MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Genesis 4:16-18
THE FUTURE OF A GOD-FORSAKEN LIFE
I. That a God-forsaken man is not cut off from the mitigating influences of domestic life.
1. Here the future of the cursed life has some relief. Cain had his wife to share his sorrow, and, for all we know, to help him in it. The domestic relationship is a great relief and comfort to a sad life. When all goes wrong without, it can find a refuge at home.
2. The children of a cursed life are placed at a moral disadvantage. They are the offspring of a God-forsaken parent. It is awful to commence life under these conditions. It is dangerous for their future. We should pity and strive to aid the little ones who are brought up in godless homes. They start in the world at a great peril. Thus Cain had the comfort of domestic life. One ray of mercy gleams even through the dark history of a God-forsaken man.
II. That a God-forsaken man is likely very soon to seek satisfaction in earthly employments and things. Cain built a city. This would find occupation for his energies. It would tend to divest his mind of his wicked past. It would enrich his poverty. It might become the home of his posterity. Here he could dwell in safety, and without annoyance. Society would be much benefitted if many men of kindred spirit to Cain would to-day bid it farewell, to erect their own city in the present solitudes of nature. We could spare them without serious loss. They would be better in a city alone. The contagion of their wicked life would then be stayed. It was no easy task for Cain to build a city. But when men are going to enrich themselves they think not of ease. They would rather build a city for themselves, than even a church for God. Many men are energetic in worldly enterprise, who have altogether fallen away from God.
III. That often a God-forsaken man is disposed to try to build a rival to the Church from whence he has been driven. If he has been driven from God, he will engage his energies to build a city for Satan. In this work some wicked men are active. And to-day the city of evil is of vast dimensions, is thickly populated, but is weak in its foundation, and will ultimately be swept away by the prayerful effort of the Church, and the wrath of God.
IV. That men whose names are not written in heaven are very anxious to make them famous on earth. They build cities rather than characters. They hope thus to awe the world by their exploit. To gain the admiration of men by their enterprise. A man who establishes a city is useful to society. But the man who does it may be a fugitive murderer. Whereas a man who builds up a good, noble life is doing a grand social work, and will be God-remembered. LESSONS:
1. Earth cannot give the soul a true substitute for God.
2. Family relationship is unsanctified without Him.
3. Cities are useless without Him.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Genesis 4:16-18. The geographical situation of the land of Nod, in the front of Eden, where Cain settled after his departure from the place or the land of the revealed presence of God, cannot be determined. The name Nod denotes a land of flight and banishment, in contrast with Eden, the land of delight, where Jehovah walked with men. There Cain knew his wife. The text assumes it as self-evident that she accompanied him in his exile; also, that she was a daughter of Adam, and consequently a sister of Cain. The marriage of brothers and sisters was inevitable in the case of the children of the first men, if the human race was actually to descend from a single pair, and may therefore be justified in the face of the Mosaic prohibition of such marriages, on the ground that the sons and daughters of Adam represented not merely the family but the genus, and that it was not till after the rise of several families that the bands of fraternal and conjugal love became distinct from one another, and assumed fixed and mutually exclusive forms, the violation of which is sin. [Keil and Delitzsch.]
By building a city we cannot fail to detect Cain’s desire to neutralize the curse of banishment, and create for his family a point of unity, as a compensation for the loss of unity in fellowship with God, as well as the inclination of the family of Cain for that which was earthly. [Delitzsch.]