I am Pastor Nathan and today we are going to be looking at the very condensed family tree of Cain
and how that is contrasted with the birth of Seth. If you've been with us in our last message,
you might remember that when Cain got furiously angry with God for rejecting his offering,
throughout his entire interaction with God, he displayed a radical self-righteous independence
and ultimately an arrogant contempt for God. We saw that as Cain was mad because God accepted
Abel's sacrifice and not his, that he then killed his brother Abel, which was really an attempt to
attack God for favoring Abel. And then Cain did this without any remorse. We don't see any remorse
in his attitude. The only emotion we see from Cain comes with the, poor me, my consequences
aren't fair after murdering his brother. Then he went out from the Lord's presence as the Lord
just kind of put a curse on him to have to wander. The Lord took away his livelihood as he was a
farmer and the curse involved the ground no longer yielding any crop to him. And that really put Cain
in a position of having to depend on others in contrast to the self-righteous independence that
he displayed in the murder of his brother. And so as he went out from the land of Eden, cursed,
he was then cursed to live a life with no satisfaction, none of the self-gratification
from accomplishment, but simply a life of discontented purposelessness with no point,
no purpose, no goal, no nothing. Now what we see in the remainder of chapter four today is what
happened after. And it's not a play-by-play, it's more of a big overview of the next seven
generations or six generations that come after. And really it shows us what happened when Cain
left the land of Eden, which you remember the garden, it was the garden of Eden and then it
was in the land of Eden. And that word Eden actually means delight. So he left the land of
delight to live in the land of Nod, which means the land of wandering, exactly what he was cursed
to do. But he did that with angry contempt for God, still mad at the Lord, still playing the victim,
yet protected with a very gracious mark that God had given him so that none would come after him
and seek vengeance. Now even though it's never directly stated in Scripture, the rest of Cain's
line suggests that Cain himself never repented, even though he had an entire life to live,
reflecting on what he had done. The way he is represented throughout Scripture is always in a
negative light. And I don't know about you, but when we see in Scripture, I know that my God loves
to tell stories of people and their redemption. And so if Cain did indeed get redeemed, I think
it would have been recorded. However, Cain goes on, as we're going to see today, to take actions
that continue to show God. I'm going to show God I don't need him. I'm going to show God that his
will and curse on my life, I'm just going to disdain that. We're going to see that that is
still a part of Cain's attitude. And really the most interesting part of what we're going to see
today is that as Cain left the land and started to wander, we're going to see that Cain and his
progeny prospered. They prospered. And that's a very interesting thing to look at when someone is
cursed by God and judged and cast out. But Cain's family, we're going to see, took the lead in
producing cities, in civil engineering. They led the charge in developing the musical arts and
performance and instrumentation. They took the lead in developing the industries of taking care
of herd animals and sheep and all the breeding and everything that comes with that. They took the
lead in developing agricultural tools and the implements of really the ideas, technology and
industry. To summarize, Cain's family line produced civilization. Civilization as we understand it
today. But although it was a prosperity, it was a dark prosperity because despite all the culture
blossoming, despite civilization blossoming through their line, there was still a decay that was
taking place because the moral situation within the heart of Cain's line had not changed. And then
of course we're going to see today that as always God comes through with grace. So today we're going
to learn that despite the advances in culture and civilization, despite the inventions of man,
despite the discoveries of man, despite the advancement of all of that, whether it's
agricultural abundance or in art and music, whether it's in technology, whether it's in all of that,
despite every kind of earthly prosperity that could come to man, there is no hope for humans
in these things. There's no hope for mankind in those things because as those things flourish,
as civilization advances, man still has a heart of sin and will still continue its decline. And the
only hope is and ever will be to call upon the name of the Lord. But before we get into that,
we're going to worship God as we call upon the name of the Lord this morning to praise Him for
who He is, what He's done in our lives, because from the beginning to the end, God is the only
answer. And for those of us that have experienced the forgiveness, the grace, the mercy, salvation,
the salvation that God offers us, well it truly is better than anything man can offer. Amen. Let's
pray. Father, we love you so much and God we thank you Lord for your word. God as you've been teaching
us through your word from the very beginning, God, we see so much that just tells us that some
things never change. That because of the fall and the sin that entered into the heart of man,
God we are hopelessly lost. And yet God there are those even today that would point to what
man has accomplished, Lord, that as we have invented things and advanced culture and civilization and
advanced technology that people would look to that and say, look, there is no God. Man is the source
of all wisdom. And yet God despite what we have developed, despite the advancements and despite all
of that God, our heart has never changed. We have a heart of sin and that heart is lost without you.
