Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have produced a man with the help of the LORD.”
Genesis 4:1
Having sinned against God, the first man and the first woman were now outside the Garden of Eden. They were living under a terrible judgement, but God had graciously given them hope in a great promise: a deliverer would be born. An offspring of the woman would inflict a deadly blow on their enemy, the serpent, who had brought devastation to their world (3:15).
But of course, Eve had no idea what born meant. In fact, she didn’t know what a baby was. How could she? What must it have been like for Eve to discover that she was pregnant? One morning she begins to feel a little sick. A few weeks later she begins to show. Nine months later she is seized with violent pain, and her husband, Adam, doesn’t have t faintest idea what to do.
Somehow, they got through it, and before long, she had a wonderful, bright, bouncing baby boy in her arms. She was convinced that this baby was the promised deliverer: “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD” (4:1). Literally translated, what she said was: “I have brought forth a man-child—the Lord.”
She must have been overjoyed. Not only had she given birth to the first baby in human history, she was convinced that the child she gave birth to was the Saviour of the world. Of course, Cain was not the Saviour of the world, but it isn’t surprising that Eve thought so. Over the next few days, we are going to see how Cain took a plunge to disaster, and how we can avoid his fate.
Where are you tempted to look when you want to change the world?
