Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Genesis 4:16, NIV
Cain had been created by God. He had been created with life from God. He had been created for God. And now he was separated from God. Unconfessed sin and rebellion makes a person so miserable in the presence of a holy, righteous God that the sin must either be confessed and cleansed or the sinner must leave God’s presence.
Cain’s tragic life illustrates the hard lesson that guilt is our friend if it drives us to God. However, if we refuse to turn to God in repentance and confession, guilt will drive us away from God to our own destruction. Cain’s bitterness that was rooted in resentment and rebellion bore wicked fruit in his family for generations to follow. Cain’s sin, left to take its own natural course, intensified with each generation until the entire civilization of the world in his day was ravaged by it.
What sin in your life – if left unchecked – will ravage the life of your children?
