FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS, volume 8, number 39, September 24, 2009
Lamech said . . .give heed to my speech, for I have killed a man, Genesis 4:23
The Death of the West and Why
I am angry, and it is a righteous anger. I am angry at the poverty I see in our
major cities. I am angry at the lack of quality education inner city children
are receiving. I am angry at the political corruption and socialist ideology
that keep people in servitude to the government. I am angry that our rights are
being eroded by those who claim to be champions for the poor and oppressed but
who actually are using them for their own financial gain. From where did this
come and what are we to do about it?
When reading Genesis 4:16-24 in a cursory fashion, one perhaps asks why this is
in Scripture? I suggest, however, that it gives the rationale for why things
are as they are. Moses is giving important details for the line of Cain, the
first murderer, one who is from the seed of the serpent (Genesis 3:15). There
are six serpentine qualities in the text. Those of the serpent are separate
from God, estranged, at enmity with Him. Cain went out from the presence of the
Lord to the land of Nod (meaning in Hebrew wanderer), east of Eden. Moving east
in Genesis speaks of sinful rebellion. The people went east to build the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:2) and Lot moved east to Sodom when separating from Abram (Genesis 13:11). Those separated from God are
characterized by rebellion. Cain built a city and dwelt in it, something God
had expressly commanded him not to do. He was to be a wanderer or vagrant all
his days, but Cain decides to settle down in the first city. A rebellious
person is also a prideful one. We are told that Cain named the city after his
son Enoch, which means dedication. Prideful men name their cities after their
children, while godly men name cities after Yahweh (Abraham, Genesis 22:14).
Prideful men are often lascivious and given to sexual immorality. Seven
generations are recorded from Adam to Lamech, and the Hebrew word for seven
means completeness. Evil and wickedness have filled up the earth by the time of
Lamech. He takes two wives (Adah means ornament and Zillah means tinkling),
giving in to bigamy due to the lust of his eyes. We are then told the name of
three of Lamech’s children, as well as their occupations. Jabal was the father
of the nomadic farmer, of business, of gaining wealth. Jubal was the father of
musicians, instruments, and entertainment. And Tubal-cain was the father of
those who make bronze and iron implements. Often these were used for war. There
is nothing inherently wrong with business, entertainment, or the military; but
they are cited here as proof of Lamech’s earthly-mindedness. Instead of
stressing the need for true
worship and fidelity to God, Lamech is all about his children’s
work and the notoriety it brings them and him. And finally one given to
earthly-mindedness is artfully wicked. He is like those described in Romans
1:32 who not only engage in shameful deeds, but who also give hearty approval
to others who do them. We find Lamech giving the first “Gangsta’ Rap” in verses
23-24, commemorating to his two wives and anyone else who will listen, that he
has murdered men and boys who give him the slightest trouble, boasting that his
vengeance is seventy times stronger than God’s.
The seed of the serpent stands defiantly against the God of mercy, grace,
justice, and holiness. Who and what killed our western culture? The seeds of
our death are found in the serpentine qualities of all outside of Christ, all
the unregenerate in the world—separation, rebellion, pride, lasciviousness,
earthly-mindedness, and boasting of shameful things. One place we can start in
relatively recent history is with Auguste Comte, a nineteenth century sociologist
and pantheist, who denied original sin and the authority of God. He gave Charles Darwin seed
thoughts of scientific determinism which led to the Theory of Evolution. Comte
rejected God and the authority of His word. Then came Horace Mann, the
Unitarian founder of the public school movement, who believed that education
was the savior of any nation, that as long as children were educated the world
would progress. By the early twentieth century Neo-Marxism came to
realize that the real enemy of the proletariat was western culture which was
founded upon the Christian faith. Therefore the Frankfurt School—which had moved from Germany to
Columbia
University in New York in 1935 and which was overtly
communist—knew that Christianity, free market economics, the traditional
family, sexual restraint, submission to authority, hierarchy, and nationalism
all had to go. They must be attacked and killed if the communist, socialist
agenda was to take hold. The Frankfurt School had a profound effect on the School of Education at Columbia
which in turn radically infected U.S. public school education from grade school
through graduate school. The leaders of SDS (Students for a Democratic
Society), SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee), and the Black
Panthers all worked together in the mid to late 1960’s, fomenting unrest and
takeover of buildings at Harvard, Columbia, and California at Berkeley. They also were behind the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The vast majority of modern day University and College Professors, the northeast
intellectual elite, and liberal politicians are knowingly or unknowingly
disciples of the Frankfurt School that sought to destroy western culture and
Christianity on which it is founded. And at the bottom of this is the seed of
the serpent found in the line of Cain—those given to hatred of God, rebellion, pride, lust,
materialism (this world is all there is), and boasting of evil and wickedness.
What is the remedy? It is time for Christians to put off their own serpentine
tendencies (you can do this because you are in Christ and have a heart that
loves God and hates sin) and make an impact for good in the world. How? It
starts in your home life—husbands and fathers leading their wives and children
in humble service to God, teaching them the Scriptures and praying with and for
them, modeling the Christian faith. Wives and mothers are to aid their husbands
in rearing godly children. Stay married and faithful to each other no matter
how difficult it may be. Your children need stability and a godly home. No
longer remain silent. Tell the world that the Emperor is naked—that the
socialist, neo-Marxist ideology that purports to champion the poor is a lie, a
sham. They are all about destroying western culture and Christianity, seeking
to make the west into their own perverted image, using the poor and anyone else
they can to reach their goal, leaving the rest of us in their wake. Challenge
the liberal, neo-Marxist agenda that you hear people so mindlessly parroting.
Finally, we need people to take an active role in public education, running for
public office, serving in our judicial system. This is no time to retreat, to
bury our head in the sand, to leave the west to those who are of the seed of
the serpent. What are you going to do with what you have just read?
FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS is a weekly devotional by Reverend Al Baker, pastor of Christ Community Presbyterian Church in West Hartford, Connecticut.
To add your, or someone else’s, name to the list to receive this weekly devotional (or be removed from it), please contact us at admin@christcpc.org. This and archived back-issues may also be found on our website, www.ChristCPC.org