Cain & Abel

Music.

Good morning. Happy Sunday. We're going to continue in our series.

It's part four from the book of Genesis on how it started, and it's the story of Cain and Abel.

If you've grown up in the church, maybe you have heard this story in the past.

Certainly, if you were a kiddo who grew up like in Sunday school and things,

maybe this story is very familiar to you.

It's a great reminder to us of like the value of children's ministry that we

do here on Sunday mornings and on Wednesday nights.

So yes, let's keep doing that to hear about these kinds of stories.

I'm going to read the story to you in just a few minutes.

But I've been reminded that these last few weeks, as we've begun this new series

here in Genesis, that reading the Bible and why I stopped playing golf have something in common.

That's a little awkward, but it's true. It really is. I stopped playing golf

a long time ago for several reasons. One, time.

It takes a lot of time to play. And if you play the way I play, a lot longer.

Like if the goal was this zigzag pattern down the fairway, then I am your guy.

Like I would be a championship golfer if that was the requirement.

It's not, and so I've learned, I realized that.

Cost, that's another reason. No other way to say it. I think golf is expensive.

The clubs, then you gotta pay the green fees, and then let's not consider my game.

It would take an enormous amount of money to fix my game.

Like it just small loan like level so we just stopped playing golf but really I think the top reason is.

And I've alluded to it I think is the lack of talent like it's just not there

I could dress the part I could look good on a golf course but then you got to

actually like approach the ball I'm a lefty and so here I go right and here

I am with no talent in one swing whoo.

In the weeds, or worse. And then when you get in the weeds, it's hard to get out of the weeds.

And so it is just stroke after stroke and shot after shot. It's hard enough

to get up to the green and then finally you gotta put it in that little tiny little hole.

No, so I'm done with golf. But in the same way, reading the Bible,

especially with Genesis in mind, it's easy to get into what I call the weeds of speculation.

Like there is limited material limited details that we have.

And it's easy then to spend an enormous amount of time in the speculation weeds.

We've already seen it in this series.

Like God said, I made the heavens and the earth and everything's in them.

We should believe that because that's what God said.

But oh, have you noticed how we speculate about that?

Like five theories, or this is how it happened.

Time and time again. Last week, it was a standing talking snake.

And we speculate, how do these things happen? We speculate about what kind of

fruit the forbidden fruit was that Adam and Eve ate.

If you look at all the pictures, it was an apple. And then people speculate,

hey, have you seen that Mac computer and that Apple design on the thing?

And they use an iPhone and I don't know. So we get all these speculation things.

It is real and it's a challenge.

And have you noticed how everyone speculates differently? So that becomes the

challenge. Chapter four, and here, the story of Cain and Abel,

it's going to have its own speculations to consider. But here's the plan.

I want us to, and I think we can, we can honor God's word by acknowledging that

there is room for speculation, but we're going to stick with what we know is

clearly seen that we can know.

That's the plan for us, okay? So here's what we know already.

A lot has passed, like in the last two pages. We went from everything being

perfect, living perfect, but then on page three, chapter three of Genesis to

nearly now the last page in the Bible, all these pages we are left in the Bible.

We are left with a book that includes living with sin as part of the equation.

And chapter four is going to show us what the world has become because of what

has happened in chapter three.

And things, it's an easy pattern I think to follow. things have gone from good to bad to worse.

And what is so tragically sad about all of this is this is not how things were meant to be.

But here's really good news.

The grace of God is in the middle of all of this mess, and that is good news.

So I want to read, please follow along in your Bible or on the screens behind

me, Genesis chapter 4, the first 16 verses.

Genesis 4 · chapter mention

Adam was intimate with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain.

She said, I have had a male child with the Lord's help.

Then she also gave birth to his brother Abel.

Now Abel was a shepherd of the flocks, but Cain worked the ground.

In the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the Lord.

And Abel also presented an offering, some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.

The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain and his offering.

