Through the Bible with Les Feldick
LESSON 2 * PART 4 * BOOK 2
Cain and Abel
Genesis 4:1 –5:24
Now let’s pick up again where we left off last lesson, and that would be in Genesis chapter 4, and we’ll start back at verse 16. Now for a little review, I want you to remember that after Cain murdered his brother Abel, he continued to be rebellious, and he leaves the very presence of the Lord, with nothing more to do with Him. I think perhaps after Adam and Eve had to leave the Garden of Eden they would return in the vicinity of the Garden to sacrifice to the Lord.
Genesis 3:23-24
“Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. 24. So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.”
So I would agree with those who would maintain that this probably was the place that this first family met the Lord with their sacrifices. It was probably a designated place that they would come to this area of an angelic gatekeeper with their sacrifice, and that’s where the Lord met them.
Well anyway, Cain just totally removes himself from any contact with God, and goes out from the presence of the Lord as it says in verse 16, and he began to build a civilization. Now the question came up after our last lesson, “Well who does Cain marry?” Well it’s very obvious that these early families married sisters and gradually they married cousins, and next of kin. Now that sounds awful to us, but you want to remember back here at the beginning human history, the physical makeup, the gene makeup was so pure, and so perfect that there wasn’t any problem with inner-marriage of next of kin.
In fact all through the Scriptures until after the time of Abraham they married next of kin. In fact Abraham himself married a half sister. So it wasn’t until sometime later that God put a taboo on close relatives marrying because by now you see the gene pool had degenerated to a place where it was causing genetic problems. So don’t have a problem with that back here at the dawn of the human race, because they were so pure. Their gene pool, as we use the term, was so perfect that it didn’t cause any problem whatsoever. Cain now then takes a wife from the daughters of Adam and Eve, as we’ll see in chapter 5. You want to remember that Adam and Eve had far more children than just Cain and Abel. Now verse 17.
Genesis 4:17a
“And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch; and he builded a city,…” (not the Enoch that walked with God in chapter 5)
As we discussed in the last lesson, they didn’t become cave dwellers, and uncivilized wild people, but rather they immediately began with the very core of civilization, because the first thing humans do when they’re civilized, they congregate together and form communities. So he built a city, and called the name of the city after his son’s name, Enoch.
Remember now as these families are beginning to enlarge, keep in mind there many years going by. We’re not talking about just a couple of years when all this is taking place. Remember Adam lived 930 years, and that’s hard for us to comprehend. And in that period of time Adam and Eve continued to have sons and daughters, and their children lived that long and had sons and daughters. And again remember the race was so pure that there wasn’t much death and sickness or diseases so they were profound in their populating the earth. Now come on down to verse 20
Genesis 4:20
“And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have cattle.”
Now there you have your domestic animals, livestock production and ranching in full bloom. So you’ve already got people living in a city, a good number of people living in a concentrated area, but out over the countryside, now there are those who are beginning to raise herds of livestock. Now verse 21.
Genesis 4:21
“And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.”
Now what have we got? Music and musicians. And I always say that this isn’t the little old tonette that most of us learned our first 4 or 5 notes on, but rather these were the complicated instruments, the harp and the organ. So every thing is coming together now. We’ve got city dwellers, we’ve got livestock people, and we’ve now got music, and along with the music, I’ll just put in all the aspects of culture. Now let’s read again.
Genesis 4:22
“And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron:…”
Now again you go back to secular history and the evolutionists, and they maintain that the human race didn’t know anything of metals until way, way, down the line. Well here we are at the very dawn of human history and according to Biblical account they were already mining the ore so that they could put brass together, and their iron, and now we see they’re manufacturing with it. They are beginning to produce things made with these metals. Now put all that together and what have you got? You’ve got a civilization beginning to bloom, and grow, and its technology is going to explode.
Now when I say explode, all I have to do is call to your mind how much of what we take for granted today was evident back then. Let’s just go back to World War II, some of you are old enough to remember that far back. From 1940 on up to where we are today, about 50 years, do you realize what an explosion of technology that we’ve experienced? I read here not too long ago that about 80% of the items that are in your supermarket tonight were unknown in 1945. So if we look at a period of time from Adam to the flood a period of over 1600 years, and they’re starting out this well, can you imagine what they had by the time we get to Noah’s Flood.
