A DIVIDING WALL OF ENMITY
BEFORE CHRIST came into my life, I liked sin. I was raised in a Christian home in Egypt, and my seven brothers and sisters were all faithful and well-behaved. I was the rebellious one, and I continually broke my mother’s heart with my waywardness.
My mother was always in poor health, and she nearly died giving birth to me. Her doctors had urged her to consent to a therapeutic abortion, but my mother refused to abort me, even to save her own life. When I was born, she dedicated me to serving God and named me Michael—“messenger of God”—as a symbol of the life she hoped and prayed I would lead.
My mother lived for years in anguish and disappointment over my disobedience. It seemed that all her prayers for my future as a “messenger of God” went unanswered. The grief and frustration I selfishly inflicted on my mother took a toll on her health.
One day, when I was fifteen, my mother took me aside and warned me that my rebelliousness would destroy my life. I smirked and dismissed her warning.
“Michael,” she said, “you don’t listen to what I say!”
“I’m listening,” I said, waiting for her to stop talking so I could go out with my friends.
“No, Michael,” she said, “you hear my words but you don’t listen!”
She was right—but I didn’t care. I felt no remorse because I liked sin. And I had no intention of changing the way I lived my life.
My mother could see the defiance in my eyes, so in desperation she placed her hand on my head and began to pray. “Lord,” she said, “I have always believed and prayed that Michael would be the one who would serve You with all his heart. But if I’ve been wrong, if Michael is not going to serve You, then I pray You would take him now.”
Those words shocked me more than anything my mother had ever said. She had risked her life to give birth to me—yet she was inviting God to slay me if I refused to serve Him. That was the first time I realized how deeply I had hurt my mother with my disobedience.
Did her prayer change my ways? No—I remained selfish and rebellious. But her prayer haunted me. I couldn’t grasp the contradiction: my mother loved me with all her heart, yet she would rather see me dead than living in disobedience to God.
A few months after my mother prayed that desperate prayer over me, I went to my brother Samir and asked him for help with my math studies. Samir, who would eventually become a finance official in the Egyptian government, agreed to tutor me in math—if I would go with him to an evangelistic meeting.
I was desperate for his help, so I agreed to go—but I planned to sit and mock everything the evangelist said. During the service, however, I found myself unable to mock his message. The evangelist preached from Hosea and talked about how God is patient with wayward children—but one day, God’s patience will run out. The Day of Judgment is coming, and the door of God’s patience will shut forever.
I felt God calling me to repent, because I might never have another opportunity. So, on the evening of March 4, 1964, at the age of sixteen, I rose up and was the first to respond to the evangelist’s invitation. I gave my life to Jesus Christ, and my life was changed forever. I’m so glad I made that decision when I did.
The same night I made that decision, my mother went into the hospital. I wrote her a letter, telling her about the decision I had made to serve the Lord. She kept that letter under her pillow, and whenever anyone visited her in the hospital, she proudly showed them the letter. “Now,” she said, “I can die in peace.”
Four months after I committed my life to Christ, my mother passed away. I’m so glad she died knowing her prayers for me had been answered.
Ever since I made that commitment, there has been a difference in the way I look at sin. Before my conversion, I enjoyed sin. I didn’t want to suffer the consequences of sin, but I liked continuing in sin. After my conversion, I hated sin. The presence of God in my life made sin a miserable experience. I still sinned, but not as frequently, and I could no longer enjoy it. Sin left me feeling guilty and ashamed. When I sinned, I felt I was betraying Christ and letting Him down—because I was.
Why did my conversion experience create such a different attitude toward sin? It’s because God has placed enmity between the woman and the serpent, between Eve’s offspring (Jesus) and Satan’s offspring (unregenerate sinners). There is a dividing wall of enmity between me (a child of Jesus) and Satan. Because I love Jesus, I hate sin. I can testify personally that the gospel has the power to alter the way we feel about sin.
Because of the wall of enmity that exists between Christians and Satan, we should not be surprised when Christians are hated and attacked by the offspring of Satan. We should not be shocked when we are mocked and maligned and marginalized. We should not think it strange when they not only verbally attack us but also seek to do us harm, destroy our reputations, destroy us professionally and financially, and even—like the Islamist barbarians—try to kill us.
There are two distinct humanities—the spiritual descendants of the serpent and the spiritual descendants of the woman. The spiritual descendants of the serpent are all those who obey the will of Satan, such as the barbarian terrorists and those who oppose or deny the Christian gospel. Whether they realize they are obeying Satan or not, whether they believe in the existence of Satan or not, they are doing Satan’s bidding. Everyone who does the will of Satan is a spiritual descendant of the serpent.