Cain was furious, and he looked despondent.

Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you furious, and why do you look despondent?

If you do what is right, won't you be accepted?

But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door.

Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

Cain said to his brother, let's go out to the field.

And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, where is your brother Abel?

I don't know, he replied. Am I my brother's guardian?

Then he said, what have you done? Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.

So now you are cursed, alienated from the ground that opened its mouth to receive

your brother's blood that you have shed.

If you work the ground, it will never again give you its yield.

You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.

But Cain answered the Lord, My punishment is too great to bear.

Since you are banishing me today from the soil, and I must hide myself from

your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, whoever finds me will kill me.

Then the Lord replied to him, In that case, whoever kills Cain will suffer vengeance

seven times over, and he placed a mark on Cain so that whoever found him would not kill him.

Then Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

This is the word of God, and parts of it is starting to sound like the evening news. Not good.

As we look at these verses more closely.

It is good to remember, to acknowledge that this story is going to teach us

some things about Cain and Abel.

But more importantly than that, this story is going to teach us some things about God.

That is a very important thing to always remember.

Never leave God out of the story. Always be looking for God.

And so that is our goal, that as we go through these verses,

we are going to learn some things about Cain and Abel.

Really want to learn what they're saying about God. So here we go.

Verse one, Adam was intimate with Eve, his wife. Other translations can read this.

Adam knew his wife, Eve, and she conceived a baby.

And this is significant because if you remember back in Genesis chapter one,

God commanded Adam and Eve to have babies.

And to produce these babies, he was using, he told them to use a mathematical

principle called multiplication.

Like that's lots and lots of babies. Fill the earth with people.

And here in verse one, though sin has changed everything and has messed everything

up, Adam and Eve are faithfully obeying his command.

So not everything outside of the garden is bad. This is a good thing.

Well, assuming here everyone understands the birds and the bees,

and if you don't, then you go home today and you ask your parents,

hey, what was Pastor Doug saying about the birds and the bees?

And then parents, y'all take it from there. That is your job to do that. Do that, okay?

Adam being intimate with his wife is a very polite way of saying that this married

couple had sex and a baby was born,

which means for the very first time, we have a pregnant mom and we have a very first ever baby born.

Woo, let the speculations begin.

Was this the start of maternity clothes? Like, you know, how'd that happen?

Did Eve have the weird cravings that expecting mothers have today that I hear about?

Like, wow, some weird stuff that goes on. I don't know about all of these things.

And then we can only speculate.

Was Adam the first typical first father guy?

Like, I know there are no hospital halls to walk through, but was he pacing

the path outside the garden? Oh no, I don't know what's gonna happen.

So many things to speculate. But what are we gonna do? We're going to stick with what we know.

Adam and Eve had a baby and it was a boy and his name was Cain.

So yes, some of you are thinking it right now.

Adam and Eve are raising Cain. True.

And at his arrival, Eve said, I have had a male child with the Lord's help.

Other translations say, I have acquired a male child with the Lord's help.

And that's interesting to note because Cain's name means to acquire or to get.

Perhaps she is having running through her head a promise that God made back

in Genesis 3 after the fall, when God promised that her offspring,

it would be her offspring that would be crushing the head of the serpent.

And I can see, maybe you can picture this.

Here is Eve. She is cradling baby Cain, looking into his eyes and saying,

God is so good, he has brought you here to be a deliverer to us.

All the while, now that we've read this story, she is not holding a deliverer.

She's holding a murderer. Like that thought would have never crossed her mind,

I know, but as we look at it from this side, wow.

Verse two, Abel was born after Cain.

Again, some speculate that these brothers, Cain and Abel, were twins,

but we only know for sure that Cain was born first.

Like he gets the big brother t-shirt, that's his, right? We know that.

And then maybe minutes, maybe months later, Abel was born.

It is interesting that Eve had something to say at Cain's birth,

but says nothing here at Abel's birth.

