Dennis Tuuri

That song has a particular spot in my heart. I remember probably over 30 years ago meeting at Howard L.’s little house in Southwest Portland, learning some of these Anglo-Genevan psalms, and that one particularly—”In the Dwellings of the Righteous.” It was an exciting, inspiring time for us, and that song always brings back some of those memories. That was a product of the Reformation, and Reformation Covenant Church is dedicated to a continuing reformation. Part of that reformation is reflected in the particular emphasis that we have this year during our Lenten series of sermons, which will be on the city.

Today we’ll be talking about the first city, and next Lord’s Day we’ll be talking about the last city from Revelation 20. But today we turn to Genesis 4, and we’ll be talking about characteristics of the first city and those that build the first city as a way to think about our cities. We have a Lenten devotional booklet back there encouraging you to seek God for the city. I preached last week on seeking the peace and prosperity of the city.

To seek the peace and prosperity of the city means several things. It means to pray, of course—to seek God for it. Secondly, it has a positive aspect to it. It means understanding the city, seeking to understand the city the way Paul did at Athens—to understand its idolatries, its strengths, its weaknesses, its communication. And then third, seek means to try to comfort, to be assistance, to actually engage with the city and seek their peace.

That is their right relationship to God and the blessings that flow from it. To that end, today we’ll look at Genesis 4 and look at characteristics of the men who build cities then, and in many ways it’s not all that different today. And so we’ll draw out some analogies from that and then talk about engaging the city as well. Sermon text is Genesis 4:16-26. Please stand for the reading of God’s word.

It’s nice to see you directly. I was watching you through the tree here during the first part of the service. This is of course a picture of the Lenten season in which we repent before God for our sins and seek. This is the state our cities are primarily in right now in America, and we think they’re blossoming, they’re flourishing. Okay. And to that end, let’s turn to Genesis 4:16-26. And this is immediately after Cain’s murder of Abel and God’s judgment upon him.

Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch, and he built a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad begot Mehujael, and Mehujael begat Methuselah, and Methuselah begat Lamech. 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 dwelt in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who played 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. And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and named him Seth, for God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed. And as for Seth, to him also a son was born, and he named him Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the Lord. Let’s pray.

Lord God, we thank you for this text. Help us, and we thank you for this season, the focus that we put upon it in seeking you, Lord God, for the cities in which we dwell and live. Father, we pray that you would enable us over the next three or four weeks to focus on cities, to seek their well-being, their peace as you’ve commanded us to do in these sorts of situations. In the book of Jeremiah, for instance, bless us, Lord God, today with an understanding of what our cities then and now are related to in terms of tendencies, the men that build them, and the men that sustain them.

Bless us, Lord God, so that we might indeed pray for the city, understand the city, and engage in our cities and communities. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated.

Okay, so here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to look through this text. I’ll make some little comments. We’ll kind of read it over one more time. And then after I make some comments on the text and sort of point some stuff out that you might not have considered before—maybe you have and forgotten about it—and then after that, I’ll talk about some characteristics, as I said earlier, of the men that built this first city.

And remember, you know, what we’re doing is first city, last city. Okay. And so what we’re doing in this Lenten season is attempting to keep a focus of transforming the cities and places we live in. At our Ash Wednesday service, I read—we always have this call to the service from Joel chapter 2 about mourning and lamenting and having an assembly. But then I read the rest of that chapter, which goes on to talk about the victory that God assures to those who assemble themselves with humility before him. Fasting—in case any of you’re doing that. I’m not. Fasting in a Lenten atmosphere and activity is preparation for conquest. It’s not an end in and of itself.

The Christian life is not about quietism or introspection all the time. It’s getting ourselves right before God, thinking about it, and then engaging our world in a fuller sense as we come out of it. So the trees will blossom. History will manifest the grace and providence of God, and he’ll do that through his empowered church. We empower ourselves with repentance for our sins and with a renewed commitment to engage the culture that we’re in self-consciously for the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay. So, Genesis 4.

It’s sort of interesting. Cain went out from the presence of the Lord. So the presence of the Lord is kind of a big deal in this text. Okay. Remember that Cain kills Abel as they’re seeking the presence of the Lord in worship, right? So they start there. And then Cain does his sin, and Cain then leaves the presence of the Lord. So this is highly freighted imagery and language to remind us what’s actually happening here. The guy that’s going to go build the first city is doing so having left the presence of the Lord. And we’ll see how that kind of wraps around at the end of the narrative.

