Enmity Between Satan's Seed and the Woman's Seed

Open your Bibles, please, to the book of Genesis. I would like for us to refresh our minds about one verse of Scripture found in the third chapter, because that verse will be the introduction to our present discussion. Notice in chapter 3, verse 15, part of the curse because of Adam's sin:

Genesis 3:

We recognized that these words were addressed to the Devil, or to the serpent occupied by the Devil, because he was the instrument in relation to the sin of Adam and Eve. God said, “I will put enmity between thee, Devil, and the woman, or thee, Serpent, and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.”

We would like to notice particularly that phrase, “enmity between thy seed and her seed”…the seed of the woman, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the seed of the Serpent, the Antichrist. As we mentioned to you, these words have deeper meaning than appear on the surface, so that in a general way this verse of Scripture represents a prophecy that there would be enmity between the godly seed and the ungodly seed, or there would be enmity between the children of God and the children of the Devil.

As we mentioned to you, not everyone is a child of God. The world is divided into two families, the children of God and the children of the Devil. From the time that God made this prophecy in Genesis, chapter 3, verse 15, down to the present hour and on to the hour when the Antichrist will make a final attempt to pull the Lord Jesus Christ from the throne, this enmity exists and will exist.

We noticed the prophecy of this enmity in its beginning fulfullment in the relationship between Cain and Abel. You will remember that Abel brought a sacrifice to God by faith…faith in what his parents had taught him. His parents had taught him the the only way to approach God was by means of the blood of an innocent victim accepted as a sacrifice for sin. So Abel brought a lamb. He slew it and burned the fat thereof.

We went to the book of Leviticus and learned that that was what occurred in the Biblical sacrifices which God ordained at a much later date than when Abel lived. Then we noticed that Cain brought his sacrifice, but his was a bloodless sacrifice. He brought it in direct defiance of everything that God had said. We read in the Word of God that God had respect for Abel's sacrifice, but He did not have respect for Cain's sacrifice. We learned that Abel's offering was brought by faith, and Cain's was brought in self-will.

Then we examined a passage of Scripture in the Epistle of I John that told us that Cain hated Abel for no other reason than that Abel's deeds were righteous and Cain's deeds were unrighteous. There we have the enmity between the godly seed, Abel, and the ungodly seed, Cain, very definitely and very clearly defined.

As we learned, that enmity broke out in the open, and Cain slew his brother Abel. Enmity, then, became fruitful in murder. We learned that because Cain slew his brother Abel, God put a mark upon him that no one would be able to kill him, and as part of his punishment he was to become a vagabond and a wanderer throughout the earth. In chapter 4, verse 16:

Genesis 4:

In the remaining portion of chapter 4, God traces for us the seed of the Devil, or the ungodly seed, the seed of Cain. In chapter 5, he traces for us the godly seed, or the seed of a character by the name of Seth. In tracing this lineage he does not, of course, trace down to the end of time, because we are yet the sons of Adam. Yet significantly, in chapters 4 and 5, he traces the lineage of seven generations. It should be explained that in Bible exposition, Adam is counted as number one, not Cain or Seth (see Jude 14). Otherwise, the narrative is confusing.

Lamech, whom we meet here, was the seventh from Adam in the ungodly line. A man whom we also meet here, Enoch, is the seventh from Adam in the godly line. So the ungodly line goes down from the seventh from Adam, and the godly line goes down from the seventh from Adam, and they are compared and contrasted in these two chapters.

You may wonder why they stop with these individuals. I do not think it was because of the individuals themselves, but I think it was for two reasons. One: numerically, each one was the seventh from Adam. Seven is the number of completion in the Bible, and you will find if you take the time to study the Word of God numerically that seven becomes the climax for quite a number of things…seven days, seven years, seven dispensations, seven generations, etc.

And then it would seem in the providence of God that the lineage as it is traced here goes along rather uneventfully until these two men…Lamech in the ungodly line and Enoch in the godly line…come on the scene. Then it would seem that something definite happened.

The Ungodly Line

I would like to pause to read with you the history of the ungodly line. We will talk about it a bit and then go on to the godly line. Verse 17:

Genesis 4:

We stop our reading there because the ungodly line, seven generations worth, ends with verse 24. You realize that that ungodly line began with murder, and it ended with the murder of a young man whom we do not know. Cain slew Abel. Lamech, seven generations from Adam, slew a man whose name we do not know.

If you were listening as we read, you noticed that in these verses of Scripture there is not one mention of God, not one mention of one Spiritual thing whatsoever. And there is a very definite sense of rebellion throughout this entire paragraph, a very definite sense of rebellion against the revealed will of God.

