Episode 8: The Stairway to Heaven

In episode eight of the In Light of the Cross Podcast, we trace what unfolds after Adam and Eve’s sin: Cain and Abel, Cain’s exile, and the escalation of violence and pride in Cain’s line culminating in Lamech, who boasts in vengeance and introduces polygamy. We contrast this with Seth’s line, highlighting Enoch, who “walked with God,” and follow the story into Noah, who finds favor amid overwhelming human wickedness yet still falls into sin after the flood, showing he isn’t the promised deliverer. We then look at the Tower of Babel as humanity’s attempt to secure God’s blessing on its own terms, and how God’s response sets up the call of Abraham and the promise that all nations will be blessed through him, ultimately pointing forward to Jesus. We close by reflecting on where we rely on our own power instead of trusting God and end with the Lord’s Prayer.

00:00 Welcome and Prayer

01:28 Cain and Abel

02:53 Lamech and Violence

05:10 Two Family Lines

06:16 Noah and the Flood

07:14 Noah Falls Short

08:49 Tower of Babel

10:22 Babel to Jesus

12:12 Call of Abraham

13:49 Reflection and Lord's Prayer

Okay, welcome back to the in

Light of the Cross Podcast.

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We are on day eight or episode eight,

and we're continuing to look at what you

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might call the, seemingly endless story.

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Of humanity's failure in God's

grace and how those two things play

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out and call it seemingly endless

because it's not, ultimately, it

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just seems like it for a long time.

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So today we are going to look at what

happens after Adam and Eve's sin in

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those chapters of Genesis and how that,

sets the stage for what comes later.

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So why don't we pause here.

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I don't know where your mind is.

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let's just pause and take a minute

to breathe and pray and ask God

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to settle your mind upon his word

and open your mind and your heart

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to what he wants to say to you.

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So as we come out of that, let's begin

by thinking about what happens after.

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The great sin of Adam and

Eve, there is punishment for

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the sin by the midst of that.

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There's these incredible words

and symbols of God's grace.

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And then Nathan, we were talking about how

he had this interesting story about the

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two lines from, Adam and Eve, one of those

being fulfilled and a guy named Mick.

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Mm-hmm.

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So you wanna talk about that for a second?

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Yeah, if you're following along

in the scriptures, this is Genesis

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chapter four, After Adam and Eves in,

they get kicked out of the garden.

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Genesis traces their family lines and

you see this really interesting narrative

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between their two sons, Cain and Abel.

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And if you know the story, you know.

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Abel is righteous and brings

a, an acceptable offering to

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the Lord, but Kane doesn't.

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And Kane gets mad and ends up murdering

his brother and God calls him out

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on it and says, what have you done?

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This is chapter four verse 10.

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Listen, your brother's blood

cries out to me from the ground.

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Now you are under a curse and

driven from the ground, which

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opened its mouth to receive your

brother's blood from your hand.

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When you work the ground, it will

no longer yield crops for you.

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You'll be a restless wanderer.

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On the earth and Cain says to the

Lord here in verse 13, he says, my

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punishment is more than I can bear today.

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You are driving me from the land and

I will be hidden from your presence.

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I will be a restless wanderer on earth

and whoever finds me will kill me.

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But the Lord says to him, not

so anyone who kills Cain will

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suffer vengeance seven times over.

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And so Kane went from the Lord's presence.

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Notice the breaking of the

relationship there and lives in

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the land of Nod east of Eden.

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And after Kane, has some children and

grandchildren, we see that the seventh

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in his lineage is this man named Lambic.

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And Lambic.

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It says in chapter four,

verse 23, says to his wives.

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Plural.

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Notice the breakdown here

of the family unit, right?

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It makes a 0.4

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19.

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Lambic married two women,

the first one to do so.

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Yeah.

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And he says to them, he says,

Adam Zilla, listen to me.

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Wives of lambic hear my words.

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I have killed a man for wounding me.

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a young man for injuring me.

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If Cain is avenge seven times, then

lambic 77 times in that quote, there.

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You just, sense a hubris.

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Yes.

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anger and rage.

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An arrogance, a pride, A self-reliance.

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Self-reliance.

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Even the way that he claims the promise

of God of protection to Cain, he is

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manipulating that, expanding that to

the nth degree and giving it to himself.

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Not receiving it from God who is

graciously giving it, but just assuming

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it in a way that if he's so arrogant.

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Yeah.

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His whole attitude, he takes

two wives, first one to do so.

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So he's trying to gain the gift

of fertility and family life and

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increase it by his own effort

instead of receiving it from God.

