“The Legacy of Cain”
(Genesis 4:1-26)
We all leave a legacy. Some are very noticeable, some not so much. The Killarney Hotel will leave a legacy especially for those who have lived in Killarney for a long time. Our parents all wonder what our legacy will be when we are born, as we do of our children, and there are high hopes at birth for sure.
Good or bad, these legacies can affect history, and in the case of Cain, the first child of humans, his horrible legacy has lived on for thousands of years as a testament to what human jealousy and anger can do. A legacy that unfortunately humans continue to leave all too often. But thankfully that isn’t the whole story.
Let’s look at Cain’s legacy today, and what can be learned from it. There was:
I. Spiritual Wreckage (vv 1-15)
Starting with:
A. The Killing of His Brother (vv 1-8) - but let’s first look at:
1. The Rejection of His Offering (vv 1-5a)
Eve said of the birth of Cain, “that she had gotten a man” and she likely believed this was the saving seed the Lord promised her. By naming her next son Abel she may have shown that she didn’t think he was too important, her expectations were tied up with Cain. Abel literally means “in vain, or temporary” indicating the shortness of life he would have. This also reflects a type of Jesus. “The good shepherd who was killed prematurely because of jealousy.” The difference of course being that Jesus death was not “in vain”. Jesus didn’t meet the expectations of a savior either, yet he was the savior.
Notice the difference in Cain and Abel’s occupations – One, Abel, like Jesus, the shepherd, the other, Cain, like Adam the farmer. Neither are bad or good occupations, but the symbolism is important here.
Notice also the difference in the offerings. Remember there were no specific instructions that we know of yet for making offerings to the Lord. Cain brought some of what he grew, probably not the choicest stuff, while Abel gave the very best of what he had.
There is also a likelihood that Cain knew that blood sacrifices were necessary for God, after knowing that the Lord sacrificed animals for his parents to make them clothes. But most importantly is the condition of the heart when making the offering. Many scholars believe that God already perceived a heart of sin in Cain.
So Cain gets called on his less than ideal offering and is angry with his own blunder, yet blames his brother, and ultimately God for his own character defects and attitude.
So, much like we had the beginnings of marital discord last time we were in Genesis, now we have the beginning of sibling rivalry. So we see:
2. The Resentment in His Spirit (v. 5b)
Cain is displaying an attitude that many non-Christians have about Christians. There is often indignation from those who don’t believe they deserve to be in God’s favor, derogatory statements like, “Christians are a bunch of do-gooders, hypocrites etc.” Often this reflects their deep wish to be reconciled and accepted by God, but instead they have anger toward those who are.
So often we exhibit anger instead of repentance when we are accused of doing something wrong. Very often after a time has passed, the anger subsides and guilt and sorrow take its place. Once again there is a lesson here to just confess and repent when we are caught, so that we can avoid long-term inner turmoil, though we may still have to deal with the consequences of our actions. In verses 6 and 7 we have:
3. The Response to His Attitude (vv 6-7)
God says in essence, “what are you so mad about? If you do things as I ask with your heart in it, I will be happy, but when you don’t, watch out, cause sin is waiting to take over. The expression used for sin here “desiring to have you”, is the same that was used when Eve’s desire will be “for her husband”, meaning to rule over. So sin is waiting to rule over us.
God is trying to advise Cain and bring him back to himself, but Cain wants no part of it. He doesn’t want to hear the truth.
4. The Result of His Jealousy (v. 8)
So the logical thing to do was kill his brother right? That will surely get him back in God’s good books. Why did Cain murder his brother? 1 John 3:12 says: “We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous.”
Human beings tend to try to get rid of those who make them look bad, rather than trying to be more like those who make them look bad. Human logic can be very messed up especially when it’s influenced by fleshly emotions like jealousy, which just happens to be the number one motive for murder even today.
B. The Curse of God (vv 9-15)
1. Cain’s Presumption (v. 9)
Cain in essence says: “Oh for crying out loud God will you just leave me alone or kill me already.” Satan has a firm hold on Cain by this time, and Cain presumes that God will just bury him with his brother after what he did.
