← Thru the Bible Daily
Thru the Bible Daily
Genesis 4:6—5:22
00:26:01
Cain is angry with Abel. So angry, he commits the first murder in history. This sin leads to another and then another with more murder, violence, vengeance, and polygamy that spread like wildfire in the ancient world. Where will it end? Hop aboard the...
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- [00:00]
A
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord is made for your faith in his excellent word.
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B
Do you think true crime TV or podcasts are a new phenomenon? Well, welcome to through the Bible. We'll find out where it all began. We're in Genesis 4. Five 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, 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, Greg and I have a few minutes to share some good news first.
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C
Sorry I started laughing too soon. But yeah, 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.
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B
Yeah, yeah. Here's a. Here's a testimony from Tulsi who tells us, I lead a radio home group in the Surapuri language in my village. Now for those of you that are wondering, Sergio Puri is not a very big language and it's not one that we're probably broadcasting.
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C
No, it would only be home groups,
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B
but 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 well. To me that sounds like a church.
- [02:32]
C
It does.
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B
Yes. It's certainly got 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.
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C
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.
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B
Exactly. Yeah. And it's just. It's 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.
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C
Oh, yeah. It's in Nepal, it's in Pakistan, it's even in Afghanistan. We're smuggling little SD cards by truck drivers across the border into Afghanistan. I mean, it is. This is a movement of God, and whenever God's behind something, you don't have to make it grow.
- [03:24]
B
Yeah. And if you want to be a part of it, you can by joining your own small group with the Bible Companions. But, Greg, why don't you pray for us as we begin our study?
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C
Father, there are times when we just want to fall on our knees because we see your at work in ways we could never orchestrate. And we want to acknowledge that. We want to thank you that we get the privilege of bringing your word to a language group like Sergio Puri 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.
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B
We're off to Genesis 4 on through the Bible with Dr. J. Vernon McGee.
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A
We're in the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, and if you have your Bible and we'll turn there to the sixth verse. And we have seen that Cain and Abel have come together to worship God. And these two boys that 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? Well, 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, always there's anger. Our Lord said, if you're angry with your brother, you're guilty of murder. And 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. So this man here is angry, and it led to murder. But back of that was his jealousy and also his pride. And 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, shalt thou not have. Excellency. That seems to me to be a much better translation. And what it means is 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 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 interpret that as mean sin offering lies at the door. That is, there's the little lamb. Now, that, may I say to you, it 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 till 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. Why, you have these five offerings, and one of them is a sin offering. And the sin offering did not come into existence until the law was given. You remember that. 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. And 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. And 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. And 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? And it's practically an impudent answer. As you can see, he had frankly no regard at all. And 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. And the Scripture says there's nothing covered that shall not be revealed, and neither hid that shall not be known. That's something to think over. If you have any secret sin, you better deal with them down here because they're all going to come out in his presence someday anyway, and he already knows about them. You just, well tell him about them. Couldn't hide it from him anyway. And therefore this fella 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. And 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 4 of Genesis. And now art thou cursed from the earth which hath opened her Mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. And 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 it. 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 every one that findeth me shall slay me. And he says now that he's to be hidden from the face of God. And that's exactly, of course, what happened. That was the suggestion here in verse John 3:12. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, slew his brother, wherefore slew he him because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous. That is the picture that's presented to us. And he's now hidden from the face of God. But now notice, God protects him. And 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? What he brought to God. And he manifested that evil nature in slaying his brother. Now we find him moving out from God and establishes a civilization that is apart from God altogether. And 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 is speculation about this, but he went out, he moved out of that area. And Cain knew his wife. She conceived bar Enoch. He built 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, building a city. And he called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch. And 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 of the fact that 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 intends, what God had for man. And you'll never find anywhere in the scripture that God approves of polygamy. The thing is that 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. And we find that is the basis on which it's given to us here. Now, actually, Adah means pleasure or adornment. And she was the first one to make it to the beauty parlor, I guess. And Zillah to hide. She was a coquette. My, what two girls he had for wives. No wonder he had problems. And you wonder why. Later on we'll see here something happened. Then we find something else began. Here's the beginning of civilization, the kidic civilization. Verse 20 of Genesis 4. Adah bar Jabal, he was the father of such as dwell in tents. Paul was the tent maker, you see later on. And here is 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 handled a harp and organ. Here's the beginning of the musician. 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 argue that it didn't begin with Cain's civilization. Now we have here in Scylla, she also bare Chubal Cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron. And here are the ones that are craftsmen. And the sister of Tubalcain was Naomi. 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, 70 and sevenfold. This folly 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. And I don't know whether he did or not, but he says that 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. We find here that he feels he'll be avenged 70 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. Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. Now apparently this was the beginning of man calling on the name of the Lord. Now we come in chapter five to the first section of the book of Genesis. Genesis 1:11. We have here the first section. World events and creation. The fall, now the flood from 5 to 9. And this gives us the background. And we have here in chapter five, the book of the generation of Adam through Seth. Cain's line has been given to us and it's dropped, will not be mentioned only as it crosses the godly line. And that will be a pattern that will 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. And the reason is just simply this. It's like walking through a cemetery. And you find out that when God said, in the day that ye eat thereof, ye will 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 he blessed them and he 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. They're against each other and their struggle is 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 a hundred and thirty 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. May I say, that 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 of 2 or 3 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. Now, 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. And we read that. What happened to Adam? Well, all the days that adam lived were 930 years. What happened? He died. Verse 5 and then verse 8. Why? What happened to Seth? He died. And he had a son over the name of Enos. What happened to him? Verse 11. He died. But he had a son, and Canaan was his son. And what happened to old Canaan? What happened to him? Verse 14. He died too. And he had a son, Mahalalel. And what happened to him? Verse 17. He died, but he had a son. His name was Jared. Well, he died too. Verse 20. And then he had a son by the name of Enoch. And he lived 65 years and begat Methuselah. And 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. 300 years, and he begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were 360 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. And 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. And now we find that Enoch walked with God. These were the two antediluvians. And there are actually only two men who did not die here in the Old Testament. And we find one of them was Enoch. And the other, of course, was Elijah. And by the way, this is one of the few before the flood that we have any record of him at all. And we're told here that he didn't die, that God took him. He was translated. Now, what do we mean by translation? Well, translation means you take out one language, a word, and put it in another language meaning the same thing. And 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 the word has to be the same. Enoch was taken to 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.
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To sign up for our monthly newsletter or to learn more about the ministry of through the Bible, just call 1-865Bible or email BibleBustTB.org I'm Steve Schwetz, and I'll meet you back here next time.
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Jesus made it all to be my home. Sin had left us the crimson Sam.
- [25:52]
B
We're grateful for our committed, listening family who, faithfully pray and invest in through the Bible as we together take the whole word to the whole world.