Genesis 4:17–5:32 – The Legacy of Man

This sermon is from Genesis 4, verse 17 through 5, verse 32, and is entitled, The Legacy of

Man.

It was delivered to Ecclesia Churches on Sunday, June 14, 2026.

From here on out in Genesis, we won't be reading every part of these passages out loud.

And so I would absolutely encourage you to read those passages ahead of listening to

the sermon because it will help you to track through the overall storyline better. We'll be

roughly tracking character by character, but also focusing on the character of God as he reveals

himself in Genesis. Today, we're looking at the genealogy or the family tree of two different

family lines. And out of those two family lines, we see two kingdoms start to take shape. The first

one is the broken kingdom of men that makes cultural progress, but morally falls apart.

And then there are those who have faith in God and his eventual restoration of the kingdom to come.

So the children of Adam and Eve, and specifically Cain and Seth, are shown to leave this legacy of

either death or life, depending on their response to God. So the theme that I want to show us

in this long list of names is legacy. And in the process of considering that, I think

we will be confronted with what type of legacy we are leaving in our own lives.

Are we leaving a legacy of life or death? And the answer to that question is largely dependent on

whose kingdom you are building your life around. So let's start by looking at the legacy of Cain,

and its legacy of decay. And this is verses 17 through 22 that we'll read out loud.

Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name

of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad fathered Mahujael,

and Mahujael fathered Methushael and Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives.

The name of one was Adah and the name of the other was Zillah. Adah bore Jabal and he was the father

of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother's name was Jubal and he was the father

of all those who play the lyre and pipe. Zillah also bore Tubal-Cain. He was the forger of all

of bronze and iron. So the first family line that we are presented with is that of Cain,

and it reads like the rise of any other civilization that quickly advances technologically,

and just as quickly as it rises in cultural advancement, it descends into moral chaos.

Cain and his wife have a child who is named Enoch, and we again have this common grace extended

to Cain, in which he is given a child. Enoch means dedicated, but in this case, he is not dedicated

to God or God's glory, but instead Cain dedicates a city named after his son.

If you remember a few verses back, God commanded Cain to be a wanderer. Yet in his pride,

he refuses and instead establishes a city for himself.

Even after his punishment of this wandering unrest,

he still attempts to defy God by digging in his heels and seeking his own glory.

Cain is saying essentially,

I will establish myself and make a name for myself without God's blessing.

And it seems like a good thing to him initially, right?

We have this lineage of people born and they multiply.

and that city must have grown. And yet within only four generations, the descent has already begun.

A few places we see this. The first is that we have Lamech in verse 19, taking two wives for

himself, becoming the first polygamist, showing this relational change. This is in defiance of

God's design for marriage in chapter 2, verse 24, that a man and woman become one flesh connected to

one another. That even the language used for these marriages has changed when it comes to

Lamech. We go from holding fast and the way that Adam received his wife as a gift from God

to this taking or seizing. And the names of his wives gives us further understanding of the nature

this new multi-person relationship. Names are really important in the Bible, especially in the

Old Testament, because they are symbolic of that person's role, and adah means ornament.

These wives are seen by Lamech as a kind of possession that he has accumulated for himself.

And then from their children, we see the advancement of civilization and technology

as people become craftsmen.

We have the development of things like breeding animals as livestock

and musical advancement with instruments like the lyre and the pipe

and even the creation of bronze and iron tools.

So humanity appears to be making amazing progress on the outside,

but we also witness the moral fiber of this culture beginning to collapse.

In verse 23 and 24, we have what is known as the song of the sword.

in which Lamech not only is unashamed of his violence, in fact, he's the opposite.

He's proud of his violent nature and he boasts about it to his wives.

And the Hebrew here is also quite striking because what Lamech is singing about is the

murder of a young man who has hit him.

And the word translated young man is perhaps more accurately rendered child.

So a boy is dead, and Lamech boasts to the women that he claims ownership over.

Let's consider what's happened here.