But again, even after the first murder in the history of mankind, the Lord asks a question to provide an opportunity for repentance as he did with Adam. Still, Cain flat out lies to God and shows no remorse, never mind repentance, for what he has done. We can’t say that God doesn’t give second chances. So God has no choice but to implement:
2. Cain’s Punishment (vv 10-12)
“What have you done?” Another of God’s rhetorical questions aimed at allowing Cain to confess and repent, just as he did with Cain’s parents in the Garden of Eden.
Let’s take a little trip over to the book of Hebrews. We look at Hebrews 11:4, “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.”
Abel’s spilled blood speaks out against those who do violence to others, but in Hebrews 12:24, the writer says that “Jesus’ blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.” It is even more righteous, and the murder of Abel cried out for vengeance, but the murder of Jesus became a proclamation of grace. Grace is bigger than sin, bigger than vengeance.
Cain didn’t receive the expected death penalty, this wasn’t implemented until Genesis 9, but he was “cursed from the ground”. The ground will no longer give him anything and he will be wandering restlessly for the rest of his days separate from God. I’m not so sure this wasn’t God keeping him alive to suffer and be an example to others. But also implied in this punishment is the ability to still repent, in fact he probably lived about as long as everyone else, likely about 700-900 years. But it appears he never got it.
3. Cain’s Self-Pity (vv 13-14)
Whining and complaining about the natural consequences of his behavior. Should he not be grateful that God didn’t zap him right there? Again this represents a sense of sorrow for getting caught and having consequences, but no repentance just as we saw with Adam and Eve.
He says his punishment is too much to bear. Here he is likely wishing that God would just end his life. He seems to be complaining that somebody is going to kill him anyway, so could you just get it over with so I don’t have to be looking over my shoulder all the time? But God says, “no, that’s too easy, in fact, I am going to mark you so everyone knows who you are, but if they try to touch you, you are going to be responsible for their death too. Nope, you and everyone you meet are going to be reminded of what you have done for hundreds of years, your guilt and shame will have no end.” So what about…
4. Cain’s Protection (v. 15)
Is this a blessing? I don’t think so. This is the beginning of a race of carnage because of which God sent the flood a couple chapters later. I doubt Cain had a happy life.
II. An Unrighteous Lineage (vv 16-24)
A. A Lineage of Pride (vv 16-17)
Earlier, when Cain was born, Eve honored the Lord by giving Him credit for her children. What does Cain do? He builds a city and names it after his son. He doesn’t honor God at all, but only himself and his offspring.
By the way this first son is not the famous Enoch that will come later, who was one of the few people in the Bible that was taken up to God before he died, as we will read next week. We will see that God does not honor Cain’s line either. Next week we hear about the glorious line of Adam through Seth, but there is never any more mention of any of Cain’s offspring.
We will see that Lamech and Seth are both from the 7th generation after Adam, a number of completeness in Hebrew. And this is where the split of the lineage of the two “seeds” is emphasized, one of the snake through Cain, and one of the “woman” through Seth.
B. A Lineage of Passion (vv 18-19)
They kept pumping out the children and by the time we get to Lamech, one wife was not enough, clearly spitting in the face of “one flesh” as God intended. Nothing was good enough for this line of sinners. Not only would two wives fulfill his lust more effectively, but would also allow him to produce more offspring and thus have more power. So it was also …
C. A Lineage of Power (vv 20-24)
We now start to see the beginnings of culture through man, not God. Man is moving more and more toward independence from God. This is the start of what we see in our world today, a wonderful exhibit to show man’s ingenuity and power, but very little of it giving any glory to God. Aren’t we humans amazing, look what we can do?
In verses 23-24 Lamech writes what is the first published poem, and it is a poem of boastful revenge and threat to his two wives. What a touching piece of art. He is boasting about his independence from God and taking things into his own hands. Notice that Jesus counters Lamech’s use of seventy seven times for revenge, and instead uses it for forgiveness in Mathew 18 when he is asked how many times we should forgive.
