In yesterday's study Cain expressed his fear that someone would kill him to avenge the death of Abel. God is not going to allow that to happen. Why is He protecting Cain? It's hard to say. Perhaps because Cain did repent, as we speculated yesterday. Perhaps God wanted to give him an opportunity to do things with his life, such as encouraging others to serve the Lord and not fall into the trap of jealousy as he did. There are other examples of men in the Bible who were guilty of murder but who repented and whom God used for His kingdom. Moses, for example, who killed an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew slave. The Apostle Paul was responsible for the persecution and deaths of some of the early Christians before he became a Christian himself. King David had a man killed in order to try and cover up his sin of adultery with the man's wife, but then David repented and continued to serve the Lord the rest of his life. If God can use for His kingdom men who have committed what is considered the worst crime on earth, then He can certainly use you and me.
The Lord reassures Cain that he is not going to be killed. "But the Lord said to him, 'Not so; anyone who kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over.'" (Genesis 4:15a) Two wrongs don't make a right. If a person were to kill Cain in order to avenge Abel, little would be accomplished. I personally don't have strong feelings either for or against the death penalty in our country, but having the death penalty doesn't appear to deter anyone from committing crimes worthy of capital punishment. Later on in the Bible, when the world population is growing by leaps and bounds, laws for society will be put in place that allow capital punishment to be carried out for first-degree murder, but at this time we can assume that the world population was still quite small. For practical reasons, it's understandable that the Lord would preserve Cain's life and allow him to produce offspring.
In order to protect Cain, the Lord places a mark on him. "Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him." (Genesis 4:15b) The Bible doesn't describe this mark, but there is good Scriptural basis for considering this mark to be a supernatural form of protection, such as a "seal" as is mentioned often in the New Testament. In the New Testament there are several examples of a seal being the sign that we belong to the Lord. The Bible tells us that we who are in Christ have the seal of the Holy Spirit. (2 Corinthians 1:22, Ephesians 1:13, Ephesians 4:30) We are told that the Lord knows who belongs to Him because He has placed a seal upon us. (2 Timothy 2:19) In Revelation the servants of God are sealed with a mark on their foreheads to protect them. (Revelation 7:4-5) We don't know whether the seal the Lord placed on Cain was visible or invisible to human beings, but by the power of God it protected Cain from harm. Even if someone plotted to kill Cain, their plot would be unsuccessful.
"So Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael was the father of Methushael, and Methushael was the father of Lamech." (Genesis 4:16-18)
Adam and Eve will later have a son named Seth, from whose line the Messiah will be born. Many scholars state that only Seth's family line survived the great flood, although we can't accept this with any certainty since we don't know the family lines of the women Noah's sons married. The Bible only provides an accounting of Cain's lineage up to the end of Chapter 4. The Bible mainly only follows the family line from which the Messiah will come, so we can't draw any firm conclusions about the fate of Cain's family line simply because it is not mentioned after the conclusion of Chapter 4.
What we can conclude is that God is a merciful. He is a God of second chances. He's a God who offers a fresh start. We don't know whether Cain lived the remainder of his life in close relationship with the Lord or whether he taught his children to honor and obey the Lord. But if he didn't, Cain will never be able to stand before God's judgment seat and claim he was never given the opportunity to turn his life around. He will not be able to accuse the Lord of not giving him a chance to become a better man.
I am so thankful we serve a merciful God! For a long time I resisted His call. He could have written me off and stopped urging me to repent and turn to Christ. But He didn't. The summer I was twenty-two years old I bowed my knees to the Lord Jesus Christ and accepted Him as my Savior. I haven't been perfect; we will never be perfect as long as we live in these frail mortal bodies. But the Lord who extended enough mercy to save me has kept on extending mercy to me in my daily Christian life. He is working every day to make me look more and more like His Son, for that is His purpose for each of us who profess the name of Christ. (Romans 8:29)
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