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"If you’re able, please stand...” Reading Genesis 4:1–7 “...thanks be to God.”
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The catalyst for the tragedy is that a brother kills his own brother (King Hamlet). This sets the whole series of events in motion. Eventually all the main characters will die.
But in the play there are hints of redemption.
In our passage there is also the tragey of a brother killing a brother. But where Hamlet gives only hints of redemption, the Bible proclaims it!
Our passage is a reminder in our passage of why we need Christmas. Not holiday traditions. But what it all points to, the coming of the Messiah, the Christ!
Let’s review the storyline so far.
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” (Gen 3:15)
Series: Right from the Start. The reality of sin, the need for a Savior. These were there from the earliest parts of the Bible’s storyline.
Sermon: (1) Cain and Abel; (2) Cain and Culture; (3) Seth and Promise
Prayer
The chapter opens by jumping into the story of the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain is the firstborn. Eve names him “Cain,” which sounds like the Hebrew for “get” since she “got” a man-child with the help of the LORD, Yahweh.
Then Adam and Eve have a second child, Abel. The name Abel means “vapor” or “vanity” as in “all is vanity” from Ecclesiastes (Eccl 1:2). It’s not a statement about his character. It’s prophetic about what’s about to happen to him. His life will be cut short, like a vapor in the morning.
Abel a shepherd (“a keeper of sheep”) and Cain a farmer. Both are worthy occupations.
It’s when the issue turns to worship that we see the real difference between these two men.
Cain brings “an offering of the fruit of the ground” (Gen 4:3). It’s “fruit of the ground,” but it’s not “an offering of firstfruits” (Lev 2:12). It’s an offering but not the choicest and first portion.
But Abel sacrifices “the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions” (Gen 4:4). The best of his animals are given to the LORD.
Abel’s better sacrifice from Hebrews 11:
By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. (Heb 11:4)
The LORD honors Abel for his sacrifice but not Cain. “For Cain and his offering he had no regard” (Gen 4:5).
And Cain reacted. He was mad. “Exceedingly angry” in the Hebrew.
The LORD comes to Cain and appeals to him to change directions. The LORD asks, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?” (Gen 4:6–7a). In other words, it’s not too late. There’s still time to change. Favor with God is within his reach if he will only go after it.
And then God vividly describes the presence of sin in Cain’s heart: “If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. It’s desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it” (Gen 4:7).
“Sin is crouching” and ready to pounce. It’s an echo of God’s word to the serpent that the serpent would bruise the heel of the offspring of the woman. Low and ready to strike.
So far he has only been angry in his heart. If he’s not careful, his anger is going to spill over into an action he can’t undo. As God says, “you must rule over it” (Gen 4:7).
Rule over your sin or your sin will rule over you. That’s what we’re seeing here. You can’t agree on a cease-fire when it comes to sin. It’s either conquering you, or you’re conquering sin.
Now let’s read the sad conclusion to this sibling rivalry.
Read Genesis 4:8–16.
In a fit of irrational and uncontrollable rage, Cain kills his brother. He kills his brother, because his brother had been regarded by the LORD and he wasn’t.
The sin crouching in his heart sprang to life and ruled over Cain. He gave in to it and killed his brother.
It was a premeditated act of murder. Not a heat of passion incident. But long enough to have a conversation with the living God and then turn back to his evil intent.
And in that moment Cain revealed himself for what he was truly. Adam and Eve hoped their firstborn would be the promised one. The one who was to be the Serpent-crusher. A literal Dragon Slayer. No. He proved instead to be a brother-killer.
And worse.
In he New Testament Cain is described as one of the offspring of the serpent:
For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one [ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ] and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. (1 John 3:11-12)
Jesus will speak of the Pharisees in a similar light:
You are of your father the devil [ἐκ τοῦ πατρὸς τοῦ διαβόλου], and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (John 8:44)
APPLICATION: The process of sin.
First it lodges in our mind and heart. THEN it crouches in our heart and waits. And THEN it springs to action and we commit the act.
Cain’s anger was sin. His angry thoughts were sin. But these were not nearly as bad as the murder his anger brought.
Rule over your sin, or your sin will rule over you.
APPLICATION: “love one another” and don’t be like Cain (1 John 3:11–12). In the body of Christ we are “brothers and sisters” (Matt 23:8). For that reason we are to serve one another as equals. We might have different roles in the church, but we are to see each other as “brothers and sisters” and so equals in Christ. There isn’t to be any sinful partiality—no partiality because of wealth, no partiality because of race, no partiality because of sex, no partiality because of education.
Read Genesis 4:17–24.
This section carries the story of Cain through seven generations of Cain’s family.
In these seven generations we get a glimpse of the cultural mandate—back in Genesis 1 Adam and Eve were told to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). That blessing from God as a command to cultivate and develop what you are given.
Originally it was the garden in Eden. But the mandate remains even though we live east of Eden now.
In these seven generations of Canaan we see that. But it’s the cultural mandate without a fear of God. It’s people expanding culture without a fear of God.
Two big lessons.
The first is that God is gracious. He we find him giving “common grace” even where he does not give “special grace” (Vos, BT, 45). “Common grace” is grace from God that is common to all humanity.
