Shawn Brummund: Hello and welcome to another edition of the "Sabbath School Study Hour," right here in the Granite Bay Hilltop Seventh Day Adventist Church in the greater metro area of Sacramento, California. It is always good to be able to come together to worship God, to be able to open His Bible and continue to study and grow in the knowledge of His truth, and of His Son Jesus Christ. It is always nice to have our church family with us here this morning, as well, as we gather together here locally in our new facility. We're just so thankful to be able to come together and continue to study and to be able to meet each other, greet each other, encourage each other, pray with each other as we continue to worship the Lord.
We're continue to study through one of my favorite books. It is a foundational book of truth that everyone should read from cover to cover, and that is the book of Genesis. We have a study guide that is been made available to you to take advantage and give you further understanding of what Genesis is trying to tell us. And so, if you haven't got a copy of the quarterly yet this quarter, make sure that you get a copy of the Genesis quarterly. You can get that at your local Seventh Day Adventist Church. And today we're going to be looking at lesson number three, which is Cain And His Legacy. We're going to be studying in depth in the 4th chapter of Genesis, not one of my favorite chapters, but one that we do need to be aware of and understand some of the origins of the problems that we have in a broken world today. So, please stay tuned as we continue to study and grow in the knowledge of Genesis.
If you'd like to continue to study on another front, we have a free gift offer that is made available for you today. This is one of my favorite little booklets. It's entitled, "Is It Easier To Be Saved Or To Be Lost?" Is it easier to be saved or to be lost? Important question. What does the Bible answer? This booklet will give you that answer in depth. So, go ahead and dial 1-866-788-3966 and ask for free offer 124. Now, that's available in North America and the various US territories in different parts of the world. So, if you live in those areas, please take advantage of that offer and dial 1-866-788-3966.
Now, if you have a phone, a tablet and such, and you'd like to receive a free digital copy of that, you can go ahead and dial to the number 40544. And in the text message itself, you want to put the code SH039. And you can download that in the United States. And again, if you're not in the United States, you'd like a digital copy and you have access to the internet, go ahead and make sure that you look up the website that's on the screen. It's study.aftv.org/SH039. And so, for those of you who are listening to this on a radio program, you can go ahead and get that free download as well.
Well, we don't have anybody to lead us in song and worship here today. And so, our teacher today is going to be Pastor Alden Ho. And before we invite him out, we want to invite the Lord to be with us as we pray.
Father in heaven, we want to thank You for the opportunity to be able to worship You. We thank You for this special day that You have set aside that we might be able to worship You together as a church family, to put the other things that keep us busy throughout the week aside, and to be able to just stop and focus on You and focus on our church family. God, we thank You for the opportunity to be able to study Your Bible. We thank You for the promise that you give us the Holy Spirit to further understand Your Bible. And God, we want to pray that You'll be with our teacher today. Please bless him, bless his heart, his mind, give him clarity and be with us and teach us, Lord. In Jesus's name we pray these things, amen.
Alden Ho: It's good to see you all here and those of you joining online and around the world. I want to tell you a story that happened in 1929 on January 1 at the Rose Bowl. It was a guy named Roy Riegels. He was playing in a football game for UCLA, and he was--he was actually for UCLA, or Georgia Tech, sorry. And he was playing against UCLA. The problem was when they kicked the ball-- I'm not a big football watcher. I'd rather play than watch. When the ball was kicked, somehow there was this fumble that went on. And in the scurry and the tussle of the whole thing, Roy managed to pick up the ball, and he started running. And he started running with all his might. The problem was, he ran the wrong way. He ended up in his own touchdown zone at the end. And consequently, they lost the game as a result.
The reason I tell you this story is many times for us, we think that we're going the right way, and we're so convicted of it. But the problem is, that's not the right way. Solomon writes here in Proverbs chapter 14, verse 12, he says, "There is a way that seems right to a man." You know the end of this. But what happens? But in its end, it's the way of what? It's the way of death.
This week's lesson that we have on the legacy of Cain is a legacy of disobedience that Cain left for all the world to see. And really consequently as a result of this legacy, the world is reeling as a result of all this. The expulsion from Eden, the results of that single sin, continue to fester, continue to grow, and it passed on from succeeding generations all the way through time to the point that we are at right now.
