Thru the Bible

Steve Schwetz: Do you think true crime TV or podcasts are a new phenomenon? Well, welcome to Thru the Bible. We'll find out where it all began. We're in Genesis 4 and 5, chapters filled with conflict and anger that eventually lead to murder. The first murder, in fact, was committed against a brother. Then one sin led to another, with more murder, vengeance, urban issues, and polygamy that spread like wildfire in the ancient world.

Where will it end? Well, we'll find out, but I'll warn you, it's a bit of a dark study. Thankfully, though, Gregg and I have a few minutes to share some good news first.

Gregg Harris: Sorry I started laughing too soon, but yes, it's nice after that rather dark subject we're going to be talking about to talk about something that is really uplifting, and that's our home group ministry.

Steve Schwetz: Yeah, here's a testimony from Tulsi who tells us, "I lead a radio home group in the Surjapuri language in my village." Now, for those of you that are wondering, Surjapuri is not a very big language and it's not one that we're probably broadcasting in.

Gregg Harris: No, it would only be home groups.

Steve Schwetz: Only in home groups. "Before I began leading this group," I continue, "I had a desire to serve the Lord, but I often felt unsure. I wasn't confident in my understanding of the Bible or in how to guide others. Many times, I read the scriptures but couldn't connect the teachings in a clear way.

Everything changed when I started studying the Bible through the radio home group. Listening to the program week after week, I realized how powerful it is when God's word is taught in a planned step-by-step manner. Each session helped me understand the background of the passage, the meaning of the verses and more importantly, how to apply them to my life daily.

Over time, my own faith grew stronger. The Bible became not just a book I read, but a life-giving guide. The teachings helped me gain confidence in answering questions from the group and guiding them in prayer. I learned how to lead discussions and bring everyone together to share what they understood from the lessons.

Through this fellowship, our group has grown in unity and in spiritual maturity. Members now come regularly, eager to learn more. We pray together, encourage one another, and even reach out to others in the community who do not yet know Christ."

Gregg Harris: Well, to me that sounds like a church! It certainly has church-like characteristics. I continue, "This ministry has deepened my understanding of God's word and shaped me into a servant leader, someone who listens, guides, and cares for his group. I thank God for this ministry because it is bearing fruit in the lives of many in our Surjapuri-speaking community."

One of the things that struck me about this letter, Steve, is that we didn't explain to our newer listeners what a home group is. This letter explained it perfectly.

Steve Schwetz: Exactly. And it's just so encouraging because we're doing this. It started in India, it's spreading. It's in Bangladesh, it's in Africa, and it's spreading throughout the world and we're excited about it.

Gregg Harris: Oh yeah, it's in Nepal, it's in Pakistan, it's even in Afghanistan where we're smuggling little SD cards by truck drivers across the border. This is a movement of God. And whenever God's behind something, you don't have to make it grow.

Steve Schwetz: Yeah. And if you want to be a part of it, you can by joining your own small group with the Bible companions. But Gregg, why don't you pray for us as we begin our study?

Gregg Harris: Father, there are times when we just want to fall on our knees because we see you at work in ways we could never orchestrate. We want to acknowledge that. We want to thank you that we get the privilege of bringing your word to a language group like Surjapuri that many of us have never even heard of.

And yet those people are eternal souls that you want to reach with your word and your gospel. We just thank you for all of that and pray you'd continue to help us stay humble and faithful as we give your whole word to the whole world. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Steve Schwetz: We're off to Genesis 4 on Thru the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.

Dr. J. Vernon McGee: We are in the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, and if you have your Bible and will turn there to the sixth verse. We have seen that Cain and Abel have come together to worship God. These two boys were identical, I think. Some actually think they were twins. I think that was the position of the late Dr. Harry Rimmer. But I think they were even closer than twins because of the fact they had no bloodstream that reached way back on both sides that might cause a difference. They were the sons of Adam and Eve.

But there's a great divergence between the two and it's not necessarily a character divergence. It happened to be on the basis of one accepted because of his sacrifice which he brought by faith, the other Cain brought his without any recognition at all. Now we find that Cain is angry. Verse six: "And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?"

Why is he angry? Notice what he says. Let me read on what God says and then we'll go on. "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him." Now, the important thing to notice is that Cain was angry. Why was he angry? Well, he's angry enough that he's going to slay his brother, and back of murder there is always anger.

Our Lord said that if you're angry with your brother, you're guilty of murder. Back of anger is jealousy. Back of jealousy is pride. And spiritual pride means there's no sense of sin whatsoever in that. You will recall that James put it in language like this in James 1:15: "Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death."

And so this man here is angry, and it led to murder, but back of that was his jealousy and also his pride. God deals with him like that. He says, "If you do well, shall you not be accepted?" Actually, the meaning is better to translate like this: "Shalt thou not have excellency?" That seems to me to be a much better translation. What it means is this, that the eldest son always occupied a place of preeminence, and this boy thought now he'd lose that.