And Lord, just like from the very beginning, it will be until the very end that the only hope is
to call upon the name of the Lord. And so God, we as your church, we want to do that right now. We
want to praise your name. We want to lift up your name and just God tell you how much we love you
and how thankful we are for who you are and what you've done. And so God, we're going to do just
that. We love you. We thank you for everything, every blessing. We thank you especially for our
salvation. And God, yeah, you're just, you're it, God. We love you so much. It's in Jesus' name we
pray. Amen. All right, guys, we're going to be in Genesis chapter four, verses 17 through 26
tonight. And I think every single child of God all over the planet has at one point or another asked
the question, why do the wicked prosper? You ever wondered that? You know, you're like, the people
that do bad things seem to be the ones that are rich and powerful and, you know, have this or that
nice house, nice car, positions of power. You know, God, what is up with that? And that is a question
that God's people have been asking forever, right? Jeremiah the prophet dealt with this in
Jeremiah chapter 12, verses one and two. He says this, you will be righteous, Lord, even if I bring
a case against you. Yet I wish to contend with you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do
all the treacherous live at ease? You planted them and they have taken root. They have grown and
produced fruit. You're ever on their lips, but far from their conscience. You know, ever on their
lips, far from their conscience. This is the people who write songs about murdering and
promiscuity and then get up to accept the reward and they go, I want to thank God for this award.
No, you don't. You know, people that will talk about faith and stuff and yet they just live a
sinful life. Job asked this question in Job 21-7 and Job is considered to be the oldest story in
the Bible, right? Like probably a pre-flood, some say, but he said this, why do the wicked continue
to live, growing old and becoming powerful? And then seven verses later in verse 14 of Job 21, he
goes, yet they say to God, leave us alone. We don't want to know your ways. You know, it's a
question that everybody asks, especially when they're a child of God and they're maybe
suffering. They're going through tough times. They're dealing with difficulty. And we go, why is
my life so hard, you know? Why are the wicked the only ones who can afford to live in California?
Right, God, what's up with that, right? Part of the answer is that the wicked have a part to
fulfill in God's plan, right? God orchestrates everything. There are no coincidences in this
world. God is aware and behind everything that happens. And there's a point and a purpose to
everything. You know, in Habakkuk 1-6, it tells us here that God raised up the Babylonians, a
really bad people. In Isaiah 44-28, it tells us God raised up the Persian king, Cyrus. In Isaiah
7-18, it says God raised up the Egyptians and the Assyrians. All of those cultures were very
anti-God in many, many ways, but they were all raised up for purposes, for God's purposes.
Sometimes that purpose was judgment. Sometimes it was discipline on his own people. One of them,
God even raised up to fund the rebuilding of Jerusalem. So God has a purpose in all that,
and there's a purpose in God keeping Cain alive, right? Cain murdered his brother. It's really
kind of the death penalty, right? You should be done with, but God kept him alive and marked him
from being killed by anybody else. And the purpose that I believe God keeping Cain alive
involved Cain, but it was also far beyond him and dealt with his line. And so what we're going to
see, really the overall theme here is that prosperity, that idea that, hey, things are
going well or advancement, like I'm inventing things, we're doing good as a culture, and all
that type of stuff is neither a sign of favor or not a sign of favor. Did that make sense? Okay,
great. That sounded weird coming out of my mouth right there. But when prosperity happens,
it's just prosperity. Now, prosperity can come because of favor and the favor of God,
but it doesn't inherently mean one or the other, and we're going to see that today.
So verse 17, read with me in Genesis chapter 4. It says, 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 Enoch after his son. Now, this isn't the other Enoch that some of you may
be familiar with in Genesis. This is a different Enoch, the son of Cain, right? Now, through the
end of chapter 4 of Genesis, the history of Cain and his line is very condensed, right? We don't
get a ton of detail here, but we do get some details here about Cain and what happened after
he was cast out, after God marked him and he left. Now, there's a detail here about his wife that is
very surprising for many people and has led to a lot of people asking the questions, where did Cain
get his wife, right? If it was just Adam and Eve, and then they gave birth to Cain, and very likely
he was the very first baby born, and then Abel was born, and then Cain killed Abel, where did
Cain get his wife, right? Some people really struggle with that, and it's not a difficult
answer, but it is an awkward answer from the perspective of our current culture and today's
mindset. Really, the answer is, is Cain's wife was one of the offspring of Adam and Eve,
which would make his wife possibly his sister, or his niece, or a great niece at that point.