We find that the beginning of this chapter begins with the birth of Cain, and it ends with the birth of Seth as the lesson points out. While the birth of Cain leads to failure and has a limited horizon made of human achievement and violence, it leads to the flood ultimately. The birth of Seth, however, is the opposite of that. It brings repair to the preceding failure and restores God's plan of salvation, leading to the survival of mankind and history to their salvation.
When we get to Sunday's lesson, we find that this particular lesson is about Cain and Abel. These are the first real children that we find in the Bible, Cain and Abel. Cain was the first one born. In "Desire of Ages," page 31, it says, "The Savior's coming was foretold at Eden. When Adam and Eve first heard the promise, they looked for its speedy fulfillment. They joyfully welcomed their firstborn son, hoping that it might be the deliverer."
You can imagine the guilt that was on Eve. When she took that fruit, she ventured away from Adam, and then she came back with that fruit and she gave it to Adam. Adam really had no choice in the matter, did he? Or could he? He did have a choice. You know, but I'm sure he's thinking, "But, but what about Eve?" You know, I know this is not part of the lesson, but I've always wondered, what about Eve? And as I've studied some more about this, God could have produced another Eve for him, but he ate it. And as a result of this, the guilt continued to fester within them. And when the promise was given that there would be a promised Son, the Son of God would come, Eve kept thinking it could be hers. It's hers, it's her firstborn.
Well, God works in His own timing. He doesn't work in our own timing. Isaiah 55:89 says, "My thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your way. So as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My thoughts higher than your thoughts and My ways than your ways." The lesson points out that she believed wholeheartedly that God Himself would come down and be the very one that she would give birth to. And that's why her response in chapter 4, verse 1 she says, "I have given birth to a male child, the Lord." Was she right? Not quite. She was not so right on that.
Dr. Jacques Doukhan, who wrote this particular lesson for us on Genesis, he comments here and he says, "While Eve's excited comments on Cain's birth, she says nothing about Abel's birth, at least nothing that's recorded in the text." In contrast to Cain's birth, you see the narrator simply reports that she bore again. There was no excitement anymore. There was no thinking, "Well, this is the promised Son." No, it was just a son. In the timeline, it shows it's about three years' difference between Cain and then three years later, it was Abel.
The lesson points out that though we didn't want to read any more of these short texts than there is, perhaps the idea is that Adam and Eve's hope rested, they believed only in Cain because they believed he and not his brother was the promised Messiah. Now, that's an interesting thought because when you think of these two that went on, I mean, they grew up together, they played together, they did all the same things together. But somewhere along the line, there was a division. There was a separation, not only in thoughts, ideals, but as we'll see in a moment, also in practice.
In Monday's lesson, the title being, "The Two Offerings," this is a very interesting one to look at. We find here that Abel had the spirit of loyalty to God. He saw justice, he saw mercy, he saw the Creator's dealings with the fallen race, and gratefully, he accepted the hope of redemption. On the other hand though, you had Cain. Cain cherished feelings of rebellion and murmured against God because of the curse pronounced upon the earth and upon the human race for Adam's sin.
I look out at many of you, and I know that many of you here have children. And if you've ever had children that were born close together, you're kind of sometimes comparing the two. "Well, this one does this, and this one does that." Well, we have ironically today, although we are three weeks ahead of the lesson, today's March 26. Today happens to be our twin girls' birthday, and they're 23 today. So, happy birthday, wherever you are, although you'll be hearing this three weeks later.
I can tell you this, even though they look almost identical, they were very much different, very different in the way they were. One of them, we called public relations department of the family. She would be out there talking to everybody that there was. The other one was the research and development department of the family. She would find out where all the things were. She picked up a paperclip one day and stuck it in this hole that was in the wall and yelled out very loudly that it bit her.
Ironically, they kind of change as they grow up, don't they? And so it was also with Cain and Abel. You see, they came to the altar. They both gathered rocks, and they both stacked up the rocks to build an altar. And each of them brought the stones that they had gathered. From afar, you looked at the altar itself, and there was no difference, they looked exactly the same. You probably couldn't tell the difference between Cain's altar and Abel's alter.
But then they went back and then they got their offering, and they placed their offerings on their altars. And right there, you will see a marked difference between the two of them because you will find here that Abel presented a sacrifice from the flock in accordance with God's direction. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering. How do we know that? Because the Bible tells us that fire flashed from heaven and consumed the sacrifice.
