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Bob Davis: Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." Instead of saying my guilt is more than I can bear, "My punishment is too harsh. I want another lawyer. I want a retrial. I want to get a lighter sentence."

Everybody, for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. We can have eternal life, but to do it, we've got to humble ourselves.

Guest (Male): Welcome to Apply Within, a verse-by-verse study of the Word of God with Pastor Bob Davis of North Country Chapel. We invite you to join with us as we, by the power of God's Holy Spirit, apply His Word within our own hearts as we study line upon line, precept upon precept, verse by verse through the Bible. Our study of Genesis chapter four continues in verse 10, as Cain and his descendants deal with the aftermath of Cain's sin. Here's Pastor Bob.

Bob Davis: Now we come to Cain and Abel. And Abel was a shepherd. He took care of the sheep, the flocks, the herds. Cain was a tiller of the soil. He was a gardener, a farmer kind of guy. And Abel brought a sacrifice to the Lord, and so did Cain. Meaning their parents have taught them, "This is what we do. This is how we worship our God."

But Cain, his offering—that's the word I want—was rejected. Not because God doesn't love Cain. God loves Cain, but it was not from the heart. Cain did it because you're supposed to. When you give to God, you give from your heart, willingly. God loves a cheerful giver. When you serve the Lord, you give willingly. You serve because you want to.

And Cain listened to God, but he didn't listen to God. He was still mad, he was still bitter, he was still angry. "Hey, I'm just as good as my brother, matter of fact, probably better." So Cain talks with—verse 8—Cain talked with his brother and it came to pass when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and he murdered him.

Remember, God called him and asked him some questions. "Where is Abel, verse 9, your brother? Where is your brother?" And he said, "I don't know, am I my brother's keeper?" The Lord rebukes Cain and He says, "Your brother's blood cries out from the ground." Abel's blood is crying out from the ground. And what's the blood crying out? Murder, death.

Just as the Lord God did with Adam and Eve, just exactly as He did with them, He didn't just leave Cain alone. He came to him and said, "What are you doing? I know what's in your heart. Stop that." "Well, I'm hurt." Well, hurt is an emotion, and you're allowed an emotion. Okay, you've been hurt. Get up now and get over it. Come on.

And Cain—and He says, "You know, because sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is to crush you and destroy you and ruin your life." And Cain wouldn't listen. God knows where Cain's brother is, but He asks the question. Our Lord does that to us even today, not to get information from you—God knows everything—but to give sinners like Cain and me and you, because all we like sheep have gone astray, we've turned everyone to his own way, remember? All have sinned and come short of the glory of God.

So yeah, if you don't think you're a sinner, you'll never ask for a Savior because you won't think you're lost. You've got to be able to admit, all of us, that we are sinners, and then at that point, if you sincerely believe that, you're going to say, "I need a Savior." And the Holy Spirit's going to say, "Jesus Christ," right?

And so some of you have already received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, true? You had to have acknowledged that you needed a Savior to even ask for one. And you heard the Gospel and you said, "That's for me. I need Jesus." That's what God is asking Cain. He asks a question not to get information, but to give the sinner the opportunity to think it through and go ahead and tell the truth and confess. Cain didn't do it. He didn't do it.

So verse 11, "And now..." He didn't confess, everyone. If we don't confess, we're carrying our own. Do Christians sin? Yes, we're all experts at it. So what do we do? First John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," right? So we're going to confess. Cain refuses to confess. He's not going to do it.

So let's read it. "Now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened her mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand." Cain brought the curse, and it's from the earth on himself, right? "When you till the soil from now on—and that's what you've been working in, remember, he brought that sacrifice from what he had grown in the ground—when you till the soil from now on, it will not, from here on out, henceforth, yield unto you her strength."

You're going to be planting and working, and a lot's not going to grow because you murdered, and your brother's blood cries out. And God has given him the chance to come clean. What if he'd just said, "Lord, I confess it. I murdered my brother with malice in my heart. I confess it." What do you think God would have done?