But notice that he goes out from the presence of the Lord and he dwells in the land of Nod. We might draw a bit of a laugh or giggle if we understood the term “nod” means “wandering.” So he dwells in the land of wandering. So you know, part of it is he wanders too, but part of it too, I think, is this kind of—again—heavily freighted language that reminds us when you go out from the presence of the Lord, you’re wandering. And you may settle, but you’re still wandering. There’s no fixity in terms of relationship to the earth because the earth is a reflection of our relationship to God.

So he dwells in wandering. That’s very interesting. And he’s on the east of Eden. And so in the Bible, when you go east like that—and further east—remember they were kicked out of the garden to the east. And he’s going further east. And so this is away from the presence of the Lord geographically. But going east like that, to the east of the garden, means that he’s going further and further away from the blessings of God, which really are ultimately found in Eden.

You know, when we come to worship, what are we doing? We’re coming into the presence of the Lord. Is he omnipresent? Yes. But there’s a special sense of God’s presence in worship. We go to be with him in a way that isn’t the same as the rest of the week. So we’re seeking God. Cain was going away from God. We’re headed back to the garden to get the imagery and understanding of our world so that we can go build our cities to look like the garden. Cain is going away from the garden.

Further still, he dwells in wandering. We dwell today in peace and establishment. No matter what other voices in your head tell you otherwise, you are here in the presence of God now. And he tells you there is rest here. You’re not a wanderer here. Okay? You’re established here. His delights and blessings flow to you here. Don’t listen to the voices that say that’s not true. That’s what’s happening in Lord’s day worship.

Cain knew his wife. She conceived and bore Enoch, and he built the city and called the name of his city after the name of his son, Enoch. The language is a little unusual here. Lots of commentary discussion about it. But the big picture is quite clear. The name of the first city is the name of the son of Cain. And the name of the last city—what is it? It’s Jerusalem, right? City of peace. Peace is the Lord Jesus Christ.

So the first city is named after the man’s offspring, his own ability to produce seed. And the last city is named after the true Son, the ultimate Son, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the peace that he establishes. So you know, to name a thing is really to identify it, to control it, to manifest its meaning. And so it’s quite significant—and the text, that’s why the text tells us this—to know the name of the city.

Now, the Canaanite line will continue to build these kinds of cities. And the culmination of it is in Genesis 11. We talked about Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel, in our sermons on vocation, just like we talked about this chapter a little bit. But remember there that you know the significant thing about Genesis 11 is that the Canaanites—the descendants of Cain—that line who had built a city named Enoch, now want to build this city, this tower of Babel.

Why? Because they seek a name. “We can make a name for ourselves.” And so we talked about: Well, when we go to work, are we trying to make a name for ourselves? And if so, that’s not good. What we’re trying to do is bring the peace of God to the places we work. We don’t have to work to establish our identity and our meaning. That’s in the Lord Jesus Christ. We work from that basis. That’s why the day—you know, the week starts today—drawing into the presence of God into the garden, receiving blessings, and then we go out no longer with a sinful desire to make a name for ourselves, to really get it out there.

But see right here, you know, this city is built by Cain and Enoch, and it’s named after his child. So it’s his own city, his own name, not owned by God. He’s away from the presence of God. He’s away from the garden of God. He’s gone east. He’s wandering. He attempts to build a dwelling place, but instead of saying honoring God with the dwelling place, no, he builds the city and names it after his son. The very fact that he establishes a city is sort of interesting.

But by city here, all it means is a walled settlement. So it doesn’t mean you’ve got a lot of people, but it means that where you’re dwelling now in this centralized place has a wall around it for protection. And that’s kind of the essence of what a city is as used here. And so Cain, you know, it doesn’t say a city developed where he was. It says he built a city. He intended to put a wall around himself, his descendants, and the people that he dwelt with. And that’s interesting, and we’ll comment on that in a couple of minutes as well.

So he built a city. He names the city after himself essentially—or his son rather—than the Son of God. To Enoch was born Irad, and so we list the descendants here down to Lamech, and Lamech then took for himself two wives. Very significant, right? He doesn’t like God’s pattern. He wants a better kind of marriage. This is the beginning of polygamy. And this is very significant.

So where does polygamy originate? It originates in the ungodly line who are going away from God, running away from God, having no peace or rest, trying to protect themselves with the wall in a city where they live, insecurity—all that stuff is going on. Fear, which we’ll get to in a couple of minutes, that Cain had already indicated to God. And as this line develops, several generations down, we get to Lamech, and he becomes a polygamist. And so he wants something better than what God had provided through one man, one wife. And he comes up with polygamy.