I like to think that the technology and life style of the pre-flood people just before the flood was equal to or surpassed to where we are tonight, and there’s evidence of that. There’s a little paper back book, by the name “We’re not the first.” I wish I could remember the author’s name but I can’t. The author is certainly not a Bible believer, and he writes all of his information just from what he’s gathered from archeology and other, and shows ample proof that at some point in our human history there were people who had space travel, they knew air travel, they had computers, they had the storage battery that we use in our cars. They’ve even found replicas of the internal combustion spark plug. Now we know that none of that was evident after the flood, so it had to have been before the flood.
In this Cainitic civilization there was a literal explosion of knowledge and technology. Now why can I say that? Number 1. Adam was a perfect human being. Adam had a mind that would probably blow ours, and his children were not that much below him. And on top of that tremendous intelligence, look at all the years they had to use it. What if Einstein, who died if I can remember correctly at the age of 90 or 91, could have lived to the age of 900? Can you imagine what that mind would have produced? Or an Edison or any of these great men who have been responsible for so much of our technology, what if they could have lived ten times longer than they did? Can you see what would have happened? And that’s what you’ve got here before the flood. You’ve got people with tremendous intelligence, but they had 900 years of time to use it. So I stick by my guns that there was tremendous technology on the scene by the time we come to the flood. But always remember, where were most of the people spiritually? Out there in utter darkness. Without God it’s a Satanic inspired civilization.
Now just look at our own time, with all the things that man is accomplishing, and we enjoy all of it. But really how much of it is to glorify God? Now when I talk about our technology, I’m talking about our transportation, our air travel, look at our technology in the recent war, including our smart bombs, and what have you. Is God the architect of all that? Why no.
Remember that Satan will promote anything, even a beautiful city park, or work of art. Satan will promote anything as long as it will keep men’s eyes and hearts from God, so never forget that. The world tonight is Satan’s domain, the world is his, and I pointed that out a few weeks ago at the temptations with the Lord Jesus back there in Matthew chapter 4. And when Satan offered Christ the kingdoms of this world if He would fall down and worship him, was he sincere? Sure he was, because they were his to offer. They won’t always be, but tonight he is still the god of this world according to Paul’s writings.
So this Cainitic civilization then is driven by the very forces of Satan. If this will help you understand this a little better, consider what was the state of this great civilization by the time we get to Noah’s flood. In spite of all their intelligence, and all their technology, where had they gone morally and spiritually? They’ve hit rock bottom! That should tell you again that Satan was driving it.
So now let’s come on down to verse 23. Here, if I’m not mistaken, we have the first instance of multiple wives or polygamy. Lamech actually took these two wives up in verse 19.
Genesis 4:23
“And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.”
Do you really know what he’s saying? I have killed a man who was trying to kill me. Lamech killed in self defense we would call it today. Now verse 24.
Genesis 4:24
“If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.”
Now I can’t put a lot on that except to say that here again there was no human government or system of justice to maintain law and order. Now by the time we get chapter 6 which may be in these next few moments, but I doubt it, we’re going to see that the thing that I think came before the heart of God, more than anything else in that pre-flood civilization was the “Murder!” They were killing each other just left and right, and we’re seeing just a little bit of that in our society today aren’t we? Every news cast, what do we hear? Murder.
I read way back in the middle 70’s and at that time Detroit was the murder capital of the country, it’s changed now to Washington D.C. But at that time some statisticians had put together a set of numbers that a baby born in Detroit during that era had something like a one-in-three chance of being murdered by the time he was 25. Now we can hardly comprehend that, but that was just the situation that existed in this pre-flood Cainitic civilization. They had a tremendous society, but as Jesus refers to it in Luke’s gospel
Luke 17: 26-27
“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. 27. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.”
Those people were as busy as a colony of ants, and our society today is doing the same thing, to include all the building that is going on. So if you’ve ever had the idea that those of the pre-flood civilization were cave dwellers, I hope you will forget that, because these people had everything going for them. They had cities; they had manufacturing; they had music and culture; that had livestock production. And as I said before, whenever you have a society living in a city environment you have just as many people or more working in areas of service as you have in areas of production.
Now let’s leave that Cainitic civilization for just a moment and go on to verse 25, and God is going to pick up and bring on the scene a replacement for the spritual man that was murdered by Cain, a replacement for Abel. Now again I imagine that Satan thought that he had already “licked’ God before things had gotten too far by removing the “Spritual Seed,” Abel. But God in His sovereignty comes back through Adam and Eve who have another child who is a special individual because he is to replace Abel.
Genesis 4:25a
“And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth:…”
Now you want to remember that name because out of him will come genealogy the man Noah and eventually Christ. Now finishing the verse.
