February 19, 2021 — Lamech And Enoch: A Study In Contrasts

Ever wonder where your family will be a few generations from now? This lesson provides a good case study.

I remember my great-grandmother well, a dear godly woman. And although I have seven children, and a host of grandchildren, I haven’t lived long enough to see my great-grandchildren, but, God willing, I hope to. Well, from your great-grandparents to your great-grandchildren, that’s seven generations. The little book of Jude, verse 14, underlines the fact that the man named Enoch was “the seventh from Adam.” But before we are introduced to this man in the line of Seth in Genesis chapter 5, we meet a man called Lamech in chapter 4, who is seventh from Adam in the line of Cain. Adam had other sons and daughters, but only two have their lineage recorded: Cain and Seth. What a contrast! Like two drops of water that fall a foot apart but land on either side of a mountain watershed, how far apart they eventually end! Lamech is the first polygamist, contrary to the plan of God. And he boasted in his killing of a young man who had hurt him. Concerning his ancestor and fellow-murderer, Cain, God had warned a seven-fold vengeance on anyone who killed him. But Lamech threatened a seventy-times-seven retaliation, quite a contrast to the Lord Jesus’ instruction to forgive seventy-times-seven (Mt 18:22). The life of Enoch is a study in contrasts, one of those recorded in Genesis 4:26 – “Then men began to call on the name of the Lord.” We read the simple testimony of his life in 5:24 – “Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.” The New Testament adds, in Hebrews 11:5, “He had this testimony, that he pleased God.” No gravestone for Enoch, but if God had not taken him directly to heaven without dying, what a fitting epitaph! We can have no greater desire in life than to please the Lord.