These human beings have continued to reflect the creative nature given to them by God,

and they have advanced in many important ways, and yet, for all their progress,

they are broken and bent toward selfishness and violence and evil.

In the study of theology, we call this depravity, and it is the root problem in any human civilization.

No matter how advanced we become on the outside, these advancements do not have the power to redeem what is broken inside the human heart.

Growing up, I was a fan of the TV show Star Trek, and really still am to an extent, if I'm being honest.

But its worldview is one that completely denies the reality of depravity in the human heart.

So Gene Roddenberry, who was the creator of Star Trek originally, was what we would call

a secular humanist.

And the secular humanist believes that not only is there no sovereign God, but also believes

that humans aren't broken and they don't need a savior.

They just need to evolve or improve.

In this future world that Gene Roddenberry envisioned, when technology had advanced

sufficiently, the goodness of humanity would eventually just win the day.

And our only conflict would be with these less evolved alien species.

So the theology of Star Trek, right?

The way that they think about God is a world in which God is absent and humanity would

save themselves.

The lineage of Cain stands in pretty stark contrast to that.

And honestly, so does the rest of human history.

Over and over again, we see these cultures that make tremendous material progress in

so many ways.

And often in those advancements, we can see this longing for restoration, for peace, for

an end to the conflict that we experience in this reality that we live in.

But ultimately, because the actual issue is rooted in the human heart, we will always fail to save ourselves.

Even our greatest technological advances will not fix what is wrong.

Even our greatest human philosophers do not have a solution to the problem that exists in the human heart.

Look at the crime rates in any large city and you'll see that even with the most futuristic developments,

the most beautiful buildings, the most capital. They have failed to produce the utopia that they

promised. And in the modern day, there is probably no better example for this than communism, which

promises a kind of utopia that comes from people acting in the best interests of others, and yet

they always fail to do that. Psalm 49 talks about how both the wealthy and the poor leave everything

behind. And for all the lands that they call by their own names, like the city named for Enoch,

they eventually end up in the grave. And these people who work so hard to establish a legacy

and a kingdom for themselves end up gaining nothing. Verse 14 of Psalm 49 is particularly

hard to hear, saying, like sheep, they are appointed for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd,

and the upright shall rule over them in the morning.

Their form shall be consumed in Sheol with no place to dwell.

So where is our hope?

Well, it's certainly not in ourselves or our cultural advancement,

and our civilization is no different.

Don't be led astray by this idea that we're somehow better

than all the societies that have come before us.

Our ability to grow more food isn't saving us

while our agricultural outputs have never in history been higher than they are right now,

the rates of heart disease and blood sugar disorders and substance abuse and any number

of largely self-imposed health issues have also never been higher. If you look at our art and music

that led to the creation of places like Hollywood, they are so filled with depravity that the content

they produce is largely toxic. In the U.S., we are the largest industrial force on the planet

right now, and we are also the largest exporter of global weaponry, larger than actually the next

seven countries on the list combined. So our hope is not in our culture and our technological

progress. Our hope is in a different kingdom and a different king altogether. Living in a culture

that is just saturated with a worldview that is opposed to God and is actually getting more

radically that way every day means that we have to be pretty radical in the way that we put our

faith in Jesus. As Christians, we need to take seriously the amount of influence that we are

allowing the culture to have on us, specifically the allure of advancement to become a false

savior, the latest tech or trend or app, influencer, actor, musician, politician.

You have to intentionally pry your faith from the clutches of these earthly things and people

and put your faith in Christ and in his word.

And parents specifically, we have to take seriously the amount of influence that we are giving the

world over our children and the example that we are modeling for them in this regard.

Are we carefully training them to put their faith in a kingdom and culture that is failing

or in a king who would never fail them?

What kind of legacy are you leaving behind?

The next family lineage that begins with verse 25 in our passage, and then goes all the way

through chapter five, shows a really different kind of legacy. And it is not one of perfection,

but it is one of faith that God was going to bring redemption. And so let's look at that now.

