The Family of God
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2019 · 3 March 2019
There are and always have been two families of human beings. Two societies, two cultures on the earth - the family of God, and the family of Satan. The children of God, as they are called, and the children of Satan. And every cultural clash throughout human history is really a clash between those two societies - those two families. This is true in our own nation. Issues of morality and religion are in a spiritual war.
Now, the true family of God is governed by the Bible. For the family of Satan, this book is a big problem. In fact, the Bible lies at the root of cultural conflict. Pornography wouldn't be a problem if there was no Bible. Adultery, incest, homosexuality, pedophilia, transsexualism, euthanasia, abortion, feminist rebellion, divorce and false religions would not be a problem if it weren't for the Bible.
For many people the Bible is a severe problem. No other book defines so clearly moral and religious truth. The secular culture doesn't mind the Bible, as long as you keep it inside the church. They just don't want it in the public discourse as if it is an authoritative document. This is not really the separation of church and state; it is the separation of people from the Bible.
It began in Genesis 4, as the family of Cain and the family of Seth. There is Cain and secular culture; and Seth and sacred culture. You have Cain and material society; Seth and spiritual society. Cain and those who rebel against God and love sin; and Seth and those who worship God and love righteousness. Cain is illustrated by Lamech, and Seth is illustrated by Enosh, Enoch, the sons of Noah.
Only at the beginning was the line of Seth righteous. By the time you get to Noah, there are only eight righteous souls on the entire world; and they come from the family of Seth. All the rest of the family of Seth and Cain were drowned in the flood because they were wicked. We assume that by the time of the flood Seth was already dead, or he would have been saved too.
Others in the line of Seth who were also worshipping God must have died out before the flood came. And Enoch, about whom we learn in Genesis 5 in the line of Seth, had his own private rapture in which he was taken to heaven; and he too, was a righteous man. But by the time you get to the flood, there were only eight righteous left in the line of Seth.
Now let's look at Cain and secular culture just for a moment. Verse 19-22, “And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. 20 Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. 21 His brother's name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. 22 Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; He was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron.
The development of a secular, material culture and society is in itself a provision of what we would call "common grace." This is a provision from God for man's enjoyment of life. God has filled this planet with immense riches. Those riches contribute much to our lives. Things we see with our eyes, things that we feel with our bodies, thrills, adventure; things that we eat. And creature comforts, all that is a gift from God.
Verse 22, “The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah. 23 Lamech said to his wives: “Adah 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. 24 If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's is seventy-sevenfold.” God has provided for the development of secular society and culture so that man would be thankful to God.
However, man uses this world and all its riches but never gives thanks to God. And in secular culture all the enjoyments of common grace have no redeeming value anyway. As marvelous as the creation is, there will be a recreation of it all. The whole thing is going to burn up, according to 2 Peter 2 and 3. The Lord is going to come, and everything is replaced by a new heaven and a new earth.
We are very early in human history. There is that initial family in Genesis. But there is clearly no evolution. There is no evolution on the physical side; there is no evolution on the social side; there is no evolution on the cultural side; there is no evolution on the religious side. There is no evolving upward at all. From the beginning, man is fully capable at a high level, but everything has gone down since the Fall, not up.
The only testimony we have about life on the planet before a universal flood is from Scripture about the original man, who was created in God's image; and was astonishingly intelligent. He was amazingly creative, resourceful, healthy, and he had amazing physical strength, he was skilled because his mind was far beyond ours, and over time he gained knowledge, wisdom and refinement.
From the beginning Cain is involved with his son in the building of a city. And after Lamech's two wives give him sons; one develops animal husbandry, and the other one developed the most dominating form of entertainment in our society, music. And then you have the very technical science of metallurgy dealing with bronze and iron. And all of that is developed in the first family.
Add to that the development of an agrarian society. Adam himself worked the ground. And in that pre-flood world, with a benign climate and no weather and no wind and no rain and no snow, and therefore no extreme heat or extreme cold, you had a flourishing earth. And they developed tremendous skill over the long periods of time in their lives. We learned all that last Sunday.
And so there was high productivity; there was plenty for all in that kind of society. It was an amazing time in an amazing world. Many were genius - developing all the skills of animal husbandry for the purposes of milk and meat and hide involved breeding, feeding, killing and skinning. God actually authorized eating meat after the flood in Genesis 9:3, but because they were exposed to animal sacrifice they ate meat.
And then came the sophisticated blessing of music, tones and scales. And in Job 28:1-2 God says, “Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place for gold that they refine. 2 Iron is taken out of the earth, and copper is smelted from the ore.” They had developed a very sophisticated culture, with cities and farms and ranches and business going on in the city; and mining and entertainment.
But God is not mentioned. This is secular society at its best, and it offers no redemption; and it will be ultimately destroyed. Even the smartest person now, doesn't have the intelligence that they had. We don't have the physical stamina they had; don't have the strength they had; and don't have the skill that first family had. But over the centuries, we have been able to build an amazing world.
And Lamech tells us a little more about the sophistication of that culture. Pay attention to what Lamech says to his wives. This is recognizable Hebrew poetry. God revealed it to Moses, as the author, that it was poetic. And so Moses translates and calls it, "The Song of the Sword." They had developed poetry. Real poetry is the highest level of language. Lamech was not a backwards Neanderthal.