So he takes two wives. And we have the names of them here. And then lists the three sons: Jabal, Jubal, and Tubal. Tubal is hyphenated with Cain, you know, which is really back to the head of this line—kind of offspring that come from Cain. So it’s Tubal-Cain, but it’s Tubal, Jubal, and Jabal. And these three boys born from two different mothers are heads of things.

So we read in verse 20: “Adah bore Jabal. He was the father of those who dwelt in tents and have livestock.” Now Abel, of course, had flocks, right? He had sheep or whatever it was. But livestock here is a generalized term. And so we have an advance of culture here. We have a guy who is developing animal husbandry, we could say. So he’s not just, you know, doesn’t have just enough sheep to feed himself and to take care of his thing. He makes a business out of it. And so he develops business practices relative to animal husbandry. And he’s the father of all that, you know, animal husbandry that will come throughout human history.

He is the dad of all that stuff, right? By “father,” it means he’s sort of like the head of those types of vocational men and women. So he’s into livestock. And then you’ve got Jubal. He’s the father of those who play the harp and flute. So we see societal advance in this city in terms of animal husbandry. And then we see the development of music. And this guy, you know, who’s, you know, son of Lamech in the ungodly line—part of this walled city away from God.

This is where music comes from. That’s why the devil has all the good music because it’s all from the devil. Just trying to keep you involved here. So he develops music. Okay. And as we’ll see in a couple of minutes here, Lamech himself will sort of sing or rap the first gangster rap song. Just trying to keep the cultural interests going. Okay.

So this—the second son—he’s the father of music, okay? Those that play the harp and lyre. And then you’ve got a third son from another wife, from Zillah, Tubal, and he’s the instructor of every craftsman in bronze and iron. Those that work with sharpened bronze and iron. And that’s the right progression by the way in terms of the development of metallurgy. It was first bronze and then it became iron, which is more difficult. So all you know, metallurgy comes from this son.

Okay. So this is very significant. The city produces men who father—so to speak—and oversee and develop cultural advancement in agriculture, particularly in animal husbandry, in music, and then in metallurgy. Okay. That’s where it comes from. He’s like the father of all those that ride on cars. Tubal-Cain is—because you know, Tubal-Cain, if you take off one little part of it, becomes Vulcan. Tubal-Con. And so he’s like Vulcan, and Vulcan was the Roman god of metallurgy, right?—heat and working with metals. And our tires are vulcanized through some kind of process.

So we actually have probably a reference—not for sure, but probably—a reference to Tubal-Cain in the vulcanized tires, at least they used to be vulcanized. I don’t know if they are anymore or not. So as you ride down the road, whether you think about the metal in your car and I don’t know who’s the father of plastics—but the metal in your car, your tires, you know, you sort of owe that cultural advance and the music you listen to and the great food you eat to these three sons of Lamech.

So that’s interesting. That’s what these guys do. They produce these three things. Now, these three things are eventually included in temple worship, right? You go to the temple, what do you have? You bring livestock. Okay, so which you’ve developed through some of the techniques that you learned from the ungodly line. And then secondly, in the temple, there’s worship going on. At least after the tabernacle of David is created and we have the instruments, right? So you’ve got musical instruments involved in the worship of God.

And then finally, you have metallurgy. The temple, you know, is built by people who understand how to work with gold, etc. So all these things are eventually incorporated into the worship of God. The organ or whatever the two words are for the musical instrument—some people say one of them wasn’t used—but actually in Psalm 150, this specific term is used.

So all these things are comprehensively brought together—those three strands of the development of the first city—in temple worship, which is of course very significant, and it informs how we relate to technological advances in the cities in which we live today. Okay.

Then we have this butcher song of Lamech—sword song. Some cultures have referred to it as the gangster rap stuff. Then Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, “Hear my voice; wives of Lamech, listen to my speech.” I’m going to make this one of my points for later on. It’s his speech. It’s his voice. Okay? He’s significant. He doesn’t say listen to God. Listen to my speech. My voice.

“I have killed a man for wounding me. Even a young man for hurting me.”

Okay. So this is why I call it gangster rap. This is like city. This is coming out of the first city. It’s very actually very well-developed poetry that you can’t see in the English translation necessarily. It’s got meter to it. It’s got assonance of terminology or of sounds rather in the Hebrew. I mean, it’s a rap song, okay? And it’s good, right? You would probably, you know, liked it if you heard it sung.

