Genesis: Cain and Abel

You don't know who I am. I'm Brandon. I am

the lead pastor of the church. Want to welcome those

that are watching online. I also want to welcome any

that may be listening to this podcast months from now.

I'm glad that you are listening. Continuing our series through

the Book of Genesis, you can go ahead and turn

to Genesis chapter four, and as you're turning there, I

want you to repeat this prayer after me. Everyone say,

Dear Jesus, speak to my heart, change my life in

Jesus' name.

Amen.

I want to show you an image. This is a

very famous image. People when they look at this see

one of two things. They say that sixty percent of

people when they look at this image they see Santa Claus.

How many of you will, be honest, when you look

at this image you see Santa. I don't know who

came up with that statistic then, because they're wrong. How

many of you when you see this image forty percent

of people see a picture of Jesus.

How many of you see Jesus.

This is really weird because only a third of you

have raised your hands so far. Put your hands down.

How many of you see a bunch of weird blobby picked.

Okay, good, all right, let's just be real.

There is a Swiss psychologist, Carl Jume, who says, it

depends on how you look at it. It's this idea

that you and I can see the same image, that

we can hear the same story and come up with

completely different ideas of what it is or what it means.

And it all depends on how you.

Look at it. It depends on your perspective. You are

now joining us Mack dab in the middle of this

series through the Book of Genesis. Last week I preached

on the original sin. If you've missed any of these messages,

I do encourage you to go back listen to them online.

I really truly believe that these messages will help you

grow not only in your knowledge of the Bible, but

will help you in your understanding of how much God

loves you.

Well, last week I.

Got the great privilege of talking about the first time

man sinned, and then I got to tell you that

the result of sin is that death entered into the world.

But I shared with you the good news that from

the moment Adam and Eve ate of that forbidden fruit,

God's story and his plan of redemption began, and it

lasted four thousand years, all the way to the Cross

of Christ. I told you that that first sin was

then followed up by the very first blame shifting, that

Adam blamed his wife Eve blamed the devil. But the

end result was Adam and Eve were removed forever from

the garden of Eden, and that begins us. In chapter four,

Verse one says, 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. Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Today,

just as I was given the privilege of talking about

the first sin, today I get the privilege of talking about.

Cain and Abel.

The irony is I'm the one that puts together the

preaching calendar, and you think I would have assigned Morgan

to do this text. Most people, even if you're not

familiar with church, even if you're new to church, you

know the story of Cain and Abel. Cain was a farmer,

Abel was a shepherd. The time came for them to

worship God, and they both they both brought their tithe,

their offering before God. God looked with favor on Abel's offering,

and God was disapproving of Cain's offering. As a result, Cain,

the older brother became jealous of his brother Abel, and

it leads to the very first murder committed in history.

Most people know this story, most people can retell this story.

But I believe that there are two different ways you

can view the story of Canaan and Abel, and it

really depends on how you look at it. There's two

different ways that you can focus on this story. Many

of you, when you hear the story of Canaan Abel,

you focus on Cain's sin. A lot of times people

will talk about the story of canaan Abel is all

about sin and its consequences, and that is true. Genesis

four seven. This was Cain had presented his offering. God

was disapproving of it, and it made Cain angry, and

you can see it all over his face. And God

appears to Cain and God talks to Cain. Verse seven

tells us about their conversation.

God catch this church. God talks to Cain and he

says this.

He says, Cain, why is your face downcast? If you

do what is right, will you not be accepted. But

if you do not do what is right, sin is

crouching at your door.

It desires to have you.

But you must rule over it, God warns Cain. He says, Cain,

sin is at your door. It desires you. It wants

to consume you.

Cain.

And we're told last week that the serpent is more crafty.

Than any of the other animals that God made.

Were warned that the devil is crafty, that he is

a deceiver, that he's subtle, that he prows around. One

Peter three to eight describes him as a roaring lion

who prows around looking for someone to devour. God says

to Cain, Cain, sin is crouching at your door.

It desires you. Church, things never change.

Did you know that that is the same warning that

God would give you and I today. He would say

branded sin is crouching at your door.

