Henry Law
Genesis 4:23,24. Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.
Here a mysterious person appears. Dark veils envelop him. He moves with shrouded features rapidly across the sacred page. His few words startle rather than inform. While the eye watches him, he vanishes. Before the ear can fully catch his voice, silence stills the scene.
But still he occupies a place on hallowed ground. He is a Bible character. The Spirit forbids him to be buried in oblivion, and gives him a station in the ever-living Word. Thus he stands as a warning beacon. Each pupil in the school of truth is called to learn from Lamech.
Let us then draw near with prayerful hearts. Holy Spirit, this is Thy record. Pour down explanatory rays. Shine on this dial which Thy wisdom raises. Bring light out of this obscurity. Unfold Thy gracious purpose. Give the right key, so that the casket may fly open. May every reader be wiser by the survey of these solemn features!
But let idle curiosity retire. Marvels are here indeed, but no details. No lengthened statements gratify a prying mind. No ingenuity can expand the brevity. No research can gain more than the words: “Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and seventyfold.”
But the brief words are very sad. They plant us in a region enlivened by no sun, in a field without one flower, in a parched desert with no cooling stream, in a deep valley of terrific shadows. Each sound falls mournfully as the knell of death. The keynote of this dirge is sin. Vice bubbles up as from a fountain of iniquity. The whole prospect appals. There is not one bright spot. Hope cannot hope where all is hopeless. Pity may pity, but with much trembling. No one can leave Lamech and not sigh.
The wretched speaker is of the family of Cain. He is a vile descendant of a vile progenitor. When five generations had passed away, Cain seems to reappear in him. It may be well to approach him by marking the complexion of his times. They show the piteous state of men devoid of grace, in whom self is the worshipped idol and selfishness the master passion.
The house of Cain grew rapidly. They sparkled in nature’s gifts. Their energy was great. Their intellect was keen. Their contrivances were shrewd. But we look in vain for love of God or labours in His service. They planned and toiled indeed. But it was all for worldly interests – for comforts, for refinements. Extensive buildings spread. Inventions in the use of metals advanced. Distinction in music was reached. Cities arose. Works in brass and iron acquired fame. The harp and organ sounded in their feasts. They became a multitude great in earth’s greatness – rich in earth’s wealth, skilful in earth’s skill, polished in earth’s polish, luxurious in earth’s luxuries. They were many. They ascended high steps of cultivation. But all their industry was the intensity of worldly-mindedness. God was not the moving principle. They were emphatically “of the world”. This was their character: “he that is of the earth is earthly” (Jn 3:31).
Can we go on without a sigh! How pitifully foolish are those followers of the world! They may have gifts which glitter splendidly, but it is only for a speck of time. Their brightest sun soon sets in blackest night. Their joys are no true joys while they remain, but their continuance is a fleeting dream. Their flowers have many a thorn and they fade in the plucking. Their fruitless blossoms soon decay.
Listen: why is life yours? Why are you called to tread this earth? Why are immortal spirits planted in your breasts? Why do grand faculties raise you as creation’s lords? It has been nobly said: “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever”. Shall then all your time and means and powers and energies be frittered in the sordid work of serving time and gratifying self? Awake, arise, renounce such folly. Grovel not in such mire. Study the glorious truths of God’s most glorious Word. Be one with Christ. Live as citizens of the bright world. Walk with God. Join the high company of His sons. Shine as lights in this world. Work for eternity. In everything you do, seek first the heavenly kingdom, the good of men, the glory of the Lord. Take as your chart the faithful saying: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him” (1 Jn 2:15).
When we contemplate man’s most brilliant and successful efforts – the books in which high genius shines, the stately buildings, the almost-living statue and other monuments of splendid minds – admiration is turned to mourning by the reflection, Was this designed to magnify the Lord? “Whose is this image and superscription?” It avails nothing to have loud praise where we are not, if we have torment where we are. Many who are crowned as great and glorious here may awake to “shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2). The old world, with all its ingenuities, ripened for ruin. They “knew not until the flood came, and took them all away” (Mt 24:39).