THE CONTRAST OF CAIN AND ABEL
The enmity between these two humanities carries forward into Genesis 4 and 5. There we see clear evidence that Adam and Eve received the gospel that God gave in Genesis 3:15. They believed God’s promise that He would send a Savior, the offspring of the woman. What is the evidence?
Genesis 4:1 tells us, “Adam made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, ‘With the help of the LORD I have brought forth a man.’” The name of Eve’s firstborn, Cain, literally means “possession.”1 In other words, when Eve gave birth and named her son Cain, she was saying, in effect, “I have brought forth a man. I now possess the man of the Lord’s promise. God prophesied that I would bring forth an offspring who would crush the head of the serpent—and here he is!”
In this hope Eve would be disappointed, because Cain would later slay his brother Abel. Cain was not the offspring God had promised. The coming of the promised Messiah would not occur for thousands of years, long after Eve’s physical death.
In fact, the story of Cain and his brother Abel serves as an object lesson in the contrast between these two humanities, the people of the City of Man and the people of the City of God. The story of Cain and Abel illustrates the enmity between these two humanities. Cain followed the will of Satan. Abel followed the will of God. Cain offered a sacrifice to God in a sinful and self-willed spirit—and God rejected his offering.
God had shown Adam and Eve the kind of sacrifice that was acceptable. God had killed a lamb and covered their nakedness with the lamb’s skin. He taught them that without the shedding of blood, there could be no forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22). He was showing them how He would solve the sin problem by shedding the blood of the innocent Lamb of God.
Cain’s attitude was: “I know what God said, and I know what God wants—but I want to come to God my way. I’m going to bring God some grain. Instead of following the precepts God gave my parents, I will make up my own religion and offer a sacrifice in my own way.” Thus the disobedience began.
A GOD WHO REASONS WITH US
God did not turn His back on Cain. Instead, He reasoned with Cain. He wanted Cain to repent of his sin and to return to the City of God. But Cain, in his anger and rebellion, killed his brother Abel, whose sacrifice was acceptable to God.
Even after Cain murdered his brother, God tried to reason with Cain and would have received him if he had returned to Him in true repentance. Cain chose his own fate. He chose to reject God and to reject the atonement God offered.
Here is a facet of God’s character we easily miss: Our God reasons with us. He continually tries to reason with non-believers, with those who belong to the City of Man. “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool,” says God in Isaiah 1:18 (ESV).
This is a lesson for all of us who belong to the City of God while living in the City of Man. I see many Christians wringing their hands and saying, “The world is getting so dark and dangerous. Our society has turned against us. We never dreamed we would see Christians so hated and mocked in our lifetime. The world is out of control. There’s nothing to do but hide in the mountains and wait for the Lord to return.”
No! That is not a godly response. We cannot simply write off humanity and walk away. Like God Himself, we must reason with those who belong to the City of Man. We must show them the light of Christ in the midst of their darkness. We must be salt, creating a thirst for God among them. As Jesus indicated, we are in the world but not of the world (John 17:14). So while we are in the world, let’s keep living for Christ, speaking for Christ, and seeking to win the world for Christ.
We don’t know which ones of the people around us are appointed unto salvation (1 Thessalonians 5:9). If we continue living godly lives and sharing the good news with others, some will join us. They will move from the City of Man to the City of God. We bring a fragrance of Christ into the City of Man, and we stir up a hunger among the dwellers of that city for the good news of Jesus Christ. Some will mock us, but some will believe.
The enmity between the City of God and the City of Man is etched into the story of Cain. After Cain killed his brother and lied to God, he was possessed by fear. He went out and built a city (Genesis 4:17)—the epitome of the City of Man. It was a city filled with fear and restlessness.
Cain, a fugitive from God, built the first City of Man as a place to escape to. He went there to hide from God. There he thought he could safely pretend that God didn’t exist. In his guilt-ridden, anxious state, Cain complained to God, “I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me” (Genesis 4:14).
Like so many people around us, Cain had just enough of a conscience to be tormented by fear, but not enough conscience to turn to God.
AMBASSADORS FOR THE CITY OF GOD
The leaders of our society today are still trying to build the perfect City of Man—a city in which all Christian influence has been eradicated from the public square. We saw such an attempt in Houston, Texas, in 2014. When the city council and the mayor passed the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, or HERO, they said that their objective was to end discrimination against citizens based on a number of factors, including gender identity.
