Angelic Conflict part 105: Human history – Gen 4:1-15; Num 23:19; Isa 29:15; 46:11; Deu 28:64-65; Rev 14:11; Heb 4:1.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 105: Human history - GEN 4:1-15; NUM 23:19; ISA 29:15; 46:11; DEU 28:64-65; REV 14:11; HEB 4:1.

 

Results of the Fall: GEN 3:20-24.

 

GEN 3:20 Now the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.

 

GEN 3:21 And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

 

A person only approaches God based on the work of Christ.

 

GEN 3:22 Then the Lord God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever" — 

 

GEN 3:23 therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken.

 

GEN 3:24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every direction, to guard the way to the tree of life.

 

Cain and Able: GEN 4:1-15.

 

GEN 4:1 Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, "I have gotten a manchild withthe help of the Lord."

 

Iyish et YHWH is an interesting phrase - man with God or man from God. Eve thought her firstborn was the promised Seed.

 

“I call him possession for I have gotten a man from God.”

 

GEN 4:2 And again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

 

 “Abel” - vanity or breath; used in JOB 7:16; PSA 144:4. By the time Abel is born, the curse of the fall had begun to make itself felt in the lives of Adam and Eve.

 

GEN 4:3 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.

 

GEN 4:4 And Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering;

 

GEN 4:5 but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.

 

The way of Cain (Jud 11) - rejecting God’s way and then becoming angry and downcast when God will not accept your way.

 

GEN 4:6 Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?

 

These were rhetorical questions not meant to be answered.

 

GEN 4:7 "If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it."

 

 “If you do well” - offer the proper sacrifice … your face will be enlivened.

 

This is the first mention of the word sin, but not the first sin. We naturally have a lot of first mentions in Genesis.

 

The sin nature is seen as a crouching lion ready to spring forth and its desire is to spring upon the soul of the sinner, have dominion over him, and make him crouch down to the ground.

 

The word means to lie down or to crouch and as it does it’s seen as waiting for the proper time to spring forth and conquer the soul.

 

The noun “sin” is feminine and singular and so it refers to the old sin nature which responds to volition.

GEN 4:8 And Cain told [talked with; led him away alone] Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.

 

Verses 9 - 15 details the judgment upon Cain.

 

Cain was not punished by execution, since the death penalty would not be put into effect until after the flood.

GEN 9:6

"Whoever sheds man's blood,

By man his blood shall be shed,

For in the image of God He made man.

 

GEN 4:9 Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?"

 

God first asks him a question, just like his parents, giving an opportunity for a confession of guilt. The response is not the blame game of his parents but the first lie in the Bible. And he compounds the problem by saying: am I my brother’s keeper? This is the first human question in the Bible. We can glean a couple of first mention principles here.

 

First lie indicates man’s thinking that God is like a man, in that, the lie might be believed.

 

NUM 23:19

"God is not a man, that He should lie,

Nor a son of man, that He should repent;

Has He said, and will He not do it?

Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

 

God is not a man. He does not think, speak, or act like a man. Remember His essence. Those who would conclude that God thinks like a man started here and continued throughout human history. For example, just before the flood when God said that God was sorry or that He repented from making man on the earth in GEN 6:6, one Rabbi commented: [God said] It was a regrettable error on My part to have created him out of earthly elements for had I created him out of heavenly elements, he would not have rebelled against Me. Another Rabbi commented: It was a regrettable error on My part to have created an evil urge within him, for had I not created an evil urge within him, he would not have rebelled against Me. These are examples of rabbinic theology of how God is sometimes reduced to human concepts to the point where God is actually making mistakes.

 

This is the way of Cain; the first born into a world of sin as a sinner.

 

Can a person actually lie to God or withhold anything from Him? The fallen human race seems to think so.

 

ISA 29:15

Woe to those who deeply hide their plans from the Lord,

And whose deeds are done in a dark place,

And they say, "Who sees us?" or "Who knows us?"

 

So the first lie shows us the nature of fallen man in thinking that God is like a man, and the first human question also gives us insight into the nature of fallen man.

 

First human question indicates man’s thinking that God’s questions are inappropriate.

 

ISA 46:11

Truly I have spoken; truly I will bring it to pass.

I have planned it, surely I will do it.

 

Cain is satanically influenced to think that God is no more than a man and that God’s thinking and questions are inappropriate.

 

Now God takes on the role of a prosecutor. The question was an accusation.

 

This mimics satanic thinking at the fall:

“I will be like the Most High” - God is no more than creature.

“How can God cast me into LOF” - God’s decisions are inappropriate.

 

GEN 4:10 And He said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground.

 

And now God issues the curse of Cain.

 

GEN 4:11 And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

 

GEN 4:12 When you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you; you shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth."

 

For Cain the ground is cursed further. And we might assume that the same occurs for all those who reject God in the way of Cain.

 

The way of Cain - rejecting God’s way and then becoming angry and downcast when God will not accept your way to the point of criminality.

 

The way of Cain includes committing murder (hate), lying about it, pitying himself, separating himself from God, and seeking worldly security. The ultimate way of Cain is seeking one’s own way to God in place of the way God has preordained. All false religions follow the way of Cain. Those who do this will live upon even more cursed ground as it was for Cain. For them this means that there will be more problems than is common for other unbelievers who might be under the laws of divine establishment; more things will fail to work or grow or prosper.

 

 

 

The ones we have the most detail about who have gone this way are the Pharisees and Sadducees of the Lord’s time and their way was described by the Lord as being of their father, the devil, JOH 8:44, and of seeking the approval of men and not of God, JOH 5:44.  

 

So, Cain loses his green thumb.

 

Secondly, Cain is to become a vagabond who will be rootless and detached.

 

There is something special about having a home that you are truly comfortable in. It doesn’t have to be a palace or even in a rich area, but it only needs to be home. This is taken from Cain and also from those who go the way of Cain. They have no rest.

 

This was a promise to Israel if they did not love and keep the Law.

 

DEU 28:64

Moreover, the Lord will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth; and there you shall serve other gods, wood and stone, which you or your fathers have not known.

 

DEU 28:65

And among those nations you shall find no rest, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot; but there the Lord will give you a trembling heart, failing of eyes, and despair of soul.

 

This would unfortunately come to fruition on three separate occasions in their history; the captivity of Israel, the northern kingdom, by the Assyrians in 721 BC, the captivity of the southern kingdom, Judah, by the Babylonians in 586 BC, and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD by the Romans, which dispersion still continues and will do so until the second coming of Christ.

 

2TI 3:1 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.

 

2TI 3:2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,

 

2TI 3:3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,

 

2TI 3:4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God;

 

2TI 3:5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; and avoid such men as these.

 

2TI 3:6 For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses,

 

This is true of the mind when motivation is wrong:

 

2TI 3:7

always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

 

Of those who worship the beast in the Tribulation:

 

REV 14:11

"And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name."

 

It’s a terrible thing not to have rest in this life. No rest equals stress and enough of that over time will lead to a total breakdown of the mind, which in turn may lead to actions like Cain’s. God has promised a Sabbath rest for His people and in the CA it is every day and not just Saturdays. This rest is in the soul and not in the hand.

 

Fear that you don’t miss God’s rest:

 

HEB 4:1

Therefore, let us fear lest, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it.