Such were the times of Lamech. Now hear his voice. He speaks to his wives. But why are they two? Is God’s ordinance thus wide? Is double fellowship permitted by the sacred rite of marriage? Far otherwise. Consider its intention. God in His tender mercy plans sweetest solace. Therefore He places one of man’s nature by his side – to be a second self, a sharer of happiness, a partner in distress, another heart to which each care may be unbosomed, whose love may make life’s journey smooth, whose sympathy may render burdens light, who may diminish loads and double joys, who may meet tear with tear and smile with smile, who may be intertwined in every fellowship until death breaks the bond. Intent and gracious thus to multiply delights, God brought to man “an help meet for him” – always near to minister and help (Gen 2:18).
Thus the ordinance grants but one wife. God gives not Eves, but Eve. Jesus adds His authoritative comment: “For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh” (Mt 19:5,6). No sentence can be more explicit. Two, not many, shall be one. But the design is frustrated when a husband joins himself to more than one. Oneness is then broken into diverse parts. Affections which should have one channel diverge into distracting streams. Marriage is no more godly union, but confusion. It is not love, but jealousy. The sweetest type of Christ and His one spouse, the Church, is debased into dissoluteness.
Lamech disregards God’s will. His reckless passions burst the wise restraint. Greedily he wallows in licentiousness, and by his lusts degrades the hallowed oneness. Thus he contemns the original law. It is not said that he was the first to perpetrate this sin. But the first record of it claims his name. No polygamist in history precedes him. In sacred annals he stands at the head of a new crime.
But did it end in him? Evil, once introduced, spreads as a flame amid dry stubble. The weed, although rooted up, can hardly be eradicated. Through latest ages the fruit may still spring up. Hence this domestic misery pollutes not only wilds of savage life, but families of grace. Even David strayed in this miry path.
In pity to others, if not to yourself, mortify each rising sin. By yielding you may found a pyramid of misery, and earn the ignoble fame of “Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin”. Future generations may trace their wretchedness to your example. Many may wish that you had never lived. Lost souls may loathe you as paving their road of ruin.
Lamech sinks into blacker guilt. He next appears confessedly a murderer. He openly proclaims, “I have slain a man”. True it may be that no immediate link joins his offences. But true it is that sin is always a spreading plague. One fault indulged soon swells into a deepening torrent and widens into a boundless sea. One little leak may sink the noblest ship. One little spark may carry fiery fury to immense expanse. To blind and harden is a property of sin. It soon obscures the light; then hideousness does not frighten, and a monster does not seem monstrous. Its contact blunts the edge of conscience; and he who said not long before: “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?” now perpetrates the very deed and blushes not.
See this in Lamech. He tramples down the marriage law. Then human blood pollutes his hands. He goes literally in the very “way of Cain”. Let it be granted that no perceptible connection unites these branches of transgression. But let it be maintained that sin will not live single. It quickly propagates and fearfully extends.
Of the provoking cause and of the sad details, history does not speak. Until the great day shall reveal all secret things, we can only know that he slew a man. Until all deeds are published to an assembled world, the bare fact only can be seen: like Cain, he was a murderer.
Perhaps horror runs through your heart at this terrific sound. You sigh, How could this be? Where was his conscience? Was human feeling utterly extinct? How could the thought arise? How could it be cherished? How could the hand be raised? How could he look on the victim and not spare it?
It is well to shudder at such sinfulness of sin. But in your great loathing turn your eye inward. Mark what passions lurk in your own breast. See what monsters nestle in the chambers of your imagery. There are dormant vipers there. Temptation and opportunity would animate them into activity. Your heart holds seeds of all iniquity. True, you turn pale at the thought of murder. Once David felt the like abhorrence. True, the ripe crime does not pollute you. But what is the ember from which this flame bursts forth? Is it not anger? Our Lord’s teaching traces these floods of evil to their secret source. Anger conceived, retained, fostered, fanned soon becomes rage. Rage flares into fury. Fury maddens into recklessness. Recklessness is blind to consequence.
