Bible Study Genesis Part 48-Abel Versus Cain Part 1

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All right, back in the book of Genesis, this is probably week 30 of us being in Genesis.

We're in the fourth chapter.

We're moving along pretty good.

The fifth chapter is not going to take us as long.

The sixth chapter will take us a while, etc.

So this will be the back and forth through this book, but we cannot rush through this.

So much of what we're learning is foundational, not only for the Christian faith, but everything that we know about God is starting right here.

And it's important for us to make sure we're going through it with enough detail that it will help us to move into all of the other books that we will be studying throughout God's book.

This is a lot of work, I realize it, but it is really completely worth it.

Those of you that have stayed with us through this, I believe that you'll agree with me that now we're really getting to know the importance of studying God's word.

We're getting to know what he's trying to tell us in his word, which is everything to do with Christ.

So last time we were together, we just started talking about the sacrifices brought by Cain and his brother Abel.

Let's read it again real quick just to remind ourselves of the context.

Genesis 4, starting at verse 3.

And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.

Verse 4.

And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.

And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.

And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

Now, many feel that understanding why God accepted one man's gesture and not the other is helpful in understanding how to establish a good relationship with God, and rightfully so.

You see, if we're paying close enough attention, we can see that God is speaking of his regard not only for the offering, but for the one making the offering.

And we're going to be spending a little bit of time here so that we can get to know what God is telling us.

Verse 4 again: the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.

There is something about the man, and there is something about the offering that God sees and either approves or disapproves.

This passage could be, as we said, very helpful to those who want to please the Lord.

Now, I'll admit that is a rare crowd.

Not many out there are inclined to care much about such things.

Most would much prefer that God please them and not the other way around.

But then again, the vast majority, the vast majority simply don't give God a second thought.

Maybe when they're desperate, you know, granny is sick or they lost their job or they got a less than stellar report from the doctor.

Listen to me.

That's not when you want to turn to the Lord.

That's not when you want it to be the first time you talk to him, because you are risking God not listening.

Remember, he doesn't hear the prayers of the wicked, but he hears the prayers of the righteous.

Do not wait until you need him before you start making a relationship with him.

Nonetheless, for those of us who do care about eternal things, this part of Genesis chapter four may hold some valuable insights.

So let's take a closer look.

Let me read it again.

Genesis 4, 3.

And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.

And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of the flock and of the fat thereof.

And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.

And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

Now, the first thing we notice, and the first thing that well bothers us is the fact that God did not approve of Cain's sacrifice, though we alluded to it last time.

Let me state it again.

Given the information we have, this can make us feel like God's being, well, unfair.

I mean, if there was no standard, no expectation, no rule, then why would God be upset with Cain and at the same time have respect, as the King James puts it, for Abel's offering?

God would have nothing to be upset with Cain for if he didn't beforehand set some parameters.

You know, I'm trying to drill this into your head to get you to realize what's really going on here.

You know where I'm going with this.

And secondly, God says the following to an angry Cain, verse 6, why art thou wroth?

And why is thy countenance fallen?

Listen to this, verse 7.

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted.

Do what well?

Since the sacrifice is the current context, we must assume God is still talking about sacrifices, right?

Is it likely that God was saying, if you offer the sacrifice well, you shall be accepted?

Otherwise, the entire statement is redundant.

It doesn't help anyone if we don't use that as the context.

It's just hanging out there in the air.

And believe me, some would rather that be the case.

Some would rather assume the redundancy so they can interject their own theory.

And listen, that's very dangerous.

It is a slippery slope to try and fill in what you might perceive as a gap.

Well, what do we do when it seems like there is a gap?

How do we approach it when we feel like there's some missing information?

Well, I say always start with what is known and then move from there.

Now, all we have to go on here is that a sacrifice was accepted and a sacrifice was rejected.

The rejection leads to this discussion with Cain, and so we must, before assuming anything else, we must assume that the discussion is related to the rejection of the offering.

Does that make sense?

God is saying, Cain, you fouled up the instructions, and that's why I am displeased with you.

Can we not get that impression, impression confidently from this back and forth?

Doesn't it seem like God is telling Cain, you've got no one to blame but yourself.

You knew what would be acceptable.