It desires you.

But then God gives us this incredibly loving statement where

he says you must rule over it. Like we're told

right away, we're reminded that God loved us so much

that he created us with a free will, He created

us with a conscience, He created us with the ability

to choose right and wrong. Did you know that you

and I can choose to say no to sin and

to rule over it, that we don't have any excuse

when we give in to our sin. God gave us

the capacity and ability to rule over all the temptations

that the devil would throw in our way. Like we

are not some instinctual being that has no ability to

say no to something that is wrong.

But instead, God gives us a conscience, gives us.

The ability to say yes or no to what is

right and wrong, gives us the ability to this cipher

between good and evil, and best of all, gives us

the ability to rule over the sin that tempts us.

God gave us a choice. We have a conscience. We

can choose whether we want to do right or wrong.

There is a famous quote. I've used this quote hundreds

of times over the years, and it says this. It

describes sin. It says sin will take you further than

you want to go, it'll keep you longer than you

wanted to stay, and it'll cost you more than you

ever wanted to pay. Ironically, I have used that quote forever.

I had heard it years ago from another youth pastor

when I was a youth pastor. But I've used that quote,

and a guy who used to go to our church

who moved out of state, writes a blog and he

talked about hearing this quote from me in the blog

or hearing this quote from me, but he talked about

it in the blog and said he did some research

and he found out where it originated, and that he

was shocked because he found out it didn't originate for me.

Nothing I say originates for me.

It's always someone else's fault. And if you do research,

that quote is attributed to one of two people. It's

attributed to Rave Zacharias or Ted Haggard, regardless who first

said it, the fact that they are the ones that

it is attributed to are totally ironic, because these are

two men that are the epitome of that statement that

sin will take you further than you wanted to go,

keep you longer than you wanted to stay, costs you

more than you ever wanted to pay. Both of these

men built enormous influential ministries that had millions of dollars

funneling to their ministries that influenced tens of thousands of

people around the world, and both of them had deeply

hidden sin that blew up their ministries. Cain, You see,

he wasn't rejected because of his offering. His offering was

rejected because of Cain. Hebrews eleven four tells us that

by faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did.

By faith, he was commended as righteous when God spoke

well of his offering. By faith, Abel still speaks even

though he is dead.

First John three point twelve says.

Don't be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one

and murdered his brother. And why did he murder his brother?

Because his actions were evil and his brothers were righteous?

Could you imagine being Adam and Eve. They eat of

the forbidden fruit, they commit a sin that's not that bad,

and bring death and sin into the world. But I

told you last week that the story of Adam and

Eve their first sin, it's also a story of hope.

It's the story of the redemption that God is going

to bring.

Eve gives. Eve gets a promise.

From God, and her promise is that your offspring will

crush the head of the serpent. In other words, Eve,

your offspring are gonna defeat the enemy.

They're gonna defeat the devil.

Now, the problem was Adam and Eve didn't have the

result of hindsight like you and I do, so we

know that this ultimately culminated in the person of Jesus. Well,

Adam and Eve thought it was gonna happen a little

bit sooner. So Eve has Cain, and when she's holding

little baby Cain in her arms, she's thinking, here he

is the redeemer of mankind. This is the fulfillment of

God's promise to me.

Here he is, baby Cain. It probably didn't.

Take her long to realize she was wrong. I like

to think it probably hit his teen years. But there

was something inside of Cain. In the Book of Jude,

verse eleven, it describes people that follow the way of

evil as they've taken the way of Cain. I can't

imagine what it must have been like to be a

parent who was so mistaken.

About your son.

That you thought your son might be the redeemer, but

instead your son is used as an example of evil.

In the New Testament, God tried to warn him about sin.

God tried to warn Cain about its consequences. Sin is

crouching at your door. It desires you Cain. Proverbs twenty

nine one says, whoever remains stiff necked after many rebukes

will suddenly be destroyed without remedy. The problem was Cain

was so consumed with rage, he was so consumed with

jealousy that he did Verse eight, he says, now Cain

said to his brother Abel, let us go out into

the field.

