Genesis 4
v.5
but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast.
Cain’s offering was the effort of dead religion, while Abel’s offering was made in faith, in a desire to worship God in spirit and in truth.
v.7
If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”
A spirit of performance can have a master that isn’t God. Yet, God gives us a spirit of power, love, and self-control so we may live with a spirit of excellence. This allows us to master sin through the same spirit that overcame death which lives in us.
v.10
The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.”
God, end abortion and send revival.
v.13
Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I could bear.”
One of the consequences of sin is that it makes the sinner pity himself instead of causing him to turn to God. One of the first signs of new life is that the individual takes sides with God against himself.
To be specific, the self-sins are these: self-righteousness, self-pity, self-confidence, self-sufficiency, self-admiration, self-love and a host of others like them.
v.23-24
Lamech said to his wives, “Adah and Zillah, listen to me; wives of Lamech, hear my words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. 24If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times.”
The way Lamech boasted about his murder of another, and the way he believed he could promise a greater retribution than God, shows a progressive degeneracy among humanity. Things quickly became worse with the human race, a true devolution.
v.26
Seth also had a son, and he named him Enosh. At that time men began to call on the name of the Lord.
Even in those wicked days, the worship of God was not unknown. Some have called the first revival, because it was the first indication of a spiritual resurgence after a clear decline.
In these days God began to move the hearts of the godly to restore religion, which had been suppressed by the wicked for a long time.