I mean, to me, this is obvious.

From this, we can see that God had, this is the important point.

God from the moment of sin required a sacrifice.

And from what this and the rest of the Bible is telling us, the bringing of a sacrifice was meant to serve a very important purpose.

And you say, well, what does that have to do with me today?

All I can tell you is God doesn't change.

We must bring a sacrifice as well.

Now, please do not find the nearest goat and slaughter it.

Wait until we cover it.

Now, I'm telling you that that important purpose that is with those sacrifices is it must communicate to sinning men, the sacrifices must communicate to sinning man the good news of salvation.

But there's more.

Let's go back to verse three for a second.

And in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.

Now the King James language here hides a very important piece of information.

It's sort of hinted at, but it's not quite clear enough, at least in my opinion.

But then again, this isn't a deficiency limited to the King James only.

Other versions aren't much better.

Even my beloved Amplified falls short here.

It says the Amplified says the very similar sounding, the course of time, etc.

But the original gives us quite a different meaning.

It's better to translate this.

Now listen to this, because this is important.

It is better translated this way.

At the end of days, Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.

Now, why is that important?

What does that mean?

Well, when the end of something is pointed out, that means there must have been a defined length, at least the a defined terminus.

Now, I will admit, we don't know if there was a beginning, but the language, the original language, makes clear that there is a known end.

When you are told at the end of days, that designates something.

If I told you to park at the end of my driveway, you wouldn't wonder what that meant because my driveway is only so long.

There is a defined end to my driveway.

The word end is not obscure.

Therefore, since the end of days is mentioned here, then we must assume, listen to me, that the days had a defined length, or as I said, a defined or definite stopping point.

Even if we're not told what that stopping point was, nor why there was a stopping point in the beginning.

After the prescribed number of days, the sacrifice was brought forth.

That is what Genesis is telling you.

That's just more evidence that there was, listen to me, a defined process.

There was a certain process that related to offerings.

These first few verses make that apparent.

Along with a prescribed length, we can also gather that there must have been a specified type of sacrifice.

There was a when and a what.

And we know that because God was pleased with one and displeased with another.

God was not being arbitrary because he's not arbitrary.

God is not capricious.

God is satisfied with one type of offering and not satisfied with another type of offering.

And they both brought the offering at the end of a specified amount of time.

That's what we're told.

I'm not making that up.

It says it right there.

Doesn't this sound intentional?

Of course it does.

And this is my reason for bringing all this up.

Listen to me.

From the moment it became necessary, God started to talk to man about redemption and what it was going to take, what redemption was going to take.

Listen to me.

God said from the beginning, I will never forget your sins unless this happens, unless redemption happens.

I will not forget it.

There won't be enough time between the time you sin as a people and whenever time that I will forget.

It just won't pass from my memory.

Something must happen.

And God's been saying that from the beginning.

The sacrifices that those two boys brought, they were a God-defined set of steps whose purpose, listen to me, was to tell the story of Jesus.

That is why we must be certain that this was defined.

God is not placing random facts into a story to entertain you.

He has a purpose.

There is a reason this is here.

It had to be God defined because only God could tell the story properly.

And he chose to tell us this story throughout the book in a variety of ways that included a system of sacrifices.

But why?

Why sacrifices?

I know I keep giving you spoiler alerts, and then I ask you the question later.

Why sacrifices?

Why did God decide to use a defined system of offerings to communicate such a vital story to us?

Well, isn't it true that sacrifices are always brought to appease a deity?

This doesn't, this isn't limited to the Judeo-Christian religion.

That's an unchallengeable reality.

All religions that require offerings do so as a means to make their God happy, to placate their God.

Now the cynic would say, to bribe a God.

Nonetheless, bringing a sacrifice is necessary in almost all religions.

It's common in the various religions of mankind.

And at the core of these rituals is the fact that offerings must have value.

Offerings must cost something to the offer.

We're going to be hounding on this for the next few weeks.

The one bringing the sacrifice, listen to me.

The one who is bringing the sacrifice is always in an inferior position to the one to whom the sacrifice is brought.

In other words, you must be humbled.

It's a part of the process.

You must be humbled if your sacrifice is going to achieve its purpose.

The one presenting the offering is the debtor to the one receiving it.

