bible teacher, so level with me. How many of you, I'm gonna ask you if you've done it recently. But at some point, how many of you have skipped the genealogies when you read your
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Bible? Okay, first of all, repent. And secondly, you're missing out on key parts of the
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Bible's narrative when you skip those. Yes, I know it's not the most fun reading. I know you're not probably gonna find your life verse somewhere in First Chronicles one through nine.
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I'm keenly aware of that. But you are missing out on key parts of the Bible's narrative.
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And Genesis chapter four, as well as chapter five, which we'll see next time, which is entirely genealogy. Pray for me.
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As you look at Genesis chapter four, you actually see two bloodlines emerge. Two bloodlines emerge.
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Firstly, you see the bloodline of the serpent in verses 17 to 24. The bloodline of the serpent.
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The bloodline of the serpent. There's a lot of echo in this text. Now, there was one thing when
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I was this week, I have a habit, I like to print off my text and then mark it up. As I was doing that this week,
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I just kept writing the word echo, echo, echo, because there's a lot of that going on, especially in these last few verses.
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A lot of intentional, deliberate, well -placed interconnections in the text.
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Technically, we call this inner textuality, the fact that the text is harking back to itself. And it's brilliant how it's done here.
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Verse 17, Cain was intimate with his wife and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. Now, if you've encountered skeptics before, they like to get hung up on this.
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You've probably heard the question, how did Cain find a wife? Can I point out to you that's actually not an important question?
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After all, if Moses thought it was important, he would have actually answered that question. The important point is that, think back to verse one, the man, literally
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Adam, was intimate with his wife and conceived two sons.
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Now, Cain is intimate with his wife and she gives birth. Despite being under the judgment of God, he is still participating in Genesis 1 and the mandate to fill the earth.
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Not only does he have a son, but he seems to find some new industry. Verse 17,
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Cain was intimate with his wife and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. Then, Cain became the builder of a city and he named the city
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Enoch, after his son. This is the first mention of a city in the
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Bible. And as we march through Genesis, cities are gonna become very important. In fact, the next city we'll see is a place called
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Babel. More to be said on Babel later. But then we come to verse 18 through 22.
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And that brings up our first genealogy. So verse 18, Irad was born to Enoch.
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Irad fathered Mahujiel, Mahujiel fathered Mahushiel, and Mahushiel fathered Lamech. Lamech took two wives for himself, one named
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Ada and one named Zillah. Ada bore Jabal, he was the first of the nomadic herdsmen. His brother was named
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Jubal, he was the first of all who played the lyre and the flute. Zillah bore Tubal -Cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools.
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Tubal -Cain's sister was Naama. It's interesting to see that Lamech's three kids, or at least his three sons, are mentioned in light of their work.
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So you have one who is a nomadic herdsman, you have one who is a musician, you have one who is a metal worker.
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And it looks pretty impressive. Like, all right, Cain seems to have made something of himself.
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You know, he was kind of a, you can't really call him a rascal, he's a murderer, but you know, he was kind of a rascal growing up.
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And now he's, you know, the boy's come good. Before you think that, the text zooms in and then it gets a little less pretty.
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Verse 23, Lamech said to his wives,
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Ada and Zillah, hear my voice. Wives of Lamech, pay attention to my words, for I killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me.
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If Cain is to be avenged seven times over, then for Lamech it will be 77 times.
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Scholars call this the Song of the Sword. Now, we don't know if Lamech actually used a sword, but it's called that because it's a song in honor of violence.
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One of my favorite preachers from back home, the Reverend Jeff Thomas, when he was pastoring in Alfred Place Baptist Church in Aberystwyth, where he pastored for almost 40 years, in his preaching through Genesis, he referred to this, somewhat cheekily, if you've ever heard
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Jeff Thomas preach, he's very funny. He called this the first gangster rap song in the entire of human history.
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As a one -time connoisseur, I can see why he says that. As you read this text, it's dark, yet pointed in its rhythm.
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If you read this in the original language, it's almost symmetrical in its meter. It's meant to be repetitive, it's meant to be the kind of thing that has a beat to it.
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It's cruel in its audience. Did you catch who the audience of this song were? Text tells us that Lamech said to his wives, his wives, plural, already we have seen, if we take
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Genesis genealogy seriously, what, this is three generations now? And already we are starting to see a perversion of God's original design for marriage.
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First of all, he has wives, which is not God's original design. Secondly, he subjects his wives to this ode to overkill, as it were.