Like, whoa, what's that? Is it a bummer to be the second born?

Like, no one gets said anything at all.

I don't think so. It perhaps, it speaks to the meaning of his name.

Abel means vapor or breath. And it is probably linked to the shortness of his life.

And verse two continues. Now Abel became a shepherd of flocks,

but Cain worked the ground.

Here is more good news. Don't miss this part. Here's more good news.

Just as God had commanded people to be fruitful and multiply,

he also commanded them before sin was a thing to work.

And the boys are doing that. Adam and Eve, I expect that Adam and Eve as parents,

they are teaching them to do what God has told them to do.

And as the boys grow up, Abel becomes a shepherd. He's a rancher of animals

and flocks. And Cain, he's a farmer. He's a gardener.

Sure, the work is harder for them, but they don't know anything different.

They didn't live in the days when everything was perfect.

Both had these reputable stand-up occupations. Neither one was better than the other.

Both are fulfilling the God-given mandate to work. They have these jobs.

And then notice in verses three and four, both are worshipers.

In the course of time, Cain presented some of the land's produce as an offering to the Lord.

And Abel also presented an offering.

Some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.

Both boys are presenting offerings. Both of them knew about worship.

Again, I am going to give credit to Adam and Eve here for teaching them the importance of worship.

I would like to think that as they were growing up, Cain and Abel,

they would have seen their parents worshiping.

They would have heard them talking about the importance of worshiping.

And in the course of time, the boys bring their worship offerings to God.

Now, in the course of time, I think it has more of a literal meaning,

meaning like at the end of a time, like at the end of the harvest time,

that they would bring their offerings to them and they would present them.

And what did they present?

Verse three, Cain presents some of the land's produce.

And verse four, Abel presents some of the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions.

And what does God think about these offerings? Verse four continues,

the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but he did not have regard for Cain or his offering.

Now, we don't know if both boys went and presented these offerings at the same time.

We don't know where they went to present them.

I don't even know if there was a designated spot for how they did it.

And how did they know? How did they know that one was accepted and one wasn't?

Like, I don't know. I have, oh, I've got tons of speculations at how that happens.

But for now, I'm just going to leave it with, here's what we know.

Yahweh, that's God's name. Anytime you see the word Lord in full print,

it refers to Yahweh in caps there.

Yahweh accepts Abel and his offering, but Yahweh does not accept Cain and his offering.

And the question is, why?

Why did God accept Abel and his offering? And why did he not accept Cain and his offering?

I think there are two main explanations. There might be more,

but I think there are two.

One is this, because Abel used the blood sacrifice, that's why God accepted Abel and his offering.

And because Cain did not use a blood sacrifice, that is why Cain was not accepted nor his offering.

That's a very popular explanation. Um.

I don't believe it's the best explanation. I think it's part of the explanation,

but it's not the complete and the most important part of the explanation.

The offerings are definitely connected here.

And no doubt the quality of the offerings, we're gonna look at that in a second,

they matter, no doubt they are a telltale sign.

But the answer to this question, why Abel and his offering were accepted and

why Cain and his offering are rejected is not as much about the offering, but the offerer.

That is a very important detail. The reason, there's a reason that Abel gave

a top of the line, firstborn, healthy animal, sparing nothing,

including the glamorous fat portions of the animal.

And if you don't know this, the fat portions represent the richest and best part of the animal.

There's a reason that Abel did that. And there's a reason that Cain gave a some,

some average, something, nothing special offering of veggies and fruit.

And that reason is a heart reason.

Better said, that reason is a faith reason.

Faith is always the basis of God's accepting and rejecting. It's always the basis.

I don't know if you know this or not, but Cain and Abel and their story,

they make it to the end of the Bible in the book of Hebrews.

I want us to look at that because in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 4,

Hebrews 11:4

we're going to find a summary of Cain and Abel, and it explains why God accepted

one offering and not the other.

And it says, by what? Faith.

By faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain did.