That's really the only possible answer, right? Now, what the Bible doesn't tell us is how old
Cain was when he killed his brother Abel. It was likely he was a full-grown man, he was working in
his career as a farmer, and it doesn't tell us that Cain and Abel were the only offspring of
Adam and Eve at the time of the murder, right? So I was thinking through this and trying to do some
math, and I was like, well, let's say Cain was 30 when he murdered his brother, right? And that
close to the creation, that close to the perfect genetic makeup of humans, that close to where
they had fallen and sin had entered in, but they were still that close to creation, how many babies
could Adam and Eve have in 30 years? And then when those children came of age and started having
babies, how many babies could they have in 15 years or 20 years? Not 20 years, I would make them
10, that's weird. So the other direction. But you see that there's a lot of offspring that would
come from that situation, and so Adam and Eve being the most perfectly fertile couple that has
ever existed, plus with their mandate to be fruitful and multiply, surely they had more
children, God told them to do that, right? And they likely had lots and lots and lots of children,
and by the time that we get to the Cain and Abel story and the first murder, it's likely that there
was at least a second generation or a third generation, and we look at that and we go, ew,
isn't that gross, right? Now in our modern mindset, of course, we're like, oh, that's creepy,
that's creepy, you know? That brings up images of abuse and different things, and there's many
reasons, biological reasons and stuff, why that's just frowned upon. But that early in the history
of mankind, we have to understand that there was literally no other choice if they were going to
follow the mandate to be fruitful and multiply. But more than that, that then, especially then,
it was the norm. It wasn't weird, it wasn't a taboo thing, it was absolutely the norm, it was
acceptable at that time. Now, the practice did become outlawed by the time we get to the law of
Moses, and I believe the reason it was outlawed is because as the generations went on and on and on,
and that corrupted genetic code got more and more spread out and diluted, what happened was the
perfect genetic code that was in creation simply got corrupted, and that started to result in birth
defects. And the things we see today when people go, don't have children in her family because it
leads to a lot of biological problems. But back then, that close to perfection, I don't believe
the genetic code was mutated or corrupted such to a point that would risk those biological defects
and stuff. And so that's the answer, you know? And some people are like, well, that's just super weird
and all that, and yeah, it's a weird thing today. It's definitely like, no, that's bad. But back
then, that's just what it was, okay? Can we be okay with that? Awesome, okay. Now, Cain's curse,
his consequence for murdering Abel was to be a restless wanderer for the rest of his life, right?
He was told by God, you're gonna wander, right? He was a farmer. He farmed the land. God said,
I'm gonna remove that from you, right? The land is no longer gonna yield its crop to you, Cain.
You're gonna be a wanderer, which meant is that in order for Cain to eat and to survive, he was
gonna have to depend on other people, which was completely contrary to his self-righteous independence
in trying to say, this is what I'm offering you, God, take it or leave it. But what does it tell us
here about Cain? He became a builder of a city. Do people build cities if they're wandering?
Not typically. The idea of building a city was the idea that Cain was settling down,
that Cain wasn't gonna wander anymore. And then he named this city after his son. Well,
the first thing about this city is that in order to build a city, that would take resources. That
would take significant resources, lots of them to build a city. And so this is what hints at the
prosperity that Cain experienced. Even when it came to resources and stuff, he had enough to build
a city at this point. And then when he named it Enoch, that word Enoch means dedicated, right?
It's kind of a cool way, oh, I'm gonna name my son dedicated. But what we see about Cain's life is
it wasn't that his son was dedicated to God. It wasn't that Cain was dedicated to God. It was
really this picture that Cain was dedicated to himself, his own way, his own will, his own
method of getting things done. Because the fact that he built a city was a direct, intentional,
defiant violation of God's revealed will for Cain's life. God had told Cain, you're gonna be a
restless wanderer. Now, even though it was punishment, even though it was difficulty,
that was God's revealed will to Cain. We don't know how long Cain wandered before he found a
wife and settled down, but he's settling down now in direct defiance of what God said for his life.
Now, the word city, we picture a certain thing when we hear the word city, but the word in the
Hebrew here, it could mean any type of settlement, a big settlement, a small settlement. So it could
just be a village or whatever, but that's besides the point. The point is, is he built a place
to stop wandering, to settle down in defiance of God's will. And so, and then he named this city
dedicated. What was this city dedicated to? Well, it was a statement to God and a statement to the
rest of his family, which was everybody at this time, that I'm in charge of my own life. That God,
I don't care what you want me to do. I'm gonna do what I want to do. I don't care about your will.
I don't care about your punishment. I don't care about what you said. I'm dedicated to doing my
own thing, which is what was the point in the very beginning in Cain's offering. Now, nothing
else is said about Canaanite culture here in the next few verses, except just a list of five
generations that takes us all the way up to a man named Lamech and his two wives. Now, you'll notice
that when we add up the generations there, Lamech is the seventh generation from Adam or the sixth
generation from Cain. So verse 18, it tells us, Irad was born to Enoch. So we had Cain, Enoch, and
then Irad. Then Irad fathered Mahusael. Mahusael fathered Methusael, and Methusael fathered Lamech.
Lamech took two wives for himself, one named Ada and the other named Zilla. So again, this is just
a quick summary of the growth, the initial growth of civilization as his people were spreading out
in the next few verses. We're going to see what happened eventually in the line of Cain, but it's
also the first sign of civilization's demise. And the detail we see here, it tells us he took two
wives. You guys remember God's will had been given to Adam and Eve as a part of creation. Back in
Genesis 2, 24, this is what God said, a man leaves his father and mother and bonds with his wife,
and they become one flesh. Can you become one flesh with two wives? No. So what we see here in
the line of Cain is the tragic institution of polygamy, the idea of having multiple wives. And
sadly, this practice came to really dominate both Cainite culture and Sethite culture as we see
through the rest of Genesis. And we'll see through the rest of Genesis the disastrous effects that
this has on families, on, you know, God works through things absolutely, but this particular
defiance of God's will that carried through culture, both Sethite and Cainite culture, was a
bad thing. And it often led to very just tragic difficulties and circumstances. But the picture
here for us in studying this is as civilization advanced, so did rebellion to God's will in the
line of Cain. So did that rebellion to God's word. And so verse 19 again, it says, Lamech took two
wives for himself, one named Ada and the other named Zilla. Ada bore Jabal. He was the first of
the nomadic herdsmen. His brother was named Jubal. He was the first of all who played the liar in the
flute. And then Zilla, his other wife, bore Tubal Cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools.