But the content here is given to us, and the content is horrific. You know, somebody insults me, a young boy, a lad, a teenager, whatever it is, and I’m going to put a cap in him—in whatever. I’m going to kill him. Okay. So that’s what Lamech says. He says, “I’m going to kill a boy for wounding me or insulting me.” So you have this really barbarous sort of language going on as an indication of the development of the father of these three guys.

And then he says that “Cain shall be avenged sevenfold. Why was Cain avenged sevenfold? What’s that a reference to? Well, earlier when God said, ‘Whoever killed Cain, he’d be avenged sevenfold.’” So that’s a reference to God’s word, not Lamech’s word. But listen to what he does with God’s word. “If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

7+7 or 70+7—a decimal added—77. So his word, his voice is supplanting God’s voice in terms of vengeance. And he’s like, this is really in your face, macho kind of man. I’m a tough guy, and he’s singing it to his wives and blah blah. So that’s the song of Lamech, and it indicates the sort of men that the city of man produces as opposed to the city of God and the sort of things that go on there.

They’ve been going on there, you know, for 6,000, 5,000, 6,000 years. So, you know, so we see what’s going on in the cities of America. You know, the unusual thing is not what’s going on in a lot of the cities in America today. The unusual thing is that that didn’t go on for a good period of time. America was the exception. Okay. And so this is the way cities are—fallen cities are in general.

And so we’re going to talk about some of the characteristics of these guys. And then we read, you know, the counterbalance to this, the development of the second line. And Eve here shows her faith in God. She bears a son, names him Seth, for “God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel, whom Cain killed.” You know, you couldn’t get much bigger contrast, right, between the attitude we just saw in Cain and his descendants—naming a city for himself, fleeing the presence of God—and instead, what does she say as Seth is being named?

“God has appointed another seed for me instead of Abel whom Cain killed.”

So the text wants to remind us of these two lines—one coming from a murderer and the other from faithful Abel who died as a martyr, the first martyr. “As for Seth, to him also a son was born, and he named him Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the Lord.”

So I don’t want to get into what that necessarily means except that you see how it nicely balances off the narrative here. So Cain is fleeing the presence of the Lord, and the godly line are calling on the name of the Lord. Right? That’s why you’re here today. We’re in that—we’re in that line. We’re Sethites, okay? We’re in that line. We don’t want to run away from God. We want to get to God. We want to call on his name and ask for his involvement in our lives and in our world.

So that’s who we are. Okay.

All right. So that’s an overview of the narrative—some stuff that you might or might not have known from the text. And now I want to talk about characteristics of men that built that first city.

One: irresponsibility. Not taking responsibility for their actions. So this is talking about Cain, who goes off and builds the first city. What kind of guy was he? Well, in Genesis 4, God tells him—you know, God had very graciously warned Cain about his murderous attitude toward his brother. Right? Cain is no victim. Cain is the special recipient of the grace of God, warning him to control his anger.

He’ll end up killing his brother. Cain then kills his brother anyway. And so God comes to him and says, “Now you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.”

So he settles in the land of wandering because God’s curse is in effect. He’s a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth.

Now here’s the attitude of Cain—the attitude of the first city builder. Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. Surely you have driven me out this day from the face of the ground. I shall be hidden from your face. I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth. And it will happen that anyone who finds me will kill me.”

And then the Lord says, well, okay, here’s the protection I’m going to give to you. And we don’t know exactly what that was, but he protects him somehow.

Now, Cain doesn’t repent here, does he? You didn’t hear Cain saying, “Oh, I feel so bad about killing my brother. I confess my sin. Please be merciful to me.” No. Cain is irresponsible. He sins. He interacts with God about the sin, but his interaction is all complaining. He’s whining. Okay? He’s complaining about the difficult situation that God has placed him in.

But of course, it’s not a difficult situation that God has placed him in. Ultimately, he should take responsibility that it was his actions—that he knew God would punish—that brought this thing upon him. He’s trying to blame God as he suffers through the difficulties of sin. Okay?

So the city is built to begin with by irresponsible men who won’t own up to their own sinfulness, confess and repent to God. And what we see developing up to very quickly—Lamech’s gangster rap—is that attitude gone to seed. Okay. It just gets worse and worse. And so when it gets to the time of Lamech, that attitude has flourished. And now we’ve gone from a reluctant guy leaving things to now an active killer who, for any offense, wants to kill anybody that does him wrong or looks at him sideways.