And therefore, the offerer's conduct must reflect that dynamic.

That's religion 101.

I'll say it again.

The person bringing the sacrifice is in a subordinate role, is in a hat-in-hand role.

The one that is bringing the sacrifice is asking, pleading, requesting something.

The one that's receiving the offering is the one who will decide what he will do with the sacrifice.

He gets to decide, not the one bringing the sacrifice.

The one bringing the sacrifice, I don't care what religion you're talking about, none of the ones bringing the sacrifices in any religion have any power whatsoever in this transaction.

No difference here in our religion, no difference in Christianity.

The offering of sacrifices, as spelled out in scripture, listen closely, serve as a drama to demonstrate the nature of the relationship between God and man.

God was offended and must be placated, and that will never go away.

There are wages to sin.

That is the most obvious of all biblical truths.

And those wages came up due before the juice of that fruit hit the ground.

When Adam sinned, mankind and indeed the whole of creation was dislodged from its original position and thereby placed in desperate need of a rescue.

Now, before going any further, I must tell you, listen to me very closely.

Neither what Abel brought as an offering nor what Cain brought as an offering was adequate in themselves to make up for what happened in the previous chapter.

That is confusing, and I know it.

But you have to see the real purpose behind why God set those steps up, why God required a sacrifice.

It was not so that they could, through those sacrifices, find a way out of their sin problem.

Those sacrifices are set in that specific way to tell the story.

So it doesn't matter.

It's not going to affect their sin status in reality.

If I traveled back in time and tried to tell Abel that he'd punch me in the eye.

But that's really the way it is.

You are upon Abel in God's game so that he can save the entire race of mankind.

And believe me, Abel was righteous.

If that was explained to him, he would say, let's have at it.

Those sacrifices brought by those men did nothing for their sin status.

We learned that lesson when Adam and Eve sewed fig leaves together to make aprons in an attempt to cover their nakedness.

God didn't even acknowledge those efforts.

And we discovered through that, listen to me, that mankind's actions, mankind's actions are never so To make up for our sins.

So if you're looking for ways to please God and you'll say, oh, look, Abel's sacrifices got respect from God, you misunderstand what he's saying when he said he respects it.

He doesn't respect it as being adequate.

He respected it as a part of the story.

He respected it as being obedient to the story that God was trying to tell.

The little embarrassing to Adam's story of apron making and its subsequent rejection was placed in this book as a demonstration.

A law of the first mentioned demonstration that mankind alone can never compensate for what he's done.

God must be the one doing the covering.

Exact same situation here in chapter four.

These offerings were not going to do a bit of good.

Yes, an offering is required to appease an offended God, but these are not going to do it.

In fact, nothing we could ever do, no effort on man's part will be able to make up that deficit.

This story is here to tell you that there is a deficit.

And this story is here to tell you the means by which that deficit will be made up.

And it is going to become clear to you that it doesn't matter.

It's not you who's bringing up the proper sacrifice.

It's got to be someone else.

Because I know you're wondering why all this offering drama, why the whole respect unto one and not the other business?

Again, I answered the, I answered the question before I asked it.

Because God has a story to tell.

And he's using this first family to accomplish that in every family from here on out.

That appears in the Bible, God is telling the same story.

And this is how he's going to do it.

And by the way, this will explain clearly why God had respect unto the offering brought by Abel and not the for the offering brought by Cain.

To demonstrate that's going to take me some time.

And I know I'm bouncing around, but because there's so much here, I don't want you to get off track wondering, like, why, you know, why, why didn't God like Cain's, why didn't God like Cain's offering?

Why did he like Abel's?

Because Abel's offering, you're going to see in the next couple of weeks, Abel's offering did what God wanted it to.

I have a lot of background to cover before we get to that.

It's going to seem tedious and for some a little extraneous, but this is very, very important.

And in verse 3, Genesis 4, 3, and in the process of time it came to pass.

By the way, this is why I'm taking so much time trying to convince you that all of this offering business was pre-arranged by God.

It's all been set up to help him tell the story of his son.

The sacrifices were prescribed in a very particular way to teach us about Jesus and Cain's failures, threatened all of that.

When Cain did not follow the program, it threatened God's story.