Thus then you may possess the moving cause without advancing to the terrific deed. God’s eye may see all full-blown evil in your embryo thoughts. Therefore in all hatred of another’s crime, the gracious man will hate himself the most. He will confess that nature always tends to sin. He will ascribe his guiltless walk to screening grace and to his guardian God. Lamech cries, Kill every sinful motion when it first stirs. It will soon lead to nether-millstone hardness. It may provoke the hopeless doom, “Let him alone”. It may bring down the bitterest curse of a “reprobate mind”.
He seems to have rolled quickly down into this quagmire. He speaks of this murder, but with no distress or pain or penitence or shame. Unblushingly he trumpets forth his deed. Unfeelingly he shows his blood-stained hands, as if they were some trophy of illustrious act.
When conscience is thus seared, where is the fiend more vile than man? Earth may still be his home, but hell is within. Lamech is a proof of this. His heart next shows abandoned desperation. He abuses God’s long-suffering. He takes it as a weapon to fight the more against Him. Because God is patient, he becomes more sinful. Divine goodness, as the sun shining on a putrid mass, draws out its vileness. Cain for a while had found a respite. He was not cast down instantly into the pit. Avenging lightnings did not drive him headlong to his bed of fire. Life was prolonged. Indeed a special shield was for a season spread around him. This patience on the part of God foments the basest thoughts in Lamech. He pleads this case. His distorting mind concludes that he was less in crime than his progenitor. He dreams the beguiling dream: if Cain were spared, surely I shall be so much more; if he received protection, surely greater impunity is my due. “If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.”
All this is very black. This conduct touches the last confines of wickedness. How different are hearts broken by the Spirit! Grace always hangs a lowly head, wails in dust and ashes, sees the inward blackness and in its holiest actings still laments, “Sinners, of whom I am chief”.
But it is nature’s base propensity to view self in a blinding mirror. Keen to see others’ faults, it has no eye for its own iniquities. Sightless as to self, it misreads the mind of God. From the sweet flower of forbearance, it extracts the direst poison. God spares in mercy. This tender goodness is abused, as if He neither saw nor cared. The wrath withheld is counted as indifference. The hand which smites not is despised as powerless. Reprieve is construed to be acquittal. Execution delayed is presumed on as impunity. Patience, the gentle guide to penitence, is misused to hard indifference. The lengthened space is filled, not with amendments, but with more vile transgressions. Reluctance to take vengeance is insulted, as license to prolong iniquity. The Spirit’s warning is verified: “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Ecc 8:11).
Thus Lamech heaped up wrath against the day of wrath. Thus too other men of his dark days sinned with presumptuous hand. Elihaz depicts their conduct and their end. “Thou sayest, How doth God know? Can He judge through the dark cloud? Hast thou marked the old way which wicked men have trodden, which were cut down out of time, whose foundation was overflown with a flood: which said unto God, Depart from us: and what can the Almighty do for them?” (Job 22:13-17).
Where is baseness like the baseness of thus trampling on mercy? Its language is, Because God is good, I will be viler yet; because He grants me longer space, I will the more defy Him. Where is folly like unto this folly? It misinterprets God’s loveliest attribute. It draws aggravated guilt out of these wells of grace. Where is madness like unto this madness? It rushes on the thick bosses of Almighty wrath. It adds fury to the penal flames. It sharpens the gnawing of the deathless worm. For though avenging feet may advance slowly, avenging hands will strike at last more heavily.
O despisers, tremble and turn. Fall low on knees of penitence. Marvel that you yet live. Bless God that you may yet repent and pray. Give thanks that Christ yet offers pardon. But do not delay another moment. Remember Lamech, and do not perish.