If you remember the story of Elijah and the scene that took place at Mount Carmel, you had all these 850 false prophets that were there. They danced around for the whole day. They had their bull there. They had it all set up on the altar. They were waiting for it to catch on fire, but it would never catch on fire. But then when Elijah took his sacrifice and he placed it there, all of a sudden, it caught on fire. Not only did it just catch on fire like that, but that was after all these buckets of water on everything. The fire was so strong that it even consumed and licked up the water and consumed all the rocks too.
And here we have the very same thing with Abel's offering. Fire flashed from heaven, consumed the sacrifice. Then it says that Cain, Cain placed his fruits upon the altar, and he waited, expecting that at any moment, it would, boof, burst into flames. But is that what happened? Not by any means. We're told here that the disregard for the Lord's direct and explicit command presented only the offering of fruit. There was no token from heaven that showed it was accepted, nothing at all.
Now, why would He do that? Why would Cain just have his own thoughts, his own ideals when it came to what God's explicit directions were? In 1937, some of you may remember the name of this famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. He built a house for an industrialist named Hibbard Johnson. It was a rainy day, and Johnson was entertaining some very distinguished guests. And the dinner was all out, but then all of a sudden, the roof began to start leaking. The water seeped through, and it actually started dripping right above Hibbard's head.
Hibbard was kind of wiping his head back and forth, kept looking up at these drips coming down. He was, nonetheless, irate. He picked up the phone, and he called Wright, who was in Phoenix, Arizona. He said, "Frank, I got a problem here. The house you built is beautiful by all means. We are enjoying it very much. But as I've told you before, the roof leaks. And right now I'm with some friends and some very distinguished guests, and it's leaking right on my head." Frank Lloyd Wright replied, he heard all the guests behind him and he said to him, "Well, Hibb, why don't you just move your chair?"
You see, some of us are just so stubborn. We're so set in our ways. We have this mindset that this is what it is, and this is what it's got to be. But here's the problem that we face today. In the religious world, if you have your ideals, you got to make sure that those ideals match up with God's ideals. Because if they don't match up with God's ideals, then you know what? You have a problem. God doesn't have a problem because God gave the command. And it's up to you if you're going to follow God's command, or you're not going to follow God's command. And this is the problem that we have in the world today.
According to "Patriarchs and Prophets," page 71, we find that Abel, he pleaded with his brother to approach God in the divinely prescribed way. But the entreaties only made Cain more determined to follow his own will. As the eldest, he felt like, "Who is my brother to admonish me? He's younger than me." So, he despised his counsel. The problem is, Cain had a problem. He was stubborn, he was disobedient. He wanted to do it exactly the way he wanted it. Do you remember this name, Frank--Frank Sinatra? 1969, he came out with a song, very famous song. What's it called? "My Way." And that's exactly what Cain did, Cain did it his way.
You know, I pulled one of the lines of the songs, of this particular song, and I found it interesting. And it says here, "And to think I did all that. And may I say not in a shy way? No, no, no, not me. I did it my way." But, you know, let's look at it from Cain's standpoint. "I did it my way. I placed the fruit on the altar. I did it my way." And God says, "Yup, you did. Have it your way." Now, we're pulling in a Burger King commercial right now. "Have it your way, the way you want it. You want to do that? You do it that way. But you know what? I'm not approving of that. I'm not sending fire of that. See you later".
Let's go on with Abel. And this is exactly what Cain did, he failed to understand. You see, here's in a very core sense the difference between Abel's sacrifice and the difference between Cain's sacrifice. Without the shedding of blood, there is how much remission of sin? Zero, there's no remission of sin at all. So, what bloodshed is there? Have you ever seen an apple bleed? Maybe a beet might bleed, but certainly not a mango. None of these things are going to bleed. So, we find that there is--this is to show their faith in the blood of Christ, as promised in the Atonement, by offering the first, first things of their fruit, of their flock in sacrifice. Besides this, the firstfruits of the earth were to be presented before God, not as a sacrifice, but as a love offering instead, a thank offering.
So, we find here Cain obeyed. He built the altar. Cain obeyed in bringing a sacrifice, but he only rendered partial obedience. The essential part, the recognition of the need of a redeemer was left out.