God says there's no reason for you to lose it if you do well. And what would be to do well would be to bring that which God had accepted from Abel, a sacrifice, and the acknowledgment that he was a sinner. But not this boy. He's just angry, you see. He says, "Sin lieth at the door." Now there are those that have interpreted that as mean sin offering lies at the door. That is, there's the little lamb. Now that makes sense all right because that was true.

But I don't think it means sin offering here. Up to this time and beyond this time, in fact, up until Moses as far as I can tell from the word of God, there was no sin offering. You find the sin offering instructions given for it in the book of Leviticus. In the first part, you have these five offerings, and one of them is a sin offering. The sin offering did not come into existence until the law was given.

You remember that is the thing that Paul had said in Romans 3:20, "By the law is the knowledge of sin." So that the offerings that were brought up to that were burnt offerings. You find Job in his day, which obviously was before Moses, he brought a burnt offering. It was not in any way a sin offering. I think if you go through the scripture, you'll find that that is true.

And it is said of Cain, "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." Now, if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. Well, to do well would be to bring the kind of offering that Abel had, and that would be a burnt offering. That would be the one that was offered, and you find Abraham offering that type.

As we say, there could be no sin until the law was given. That is, sin would not become a trespass against law until then. Therefore you'll notice God actually protected this man. God talked with Abel, his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and he slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, "Where is Abel thy brother?" And he said, "I know not. Am I my brother's keeper?"

It's practically as impudent an answer as you can see. He had frankly no regard at all. The Lord said unto Cain, "Where is Abel thy brother?" And he said, "I know not. Am I my brother's keeper?" You see, he's trying to cover it. The scripture says there's nothing covered that shall not be revealed and neither hid that it'll not be known. That's something to think over if you have any secret sins.

You better deal with them down here because they're all going to come out in His presence someday anyway. He already knows about them. You just as well tell Him about them. You couldn't hide them from Him anyway. Therefore this fellow tries to say that he's not guilty. "Am I my brother's keeper?" What an impudent answer. And He said, "What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground."

The writer to the Hebrews uses it in Hebrews 12:24: "And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." Abel's blood spoke of murder committed. The blood of Christ speaks of redemption. It speaks of salvation. Now I read on in verse 11 of chapter four of Genesis: "And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand.

When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth." The earth today by man's use loses its fertility. It has to be renewed as man goes along in the use of the land. Verse 13: "And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear." Well, why didn't he then, if it's greater than he can bear, why didn't he just turn to God and confess his sin and cast himself upon God?

It was too great for him to bear, but God was providing a Savior for him if he'd only turn to Him. Verse 14: "Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth, 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 findeth me shall slay me." He says now that he's to be hidden from the face of God.

That is exactly, of course, what happened. That was the suggestion here in 1 John 3:12: "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous." That is the picture that's presented to us. He's now hidden from the face of God. But now notice God protects him.

This is strange. God is actually harboring a murderer, a criminal. "And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him." I don't know what the mark is. There's been a lot of speculation and I don't know why I should add my speculation to all of this.

But God protects him. There's no law given. He's a sinner, but he's not a transgressor because there's been no law given about murder, you see. But his great sin is he didn't bring the offering that was acceptable to God. His deeds were evil. In what way? In what he brought to God, and he manifested that evil nature in slaying his brother. Now we find him moving out from God and he establishes a civilization that is apart from God altogether.

The children of Cain establish a godless civilization. Let me just lift out two or three things out of that and we'll pass on. We find in verse 16, Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and he dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. I know a lot of folk in church that dwell in the land of Nod during church, but frankly, I don't know where the land of Nod really is.

I've often wondered just where it is. Now again there's speculation about this. But he went out. He moved out of that area. And Cain knew his wife. She conceived, bare Enoch. He builded a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. Men have been doing that ever since. They like to call cities by their own names, streets by their own names, and even in Christian work you have schools named for individuals.

Men love to do that, whether they are Christian or after the order of Cain. But here's where it all began, and here's where urban life began, city life. He builded a city and he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. The cities have become one of the biggest problems that man has today. The cities they say are dying and yet the people are flooding to the cities from all over this land, in fact, from all over the world.

Now we find here there are other things in this section I'll just lift out because I think they're important to lift out. "And Lamech took unto him two wives." Here's the beginning of polygamy, two wives. "And the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other was Zillah." And we could have a lot of fun here with these two, but I don't know whether I should spend time with that or not because we would like to move right on.

But it might be well to notice this man now does that that also is contrary to what God intended, what God had for man. You'll never find anywhere in the scripture that God approves of polygamy. The thing is that if you read the accounts accurately, you find out He condemns it. He gives the record of it because He's giving us a historical record here. We find that is the basis on which it's given to us here.

Actually Adah means pleasure or adornment. She was the first one to make it to the beauty parlor, I guess. And Zillah means to hide. She was a coquette. My, what two girls he had for wives. No wonder he had problems. You wonder why later on we'll see here something happen. Then we find something else began, and here's the beginning of civilization, the Cainitic civilization. Verse 20 of Genesis 4: "Adah bare Jabal. He was the father of such as dwell in tents."