Abel's sacrifice was accepted and better because of faith, not fat portions.

Faith is the key to this.

There's more. Look at this. By faith,

Abel was approved as a righteous man because God approved his gifts.

And even though he is dead, he still speaks through his faith.

Abel isn't righteous on his own. Abel is accredited.

He's declared righteous because of one thing, faith and nothing else.

Then why is Cain rejected? Because Cain offered a gift, not in faith.

And two verses later, Hebrews 11, 6 says that without faith,

it is impossible to please God. So you can bring all the offering you want,

but if it is not given in faith, no good.

God's concern is not primarily about our external rituals,

but his concern is always about the inner conditions of a person's heart and

being accepted or not accepted comes down to having faith or lacking faith.

That is the difference between these two worshipers, Cain and Abel.

Abel has faith. Cain has religion.

Abel has authentic worship.

Cain has, let's go through the motions of worship.

And oh, God knows the difference. He knows what's going on in their hearts.

Then picking up at the end of verse 5 Cain is

furious and he looked despondent

again a mental picture what is what is furious and despondent look like he's

mad he's sad he's dejected he's distraught and then the Lord said to Cain why

are you furious and why do you look despondent If you do what is right, won't you be accepted?

But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door.

Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.

God asks him questions, but he's not attempting to get answers from Cain.

By asking these questions, in actuality, God is trying to help Cain.

This is God's grace to Cain being given to him. It's a compassion for him.

These questions are designed to stop Cain dead in his tracks from the direction

and the way that he's thinking.

Like that would have been an awesome outcome. them.

God asks the questions and Cain realizes, oh, what was I thinking?

Thank you, God. This is right. I'm writing my right sentence.

I was repentant of that. That would be great.

God is even, he's affirming, he's encouraging here.

Cain, Cain, if you do what is right, if you put your faith in me,

won't you be accepted? Yes, you'll be accepted.

This implies that Cain knew. He knew that he did not have faith.

He knew that he had motions of faith, but not real faith.

God in his grace tells him, Cain, put your faith in me and you'll be accepted. You'll be mine.

God is also warning Cain. And sometimes you think, oh, warning,

that's not a good thing. Oh, yes, it is.

Warnings are a wonderful characteristic of God. Some of you know what I mean.

Praise God for his warnings that he gives to us.

And here it is, Cain, you better check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Cain, I am telling you, I am warning you, this anger that you have in your heart,

it is about to go to your hands and you're going to do something horrible here.

Sin is crouching at the door.

God is trying to help.

And look at the imagery here that God uses. It is powerful.

Again, what comes to your mind comes to your mind here. You've got this closed door.

And on the other side of it is this demonic being lurking, ready to devour.

You've got this closed door maybe a wild animal and it is stalking it is crouched

it is ready to devour a closed door,

and it's the coiled viperous snake and that door opens patow you are done,

that's the image that God is presenting here to us on the seriousness of Cain

and what is lurking for him with sin being at the door.

Some of you are here this morning. I don't know who you are.

You have sin crouching at your door. You are contemplating.

Should I open the door?

Keep the door shut. Keep it shut.

But by the help of the Holy Spirit, this can be done. You can keep the door slammed shut.

It is true. It is so, so true. Yes, sin is in all of us, but it does not have to own us.

Keep the door shut.

God is good to give us such pointed warnings.

God tells Cain, Cain, if you leave my presence with this ungodly anger,

these ungodly motives, sin is going to pounce on you.

Verse eight, Cain said to his brother Abel, let's go out to the field.

Probably not the first time he said that.

And while they were there in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Someone noted that the first murder came after the first worship service.

I don't know if it's the first, but it's a picture. Then the Lord said to Cain,

where is your brother Abel?

I don't know, he replied. Am I my brother's guardian?

Then he said, what have you done? your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground.

So did he kill him with his hands? Was it a weapon?

Talks about blood going into the ground. Was there a rock, a stick?

