Genesis: Part 5

One family tree builds a city to make a man’s name last. Another family line starts calling on the name of the Lord and quietly changes the future. Genesis 4 and 5 put those two paths side by side, and the comparison is meant to hit home, not stay stuck in ancient history. I walk through Cain’s legacy of resentment, self-protection, and unrepentant sin, then contrast it with Seth’s line, where God keeps his promise and worship becomes the defining mark. 

We also slow down at a surprising detail: two men named Lamech, one in Cain’s genealogy and one in Seth’s. One redefines God’s design and then boasts in vengeance, showing how sin doesn’t just repeat, it often escalates. The other speaks hope over his son Noah, trusting God to bring comfort and relief to a cursed world. Along the way, we talk about what it means to chase significance, the temptation to build our own “kingdom,” and the difference between making our name known and making Jesus’ name known. 

This is a practical episode about Christian legacy, family influence, and spiritual leadership in everyday choices. I close with a question you can’t unhear: if the people closest to you kept walking in your direction, where would they end up, and what one choice could you make today to point them toward Christ? If this challenged you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review with the one takeaway you want to live this week.

Transcript

Genesis 4 And Sibling Contrasts

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you have your Bibles, go with me to Genesis chapter 4. We're in a series where we're walking through the book of beginnings. We're going to begin. We're going to look at God willing verse 17 through chapter 5. That's the aim. Well, two siblings can share the same parents. They can grow up under the same roof, be instilled with the same values, yet choose different paths. They can become quite different, right? I have one brother, his name is Steven Stephen. He's just a few years younger than I am. And we grew up, I'm so grateful, both raised under the same roof by our biological parents. And we were instilled with the same values. We experienced the same uh kind of life experiences. And we turned out uh with a lot in common. Uh, we both are family men. We uh each have a wife and two children. We love our families. Uh we share the values still that we grew up with. Stephen and I both have a love for music. He's a uh fantastic drummer. I'm a mediocre uh guitar and piano player, and uh we both share the kind of an odd sense of humor that not everybody finds funny. You can laugh there. We have a lot in common, but there are things, obviously, that are different about us. Uh primarily it's in the way we think. I'm smart. He's no, I'm just joking. Um my brother is actually, he's very, very intelligent. My brother is a very has a very analytical mind. Like he majored in economics, he's in the world of finance. I'm not that analytical. I I think more conceptually. So uh a way to say it is my brother is focused on the details and processing processes and all of that. I'm focused on the big picture, all right? Uh so I'm more bent towards philosophy and psychology and obviously theology. And I have a different career. I'm not in finance. Thank God. Um, so here's the thing uh we have some differences, but those are understandable. But there are some siblings who have extreme differences. Like when you get to know them or know about them, you're shocked that they came from the same family. For example, you know the name John Wilkes Booth, yes? The uh extremist Confederate who killed Abraham Lincoln. So we know that story. Well, you what you may not know, did you know that he had a brother named Edwin Booth? Do you know his story? Edwin Booth, true story, rescued Robert Todd Lincoln, Abe's son, from falling beneath a moving train. He rescued a Lincoln. John killed a Lincoln. Pretty different paths, they chose. Yes?

Cain Abel And Generational Impact

SPEAKER_00 3:15

Well, we find that kind of contrast in Genesis chapter 4. We looked at this last week between a brother, two brothers, Cain and Abel. Quickly, you you know the story. Abel uh is a man who walks in righteousness, Hebrews says, Hebrews says, and he offers an acceptable sacrifice to God. Cain, on the other hand, he's the brat, right? He's the bad kid. And he actually offers an insufficient sacrifice to God. He allows himself to be full of resentment, which leads to bitterness, which leads to him murdering his brother. Strikingly different brothers, both raised by Adam and Eve. Well, today we find another contrast between brothers involving Cain and now his new brother, Seth. God gives Adam and Eve another son, and it's not just Cain and Abel that we see in our text today, or Cain and Seth, that have differences. But chapters four and five trace the genealogy of these two men, and the families are strikingly different. You could say it like this: Cain's family for generations to come follow the same downward trajectory started by Cain. And Seth, on the other hand, his family kind of aims upward. And they stay, as it were, they're not perfect, but they stay as a whole on the path, let's say, of righteousness. And here's what we learn from the story today. This is very important. Our choices are not an island. The path we choose, the choices that we make, look at me. The choices you make don't just impact you, but for better or for worse, they affect you and those within your sphere of influence and perhaps even generations to come. So, by way of example, in a positive sense, like if you are a generous person, like many of you are, you will produce children more than likely, not always, but will be bent who will be bent towards generosity. If you're a positive person, a lot of times you will have children who are very positive and see the glass always as half full. On the other hand, if you're a negative person, guess what? That's gonna rub off on your kids, your co-workers, other church people. It can be toxic to be with people like that. If you're like Cain and you are full of resentment, and like we talked about last week, you're the victim, and everybody's against you, and everything that bad that happens in your life is everybody else's fault. That's bad news for you, that attitude. But guess what? It'll turn your kids into resentful people, and they will never be all that God has called them to be, and they'll never be happy in life. Now, ultimately, here's what I want you to see today. Every decision that you make, watch this, either points people towards Christ and the path of righteousness, or it points them away from Christ down a road of evil and despair. Now, I would assume that each of you today want to live in a way that cultivates godliness for generations to come. Anybody? What I want you to know is that doesn't happen by chance. It takes, if we're gonna, if we're gonna cultivate godliness uh in generations to come, if we're gonna point family and friends and coworkers and the like towards Christ, it takes great intentionality. Like we've got to think about the way we want to live. We've got to aim towards righteousness and live our lives every day in accordance with that. Are you with me?