Well, Paul was a tentmaker, you see, later on. Here's the first contractor. "And of such as have cattle." Here's the first ranchers, you see. "His brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ." Here's the beginning of the musicians. And believe me, we can well understand when we hear some of the modern music today. Well, I'm sure that there are not many that would argue that it didn't begin with Cain's civilization.

Now we have here, "And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain, and instructor of every artificer in brass and iron." And here are the ones that are craftsmen. "And the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. 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. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold."

This fellow here says, "Well, if Cain got by with it, I can get by with it. After all, Cain did not slay in self-defense, but I have." I don't know whether he did or not, but he says that's what he did, that he slew in self-defense. And so we have these two wives. I do not know whether they entered into this or not, whether he was defending one of them or not. But be that as it may, we're not told.

He feels he'll be avenged seventy and sevenfold. But our Lord said that to Simon Peter, that's how much you ought to forgive your enemy. Now in verses 25 and 26, Adam knew his wife again and she bare a son, called his name Seth. "For God," said she, "hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew."

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. Apparently this was the beginning of men calling on the name of the Lord. Now we come in chapter five to the first section of the book of Genesis, Genesis 1 to 11. We have here the first section: world events and creation, the fall, and now the flood from five to nine.

This gives us the background, and we have here in chapter five the book of the generation of Adam through Seth. Cain's line's been given to us and it's dropped, to not be mentioned only as it crosses the godly line. That'll be a pattern that'll be set in the book of Genesis. Now chapter five in one sense is one of the most discouraging and despondent chapters in the Bible.

The reason is just simply this: it's like walking through a cemetery. You find out that when God said, "In the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall die," they all died that were the sons of Adam. In Adam all die, Paul says. And now I'm reading chapter five of Genesis, verse one. "This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him. Male and female created He them."

Now will you notice? "And blessed them and called their name Adam." Not the Adamses, but Adam, in the day when they were created. She's the other half of him. But we have this strange expression, "the book of the generation of Adam." It only occurs in the beginning of the New Testament and there it's the book of the generation of Jesus Christ.

Now there are these two books and we're already seeing there are two lines, two seeds, and they're against each other. Their struggle's going to be long. The line of Satan and the line of Christ, the accepted line. Now we have here that the line that we're following now is the one through Seth. And we're told Adam lived 130 years and he begat a son in his own likeness.

Now when Adam was 130 years old, how old was he? When God created Adam, did He create him 30 years old or 14 or 45? I don't know. Anything would be speculation. And if He created him that old, was he that old? And of course, God could create him that old. That, may I say, answers a lot of the questions about the age of the earth.

Somebody says, "Why, these rocks are billions of years old." Maybe you just don't know. Maybe God when He created them, created them two or three billion years old. He could have done that, of course. I do not know. But what we're saying here that when Adam had been here 130 years, he begat a son in his own likeness.

Adam was made in the likeness of God, but his son is born in his likeness and he called his name Seth. Now we start through the graveyard. What happened to Seth? Well, he lived, begat sons and daughters, and Adam did too. We read that what happened to Adam? Well, all the days that Adam lived were 930 years. What happened? He died. Verse five.

Then verse eight, what happened to Seth? He died. And he had a son over the name of Enos. What happened to him? Verse 11, he died too. But he had a son and Cainan was his son. And what happened to old Cainan? What happened to him? Verse 14, he died too. He had a son, Mahalaleel. What happened to him? Verse 17, he died. He had a son, his name was Jared. Well, he died too, verse 20.

Then he had a son by the name of Enoch. He lived sixty and five years and begat Methuselah. Then he died? No, he didn't die. This is a dark chapter, but this is the bright spot in it. "And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years and he begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years. And Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him."

May I say to you, this is one of the most remarkable things, that in the midst of death one man is removed from this earth. It is said of him that he walked with God. That is quite remarkable, by the way. Only two men walked with God. We'll see in the next chapter Noah walked with God. Now we find that Enoch walked with God. These were the two antediluvians.

There are actually only two men who did not die here in the Old Testament. We find one of them was Enoch and the other, of course, was Elijah. By the way, this is one of the few before the flood that we have any record of him at all. We're told here that he didn't die, that God took him. He was translated.

What do we mean by translation? Translation means you take out of one language a word and put it in another language meaning the same thing. So Enoch was removed from this earth, translated. You see, he had to get rid of this old body he had. He had to be a different individual, but he had to be the same individual because he was translated, and a word has to be the same. Enoch was taken into heaven. We'll have more to say about that next time, but our time is up for today. So until next time, my beloved, may God richly bless you.

Steve Schwetz: To sign up for our monthly newsletter or to learn more about the ministry of Thru the Bible, just call 1-800-65-BIBLE or email biblebus@ttb.org. I'm Steve Schwetz and I'll meet you back here next time. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow. We're grateful for our committed listening family who faithfully pray and invest in Thru the Bible as we together take the whole world to the whole world.