Could this be the problem that we have in the world today? The problem in the sense that God says of all the Ten Commandments, eight of them say "thou shalt," one says "honor, the other says "remember"? Could it be that the same problem exists in the world today that they want to have it their way, that they want to worship their way, on their day, in their style? So, in a sense, when you think about it, can God be there when they worship in that way?
You know, as Seventh Day Adventists, I want to caution you, just because you come here on the Sabbath, you may have the day correct, but remember, some churches may not have the way in worship correct. We may not have the way in keeping the Sabbath correct. And in so doing, we fall into the same trap that Cain has fallen into himself.
Dr. Doukhan says the following, "Take note here that Cain's offer was to God," quote, "to God." Where Abel's offering was just, he just offers. There's no mention of God. There's a difference between the two. This brings us to Tuesday's lesson, The Crime. Doukhan once again, Dr. Doukhan says, "It is significant that Cain's crime immediately follows this shift in the dialogue from a failed vertical to the horizon."
What does that mean, failed vertical? You see, there's a compliance. This came down from the top. This is what God wants of you. So, this is how it's supposed to be. But instead of accepting that and following that, now he shifts it from a vertical to a horizontal. He starts looking at Abel, and he starts blaming, pointing blame, finding fault with Abel in that sense. And it finds here, the mechanism for the first religious crime is suggested here. The crimes of the zealous ones are not committed because they feel they are right. They're crimes of fanaticism, of religious intolerance, and they convey from the failure to respond to God's Word.
When faith is replaced by human work and control, crime will follow. And that's exactly what happened. Cain killed his brother. Cain killed his brother, not because Cain felt he was right or that he felt that his brother was wrong. On the contrary, Cain killed his brother because Cain was evil, and his brother was righteous. From "Patriarchs and Prophets," page 72, we're told that Cain and Abel represent two classes that exist in the world today, two classes that exist in the close of time. One class avails themselves to the appointed sacrifice for sin, the other ventures to depend upon their own merits. Theirs is a sacrifice without the virtue of divine meditation, or divine mediation. And thus, it is not able to bring man into favor with God. It is only through the merits of Jesus that our transgressions can be pardoned.
We find that those who feel no need of the blood of Christ will feel that without divine grace, they can make their own work secure and their approval of God and make the same mistake as did Cain. If they do not accept the cleansing blood, they are under condemnation if there is no other provision thereby made that can release them from sin. You see, many of us, that type of thing is only a form of godliness denying the power there is. So, it is unsafe for us to linger in our thoughts.
How do you think Cain had the idea to bring fruit? Do you think he was just there tending to his vegetables one day and his fruit and he decided, "Hmm, let me just bring a few of the things that I just plucked off the tree"? Do you think that's how it happened? Or do you think it was maybe the voice, the impression of Satan, that was speaking to him that said, "Hey Cain, don't follow what Abel's doing. You don't have to bring the lamb. You don't have to do that. It's not about that. You don't have to kill a good animal. Why not just bring the best fruit that you have, the ones without blemish, the one without spot or anything like that? Just bring one of those and put them up there because God doesn't care because you could worship God, you know, on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, on Thursday, on Friday, on Sunday. It doesn't--it doesn't matter what day you worship, just so long as you worship God." Heard that before? So, we find all this happens.
It's not safe for us in these days. It's a very dangerous thing. Maybe you've heard this before, that when you go into a very bad place, your guardian angel can't follow you. He stays outside. Have you heard that one before? You see, there's truth to that. When we venture onto Satan's playground, we have no assurance of God's protection, no assurance at all. And this was what happened to Cain as a result of this. We find that from "Thoughts from the Mount of Blessings," page 118 it says, "The only safeguard against evil is the indwelling of Christ in the heart through faith in His righteousness."
Notice, through faith in His righteousness, not through faith in your own righteousness. "It is because of selfishness that exists in our heart, that temptation has power over us. But when we behold the great love of God, selfishness appears to us as its hideous and repulsive character, and we desire to have it expelled from the soul. As the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ, our hearts are softened and subdued. The temptation loses its power, and the grace of Christ transforms the character."
But in Cain's case, that's not the situation, which brings us to Wednesday, The Punishment of Cain. There's an echo that's heard from chapter 3 in Genesis and that echo is when God says, "Where are you?" God asked Adam, "Where are you?" Where was Adam? He was hiding out somewhere in the Garden. I mean, look, this is a very rhetorical question that God asked because He knows the answer to that.