And while they were.

In the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel, and he

killed him.

Sin will take you further than you wanted to go.

We see that Cain commits the first murder in history.

Soon afterwards, verse nine, the lord said to Cain, where's

your brother Abel?

I don't know.

Cain replied, am I my brother's keeper. The first murder

is followed by Cain lying, this is the first time

in history that it's recorded that a person lies. Sin

will take you further than you wanted to go. Cain

lies to Able to get him into the field. He

lies to himself thinking I'm gonna somehow get away with this,

that no one's gonna find out. And then he even

tries to lie to God, Sin will keep you longer

than you wanted to stay.

Cain murdered not a stranger, but his brother.

He took his sins so lightly that he tried to

lie his way out of it. Well, then, verse eleven,

I'm gonna start a little bit. In verse ten, God says,

what have you done?

Cain?

Listen, Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.

Now you are under a curse and driven from the

ground which has opened its mouth to receiving.

Your brother's blood from your hand.

When you work the ground, it will no longer yield

its crops for you. Remember, Cain was a farmer, and

now God is saying, as a result of your sin,

the ground in which you plow and try to harvest

is cursed.

It will no longer reap a harvest for you.

And he said you will spend the rest of your

life as a restless wanderer on the earth. Cain is

overwhelmed by what he's done. It's a hit him. Sin

will take you further than you wanted to go, It'll

keep you.

Longer than you wanted.

To stay, and it will cost you more than you

ever wanted to pay. So Cain responds to all of

this by saying, but Lord not, oh sorry, dropped her head.

Cain said to the Lord, I'm getting to the point

where I'm gonna have to start wearing glasses up here

because my Bible is a jumble of words, so I

have to focus.

I do. Jesus touched my eyes. Uh.

Cain said, my punishment is more than I can bear.

Today.

You are driving me from the land, and I will

be hidden from your presence, and I will be a

restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will

kill me. Your sin costs you more than you ever

wanted to pay. Here's the worst part of this. Cain

is overwhelmed with shame. He is consumed with remorse, not

because of his sin, but because of his consequence. Cain

is saying, my punishment is too.

Much to bear. I can't handle it. This is too harsh.

When Cain says I'm gonna be a restless wanderer, someone's

gonna kill me. Who would have been there to kill him?

Sounds funny, but Genesis five four actually tells us that

Adam and Eve had lots of sons and daughters. Did

you know that Adam lived to be nine hundred and thirty?

Mind blowne. I mean he had.

Kids, grandkids, great great grandkids. I mean like they populated

the earth. There are some scholars that believe by the

moment this happened, there might have been as many as

one hundred thousand people that were walking the earth.

And Cain is saying, Lord, if I'm a.

Restless wanderer, someone who's related to me is gonna kill me.

They're gonna want retribution for the fact that that I

killed Abel. It's amazing Adam and Eve's sin that not

that bad sin brought sin and death into the world.

Cain gets angry and jealous, He lies, and he murders.

By hating and murdering his brother and refusing to repent,

Cain created an intolerable life for himself. He lost his family,

he is worried someone from his family would kill him,

and the earth turned against him. I mean, here's a

farmer who harvest yet the land is cursed and won't

produce crops, and he has to live his life the

rest of his life as a restless wanderer, constantly.

Looking over his shoulders.

Well, God in his mercy, says I'm going to put

a mark on you, Cain, so that no one who

finds you will kill you. But he lives his whole

life wondering what could possibly happen to me. It's really

easy to look at the story of Cain and Abel

and think it's all about cain sin. It's really easy

to look at this and say this is a warning

about sin and its consequence. But I actually think there's

a much more important way to look at this story

that instead of looking at it through the perspective of

Cain's sin, why don't you and I step back and

look at it through the eyes of God's mercy? You see,

I believe that this is a story of God's mercy

and its limitlessness. What is the first thing God does

with Cain? He asks Cain questions? He says, Cain, why

are you angry? Why are you downcast? God asks Cain.

Cain, where is your brother? Abel? Did you notice that

God also does this with Adam and Eve?

