n He might have brought upon them immediate death. He tells
Cain that God loves them, or He would not have given His Son, innocent
and holy, to suffer the wrath which man, by his disobedience, deserves to
suffer.
The Beginnings of Death
While Abel justifies the plan of God, Cain becomes enraged, and his
anger increases and burns against Abel until in his rage he slays him. God
inquires of Cain for his brother, and Cain utters a guilty falsehood: “I
know not: am I my brother’s keeper?” God informs Cain that He knew
in regard to his sin—that He was acquainted with his every act, and even
the thoughts of his heart, and says to him, “Thy brother’s blood crieth
unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which
hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; 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 curse upon the ground at first had been felt but lightly; but
now a double curse rested upon it. Cain and Abel represent the two
classes, the righteous and the wicked, the believers and unbelievers, which
should exist from the fall of man to the second coming of Christ. Cain’s
slaying his brother Abel represents the wicked who will be envious of
the righteous and will hate them because they are better than themselves.
They will be jealous of the righteous and will persecute and put them to
death because their right-doing condemns their sinful course.
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Adam’s life was one of sorrow, humility, and continual repentance.
As he taught his children and grandchildren the fear of the Lord, he was
often bitterly reproached for his sin which resulted in so much misery
upon his posterity. When he left the beautiful Eden, the thought that he
must die thrilled him with horror. He looked upon death as a dreadful
calamity. He was first made acquainted with the dreadful reality of death
in the human family by his own son Cain slaying his brother Abel. Filled
with the bitterest remorse for his own transgression, and deprived of
his son Abel, and looking upon Cain as his murderer, and knowing the
curse God pronounced upon him, bowed down Adam’s heart with grief.
Most bitterly did he reproach himself for his first great transgression. He
entreated pardon from God through the promised Sacrifice. Deeply had he
felt the wrath of God for his crime committed in Paradise. He witnessed
the general corruption which afterward finally provoked God to destroy
the inhabitants of the earth by a flood. The sentence of death pronounced
upon him by his Maker, which at first appeared so terrible to him, after
he had lived some hundreds of years, looked just and merciful in God, to
bring to an end a miserable life.
As Adam witnessed the first signs of decaying nature in the falling
leaf and in the drooping flowers, he mourned more deeply than men now
mourn over their dead. The drooping flowers were not so deep a cause of
grief, because more tender and delicate; but the tall, noble, sturdy trees to
cast off their leaves, to decay, presented before him the general dissolution
of beautiful nature, which God had created for the special benefit of man.
To his children and to their children, to the ninth
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generation, he delineated the perfections of his Eden home, and also his
fall and its dreadful results, and the load of grief brought upon him on
account of the rupture in his family which ended in the death of Abel. He
related to them the sufferings God had brought him through to teach him
the necessity of strictly adhering to His law. He declared to them that sin
would be punished in whatever form it existed. He entreated them to obey
God, who would deal mercifully with them if they should love and fear
Him.
Angels held communication with Adam after his fall, and informed
him of the plan of salvation, and that the human race was not beyond
redemption. Although fearful separation had taken place between God
and man, yet provision had been made through the offering of His beloved
Son by which man might be saved. But their only hope was through a life
of humble repentance and faith in the provision made. All those who
could thus accept Christ as their only Saviour, should be again brought
into favor with God through the merits of His Son.
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7: Seth and Enoch
This chapter is based on Genesis 4:25;. 26;. 5:3-8;. 18-24;. Jude
14-15.
Seth was a worthy character, and was to take the place of Abel in right
doing. Yet he was a son of Adam, like sinful Cain, and inherited from the
nature of Adam no more natural goodness than did Cain. He was born in
sin, but by the grace of God, in receiving the faithful instructions of his
father Adam, he honored God in doing His will. He separated himself
from the corrupt descendants of Cain and labored, as Abel would have
done had he lived, to turn the minds of sinful men to revere and obey
God.
Enoch was a holy man. He served God with singleness of heart. He
realized the corruptions of the human family and separated himself from
the descendants of Cain and reproved them for their great wickedness.
There were those upon the earth who acknowledged God, who feared
and worshiped Him. Yet righteous Enoch was so distressed with the
increasing wickedness of the ungodly, that he would not daily associate
with them, fearing that he should be affected by their infidelity and that
his thoughts might not ever regard God with that holy reverence which
was due His exalted character. His soul was vexed as he daily witnessed
their trampling upon the authority of God. He chose to be separate from
them, and spent much of his time in solitude, which he devoted to
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reflection and prayer. He waited before God and prayed to know His will
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more perfectly, that he might perform it. God communed with Enoch
through His angels and gave him divine instruction. He made known to
him that He would not always bear with man in his rebellion—that His
purpose was to destroy the sinful race by bringing a flood of waters upon
the earth.
The pure and lovely Gard
