Further and Further Away, Pt. 2

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Have you ever watched someone dig themselves into a hole, keep digging, then somewhere along the way, they stop even trying to climb out? Pastor Nick Gatzke shares the story of the first family to reveal how quickly we humans can dig ourselves into a hole of sin.

We see that Cain embraces sin, and that spirals him toward rebellion. Look at it with me. Some stories are centered around the events that happen in the story, but this story is centered around the interaction between Cain and between God himself. We see that in this interaction, God is shown as one who is steady, and he’s gracious in his approach. Yet Cain is one who has a growing sense of pride, and self -importance. It was prideful for Cain to respond to God in anger. And now, after he made a mistake… A significant mistake on top of his mistake, he responds to God in pride once again after he kills his brother. God comes to him graciously, much like he came to Adam earlier in Genesis, saying to Adam, Adam, where are you? As they were hiding because of their sin. And now God comes to Cain and he says, Cain, where is your brother, Abel? And the response is, I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper? The compound sins now reveal the heart. And the heart is full of pride. That’s why the Bible warns us so clearly against a prideful disposition. If you are here today and you know that pride is a sinful struggle of yours, listen closely, don’t think about anybody else but yourself in this moment as you hear just a couple of the warnings.

““““Proverbs chapter 11 two says when pride comes, then comes dishonor, but with the humble is wisdom. Proverbs 29 23 says a man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor. James 4 six, but he being God gives us more grace and that’s why the scripture says God opposes the proud, but he gives favor to the humble. In Isaiah 47 10 the prophet speaks and he gives a description of what it looks like to be enraptured in pride and sin. He says it this way, he says you felt secure in your wickedness and said no one sees me.””” your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you. For you have said in your heart, I am, and there is no one besides me. The power of sin is more destructive than you can imagine. And the warning for us is that if you have a prideful disposition in this life, then this destruction is nearer to you than maybe you even realize at the moment. I mean, just think about how this spiraled out of control for Cain. It went from bad to worse in a hurry. It started with an improper sacrifice, a half -hearted response of worship. He then responds in anger to God, and he’s got a choice. He can do what is pleasing to God, but instead he chooses to be angry toward God, and in jealousy he kills his brother.”

God confronts him and the response to God now is belligerent rebellion. This was a God that he was just trying to worship just a day before. And now he’s already gone to outward rebellion. God renders judgment on him. And he still doesn’t repent. But he worries merely about self -preservation. And God shows grace in that he protects him in the general sense, we call this common grace. But he removes him from his presence and from his blessing. It all started with just an act of half -hearted worship. Not that big of a deal, but it ended up in a place where he couldn’t imagine. And that is the power of sin.

Let me tell you a little story about what this looks like in real life. And we might summarize the story by saying the power of pride and the power of sin makes us really good at believing our own junk. People become really good at convincing themselves that they’re right. They become really good then at rewriting the history of events in their mind. And then they become really good at believing that history to be true. Couple years ago, I was talking to a man who had decided that he was going to divorce his wife. And he expressed things to me like, I just don’t think it’s working anymore. And there are things that I wanna do with the rest of my life that she’s standing in the way of. And it’s too hard to go on.

And as he took another step and another step and another step down his sinful path, he continued to walk further, but the tone changed as he began to rewrite history in his mind. Now, instead of saying it’s not working anymore, he was saying things like, it’s been a terrible marriage for 30 years. And instead of saying it’s just too hard, he’d say things like, she is just a mean and nasty person and it’s been that way for a long time and on and on and on. Now, despite being challenged by people around him who loved the Lord, people who some lovingly and some sternly encouraged him to go back to his wife, to change his mind, to repent from his sin, the rewriting in his mind continued to occur. Now he would say things like, we haven’t been intimate for 25 years, which wasn’t true. Or I’ve sought counseling, but she wouldn’t go, which wasn’t true. And even convinced himself that his wife had an affair early in their marriage, despite the fact there was no evidence to support the claim. And these issues weren’t present in their early married life. Sin had taken its hold. The rewriting of history in his mind was as a result of his pride, and now he was actually believing it to the point where he would tell other people rather plainly what he thought happened.