For example, you remember that God told Cain that he should never settle down in one place. That was to be part of his punishment. What do we find in verse 17? We find Cain, when his child was born, building a city and making that city which was built in open rebellion against God, a memorial to his son. The city itself was called Enoch .

Things went along in open rebellion, but there is no detailed record of what occurred until we come to verse 19, where we are introduced to this man Lamech, who was the seventh from Adam. We find rebellion again. Here in verse 19 we read:

Genesis 4:

This was in open rebellion against the will of God revealed in chapter 2, verse 24, where we read:

Genesis 2:

When God instituted marriage, he instituted it on the basis of one man for one woman. but here, Lamech, only seven generations from Adam, completely ignored God's revealed will and took to himself two wives instead of one. We find that the life of Lamech and his descendants was related not to anything spiritual but to everything material. In verse 20 of chapter 4, we have the first rancher in all the history of the world. He was a prosperous rancher. He was the father of such as dwell in tents and such as have cattle. In verse 21, another child of Lamech was a musician, the builder of the harp and the organ.

Incidentally, this is just seven generations from Adam, and they are not walking on all fours. They are building pipe organs, they are building harps, and they are inventing musical instruments. This might be wise to remember if you have been exposed to the theory, baseless and soundless, that it took millions of years for man to get any sense in his head.

In verse 22, another descendant of Lamech was a manufacturer. He was an instructor of every artificer in brass and in iron. So you see these people were very intelligent, but if there is one word that describes the descendants of Cain, it is materialistic. Did you notice? There is not one word of spirituality in all these generations.

We enjoy the harp and the organ, and we enjoy all these instruments of brass and iron and all the products of manufacturing, but let us remember it is a materialistic world in which we live. It is wise for us to remember what a Christian's attitude ought to be toward a materialistic world.

The Christian's attitude, according to I Corinthians, chapter 7, verse 31, is that we should use this world without abusing the privilege that is ours of living in it. That is where a great many Christians fall short. They abuse the privilege. They get settled down in the world. They forget that they are pilgrims and strangers. They do not use all these so-called inventions for the furtherance of the cause of Christ. A great many times, they are used to cause Christians to grow cold and indifferent and to get completely away from God.

The Second Murder Recorded in the Bible

In verse 23, Lamech is introduced to us as a poet. It is not evident to us in our translation, but this is a poem or a psalm which Lamech wrote. A sad commentary on the spiritual condition of this ungodly line is that the psalm has murder for its theme. Notice what he said:

Genesis 4:

Get the gist of the psalm. A young man had wounded Lamech. A young man had hurt him, so Lamech killed him. He was bragging and boasting about what he had done. He went back to the story he had heard from his fathers and his gradndfathers concerning Cain, his great-grandfather back six generations. He remembered that Cain had said to God, “Someone will kill me before I get very far.” And God said, “No one is going to kill you, because part of your punishment is to live as a wanderer, and if anyone kills you, I will take vengeance on him sevenfold.”

That was God speaking. God has a right to do that, because God said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” It is not the right of any man to take vengeance in his own hands. Yet here was Lamech in open rebellion against God, not only taking vengeance in his own hands, but saying, “I will do a better job than God does. God said he would invent sevenfold judgment if anyone killed my grandfather, Cain. Well, listen to me. I will have vengeance on him seventy times seven,” he told his wives. Surely you can sense the rebellion in his heart, all of it leaving God out. And so, for six generations the descendants of Cain were in rebellion against God.

And then comes a refreshing thing, a little rainbow of hope across a dark picture. God is in the habit of doing that. The paragraph that begins with verse 25 of this fourth chapter introduces to us the godly line, the line of Seth. This will take us into the second part of the book of Genesis. Remember I told you that the book of Genesis falls into natural divisions, each division ending with the words found in chapter 5, verse 1:

Genesis 5:

The Godly Line

Our story actually begins with chapter 4, verse 25:

Genesis 4:

Genesis 5:

We will stop our reading there, emphasizing once again that what we have read is a description of the godly line, or the seed against which the Devil was definitely opposed.

