The Downward Spiral of Sin

Going Away from the Presence of the Lord

The Lord had told Cain that he was going to be a fugitive and wanderer on the face of the earth. Here we see Cain rebelling against the punishment of the Lord when he builds a city.

Cain’s Wife

Cain’s wife would have been one of his sisters.

Genesis 3:20 “The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.”

Genesis 5:3–4 “When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years; and he had other sons and daughters.”

Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—”

James 1:14–15 “But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

The Lineage of Cain

2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

Ecclesiastes 8:11 “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.”

In the descendents of Cain, we see a great tragedy. We see people who are very skilled and make many technological advancements. However, in the midst of these pursuits and advancements, you see an abandonment of the Lord. So though you see a people who were in many ways thriving, they were descending in a downward spiral of sin.

The Corruption of Marriage

Genesis 2:23–24 “Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.”

The Devaluing of Life

Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

Genesis 9:5–6 “And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.”

A Mocking of the Lord (Verse 24)

Calling on the Name of the Lord

“According to the marginal version, the sense is this: Then when the world was universally corrupt, and had forsaken God and his service, good men grew more valiant and zealous for God, and did more publicly and avowedly own God, and began to distinguish and separate themselves from the ungodly world, and to call themselves and one another by the name of God.” — Matthew Poole

Genesis 12:8 “From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.”

Genesis 26:25 “So he built an altar there and called upon the name of the Lord and pitched his tent there. And there Isaac’s servants dug a well.”

Isaiah 43:7 “everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.””

Exodus 34:6–7 “The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.””

Romans 10:13 “For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.””