The Majesty of God

Chapter Ten – Escalating Sin

Adam and Eve came together and conceived a child, whom they named Cain, which means "lance" in the sense of him being their first strike at repopulating the Earth and fixing human beings as the species that rules over all the others. They were delighted with their child and Eve murmured over him with awe, stating that she had gotten a man from the Lord. Like most new mothers, she felt that her child was not just the biological result of sexual union; he was a miracle!

The first child was followed by another son and some daughters. Incest was not an issue in the beginning of creation; it was intended for the sons and daughters to marry each other. As the curse of sin eroded Mankind's DNA, laws were eventually brought in to prevent birth defects due to parents being too closely related. With the taboos, emotional boundaries were set in place to assist in keeping the Law. Incest not only resulted in birth defects, but also emotional damage, and therefore is prohibited on that basis also, for it violates God's Royal Law of Love. In the beginning, though, there was no such prohibition.

This is not to say that, if no progeny is expected to be produced, it is all right for brothers and sisters to marry. The Bible prohibits all sexual activity outside of marriage and marriage was never intended to be entered without the expectation of having children, if it was possible to have children. All throughout the Bible, blessings were pronounced on married couples for them to have lots of children. In the case of those who were barren, prayer was made to God to open the womb. One of God's intentions for children is that they are to be a memorial of the love between a husband and wife.

God's judgment on Adam was that work would no longer be sheer joy to him. Some of the plants immediately became mutated, bringing forth thorns and thistles, making them a nuisance to Adam when cultivating crops that he considered worth expending his labour on. He and his progeny, both male and female, would experience frustration about their work, due both to setbacks in productivity and prickly relationships in the workplace, and they would have anxiety about supply.

Even with some of the plants becoming prickly or poisonous or reduced in nutrient value, the Earth was still exceedingly bountiful, more so than it is now. The fossil record tells us that plants used to be much larger. This is because the atmosphere contained within the canopy was more oxygen rich and stayed at an even, moderate temperature all year round, the soil was richer, and plants thrived in the pink light that was generated by the sun shining through the hydrogen canopy. Hydrogen is pink.¹

The animals were not quite as cooperative with Adam and Eve as before, so more energy needed to be expended to make them understand what was required of them and to bring them into line. As time went on and Man sinned further, the animals rebelled more and more.

Eve's curse was that she who had wanted to rule her husband found herself letting him rule her instead. Her emotional wiring was now awry, making her needy for her husband, with a tendency to make an idol of him. Whenever she allowed her need for her husband to take precedence over her worship and obedience to God, she became vulnerable to her husband's control, with the result that he got more out of their interaction than she did, instead of both enjoying an equal win/win proposition.

Another part of her curse was that because she fell into satan's snare, she would now grieve for her children. They would be subjected to miseries that sometimes she could do nothing to prevent. Because death had come into their world, God multiplied conception to compensate for those who lost to disease, accidents, the ravages of animals, and murder, to prevent underpopulation.

Before the Fall, women were probably meant to ovulate perhaps once a year, or maybe only once in several years, thereby giving each child adequate attention in their early years, and preventing women from being continually pregnant. As time went on, the curse increased so that women ovulated more often, and many children born in a family in a relatively short period of time were a challenge to both parents and siblings.

I cite the case of my mother's family. She is the youngest girl in a family of sixteen children. My grandparents actually had 22 children, but the six youngest died at birth, including two sets of twins. My grandparents had to work very hard to support sixteen children, and they did not have adequate time to give every child the attention they needed. My grandfather was not inclined to do the latter, in any case. His motive for fathering all those children was to gain unpaid workers for his farm, but he regretted his harshness in his later years and was grateful that their respect for their godly mother helped them turn out to be decent people. While they were growing up, the older children looked after the middle children, who, in turn, looked after the younger children.

How this worked out for my mother was that the sister who was five years older was saddled with having to babysit her and she resented it, which presented difficulties for my mother, though the sisters got along quite well when they were grown. One of the eldest sisters became a surrogate mother to my mother and they enjoyed a special relationship, though at times my mother also griped about that sister in the same manner that daughters usually gripe about their mothers.

In spite of being looked after by older siblings, my mother longed for her mother's attention. Though logically she understood that my grandmother could not give her the attention she craved because she had to share her with so many other siblings and Grandma had so much farm work to do, emotionally she could not reconcile herself to the lack. If she'd had a lot of her mother's attention when she was very young, she would have felt much more secure and confident of her place in the world.

Substitute parents can fill up some of a child's needs, but children especially crave affection and attention from their birth parents. Only God Himself can ever fill up a heart with what it longs for from birth parents, and it is when people realize this and turn to Him for nurture that they can ease up on their expectations of their parents who, after all, are only human and can never meet all expectations. Releasing others from unrealistic expectations results in sweeter relationships.

Increased conception is what that part of the curse means, not that there would be pain in childbirth. Conception is at one end of a pregnancy and birth is at the other; they are not the same thing. There is pain in childbirth quite often, simply because pain and disease has infiltrated God's creation; not because God ordained that all women should suffer in this particular way because of what Eve did. Pain in childbirth it isn't always the case, though, and when it is absent, it isn't necessarily because the mother is a Christian and has gained victory over pain through her faith in Yeshua. There are women who aren't Christians who give birth without pain because they have not been set up in their culture to expect it. Eve probably did not experience pain in childbirth; she was in superb physical condition.

Adam and Eve shared each others' curses, as they were one flesh. Work is not easy for women, and men also become subject to manipulation by others when they do not give God first place in their heart. They also worry about their children and grieve when their children suffer, just as women do. And increased conception presents challenges for them, just as it makes things complicated for women, though perhaps not to the same degree because a man can walk away from his responsibilities to his children easier than a woman can, though he has to answer to God later for the children he sired and left to be raised in poverty without a father to provide for them and protect them.

It was not long before both Adam and Eve were grieved for their children. The eldest killed his younger brother and then he was exiled, along with one of their daughters.

Cain, the eldest, took an interest in agriculture. He was not a simple farmer. His intellect was beyond what we know in our modern times as genius. He was a scientist.

Sunday School and Bible storybook pictures show Cain and his brother Abel wearing animal skins, like cavemen. That is too ridiculous. Why would people as intelligent as them wear such crude garments? The skins their parents wore when they were driven out of the Garden of Eden were ceremonial garments. God did not prohibit them from wearing other types of clothes.

Adam and Eve were vegetarians and it was repugnant to them to kill animals, even when it was necessary. Softer, more comfortable and more attractive clothes could be made from plant fibres and woven from animal hair. Besides that, it's too warm to wear fur when the temperature is always 76^o Fahrenheit. Even leather would be too warm, especially to work in.

When picturing Adam and Eve after their expulsion from the Garden and how their children dressed, I see them wearing clothes that are both practical and beautiful. They had the brains to figure out that trousers and shorts are easier to work in than long skirts and more modest than tunics. They could bend over in them without someone seeing up their skirt. They could figure out how to weave fabric and sew shirts and blouses. It is really no wonder that ancient cave paintings in various parts of the world depict men and women wearing trousers, shirts, boots, and hats that are very much like modern dress.

I think that Cain experimented with hybrids and thought he could produce better plants than God. I think he looked for a way to overcome the curse that was on the ground by seeing if he could make the plants more productive. In his fertile mind, many ideas sprouted and he was probably quite successful in his endeavours, which made him even more proud.

Abel opted for the life of a shepherd. It was easier to make textiles if animals with wool were kept herded together. Perhaps the sister whom Abel was slated to marry was a weaver and supplying clothing was their particular industry.

Sheep were the animals that God required as sacrifices, so Abel also chose to make a study of sheep because he wanted to ensure that the animals that were offered on the altar were the finest they could be. In his daily care of them, he got to know them well, each according to their individual personality.

The time came when God would choose between the two young men as to which would inherit their father's place as leader when he died, and the one chosen would also be the progenitor of the Messiah. I don't think that Cain was concerned about the Messiah, but I do think that he was very much interested in taking over Adam's leadership when he was gone.

Both Cain and Abel were taught how to make the sacrifice and the significance of it, but Cain figured that he would do something more impressive than what God required. Surely if he went to more effort than simply trading some of his goods to Abel for a sheep and going through that bloody mess of sacrificing it, God would be really impressed. He would see that Cain was not only more humane, but worked harder at pleasing Him, and he could also display his genius as evidence that he was the best choice of world leader. After all, he could help Mankind maintain a bountiful and nourishing food supply and medicines that would cure their illnesses.

Cain made quite a show, the original display of religious pomp. Every sample of his horticultural genius was artistically displayed. What a cornucopia of it was of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers. Simply mind–boggling! He probably stood back with a satisfied smirk waiting for God to show His approval and designate him as the next king.

Abel stood by his sacrifice feeling broken. He had brought the best of all his sheep, and felt like a knife was plunging into his own heart as he cut their throats upon the altar. He had known the personality of each one, and loved them as friends, but this is what God required. He obeyed and meditated on how grateful he was that a Messiah would come someday and give His life for Mankind, so that they could be redeemed from the penalty of sin and freed from its power.

Cain watched the blood dripping off the stones and probably thought Abel was a barbarian, but to his shock, the fire of God came down from Heaven and consumed Abel's sacrifice. Abel was to be the next king? Cain was to bow his knee to his younger brother? Not bloody likely!

Cain stormed away in fury. All that work, and it wasn't appreciated. He was the first man born on this planet. He should be its next ruler! All his brothers and sisters should look up to him. What was this world coming to when a younger brother was chosen over him? He felt like wringing Abel's neck.

God's voice pierced through his dark thoughts. He asked, "Why are you angry? Why are you looking so sour?" He told him, "If you do what I tell you to do, I'll accept you. But if you don't obey, you will make yourself vulnerable to the devil. He's waiting to get into your heart, like a crouching cat waiting for a door to open, ready to spring. Sin wants to rule you, so you better make sure that it doesn't get the upper hand. You need to control yourself."

Cain did not choose to control himself. He did not choose to step back and look at the situation objectively and admit that it had been presumptuous of him to present an offering that was not what God asked for, and that the logical consequence was that God would choose the one whom He knew would revere and obey Him, and depend on His wisdom to rule over the Earth.

Cain simply would not accept that he had lost his chance to be king. If he had repented of his sin and accepted the consequences, God would have made a place of honour for him wherein he would have found fulfillment, but he did not trust God. He was still too full of pride in the gifts that God had given him, and what he had achieved with his talents, which he felt were shamefully overlooked.

It was not an easy matter for Cain to kill his brother. In the Earth's environment of those times, with the crystalline canopy securing the full volume of the electro–magnetic energy field, people could not only sense if someone or something was behind them, they could also identify the person or animal. Cain was not able to sneak up on his brother unawares, nor was this a crime of passion where he suddenly lost his temper. Abel would be alert and ready to defend himself if he sensed danger, and he was in peak physical condition.

The Bible says that the brothers were talking in a field when Cain murdered Abel. I think that Cain pretended that he had come to terms with God's selection of Abel, and spoke to his brother in a friendly way, so that he could get him to lower his guard. He probably steered him over to a part of the field where there was a rock ready at hand. Maybe he suggested that they sit down and rest, and when Abel's head was low enough to increase the force of a raised rock bearing down on him, he smashed his skull. Indeed, Cain was a child of the devil, a cold–blooded murderer, just as the Bible says in 1 John 3:12.²

There was an immediate reaction from Nature as soon as Abel's blood was spilled on the ground. Nature's protest probably came in the form of an earthquake, the very first occurrence of such a thing. It probably cracked open and received Abel's body like a grieving mother taking her dead child to its bosom.

I think that God spared Adam and Eve the shock of seeing their son dead. It was hideous enough that they could sense the departure of his soul as soon as it happened. It was already a huge load that they had to deal with the fact that their other son killed him.

Cain fled the scene and tried to figure out how Abel's absence might be explained. That he died in the earthquake? But why should there be an earthquake in the first place? There never had been one before. What had set it off? He could plead ignorance on that score.

The Son of God was suddenly standing before him and asking him, "Where is your brother?" He tried to brazen it out with a reply of, "I don't know. Am I supposed to be looking after him?" The Lord told him that He knew very well what he had done, and that Abel's blood was crying to Him for vengeance.

The ground, that had until now cooperated with Cain in his agricultural endeavours, was so angry about the innocent blood that he had spilled on it, that it would no longer yield to his efforts to make it productive. Here was a man who operated in the peak of intelligence and health, lived in a fabulous environment, and had fantastic potential, even if he wasn't going to be king over his brethren, but he went and did something so heinous as murder. Yes, Nature was outraged. Cain's cherished talent for horticulture was gone, even if the knowledge remained in his head.

God told Cain that he was to now become a nomad. He was now not legally entitled to so much as even a little garden plot, and he certainly could not be king in Abel's place if he was a rover, but that wasn't the only reason God wanted him to be a nomad.

Nomads usually make their living by herding animals. God was offering Cain an opportunity to turn away from his sins and learn through being a herder what Abel had learned in his solitary job, much as He later took a misguided guerilla named Moses into hand and trained him for spiritual leadership through that particular job, and a deceiver named Jacob who became a tribal chieftain, and little brat named David whom He shaped into a king. They became mighty men of God through turning to Him in their loneliness.

Cain did not see the love and mercy that God was offering him; he just saw punishment. He thought that God would not want anything more to do with him, and that He would not bless anything that he did. It wasn't because he wanted companionship with God that he lamented; he wanted only what God could do for him, which still is a common motive for many who claim to be lovers of God.

Cain was also afraid that his parents or sisters or brothers would kill him in retaliation for Abel's murder. God assured him that He would not permit it, placing a mark on his face as a warning that vengeance belonged to God alone.

It is highly doubtful that Cain's parents wanted to kill him in retribution for Abel's death. When a parent has lost one son already, their grief is double if they lose two. That mark upon Cain assured their hearts that God did not want them to execute their son, but they still had the grief of having to send him away with the daughter that Cain was betrothed to. Three children were lost to Adam and Eve that day.

They may have had more than two daughters, but one of them was betrothed to Abel and was supposed to bear his children. This was where the Levirite law was instituted, requiring a man to marry his brother's widow, if he died without children to carry on his name.

Just imagine. That girl was probably decades older than the younger brother whom she eventually married. Seth was the one whom God gave to take Abel's place as his father's heir and the progenitor of the Messiah. Seth's wife babysat him and changed his diapers, and probably participated in schooling him, then after waiting 104 years for him to grow up, she finally got married. Talk about a long engagement!

God did not forget His promises to Abel. Not even death can prevent God from keeping His promises. Through Seth, God gave Abel heirs who brought forth the Messiah, and when He was born, it is no coincidence that it was announced first of all to shepherds, in honour of the first shepherd.

Adam and Eve had many sons and daughters, and probably were delighted to see the variety that God had designed into their DNA – all the various shapes and sizes of heads, noses, ears, eyes, and mouths, body types, hair and skin colouring, textures of hair – just as the animals were producing different varieties of their own kind to display God's love of diversity. All were beautiful in their own right and all were loved by our first parents.

As sin gained more of a foothold, people began to be critical of how others looked, and standards were set as to what constituted beauty. This added to the misery in the world. Those who did not match the popular tastes were snubbed in various ways, and those who were considered beautiful found that there was a downside to the adoration of their looks. They were targets of envy. They were also in danger of being abducted and forced to gratify the passions of tyrants.

Meanwhile, Cain did not submit to God's judgment. If he had, it would have turned into a blessing for him, instead of remaining a curse. He was determined that he would put down roots and that he would not be alone, so he settled on land he had no legal title to, then designed and built a fabulous city so remarkable that it drew people to go see it. They were persuaded to live in it and accept him as their ruler. Cain remained a rebel and brought forth more rebels.

Seven generations later, a man named Lamech rebelled against God's plan of one wife for one man, and took two wives, setting a precedent for other men, and introducing the miseries of polygamy to women and children.

Lamech also killed a young man, claiming it was self–defense, though he probably used more force than necessary to protect himself and might possibly have been able to avoid the necessity of having to defend his life. It could be that there was no legitimate basis at all for killing the young man and he was lying about what precipitated the violence. Lamech excused the murder, saying it was not nearly as bad as what Cain did to Abel. Lamech figured that if God would have avenged Cain for being slain for his crime against Abel, He would avenge Lamech seven times more. A lot of murderers justify their crimes and think that God is on their side.

Lamech had a son named Tubal–cain, who was a genius at making weapons and tools from metals. Another son, named Jubal, was musical genius, notable even among his fellows, all of whom were far more intelligent than modern Man. These men did not make only simple tools like axe–heads and spears or instruments like a shepherd's reed or a simple harp. Like Cain, they were geniuses who were ambitious and bent on conquest.

There has to be a reason that the Bible gives us some details about this family in the lineage of Cain. It doesn't say much about anyone else in his family. When we understand the background of Genesis, that these people were super intelligent, not cave dwellers or simple villagers who could hardly comprehend how to do basic things, it becomes apparent that there is something fishy about these people's inventions.

I propose that Tubal–cain was the Father of Armaments, and Jubal was the Father of Psychological Warfare, using entertainment as a tool to promote propaganda (the harp) that plays upon the organ (the brain), though, no doubt, he invented actual musical instruments. In witchcraft, it is known that certain chords have an effect upon the emotions and can be used to manipulate people. Rock and roll songs are full of that kind of instrumentation, and I am sure that other types of music are, too.

What of Naamah, Lamech's daughter? Why was she mentioned? In Scripture, women are named if they are either very godly or very wicked. The Bible tells us that the sons of God (I have good reason to believe that this refers to fallen angels) saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and took wives of all they chose, and these women brought forth giants who were mighty men of old.¹ They were warriors and giants and tyrants. Naamah was probably the first woman who took a fallen angel for a husband.

Only a wicked woman would knowingly consent to marrying a creature of another species. Whether she knew that her husband was aligned with satan or if she thought he was a visitor from another planet, there is no way of knowing, but I would guess that she knew he was a fallen angel and that she was a sorceress who was the Mother of Psychic Warfare.

As for Jabal, he was either wittingly or unwittingly the Father of Military Intelligence. As a nomad, a person can keep their eye on what is happening in many places. I tend to think that Jabal was a good guy. I can't believe that Cain's entire lineage was evil. People can choose what they want to be; they aren't locked in by genetics.

King Saul and his son Jonathan in later days were an example of this. Unlike his ambitious father, Jonathan chose God's will and supported David as the next king, rather than try to lay claim to the throne himself, though he was legally designated the heir.

I think that it is possible that Jabal clued in to God's purpose in commanding Cain to be a nomad, and that he decided to appropriate through faith and obedience that unclaimed blessing.

It could also be that he was repulsed by his siblings' evil and chose that life to get away from them, to steer clear of trouble that they stirred up. When things got too hot, he could just pack up his tents and move to a quieter, more peaceful place.

In later days, this is what Jonadab, the son of Rechab,² did after witnessing the homicidal mania of Jehu³ when Jehu went beyond what God told him to do and killed whoever he thought it was expedient to kill. Jonadab also swore off wine and made his children promise to make it a tradition throughout their generations to never touch it, probably because he was one of Jehu's drinking buddies and had first hand knowledge of how addiction to wine can lead to keeping bad company.

It is possible that Jabal was unaware that his siblings sent spies into his camp to keep an eye on other districts for them, and also set up others with herds to emulate Jabal's nomadic lifestyle for the purpose of extending their surveillance capabilities.

The Bible says that the Earth became filled with violence. Trouble started brewing early. It says that in the days of Seth's son Enos that men began to call upon the Name of the Lord. I used wonder about that. It didn't make any sense that nobody prayed or showed an interest in worshipping God until then, and I never heard anyone preach on what it meant. It seemed to be one of those things that pastors tend to leave alone because they can't think of an explanation.

Adam and Eve had taught their children to sacrifice sheep to the Lord as a foreshadowing of the Messiah, and Abel was obviously a godly person, and Seth was a godly person, too, for he was chosen to replace Abel. So, calling on the Lord's Name does not refer to worshipping Him.

I think that by the time Enos was born, Cain and his children and grandchildren had become quite a problem, so people found it necessary to cry out to the Lord for deliverance from their rampages.

Four more generations of hoodlums would most certainly have made violence a problem in the Earth, and Lamech's offspring picked up the pace. At least three of them figured that they would make an empire for themselves.

Another generation went by and now conditions were so bad in the Earth that Enoch prophesied the Flood, saying that it would happen the year his son Methuselah⁴ died. This is referred to in Jude 1:14. And so it was that the Flood came the very same year that Methuselah died and it wiped out all but eight people.

Adam lived up to one generation before the Flood, long enough to see humanity become a huge mess. If he had not had God's forgiveness, His promise of redemption, and the ability to be in relationship with God and draw on His strength throughout his lifetime, Adam would have gone insane with remorse over his foolish choice at the Forbidden Tree.

¹Go to the CREATION EVIDENCES to website learn more about the antediluvian environment.

²Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And why did he slay him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.
[1 John 3:12]

³And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
[Gen 6:1& 2]

⁴But they said, We will drink no wine: for Jonadab the son of Rechab our father commanded us, saying, You shall drink no wine, neither you, nor your sons for ever: Neither shall you build house, nor sow seed, nor plant vineyard, nor have any: but all your days you shall dwell in tents; that you may live many days in the land where you are strangers.
[Jeremiah 35:6 & 7]

⁵And when he was departed from there, he lighted on Jehonadab the son of Rechab coming to meet him: and he saluted him, and said to him, Is your heart right, as my heart is with your heart? And Jehonadab answered, It is. If it be, give me thine hand. And he gave him his hand; and he took him up to him into the chariot. And he said, Come with me, and see my zeal for the LORD. So they made him ride in his chariot.
[2 Kings 10:15 & 16]

⁶See the explanation given by Arnold Fruchtenbaum of Ariel Ministries on the CREATION MINISTRIES website for the meaning of Methuselah's name. It is in a box when you scroll about ¾ down the page.

Click below to read:

The Majesty of God, Chapter 11

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