We were sitting around, our family was sitting around, a few of us the other

night and around the table and my daughter chimed up, oh yeah, it was a rock.

And I said, well, how do you know that? Well, that's what I saw in the picture.

And I'm like, well, I don't know. Now, what we do know is that Cain did not listen to God.

He did not keep the door shut.

And sin pounced.

And there was a point this week that I was thinking this through,

and I was thinking, I thought, what Adam and Eve must have experienced when this news broke to them?

I mean, total devastation is probably putting it lightly.

And to think like all this consequence of sin is from us.

I mean, it is a vivid reminder that our sin does not just affect us.

And as parents, like the ripple effect that it can have to our children.

Cain murders his brother, and then he lies about it.

And then he cops an attitude with God by asking, am I responsible for my brother?

I think there is sarcasm in there. I think there's anger in there mixed together.

What isn't in there is there's no accountability. There's no repentance.

And Abel becomes what Jesus refers to in the New Testament as the first martyr.

His death, though, does not go unnoticed. His blood cries out of the ground and God hears it.

Blood has a voice and God can hear it.

It's another awesome thing to notice about God And it's this.

God knows everything about everything.

If you personalize it, he knows everything about you. He knows everything that happens to you.

He knows everything that you do to others. He knows everything.

This is no small thing.

Like, nothing escapes him.

And God always acts accordingly. Now, in this situation with Cain,

one of the things he does, I go, mm-hmm, I get it. And the other thing I say, really?

And this is what he does. In this situation, God hands out punishment.

Oh yeah, I think we all can, yeah, mm-hmm, he gets that.

And he offers protection.

Well, I don't know about that part until you realize how much you are like Cain.

And then you love the protection, I suppose.

Verse 11. So now you are cursed, alienated from the ground that opened its mouth

to receive your brother's blood you have shed.

If you work the ground, it will never again give you its yield.

You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.

Cain becomes the first person to be cursed.

That's the punishment in chapter three last week

we heard that the ground was cursed the serpent was cursed and now here we have

Cain is cursed verse 13 but Cain answered the Lord my punishment is too great

to bear oh it seems like there might be some some some sorrow here in Cain's

voice Maybe there's some remorse,

but there is no evidence of repentance.

And verse 14 next is going to show that Cain is still only concerned about Cain.

He goes on to say, since you are banishing me from the soil and I must hide

myself from your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth,

whoever finds me will kill me.

Now there's some speculation there. What do you mean who will find you?

I didn't know there are other people. Oh, there are other people.

Brothers, sisters, other people.

But here's the full effect of Cain's curse.

Alienated from the ground. That's a bad thing for a farmer. That's a bad thing for Cain.

But what's worse is being alienated from the presence of God. That is far worse.

Cain has become a fugitive, a vagabond, a wanderer. wanderer,

and he's separated from God.

And Cain certainly seems to understand like this revenge principle is already

in place, like someone's going to kill me.

And verse 15, then the Lord replied to him, in that case, whoever kills Cain

will suffer vengeance seven times over.

And he placed a mark on Cain so that whoever found him would not kill him.

Then Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

In many ways, Cain does not get what he deserves. Instead of God killing him

or allowing someone else to kill him, God protects him.

That is something to take notice about God, that he gives these gracious seasons,

though despite us, he is still long suffering and patient.

Thank God he is patient with sinners. thank God that he even protects guilty

people thank God that he is not a one strike and you're out God.

And he gives Cain some kind of mark. No one knows what it is.

Some suggest maybe it was like a birthmark.

Some said, oh, it was the first tattoo ever given to him. I don't know. Maybe he was bald.

We don't know what the mark was. But the mark did two main things.

It did this. It separated him and made him safe. People knew,

oh, don't mess with Cain.

And the other thing it did, imagine this. It was a lifelong reminder.

Cain, you are cursed from God for his actions of killing his brother.

