Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
It was a good week and weekend here in Bellingham. I am finishing up several projects I have been involved in and looking to focus on new things for a new season of life. Pastor Jonathan presented to us yesterday that we are in a season of God’s rest. It is Him resting in us and us resting in Him – the space between.
I have been addressing the story of Cain and Abel. God is the one who gives us life, breath, and all things. His desire is to give life to everyone. Our connection to God’s love is our connection to life. When we love something more than God, we find our life in it. God is the true source of life, and He wants to give us life, breath, and all things. In the story of Cain and Abel, Cain loved the ground more than he did God. So, God in His love made it so Cain could not attach to the ground easily. Cain would be a wanderer in the earth. These consequences were not meant to kill him. God did not want him to die. He didn’t want anything or anyone to kill him. So, God put a mark on him so that no one would kill him. I believe that mark was a mark of consequence. God’s thinking was, “As long as you continue in this course of direction Cain, there is a consequence. The consequence is there because I want you to be alive. I don’t want you to die. I don’t want anyone to kill you. I want you to turn and to see honor. I want you to come to Me. I am putting a mark on you. I am cursing the thing that you love more than Me so you cannot easily attach to it. I am placing upon you a mark of consequence so you will get a revelation. I want your heart to be able to say, ‘You are the Lord my God. You are the source of my life!’”
Cain went out from the presence of the Lord. Did God kick him out? No! What would be the condition of not leaving? The condition would be to turn and come back to the place of honor and recognize that God is first and God is best, which is what Abel saw. It was not a law! It was a testimony to the source of life. Honor opens the door to life. The ground should honor Cain and give its strength to Cain, but the ground could not give honor to Cain because Cain was not giving honor to God. So, what did Cain’s life end up looking like? He went on a journey of wandering. He went to a land of wandering (Nod). This place of wandering was no longer in Eden, a place meaning “desirable”, a place of intimacy and relationship with God. It was not in a place of relationship with God. He had a child named Enoch – meaning ‘dedicated’. He then built a city, a big empire, a business, something he created. He named it Enoch, ‘dedicated’. He became ‘dedicated’ to what he could do. All of his family was dedicated to what they could do. If you follow the journey of the genealogy of the descendants of Cain you will find a descendant named Lamech. Lamech means, ‘mighty power belongs to God’. This man was known for singing the song of bitterness to those around him in life.
Genesis 4:19-24 Then Lamech took for himself two wives: the name of one was Adah, and the name of the second was Zillah. And 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 harp and flute. And as for Zillah, she also bore Tubal- Cain, an instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron. And the sister of Tubal- Cain was Naamah. Then Lamech said to his wives: “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; Wives of Lamech, listen to my speech! For I have killed a man for wounding me, even a young man for hurting me. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy- sevenfold.
Lamech had three wives and it doesn’t say that he produced children, but his wives bore children. These children were merchant traders of livestock, creators of music and culture, and industrialists of bronze and iron. By all the standards of the world the family of Cain became entrepreneurs, artists, and inventors of new things. They became those who did all the great things that human beings do without God. They were the most successful people on the entire planet, but they didn’t know who they were because they didn’t know who God was. They ended up dying in the flood.
While Lamech of Cain died in the flood, there was another man in the earth named Noah who was also the son of a Lamech. His name was Noah – a name meaning REST. When we know that our mighty power belongs to God, we can become a place of God’s rest in the earth. God rests in us and we rest in Him. This is the foundation for life and a future and hope of life for our world.
God found a man that He could rest in and thus when He flooded the earth, He said He could rest in the family of Noah. He would destroy the earth, but where He rests it would be new again. The heart of the Father was towards the children and the hearts of children towards the Father. What was God looking for? He was looking for a family. He wasn’t looking for entrepreneurs, musicians, or industrialists. God wasn’t looking for successful people who were dedicated to conquer the earth. He was looking for a family who could inherit the earth. He was looking for a family of honor who would honor Him for who He was, and the earth could honor them for who they were in the earth. God could rest there. God was looking for the family who knew who He is and who they are in the earth. This is the place of honor. The future of the earth rests there.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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