Cain and Consequences

Over the last twenty-five years, I am grateful for what seems to me to be a recovery of the foundational truths in Genesis 1-11. Through works as varied as Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box and Ken Ham’s The Lie: Evolution, the evangelical community has experienced a fresh conversation about the historicity and accuracy of the Genesis account.

Obviously in reading Genesis, we are presented with a diametric message to the dogma of Darwinian evolution.  We read of a creation that is not chaotic, but orderly. We discover that Adam and Eve were not accidents emerging from some primordial struggle but were created by the hand of God and in the image of God. We are presented with an historical account of temptation, and the subsequent fall that catapulted the human race into struggle, disease, sorrow and death.  In these foundations, we find our roots as human beings, and we are faced with the reality that we are accountable to our Creator.

These truths presented in Genesis are fundamental to a right understanding of the Gospel and have been jettisoned in the last century for a humanistic, atheistic, evolutionary scheme that does not save and does not deliver.

In processing the story line of Genesis, I find a parallel between Cain’s story in Genesis 4 and the drift of the church and our culture. The account of the first brothers, Cain and Abel, comes as a shock factor because of the close proximity to their parent’s fall. Cain is born with such promise.  It is hard to miss Eve’s expression of hope that this first born son could actually be the promised deliverer of Genesis 3:15, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord,” (4:1)

However, Cain was not the deliverer. In fact, instead of redeeming the race, he committed the first murder and was the first unbeliever. Cain was not persuaded to leave his sinful rage even though God Himself was the evangelist.  Sin does not need rehearsal to be catastrophic, and its pernicious tentacles run deep and fast.  Cain’s life is a sobering reminder to us all that sin is crouching at the door of our lives and that we are responsible before God for how we live.

In this, Cain serves as a portrait of the unbeliever: he offered unacceptable worship; he resented the godly witness of his brother; he rejected God’s counsel and fulfilled the sinful desires of his heart; and he tried to deny his sin before the God who sees everything (Psalm 139).

The text gives one of the saddest commentaries on the tragedy of depravity, “Cain went out from the presence of the Lord.” (4:16) From Cain’s lineage we witness the secular bent of the human heart.  With great humanistic pride, Cain started a family, built a city, and watched his descendents develop into a thriving culture.

Cain’s family line is not a pack of Neanderthals grunting at each other. On the contrary, they are a picture of God’s common grace, God’s goodness even to those who spurn and ignore Him.  Cain and his descendants experienced the joy of a newborn babies. (Genesis 4:17) They enjoyed the conveniences brought about from their creativity and invention. They were moved by the melodies produced by Jubal. (Genesis 4:20-22) They were a developing people making great advances, but without God at the center of their culture, life carried with it a hollow tone and perplexing problems. The cloud that covered them was a manifest pride that would one day bring a worldwide flood.

When God is out, everyone does what is right in his own eyes. The marital pattern established by God between one man and one woman for a lifetime is dismissed for a couple of wives and the introduction of unspeakable problems because of polygamy (Genesis 4:19).

Eventually from Cain’s line we are introduced to Lamech who was the first Gangsta rapper as he boasts of killing a man for wounding him and killing a boy for striking him (Genesis 4:23).  When sin abounds, retaliation goes off the chart. Instead of an eye for an eye, it is an eye for a head.

Cain’s culture sounds all too familiar as we read of the rapid political gains for those wanting to redefine marriage to include homosexual partners.  We also see it in the dishonor of marriage through living together outside of the covenant commitment of marriage (Hebrews 13:4).

With regard to violence, I read of a man last week who killed a priest on the Mississippi gulf coast, stole the priest’s car, and then drove his wife and kids to Disney World for a vacation!  I also read on Twitter of a man overhearing a conversation at a fast food restaurant in which the two in an adjacent booth were discussing which soft drink would be best to use if you were going to poison someone.

The words of Rich Mullins serve as good commentary on Cain’s world and ours,

“We are frail we are fearfully and wonderfully made

Forged in the fires of human passion

Choking on the fumes of selfish rage

And with these our hells and our heavens

So few inches apart

We must be awfully small

And not as strong as we think we are.”

To a humanity that has lost its way, our only hope is to call upon the name of the Lord (Genesis 4:26).  To a Cain culture, what is needed most is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Do not let it be true of you that you followed in the way of Cain.  For God has spoken to us in these last days through His Son, let us look to Him for all things.

 

 

 

 

Where is your Citizenship?

Our country will turn 235 years old on Monday. What an amazing story the United States of America has been on the stage of world history. For those who have eyes to see, God’s providential hand has moved mightily in establishing and sustaining arguably the greatest nation in the history of the world.

When I travel internationally, in contradistinction to the anti-American sentiment which fills the media, it is amazing to see the response of many who would do anything to live and have a U.S. citizenship. It is moving and very comforting to me when returning to the U.S. to hear “Welcome Home” from the immigration officials.

Our country has served as a refuge of hope for millions.   Emma Lazarus wrote of this refuge in words found at the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Certainly, there is a sense pride and gratitude for the blessings of this land. Only an ingrate would deny the riches of opportunity and resources that have been afforded us.  The follower of Jesus Christ should use the freedoms given to make much of the Gospel and mobilize the church to take the Good News to the ends of the earth as we were commanded to do.

As wonderful as is it is to have a United States citizenship, there is citizenship that trumps them all. We read of it from the pen of the Apostle Paul who wrote that for the believer in Jesus Christ we have entered a Kingdom that is eternal, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 3:20)

While nations rise and fall, there is a citizenship that is eternal and comes by virtue of a new birth. Are you a citizen of heaven?  Have you come to see your true spiritual condition in that because of your sins you are estranged from the living God and therefore are under His judgment (John 3:36)?

Salvation is beautifully pictured as the turning from the dregs of one’s sin and finding refuge in the Lord Jesus Christ. (Colossians 1:13,14)  This amazing salvation is a miraculous work of God. (John 3:1-16)

The centerpiece of this salvation is a monument that brings the greatest hope and refuge weary pilgrims could ever need. It is not the Statue of Liberty. It is the Cross where Jesus died. It was on those wooden beams that history is literally nailed together. He stretched out his arms and died willingly to redeem sinners, and through Him, and Him alone, one is delivered from the domain of darkness, and transferred with full citizenship into His Kingdom.

His power to deliver and bestow an eternal citizenship is rooted in the fact that not only did He die, but three days later He rose from the dead and He is coming to this earth again.

His call is to those who have ears to hear, “Come to me, all you who are weary and heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)  Come to Him by faith, trusting in His saving promises, and find rest for your soul and a hope in which there is no disappointment. (I Peter 2:6b)