And then the conversation between Cain and God ends with Cain leaving God's

presence and living in Nod, which ironically, Nod means wandering.

Cain figuratively, literally living and wandering.

And really, it's another example of a good to bad to worse scenario for us.

The garden was good and Adam and Eve were there. And then they sinned and they

were moved east of the garden.

And now we have Cain, more sin, like horrific sin.

And what you see is he moves further east.

It's something worth thinking about. Like every person that we will ever meet is east of the garden.

Because that's what sin does. Sin moves us in a direction that we should not

be and it takes us from where we should not be.

And there's a problem.

So that's the story of Cain and Abel.

And it's the start of a major theme that happens all throughout the rest of the Bible.

I did not connect this until this week. I'm so happy to study this out a little bit.

Cain and Abel are the start of comparing two people and the grace of God upon their lives.

Cain and Abel, they start this trend here in Genesis 4. In just a few more chapters,

it's going to come up again.

It's Jacob and Esau over a birthright.

Like one is accepted and one is not.

Jesus in the New Testament, he taught

tons and tons of parables about this two-person comparison. A lot of it.

There was a father and two sons and one was a prodigal son.

He taught that. He taught of one who, two guys who, I say guys,

two who built a house and one builds it on a solid rock and the other builds

it on this unsafe shifting sand.

Two women working at a mill. One is taken away and one stays.

Just on and on these go. Two people praying at a temple.

Jesus at his crucifixion. Two guys, two thieves, one on each side.

One is told he'll be in paradise, the other one is not.

Two dead people, Lazarus and the beggar, one being with God and one not.

In all of these comparisons, one person by the grace of God is accepted and one is not accepted.

And the application point for this Bible-wide theme is for each person, for each of us.

To see himself, to see herself as the recipient of God's saving grace or not.

That's the comparison being made all throughout the Bible.

So as far as this story goes about Cain and Abel, both were sinners,

both were worshipers, and we should see ourselves in the story the same way.

And from there, either you typify Abel saved by faith or you typify Cain, lacking faith.

And the Bible tells us in 1 John 3, 12, do not be like Cain.

Do not be like Cain who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother.

And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brothers were righteous.

Don't be like Cain, be like Abel. Well, how do we do that? How do I become a

person and have faith like Abel? Oh, Romans 10, 17.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of Christ. That's how a person comes to faith.

And it gets better. The way you go from Cain-like to Abel-like is Ephesians 2, 8.

For by grace, a person is saved through faith.

Not of your works not of putting an offering on something nothing you can do

it's not of yourself it's a gift from God,

be like Abel have faith in God let's pray.

Father There is not one ounce of our being.

That should not be given you praise and glory, for you are mighty and you are

worthy of all our adoration.

All honor belongs to you.

I suppose the word great is an overused adjective, but you are great.

And in your goodness you have given us your word,

and I ask with the help of the Holy Spirit that we would see the word we would

hear the word with spiritual seeing and spiritual hearing in ways that changes us.

We acknowledge we are just like Cain and Abel and that we are sinners.

We are wired to worship.

Father, draw us to yourself for faith.

And that faith alone, believing in Jesus Christ alone, we are saved.

And not only saved, we can keep the door shut.

We can live victorious.

And oh, I thank you. I thank you for community.

How horrible it would be for Cain to be a wanderer all of his life and relationships even harder.

I thank you for Christian community where we can come along one another,

we can encourage one another, we can warn one another, and we can do it in the

spirit that you intended to be done.

And certainly that'll be good for us.

We ask for your blessing as we seek to follow your will.

And Lord, let your will be done as you continue to build your kingdom.

Fix what is broken. Restore what is lost.

Redeem, redeem, redeem us. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Closed with this verse, I had the conversation of God and Cain in mind,

and I came to Isaiah 1, 18, where the Lord says,

come, let us discuss this, says the Lord.

Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be white as snow.

Though they are as red as crimson, they will be like wool. That's good news.

Thank you.