That’s irresponsibility. That’s not owning up to responsibility for one’s actions. And it leads to increasing sin. Okay?

So number one: the text tells us that irresponsible men who whine about the results of their sin when punishments are brought and conditions are changed and their lives have to change—when we whine about that, you see, and when we think, “Oh, this is too hard for us,” then we’re in that attitude of Cain that developed the first city. And as a result, developed the kind of mayhem that we see flowing out of that attitude.

He’s upset. It’s not fair. But we don’t hear him say, “It’s my fault.” We don’t hear him say that.

Irresponsibility.

Two: he’s fearful. When you don’t own up to your sin, when you get brave toward God by, you know, kind of shaking your fist at your circumstances, you become a coward of men. And so Cain, he’s fearful.

Why does he build the first city? What that means is he’s the first one to put a wall around his encampment—because he’s frightened. You can see it in what we just read. “Oh, people are going to kill me. It’s going to be horrible.”

God says, “Well, I’m going to protect you. I’ll put a sign somewhere in relationship to you so that men will know that if they kill you, I’ll take vengeance sevenfold.”

Not enough for Cain. He’s worried. Anybody that doesn’t confess their sins and walks around with the guilt of those sins ends up paranoid, ends up fearful, ends up looking for the next shoe to drop. If we don’t believe that Jesus Christ has paid for the price of our sin, then really all life is awaiting for the just punishment that we know we deserve.

And so Cain becomes fearful of men, even as he’s proud toward God and walks away from him.

Cain is fearful, and men in cities, you know, frequently this is the reason for a city. People are fearful, and so they try to get together, protect themselves from other people. So there’s a lot of fear in cities. That’s the point. There’s a lot of irresponsibility typically—not always—and there’s a lot of fear.

We’re understanding the city. How can we go and minister to the city, to people in the city? These are some of the characteristics of people who build and dwell in these cities.

Three: dedicated to their own name, not God’s. I just talked about this from Genesis 11. The first builder, when Cain builds this first city, names it after his son. So he’s dedicated to his own name, carried on through his seed—not God’s name. Okay? So that’s what you know fallen cities are all about—as well. Making a name for themselves. Portland, New York, Santa Fe, whatever it is. You see, it’s making a name for the city, not based upon their identity with God, but based upon their own identity—making a name for themselves.

And when we work in cities, that’s one of the tremendous idols or temptations that we face—is to do what we do on the basis of our own identity, making a name for ourselves, rather than working out of the name that Edward had placed upon him this morning in baptism, right? We’re Christians. The triune God’s name is on our foreheads. We have that name. That’s what we’re supposed to exalt in the city.

And when you don’t do that, you seek to create your own name and identity. And fallen cities are places of dedication to one’s own name, not to the name of God.

Four: fleeing from God. The first city is built by somebody fleeing away from the presence of God. He attempts to wall out not just his own enemies, but walls out the influence of his own conscience, tries to get safety in there. He’s fleeing from God as well. So he attempts to produce his own name and to seek his own identity apart from God. And in doing this, he’s fleeing from God.

Guilty men feel forever hunted, and they try to get away from God because ultimately they know that it’s the judgments of God that they properly deserve in their fallen state. So they flee from God.

So instead of getting security and well-being from relationship to God, no matter where we are, a lot of people will live in cities because they have a sense of security and banding together with other people—none of whom are necessarily putting God first.

So you know, the fourth characteristic of those that build these cities and dwell in them is they flee. They’re running away from God.

Five: they’re sinfully restless. As I said, you’ve got a city in wandering. So characteristically, people don’t find rest in a city of this sort that we’re talking about—in this first city. And we’ll contrast this with the second city next week from Revelation 20, primarily.

But here, in the kind of cities that we’re in, characteristically, you know, people aren’t restful ultimately, right? And the reason for that is because the whole thing has been built upon an improper foundation. They’re alienated from God in their fallenness, and in their irresponsibility in not dealing with their own sins. And as a result, they’re also alienated from other people. And in Cain’s sense, alienated from the land itself.

So ultimately, no place will provide rest, right? Isaiah says there’s no rest for the wicked. They’re like the troubled sea. And so this first city—that’s the kind of people that are in it. That’s part of what produces the sort of violence and the accelerated kind of violence that happens, as seen in Lamech’s speech—is this kind of alienation from God and from other people.