The point is this, we are really good at believing our own junk. And when we justify our sin, when we begin to normalize our behavior, when we begin to say, well, my situation is unique and anyone in my situation would do the same thing, it puts us in a position of being confronted by God. And in that moment of confrontation, in that moment of temptation, we have an opportunity to repent, to turn back to him. But if we don’t, when we pridefully believe that our behavior is normal, that our ways are better than God’s ways, and we again place ourselves in the position of victim, when sinful choices become normalized, it leads us down the path of making even worse sinful decisions.

So much so, that the ones around you don’t even begin to recognize you anymore as the person that they knew. Logic and accurate history in your mind is defied as we convince ourselves that we’re right. Our actions continue to degrade and we become more and more brash against God himself. What started out as honest marriage struggles when met with sin created a completely different man than just a couple years before. Because the power of sin is more destructive than you can imagine.

And we see that as this snowball continues to roll down the hill, as this train continues to go farther down the track away from God, that a sinful life snowballs into a sinful family which snowballs into a sinful culture. Look with me at verses 17 and on. Here we see a little account of Cain’s lineage, his family following his banishment from God. And we see that in this family he has children and these children become the masters of culture. One makes tents and keeps cattle, the other one is a musician. One becomes an iron and bronze worker.

But the point of this story is the person of Lamech. Lamech is the one who is so enraptured in sin or the culture around him or the family dynamic that started out as just a small misstep in worship is now so plain to them that Lamech decides that he is gonna rewrite God’s ordinances and instead of taking one wife, he takes two, verse 19. And then in verses 23 and 24, he rejoices in killing of the youth. And this is the point of telling us about Lamech, it’s found in this little taunt song that he sings. Look at it with me. Verse 23 says, Lamech said to his wives, Adda and Zilla, 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 77 fold. Sin has progressed rapidly now. Where Cain had fallen prey to it, Lamech now revels in it. Where Cain sought protection from God as a result of his sin, Lamech now looks for provocation to sin even more. Where Cain killed in jealous anger, Lamech killed a boy for nothing, for a minor strike. Cain’s entire family serves as the picture of how sin progresses with incredible vigor and impressive prowess as it takes hold in all of humanity.

Sin has taken its hold. Started out as a half -hearted act of worship, it turned into individual sin, it progressed to personal and explicit rebellion, and now it has taken hold in a family, in a nation, and in a culture, as God’s ways are rewritten and as what was once horrible becomes commonplace. And friends, my plea to you is this. No matter what sin you are struggling with right now, whatever that one or two or number of sins that are continually waiting for you, your sin is not worth this.

It’s not worth this destruction. Your sin or that momentary pleasure is not worth the result, because as much as you think that you can control it, once you’ve embraced sin, you cannot control it. It will not be controlled by you. In fact, it might even control you. What started out as something seemingly minor has now spiraled into a place that they could have never imagined. And that is the nature of sin. It’s crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must. over it. And if sin has taken hold on humanity, but God says still that you must rule over it, then the question is, well how can I do that? And that’s where we see some hope in this story. Because at the end of this story, the terrible story of chapter four, when you look at verses 25 and 26, this is what you see. You see that Adam knew his wife again and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him. To Seth, he also bore a son and he called his name Enosh, and at that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.

How do you master sin? You call upon the name of the Lord. There’s another narrative to be written here and that’s the narrative of those who would say, I wanna call on the name of the Lord. I mean, sometimes we learn through explicit or positive examples of what to do and sometimes we learn through negative examples by showing what we shouldn’t do, we learn what we should do and that is certainly the case here. How do you master sin? You call upon the name of the Lord. Cain was proud, but calling on the name of the Lord indicates humility. God gives grace to the humble. And this humility says, God, I want to do things your way in my life and I can’t do it on my own and I need you to help me.

