His Presence

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

HIS PRESENCE

Gen 4:13-16

13 Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." 15 But the LORD said to him, "Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. 16 So Cain went out from the LORD's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

NIV

No one has any idea what this mark was that the LORD put on him, although, as many theologians of old there are, there are just as many different ideas. However, there is something else here which strikes a chord with us. We notice that Cain was concerned because he was going to be driven from his homeland, and hiden from the presence of the LORD, that is, he would no longer be part of his family, or his family's worship of the LORD. Of course, he already disobeyed the LORD by killing his brother Abel. Nevertheless, now to be banished from his family was more than he could bear. Interestingly, the verbiage is very similar to what Paul wrote to the church in Thessalonica about those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power. This was the judgment of Cain: to be shut out, hidden from the presence of the LORD. Yet the Psalmist asked, "Where can I flee from the Lord's presence?" If he went up to heaven, God is there; if he went to the depths, God is there; nothing would hide him from the presence of the LORD. Yet Cain was shut out, banished from the presence of God.  We are and will for the rest of this life be grateful that for Jesus, and that we have been accepted, adopted as a child of God. We are assured we will always be in his presence. Just as the LORD put some kind of mark on Cain, he has marked us with the Holy Spirit. Just as no one would be able to kill Cain because of that mark, no one can kill us because of the Spirit. Yes, our bodies may be destroyed somehow, killed, or simply die in some manner, but we will never die, because we have the Spirit of God dwelling within, and Jesus promised that although we die, we will live. Cain went to the land of Nod and found a wife, whom we will get to next, and there again, much has been said about who those people in Nod were. But for now, let us live in the wonderful presence of our Lord, giving him all the praise and honor he is due for his great love and compassion toward us in the person of Jesus Christ, who paid the price for us, and brought us back from the land of banishment, the land of darkness, into his wonderful light and his presence.