Genesis 4:25b-26
“…For God said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. 26. And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD”
Now maybe we can go to the board and show what Eve had in mind when she said that “God has given her another seed.” Now there comes that word “seed” again. Remember what we’re always keeping in mind is the Seed of the woman. Now as the seed came down from Adam, the next one was Abel, who was murdered, so God replaced him with Seth. Now through the line of Seth will come Noah, and through the three sons of Noah we have Ham, Shem and Japheth. Then from the line of Shem we come right on down to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And through the 12 sons of Jacob we have the formation of the nation of Israel, and then through the nation of Israel, the line of King David, and David’s son Solomon, and then the genealogy follows all the way to the birth of the Messiah.
Now that’s all based on that word “Seed of the woman” in Genesis 3:15, and we know God keeps it all the way through. Now this is why I just can’t comprehend men who claim to be students of the Bible, learned men, theologians, and they can’t comprehend this. They try to tell the world that the Bible is not entirely the Word of God, and they tell the world that Christ never claimed to be God. Well the whole idea of Scripture is beginning with “The Seed of the woman”. Beginning with Eve, and through this Godly line it would all end up with the coming of Christ the Redeemer, in whom as He told Abraham “that all the families of the earth would be blessed.” All we have to do is search the Scriptures and all this becomes evident.
Now in the time we have left, let’s go on into chapter 5 and verse 1.
Genesis 5;1-2
This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him: 2. Male and female created he them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, (remember we referred to that in one of our earlier lessons) in the day when they were created.”
Genesis 5:3
“And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth; 4. And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters;” (plural)
Sons and daughters, and we have no idea how many children Adam and Eve had just between the two of them. Now verse 5.
Genesis 5:5
“And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died.”
Remember when were back in Genesis chapter 3, and when he ate of that forbidden fruit, he died spiritually immediately, but physically the seeds of death began, and even though he lived 930 years yet that promise finally caught up with him, and Adam too died.
Now let’s move on down to the next verses, and we’ll be ready for the flood in our next lesson hopefully. So we come through the line of Seth, and we don’t have to concern ourselves with every one of these, because I’ve already shown you the Scripture is so explicit in how the “Seed of the woman.” would finally come on the scene, and how Israel’s Messiah would come through that Godly line of Seth, who takes Abel’s place. So let’s pick up the genealogy of the Spritual man Seth:
Genesis 5:6
“And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos:”
Then come down through all these gentlemen and their sons, and so forth, and now come down to verse 22 where we have Enoch who was the father of Methuselah the man who lived the longest of any of them.
Genesis 5:22-24
“And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: 23. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: 24. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not: for God took him.”
In other words, Enoch was here one moment and gone the next, and we have no record that Enoch died. He was, I think, a beautiful picture in type of the Rapture of the Church. Now I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again that there is nothing spoken in the Old Testament about the Church, but I have to feel that this is a picture in type of what’s going to happen to the Church just before judgment falls. And the judgment that is about to fall here in Genesis is the flood. And just shortly before the judgment of the flood this Godly representative, Enoch is suddenly translated, he disappears.
Enoch believe, it or not, left us some tremendous prophecy before he left the scene, and so let’s look at that in the Book of Jude. I think most of you are aware that I certainly believe in the imminent return of Christ for His Body, the Church, the True Believers! And as I’ve already spoken the event of Enoch translation, I think is a picture in type of the Church being suddenly snatched away the same way that Enoch was. But I like to point out that this man Enoch prophesied of things that are approaching even our own day and time.
Jude 1:14
“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his (not angels, but rather His) saints, 15. To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinner have spoken against him.”
But the thing I want to point out is, that this man Enoch who was translated just shortly before the judgment of the flood was able to leave the prophetic statement that Christ is going to return with the ten thousands of his saints. Well the first thing I have to say is, how can He return with the saints, unless He takes the saints out first?
So the whole concept of our chronology is that the Lord will take the Church out one day we think rather soon, although we never try to put a date on it, but in the minute we have left, turn with me to Revelation chapter 3, because a question came up in our class last night, “Will the Church, the Body of Christ, go into the Tribulation? And I maintain that we will not, no more than Enoch went into the flood. This passage is to the Church at Philadelphia which was representative of all true believers. And to them in verse 10 the Lord Jesus says:
Revelation 3:10
“Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, (or testing) which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”
Now the only time that would fit would be in the Tribulation seven year period. But here the Lord Jesus is promising the True Believer, the ones who believe for their salvation: “that Jesus died for their sins, was buried and rose again,” He is promising that we will be kept from that hour of awful testing that will come upon all the world. So if we’re a believer tonight we can rest and take hope that one day soon we’re going to be snatched away in His presence.