Six: I think that cities are primarily built here. This city is being built by someone that’s impatient. It seems like cities and cultures will develop. But because Adam is Adam, because Cain is driven by guilt, alienation, having his own identity, restlessness—all that stuff going on in his psyche—causes him to move prematurely towards citybuilding.

Now cities aren’t bad. Ultimately, as we said, we’ll look at Revelation 20, and ultimately God moves us from a garden to a city. So cities are what are supposed to develop in human culture. But this first city is the first city because it’s reached prematurely in impatience. And when we impatiently grasp for something that will develop naturally, then we tend to twist it. And what we have here is a twisted city—not representing the sorts of things—in fact, being the opposite of the representation of the sorts of things that we’ll see in Revelation 20.

Seven: very importantly, sexual sin. So characteristic of this first city—built by fallen men fleeing from responsibility and isolation, no rest, etc.—a characteristic is sexual sin. The particular form is polygamy. Right? I knew a guy years ago who was a bright fellow, humorous, knew his Bible really well. Knew his Bible a lot better than I know my Bible. Probably better than John. Knew the Bible real well.

But this guy was as dumb as a board because he got excommunicated because he wanted to have a polygamous relationship. Wanted two wives to be married to. Robert Alter is this Jewish commentator, very well esteemed. And he says if you don’t read Genesis and actually then on to the rest of the Old Testament and see that one of the major themes is the problems—the disaster that polygamy and sexual sin bring—you don’t get it. You don’t know how to read biblical narrative. You’re dumb as a stump. Okay?

And this is the beginning right here. If you trace through these polygamous marriages or other forms of sexual sin, the message being shouted from the rooftops is don’t go there. That’s bad. It brings all kinds of problems.

Sexual sin. So, you know, what do we have in cities today? Well, we have an attempt to redefine the word of God relative to sexual relationships. First, having sex outside of marriage. Secondly, having adulterous sex. Third, now homosexual marriage, which attempts to be justified by the state putting its good housekeeping stamp of approval on it. But it’s the same thing that Lamech was doing here. It’s messing with the sexual order, right?

Instead of submitting joyfully to others, why do people do that? Well, because they’re selfish. You know, biblical marriage is about serving the other person. Sexuality is about serving your spouse. It’s not about taking. Okay? But obviously Lamech here, the polygamist, he’s taking, man. He’s taking big time.

So sexual sin is a part of the kind of men—or the men that develop in the context of a fallen city. Not faithfulness, not Christian monogamous male-female marriage, but sexual sin, and specifically polygamy. And the Bible wants us to know—I thought it says it over and over again—that forms of sexual sin produce tremendous difficulties in our lives. They’re a disaster. They’re a disaster in multiple directions.

And just think of all the stories of polygamous relationships that begin here, and you’ll see what I mean.

Now, part of the disastrous effects of sexual sin is oppression. That’s the eighth characteristic. Men that build these kinds of cities are oppressive. Men that inhabit these cities and are developed by them are oppressive. And Lamech is an oppressor, right? He’s oppressing his wives and their relationship and the people that he walks in the context of. And polygamy does that. It oppresses the women who are involved in the relationships.

Most forms of sexual sin involves some degree of oppression of the illegitimate sexual partners, and that oppression frequently is found relative to women.

It is astonishing to me—I mentioned it last week, mentioned it again here by the way—both things I mentioned last week. So we have our first openly bisexual governor. Well, that’s really—while she’s married and has kids—it really is kind of pushing us toward open acceptance of bisexuality. That’s the “B,” you know, in LGBT.

But if we push ourselves towards that, we’re pushing towards legitimization of polygamy. So we’re moving our cities back to places where the song of Lamech is being repeated.

The other thing I mentioned was Fifty Shades of Gray. I was astonished, listening—I don’t know what show it was on—NPR—listening to a couple of women say that it’s nice to have pornography for women finally, and how exciting it is, the idea of the woman being dominated by the man. You know, it’s about some form of masochism. And I know there’s some kind of turn at the end, but I don’t want to hear about it. The show is promoting this stuff, okay? That’s what it’s doing. I don’t care about the little ending that might turn things this way or that.

And then when you listen to the talk that’s going on about it, really, these women were saying how good it is and how it’s part of the women’s liberation to have their own pornography, and they kind of tap into this whole idea that men are to be dominant and women are to be dominated by them in the ways that go on with handcuffs. I mean, it’s astonishing to me, right?

