Genesis 4 -- God's Warnings and God's Mercy

Despite their choice to sin, God blessed Adam and Eve with children, and in those early days, God was still present in some physical way on earth, as evidenced by His conversations with Cain in this chapter, even after Cain sinned.  In fact, God had taught this first family to offer sacrifices to Him.  On one occasion, Cain’s brother’s sacrifice was accepted by God, but Cain’s wasn’t.  My commentary said, “Cain wasn’t rejected because of his offering, but his offering was rejected because of Cain:  his heart wasn’t right with God … Had Cain brought animal sacrifices and shed their blood, they wouldn’t have been accepted by God because of the state of Cain’s heart.”

It continued, “The Lord warned Cain that temptation was like a fierce beast crouching at the door of his life, and he had better not open the door.”  That showed that God was still concerned for Cain and trying to help him see where he was going wrong.  “Cain was envious of his brother because of his relationship with God, and yet Cain was unwilling to get right with God.”

Cain failed to heed God’s specific warnings and with premeditation he killed his brother, leading to God’s curse on him, preventing him from continuing as a farmer. “Cain never repented of his sins; his words reveal only remorse and regret … he opened the door to temptation and closed the door on his family, God, and his future.”

Yet God had mercy on him, somehow marking him with something that no human would dare to ignore, sparing Cain’s life from revenge by any of Abel’s (and Cain’s) relatives.

One idea I’d not considered or heard before showed up in my commentary, as it talked about Seth’s line, which will show up in the next chapter:  “The tragedy is that these two lines came together and merged.  The wall of separation came down, and this eventually created the wicked society whose sins brought on the judgment of the flood … by the time of the flood, only eight people believed God’s warning and acted upon it by faith.  The rest were destroyed.”

Father, all of our troubles come back to one thing:  sin.  When we choose not to listen to You and to make You the center of our lives, we are working toward our own destruction.  Please remind both my sons and me about this often.  Don’t allow Satan to blind us to this truth.

Your Brother In Christ,

Gary Ford