Opponents of the ordinance, especially conservative Christians, pointed out that the ordinance would make it almost impossible to keep sexual predators and voyeurs out of women’s restrooms. In fact, many opponents of the ordinance began calling it the “Sexual Predator Protection Act,” and they petitioned to have the ordinance placed on the ballot for the citizens to decide. The city denied the petition—and city attorneys, at the direction of Houston’s openly lesbian mayor—subpoenaed transcripts of sermons from pastors of Houston churches. It was a blatant violation of the First Amendment and a raw attempt to intimidate Houston pastors.
The subpoenas of the pastors’ sermons quickly became a national news story, and the mayor reluctantly (but unrepentantly) withdrew the subpoenas. The measure was placed before the voters, who soundly defeated it. This incident shows that those who oppose biblical morality are ready to use unconstitutional intimidation tactics to place the church in a straitjacket and to muzzle the Christian conscience.
I can’t peer into the motives of this lesbian mayor or the members of the Houston City Council. But I’m convinced that in many cases where government officials try to silence Christians, these actions spring from the willful, rebellious spirit of the City of Man. Oftentimes, I’m sure, the consciences of these officials must burn within them. They may believe their only motivation is to keep certain minorities from being discriminated against—but I believe some of them, deep down, are like Cain, filled with guilt, anxiety, and restlessness. That is why they build cities and cultures that defy God.
The City of Man is filled with momentary pleasures and noisy entertainment to distract the city dwellers from the pain of a burning conscience. The City of Man has bright lights and loud music so that those who dwell there don’t have to face the emptiness of their lives. The City of Man offers thousands of ways to kill time so that people don’t notice that time is killing them. The City of Man serves alcohol and mind-altering drugs so that people can numb the pain and shame of their guilt.
So if you come to the City of Man and stir up the conscience of those who live there, if you remind them of the meaninglessness of their lives, if you provoke their sense of shame and guilt, if you speak to them of their need for God—then be prepared for their rage. Don’t take their hostility personally; they are taking out on you what they want to say to God.
Keep speaking the truth in love. Stand firm and don’t budge from the truth—but always be gracious and kind. God says your reward in heaven will be great (Matthew 5:12; Luke 6:23).
PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE CITY OF GOD
Genesis 4:16 tells us that Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod. In the Hebrew language, Nod literally means “the land of wandering.”2 Those who try to make a virtue of their sin, thinking they can escape from the presence of God, will end up wandering without any place to call home.
When Israel wandered away from God and refused to repent, ignoring the warnings of one prophet after another, God finally said, “I’m going to take my hands off of Israel—and I will allow the Babylonians to come into the nation and do what they will.” And you know the rest of the story.
God wanted to embrace Israel, bless Israel, and reason with Israel. But God’s people refused to reason with Him. They fled from Him and figuratively wandered in the land of Nod. They refused to turn back to God.
Many in the church today refuse to turn back to God and reason with Him. They are practically daring God to invoke a new Babylonian Exile. When God removes His hand and the next global disaster strikes, there will be a calamity such as nothing the world has ever seen before. The economic devastation will make the Great Depression seem like a minor fiscal blip. The social upheaval, race wars, crime, and terrorism that result may be far beyond the control of even martial law.
When Rome fell, the Western world was plunged into a thousand years of darkness. It is impossible to predict what would happen if our own Western civilization fell. But we may live to find out.
That is why I appeal to you, as a sojourner in the City of Man, that you make sure that your allegiance to the City of God is undivided and uncompromised. Make sure that as you live in the City of Man, you maintain your wholehearted fidelity to the City of God. In these days, when many who profess to be Christians are selling out to and compromising with the culture, we must stand with Joshua, who said, “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15).
God has strategically placed you in your neighborhood, your workplace, your campus, or your military base so that you can be an ambassador for the City of God, even though you now live in the City of Man. God does not call us to run from the City of Man or to hide in a bunker to wait out the Apocalypse. God has called us to stand in the thick of the fray, to plant our feet at the bloody crossroads of history, and to proclaim the good news to a dying world.
God calls us to invite others—before it’s too late!—to come to the City of God. We cannot invite others to follow Jesus if we are living as they do. If our lives reflect anxiety and fear instead of confidence and faith, then what “good news” do we offer the world?
You represent the City of God while here in the City of Man. If you sense Him calling you, if you need to confess your sins, if you need to repent, if you need to turn to Him for forgiveness, you can do so today, right now.
Don’t spend another moment lost in the City of Man. Spend eternity in the presence of the Lord Jesus, in the City of God.