on Sunday evening, March 8, 1992,
at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. Now let us turn together in our
Bibles to the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, that
wonderful book of beginnings, Genesis chapter 4, and I shall
read in your hearing verses 1-8. Genesis 4 and verse 1. And the man knew Eve his wife,
and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man
with the help of Jehovah. And again she bare his brother
Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep,
but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time
it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an
offering unto Jehovah. And Abel he also brought of the
firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And Jehovah
had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and
to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very angry, and
his countenance fell. And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why
are you angry, and why is your countenance fallen? If thou doest
well, shall it not be lifted up? And if thou doest not well,
sin coucheth at the door, and unto thee shall be its desire,
but do thou rule over it? And Cain told Abel his brother,
and it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain
rose up against Abel his brother and slew him." Now as we begin
our studies in this very vital portion of the Word of God, let
us ask again for God's gracious Spirit to be given as the spirit
of illumination and understanding to each of our minds, the spirit
of unction, and the spirit of profitable hearing of the Word
of God. Let us pray. Surely our Father, none would
count a man who fooled, who went to the author of a book to ask
that author his true meaning in that which came from his pen.
We therefore come to you, the author of the scriptures, and
we pray that you will teach us their meaning, that by your spirit
you will open the eyes of our understanding, that we may know
your mind as revealed in the scriptures. Help us, O God, that
we shall receive all that is written. but that we shall resist
every temptation to go beyond what is written. May we manifest
our submission and humility by being content that you have told
us just as much and no more than we need to know for our salvation,
our edification, and your glory. We therefore pray that you will
mortify idle curiosity. mortify resistance to what is
clear, and enable us by the Spirit to profit from the teaching and
preaching of your Word, we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Now as we take up our studies
tonight in the life of Cain and Abel, We do well to pause on
the threshold of this study that brings us immediately into chapter
four of the book of Genesis, briefly to summarize what has
already been unfolded to us in the first three chapters of Genesis. I trust that even the youngest
of you children knows that the basic subject matter of chapter
one of Genesis is the record of God's creation of the heavens
and the earth and that in six days. And that chapter two begins
with the account of God hallowing and sanctifying the seventh day,
and resting on that day, and then giving to us an amplified
description of the conditions of our first parents in the Garden
of Eden, and also the details of how He created the man and
the woman in His own image. Then in chapter 3 we have the
account of the necessary test of man, resulting in his tragic
fall, and at the same time we are informed of God's judgment
upon man, upon the serpent, and even upon the earth, and yet
in the midst of that pronouncement of judgment we have that first
gracious word of gospel promise, in which God himself comes to
the man and the woman who have now aligned themselves with the
serpent, the devil, and says that he will inject a gracious
enmity, and that he will perpetuate that enmity, and that eventually
the seed of the woman would bruise and crush the head of the serpent,
though while in the process the heel of the seed of the woman
would be bruised. And that chapter ends with the
sad picture of Adam and Eve banished from the garden, and God Himself
guarding that entrance to the garden that none should enter
and partake of the tree of life. Now then, when we come to chapter
4, our attention is immediately drawn to two individuals. And God draws our attention to
these two individuals to demonstrate to us how that at the very threshold
of the development of the human race, both having their origin
from the same parents, that God's promise in chapter 3 and verse
15 begins to find a very pronounced fulfillment. For in the history
and the incidents in conjunction with Cain and Abel, we see, though
coming from the physical seed of the woman, that God is forming
that spiritual seed of the woman, the believing line that will
eventually issue in the coming of Messiah her great and glorious