The record begins with chapter 4, verse 25. If you do not think as you read, you might wonder why in chapter 5, there seems to be an interruption. Those of us who are living in this age should not have any trouble understanding this, especially if you have the opportunity (if it is an opportunity. Of, that, I am not sure.) of watching television to any great extent. Those of you who have watched television know that a great many times, when a play or a drama comes on the screen, it will take you apparently right to the middle of some action and you get all excited and think, “This is it!” And suddenly they come on with a commercial and then start the thing all over again, and finally way down in the middle of the picture, you see the scene you saw on the screen to begin with. That is exactly what happens here. In verse 25 of chapter 4, we are placed right in the midst of the action. Then in the first few verses of chapter 5, we are taken back to the beginning.

Godly Line In Need of A Savior

There is a purpose. We are studying in this portion of the Word of God that to which we have referred as the godly line of Seth. The Bible and the Holy Spirit want us to be very sure that we understand that people are not born godly. Will you remember that? People are not born godly. It might seem that they were from verse 25, because we read:

Genesis 4:

If we should go right into the description of the godly line, we might be inclined to think that Seth was born with a spark of divinity in him, and that that is why he and his descendants were good, why the descendants of Cain were bad. In chapter 5, verses 1-3, we are told that Seth was born into the world like any other creature, under the curse of sin and in need of a Savior. We read in verse 3:

Genesis 5:

Remember the phrase after Adam's image . Adam was created in the image of God, and then he fell. When Seth was born, he was born not in the image of God, but in the image of Adam. Seth had to be born again, just as Abel had to be born again. Seth had to be born again, just as you and I have to be born again. That is the reason for what seems to be an interruption. It takes us back to the beginning of things, and we learn that Seth was a sinner, in terms of New Testament Christianity, saved by grace.

Going back to verse 25 of chapter 4, you will notice that when Seth was born, his mother, recognizing the hand of God, said, “God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.” That is the reason she called his name Seth. It means appointed . It might be wise for us to go back and notice what Eve said when Cain was born. In chapter 4, verse 1:

Genesis 4:

In chapter 3, verse 15, God had said that the woman would bear a seed, and through that seed would come blessing. In chapter 4, she thought Cain was the answer, but Cain turned out to be a murderer. Not only was he a murderer, he also robbed her of the only other hope she had. He killed Abel.

When Seth was born, she said, “God has appointed me another seed instead of Abel.” Though she did not understand everything about it, she felt that God had a hand in it, and that maybe God was going to undo what had been done in the death of Abel at the hand of Cain.

In verse 26, we have a very interesting statement, and that is that Seth had a son born to him, and he called his name Enos. The next thing it says is, “Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.” Many people feel that this was when Seth was born again. He became a Christian on the birth of his son. That is possibly true, but it might be wise to remember in the light of what we are discussing…the godly line and the ungodly line…that literally verse 26 should read: “To Seth also was born a son and he called his name Enos. Then began men to be called by the name of the Lord.”

We have a New Testament parallel in that, you remember, when the people were called Christians first at Antioch. A little group of people at Antioch reminded people so much of Christ that they called them Christians. These people were so true to God that people called them by the name of the Lord. So this is the first record of a godly people. This is the first record of a godly line.

I want you to notice, as you think back over what we have read, the difference between the godly line and the ungodly line. The ungodly line was marked by materialism. It was marked by rebellion and by murder. The ungodly line began with murder and ended with murder. The godly line began with fellowship with God in verse 26 of chapter 4 and ended in verse 24 of chapter 5 with Enoch, the seventh from Adam, with fellowship…eternal fellowship, because Enoch walked with God and was not, for God took him.

Throughout the description of the line there is a definite sense of the being of God in the names that were given the children…a recognition of God in the lives of the individuals.

Enoch's Walk With God

In the ungodly line, our attention was fastened upon Lamech, seventh from Adam. In the godly line, our attention is fastened upon Enoch, seventh from Adam. I would like for us to notice a few things about Enoch in this chapter, that we may have a good picture of this godly line and godly descent. You will notice in verse 18:

Genesis 5:

We will stop our reading here, for that is the commencement of Enoch's walk with God. You see, he did not always walk with God. There was a time when he began to walk with God. Even though he was part of the godly line, even though he had the godly heritage that we have been talking about, there had to come a time in his life when he began to walk with God. People are not born Christians. They are born-again Christians. People do not naturally walk with God. There must come a time of commitment and commencement when they walk with God.

In this particular instance, Enoch began to walk with God when his son Methuselah was born. Of course we are not told definitely what the birth of Methuselah had to do with Enoch's beginning to walk with God. Perhaps, humanly speaking, it was the thing that happens to a lot of lives…young men, callous and unthinking, when God places into their arms a little child, they begin to think and to recognize their responsibility and their need of Christ. They accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior because of the responsibility that is theirs in rearing a child.

