INTRODUCTION: As we see ballistic missiles falling on the great cities of the Middle East, and our armed forces standing guard in the cities of these great nations, it is easy to think that we are on the brink of Armageddon. We might be, but what the text teaches us today is that things haven’t suddenly become violent or dangerous; it has always been this way. You see, as we learned last week, the first man, ever born of natural means (Cain) ruthlessly murdered the fourth man ever born by natural means (Abel). I’ve heard it put this way: Consider the fact that, at one time, a third of the people on the planet were murderers. A third of the people in prison aren't murderers. San Quentin, Folsom Prison, and Alcatraz were all safer than chapter 4 of Genesis. You thought Compton and Baghdad were tough? Try downtown Eden after the sun goes down. There's murder and violence at person three. Cain killed 25% of the world's population. That's more than Stalin, Hitler, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, King Herod, Genghis Khan, Typhoid, Cancer, and AIDS, all combined. Cain killed a third of the people he knew. He knew three people. He killed one of them. If you knew Cain, you had a 66 and two-thirds percent chance of survival. Man’s earliest history devolves quickly from the Fall to the Flood. From the original sin of Adam till the great flood, we will see a perpetual devolution of the moral framework of humanity. Things will go from bad to worse. This is significant for us because Jesus Christ has warned that, 37 …as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. (Matthew 24:37) In other words, if you want to know what life will be like in the generation that experiences the second coming of Christ, look closely at the events leading up to the great flood. I must warn you that, in many ways, the passage before us looks very familiar.