First if you haven’t read Part 1 of the post about Lamech, basically we discovered that he was Cain’s descendant who glorified excessive violence, viewing Cain’s order of protection during his exile as an honor and something to be outdone.
You can read that post in full here.
Last Sunday, our preacher likened temptation to fish bait. He said (summarized), “If you throw bait in front of a fish, that’s temptation being presented to us. A fish may react with interest or with disinterest, as we may. If the fish feels interest, that’s when a decision must be made. Will he act on it or avoid it? If he acts on it, he’s hooked. Likewise, if we pursue our temptation, we have chosen sin.”
As I was deep-diving on Cain and Lamech, that analogy came to mind because, I thought, here, this is the true significance of Lamech’s statement to his wives! Cain’s sin did not end with him. He gave in to sin & killed his brother but here we are 7 generations down and that sin has festered like a cancer. Sin is no longer counted as a crime but celebrated! It has become normalized.
As I backed up in Genesis 4 to reread the story of Cain, I found that verse 7 had been highlighted some time ago, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? If you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.”
The bait, the temptation is in front of us. But we must turn away from it. If the fish turns away, it can stay in the water and breathe through their gills. If we do what is right, we get to stay in healthy relationship with God.
Here let’s remember that sin has been defined as anything that separates us from God (Isaiah 59:2)
If the fish does not turn away, it’s separated from the water and is at risk of death. If we do not turn away, we open the door to sin and allow it to have us, a spiritual death.
Exodus 20:5 tells us that our sin is punished to the 3rd and 4th generation. Here we see why. The effects of sin can last as long and longer, to the 7th generation here!
I’ve been told to always look for Jesus. Where is the Gospel in this story?
With Jesus, we can be the fish that got away. He is willing to remove the hook and take on our sin himself on the cross.
Will we allow it?