Can--you know, don't ever try to play hide and go seek with God, it's a lose-lose situation. So, when He says, "Where are you?" He already knows. He's saying that for your own benefit, for you to be able to think and to say, "Why am I hiding?" We find here that this punishment comes on. And the lesson says that Cain will not acknowledge his sins. He denies it, something that Adam didn't do, even though he tried to put blame elsewhere. "This woman you created, she's the one that did it to me. She's the one that made me eat it."
Cain, in contrast, he openly defies God. He doesn't waste any time confronting Cain on this crime. Instead of acknowledging his sin, Cain continues to complain of God's injustice and to cherish jealousy. Because of all this, the truth was being agitated in him. Every time Abel spoke truth, how do you think Cain felt? He just got more and more tighter, more and more wound up. But yet, Cain, Cain trying to be the good guy, the good brother, the righteous one, it says here, "In meekness, yet fearlessly and firmly, Abel defended the justice and goodness of God." He pointed out Cain's error and tried to convince him, "Look, brother, you're wrong. You can't do it this way."
Does that help at all when somebody is really angry? That's like, okay, you got a little bit of a fire going, and you just take a little bit of gasoline and throw it on the fire. You know what happens when you do that? I found out once the hard way. I raked my leaves, made a nice row of them, and I put some gasoline in there. And I made a little trail. My neighbor told me, "In the future, use diesel. It goes a lot slower." Because the moment you light--I don't care how long that trail is, it just poof. It looked like a scene from a Hollywood movie out there.
Cain was angry. He was so indignant. He found Abel, and we're told that in the fury of his passion, he slew his brother. It's one thing to say he killed Abel. It makes it so distant. But here he slew his brother, his own flesh and blood. Abel's life of obedience and unswerving faith was to Cain a perpetual reproof. He hated that. That's much like how it is today and even more so when we get to the future. Because we're told, "The brighter the heavenly light that is reflected from the character of God's faithful servants, the more clearly the sin of the ungodly is revealed. And the more determined will be their efforts to destroy those who disturb their peace." Pouring the gas on the fire.
Whenever a person turns their back and renounces the life of sin they have lived, Satan is furious. He is very, very angry. Do you remember the name Roger Morneau? You know, there's a reason why Satan is angry because once you go from Satan's side to God's side, all of a sudden, you know what the plans were, and you're able to use those and turn them around to be able to win those same ones to Christ now. Hence, we're told that in the circle that is around Jesus in heaven, the closest ring around Him are those who once served Satan. That's the closest ring. There's different circles around Christ. That's the closest one because they once served Satan, and this is what happens when Satan finds out that one of you has turned their backs on Him, you've surrendered your life, you've given it wholly to Christ. Now he's indignant, he's furious. He tries to turn up the heat more.
But you know what? If you're convicted, if you're consecrated, there's no turning back. You're never going to go back and serve Satan ever again. One of my favorite quotes that we find in the Spirit of Prophecy, it's found in Review and Herald December 16, 1890. It says, "If you indulge stubbornness of heart, and through pride and self righteousness, you do not confess your faults, you will be left subject to Satan's temptations. If when the Lord reveals your error, you do not confess, His providence will bring you over the ground again and again," just like he did with Cain. "You will continue to lack wisdom, and you will make mistakes of a similar character. You will call sin righteousness and righteousness sin." And guess what? The multitude of deceptions that prevail in the last days will encircle you, and you will change leaders and not know you have done so.
This is exactly what happened in Cain's situation. Cain built the altar. He grabbed the same stones. He set it up, looked exactly the same. However, he had changed leaders and in changing leaders, he changed his ideals of what he thought would be a sac--correct sacrifice because he did it his way. We find that God's sacri--God's sacred--He spared, sorry. God spared Cain's life. In doing so, He created a perpetual lesson about the great controversy with Cain and his lineage to show that, look, there's a reason why the sinner cannot live on forever. The sinner cannot live on to carry out their rebellion against God.
There's got to come an end to all this, and you know what? God watched all this that was going on and in His mercy, He provided Cain, the first murderer, some kind of protection that was going on. But what this protection was, we don't exactly know. We're not told about it in the Bible, Spirit of Prophecy, Josephus. None of them say exactly what the protection was, but we know this, nobody could harm Cain. Why would they want to harm Cain anyways? Probably because he was the first murderer.