Tubal Cain's sister was named Nehma. So we have this generational narrative, right? Enoch bore
Irad, Irad bore, da da da da da. And then all of a sudden we get to this guy named Akhen, the whole
narrative stops, specifically to share with us some particular details. Let's focus on the great,
great, great grandson of Cain, this guy named Lamech. And why does it stop there? Because
something very important to civilization happened during Lamech's time through his sons. What we
see here is that these cultural advancements came from his sons, who it says were the first of these
three things. Now that word first there means they were the fathers of these things or the
founders of these things. So what we see here is that his first son Jubal was the first of the
nomadic herdsmen. That's meaning the people who developed animal husbandry, the people who took
care of cattle and bred flocks and all of that type of thing. And it really was the idea of
agricultural advancement, the science of breeding animals and raising them for food and wool and all
the other stuff. He was really the first one to really do that seriously, or at least to codify
the science of it to a fact where it grew. His second brother Jubal, it says, was the first of
all who played the lyre and the flute. This means that he was the one that developed the arts,
the musical arts and everything related to it, right? For those of you that have ever studied
music, it's not just, you know, boing, boing, plucking a string. There's a whole science behind
it and how you make chords and this and that and why something sounds good and why something sounds
bad. It's an entire art form and this guy was the progenitor of that art form in music and
it really by implication involves all the things that would be considered the arts, right? And then
his third brother, Jubal Cain, made all kinds of bronze and iron tools. That's the idea of forging
metals, crafting things. It's really the bigger idea of the development of technology and industry,
right? So when it says they were founders or fathers of it, the idea is that they perfected
these things. They honed these things. They codified these things. They were really the first
to establish the science of these things or the art of all these things and develop it into more
than it was. Really the first to make it a lifestyle and an occupation and an industry.
That's what it's talking about here. Now this isn't to say that the Sethite culture wasn't
making advances when it came to culture and civilization. I mean obviously we know Abel
took care of sheep, right? Because he brought the lamb as his offering but these are the guys that
really like advanced it into a way where it spread out and blessed culture as a whole.
And that is a prosperity that these people in Cain's line were really the founders of these
industries, these practices, these science, these arts that really revolutionized civilization
and really changed culture across the known world at the time. Those discoveries ended up being a
blessing among God's people but these were discoveries that God used that came through
the disobedient descendants of Cain's line. God used these disobedient descendants of
Cain's ungodly line to impact history through their discoveries. We know that Abraham, Moses,
and David were shepherds, right? We know that if you read the book of Psalms, guess what you see
there all over the place? Music and poetry. And then in Exodus chapter 36 verse 1 when they were
building the tabernacle, it says this of the skilled craftsmen, the ones who were like building
the things. It said God gave them wisdom and understanding to know how to do all the work.
So the idea is or the implication there is even the idea of industry and technology, it was God
the one giving insight and stuff through what is known as two volcano, the third sun.
But the overall picture is that this godless civilization, this godless rebellious Canaanite
civilization gave birth to these massive cultural advances that enriched all of life. Yet the
rebellious God rejecting moral degradation in Cain's line also continued. Now this degradation
is hinted at in the name of his third son, two volcano, and in what we're going to see right after
that in Lamex, murderous boast. But he had these three sons, right? And if you've had kids, sometimes
like parents want to name kids in this like sing songy way or a rhymy way or something, right?
And so like, right, I would be like, oh, j-ball, ju-ball, two-ball, wow, right? You know, what a
cool family. And the second kid probably made a song about it. Maybe that's where rap came from,
who knows? But the third son is like out of line with it all, right? It's like j-ball, ju-ball,
and then two-ball Cain. Now for Cain's line and his family, Cain was the famous ancestor,
and I say ancestor like he was far, far away, possibly still alive, who knows? But he was the
progenitor of this line that was famous for what? Murder. He was the first murderer on planet Earth.
He was the first one that took the life of somebody for no other reason than he was mad at them.
And so therefore, Cain was known for violence. And then Cain's the builder of the city, so he was
known for just forget God and forget God's will. I'm going to do things my own, right? That whole
idea of Cain, Lamech attached that name to his third son. And so the inclusion of Cain's name,
this ancestor known for all this, suggests something. And you may go, well, that's kind
of a reach, but when we get to the next part, you'll see the connection. But it tells us about
two-ball Cain. He made all kinds of bronze and iron tools. With Cain being added to his name and
this whole idea, this connotation of violence and murder, it suggests that he made more than just
farming tools. He may have also made tools of war, tools of killing, tools of bloodshed.