seed, and also that seed of the serpent finding its embodiment
in that evil man, Cain, who becomes like his father, the devil, both
a murderer and a blatant liar. And so in this chapter, chapter
4, verses 1 to 16, focus upon these two individuals and how
that division of mankind is set before us in bold relief. Then in verses 17 to 24, we are
given an account of the development of the family of the seed of
the serpent, the development of the family of Cain, and how
Cain becomes the head of a whole line of the ungodly. And then
verses 25 and 26 close the chapter with God's record of the establishment
of a godly line, able having been slain, God brings forth
through Adam and Eve a son named Seth, who becomes the head of
a line of the godly, those who are part of the believing seed
of the woman. And so the chapter ends with
the words, Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah. Now, I trust keeping that broad
outline in mind will be helpful that as we get into the details,
we will never forget In the midst of all of the details and drawing
forth many of the very pointed practical applications, we must
never forget the larger picture within which the smaller, minute
details are set before us. Now tonight, it's my purpose
to expound and apply in your hearing verses 1 through 5a of
this chapter. And in those verses, we have
basically three things set before us. First of all, we have the
introduction of Cain and Abel, verses 1 and 2a. Then secondly,
the focus is upon the occupations of Cain and Abel, verse 2b. And then thirdly, and that which
is most prominent in this early section, the offerings of Cain
and Abel, verses 3 through 5a. First of all, then, the introduction
of Cain and Abel. And in that introduction we first
of all have the account of the birth and naming of Cain and
then secondly the birth and the naming of Abel. And the man knew
Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain and said, I have
gotten a man with the help of Jehovah. The birth and naming
of Cain begins with a very judicious, simple, straightforward, tasteful,
euphemistic description of the fact that as the result of normal
sexual intimacy within the sanctity of the marriage bond, for the
man knew Eve his wife, she conceived and obviously pass through the
normal period of gestation that many of you children have seen
and are witnessing with your own mommies as her dresses get
a bit tight and then she goes to those maternity dresses until
toward the end of that time she wobbles like a duck before she
goes to the hospital and brings forth the little one. Well, we
are told in this passage, in this introduction of these two
characters, that in conjunction with the birth and the naming
of Cain, that Cain came into the world in the way in which
all of us come into the world, and that God speaks of these
things in the holy, sanctified way in which they ought to be
spoken of, And in using the euphemism, the man knew Eve, God is not
being prudish about sexual intimacy, but rather He is setting forth
a profound reality that the sexual intimacy between a husband and
wife in the covenant of marriage is more than making love and
having sex. And we could learn oodles of
lesson just from the way God describes this. And the man knew
Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain. And upon bearing
this firstborn, apparently, though it is not explicit, the emphasis
of the passage would seem to indicate that it was she who
took the lead in the naming of Cain, And his name was derived
from her response upon the occasion of his birth. For having bore
Cain, she said, I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah. Now in the old 1901, the words
the help of are in italics. because they are supplied to
give sense to the rather abbreviated, almost verbal shorthand of the
Hebrew construction. I have gotten a man with Jehovah. Some would even be so bold as
to render it, and they are not fools nor ignorant of the Hebrew
language, I have gotten a man, even Jehovah, and they would
read into Eve's words that she had a tremendous elevated measure
of faith to believe that the promise of Genesis 3 and verse
15 was fulfilled in her firstborn, and that here would be the promised
seed to crush the head of the serpent. However, more responsible
commentators regard that position as being rather far-fetched and
certainly not necessitated by the language, and I find my judgment
agreeing with them, for the little preposition does in other settings,
even in the book of Genesis, mean precisely what we find the
translators of the 1901 supplying. I have gotten a man with the
help of Jehovah. The same way in other passages
when God says to His people, I will be with you, He means
I will be there to assist and to uphold and to strengthen you. Now there's a play on words in
the Hebrew. When she gets this child, she
names him Dot. That's what we would do in English.