Why Genealogies Matter To Faith

SPEAKER_00 7:49

So today's passage, uh, fair warning, it's genealogy. How many of you, when you read through the Bible, you come to the genealogy, just be honest, Jesus knows, and you just kind of uh but you just kind of read through it because you want to read the whole Bible, but you just kind of drudge your way through it, right? You just uh you're not happy about it. Well, guys, let me remind you of something. And to be fair, that's me a lot of times, okay? But here's what I've learned is the whole Bible divinely inspired? Is the whole Bible breathed out by God? Then here's what that means. No word in the Bible, no verse, no phrase, no chapter is trivial. Every verse in the Bible is packed with truth meant to point us to Christ and help us to live as real followers of Jesus. And so don't tune me out when I say this is a passage of lineage, right? So-and-so begat so-and-so who begat so-and-so. There is so much wonderful truth packed in here today that will point us to Christ and help us live as real followers of Jesus. Are you with me? You ready for this? Say amen. Anybody want my job this morning? All right. So we're gonna just kind of compare these uh lines, the line of Cain and the line of Seth, and we're gonna start by looking at Cain and Seth themselves.

Cain Builds A Name For Himself

SPEAKER_00 9:26

So let's let's look at Cain in verse 17, Genesis 4, verse 17. Cain knew his wife, that means they were intimate, and she conceived and bore Enoch. Now remember that name. When he, Cain, built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch. Now remember, Cain, remember, he was full of resentment. Again, killed Abel, and he never repented. When God came to him, he lied about it, tried to cover it up, and he was not sorry for his sin, but he was sorry he got caught. And so the Lord actually cursed him. And in verses 11 and 12, you can read those later, going back to last week's sermon. The curse that God pronounced is you're gonna you're gonna be kicked out of the land you're in, and you're going to be a wanderer of Agabond. You're going to be unsettled. So that's verse 12. And now, just a few verses later, what is Cain doing? He's building a city, which implies that he is attempting to create security for himself, though God has declared that he would be unsettled. And beyond that, what's who's he named the city after? He names it after his son, which is not inherently wrong. Like many towns and cities and buildings are named after their founders or children or whatever. But here it seems to me that Cain is attempting to create a dynasty. Like he was created in God's image to be part of God's kingdom and to and to live for that kingdom and to move that kingdom forward to work, let's say, for that kingdom. But now here's what he's doing. Now that his relationship is tainted with God, he's building his own kingdom, his own dynasty. And the language here it echoes a very familiar story that we'll God willing get to in a few weeks. Genesis chapter 11, the building of the tower of Babel. And if you remember, remember there, I believe it's verse 4. The people, as they're aspiring to build this tower to God, they say, Let us make a name for ourselves. And it seems to me, friends, this is Cain's aim as well. I want to establish my name. That's it. Cain wants to make his known, his family's name known. But Seth, on the other hand, I believe strongly here that the text suggests that Seth wants to make God's name known.