God would have forgiven him just the way Adam and Eve, and he would—God has already made a way, and his parents have told him, God has already made a way. There's a promise of Messiah coming. Nobody knows when. They're looking for him every day, right back then like we are now. But God made a way. He had to know that.

But instead of confessing, he just stands there, "Cause I'm mad now, you know. And when I'm mad, what does Teyve say? When I'm mad, flies don't dare to fly." We all think we're pretty something when we're mad. And I can get mad easy, too. And when I get mad, you don't want to be near me. I don't like it when Christians say to me, "Don't make me mad, you wouldn't like me." I don't like you now just for saying that right there.

Let me read it again. "When you till the ground, verse 12, it shall not henceforth, or from this point on, yield to you her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be in the earth." You're going to be, basically, the idea is for a while, homeless. If you believe chapters one, two, and three, there's Adam and there's Eve. Now they have some kids.

Now one of the kids murdered another one. Do you think that's going to hurt anybody else's feelings? Who? Maybe all your brothers and sisters. If you're old enough, your nieces and nephews. Your parents might be a little perturbed, true? You're going to have to get out of Dodge, aren't you? And God says this, "A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be in the earth."

A vagabond has no home; you're homeless. A fugitive is running from home and must keep running and can't go back. A stranger is someone who is away from home, usually far away from home. But a pilgrim is heading home. We are pilgrims. We belong to the Lord, and this isn't our home.

So now you've got this vagabond, you've got this fugitive, you've got this someone who is now a stranger and far away from home. Verse 13, "Cain said to the Lord, 'My punishment is greater than I can bear.'" It's not fair. "Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth, and from Thy face shall I be hid." In other words, "I'm leaving, I'm going."

And notice this: God's going nowhere, and God will be with Cain, but Cain is not going to be with God. "I'm out of here." And "from Thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth, and it shall come to pass that everyone that finds me shall slay me," literally, "will try to murder me or kill me." Why? Because I murdered my brother, and everybody else on the earth—I don't know how many, but they're all—that's their brother that was murdered too. How would they feel?

And the Lord said to him, "Therefore," or because of that, "whosoever slays Cain, vengeance shall be taken on that one sevenfold," seven times as harsh. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any find him and should kill him. Notice the mark is to make sure that everybody knows Cain so they don't touch him.

The mark that is put on Cain is not to make him ugly or bad or terrible, it's to protect his life from his own family. So he made his choice. He's chosen death. What do I mean? Separation from God. He's going to go, and he's not going to look back and he's not going to be interested in anything to do with God. And you will be surprised to learn in a moment that his kids won't either.

There's actually a line of the children of the devil right here in chapter four, and the line of the children of God. "I'll hide my face from God, I'll be hidden from you, Your face will be hidden from me, God." Notice: God's not going to run from Cain; Cain is going to turn and flee to get away from God because he doesn't want to confess. He doesn't want to.

God's not going to send Cain away; Cain is going to go away. Dr. Walvoord wrote this: "Cain has opened the door to temptation and walked through it in his sin. And he refuses to repent and he refuses to confess. When he did that, he closed the door on God." He opened that door to sin and walked through it. Remember, sin is crouching at the door. When he did that, he closed the door on God.

"I don't want You, I don't need You." And you're hearing people say that today, and they make fun of people that believe. "There is no God and it's all just blah blah blah," right? They're closing the door on God. But when he closed the door on God, he closed the door on his family, and that's kind of a problem since that's the only family on earth.

Cain made his choice, but how about you and me? We're still here, Cain's gone. Listen to Deuteronomy 30—you know everybody tells you you can't find anything in Deuteronomy that's useful. Well, I found something. Deuteronomy 30:19, listen to Moses speaking to all who will listen, all the children of Israel. Moses cries out, "I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you, that I've set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your children, your seed, may live on."