Starting with Cain now, cities started to get built. Most scholars see this as an effort to thwart the wandering curse that was pronounced on Cain’s line. Clearly it didn’t work as the flood wiped it all out because cities simply allowed sin to be more condensed and powerful, compared to what wandering individuals would have been capable of.
It’s unfortunate when we look here that much of human “progress” was actually a response to get around the curse God put on us, rather than a way to honor God. One has to wonder if it has changed much.
Finally we see,
III. A Contrasting Heritage (vv 25-26)
The Cainites were clearly perpetuating the seed of the evil one, but finally at the end of the chapter God grants Adam and Eve “one to replace Abel” and once again God is in the forefront. God literally “appointed” (that is what Seth’s name sounds like in Hebrew) this replacement who becomes the source of the seed of the savior, and we read, “… at that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.” Lamech sought independence from God, Seth and his descendents sought dependence on the Lord.
The question for us becomes which line do we choose to affiliate with? It is not a blood issue anymore, they all came from Adam and Eve, but we get to choose our line because God fathered Jesus himself and broke the cursed bloodline. Isn’t His plan amazing?
God’s plan that will never be thwarted prevails as He creates the line that will bring Jesus through Seth. Satan can keep on trying, but God just confidently finds ways to ensure the demise of Satan. He is always one step ahead.
These are not terribly positive stories about humanity in Genesis, once we get through the glory of God’s creation anyway. Throughout the Old Testament God takes so many verses to tell us how awful we are, then usually sneaks a verse or two in there at the end to show that he still cares and is still in charge, in spite of our nature. We keep thinking we’re so good? This is why we need the whole Bible. If Genesis had never been found, we wouldn’t have nearly as much understanding of why Jesus had to come and die for us.
But God is also showing us how merciful he is. That through all of this, he has continued to keep fellowship with us. We read the Old Testament to see why there is no good reason for God to want to have anything to do with us. I said weeks ago that we are to find ourselves in this story, not just as wicked sinners, which we are even if not by our behavior, but definitely by association, … but also as the precious creation that we are in God’s eyes. We need to see the great patience and grace that He has shown from the very beginning.
He also wants us to have confidence, that with Him all is under control. It’s almost like he tries to build us up with fear and knowledge of our helplessness, then comforts us with, “don’t worry, stick with me and it will all work out in the end. I don’t have to go into great detail, you just need to know that I have it handled, that everything is proceeding as planned.”
You know what it reminds me of? Remember the first Indiana Jones Movie, where for several seconds this crazy and skilled guy is threatening Indiana by whirling this sword around with incredible flash, then in an instant, Jones calmly, with mild irritation, pulls out his gun and bang its over.
This is a picture of how we need to be with God. God is our gun here and no matter how bad things appear, we simply need to rely on Him and trust Him. We don’t have to worry with God, but we better worry without him.
Most importantly though, we need to see that God has never abandoned us, it is always our choice to disconnect from Him. Oh, how I pray that we will choose Him this Christmas season, and hang on for dear life for the rest of our lives. We don’t know how long we have, it sure isn’t 900 years, so if you haven’t decided, do it now, what have you got to lose versus what you have to gain?
I would like to close in prayer and preparation for the offering.
Heavenly Father and sovereign Lord of all history, we come to you with humble hearts. You have had every reason to leave us to ourselves, yet your mercy is infinite and beyond our understanding. We think of Cain’s legacy today, but we also celebrate the legacy of the Lord Jesus this time of year. There is nothing we can do to show our appreciation enough, but let us ensure that our intent is to give you our best gifts this Christmas season. Let us come to you as Abel, in reverence for the birth of your son who saved us and gave us life.
So we give to you now Lord, and may we have Abel’s heart. That we give you our first fruits out of gratitude knowing that we could give you everything we have everyday, and it would never be enough to thank you for your patience, mercy, and sacrifice. Nevertheless Father please accept our gift to you, bless it and ensure that it goes to serve your will in the furthering of your Kingdom. For we pray in the holy name of Jesus who gave it all. Amen.