Seth And God’s Unstoppable Promise

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Let me just give you a little history on Seth here, or let me back up to previous chapter. In Genesis chapter 3, remember uh Adam and Eve sinned, they disobey God, and and God comes and he curses the serpent. And what's he say? He says to the serpent, there will be this ongoing battle, this between your offspring and the offspring of the woman. Remember? And so then we get into the story of Cain and Abel, which there's no chapter division in the original text. It's supposed to be read together. And what we have is a picture of the offspring of the serpent, namely Cain. 1 John chapter 3, I believe, says explicitly that he is of the evil one. And we have that battle between Cain and Abel, who is the offspring of the woman. And then in chapter 3, it says also that one day a singular seed will come through the seed of the woman, the offspring of the woman, and will crush the serpent's head. And we know that is a prophecy fulfilled in Christ. How many know that he crushed the hate of the head of Satan at the cross? Amen. So, but but in this chapter, Adam and Eve don't know all this yet. They don't see the future. All they have is a promise about the offspring of the woman who would deliver the world one day, restore God's good creation. Well, now what's happened? Abel is gone. This is this was a child of promise. God, surely, you know, I'm disowning Cain, right? You ever had a kid you want to disown? All right. Don't raise your hand if that kid is here this morning. If you haven't, you haven't had teenagers, all right? Uh listen, Abel is killed, right? And so it looks like that promise is null and void that God gave. But watch this. Look at verse 25 in chapter 4. And Adam knew his wife, and again she bore a son and called his name Seth. For she said, Watch this, God has appointed for me offspring instead of Abel. For Cain killed him. What has God done? He's given another offspring of the woman through whom the Messiah would ultimately come. And let me just give you a little nugget right here that's worth celebrating. God's promises and his plans and his purposes cannot be thwarted. They cannot be undone. That's really good news. Because you look out at the world today and you think, wow, it does. I know, like we say, I know how the story ends. The Bible says that, but you're like, are we sure? Like evil seems to be prevailing. Yes. But listen to me, beloved. This is what history teaches us. This is what the Bible teaches us. The whole world can conspire against God, but nothing, no one, not even you, can thwart the plans of God. God's promises are yes and amen. What he promises, he shall do, what he plans shall come to pass. God is faithful. Let's look at verse 26. To Seth also was born a son, and he called his name Enosh. At that time, people began to call on the name of the Lord. Cain has a son and names him what? Enoch. Seth has a son and names him Enosh. Very similar names. All we know about Cain's son, outside of his offspring, is that Cain named him a city after him, right? We know one thing about Seth's son, Enosh. That when he was born, people started calling upon the name of the Lord. Two different legacies, yes? See, Cain, going back to Cain, wanted to make a name for himself, so his son is attached to a city. Seth, I believe, wholeheartedly wanted to make God's name known. And so his son is to attach to, let's say, communion with God. There is a uh popular career now. People are making careers out of being social media influencers. And the whole aim of a social media influencer on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or YouTube, wherever, the whole aim is to make their name known. To make you believe that their name is great, that they are worth listening to, and they share every aspect of their lives, TMI, right? Things we shouldn't, we don't want to see. And Paul writes to them, and here's what he says: this is 1 Corinthians 3, 5, and then I'm going to jump to nine verse 9. Paul says, What then is Apollos? What is Paul? And here's what he says, we are servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. Then verse 9 So neither he who plants nor he who waters, talking about himself and Apollos, is anything, but only God who gives the growth. What's Paul saying? Oh, the great apostle. He's saying, Listen, I'm nothing. My name means nothing. I'm just a vessel through whom God called and works through. Paul's goal was never to make his name great. Paul said, I die daily. I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Everywhere Paul went, his aim was not to make himself known, but to make Jesus known. His only goal in wanting people to follow him was to say, Follow me as I follow Christ. Do you want to make your name known? Are you more concerned with making your name known? Or are you more concerned with making Jesus' name known?

Two Lamechs Two Different Lines

SPEAKER_00 19:50

The two genealogies listed in Genesis 4, 17 through chapter 5 list many, many members of Seth and Cain's family. And I won't take time to read them now, but I encourage you. Um your discussion kind kind of walks you through some of the really cool things in there. Read it later. But I I want to camp out at one man in each family tree who share the same name, the name Lamech. Okay, so there's a Lamech in Cain's family and a Lamech in Seth's family. So let's begin by looking at Cain's Lamech.