He says when they're wandering in the garden hiding, He says,

where are you? Then he asks them, have you guys

eaten from the fruit in the tree that I forbid

you to eat from?

Now?

I told you the very first week of this series.

The one of God's attributes is that he is omniscient,

that God knows everything, in the past and the present,

in the future.

He knows everything.

There is nothing that is hidden from God. So why

would God ask Adam and Eve where are you? Could

they actually hide from him? Did God actually not know

where Abel was? Why did God ask questions? Because he

wanted to give Cain a chance to confess and repent.

This is a story of God's mercy.

God gave Cain an opportunity to confess and repent. And

by the way, he didn't kill Caine. He actually protected Kane.

Remember this is the Old Testament. They were living in

the levitical law. That meant if you killed someone, your

punishment was death.

But here is God and he doesn't kill Cain.

He puts a mark on Cain so that anyone that

sees this mark on Cain wouldn't murder Kane.

Why did he do that.

God's mercy is when you and I deserve punishment, but

instead of punishing us, he blesses us. God's mercy is

his compassion and his kindness towards you and I. God's

mercy triumphs over judgment. The problem is church that refusing

God's mercy is disastrous because the wages of sin is death.

Shocking that with all this mercy, Kane didn't repent. Steady

was just overwhelmed by his punishment. But God's mercy, the

way to describe it is God's mercy is God's pace

patience in action, that he is patient with those who

should be punished. And the crazy thing is when you

and I do something wrong and we should reap the

consequences of our actions, we don't deserve mercy.

It's not owed to us.

Mercy is something that God extends in kindness and grace.

To those who flat out don't deserve it. Tewod Peter

three to nine.

This is the verse that I'm challenging you to memorize

as a What's next says the Lord is not slow

in keeping his promise as some understand slowness. Instead, he

is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but

everyone to come to repair. I don't know about you,

but I am thankful that God is patient with me

because I am.

A screw up.

And sometimes I need time to get to the point

where I'm willing to confess and repent. You see, God

is patient in mercy. He is holding off judgment because

he knows sin takes you further than you want to go.

He knows it keeps you longer than you wanted to stay,

and he knows it costs you more than you ever

wanted to pay. He knows the wages of sin is death.

And the crazy thing about God's mercy, it's not only

patience in action, but God's mercy is absolutely beyond mine

and your understanding. Like, we don't get it because as

human beings, the world should be just. We feel this

way unless it's our buddy who does something wrong. Then

we feel like the world should just forgive our buddy,

but everybody else justice. That's the way we roll. That's

why mercy is incomprehensible. What we're saying punishment justice. God

is saying, let's wait a moment, Let's give that person

a chance to make it right. I keep coming back

to the context of when the Book of Genesis was written.

By Now you should know this.

The Genesis was written by Moses, inspired by the Holy Spirit,

during the time after the Exodus. The Exodus was where

the Israelites who'd been slaves in Egypt for four hundred years,

God miraculously delivers them due to Moses's sin, they wandered

in the wilderness for forty years. During that Moses encounters

God on Mount Sinai, gets the Ten Commandments, and he

writes the Torah, his first five books of the Old Testament.

So Genesis was shared to a group of Hebrews who

were wandering in the wilderness when they heard the story

of Cain and Abel. They did not see it from

the perspective of Cain's sin. They would have viewed it

from the eyes of God's mercy. Because as they would

wander through the wilderness, wherever they would stop for a while,

they would build a tabernacle, which is a tent, and

it's where they would go to meet God.

And the tabernacle had two different rooms. The first room was.

A holy place, and as you walked into the holy place,

there was a table, and on that table.

There was a.

Lamp stand and some consecrated bread, in fact, twelve loaves

of consecrated bread, to represent the twelve tribes of.

Israel, which we'll get to you in a while. And

that is where the.

Priest would go right before the Sabbath, and he would

take that bread and symbolizing very similar to communion today.

But Jesus hadn't come yet, but he would take that

bread and he break that bread as a symbol of

God's mercy covering all the people. But at the end

of the Holy Place there was a curtain, a veil

that only one man was able to enter.