This is chapter four, verse 25 and 26.

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.

Here we have our first significant change of character,

and the account is moving away from Cain's legacy of decay to a different family line

and a different legacy entirely.

Eve recognizes that God is going to do something special with the family line coming from Seth.

His name means appointed because she recognizes that God has appointed this family line for

his purposes.

And this is the line of promise, which is why we have an account of it in scripture.

And right away, we see a different sort of behavior that starts to come from the people

in this family line.

Seth fathered Enosh, which means mortal, a kind of humility on the part of Seth that

is the polar opposite of Cain.

Cain proudly names cities after his son, and Seth reminds his son that he is mortal and

raises him to recognize God.

And the direct result of that is that the people of this generation, verse 26 says,

began to call upon or to proclaim the name of the Lord.

Cain's lineage was recognizable by their pride and their twisting of marriage and their violence.

But here is a generation who becomes known for worshiping Yahweh,

A generation who recognizes that God is worthy and walks in humility before him.

What an incredible thing to be recognized for and to be passed on to the following generation,

right?

It's kind of fun to look at the differences today between generations, how they were raised

and what they grew up with, the habits that they've picked up and the awkward ways that

we identify ourselves, sometimes unknowingly.

Some of these will end up being awkward stereotypes, but some of them are uncomfortably spot on.

So Gen X is known for texting like they're writing a formal letter and then signing their name at the end for some reason.

Also, they remember the sound of streetlights popping on because it was their alarm to head home at night.

Millennials are known for using a lot of acronyms when texting because we grew up with a T9 keyboard on our flip phones.

We also long for a pre-internet world that doesn't exist anymore, and yet are terrified

of being left behind.

Gen Z sends emails that read like a text message, and sometimes they don't know how to address

an envelope because of online bill pay.

So why would they?

They also deeply crave authenticity because they have seen so little of it in the world

around them.

And finally, Gen Alpha has invented their own vocabulary, which moves so fast that it is out of date almost immediately.

And they are hungry for human connection, maybe more than any other generation.

But they grew up in a community that has largely replaced people with screens.

So I want you to think about this with me.

what would it look like to be known as a generation who began to proclaim the name of the Lord?

What would it take? What changes would we have to make? The list that I read earlier was kind of

silly, but sincerely, what steps would you need to take to become a generation that proclaimed

Jesus? What priorities would you have to change? What current priorities that you and I have

would need to be laid on the altar and given up for the sake of the kingdom of heaven?

What worldly habits would need to be replaced with godly discipline? What would it take?

I think if we want to have an impact on our culture, followers of Jesus need to wake up

and evaluate what kind of legacy we are leaving. And the most important legacy that we can leave

is one of following Jesus and leading people to Christ. Because a legacy of good works

will not last. And a legacy of even religion will not give life. But a legacy of faith in Christ

is something that will last for eternity. So parents, it's so important that we are

daily investing in the discipleship of our children so that they would know Jesus and trust him.

that when they leave your home, while so many things will change, their lives will continue

to center around knowing Jesus and making him known. And for each of us, whether we have children or

not, we have an opportunity to impact the next generation and our own generation by orienting

our lives around knowing Jesus and making him known. Because Jesus is our only hope of eternal

life. And without him, there is only death that awaits us. That is the reality that is made

painfully clear in this passage, even about this line of promise. We see at the end of almost every

account, even in this generations of Adam, it says the same thing. And he died. That's what happened

at the end of their life. They were born. This is when they had a child. This is how many years

they lived, and he died. Humanity, even in this godly line, faced the reality of the grip of sin,

and they too were waiting for the resurrection that Jesus would eventually bring.

Even in this passage, there are what I would refer to as these notes of hope. These people

known for praising the name of the Lord near the beginning. That's a note of hope. There's

this son near the end of the passage, and we'll talk about him next week, who is given a name that

means relief, and his name is Noah. And he's named that in the hope that God will bring some redemption

to the suffering and wickedness of the culture. And then there's this guy in the middle.