Redefining Marriage And Celebrating Sin

SPEAKER_00 20:27

Genesis 4, 18 and 19. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mahushel, and Mahushel fathered Methushel, and Methushel fathered Lamech. Anybody looking for baby names? And Lamech took two wives. The name of one, somebody say, uh-oh. Uh the name of one was Ada, and the other name of the other was Zillah. Okay? Now let's back up. Adam and Eve, at the heart of their disobedience, was this desire to define right and wrong for themselves. That's the eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead of trusting God's uh good judgment and what he declares good and evil, they wanted to redefine it for themselves. Cain, the next generation, defines justice for himself, taking innocent life. And now Lamech continues in that pattern. Did you notice what he did? He redefines marriage for himself. You see, the ordinance of marriage, the first ordinance that God gives is laid out in pages one and two of your Bible. Let me just go back. Uh Genesis 1, verses 27 and 28. Male and female, he created them. How many genders are there, friends? All right. Some toddlers need to teach some grown adults with PhDs how many genders there are. Come on, somebody. And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it. And then we go to page two, Genesis 2, verse 24. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall hold fast to his wife, woman, and they shall become one flesh. Guys, this is really simple. Really simple. You probably don't have to write this down. God's design for marriage, one man, one woman becoming you united in one flesh. Anybody confused about that? Pretty explicit. But you know what Lamech does? He does what our culture does today. He attempts to redefine marriage for himself and he takes two wives. Now your argument may be this. Well, Pastor, doesn't God allow key biblical figures in the Old Testament to take multiple wives? Yes, and true enough. But listen to me, this is very important. Not everything in your Bible is prescriptive. A lot of it is descriptive. A lot of it we see, it's like what not to do, right? Here's the thing God's original design was for one man and for one woman. But after the flood, it seems to me perhaps to repopulate the earth, or just because of man's brokenness, God allowed, and in in some cases, a man to take multiple wives. But it wasn't his initial plan. But here's what Jesus did Jesus came to restore God's good creation. And it's an intended design, which includes reestablishing the sanctity of marriage. Let me just show you this. Matthew 19, 4 through 6. Jesus quotes from, he pulls from Genesis 1 and 2. Listen carefully to his words. He who created them from the beginning, so God created them, made them what? Male and female. Just in case you're still confused. And then you go down, he says, A man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, one man, one woman, and the how many? Two shall become one flesh. Lamech is the first to defy this ordinance. So what secular culture today is doing is what secular culture is doing is nothing new. This happens on page four of your Bible. But this is what they're doing. They're trying to redefine gender and marriage, redefine what it means to be a man or a woman, to remove the boundaries that God has put on marriage than it is to be between one man and one woman. Our culture has become flippant about divorce, which God hates. The point in Genesis 1 and 2 that we read over is that we're to be united as one flesh, which means we're never intended, that one flesh is never intended to be ripped apart. And our culture goes beyond that. This is crazy. It's normalizing the perversion of the marriage bed, open marriage and swinging. These, oh my gosh, horrors are being propagated. Let me just read you from uh psychology today. Uh, this is a therapist, John Kim, and here's what he argues. He writes, quote, at the end of the day, you have to decide what kind of relationship you want and what works for you. End quote. And then he explicitly includes in those types of relationships monogamy, political polygamy, open marriages, which by the way is you're married to one person, but y'all just sleep with whoever you want. Or he says, a combination of everything among those choices. Can I just make a public service announcement today? Humans did not invent gender nor marriage. The Lord did. In what God designed, we do not have the right to redesign. What God defined, we have no right to redefine. Sin continues in Cain's family through Lamech, but it doesn't just continue. Watch this, it progresses. Go with me to Genesis 4 23. Lamech said to his wives, Ada and Zillah, hear my voice, you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold. By the way, check your sermon notes for something really cool in that uh 77-fold statement. So after Cain killed Abel, he did not repent, right? We've we've stated this. But he did not celebrate his actions. He lied to God. He wasn't proud of what he's done. He wasn't necessarily sorry, but he wasn't proud of it. And he never repented. But watch this generations down the line, Lamech, his family member, kills a man. And he doesn't just kill the man, but he boasts about it. Scholars tell us that verses 23 and 24, the verses I just read, is a song that Lamech wrote about his murderous behavior. And he sang it to his wives. And then he boasted, God put a mark on Cain to protect him. And Cain says, Oh, I don't need God. Or excuse me. Lamech says, I don't need God. I put a mark on myself. And it's going to be the consequences if somebody messes with me are going to be way worse than somebody messing with Cain. Sin doesn't just pass on from generation to generation. It often progresses. Let me say it like this What one generation tolerates, another generation celebrates. Can I say it again? What one generation tolerates, the next generation will celebrate. Let me just give you a couple examples. The clearest right now is the LGBTQ community. What started as toleration, what did it move to? It moved to normalization, and now it's moved to the point of celebration. They have a whole month called Pride Month, which is a sin, by the way. Pride is a sin. To celebrate that which God despises. But let's not pick on that community. What about cohabitation? Oh, you don't want to hear this. A generation ago, two generations ago, let's say, when I was young, like nobody, people lived together, I know, but it was like done in secret. People were ashamed of it, right? It was seen as wrong. And then the next generation began to normalize it. It was seen as ah, it's not that bad. Still wasn't popular, but it's not that bad. But now it's celebrated and it's thought nothing of. Watch this. According to U.S. Census figures, about 19.3 million American adults were living with an unmarried partner in 2024. The first Lamech perpetuates Cain's violence in sin. But here's the great news the second Lamech is quite different. Let me just read you. Uh, let's see, let's start in verse 25 of chapter 5, and we're gonna jump ahead.