Real poetry has components. The first one is rhythm, which is the rise and fall. Poetry has consonants which means similar sounds at the ends of words and phrases. Thirdly, poetry has parallelisms, matching lines that are parallel. And Lamech was a poet. But he's wicked, selfish, proud, insensitive, vengeful and murderous. He is the civilized savage. Just like the situation today, right?
Here's his poem in verse 23. Actually, the first line is part of the poem. "And Lamech said to his wives, 'Adah and Zillah, listen to my voice, you wives of Lamech, give heed to my speech.'" You see the parallelism? "for I have killed a man for wounding me; and a boy for striking me.'" There is the second parallelism. And there is the third. "'If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.'"
So what you have in that pre-flood society is wickedness pervading everything. And what would that wickedness do? It would manifest itself the same way it does today. And one of the ways would be in the rape and plunder of women, as well as robbery and murder. And there was a big security problem in that ancient world; because wicked people continually do wicked things.
And so, Lamech says to his wives, "'Listen to me; I'm telling you, I have killed a man for wounding me, and a boy for striking me. And if Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.'" "You have nothing to worry about." He is saying, "Because I have the power to kill, and I have done it. I am at least 10 times greater than Cain.” He was bragging to his wives.
There isn't anybody in human history after the flood who descends from Cain. This is what Jude calls "the way of Cain." But even though they were all drowned, the way of Cain came back, right? Secular culture. Civilized, yes; accomplished in agrarian crafts, urbanized, industrialized; tremendous artists, poets, musicians; but man is still a vicious, immoral, would-be killer who lifts himself up above God.
Let us now look at Seth and sacred culture. – Genesis 4:25-26, “And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” 26 To Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.” Here's the first mention of sacred culture.
The line of Seth is in Genesis 5. What it does highlight is Enoch, who was so righteous he walked one day right up into heaven and never died. Noah was also righteous and therefore in Genesis 6:8 it says, "He found favor in the eyes of the Lord." His sons worshipped the true God and thus were spared judgment. Nothing is said about human accomplishments but we are introduced to worship.
The lineage is traced for us because it's important. Why? Because all the generations from the Seth are preserved through Noah, and therefore through Seth and Noah and on down comes the Messiah, who is the fulfillment of the promise of Genesis 3:15. Adam lived 930 years, and most likely died in the tenth generation through Seth, which would have been just before the birth of Noah.
In fact, Noah was the first person born after the death of Adam. What an interesting life. From the perfect, innocence in the Garden, ten generations into human history, to see the effect of sin on the planet. All these people were wicked except only eight people. Adam and Eve were God's people. They believed in the true and living God; they believed in His Word; they repented of their sin; and they had been forgiven by God.
And here was Adam, living through all of this. He saw his son Cain kill his brother Abel. He saw Cain go out of the presence of God into the land of Nod. He saw Cain develop a secular culture. He saw Lamech break the divine pattern of marriage by being a bigamist. He saw the corruption of the whole world as the world began to grow and develop. He must have waited for the promised deliverer.
In verse 26 Seth had a son, too. He married another one of the daughters of Adam and Eve, as Cain had done. And his son he called "Enosh," which is a synonym for "Adam." It means, "Man." And the key is, “Then men began to call on the name of the Lord.” Something wonderful happened in the life of Seth; a spiritual revival took place that he passed on to his son Enosh.
With the line of Seth there's a new stream of people. And we don't know how many in the Seth line were touched by it, but we see Enoch in Genesis 5: 22, he "walked with God three hundred years after he had become the father of Methuselah." And he walked with God for a total of 365 years. And in verse 24, he "walked with God and he was not, for God took him." One day he walked right into heaven.
Verse 26, "Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord," is the oldest reference to worship of Jehovah. And there is no evolution of religion. Man didn't start out with some primitive religion and evolve to a higher, sophisticated form of religion. Man started with the true, pure worship of God. Look, those people knew who was God because Adam was around. And Adam had walked and talked with God.
The first worshipper ever in the world was a worshipper of the true and living God. And after the Fall in sin it all went downhill. They knew who the true and living God was; and they passed it on. And Noah took it and told it to his sons. And after they came out of the ark, they continue to spread it. And eventually, God called Abraham and gave him the message of the true and living God; and out of him came the people Israel.
What does "to call upon" mean? It can mean, "to pray to"; "to proclaim" or, "to name." They began to worship through praying, proclaiming and praising. And the name of the Lord simply means who He is. God was known to them as the Creator, the forgiver of sin, the God who would conquer Satan. But He was also known as the Lord of grace, and the Lord of forgiveness and the Lord of mercy.
They were already involved in sacrifices that pictured the one, true sacrifice, Jesus Christ. Now worship was begun by Adam and Eve. Abel participated with them. But in the line of Cain it vanished. It was Seth that God used to restore worship. That's why in Luke 3:38 in the genealogy of Jesus it says, “Jesus, son of Joseph ……… “the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.”
In the midst of a secular unbelieving culture, with all its advancements materially, there's no redeeming value to it, and it's all going to burn up. But against that culture, God has placed His people, His remnant - the true believing family of God. In the midst of advancing sin in sophisticated culture, there are those true, pure worshippers of Jehovah, the personal, covenant, savior God. That's our calling too. Let us pray.