And so we see this anticipated in his name, and then we see it in what we're going to see next in
Lamech's boast. But before we get to that, I just want to make this point. These cultural developments,
these cultural skills, these civilization-changing moments of agriculture development and
development of the arts and development of technology and industry, those are on their own,
really all blessings that can and should be used for the betterment of all mankind.
They really should be used to ultimately glorify God. You know, if you're a Star Trek fan,
you know there was this guy named Luke. No, just kidding, right? I lost like half the world right
here. No, Star Trek. Okay. The concept of Star Trek, for those of you that may not know, is the
idea that mankind advanced to the point of technology where they wiped themselves out in
nuclear warfare. And then the remaining culture of man kind of said, you know what? That was dumb.
We need to band together, and everything needs to be for the advancement of mankind. And so in the
Star Trek universe, there was no more money because it wasn't about self-enrichment. Everything,
every invention, every discovery was about the furtherance of mankind. And guess what happened?
Well, we ascended to the point where the Vulcans found us and went, wow, you guys are developed.
And then, you know, rest of Star Trek, right? Utopian society. That when man would finally get
to the place where they were completely selfless, right, we would advance and ascend into everything
man was created to be. Well, sure, technological advancement, cultural advancement should be used
for the betterment of man, but the reality is that the advances in civilization, when it's done by
man apart from God, they have unlimited potential for evil. And that's just the reality. You know,
think about the microchip. The microchip can help you find your lost dog. Isn't that wonderful?
It can also guide a smart bomb through your bedroom window. What about the advancements in
medicines and pharmaceuticals and, you know, drugs, right? Our modern medical technology,
there's been so many advancements and inventions and painkillers and, you know, antibiotics and all
this stuff that is really good and really beneficial. But then you also see pictures of
the streets of San Francisco where everybody's dying from fentanyl overdose. And you know,
you're not going to find anything that's going to help you. I mean, you just go down the list of
things that could be used for good or bad. And while these advancements can be the catalyst for
so much good, mankind has a tendency to elevate its own pride in the face of look what I have made.
Look what I have made. You guys remember that movie Castaway? Tom Hanks on the Island when he
finally makes fire and he's like beating us just, look what I have made. That's mankind.
We've learned something and we think it was of and from us. We think it highlights our intelligence
and how wonderfully just, you know, how wonderful we are. Even though mankind has this sense to
invent and discover, when we elevate our own pride in those things, we invent these things and then
we tend to use them for our own pleasures and our own appetites. Not for the good of mankind.
But it's like, how am I going to benefit from this? Ooh, can I get a patent and become a billionaire
over this? And then even in our world today, secular scientists all over the world, as they
discover more about the wonderful beauty of God's creation from the macro side of the universe to
the micro side of the smallest elements of atoms and molecules, what they say every time they
discover something new is we have proven there's no God. We are the source of all wisdom.
Look at what we have discovered. But no advancements of any kind, agricultural abundance,
arts of technology, industry, none of it can save society. Right? Star Trek is fake.
It's not going to lead to the utopian society of man because we're sinners.
We're sinners inside, regardless of how far culture advances, regardless of how far civilization
advances, we are still sinners. And so the story of Canite civilization, it really saves us from
overvaluing cultural advancement. It saves us from the idea of raising up man and saying,
wow, he is the end all of everything. He is the best. He is the most advanced because what we see
is although the descendants of Cain through Lamech prospered in living life and prospered in
developing world-changing cultural advancements around them, they couldn't manage their own lives.
They couldn't manage their own mortality. And this is what we see in Lamech. And this is why
I believe the story went da-da-da-da-da. Lamech. Let's stop here and look at this dude. So verse 23.
Lamech said to his wives, Ada and Zilla, 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. If Cain is to be avenged seven
times over, then Lamech, for Lamech it will be 77 times. Now in the Hebrew, this is written in a
poem form. It's like Hebrew poetry. And so this poem is about a woman who is a woman who is
a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman who is a woman.
This poem has been traditionally referred to as the Song of the Sword. Okay, they call this the
Song of the Sword. And it really follows the characterization of all who reject God's way for
their own way, which started with Cain. Right? Now although there's no sword mentioned specifically
in the two verses here, again, we looked at the name of his third son, Two-Bal Cain, and then
he died to violence and murder, and that's why there's this, there's suggested in Two-Bal Cain
that he made more than just, you know, pitchforks and, you know, plows, that he actually made
implements of war, and that would include swords and stuff, and that's where the idea of Song of
the Sword comes from. But when we read these verses, what we picture here, and I'll say this
before I say it out loud. No, I'm saying this out loud too. I don't mean to offend anybody, okay?
But this picture, when you read these two verses, it's a picture of a bare-chested, arrogant bro
standing next to his lifted truck with his fox sticker on the back holding a beer in his hand
proclaiming how great he is. That's what this is the picture of. This arrogant, violent punk who
just thinks he is everything in his own world. Now this man had to have been the worst nightmare for his wives.