That could be it, but I am prone to think it was something else. I think it is wrapped up in the word Methuselah . The word Methuselah means, “When he dies, judgment shall come.” I think God revealed to Enoch that the years of the life of Methuselah were going to be years of grace for the human race. They would be years when God would deal with men, and God would call them to repentance. If we anticipate ourselves a little bit, we will find that when Methuselah died, the flood came. God judged the world. I think God gave to Enoch a vision of what was to come, and that vision so gripped Enoch's life that he began to walk with God. You say, “How could he give him a vision of the flood?” Well, Beloved, he gave him a vision even far more distant than the flood. He gave him a vision of the second coming of Jesus Christ…something that has not even happened, something that is yet to happen. He gave him such a vision of the second coming of Christ that Enoch became a new creature and began to walk with God.

I am sure you want Scriptural verification of that, so turn with me to the Epistle of Jude in the New Testament, verse 14:

Jude:

Those words say very simply that Enoch was a second-coming preacher. He did not mind talking about the second coming of Christ. These words also indicate the age in which Enoch lived…an ungodly age, an age so ungodly that finally God said, “I am sorry I ever created man, and I have got to do something about it.” Sin had become so terrible that God had to visit the world with judgment.

Go with me to the book of Genesis, chapter 5, once again. I might add that Enoch's walk with God was a continuous walk. Your walk and mine are sometimes spasmodic, in fellowship and out of fellowship. But the simple statement in verse 23 would indicate that Enoch had a continuous fellowship with God lasting three hundred years. It is amazing, isn't it? All the days of Enoch were 365 years. He was 65 years old when he began to walk with God. Of course that would seem old to us with our brevity of life, but with the longevity of the times, he was a comparatively young man when he began to walk with God. And he walked with God for 300 years.

The Translation of Enoch

The culmination of Enoch's walk, which is indicative of what the godly line was, is found in verse 24, where we read:

Genesis 5:

We wonder what that meant. We do not have to wonder very long, for we are told plainly in the Word, in chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews. Here we are told how God took Enoch, and why God took Enoch. And we are told that that is possibly what will happen to us someday, in the providence of God, as we wait for Jesus. You will notice in Hebrews, chapter 11, verse 1:

Hebrews 11:

One thing we know when we say that Enoch was not, and that God took him: we know that he did not die. He left this world without death. He was translated. The word translated means carried across . What actually happened was that god came and carried him across the river of death , figuratively speaking, into His very presence. He did not have to see death.

The passage of Scripture says that he was not found, which indicates that one day he did not fill his preaching appointment. They did not like to hear him preach. They got mad at what he said, and so they said, “What happened to old Enoch?” He was not home, and they went to the neighbors', and he was not there, and he was not at the kinfolks'. They went looking for him, and the Scripture says he was not found. This indicates that he was well known and was missed. No one could find him, and the reason was that God had taken him out of this world without his going through death.

The translation of Enoch becomes not only the culmination of the godly line in the days of Adam, but it prefigures what is our hope today. It prefigures the culmination of our walk with God. We have this hope literally presented before us. We are told not to look for death. We are told to look for the translation of the saints, the coming of the Lord. We are walking with God, and one of these days we are going to be missing. One of these days we are not going to be around. People are going to look for us just as they looked for Enoch, and they will not be able to find us, because we will be gone. We are going to be caught up.

I Corinthians, chapter 15, and I Thessalonians, chapter 4, and some other passages of Scripture, make it very plain that the hope of the Church is to become space travelers some day. Without benefit of space suits or space capsules or anything else, God is going to have it all fixed up for us. All He needs to do is to give the word. There is going to be a heavenly count-down just as there is an earthly count-down, and when the shot comes, we will leave. That is our hope. That is the thing we anticipate. With all due respect to cemetery lot salesmen and insurance salesmen, (I love them and pray for them, and I hope you buy their insurance), I cannot get too interested in something like that. The Lord is coming! He is going to catch us up when he comes, without the benefit of death.

I have not had any special revelation that I will be included in that. I do pray that the Lord will let me live until Jesus comes. I cannot think of anything more thrilling or more wonderful than to have that moment. One thing I know: If the Lord is not pleased to let me live, I believe with all my heart that my children will see the coming of the Lord. I think the Scriptures teach plainly that it is that near. And we say with the Apostle John, “Even so, come Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).

A little boy said one time when he was telling the story of Enoch that Enoch walked with God, and he walked so far one day that God said, “Enoch, don't bother going home tonight. Come home with me.” That is what will happen to us some day.

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