Think about this, everybody on the earth at this time were all descendants of Adam and Eve. They married their brothers and sisters. It was okay back then, not okay today for very good reasons too. But we find that as a result of this, you're talking about this could have been their--well, it is, it was their brother probably, right? I mean, we don't know how many children Adam and Eve had all together. We only know of three that were given, Cain, Abel, and who else? Seth, that's right, so we find that the year after Abel was killed, Seth came on the scene.
We find that also that this evil continued and continued and continued for 15 centuries, 15 centuries all through time. And then it came down to a time where God says, "Enough, I'm done with this, this is wrong." This--you can't even see good anymore because the only good thing that was left there, well, we'll get to that in just a moment, in Friday's lesson.
But let's talk a little bit about Thursday's lesson, The Wickedness of Man. Get this scene. Lamech comes on the scene now. He is the great, great, great grandson of Cain, but there's a difference between Cain and Lamech. You think Cain was bad? Come on. Cain, Cain was quiet about his crime of killing his brother. He didn't really go out there and say much, could be why God protected him because he was fairly quiet about this. But not so about Lamech. Lamech was totally the opposite of Cain. Cain was quiet, Lamech here-- look in your Bibles.
Just look, if you have it handy, look at Genesis chapter 4:23 and 24. He goes so far as to write a poem, and he kicks it into a song. I don't know if what type of song it was, definitely not a country western song, but I can tell you this. Listen to the words, it says, "Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; wives of Lamech, listen to my speech." I mean, look, he's naming himself in there. He's bragging about this. He says, "For I have killed a man for wounding me, even a young man for hurting me. If Cain shall have avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy sevenfold."
Wow. This guy arrogant or what? Is it all about him? It kind of like the world just revolves around Lamech. He's the first polygamist in the Bible. I mean, where does he get the idea? Once again, it had to have been inspired by Satan. But where does he get the idea, "Look, I'll just get another wife"? As if one's not enough, hmm. Dr. Jacques Doukhan writes here and he says, "There is also contrast between the crime of Cain and the crime of Lamech. Unlike Cain, Lamech took murder one step further. Lamech presented his killing as a positive and valuable act." And literally, he's boasting about it.
Can you imagine that? "Hey, guys, check this out. I killed this dude. Isn't that cool?" What is wrong with him? "While Cain chose to remain silent, Lamech, in contrast, he writes a song. Whereas Cain asked God for mercy, Lamech ignores God and instead subjects his wife to a litany of his prowess and his homicidal feat as feat worthy of approbation. The same paradigm shift observed in Cain's crime also can be traced here in the failure of that vertical relationship between God and human. It yields to a violence turning against the human other."
In fact it says here, Dr. Doukhan continues writing and he says, "Lamech moves to the opposite of forgiveness. He speaks of revenge, alluding to the additional crimes in the future." Wow. This guy is messed up. "Even his revenge was given considerable intensification. While Cain is avenged only seven times, Lamech requires an increase to seventy times seven." That's very interesting, isn't it? That later on we find in Matthew when they asked Jesus, "How many times should I forgive them?" Jesus plays on those same words. How many times? Seventy times seven, that's how many times.
And then we come to the birth of Seth, and what do we know of Seth? Dr. Doukhan, who writes again, he says, "The repetition of the first phrase that introduced the birth of the firstborn Cain suggested a return to the beginning. In addition, the repetition of the word 'again' attached to the birth of Seth echoes again the associated with the birth of Abel." Remember, for Cain it was she gave birth to a son that she was hoping would be the Messiah. And then she bore again, that was Abel.
Now she bore again to Seth. Seth, interestingly enough, the name Seth means to put in place of. Abel's gone so now Seth takes his place as one of the righteous. And if you follow the lineage down, it's very interesting to look at the lineage. You follow, and it goes on with Cain, then you look at Abel. Abel's is gone. And from the timeline, I find it kind of interesting that this whole thing that happened with Cain killing Abel, Abel was about 75 years old, 75, 78 years old, when this happened. Seems old for us but for them, I mean that that's nothing when they're living to 900 years of age. Seventy is like an--I don't know how you count it. Do you reverse dog age back or something like that? But that would be like seven or eight years for us.