I mean, it's really the picture of the worst results of the curse on Eve in Genesis 3 16. You
guys remember that one, right? The second half of the curse that fell upon her was,
your desire will be for your husband, but he will rule over you. And we walked through that in great
detail. If you missed that one, go check it out on YouTube to understand what that meant and what it
really means was the idea of the authority in the family that as Eve was going through the curse,
that as Eve led her husband to do this bad thing, she would have a tendency to want to do that in
her nature as a woman for all time. Yet the husband is the one that God said, no, no, no, I'm
appointing the husband as head of the household, right? That's the idea here. And so we get to this
point in Cain's line and we see that, okay, this man of the household is this brutal, violent,
arrogant, narcissistic punk. I mean, not only did Ada and Zilla suffer the humility of polygamy,
right? I mean, it's likely that they were the very first polygamy family in history and all the other
women, oh, they're getting married and they're becoming one and wow, and no, and this and that,
and then Lamek comes along and he's like, no, I'm taking two. I mean, how humiliating for those
women. But on top of that, they were married to this violent, remorseless brute. Now again,
it doesn't say here, and this is a complete assumption on my part, but I don't think it's
difficult to understand that this might've been the place of domestic violence, that these wives
were suffering greatly because this man gloried in his violence and gloried in what he thought
made him a man. And we still see that today. So in his glorying, this is what he says,
I killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. What he's saying there is I killed
a kid for wounding me in some way. Now the idea here is that when it says this young man struck
him, there was some type of wound. It wasn't like he bumped into his shoulder or anything. I've heard
it explained that way sometimes, but the idea was that this kid hurt him in some way, but the idea
of it is like a scratch. It was a small thing. And then Lamex bragging, Lamex bragging about how he
murdered the kid for it, murdered him. Now the word youth there, we would probably use the word
teenager today, right? So here's this grown man with his cool truck, all arrogant and some
teenager scratches him and he murders the kid. And he thinks that's what makes him ascendant.
That is what makes him elevated and superior. I responded to an insignificant thing with murder.
Look how great I am. So he brags about it to his wife and what we see here is there's no shame,
there's no remorse, but there's pride and celebration and look at me. You know, and again,
it's about the attitude, right? It's not about those things I used in the illustration, right?
It's not about what he's wearing or what he's driving. It's his heart. It's his heart that is
the issue that he is a sinful man. And so as marriage was spit on in the Canite culture,
right? With the introduction of polygamy. So is the value of life.
Does that sound familiar to anybody? All right, we're talking about pre-flood primeval history.
No, it sounds like we're talking about today in America. Nothing new under the sun, right?
And then we look around today and yeah, the value of life, right? People would rather record an
assault than get involved and protect the one being assaulted. You have kids, teenagers
that are recording and finding it great and saying, this is giving me cloud as they go
down the street and sucker punch an old lady. And we're going, what is going on?
What is going on is the spirit of Cain and his line is alive and well today.
You have podcasts about serial killers, right? And I know some of you may listen to these and,
you know, that's fine, but what's interesting is you'll have these podcasts, right? And so it's
like, you know, some lady putting on her makeup and telling you about this guy who murdered 50
people. And everybody's like, oh, wow, that's so interesting, so exciting. And what you're
listening to is not a condemnation of the action. You're just listening to a retelling of the story
about a guy who murdered people and finding entertainment out of it. Wow, that's exciting.
And it's like, no, that's murder. That's abhorrent, right? And, you know, there's multiple
different areas where we evaluate our entertainments and go, oh, my gosh, am I glorifying in something
that is not right? But, you know, we see all this stuff and then we think about, like, you know,
there's been some studies and there's a lot of evidence that indicates that the 20th century,
despite all the advancements in culture and civilization, and we invented airplanes and
flight and military technology and computed all this stuff, it was the most violent century
in all of history. And you look at all that stuff and you go, has mankind really gotten better
as we've advanced culturally and as we've advanced technologically and as we've advanced in the arts
and not so much. Now, the verse 24, this is a verse that some people get tripped up on because
his boast is, if Cain is to be avenged seven times over them for Lamech, it will be 77.
The idea here, there's two possible interpretations and it could be a blend of both, but one
interpretation is what he is saying in that is that he's exalting in the fact that he suffered no
consequences for what he did, right? Like, Cain murdered his brother and from the outside, well,
he didn't suffer any consequences, right? He's still alive. He lived his life. Sure, he couldn't
be a farmer anymore, but he became a city builder, right? It's like from the outside, he's still
alive, right? It's like from the outside, it looks like he suffered no consequences. And so, Lamech
is referencing this idea that he was protected, right? God said to Cain after Cain was like, oh,
no, someone's gonna kill me, right? You just murdered your brother, bro. But anyways, he was
afraid and God said, fine, I'm gonna mark you. And if anybody kills you, it will be avenged seven
times. And so, Lamech is referencing that and saying, look, you know, my great, great, great
grandpa Cain, he murdered and he lived on without any fear of people taking his life. And so, guess
what? Me more so, right? That's one interpretation. The other interpretation is it's a boast about
how he went even further than what his infamous relative did, right? The idea was is if someone
killed Cain for what Cain did, like they took vengeance on Cain and then they were, oh my gosh,
it just went blank. They suffered seven times for doing that. Then what Lamech is saying is what I've
done is so much greater. That if someone comes after me for what I've done, they should be killed or
they should be, I should be avenged for that killing 77 times, right? He's saying, my brother,
our famous ancestor, he did this murder, but you know what? I did something greater. I killed a kid
for nothing. And he's glorying in it. So that's the other interpretation of what he's saying there.