But God is even, isn't this what I love about him?

He's even going to use those failures in his storytelling.

And in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.

And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.

And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering.

This story is here because God has some good news to share.

This is the gospel.

Now notice there are two offerings.

One offering was of the fruit of the ground.

Cain brought that one.

Makes sense since he's described in verse 2 as a tiller of the ground.

He's a farmer, and so he's going to bring produce.

Not so unusual for a guy who works the earth to want to present the result of his labors, right?

And then the second offering, this one brought by Abel, was some sort of domesticated animal, most likely a sheep, because we are told Abel was a shepherd.

One offering pleased God and one didn't.

Cain's offering of the produce of the ground was not accepted by God.

Listen, while the offering of the animal was.

And by the way, I want to point out that this wasn't any old manky sheep, as the Brits like to say.

Manky, like say manky sheep.

This wasn't just some old smelly, diseased, good for nothing sheep.

This was a firstling.

And this is an essential component of the meaning of this passage, even to us all the way out here in the modern day.

I sincerely pray that God will help me to teach this.

Few things are more important to our relationship than understanding this very point.

These two, listen to me, these two verses, believe it or not, are prophetic.

Now, before I explain what I mean by that, most of you are already there, but give me a minute.

Now, the reason why I'm bringing that up now without an immediate explanation as to what it's prophesying is because I want to share with you an important aspect of prophecy in Scripture.

We've already said this very same thing when we were covering chapter three, but I'm going to repeat myself here.

You never know when people stop by for the first time.

In the Bible, prophecies are quite a bit different than what most of us expect.

Biblical prophecy is not just someone going into a trance and predicting the future.

No one's using a crystal ball to see what's going to happen down the road.

That may be what the heathen were used to, but not the nation of Israel.

The Greeks and the Romans and many other pagan religions had their oracles or their shaman or some other forms of divination.

Most of the time, all that was for was to advise about future events.

Am I going to have a male heir?

Will we win the battle tomorrow?

Is there a famine coming?

But the prophets of Israel didn't work that way.

Yes, they nearly always told about future events, but it almost seems like it was never obvious.

God's prophets, the majority of the time, would prophesy by speaking into a local situation.

Nearly every time we see a prophet speaking for God, there's actually two sides to the story.

There was the immediate event that the prophet was addressing, and then the fulfillment of something off in the future.

But, and this is equally important, listen to me.

Whatever far-off event that was being described always related to God and his plans and never served any other purpose.

God was telling you about himself.

In the ancient pagan religion, the predicted events most often related to a human, to an individual, and what awaited them in the future: the fate of a king, the success or failure of a great warrior, even how the people would fare through some crisis.

Heathen prophecies related almost entirely to earthly matters.

God, on the other hand, only ever spoke of himself.

True, people were involved in the prophecy, but the ultimate meaning of the prophecy was strictly concerning God.

But what does that have to do with Cain and Abel?

God's view of the offerings of these two men was a glimpse into the future, but it also related directly to what was happening right then and there.

Let's deal with both very briefly.

Let's start with what I called the local situation.

Remember, one brother brought what the King James referred to as the fruit of the ground.

And one brother brought the firstlings of his flock.

By the way, Abel's offering was identified as coming from his flock.

This offering cost Abel something.

That's exactly how it's characterized in the verse.

It was from his flock that the offering came.

Abel's offering is from his flock.

But Cain's offering, we are told, is from the ground.

It's not specified as coming from his crops.

The sheep came from Abel's flock.

We're told that very clearly.

But that same characteristic is missing from Cain's offering.

Was this the fruit of his ground, of his fields, his plantings, or is it implied here that these are just some non-specific crops from anywhere?

Ah, John, that sounds like a stretch.

I think you're stretching.

All right, no problem.

We don't need it.

But you should find that intriguing.

We are told of Abel's flock, but we know nothing of Cain's field.

And listen, God is making his choice for a reason.

It strikes me that Abel's offering was rather special.

It came from his flock.

And because of that, it had to have cost him something.

Now I want to continue this line of thinking.

This is extremely important for you to understand, but I don't think it's a good idea for us to go any further tonight and risk fading foci during due to fatigue.

How about we pick it up right there next time?

See you then.

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