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The Beginning of the End
from Cain, added polygamy. Abel had led a pastoral life, and the
descendants of Seth followed the same course, counting themselves
“strangers and pilgrims on the earth,” seeking “a better, that is, a
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heavenly country” (
Hebrews 11:13, 16
).
For some time the two classes remained separate. The race of
Cain, spreading from their first settlement, scattered over the plains
and valleys where the children of Seth had dwelt. The latter, in order
to escape their contaminating influence, withdrew to the mountains
and there continued the worship of God in its purity. But after some
time they began to mingle with those living in the valleys. “The
sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful”
and the children of Seth displeased the Lord by intermarrying with
them. Many of the worshipers of God were drawn into sin by the
temptations constantly before them, and they lost their holy character.
Mingling with the depraved, they became like them. The restrictions
of the seventh commandment were disregarded, “and they took wives
for themselves of all whom they chose.” The children of Seth went
“in the way of Cain” (
Jude 11
). They fixed their minds on worldly
prosperity and enjoyment and neglected the commandments of the
Lord, so sin spread widely in the earth.
Length of Adam’s Life
For nearly a thousand years Adam tried to stop the spread of evil.
He had been commanded to instruct his descendants in the way of
the Lord, and he carefully treasured what God had revealed to him
and repeated it to succeeding generations. For nine generations he
described the holy and happy conditions in Paradise and repeated the
history of his fall. He told them of the sufferings by which God had
taught him the necessity of strict obedience to His law and explained
to them the merciful provisions for their salvation, yet often he was
met with bitter reproach for the sin that had brought such woe upon
his descendants.
When he left Eden, the thought that he must die filled Adam with
horror. Full of sorrow for his own sin and mourning a double loss in
the death of Abel and the rejection of Cain, Adam was bowed down
with anguish. Though the sentence of death had appeared terrible
at first, yet after beholding the results of sin for nearly a thousand