It could be one or both, you know, the blending of all that that meant. But the idea is as society
and civilization was blossoming, as advancement was coming, as growth and all these great,
wonderful things that were pushing mankind further, it was also decaying. It was getting morally
more and more bankrupt. But verse 25, here comes God's grace again. Adam was intimate with his wife
again and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth. For she said, God has given me another
offspring in the place of Abel since Cain killed him. A son was born to Seth also and he named him
Enosh. At that time, people began to call on the name of the Lord. Now the name Seth, right, there's
a lot of meaning in the names and Seth means granted, right? So Eve is like, God granted me
another child, right? So I'm going to name him granted, right? And so, but like the previous
children, we see Eve giving, attributing his birth to God. God did this, right? Now she says, he gave
me another in place of Abel. You know, some people ascribe to the fact that when Cain was born, Eve
might have been like, this is the ultimate offspring, right? God said that you're going to give birth to
someone who's going to crush the head of the serpent. It's him. Well, he's bad. Maybe it's Abel.
Oh, well, he killed Abel. Maybe it's Seth, right? You know, and they see that kind of in her
explanation or her exclamation here, or at least in her like whole idea that God has given me another
to replace Abel. It's an idea that, oh, even though Cain killed Abel, God's promise is still
going to come, right? The line is secure. So, but we see the beginning of what's known as the
Sethite line here. Now that line is detailed all the way through chapter five, which we'll look at
next time, and that is a long chapter of this person beget, this person beget, this person beget,
this person beget, this person beget, this person, right? It's a genealogy, and we'll look at all that,
and I promise it'll be interesting. So, but we see the beginning of this here in the end of chapter
four, and you know, of course, sometimes when you're studying, you're going, you know, that looks like
it should have been included in this chapter, right? The chapter breaks and stuff were added
after the fact, and there were people that were, you know, trying to, you know, make it so you could
reference parts of the Bible, and that's where all the chapters and verses came from, but it wasn't
there originally, but sometimes you look at something, you go, why did they decide to break
the chapter right there? If all of Seth's line is in chapter five, it would have made sense to put
this in chapter five in that sense, but there's a point, and it's included here at the end of
chapter four, I believe, to be a contrast to Cain's line. What we see in Cain's line is cultural
advancement, moral degradation, and then we have hope, we have grace, we have the birth of the
Sethite line, because what we see in Cain's firstborn and all his successors is, wow, they're
the pioneers of building cities and civil engineering. They led the charge and the development
of the arts and song and poetry and all those things connected, and wow, they led the charge
and the development of metallurgy and forging and industry and technology. And then we have this
picture of Seth line being born, and what were they known for? What does it tell us? They were
the pioneers of worship. They were the pioneers of trust in God, trust in the Lord alone for
salvation, the glorifying of his name. That's what they were known for, and that is put in stark
contrast to what Cain's line was known for. And it says that at that time, people began to call
on the name of the Lord. Now, it was more than just calling on the Lord, right? Sometimes when we hear
that word, like, oh, someone called on someone, it was like, hey, I'm calling on you, step forward,
or it's like, hey, I'm calling you for help, right? And we call on the name of the Lord like that all
the time, God help me, right? But it means way more than that. The idea of calling on the name
of the Lord, as we see through Moses's writings, regularly refers to the idea of proclaiming,
proclaiming the name of the Lord. And then that phrase, name of the Lord, it's about proclaiming
his character, his nature, who he is. Now, these people were known for proclaiming who God is to
humanity. Does that sound like anything we're called to do today? It's called the preaching of
the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we are called as people to go into this world and proclaim
who God is. He loves you. He created you. He's the God of all creation. And he loved you so much that
that he went to the cross and died for your sin so that you could put faith in what he did. He
paid the price so you could be forgiven, right? It's the gospel. And so we see this wonderful
picture that here in the very beginning of time, in the earliest stages of the development of
civilization, where sin further degraded man and mankind was going further and further into the
pit, a special, sanctified, set apart group of people started to develop by God's hand.
And these people proclaimed the Savior. They proclaimed the Lord. They proclaimed God.
When Canaanite culture was rising up to worship at the altar of abundance and to worship at the
altar of advancement and to worship at the altar of technology and art and human accomplishment,
when abuse and violence and the devaluation of life was becoming normalized and celebrated,
you have Sathite civilization preaching repentance, preaching dependence on a patient,
loving and grace-filled creator God. It is the exact same today that God's people, we are called
to go into this world that worships at the altar of abundance and worships at the altar of
accomplishment and worships at the altar of self and brags about its violence and celebrates the
abortion of 50 million children and all of this stuff. And we're called to go proclaim the name
of the Lord. And so when you think about this, it's just, it's encouraging that way back here
during primeval history, right? That's like before flood, that's the ancient ancient times, right?