And that's what I want to talk about here before we close up this passage on the family tree.

His name is Enoch, and the account of his life is a pretty shocking departure from the rest of the

list. And there's something for us to recognize here. So let's read verses 21 through 23 of chapter

five. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he

fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Enoch were

365 years. Enoch walked with God and he was not, for God took him. So Enoch is one of the only,

only actually of two people in all of scripture to not experience physical death, the other being

the prophet Elijah. So let's come back to him in just a moment and kind of start with what we know

happened to the majority of people who died, excluding Enoch and Elijah. People who died

before the death and resurrection of Jesus went to what scripture often calls Sheol. That's the

name that's given this place of the dead. We heard this in the earlier reference from Psalms.

When Jesus died on the cross though, the first thing that happened was this spiritual awakening,

so to speak, of these people who had died waiting for the coming of God's salvation, the Messiah.

And scripture says that they were given an opportunity to hear the gospel from Jesus himself,

and they went to be with him until the second coming when the physical resurrection will take

place. This comes out of places like 1 Peter and Ephesians 4. However, those who died as enemies of

God, people with a heart like Cain who blames and rejects God and remain in their rebellion

also remain in Sheol, this place of the dead, until the final judgment when Jesus returns.

We know this from places like Luke 16, Revelation chapter 20, John chapter 5.

Revelation 20 · chapter mention John 5 · chapter mention

Ever since Jesus came, those who have put their faith in Jesus, who is the only salvation

of God, upon their death, go immediately to be with him. We are promised this in Philippians 1,

in Luke 23, the man on the cross next to Jesus. Truly, I tell you, today you will be with me

in paradise. 2 Corinthians 5 also gets at this. So they are immediately absent from the body that

they leave behind and present with their Savior. And those who die having rejected Jesus and choose

to remain in rebellion will also await the same judgment day. And that is a biblical perspective

on death, briefly. Now, we can't say exactly why God decided to take Enoch or Elijah, for that

matter, to await the fullness of time and the coming of Christ in heaven instead of Sheol.

These two men essentially end up in the same category as Christians who are still alive

at the time when Christ returns in a future day to come.

Just like them, instead of being resurrected from the dead, their living bodies will be

glorified and restored completely for eternity.

But while we don't know all of God's reasons for doing this, we are given this really important

description that points to the faith of Enoch. So verse 24 says that Enoch walked with God.

And this is actually a pretty unique thing in the Old Testament. We have a lot of people,

prophets, people who loved and obeyed God and lived upright lives before him. And these people

are often described as walking before God or in front of him. That is a common way that scripture

talks about living obediently before God, but that is not what this phrase says. Here, Enoch did not

walk before God, though he was certainly obedient to him. It says he walked with God twice. He had

this relationship with God that was more like a close friendship in a way that we have only seen

thus far in the garden before the fall. This same term would be used to describe later

priests when they would walk into the holy of holies in the tabernacle or the temple. It means

walking in the presence of God. So I'd like us to close by considering this as we get personal

here for a moment. We've talked a lot about legacy and a lot about the culture at large and a lot

about raising and influencing the next generation. But Enoch, I believe, is an invitation to examine

our personal walk with God. It's easy to talk in generalities sometimes about our faith and

the culture and Christians in general, but it can get uncomfortable the more personal we get. And so

here's my uncomfortable but necessary personal question with you. Are you walking with God?

Paul says it this way in Galatians 5.25,

Is there space in your life for walking with Jesus?

For reading his word?

For going to him in prayer?

For serving others in his name?

And I want you to be really honest here.

What is that walk with God like?

Is it a mile a day walk, rain or shine because you love the Lord?

Or is it a quick jog to the mailbox before moving on with your day?

A generation who is known for proclaiming the glory of God is made up of people who walk with God.

So let's walk together as a people proclaiming the glory of God and leaving a godly legacy.

and let's also walk closely with our Savior every step of the way.