I'll read it again. "I call heaven and earth to witness this day against you. Let everybody know that I've set before you today life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore," here's what God says, "choose life. That both you and your seed, you know, your family, the young ones down through the ages, could—may live."

The Lord God Almighty in His grace, in His love, in His kindness and mercy, puts a mark upon Cain. It's not a mark to make him look bad, it's not a mark to make people mock him in shame, it's a mark to warn you: don't touch that man. We don't know what that mark was.

Therefore, any speculation is exactly that: speculation. And some people say, "Well, it's this, well, it's this. It's a skin color or it's a defect or it's a—" Listen, it's a mark to protect Cain. If we want, we'll ask God when we get there, but right now, speculation is hurting a lot of people.

And here's a question that comes in when we get questions: why would a holy, righteous God allow a murderer to go free? Because Cain was a murderer and God let him walk. And the answer is easy: because our God is not just holy and righteous and perfect in every way, but He is full of grace and full of mercy.

What is He showing me when He treats Cain the way He treats Cain? Mercy is not getting what we deserve. Didn't he deserve to be put to death? In the law, it will be eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life, right? But God in His mercy, He shows Cain mercy. Mercy is not getting what you deserve.

Now, isn't it God's mercy He's washed me clean and we're not going to pay the price for our own sin and we're not going to suffer for all eternity? That's God's mercy. And then what is grace? He's full of mercy and full of grace. What's grace? Grace is freely giving us something that we don't deserve. He doesn't give us something that we do deserve, that's mercy, and He does give us something that we don't deserve. That's eternal life and freedom and joy and everything that God's given to us. That's His grace.

So grace and mercy He shows Cain—mercy and grace. So Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and he dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife. See, I believe that Cain was married already when his whole shtick began. I believe he was married and he was just offering—and matter of fact, I'm pretty sure he had children already, and Abel had kids and wife of their own, etc.

And he knew his wife and she conceived and she bare a son, Enoch. And he built a city and he called the name after the name of his son, called the name of the city Enoch. And people say, "Where's the land of Nod? We've got to figure out where the land of Nod is." I mean, where did he go? And how come he's afraid there's people there?

"Nod," the Hebrew word, means "wandering" or "the place to wander." In other words, he just headed out into the wilderness walking. And he's wandering, he's got nowhere to go and doesn't know where to go. He's just—wants to get out of—he's got to get out of here. He's walked away. So he's just out there walking. It's simply Cain wandering out there in the wilderness just east of Eden.

And the language suggests here that Cain is already married, and one of the most frequently asked Bible questions is, "Who did Cain marry?" And the answer is perfectly clear if you take God at His word. He married a sister or a niece, he married a blood relative. Because the only kids that were on the planet were Adam and Eve's kids.

There were no other humans that from other tribes of anything else. That's why he's afraid that everybody that he runs into is going to get him. And Cain and his wife have a baby boy, Enoch. Enoch is not necessarily anything to do with God because Cain had nothing to do with God; sounds like his wife doesn't either, and their kids won't either. Enoch simply means "dedicated."

They built a city and they named it after Enoch. The first recorded city ever built. Where? I don't know, somewhere east of Eden, out there in the wilderness. Verse 18, "Unto Enoch was born Irad, and Irad begat Mehujael, and Mehujael begat Methusael, and Methusael begat Lamech." And Lamech took him two wives. That comes out of nowhere, doesn't it?

The name of the one was Adah and the name of the other Zillah. And Adah bare Jabal. He was the father of such as dwell in tents, you know, he worked with the flocks and herds and the cattle. And his brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all such handle the harp and the organ and the tambourine.

And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-Cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron. And the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naamah. So what you get, just briefly: a simple beginning of the lineage of Cain. The family of Cain. These are the devil's children. These have nothing to do with God. They have walked away from God. That's how they're raising their children. Like mom and dad, like children, right? And it goes generation to generation.