Before Abraham's covenant, before the law of Moses, before the Davidic covenant,
God's people were known, characterized as proclaiming the name of the Lord.
This is one of the defining characteristics of God's people.
It is here and it always has been and it is today. We are people who proclaim who God is,
what God has done and we praise Him for it. So the second half of Genesis 4 here,
it gives us a wonderful outline to understand civilization and culture today.
To help us understand that, well just to understand as our culture increases in abundance,
and I know there's places around the world that are suffering greatly, but overall with our
advancements in technology and in cultural advancements in arts and the advancements of
just everything that mankind has accomplished over the years, it's all very impressive.
But despite all those advancements within it lies the demise of mankind because sin is in the heart
of every single human. And the only hope of the world is not when we discover the cure to cancer,
or we discover this technology or that technology, or we go and fly out into space and find a new
beautiful world, right? And all this stuff science fiction tells us. The only hope of the world is
to call upon the name of the Lord. It's the only hope of our culture, our culture, our culture,
the only hope of our culture. It's the only hope of any culture. It's the only hope for our soul.
It's the only hope for our country. It's the only hope for our families. It's the only hope for our
church is to call upon the name of the Lord. And this side of the cross, we know who that is,
Jesus Christ. God in the flesh who died on the cross to pay the price for all of our sin,
who rose on the third day defeating death, and who gives that gift of forgiveness and eternal life
to all who would call upon the name of the Lord. But to answer that final question, why do the
wicked prosper? Why doesn't God just wipe people out when they do horrible things? Well,
another big part of it is because God is compassionate and he is merciful and he is
patient with the wicked. Right? Every single one of us could think of the life we lived before Jesus,
and we're like, I'm so glad he was patient because he could have wiped me out an infinite number of
times for what I had done. Well, he's still being patient with our friends and our family and our
coworkers and all who don't know him yet. He wants them to be saved. He wants them to come to him and
to be able to receive that forgiveness from their sins. The Bible says he is slow to anger and that
he abounds in love. You know what the Bible also tells us? That he causes the sun to rise on the
evil and the good. It tells us that he causes the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous.
And the idea there, as we see Canite civilization responsible for these wonderful advances in
culture, the idea is that that success and prosperity and advancement and all this stuff,
it's neither good nor evil, but it's what one does with it. That is the point. So God's patience
while the wicked prosper, it's an opportunity for them to come to know him. It's an opportunity
for them to hear what the gospel is as God's people are calling on the name of the Lord,
proclaiming who he is and what he's done. Everything else in our life is secondary.
Now don't get me wrong, I get it. We gotta pay bills and we gotta take care of our families and
we gotta fix the car and we need to take time to relax, right? The Bible tells us all those
things are important, but none of them has a greater priority for you as a believer than to
call upon the name of the Lord every day, in every place, with every people.
So I wanna close with this final encouragement, Romans chapter 10 verses 14 through 17.
It says, how then can they call on him they have not believed in?
And how can they believe without hearing about him? And how can they hear without a preacher?
And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those
who bring good news, but not all obey the gospel. For Isaiah says, Lord, who has believed our message?
So faith comes from what is heard and what is heard comes through the message about Jesus Christ.
And I hereby commission every single one of you sending you out to take that message to the lost
that they would be saved as well. Amen. Let's pray. Father,
we love you and we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for what you've done.
And God, as we saw today, Lord, that God, you even work through the wicked and the line of the wicked
and you do things that benefit all of mankind. And Lord, it's not those things that make someone
righteous or unrighteous, Lord. God, you worked through Pharaoh to save Moses.
And Pharaoh was a wicked dude. And you worked through him.
You were a wicked dude. And yet, God, when we see all of that, Lord, we learn the very valuable
lesson that none of that means anything when it comes to our soul, our eternal soul.
That success doesn't mean moral goodness. That accomplishment doesn't mean salvation.
Instead, Lord, what we should understand is that the accomplishment and the invention and all that
stuff that civilization does moving forward, it's a grace from God.
And that, Lord, instead of depending on those things, we would be people that would always
depend on you and know that it is in your name, only in your name that we are saved.
And we thank you for that. And God, I pray, Lord, that every single believer in this room, Lord,
would take that commission. That God, as they think about, well, how are people going to be saved if
they don't believe? And how are they going to believe without hearing the message? And how are
they going to hear it if someone hasn't sent? That, Lord, they would take the commission that
you've given to every single one of us to go into all the world and to preach the gospel of Jesus
Christ. That we would lead people to you and see them get baptized in a public confession of that
and then move forward living a life that glorifies your name. God, we thank you so much and we love
you. We ask that you would continue to increase our faith. That you would continue to use us,
Lord, yes, to do things and to invent things and to accomplish things, but, Lord, most importantly,
to be known as people who call on the name of the Lord, to be known as people who are
called on the name of the Lord, to be known as people who proclaim who you are
above and beyond everything else. God, we love you. We thank you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen.