Genesis 4:17-26 | God’s Continued Provision
We probably all must admit that when we come to sections like this in our Bible, we often just shrug our shoulders and say, “Ok.” We know passages are there for a reason, but dissecting WHAT that reason is—that is much harder. For example, “Cain has children, and, therefore, humanity continues forward?” No surprise: one of Cain's children (Lamech) doesn’t turn out to be a very good person. Adam and Eve have more kids. Some of their kids turn out good.
Some of this may seem like the background noise to any story. It’s the narrative that fleshes out the story, giving us a fuller picture. And, like with other books, we often just skip over it or move on quickly to the next narrative section. As one of my graduate professors used to say, “There’s reading, and then there’s READING.” We all know exactly what he means! There is a difference between reading enough to understand something (and maybe pass the test) and reading enough to really know the nuances and the depths of what has been said.
Yet, this is Scripture. We all know that every single word is God-breathed and useful for teaching, reproof, correcting, and training (2 Timothy 3:16). This section has to be in the Bible for some reason, right?! Oh, don’t worry! We’ll ask the pastor!
Let me give you a little insight into preachers and pastors. Most preachers are also pastors, wearing about 100 other hats throughout the week. They are preparing a sermon while running some classes, doing marriage counseling, overseeing a staff, attending a Bible study, trying to keep a budget in check, ordering new humidity packs for the guitars, and, hopefully, eating dinner with their family a couple of times each week. In other words, most preachers are a lot like you! They are busy doing the work the church has given them, but they are definitely not full-time sermon preparers!
That means there is hope for you, too! Most pastors have just been blessed that someone, somewhere, has taught them the right tools to help them dissect Scripture. For me, that was a four-year seminary experience that taught me the right tools AND gave me a head start by forcing me to read many of those tools during that time. But you can use those tools as well! We live in an incredible age where most data and information are at our fingertips. When you come to sections like this in Scripture, I would highly encourage you to start with just one tool—a Study Bible. Both the ESV and NIV Study Bibles are essentially Bibles with about 66 mini-commentaries on each book, written by some of the best scholars. Notes on most sections and passages. And, if you want to know more, you can go to those full commentaries—books that people have spent years studying different books of the Bible and mining them for every nugget they can find.
That’s the secret—good preachers aren’t necessarily smarter than you, they just know the right books to go read and tools to use! If you ever want to go beyond your study Bible, I would always be happy to connect you with great resources on any book of the Bible or topic! Trust me, some of you have learned that already and have even been sent scholarly papers that I have squirreled away in my Google Drive, just in case someone ever asks!
Actually, the idea of tools for studying the Bible is a good image of what we are going to talk about today. Readily available information is not just something that we have with Christian books and resources. As we all know, the internet is full of data and information—some good, some bad. If you prefer, you can get a custom-printed book or an electronic book on any subject, available immediately. All of us can now answer almost any question instantaneously. How to cook potatoes au gratin. How to know if your mole is worrisome. How to pull apart a transmission for a 1986 Jeep CJ7. Information is everywhere and is available on everything.
That is common grace, and that is what our passage is about this morning. You may have heard that phrase before—common grace. Sometimes when someone says the phrase “common grace,” they simply mean that we all receive grace in one form or another, and so we should be thankful. That grace is common to us all. That is true. But what Christians usually mean when we talk about common grace is something a little more specific. We are thinking more of what James says in his letter:
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
(James 1:17 ESV)
Every good gift. Anything that is good and useful for human productivity and flourishing is something that God has given to us all—to humanity in general—for our common good and our enjoyment. He gives those good things to us as a grace to us all, in common. Not just for believers but for unbelievers as well. That is what we mean by common grace. As Wayne Grudem says:
“Common grace is the grace of God by which he gives innumerable blessings that are not part of salvation.”
(Grudem, Systematic Theology, 657)
Or as the theologian John Murray says:
“[Common grace is] every favour of whatever kind or degree, falling short of salvation, which this undeserving and sin-cursed world enjoys at the hand of God.”
(John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray, Vol. 2)
Common grace is every blessing, every wonderful thing we experience now on this earth, that we didn’t deserve, and that is not specifically part of salvation.
That last part is important. Common grace is the companion to another kind of grace—Saving Grace. Common grace is different than saving grace, in that:
Common Grace
The result is not salvation.
Recipients are believers and unbelievers.
The source is indirectly from Jesus’s redemptive work as God withholds judgment for a time and gives us gifts and good things in this life.
Whereas:
Saving Grace
Always results in salvation.
The recipient is only believers.
The source is directly from Jesus’s redemptive work for believers on the cross and through his resurrection.
Common grace will not save us, but it is a gift from God and points us to God. That is exactly what we are seeing in this section of Genesis today. Yes, these stories in Genesis 4 and many other areas of Scripture are, in some ways, filler to the larger story of Scripture, which has many sections that are much more consequential than this. But what the filler says matters.
If you were reading a western, you would expect the filler to talk about the desert or prairie life or something similar. If it suddenly started talking about outer space, then you would be confused (or think you are in a weird Will Smith movie from the 90s). Similarly, what we see here in Genesis 4 is consistent with the same storyline God has already been showing us in Genesis. This is a section that reminds and shows us again that God gives each of us SO MUCH common grace.
Recap
Last week, Demer was in 1 John 2 & 3 and was talking about our life as the children of God, that we need to avoid the antichrists, that we are to know that we have God’s Spirit and are meant to resemble God, and therefore we are also to strive to fight sin. Basically, good and evil exist, and we are meant to be on the side of good and to pursue it. We are now to be like our good God who has saved us. John must write that to his friends and churches, and it is there for us, because those sides don’t always seem as clear as we would like.
Sometimes, people who aren’t following God—even antichrists—may look like they are succeeding or even, at times, doing good things. Similarly, we may sometimes be unsure how to use our skills and talents to benefit those around us, and we may choose to use them poorly. We may also struggle to enter and use the graces that others use all around us all the time.
Understanding common grace better helps us understand why we are sometimes confused about the “sides” in this life. In fact, some of this confusion happens to all of us BECAUSE of common grace. This is what we are seeing in Genesis 4:17–26 this morning.
Common Grace (will include):
Sin
Worship
Scripture and personal experience show that common grace leads to two outcomes: sin or worship. Common grace in a world where we have a choice means people can choose how to use what God has given all of us for the common good. We can use it for evil. We can use it for good. We see that all the time! You can use the internet and social media for good, to build others up, or to insult and put others down.
As we come to sections like Genesis 4, we are meant to see that since the beginning of humanity, common grace has always been a part of our reality, and people will choose to either sin or worship with that grace, and sometimes both (if you and I are any example)! This might leave us frustrated. It might lead us to blame God or be upset that he would give common grace if it were misused. But instead of being frustrated, what this should lead you and me to is:
Common Grace (will include):
Sin
Worship
Could lead to: Frustration and anger at God
Should lead to: Witnessing
Witnessing. Witnessing is our God-focused response when we realize what is happening here under the common grace God has given us. If we understand God’s ways rightly, we will find the desire to witness to others welling up within us. Not only that, they might acknowledge the God who is giving them all these good things in common grace, but so that they may also use these good things for their intended purpose—worshipping a holy and loving God.
Common grace:
culture
But let me show you how that is here in Genesis 4. Let’s look again at how this section starts:
Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the city after the name of his son, Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mehujael, and Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-cain; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.
(Genesis 4:17-22)
We mentioned this a little bit the last time when we looked at Genesis chapter three. From Cain’s line came common grace in the form of culture. Even though Cain and Abel both dwelt as farmers and shepherds, we see that working with livestock and dwelling together in tents—a city of people—begins with Cain’s family. We get music from the lyre and pipe, setting us up for the first bands, concerts, and worship teams. We get bronze and iron working for tools, jewelry, and weapons. These things represent culture as we know it. People working together in community. Artistic expression and tools to make life easier.
These are good things for us and for the world. These are all the kinds of things we should grab onto and be thankful that God has given them to humanity, whether they are brought about by Godly people (like the line of Seth) or by the world (like the line of Cain). As John Calvin said:
If the Lord has willed that we be helped in physics, dialectic, mathematics, and other like disciplines, by the work and ministry of the ungodly, let us use this assistance. For if we neglect God’s gift freely offered in these arts, we ought to suffer punishment for our sloths.
(John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion)
God has created culture and government, so we should all be subject to what God has given us. Ruling authorities specifically only exist because God put them in place.
But common grace goes beyond culture as we see here. As we look throughout Scripture, we also see that common grace provides all of humanity with culture, physical provision, knowledge (especially of God), and a common moral law or code.
Common grace:
physical provision
You may have noticed, but I often like to mention the common grace of physical provision in our world. I find it fascinating that you and I and everyone else in this world woke up to the same provision today. Today, it was a beautiful, warm spring day. Sun shining, the breeze lightly blowing, flowers and plants reaching to the sky in growth. That was true for us, and for all our friends in the Treasure Valley, believers and unbelievers.
That is incredible to me! There are days I don’t deserve this kind of beauty. My sinful and evil heart really deserves the coldest of winter moments, the darkest of drizzly days, the blackest of nights. Yet I wake up to this! In fact, God points to his common grace of physical provision often in Scripture. Jesus says this in Matthew 5:
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. (Matthew 5:44–45 ESV)
You have likely heard this passage many times, but I bet you skipped the last section. The REASON for why we bless our enemies and pray for them. “FOR he makes the sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.”
We are called to love unbelievers and even those who treat us poorly because God does the same. He provides them with common grace because even though they have sinned infinitely against him, why should you and I be any different?
God also tells us that he sometimes ordains physical provision because of the holiness of his people. In Genesis 39, we will see that:
From the time that he made him overseer in his house and over all that he had, the LORD blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake; the blessing of the LORD was on all that he had, in house and field.
(Genesis 39:5 ESV)
God provided differently for Pharaoh and Egypt BECAUSE they blessed and cared for Joseph. A good reason for us to want to be in a community with unbelievers. Who knows, they may benefit from us in some way through God’s mysterious ways!
Common grace:
knowledge
And common grace extends beyond culture and physical provision. God also gives everyone, EVERYONE, knowledge of himself through common grace. Listen to John and Paul for a moment:
“The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.”
(John 1:9 ESV)
“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”
(Romans 1:19–21 ESV)
There is no person who will stand before God and not be accountable for knowing he existed. God’s common grace has shown itself to everyone. He has enlightened all of our eyes to know his light, to know his goodness, to see him throughout this created world. Even if people have tried to deny it in their hearts and eventually are darkened by their unbelief, God has shown himself to them.
Common grace:
Moral Law
Similarly, we all know God’s basic requirements of us through common grace. When unbelievers do what is good, they point to the existence of God. Without a righteous, good, and holy God, there is no reason for any of us to ever do “good” things. Again, from Paul:
For when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.
(Romans 2:14–15 ESV)
Common Grace: A Blessing and a Frustration
God’s common grace is all around us. These are just a small sampling of what we see of God’s common grace in Scripture, but it is all around us in a myriad of ways. It is played out in our cultural advances (AI, computers, rockets); it is seen in physical provision, including the natural order of gravity, weather, and community; common grace is seen through knowledge of God in everything around us, including a moral law written on everyone’s heart and sometimes encoded and enshrined in the good laws of mankind. Common grace is a good thing! It unites believers and unbelievers in this world and in this life that God has given us. It unites us in a common good given by God.
There has been a push over the last several decades to remind Christians to embrace common grace with unbelievers. To learn how to have your neighbors over to your house. How to sit with someone and hear their story. How to care if your neighbor’s car isn’t working, and try to jump the battery or give them a ride to work. That has been a very good correction. I think it can become easy for Christians to become insular and to withdraw from the world. Jesus knew this! He prayed for his disciples:
I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.
(John 17:14–15 ESV)
Jesus didn’t want his disciples to withdraw; rather, he asked God to simply protect us from Satan and his ways as long as we are here.
However, I think I can understand why Christians get tired of demonstrating similar common grace and love to unbelievers as God does. I think we all, at times, want to withdraw. And I think this happens when we notice, as co-humans, what many unbelievers do with the common grace they have been given. It is the same story that goes back to Genesis 4.
Sin
Note what happens when the narrative zooms in on Lamech:
Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”
(Genesis 4:22-23)
We saw this earlier in the chapter, but Lamech introduced the first sin of polygamy. He takes two wives: Adah and Zillah. With common grace, Lamech finds a way to sin in ways that others haven’t yet. Additionally, Lamech tells his wives about killing someone. And this time, it isn’t just his brother, or an equal, that he kills. The language here seems to imply that he killed a young man, perhaps even a child. It also seems that he is not repentant, but rather boastful.
Common Grace (will include):
Sin
Worship
Could lead to: Frustration and anger at God
Should lead to: Witnessing
I think this is what exhausts many believers. Under common grace, many people take the freedom to sin, and that can lead us to frustration. Frustration that makes us want to pull away. The writer of Ecclesiastes felt this acutely.
“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?”
(Ecclesiastes 1:2–3 ESV)
Qoheleth (the Hebrew name for preacher in Ecclesiastes) laments that this all doesn’t seem worth it. Bad people succeed. Bad people keep choosing bad. Good people get hurt. Good people fail. Why even try?! Ecclesiastes is there in Scripture to remind us that this feeling, this frustration at people choosing sin even under common grace, will often make us frustrated.
Worship
And we are frustrated because we know what we are striving to choose, what all people should choose under common grace: We are trying to seek to worship our God! Note what happens in Genesis 4:
And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” To Seth, also, a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time, people began to call upon the name of the LORD.”
(Genesis 4:17–26 ESV)
This is amazing! People began to call upon the name of the LORD! I take this to mean that, instead of just personal worship of God, after Seth and through his son Enosh, there were now enough people and families who loved Yahweh that they chose to come together regularly and worship him. They began the first worship services! That is the right response to common grace. They knew that they deserved to die. They knew that God was withholding judgment and had promised to solve the problem for them. Every morning, as the sun rose, they prayed for rain for their crops and continued food; they saw that God was continuing to smile upon them. I’m guessing they even saw through Cain’s family and their inventions, the potential to worship God. So Seth, Enosh, and likely even Adam and Eve and more of their family gathered, and they, together, worshipped God! Like you and I are doing this morning!
That is the beautiful response of God’s people to his common grace: Worship!
Witness
I think many of us go through this cycle many times in our lives. We see God’s common grace, get frustrated when we see unbelievers continue to sin like Lamech and Cain, we pull back from unbelievers and relating to them, only to realize we are not imaging God at all. God continues to provide common grace to all of humanity with steadfast love and grace over millennia. WE struggle to do that sometimes, even for a couple of hours.
Yes, you and I respond rightly when, out of our love for God and our knowledge of his common grace in our lives, we stop and worship him. And we do well to even engage our neighbors in enjoying this common grace together. In partnering with them. In enjoying the grace God has given us together! Again, I think it is a great recovery that many Christian books and preachers have encouraged us not to forget how to relate with our neighbors.
However, I have heard stories, I have heard from people myself, who have said things like “I had a great moment of witnessing to someone the other day. We sat down over coffee, and I got to hear their story. It was great to bless them and witness to them that way.”
That was a really nice thing to do…but it wasn’t witnessing to someone. I’m sorry, Christian, you just relearned how to be a nice human being again and relate kindly to someone! It is a bit of a commentary on our hearts as Christians that we often struggle to even be nice to unbelievers in ways they would care for one another. In those moments, you regain some connection with others through common grace. Unbelievers do that too. Remember what Jesus said?
And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount.
(Luke 6:33–34 ESV)
Even unbelievers are kind and repay kindness with kindness. Relating kindly to those who are willing to have a kind conversation with you is wonderful! That is participating in common grace with one another! But don’t forget you and I were made for worship. And true worshippers desire to see more worship and more worshippers.
Common grace connection and conversations are step one in our relationship with one another and with others. Common grace moments are meant to remind us that our family, our friends, and our coworkers are image bearers of God and that they desperately need to return to worshipping him. But we are made to move from common grace connection to a witness. We want to see Saving Grace in the lives of those we love!
Saving Grace is the one thing believers can talk about that unbelievers cannot. We know the beauty of the hope that we now have in Jesus Christ. We know the relief of knowing our sins were dealt with on the cross, and we now can walk rightly before God through his Holy Spirit. That is something we alone can talk about, and we alone can share it!
This is exactly what we see in Acts. The disciples use common grace connection again and again to approach unbelievers and witness to them. To encourage them towards saving grace.
We see Paul and Barnabas do this in Lystra at the temple of Zeus:
We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. In past generations, he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.
(Acts 14:15–17 ESV)
The people of Lystra wanted to give offerings to Paul and Barnabas when they saw them performing miracles. Instead, they reminded them that they are the same as them, with the same common grace. They start with comments and connections through common grace. But the goal is to proclaim Jesus. We see Paul do this in Athens on the Areopagus:
So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What, therefore, you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
(Acts 17:22–23 ESV)
Conclusion
Common Grace (will include):
Sin
Worship
Could lead to: Frustration and anger at God
Should lead to: Witnessing
Friends, Genesis 4 is not JUST background filler. It is an example of the drumbeat of our life now, as we live with God and one another, outside the garden, under common grace. God’s common grace is poured out on believers and unbelievers alike. We live with that benefit together, daily, in all the ways we have access to good culture, provision, knowledge of God, and even aspects of his moral law written on everyone’s hearts. Yet, as we all know, some will choose to take advantage of this common grace and sin, and some will take this moment to worship God. This morning, we are an example of a moment of worshipping our God’s common grace of peace in our state, good weather, and hearts that are beating, and we are taking this moment to raise our voices together to worship him.
Yet, I’m sure if you are like me, sometime this week you also took a moment to use common grace and the grace of God to have this life and made the choice to sin. It is not just our life UNDER common grace that is our connection with unbelievers; it is also our choice to sin under common grace like them that is our connection.
Friends, don’t grow weary under sin and a broken, fallen world, and pull back from common grace connections with all peoples: your neighbors, your family, your friends. Even when they hurt you in sin, remember that they are image bearers of God who desperately need to see not only the common grace we all have, but also the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ.
Remember, in common grace, our friends cannot truly please God.
For whatever does not proceed from faith is sin.
(Romans 14:23 ESV)
What doesn’t come from faith—saving faith in Jesus—is never truly good. Whether it is what we eat, how we treat someone else, or how we live our lives, if it isn’t through faith, it is not honoring to God. God knows the hearts of all men, and he knows that we only do good things in common grace for selfish reasons.
Unbelievers are able to do things that look good to us. They don’t look good to God, for God knows the heart.
(John Frame, The Doctrine of the Christian Life)
That is what can be confusing about common grace: It is only when we have the very Spirit of God dwelling within us that we can worship him with our actions in many ways. We need to remind ourselves, and we need to remind our friends, of what Paul starts out with in Romans 2:
Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?
(Romans 2:4 ESV)
Common grace is meant to point us forward to saving grace! And that through believers who choose to witness THROUGH common grace with others. We don’t want to simply recover common grace connection with one another and unbelievers; we want that common grace joy and reality in our world to cause us to rejoice and declare the beauties of Jesus so loudly that a watching world cannot help but wonder if they have taken advantage of God’s kindness, forbearance, and patience.
We don’t just want common grace partners in this life; we want co-worshippers and co-siblings of our God to join us in his kingdom work and procession.
That is what we see in Genesis chapter four—a reminder of common grace, our choices to sin or worship God, and ultimately a reminder that this life is one of witnessing to others to join us in truly knowing this God through Jesus Christ.
Response
Before we move to worshipping through song more, let’s stop and consider this passage a little more.
Are there ways you might praise God more as you see his common grace in your life and the life of those around you?
How might you connect with your unbelieving friends and neighbors through common grace?
What would it look like to invite them into worshipping our God, who gave us this common grace, and even invite them towards saving grace?