But it’s what happened. It’s what happens here in this city in Genesis 4: oppression resulting from sexual sin. And that’s what happens in the cities today. You’re going to run into lots of people who are oppressed. But in that oppression, they’re actually going to, you know, in some ways think that’s good. They’re not going to want to become responsible and cry out for deliverance.

Oppression.

Sinful anger. People that are committed to or engaged in sinful anger. Clearly, Lamech is an angry guy, right? Very angry fellow here. And he doesn’t want to get rid of his anger. “Hey, I’m going to be angry. I’m going to be angry the rest of my life. Some guy bumps up against me, I’m going to kill him. That’s my lifestyle. This is who I am. This is central to my character.”

He says, “I want to be perpetually angry and perpetually taking my own vengeance against people—not in relationship to God, but in relationship to how badly I feel when somebody offends me.”

Okay. So that is in this first city. Sinful anger abounds.

And ten: as a result of that, violence. Right? So we’ve gone from Abel’s blood being kind of the foundation for this city. And as a result of Abel’s blood being the foundation, more and more blood is shed. Okay?

Now the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, we’ll see next week. What’s the foundation? It’s another man’s blood, right? It’s the blood that speaks better things than that of Abel. It’s the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that provides the foundation for the alternate city that we’re to seek for. And that city, because the blood of Christ is atoning for our sins and moving us away from all this stuff, that results in less and less bloodshed in human relationships because it gets rid of violence. Gets rid of violence in human culture.

Eleven: Pride. You know, this Lamech is self-serving. He’s prideful. Cain was actually ultimately prideful in building a city based upon the name of his son. So pride is one of these root city sins, and it’s absolutely critical to understanding everything else I just said.

Pride says, “I’m not here to serve you. You are here to serve me.”

Okay. Humility says, “Hey, I’m here to help you.” It’s a life of service that Jesus calls us to—him and to others. Pride says, “No, it’s all about me.”

Lamech says it’s all about me. But he’s just an amplified version of Cain, who established this particular city. And that’s what we see in cities is a tremendous amount of pride.

Twelve: power and societal injustice. So what results from all that injustice? You know, the lex talionis is not in play. Somebody insults this guy, and he’s going to kill him. So we’ve got societal injustice as endemic to the cities of fallen men and the exercise of power for selfish purposes.

He’s going to improve on marriage. Going to have two wives. He improves on justice. “If it was sevenfold for Cain, it would be seventy-sevenfold for me.”

And ultimately, that’s the last characteristic. Their voice, not God’s. “Listen to my voice. Listen to my speech,” is what Lamech says. And the cities are filled with people that may not as overtly have the kind of speech that utters, but people who believe not in the voice or speech or words of God, but in their pride speak an alternate word.

Now, what do we have today in our cities? We have the alternate word being spoken about sexual relationships, and it’s almost complete—to where God’s word in terms of what sexuality is—beginning with service and moving toward monogamous male-female relationship in marriage—that’s being utterly destroyed now. And it’s being destroyed because there’s another voice saying, “We’ve got a better way. Men and men, women and women.”

Pretty soon it’ll be polyamorous relationships. That’ll be next. No marriage at all. Another voice is speaking in the cities, and they’re speaking in our cities today as well.

And another voice also—just as Lamech redefines social justice away from what God’s word said about Cain to his own interpretation—now social justice is being altered by the voice of man instead of going by the voice of God. Now it’s a little different direction, right? It’s a kinder, gentler, more Christianized version.

And so we’ve got, you know, a governor just resigned, and a governor taking over who says, “Well, God’s word may say death penalty, but we have a better idea. Listen to my voice. Listen to my words.” That’s bad because the ultimate value today is the human being himself. It’s humanism. Okay?

And so, and so, you know, ultimately the fallen city is produced by someone who wants to exert his voice rather than submit to the voice and word of God. And so this is the first taste of a self-sufficient city. And that’s what in the New Testament is called “the world”—the world that we’re supposed to battle against—the self-sufficient, self-authenticating, the self-speaking voice of man, replacing and modifying the voice of God.

In Lamech’s case, very obvious. “You say one wife, I’m taking two. You say sevenfold, I’m going seventy-sevenfold.” Okay? Very obvious. Maybe not quite as obvious sometimes in our cities, but those are the cities that we’re facing.

What do we do about it?