And they're just doing what they can do. But Lamech, he changed what God had set up. He just literally changed it. Instead of one man, one woman, he, out of nowhere, he marries two wives. What made it okay? Well, it was okay because he did it because he wanted to, right?

Judges chapter 17:6 explains today and explains Cain and explains everything. "In those days there was no king in Israel, but every individual did that which was right in his own eyes." People today are saying, "I'm going to do this." Why? "It's just because I can and it's right in my eyes."

Cain's descendants produced all kinds of things. The list is—I'm not going to give exhaustive, but they produced musical instruments. Now is it a sin to have musical instruments? No. They produced weapons, agricultural tools, metal works of all sorts, farming tools, etc.

Cain's descendants made things for their worldly lives. So in their city—listen closely—they built a city, and in their city they had everything: tools, workshops. They had everything except for God. Verse 23 says, "Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, 'Hear my voice, you wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech, for I have killed a man to my wounding and a young man to my hurt.'"

"If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy times seven." He comes home bragging to his wives. He killed a man today. But he says it was self-defense. "He hurt me first, so I was just defending myself. So since God protected my granddad, whatever, Cain, who was an outright murderer, he goes, well, man, mine is self-defense, it'll be seventy times seven for me."

Because Lamech has nothing to do with God. Nothing. He knows there's a God, though. But notice what he says. He expects God should protect him. If He protected Cain, who was a real murderer, well, for sure He'll protect me because I did it in self-defense. He's really proud that he killed the person today.

And is that the picture of today's society or not? You know, people who have nothing to do with God. Those very same people, when there's an emergency or disaster, say, "Where was God when this happened on such and such a day? Where was God?" You have no time for God, you don't care about God, you have nothing to do with God, then you want to insult Him by saying, "Well, where was God?"

And Adam knew his wife again, and she bare a son and called him Seth. "For God," she said, "has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, who Cain slew." Now, when you read that, you're starting to make up things that it didn't say. For instance, did she have any girls?

So most people say, "Well, there was Seth and there was Abel and there was Cain. So there's only three people besides Adam and Eve on the planet." No, there aren't. Cain married a wife, so that had to be a sister or a niece or whatever, some blood relative, right? And they're having children, and you're going to find out that Adam lives to be 930.

So pretty healthy. Even if you don't start having kids till you're 100, you're still going to have quite a few, and you'll see that coming up in the next chapter. So verse 25: Adam knew his wife, she bare a son, called his name Seth. "For God," she said, "appointed another seed instead of Abel." He replaced Abel for me, whom Cain slew.

"And to Seth, to him also there was born a son, and called his name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord." Now you see: there's a lineage of the children of the devil, there's a lineage of the children following God. And by the way, Messiah will come through the lineage of Seth, not Cain.

Complete contrast here. We see the godly line of Seth. And it will be through the lineage of Seth, through on and remember, through Noah then and his sons, Messiah will come to this world. And we see the faith once again of Eve. She believes the Lord and she trusts in His Word and His promises. She said, "This is the Lord's promise."

She takes God at His word. "Look, there is Seth." And it was in the days of Seth, or Seth's son Enosh that men began to call upon the name of the Lord. The language is "to be called by the name of the Lord." Also, the language can be read "to proclaim the name of the Lord."

So they were talking about the Lord, whereas Cain and his crew weren't. They were carrying the name of the Lord. But we need to know that God has set before you life or death, blessings or curse. He set it before Cain. Cain chose death. His family, his tribe followed that way.

Can some of them get saved down the road? Yes, they can, and some of them probably will, as we walk through. But the same thing is not just set before Israel in Deuteronomy, but it's set before every one of us, everyone in the world right now. God sets before you life or death, and God encourages you to choose life.

Guest (Male): Thank you for listening to Apply Within with Pastor Bob Davis. Apply Within is a radio outreach ministry of North Country Chapel. Our Sunday morning Bible studies are at 9:00 and 11:00 AM. We also have a Friday evening Bible study at 7:00 PM and a Monday evening Bible study at 7:00 PM.

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