How do you call, or how do you master sin? You call upon the name of the Lord. Cain lacked faith, but calling on the name of the Lord is an expression of faith. It says, God, I believe you. I believe you when you tell me that something is good for me. And I believe you when you tell me that something is bad for me, even when I don’t feel like it. Even when my emotions tell me otherwise. Not out of some misguided or misplaced thing, but I believe you because of who you are. Even when I’m angry, even when I’m hurt, even when I’m depressed, even when I’m tempted, I believe that what you tell me is true. And I’m gonna trust what you tell me over my emotions or over my instinct or over even that gut feeling, which is sometimes really good and sometimes just indigestion.

I’m not going to trust myself. I’m going to trust your word. How do you master sin? You call upon the name of the Lord. Cain lacked obedience, but calling on the name of the Lord expresses a desire to obey. It says, God, I will look carefully at my life. I will look carefully at my words. I will keep watch over my conduct, not because I believe in some sort of legalism or moralism, but I will keep watch over these things because of who you are, because you are a great and mighty God and you’re worthy to be praised, because you’re good and you’re kind and you’re just and you’re true.

because you’re exceedingly generous to me, even though I don’t deserve it. And I know, God, I know that you are not a God that will be taken lightly or casually or be taken as an afterthought. I know that you’re severe in your being and I want your very best for my life. And so I will call upon you and I will obey you. How do you master sin? Well, you call upon the name of the Lord. And the next question becomes, when you call upon him, what will you say to him? You will say, God, your will be done in my life. And may you determine your will to happen even among my day today. How do you master sin? You call upon the name of the Lord.

“Cain lacked trust in God’s provision. But calling on the name of the Lord indicates that his provision is enough for you. And we know that his provision for sin specifically is found in his son Jesus, don’t we? We see it again and again that God promises to provide forgiveness through this way. And so it’s not surprising that after Jesus came to the earth and after he ascended into heaven again, the disciples go out, and Acts chapter two, Peter is preaching to the masses. And in his sermon, he quotes Joel chapter two, which happens to have this little line. What happens to those who call upon the name of the Lord? All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”

And he goes on to show them how this Jesus that they crucified, is the perfect son of God. This Jesus that they crucified came as God’s provision. How he died a gruesome death. How he rose again from the dead conquering this sin. He came so that we could be saved. Power of sin is destructive, but God’s power in Jesus is greater. How do you master sin? You don’t wait until you’ve embraced it. Then it’s out of control. You master sin as it’s crouching at your doorstep by calling upon the name of the Lord. We call upon the name of the Lord because we know who he is. Because we take him seriously. Because we trust him, because we wanna obey him, because we have faith in him.

I don’t know where you’re at today with the sin that you struggle with or with your conceptions of God or who he is or how you should approach him. But my encouragement to you and both the warning of this text and the encouragement that it lends is take your worship of God seriously and take the sin that crouches at the door seriously. Let’s pray. Father God, we ask for your forgiveness for so often approaching you all too casually. You’re a gracious and loving God and you tolerate much.

And we pray, Lord, that we would see you ever more clearly for who you are, and as we do, Lord, that we would not dabble in sin so casually, that we would recognize its prowess and its power. But we thank you, God, for when we have failed, you have not failed. Where sin’s power is strong, your power through the person of Jesus is even stronger. And we thank you for redeeming us, unworthy people that we are, and for loving us. And we call upon your name and we ask, God, that you would continue to create in us a pure heart, that we would trust your will and your ways, that we would be humble before you, and that you would continue to mold and shape us. We pray this in the name of our Savior, Jesus. Amen.

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* This transcript was generated using AI transcription technology and reviewed for accuracy, but may contain errors. Please refer to the original audio for precise wording.