After the first couple ate the tree of Knowledge and were expelled from the garden of Eden, their whole life was one infected by the poison of that tree.
Therefore, whatever they and there decedents did, unless they received a fresh word from the Lord, was governed by that tree and the mind-set it produced in them. All their thoughts and their resulting actions issued from a what-is-good and what-is-evil worldview. They would behave by considering that if something was good, they would do it and if it was evil they would refrain from doing it. But they were deceived.
The difference between Cain and Able is the difference between a man who lived by revelation and a man who lived by right and wrong. Cain knew that it was good to bring an offering to God. No doubt he had heard this from his father but when he heard it, it went into his mind as something good to do. He did not receive revelation as to what God desired as an offering, so he offered the work of his hands. That is, something good that he had done. His was rejected by God. He was disappointed and offended that his good works did not please God.
Why? Because he did what was right to do, he thought he would be commended for it. Are we not many times the same. We do some kind act for someone expecting our Lord to praise us for it and discover that somehow we have lost the presence of God. We don’t realize that we have again partaken of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We might even say to the Lord, “Haven’t I done this in your name?” But He would reply, “I never knew you in that thing you did. Depart from me.” In other words, “My presence will not be with you until you confess your sin and turn back to Me.”
The whole race of man after the fall, lived by the good and evil mind-set that got into their first parents and came to them by their birth. They must have some good things that they did and we know that there were many evil things that occurred but the Lord proclaimed that man was nothing but flesh.
Only a very few lived in the way that pleased the Lord. Two are of note; Enoch and Noah.
Enoch walked with God and was not because God took him. He lived only about three hundred and sixty years which was a short life in those days. As fart as we know the only commendation the bible gives him was that he walked with God.
Here we have to stop a moment and think a little about Enoch’s life. “He walked with God.” This is a remarkable statement. It does not say that God walked with him but that he walked with God. When God went, he went. When God stopped, Enoch stopped. He did not moved ahead of God nor did He lag behind. He spent his life with God in the most obedient way always remaining in His presence.
If we would look at it according to the New Testament revelation we could say that Enoch was a man who always remained abiding in the Vine. He never departed from the life flow of the vine so that he has borne much fruit. Because he always stayed attached to God, the Lord could impart great revelation to him. He was the first to prophesy concerning the great flood, naming his son Methuselah, meaning, “when he is dead, it shall come.” Enoch also prophesied concerning the judgment of God coming on all the unrighteousness of the ungodly generation of mankind. (See Jude 3-4
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