When medicines are developed, that’s a grace given by God that is a blessing for all humanity and not just the people of God. It’s a common grace.
In these generations of Cain we see a common grace of invention and ingenuity.
City-Building: Cain named a city after his son Enoch (Gen 4:17).
Culture-Building:
As Christians we can celebrate the good work that unbelievers do and the grace of God that brings it.
But the second big lesson is also here. Right alongside this invention and ingenuity is depravity that is out of control.
Five generations after Cain comes Lamech. He is a picture of sin going totally out of control (Gen 4:19–24).
He takes two wives, the first polygamist.
And then he’ll write a poem celebrating his own ruthlessness—he killed “a young man for striking me” (Gen 4:23).
He compares himself to Cain, his ancestor. The LORD told Cain he would be avenged “sevenfold” if someone tried to kill him (Gen 4:15). Lamech boasts that it will be “seventy-sevenfold” for him (Gen 4:24).
He’s celebrating how terrible he is. It’s the first gangsta rap.
By the end of this section we realize something of the sheer sinfulness of sin. We see its massive destructive power. It destroys beautiful and godly things. It acts out of a self-centeredness.
Derek Kidner:
The beginnings of civilized life show a characteristic potentiality for good and evil, with the arts that will bless mankind flanked by abuses (19, 23, 24) that will curse it....A biased account would have ascribed nothing good to Cain. The truth is more complex: God was to make much use of Cainite techniques for His people, from the semi-nomadic discipline itself (4:20; cf. Heb 11:9) to the civilized arts and crafts (e.g., Ex 35:35). The phrase he was the father of all such acknowledges the debt and prepares us to accept for ourselves a similar indebtedness to secular enterprise; for the Bible nowhere teaches that the godly should have all the gifts. At the same time we are saved from over-valuing these skills: the family of Lamech could handle its environment but not itself. The attempt to improve on God’s marriage ordinance (4:19; cf. 2:24) set a disastrous precedent, on which the rest of Genesis is comment enough....Cain’s family is a microcosm: its pattern of technical prowess and moral failure is that of humanity.
Derek Kidner, Genesis[1]
But by the end of this chapter, Cain’s name will not be spoken again for the rest of the Old Testament. He is a picture of ruthlessness and worldly accomplishment—with no enduring significance.
APPLICATION: See culture rightly. Common grace abounds—but so does a destructive depravity.
Read Genesis 4:25–26.
Here we get the end of the section that began in Genesis 2:4. We’ll see that Moses often puts a little teaser at the end of a section. Here he mentions Seth in two verses. At the start of the next section he’ll begin with Seth and then give you more of Adam’s line.
This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created. 3 When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters. 5 Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. (Gen 5:1-5)
130 years old! Both Adam and Eve are that old.
Once again the name of the son has significance. “Cain” sounds like the Hebrew for “get,” since Eve had “gotten a man-child with the help of the LORD [Yahweh]” (Gen 4:1).
But here Seth’s name is a sign of a more mature faith. Now Eve speaks of the way “God [Elohim] appointed for me another offspring.”
“Offspring” takes us back to an earlier word in Genesis 3:15, the first gospel.
God promised than an “offspring” of Eve would crush the head of the serpent. It wasn’t Cain. It wasn’t Abel. Maybe this “offspring” would be the one?
The end of chapter 4 is a note of profound hope: “At that time people began to call upon the name of the LORD” (Gen 4:26).
The line of Seth isn’t marked by all the cultural invention that is part of the line of Cain. He leaves a different legacy, the legacy of “calling upon the name of the LORD.”
The difference?
It’s good to remember the family drama here. This is a Bible story with great theological significance. But there’s also a husband and wife here dealing with an unspeakable tragedy.
And how much more tragic since eventually they certainly connected their own sin in the Garden and the sins of Cain and his family line.
When they sinned in the Garden they were told they would “surely die.” And eventually they will. But before they die physically they’ll experience what their sin brought—the first murder. And it was one of their sons killing another of their sons.
There’s destruction because of sin. There’s also tragedy and profound sadness because of sin.
King Claudius’ prayer in Hamlet. “What if this cursed hand were thicker than itself with brother’s blood, Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens to wash it white as snow?” (Hamlet, III.iii.43–46)
No rain can wash away our sin. But the blood of Christ can.
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. (Heb 12:22-24)
The blood of Abel spoke a word of murder and destruction. The blood of Jesus speaks a better word: a word of hope, of redemption! Of forgiven sin!
That’s why we need Christmas—not presents and Christmas trees. But the reality that these celebrations point to.
The reality of Christ as the promised Son who is the Serpent-crusher.
You can hear the echo of Genesis 3:15 in this destruction of Christ coming:
When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” (Gal 4:1-6)
PRACTICAL:
(1) Where are you living like a Cain?
(2) In your parenting, are you teaching your children to be like Seth, “people began to call upon the name of the LORD” (Gen 4:26).
Prayer and Song, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”
[1] Derek Kidner, Genesis, TOTC (Downers Grove: Inter-Varsity, 1967), 76–78.
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