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And anybody who comes against him,

he is going to brutally, right

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brutally, doesn't matter who they are.

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I've killed a man for wounding me, a

young man, a child for injuring me.

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this is nasty.

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It is, and I think what the author is

doing here is showing the culmination of

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the death that God said was going to come

if they ate of the tree, of the knowledge

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of good and evil back in chapter two.

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And all of this is going to come

to a head in chapters five and six.

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When we are introduced to

this character, Noah, right?

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So there's two family lines here.

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There is this line of cane and

Lemek is the seventh of that.

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Seventh often has the idea of fullness.

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So he's the full manifestation of

the evil of that line, as it were.

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And then there's also the

line of Seth, Which is not his

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evil, which calls out to God.

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And the the seventh from that is is Enoch.

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And what's special about Enoch?

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Well, mysterious figure, but it says that

he walked with God and then instead of

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going as it goes through the genealogy,

it says, and then he died, it says,

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and then he was not, for God took him.

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Hmm.

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So there's something special

about him, but ultimately this

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line's gonna end up with Noah.

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So you see human evil spread, right?

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And it looks like, eve is

gonna give birth to these boys.

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Are they gonna be the ones who

now will be the, the seed of the

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woman who destroys the enemy?

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Nope.

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certainly not Cain in his line.

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They're, they're in line

with the enemy fully.

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And, the line of Seth.

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Well, there's more hope there, but, but

they're pretty weak against that as well.

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And then you come to Noah and God

is so filled with anger at human

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violence and injustice and evil

that he utters this decree that

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he's going to recreate all things.

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And that's where Noah comes in.

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Noah finds grace in the eyes of the Lord.

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Yeah.

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Chapter six there says, the Lord saw

how great the wickedness of the human

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race had become on earth, and that

every inclination of the thoughts of

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human heart was only evil all the time.

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Right?

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And then it says, the Lord regretted

that he had made human beings on earth

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and his heart was deeply troubled.

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And then it says in verse

eight, but Noah found favor.

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And the eyes of the Lord.

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Yeah.

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Is he the seed from Eve?

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Exactly.

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Is he the, the chosen one?

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The offspring of the woman who will be,

all that humanity should be and start

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this thing over on the right foot.

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The, the new humanity, so to speak.

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Right.

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And it seems like that through the

story, I mean he starts, well he obeys

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guy when Guy gives this command, that

must have seemed a little strange.

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Build this arc.

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but after the flood story, as they

begin this again, and God repeats,

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the commands he gave to Adam and

Eve, go forth and fill the earth.

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So it's like, oh yeah,

this is the second Adam.

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God gives him the same commands,

but then immediately after that

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he gets completely drunk and

there's this sketchy, weird scene.

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Somehow involving sex.

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I mean, there's a lot of ambiguity,

a lot of things that are weird here.

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But one thing is clear, Noah

can't be that person right.

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After these great promises,

he falls into this utter sin.

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He's not the one.

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So notice this pattern that there is

human sin and brokenness and death.

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Yeah.

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And then some kind of.

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A possible savior, some kind of

Messiah archetype in Noah, and yet

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while that points toward Jesus, he

is incomplete and still marred by sin

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and leaves every reader of Genesis.

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Hoping for somebody who can

be like Noah, but better.

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Exactly.

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Yeah, we need a savior,

but not that savior.

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We need a different kind.

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Yeah.

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So, and that's where

the story goes, right?

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You're exactly right.

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You see the human failure and judgment,

but God's, grace in the midst of that

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through saving them, uh, saving humanity.

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And then right after that you have this

story of the Tower of Babel, God tells

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them, I want you to fill the earth.

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So spread out, fill the earth.

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And it says instead, right after

that, they settle in one place.

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They wanna build this tower

that reaches up to the heavens.

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Now, when I was a kid, I,

I saw all the storybooks.

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I always thought they meant one that would

reach to the skies, literally like you.

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20,000, 30,000 feet up.

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But no, that's not what it meant.

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If you read in the context, those were

zig rats that they made in the ancient

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world, and the idea was that there

would be on top of there some sort of

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temple that would be the place where.

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God and the, the priests of

that temple would meet together.

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That's the idea.

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We're gonna build that.

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We're gonna build a city with this great

tower where God, the Gods will meet with

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us and then we'll be, we'll have a name

for ourselves and we'll be secure there.

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Were seeking the blessings of God,

The security and the great, wonderful

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role of being in God's image, having

this significant role, but apart

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from God and opposition to him.

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So it's a, it's all just a

practice of manipulation.

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It is.

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It's here, we're going to

make a name for ourselves.

