Genesis 4:17-26 - Homiletics

The progress of the race.

I. ITS INCREASE IN POPULATION . Starting from a single pair in Eden, in the course of seven generations the human family must have attained to very considerable dimensions. At the birth of Seth, Adam was 130 years old, and in all probability had other sons and daughters- besides Cain and his wife. If Lamech, the seventh from Adam in the line of Cain, was contemporaneous with Enoch, the seventh from Adam in the line of Seth, at least 600 years had passed away since the race began to multiply; and "if Abraham's stock in lease than 400 years amounted to 600,000, Cain's posterity in the like time might arise to the like multitude" (Wilier). If to these the descendants of Seth be added, it will at once appear that the earth's population in the time of Lamech was considerably over 1,000,000 of inhabitants. Let it remind us of the reality and power of God's blessing ( Genesis 1:28 ).

II. ITS ADVANCEMENT IN INTELLIGENCE , "It is a curious fact that while all modern writers admit the great antiquity of man, most of them maintain the very recent development of his intellect, and will hardly contemplate the possibility of men equal in mental capacity to ourselves having existed in prehistoric (?) times". For prehistoric write antediluvian, and the sentiment is exactly true. The circumstance that we have no remains of antediluvian civilization is no sufficient evidence that such did not exist. Speaking of certain earthworks of great antiquity that have been discovered in the Mississippi valley, camps, or works of defense, sacred enclosures, with their connected groups of circles, octagons, squares, ellipses, polished and ornamented pottery, &c.;,—the same distinguished writer says. "The important thing for us is, that when North America was first settled by Europeans, the Indian tribes inhabiting it had no knowledge or tradition of any races preceding themselves of higher civilization. Yet we find that such races existed; that they must have been populous, and have lived under some established government; while there are signs that they practiced agriculture greatly, as indeed they must have done to have supported a population capable of executing such gigantic works in such vast profusion." The exhumation by Dr. Schliemann on the plains of Troy of three successive civilizations, of which two were not known to have previously existed, and the third (the Ilium of Homer) had been almost regarded by archeologists as fabulous, is conclusive demonstration that the absence of all traces of primeval civilization is no more a proof that such civilization did not exist, than is the absence of all traces of the third day's vegetation a proof that it did not exist. The passage under consideration unmistakably reveals that the human intellect in those early times was not asleep. Within the compass of ten verses we read of the building of cities, of the laying out of farms and the acquisition of property, of the beginning of the mechanical arts and the manufacture of metallic weapons, of the rise of music and the cultivation of poetry. It may strike one as peculiar that this great intellectual development is represented as taking place exclusively in the line of Cain. From this some have inferred that the Bible means to throw disparagement upon human industry, commercial and agricultural enterprise, and all kinds of mechanical and inventive genius, and even sanctions the idea that religion is incompatible with business talent, poetical genius, and intellectual greatness. There is however, no reason to suppose that this advancement in intelligence was confined to the Cainitic branch of the Adamic race. The prophecy of Enoch ( vide Expos.) and the incidental allusion to metallic weapons in the name of Methuselah (man of the dart) suggest that the Sethitic line kept pace with their ungodly contemporaries in the onward march of civilization, though that was not their chief distinction. Let us learn—

1. That there is no essential antagonism between intelligence and piety.

2. That in God's estimation righteousness is of much higher value than material prosperity.

3. That where, as in the Cainitic line, there is no true godliness-there is apt to be too intense devotion to culture or business.

III. ITS DECLENSION IN WICKEDNESS .

1. We can trace it in their names . Enoch, Irad, Mehujael, Lamech being suggestive of qualities, principles, characteristics such as are approved by the spirit of worldliness; and Adah and Zillah ( vide Expos.) being indicative of sensual attractions.

2. Their works proclaim it. It would be wrong to say that cities are necessarily evil things. On the contrary, they are magnificent monuments of man's constructive genius, and immensely productive of man's comfort. A city too is a type of heaven's gathering of redeemed humanity. Still it cannot be doubted that the need for cities was a proof of sin, as the building of the first city was an act of sin. The acquisition of property, and the uprise of such ideas as the rights of property, are likewise indications of a state of life that is not purely innocent (cf. Acts 4:32 ). And though certainly it cannot be sinful either to make or to handle a harp, or to cultivate poetry, yet when we put all these things together—beautiful wives, iron weapons, musical instruments, and warlike ballads, if not bacchanalian songs—it is not difficult to perceive a deepening of that devotion to the things of this life which invariably proclaims a departure from the life of God.

3. Their immoral lives attest it. A growing disregard for the marriage law is evinced by the polygamy of Lamech; in the manufacture and use of offensive weapons we see the rising of a turbulent and lawless spirit; and these two things, licentiousness and lawlessness, always mark the downward progress of an age or people.

IV. ITS PROGRESS IN RELIGION ; at least in a section of its population, the godly line of Seth, in whom the piety of Abel was revived. Yet the narrative would seem to indicate that even they were not entirely free from the prevailing wickedness of the times. In the third generation the pressure of the worldly spirit upon the company of the faithful was so great that they felt obliged, as it were, in self-defense, to buttress their piety by a double wall of protection; viz; separation from their ungodly associates in the world by the formation of a distinct religious community, and by the institution of stated social worship ( Genesis 4:26 ). And without these declension in true religion is as certain as with them advancement is secure. They are the New Testament rules for the cultivation of piety ( 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 ; Ephesians 4:11-13 ; Hebrews 10:25 ).

Lessons : —

1. The downward progress of sin.

2. The danger of intellect and civilization when divorced from piety.

3. The only right use of earth and earthly things is to make all subservient to the life of grace.

4. The danger of conformity to the world.

5. The only safety for the people of God, and especially in these times of great intellectual activity and mechanical and scientific skill, is to make deep and wide the line of distinction between them and the world, and steadfastly to maintain the public as well as private ordinances of religion.