Into, and he could only do.

It one day year, and that was on Yam Kippur,

the day of Atonement.

And on the other side of that curtain.

He would open the curtain on that one day and

the priest, high priest dressed in white, would enter in

and there would be a golden altar, and in the

front would be the Ark of the Covenant. And inside

of the Ark of the Covenant was a golden chalice

of Mana. If you studied Exodus, you know that God

fed them with mana. There's a golden chalice of Mana,

aaron moses brothers staff, and the ten commandments that Moses

had received on Mount Sinai. They were in the Ark

of the Covenant that one day year when the high

priest would enter.

Through that into the Holy of Holies.

Sitting on top of the Ark of the Covenant, what

closed it is what is called.

The Mercy Seat. The mercy seat.

Carved on it was two golden angels that were looking

at a cloud. And to the Hebrews, the Holy of

Holies represented God's presence, and you probably read as they

wandered in the wilderness.

Sometimes God's presence.

Was in the fire, sometimes it was in a cloud,

and they would have this image of God's fire and

his cloud in that Holy of Holies and sitting on

that cloud.

You get this metaphor. It says, if God.

Is sitting on that cloud because it is his throne.

When you think of medieval.

Movies or TV shows that you've seen, and you see

kings sitting on their throne and the people would come

before them, why would the people come before them so

that the king could hear of the situation and the

king could dispense judgment. So that is the image of

a king sitting on his throne and the high priest

is coming with.

All of the sins of all of the people. But

he has blood from an innocent, spotless lamb.

That he sprinkles on the mercy seat to a tone

for the sins of the people.

So he's wearing a white robe.

You can imagine that that blood would be on his hands,

it would be on his robe. Then he would walk

out of the Holy of Holies, through the Holy Place,

out to all the people that had gathered around the tabernacle,

and he would raise his hands symbolizing your sin has

been a tone God's mercy and grace has been given

to you. God's mercy never runs out. Paul said this

in Ephesians two four. He said, but because of God's

great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy,

made us alive with Christ even when we were dead

in our transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved.

I want to ask everyone to buy your heads, close

your eyes. In fact, I want everybody to stand up.

Stand up, worship team. You can come. I want you

to close your eyes. We're gonna do two things.

If you're here.

And you want to meet you know, Brandon Man, I'm

a and I need God's mercy.

I need God's mercy in my life.

I I need the opportunity to confess and repent.

I want to be right before God.

I need God's mercy in my life because I am

a sinful person. If that's you, no one looking around,

I want you to raise your hand.

Let's raise it up.

Come on, you can put it down. Here's what I'm

gonna do. I am going to pray for you. When

I say amen, I want to give you the opportunity.

We have a little bit of time. I want to

give you an opportunity to leave your seat, to come

forward as our worship team begins to lead us in

worship one last song, and our staff is going to

kind of filter through all of you, and they're going

to pray for you.

And I want you to view it this way. View

it as you coming to God, coming forward.

To God asking for his mercy, and the priests are

going around laying hands on you, saying your sin is

atone for You leave this place right with God.

You leave this place restored in the eyes of God.

I've told you one hundred times in the last year

that my favorite verse is the verse in Jeremiah that

says if you repent, he restores you, which means this God,

I made some terrible decisions, man, I was at that

point choosing right wrong, good, evil, and I made the

cane decision. But I'm asking Lord that you would forgive me,

and God says I forgive you.

You and me, we're good. So if you're here, you

just need to know I'm good.

We want to pray for you, and I'm going to

invite you when the worship team begins to sing to

come forward.

Well, let me pray.

Lord.

We're just real people who live real lives, and we

make mistakes.

If we are thankful that Jesus you came and you

died on the cross to conquer death, hell and the

grave and to give us.

The forgiveness of sin.

And Lord, we make mistakes takes every single day. Thank

you for giving us the opportunity to come to you,

confess of our sins and repent. And most of all,

thank you for your mercy and grace that says you

are forgiven.

You are right with God. And now today Lord, I

want to pray that you would set people free. In

Jesus' name, I pray Amen,