Genesis 4.17-26
We believe (chorus)
Call to worship:
OT reading:
pastor andrew Loginow
Psalms 105.1-5
NT reading:
pastor bobby owens
Romans 10.5-13
song:
O Church arise
Historical reading:
pastor michael champoux
Heidleberg Catechism Q&A 60
song:
Amazing Grace
Confession & Pardon:
dr. brett eckel
song:
Christ the sure & steady anchor
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
Genesis 4.17-26
Introduction
There are two types of people in the world…you know these jokes? Like, there are two types of people in the world: early birds and night owls, or there are two types of people in the world: those who have an empty email inbox (yours truly) and those who have 30k unread emails (Pastor Kevin). I saw a funny one while I was looking some of these up that said, there are two types of people in the world: those who will foreword the email and those who will die within 24 hrs. These jokes are funny but they are obvious exaggerations. People are complex and don’t nicely fit into two separate categories, like dog people and cat people or coffee people or tea people.
Yet while human complexity and nuance abound, this joke, this set-up, is actually truer than many people think. As we’ve been working through Genesis, Scripture reveals that there is only one true and living God who created all things. God created the human race in His image and humanity rebelled against God in our father Adam, the very 1st man and federal head of humanity. Adam broke God’s Law and so humanity and all of the created order has fallen in sin.
Because of Adam’s sin God judged and cursed all participants – Adam, Eve, and the serpent. The result of God’s judgment is that there are two categories that every single human who has ever lived falls in to – (1) the seed of the woman or (2) the seed of the serpent (Gen 3.15); (1) those who believe God’s promise and repent or (2) those who reject God’s promise and don’t repent. Last week Pastor Kevin preached the first half of Genesis 4 and we saw that Cain rejected God’s promise and would not repent then Cain murdered his brother Abel who did believe God’s promise. Now what we have in the rest of Genesis 4 and Genesis 5 is the genealogies of the two lines, the two families, the two types of people in the world – (1) those who believe and repent and (2) those who do not believe and do not repent. This morning we see the line of Cain, the genealogy of the seed of the serpent and next week we will see the genealogy of the seed of the woman.
There have always been people who reject the Lord’s Promise
In Cain’s genealogy we see the beginning of a thread woven through Scripture – the seed of the serpent and what the Bible makes clear is that there have always been people who reject the Lord’s promise. There have always only been two kinds of people in the world: those who believe God’s promise and those who reject God’s promise – the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. Abel is seed of the woman; Cain is seed of the serpent. Noah and his family are seed of the woman; the rest of the antediluvian world was seed of the serpent. Ishmael, Esau, Egypt, Canaan, even Israel in their idolatry and in the time of Christ all seed of the serpent.
And after Cain himself the focus of this genealogy is Lamech. Lamech embodies what is means to reject God’s promise. Lamech lives in unrepentant sin. Lamech practice polygamy, taking 2 wives. God created marriage in the beginning as the one flesh covenant between one man and one woman as a picture of the gospel, but Lamech rejects and distorts God’s good gift of marriage by beginning the practice of polygamy that has plagued humanity since.
Lamech also commits murder and then brags about it to his wives. Lamech boasts about killing a young man who wounded him and mocks God declaring that is revenge is 11 times that of Cain’s. In Cain’s family line sin is not only practiced, but it is celebrated. Instead of repenting of sin, Lamech revels in his sin.
Scripture clearly teaches there always has been and always will be those who reject the Lord’s promise. Unless you’re a universalist (everyone’s sins will be forgiven and live forever regardless of faith) or an open theist (God is not sovereign and does not know the future), regardless of how Reformed you are, we must acknowledge that in God’s strange providence He wills that some won’t believe. The simple fact that God is in control of all things and there have always been people who reject God’s promise means that in some sense God has ordain it to be so. And while we cannot plumb the depths of the mind of God – Deuteronomy 29.29 says the secret things belong to the Lord – we must confess that everything that happens will ultimately be for the glory of God and for the good of His people.
And the truth is apart from God’s grace, this is our universal predicament. We have all inherited original sin from Adam. Romans 5.12 says, sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned. So not only have we inherited original sin and guilt but the result is that we all are guilty because we practice sin. Romans 3.23 says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. As he led us in the confession and pardon Pastor Brett read from 1st John 1.8, which says if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves. Because we are guilty of practicing sin, breaking God’s holy Law we justly earn eternal conscious punishment in hell. Romans 6.23 says that the wages of sin is death. That’s the bad news; we’re guilty of breaking God’s Law and left to ourselves we’re condemned.
But everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved
But there is good news and that’s what we see in verses 25-26. When we get to the end of verse 24 we can’t help but feel discouraged. Last week Pastor Kevin noted that Eve believed Cain to be the answer to yhwh’s Genesis 3.15 promise, but we clearly see that’s not the case because of Cain’s rejection of the promise and the murder of his brother, Abel. Hope seems lost for the seed of the woman because Cain is the seed of the serpent and Abel is dead, but then hope resurrects like Easter Sunday when verse 25 shines light in the darkness with these words: And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring…”
The seed of the woman will continue, not through Cain or Abel, but through Seth and in God’s grace verse 26 confirms such by telling us that Seth begat a son named Enosh. And then the ESV says, at that time people began to call upon name of the Lord. This really isn’t the best translation. Modern translation committees translate it this way because of the influence of other passages that quote this verse, and at the end of the day the interpretation and application really isn’t affected much, but let me break it down for you.