Noah Hope And A Better Legacy

SPEAKER_00 30:08

When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he fathered Lamech. So this is now Seth's line. Now pick up at verse 28. When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying, Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Lamech were 777 years. You can study that out too. It's in your notes. And then he died. We don't know a lot about the Lamech and Celest line, but we know a couple of things. One, we know who his son is. Lamech becomes the father of Noah, whom God will use to preserve the human race in the next chapters. Then we know about Lamech's words. Remember the first Lamech in Cain's line? What did he, what were what are the words recorded from him? It's a song about violence and vengeance. But now we have another Lamech out of the line of Seth on the path of righteousness. And he gives, he sings, let's say, quite a different tune. What's he say? He gives words of hope and deliverance, trusting that God will use Noah to bring relief. A good translation there would be comfort to the broken world. Lot different song than the other Lamech. Here's all I want you to see. These two men share a name, yet they're very different. They trace their lineage all about all back to Adam and Eve and to two brothers. But they take extremely different paths. And their choices, by the way, lead to different outcomes. Think about this. Um by the way, it's quite possible that Lamech and Seth's line helped Noah build the Ark. He only died just a few years before the flood. Isn't that cool to think about? Cain's line, that Lamech's family was wiped out in the flood. It's the road to destruction. The path of resentment and vengeance and sin is the road to destruction. On the other hand, Seth's line through Noah is preserved. And as a matter of fact, in Luke 3.38, it's interesting, Dr. Luke traces the genealogy of Christ all the way back to Adam. And in verse chapter 3, verse 38, he lists Seth in that genealogical record. Okay? So you've got Cain's sinful choices leading to a family's destruction. Seth's life ultimately ultimately leaves people to leads people to Christ. Which legacy do you want? That's that's what I just want to present you with today. The man that I looked up the most to in my life was my grandfather, who passed away a few years ago. My grandfather was very talented. He could fix anything, he could rebuild an engine, build anything. Pastor Ben, I didn't get that gene. He couldn't retire. People kept calling him. Uh factories kept calling and saying, hey, we need you, we need you, we need you. Very talented. But what was so striking to me at his funeral is that nobody hardly even mentioned, no one hardly mentioned his gifting as a hydraulics engineer. When I think of my grandfather, I rarely think of that. But let me tell you, let me tell you that wasn't his legacy, let's say. Let me tell you what his legacy was and is. At his funeral, there were four generations present. My grandmother, her three daughters, and their husbands, her many grandchildren, and her many great-grandchildren, four generations. And now there's a fifth, my little granddaughter. And you know what's so striking at my grandfather's funeral? Every single member in every single generation of my family, every cousin, every spouse, every daughter, and every husband. And my and every grandson and every great-grandson in their respective spouses. Every one of those family members knows and serve the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know why? Because my grandfather, who we see as the patriarch of our family, was the godliest man that I've ever known. And he constantly pointed us to Jesus by what he said and by the life that he lived. Can I ask you a morbid question? What do you want people to say at your funeral about you? Do you want them to brag about all the money you made? Or it's like, who cares? Do you want them to talk about how smart you were in the end? Who cares? I don't even want people to remember what kind of a pastor I was and how much I love people, whatever it might be. What I hope I'm known for is that in my eating and my drinking, in my preaching and my living, in my words and my behavior, that I pointed my family to the Lord Jesus Christ.

One Choice That Changes Direction

SPEAKER_00 36:52

If those I'm closing, so please listen. And I want you to think deeply about this. If those within your circle of influence continued in the direction you are currently heading, where would that direction lead them? And here's the question I want to leave you with. What is one choice you can make today that would help better direct them to Christ? I'll say one thing that's very important. I'm not here to beat you up, okay? Maybe you have lived in such a way, and maybe you're older, maybe you've lived in such a way that you have not pointed your kids towards Christ. And not, by the way, none of us perfectly have. But maybe you're sitting there going, oh, it's too late. No, it's not. Because Jesus makes all things new. If you will come to him today, or if you have come to him, if you'll just surrender your life and live it as a real follower of Jesus, you can change in a moment. And you will impact your family today, your coworkers today. As a matter of fact, do you know how powerful it is when you've been living for the devil in the world and all of a sudden Jesus changes your life? Do you know what a testimony that is? It's unbelievable. It's not too late for you to change directions and to point your family towards Jesus. So our choices are not an island. For better or for worse, they have the potential of impacting generations to come. May we choose wisely.