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We're gonna have this place that we

are going to build so that God will

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then be forced to come meet with us.

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Yeah.

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And serve us.

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Yeah.

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We're gonna meet with God.

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But on our terms and through our power.

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Yeah.

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And that's not gonna work.

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So the pattern continues.

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It does.

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You see human pride, arrogance,

hubris, and the result is devastating.

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It is.

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Now what's cool though is that

through echoes of that, you also get

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a glimpse of the fullness of God's

promise that's gonna come later on.

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For example, they want to build this

tower to heaven, to meet with God

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on their terms and in their power.

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God rips up their building permit.

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he destroys the tower,

confuses the languages.

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But what's interesting is that right

after this, you have the story of Abraham.

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And the patriarchs.

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And the matriarchs, their wives and

one of those, the grandson of Abraham

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and Sarah will have his own tower or

stairway to heaven, and that's Jacob

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When he sees this stairway to heaven,

commentators think he was almost

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certainly a Zaras stairway and the

angels of God ascending and descending.

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So, in other words, God did want

humans and God to be in a relationship,

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but it had to come from above, not

from beneath because only God had

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the purity, to make that happen.

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And then ultimately see in

the New Testament, Jesus is

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the ultimate fulfillment.

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he talks about that in John one.

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He says to.

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Nathaniel says, you will see the

angels of God as descending and

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descending on the son of man me.

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So he's harkening back to that.

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He says, I am ultimately the one through

which mankind and God will be united.

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. And so I love the complexity of scripture

that as it unfolds you, you see.

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All of these illusions backwards and

forwards about how it is a cohesive story.

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Mm-hmm.

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And there are levels of depth, that

this story of the Tower of Babel

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isn't just a standalone story.

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It is that, but it's not just

that it points to Jacob and

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then even points to Jesus.

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Right.

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And we can see that when we look

at it in light of the cross.

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Exactly.

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it's always struck me the beauty of

how the story of Abraham comes right

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after the story of the tower babble.

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Perfect example of God's grace.

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In the midst of human failure, you have

this tragic failure, the scattering of

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the people, and then you have somebody,

and all of us as readers are wondering.

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Is this the savior, right?

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I mean, Genesis 12 begins with God

calling out Abraham Abram and saying,

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go from your country, your people, and

your father's household to the land.

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I will show you.

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And I will make you into a great nation.

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There's the, the new humanity

bit right, that we saw with

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Noah, that we saw with Adam.

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Again, we're gonna ultimately

see this fulfilled in Jesus.

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And God says, the Lord says

to Abraham, I will bless you.

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I will make your name great

and you will be a blessing.

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And I will bless those who bless you.

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And whoever curses you, I will

curse and all peoples on earth

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will be blessed through you.

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So Abraham went, as the

Lord had told him, right.

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It's right after the tower

and you're like, oh, maybe

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this is the guy and he's not.

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But by God's grace, he prepares

the way for the one who is.

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Yeah.

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So we'll pick up on this story tomorrow.

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We will, and continue to see

the seemingly endless story.

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Human failure, God's grace.

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Page after page until it comes to clarity

in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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Yep, exactly.

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So let's take a minute for reflection

and application and thinking

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through how this applies to us.

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it's easy to see the beauty of God's

plan and how the parts fit together, but.

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Not as easy sometimes to say,

okay, how does this apply to me?

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And I think one of the ways it can apply

to us is by remembering both Lambic and

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the tower builders had this in common.

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They were trying to achieve the blessing

of God through their own means and

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their own power and their own wisdom.

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Instead of as Proverbs three, five and

six say, not trusting in your own wisdom,

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but instead listening and following God.

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Trusting in him.

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So maybe a good, thoughtful reflection is

what are the ways I've trusted in my own

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power, my own strength, my own wisdom to

meet my needs instead of simply seeking

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God's help, praying to him and receiving

whatever he brings me in those areas.

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So spend a minute or two thinking, praying

that, confessing if need be, asking God.

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To meet those true needs in your life.

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Our hope in every episode is that through

this podcast, we would become less like

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Adam and Eve Lambic, the builders of

the Tower of Babel, and more like Jesus.

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We become less like those who

trust in their own means and

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methods and more like the one who

trusts perfectly in the Father.

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This is why we're ending every

day with the Lord's Prayer.

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It helps us do that.

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It helps us move our trust

away from ourselves and place

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it firmly in the hands of God.

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Let's pray together.

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Our Father in heaven.

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Hallowed be your name.

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Your kingdom come, your will be

done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us today our daily bread

and forgive us our debts as we

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also have forgiven our debtors.

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And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.

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Amen.

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Amen.