So, Seth takes on the righteous line, and he carries that on through the future. Seth is the one that follows the closest by following the example also of Christ, the same that Abel did before he was cut off. So, Seth picks it up and continues on that way.
This brings us to Friday. The further thoughts of this little boy that comes on, his name is Enoch. What do we know about Enoch? It said that he walked with God. How many years did he walk with God, do you remember? Three hundred years. That's a little bit of time. We can't really fathom that, can we? We can't fathom living 300 years, let alone living for all eternity. But I like the way a little boy describes it. He says one day, Enoch went for a walk, and he went for a walk with God, and God walked with him. And then Enoch said, "I need to go home. It's getting late." And God said, "Okay, I'll see you tomorrow." And Enoch came home. And the next day, Enoch went for another walk, and he walked with God again. And then at the end of the day as the sun was setting, he says, "God, I need to get back home because it's getting late." And this happened day after day, 365 days a year for 300 years.
Finally, Enoch went for the walk, and he was so focused, he was so enthralled with talking to God in his relationship that he totally forgot the fact that not only is the sun getting low in the sky, but now the sun set and it's getting dark. But they have been walking and walking and walking. And the little boy says, as he tells the story, Enoch says, "Lord, I need to get back home. It's very late now." And God turned and He looked at Enoch and He says, "My son, you have walked with me these 300 years so faithfully. You are so far from your home, but you are so close to my home. Come home with me." And the Bible says, "He was no more."
I don't know about you, but I feel emotional about that because here is the possibility for us today. Do you realize that? We are living on the very precipice of Jesus's coming, and we could hear those same words, "You are so far from your home, but you're so close to my home, just come home with me." Because that day is not afar off. What do you say? But not everybody that says, "Lord, Lord," will enter into the Kingdom of heaven.
Just because you're here today and you got the day right doesn't mean that you're there. It means that you still got a ways to go. There's righteous living. So, how do you live righteously amidst all the chaos, all the evil that's in the world today? You know, there's a time period that I hate going into stores, and that is around Halloween. I just hate going in there, looking at all these demonic things staring at me, it's just ugly.
But then again, you think, how bad--I mean, have you ever thought, how bad must have been the world before the flood? How bad was it in the antediluvian days for all this to happen? And how did Enoch live amidst that time period? I mean, if you could have his game plan of how Enoch lived, that would be the path that would be able to needle the way through that you could thread that way through the chaos of today and make it out alive, and we're told that path. We're told in "Patriarchs and Prophets," page 85 it says here, "Distressed by the increasing wickedness of the ungodly and fearing that their infidelity might lessen his reverence for God, Enoch, he avoided constant association with them." It doesn't mean that he said he never talked to them or anything like that. No, he talked with them, but he avoided constant association with them.
He spent much time in solitude. Why? Because in solitude, that is where you come to God in prayer. That's where you pray for protection. That's where you pray to keep your mind stayed on Christ. That's where you pray to have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within your heart. You can't do it when you're out in the world. It takes a deep commitment to dig deep foundations. So, he spent much time in prayer, giving himself to meditation and prayer. Thus, he waited before the Lord. For what reason? Because there's one thing to study, there's one thing to pray, and there's another thing to just be quiet and listen. What are you listening for? You're listening for the counsel. You're listening for the prompting of the still, small voice. You're listening for the Holy Spirit to give you the directive for the day. And it says here, "He waited before the Lord, seeking a clearer knowledge of His will, that he might perform it."
Now get this, this last sentence says it all. "To him, prayer was as the breath of the soul." He lived on earth. He lived amidst the sinfulness of the antediluvians, all the carnality, all that stuff. He lived during that time period but it says here, "He lived in the very atmosphere of heaven." He lived in this bubble, not a bubble that says, "I don't know that you're there. I'm just trying to avoid you." No, he was a constant witness. He was a constant prick to their sinfulness, but he lived in the atmosphere of God. He lived in the presence of God.
Do you remember years ago there was that WWJD, What Would Jesus Do? Forget that. I got a better one for you. Practice the presence of God. Practice the presence of God. God is with you wherever you are. He is here. When you eat, He's next to you. What you see, He's next to you. When you drive, He's next to you. He is always there with you, whether you like it or not. Will you acknowledge that and keep walking in His ways? Let's pray.