A wooden translation of the Hebrew text would be something like: Then he was begun to call on the name of yhwh. Modern translations insert the word people as the subject, but it’s not in the Hebrew. The participle translated began (הוּחַל) is 3rd person masculine singular, so it’s referring to a specific man. The LXX and Vulgate recognize this and translate the phrase: this one began to call on the name of the Lord. The implied subject is Enosh – then Enosh began to call on the name of yhwh.
The original makes more sense because to say then people began to call on the name of the Lord implies that people were not doing so prior, but that’s not true. Adam called on the name of the Lord, so did Abel and Seth. Moses is showing us now the 3rd generation of the seed of the woman. God is keeping his promise and the generations are calling on His name.
What does it mean to call on the name of the Lord? The word call (לִקְרֹא) is a liturgical term used as a parallel for giving thanks (1st Chron 16.8; Ps 105.1, 116.17; Isa 12.4). In the Old Testament Call to Worship Pastor Andrew read from Psalm 105 where we see this Hebrew parallelism. Joel 2.32 uses the phrase in reference to the Day of the Lord and Acts 2.21 reveals it’s fulfillment on the day of Pentecost. And, of course, Pastor Bobby read from probably the most famous reference of this phrase in all of Scripture: Romans 10.13, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
To call on the name of the Lord means to give thanks to the Lord and you can only truly give thanks to the Lord through the good news, the gospel of the Lord Jesus. The Reformed tradition has long described the Christian experience as moving from guilt to grace to gratitude. We cannot be saved, we cannot call on the name of the Lord, we cannot give thanks unless we first recognize our guilt. Recognition of our guilt is the first step in experiencing God’s grace, which He reveals in the gospel. The gospel is the good news that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5.8). Our response to God’s grace is gratitude, thanksgiving, calling on His name and we can only do so through faith in Christ and repentance.
Faith in Jesus alone means you know, assent, and trust that because God is holy, and you’re a sinner that the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus is your only hope for the forgiveness of your sin and the hope of eternal life. If God, in His grace, gives you the gift of faith, you will repent of your sin. Repentance means that you confess your sin and you turn from your sin. To call on the name of the Lord means faith in Jesus alone and repentance.
And this has been true from the beginning of time. Adam, Abel, Seth, Enosh all called on the name of the Lord because they believed in the Genesis 3.15 promise; they believed the protoevangelium – the 1st gospel. They trusted in the seed of the woman just like we do. The only difference is that we live on the other side of the empty tomb – they lived in a time of promise; we live in a time of fulfillment. They lived in the shadow; we live in the substance.
Are you lost? Call on the name of the Lord! Are you guilty? Call on the name of the Lord! Are you suffering? Call on the name of the Lord! Are you blessed? Call on the name of the Lord! As we prepare to come to the Eucharist together – Eucharist means give thanks – call on the name of the Lord; give thanks to God!
And those who have been saved by the Lord practice forgiveness
We cannot consider this pericope today without making one more point of application and that is those who have been saved by the Lord practice forgiveness. There is no doubt that the Lord Jesus had Genesis 4.24 in mind when in Matthew 18.21-22 Peter asked Him how many times we should forgive those who sin against us; as many as 7 times? Jesus responded: I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. Lamech said if Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-seven-fold. Peter said should we forgive as many as seven times? Jesus responded I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.
In the Lord’s Prayer the Lord Jesus taught us to pray: forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. Jesus assumes that if we’re asking our Father in heaven for forgiveness then, of course, we’re forgiving those who sin against us. Two points of application here – one about people we should forgive and the other about us. First, Jesus’ teaching comes on the heel of the passage about church discipline and so that is the immediate context, but it also more broadly applies to forgiveness in individual situations.
But it’s important to note that Scripture demands that we always forgive those who are repentant – those who are seeking forgiveness. Scripture never requires we forgive those who do not seek forgiveness. Jesus says if the sinner listens to you, listens to the 2 or 3, listens to the church, you’ve gained a brother. Jesus does not say forgive regardless of repentance. We know Scripture teaches that God only forgives those who repent.
The flip side is when someone repents; we are never allowed to not forgive. That doesn’t mean we’ll be best friends or that things will go back to the way they were before the offense. Often times that is not possible, but if we refuse to genuinely forgive those who genuinely repent, then we do not understand the gospel. Christians are those who have been forgiven an eternal debt and that must create in us a heart glad to forgive the smaller debts, the smaller sins we commit against each other. I don’t mean to minimize pain another person has caused you; it may be grotesque, in such a way that you cannot even have a relationship with them, but it is still a drop in the ocean compared to the eternal sin God has forgiven you. So if there is genuine repentance, there must be genuine forgiveness.
Conclusion
Friedrich Nietzsche said, “There are two different types of people in the world, those who want to know, and those who want to believe.” He’s half right. There are only two types of people in the world – those who forgive and those who don’t, those who have been forgiven and those who haven’t, those who believe God’s promise and those who reject. Which one are you?