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As one commentator puts it, in this case, the women experienced the humiliation of polygamy and the violent spectacle of a savage killing.
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Finally, as if all this isn't bad enough, Cain killed out of anger.
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Lamech killed purely because the victim, it seems to suggest that this victim was a lot younger than him. That's why he was vulnerable and he was able to kill him, but the victim apparently wounded him.
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Seems to suggest that this was an accident. Overall, it's disproportionate and it's sick.
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And what he said in verse 24 is even more vile. He says, if Cain is to be avenged seven times over, then for Lamech, it will be 77 times.
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Calvin gets the commentary of the day on this one. He says in his commentary on Genesis, quote, Lamech in piously perverting this divine declaration mocks his severity, for he hence takes greater license to sin as if God had granted some singular privilege to murderers.
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Not that he seriously thinks so, but being destitute of all sense of piety, he promises himself impunity and in the meantime, jestingly uses the name of God as an excuse, end quote.
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Cain's line through Lamech is highlighted, not for their trust and dependence on God, but for its selfishness, its pride and its arrogance.
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In a lot of ways, we see the same pattern from his father Cain being continued in him. You've indeed encountered a bloodline that is in league with the serpent.
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But lest you read this and think, oh, this is humanity's law. Humanity's doomed, really, this is all we've got.
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There's another bloodline in this passage. The bloodline of the seed, verses 25 and 26. The bloodline of the seed.
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Another one of those inner textual moments, verse 25. Adam was intimate with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him
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Seth. For she said, God has given me another offspring in place of Abel since Cain killed him.
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Seth means the appointed one or appointed. Eve rightly interprets the birth of Seth as a divine response to the loss of Abel.
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But again, there's more here than meets the eye. I think it's safe to say that Eve's hope is that the promise of God would be fulfilled through Seth.
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In Seth, there was meant to be a sense that this bloodline through which the seed would come would be okay.
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In verse 26, as this passage ends, gives us actually a lot of reason to be confident. Text says, a son was born to Seth also, and he named him
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Enosh. Enosh's name is closely related to the name
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Adam. Actually, they're synonyms for man. And in fact, throughout the Bible, those two words, Enosh and Adam, are used synonymously to refer to man in a generic sense.
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And that's not by accident. It would seem that Seth shares his father and mother's optimism that a new
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Adam, a new head of the line is here. Okay. I love how verse 26 ends.
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It says, a son was born to Seth also, and he named him Enosh. At that time, people began to call on the name of the
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Lord. From the ruins of the fall and the disappointment of Cain and his line, a new line emerges.
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A line from which true worship, true calling upon the Lord begins. But something, someone and something else emerges from this line too.
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One more text and I'm done. Luke chapter three. Luke chapter three. As you turn there, surprise, another genealogy.
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But this one actually refers to Jesus. Luke chapter three, you have a long list of names, but jump right to the end.
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Verse 38 says that Jesus was thought to be, verse 23, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, son of Adam, the son of God.
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That's right. The Messiah comes from this line. God is faithful to bring about his promise, even in the face of what looks like a total disaster.
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The brother who seemed to be the righteous one gets killed off early in the narrative. The wicked brother seems to have no remorse, seems to foster a bloodline where sin seems to have just taken hold.
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And yet, even with the relational and the global effects of sin, the plan of redemption can't and won't be thwarted.
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So we can read Genesis chapter four, disturbing chapter as it is, with hope. And in fact, it's not even hope for us because we know how the story ends.
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Christ comes. He brings about redemption. Whereas Cain was the brother who killed his brother,
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Hebrew chapter two will help us to understand that Christ is the brother who brings us into the family of God. Far from killing us, he gives us new life.
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And the effects of sin, be they relational or global, as we are all kind of feeling the weight of this week, I'm sure.
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And in Christ, those effects of sin are taken care of, both in this life, as we have confidence.
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Not always easy, but we have it. And in the age to come, well, one day we will be freed entirely from the presence of sin.
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And Heavenly Father, we are so grateful that you are a God who is sovereign, that you are a
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God who is in charge of human history, that nothing catches you by surprise, that nothing catches you off of your watch, as it were.
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We thank you that you are a God who, even when we are reduced to foolishness because of our sin, you continue to reach out to us.
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You continue to minister to us and continue to stretch out your open arms to us, calling us to find rest and to find peace in you.
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Father, may we not be like Cain, self -absorbed, self -righteous, self -justified, but may we be humble.
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May we be broken over the state of our sin, and may we daily come back to the foot of the cross to find fresh assurance.