Our Father in heaven, we come to You and we thank You for the many blessings. We thank You for the lessons that we learned from Cain. We ask and pray that Your Holy Spirit would guard our hearts and minds that we would not fall into those same temptations and those same snares. Be with us through this Sabbath day that we may not enjoy the message, but that we may be reproved, edified, corrected, and blessed by it. In Jesus's name, amen.
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Announcer: Amazing Facts Changed Lives.
Male: My greatest wish is that my children will see me the way I see my own father. He's a very devoted man, and that kind of framed my childhood going forward from there where I was always involved in church work. And I had a very rich experience with the Lord at a young age all the way up through college. Then after I got married, I got in a company called Comcast. And I spent the past roughly eight and a half years, nine years at Comcast.
And I was actually watching television with my son, and a Comcast commercial came on the air. And he said, "Oh, Daddy, that's Comcast. That's where you work, Daddy." And most fathers would be proud of something like that, but it really struck me that, you know, my son's getting older, and he does not see me as a servant of the Lord. He sees me as a servant of my company. And I knew that I would have to make some changes because I wanted him to know me as a--as a man of God. I never thought I would be a preacher or anything like that, but I knew that there was room in the work for me and for my, for my talents. And I wanted my son to see me operating in the work. That's when I knew that my time there was coming to an end.
I was sitting in my office one day, and I was kneeling in prayer. I said, "God, you know, show me what you want me to do because, you know, this seems like a big move here. And everyone's thinking I'm crazy, and I don't know exactly how, you know, things are gonna go. If they don't go well-- you know, crazy thought when you are thinking about God.
And I lifted my head up in prayer, and there's like a flock of, I don't know, maybe 300 birds that were just flying. And they were swooping down over the water, and they would fly back up, and then they would chase each other around. And, you know, I was just looking at the pattern of the giant flock, and the promise of the Lord came to me where He says that, you know, He takes care of the sparrows, and you don't see them worrying about how they are going to be taken care of from day to day. They don't wring their hands wondering, you know, will there be any worms to eat tomorrow?
And that promise really stood out to me. And He said, "How much more do I love you? You know, I'm not going to send you on a mission to do My work and leave you high and dry because you claim to be My child, you claim to be My son, and everyone knows that." That assurance allows me to know that whatever happens here, whatever happens after here, we're sons of God, and there are certain things that we shouldn't worry about.
From the day we arrived at AFCOE, it's been obvious that God has blessed the Amazing Facts Ministry, the AFCOE program. And I will be using my AFCOE experience no matter where I go to reach people because the personal touch of face-to-face evangelism, speaking and sharing the Word of God out of your own mouth, there's no replacement for that. And Amazing Facts has been very instrumental in helping me find the area of the work of God and showing me how large and how broad it is.
It's been a tremendous blessing to be in a place where we're around people seeking to do God's will and listening for His voice in their life. And that's very, very important today.
I was born in a small Christian family, grew up in Puerto Rico, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. My dad was a pastor of our churches there. After I graduated from high school, I was so excited. You know, I just wanted to leave the house and see the world, if you will. Came up to the states, went to school in Texas, and went to a Christian college there. I rebelled against the Christian concept that I became an agnostic 16, 17 years after I have left the church. I had three roommates, and we were living the life, you know, back then, you know, doing deals with drugs and selling drugs and all that kind of stuff. The police came over, and they raided the apartment. They took my three friends to jail.
When I found out, it shook me. I should have been there too. I reached out to God and I said, "Lord, if you exist, get me out of this situation, and I'll go back to your ways." Right around that time, I met this awesome, young lady. She was a Christian. After dating for about a year and a half, someone came to our church to give a series of prophecy seminars. I decided to re-baptize, make it a fact that I was coming back to church, that I was giving my life back to God.
Amazing Facts became an important part of my life. Sermons, Sabbath school lessons, DVDs, videos, magazines, and especially after looking and watching Pastor Doug Batchelor, listening to his experience, has really made a difference in my life to the point where I am right now a totally different individual. It's something that I am so grateful to have experienced. I would recommend anyone that wants to give God a chance in their life, you'll never be sorry that you did. He loves you. He understands you. He wants you to be happy.
My name is Raul, and thank you for changing my life.