Well, one, we sort of take the other view on all of this stuff, right? If this all begins with Cain not being responsible, the first thing we do is become responsible for our sins. Right? If all this is about what the fallen line does, our proper response is to say in each of those thirteen areas: we’re not going to be like that. We’re not going to exert, you know, dominance over other people. We’re not going to redefine marriage. We’re not going to redefine social justice. We’re not going to try to seek our own identity for our city. We’re not going to avoid responsibility. We’re going to confess our sins.

So each of those characteristics that Genesis 4 gives us for the fallen city are things that we, to be effective warriors—and this is what Lent is about—are forsaking every bit of that that goes on in our life. To see it, to identify it, to repent of it, and to leave this place today and to go into the cities more powerful, ready to conquer, because God has cleaned up your bit of Cain and the effects of Cain and how you do it.

So our first response to the first city of man is as a cautionary tale to us. We may think that our small acts of rebellion against God, our small acts of whining, whatever it is, aren’t that important. But what we see in the quick acceleration toward Lamech is the horrific social acid that’s brought into a system through that lack of responsibility, that lack of serving other people, that lack of seeking a city based on God’s name and the blood of Jesus, rather than the blood of those that we conquer and based on our name.

So first of all, we—in Lent—we repent of these tendencies as we see them in ourselves.

Secondly, we say, well, you know what? That’s the city that God wants us to love. That’s the city that God wants us to seek, to understand—which we’ve done a little bit of—to pray for, including prayers of repentance in the ways that we emulate that city, and then to be concerned for, to have compassion for, to engage in ways that will bring them into the peace of God. And so we look at the culture around about us and we seek that thing.

How do we interact? Should we interact? Right? It’s interesting that when Benjamin Franklin was seeking French support for United States revolution against England, he went to France to try to get support. And he went and he wore a coonskin cap and rough leather breeches and stuff. He didn’t look like he normally looked in the pictures you’ve seen of Benjamin Franklin. Why did he do that?

Because France at that time was in the throes of Rousseau. And Rousseau said that people are good. The problem is the city. The problem is culture. The problem is society. So we’ve got to be noble savages, right? And so Franklin, the good politician, went over there dressed like, you know, a native sort of guy who lives in the wild, even though it really wasn’t who he was.

And some of us can have that kind of response to this thing. We look at Genesis 4, and we say, “Well, if that’s the way cities are, who wants to be involved in them? Why would we want to seek God for the city? Why do we want to seek the prosperity of that city?”

Well, the only reason is that’s what God says you’ve got to do, right? And God says that’s what we’re called to do. God says in Jeremiah 29 to do that. God tells Jonah at the end of that book—you know, Nineveh was so bad he was going to destroy it in three days. It’s worse than some of the stuff we’ve read here. And what does God tell Jonah at the end of his book?

He says, “You don’t have compassion for 120,000 people there that don’t know their right hand from their left. Of course, they’re doing bad things. That’s what fallen people do in their blindness and in their sin. Our job is to engage them and to turn them to seek the well-being of the city by seeking the repentance of the inhabitants of the city and helping them to understand these various characteristics that are characteristics of this first city—the fallen city—and that are characteristics of every fallen city since then.

And we’re to see ourselves in relationship not just to that city, but ultimately we’re inhabitants of the city of God. We’ll talk next week about that. But that’s who we are. We’re bringing the New Jerusalem into manifestation in the cities in which we live. Okay?

And when we do that through our presence, through our responsibility, through our service, through our definition of God’s social justice, through our exalting the voice of God as found in the scriptures, not our own wisdom on stuff—when we do that, then indeed we’re seeking the peace and prosperity, the blessing, the shalom of the city.

And that’s exactly what God wants us to do.

May the Lord God use this Lenten season and these sermons on cities to motivate us, to equip us with an understanding of the cities in which we live, to go forward and to be effective agents of life and revivification to the cities and communities that we live in. May we seek God for the city this next month and a half.

Let’s pray.

Father, we thank you for this wonderful tool you’ve given to us in the scriptures of the sort of men that build and inhabit the city of man rather than the city of God. Forgive us, Lord God, for acting in so many ways and in like ways to these men that we’ve seen described here for us. Bless us, Father, that we would repent of those things that enter into our cities, our communities, our relationships—as those who are not above and beyond proud relative to the people that we love and serve, but who are with them sinners—and we see the elements of Cain and even Lamech sometimes in our own lives.

We pray you would bless us, Lord God, that we would turn from those things and bring that testimony of your grace, your love, your forgiveness, and salvation to the people that we encounter this week. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Amen.