I have gotten a child with the help of Jehovah. Therefore, I'll
name him Got. So every time I see him and say,
Got, come in for supper, I will be reminded that he was gotten
by the help of Jehovah. Now what was it that made Eve's
mind move in such a direction in conjunction with the birth
and naming of Cain? Well, if you will go back to
chapter 3, I think you will see the answer. Verse 16, unto the
woman God said, I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception. In pain, Thou shalt bring forth
children. Now pause for a moment. Some
of you young women with child for the first time, those of
you who have been mothers more than once or twice, can you remember
when you were with child for the first time? And one of your
great concerns was to ask your mother or an intimate friend
or intimate friends who had gone through the ordeal of childbirth
What is it like? Isn't that true? I doubt there's anyone who's
gone onto a birthing table, into a birthing ward, who has not,
before she entered, sought to solicit from some close friend,
preferably in every case it ought to be a mother, if a mother is
still alive and at hand, What more wonderful thing can a mother
do than to try to prepare her daughter, both for the ordeal
and the trauma, as well as the blessedness and the mystery of
bringing forth a human life? But who could Eve go to and say,
what does it mean in pain I shall bring forth a child? No doubt
she beheld the animals that Adam had named, and had watched those
animals in labor, had heard the peculiar intense mooing of a
cow in labor, as I've heard cows in labor, and perhaps the peculiarly
piercing bleat of a sheep in labor bringing forth a little
one, but she did not know. One thing she did know, that
when her birth pangs began to come upon her, they were of such
a nature as to be permeated with the curse of God for her involvement
in that first sin of her husband. That much she knew. Whatever
I'm experiencing, it is not only something that may be native
to the contractions that expel the child from the womb, But
they are interlaced with the curse of God. And you mothers
know, when your labor pains go from seven minutes apart to six
to five to four and get more and more intense, you wonder,
am I going to make it? Eve went through all of that,
and she had no Dick Gratley read books to read, no Lamaze classes
to attend. She had had no practice in deep
breathing, none of that. No wonder when going through
the trauma of the throes of birth and coming to that point where
she wondered if she could bear anymore and suddenly all of the
trauma is over and she holds in her arms this precious life. What else could she do but exclaim
in a mingled sense of both gratitude and humility and thankfulness,
I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah. Though his curse is upon me for
my sin and has come into focus in a unique way in the experience
of birthing this child. Who but Jehovah could make a
baby? Who but Jehovah can sustain a
mother through the throes of birth? And so it's natural that
when she says, I have gotten the Hebrew word kanah, I have
gotten a man from Jehovah, he is named Cain. He is named Gott. And that's how we're introduced
to Cain. He was surrounded at his birth
with the evidences, if not of genuine piety, of a deep God
consciousness on the part of Eve. He had the ideal environment
with which to take his first breaths. The name Jehovah is
spoken in his ear before he can distinguish sounds of any kind. That's the birth and the naming
of Cain. Well then, what about the birth
and naming of Abel? Verse 2a. The birth and naming
of Abel. And again, she bare his brother
Abel. Here, a briefer account of the
birth and naming of Abel. Now, because the conception is
not mentioned, Many responsible commentators, among them even
the notable, esteemed John Calvin, not only suggests that they were
twins, but he says in a rather cheeky, irritated way, it seems
to me there's no other reasonable explanation I leave to others
to give a better one, if they don't accept mine. It's a very
bit of humorous stroke in John Calvin, and he's not the only
one who shares that opinion, but again, In having sought to
examine scripture, interpreting scripture, there are many scriptures,
at least another dozen places in the book of Genesis alone,
where the term, and she bare, and she bare, and she bare, without
any mention of the conception, is a very common phraseology
in the writing of Moses under the influence of the Holy Spirit. And so I believe it is wrong
for us to assume that they were twins unless the scriptures gave
us data that would force such a conclusion upon us. We should
not assume that he was a twin. But after a reasonable period
of time passed, at least another nine or ten months, a second
son is born. But surprisingly, when this one
is born, we're not told whether Adam or Eve took the lead in
naming him, or whether they together agreed upon his name. I would
like to think that they did. But this one is named Abel. And the name Abel comes from
the Hebrew word which means breath, vapor, or vanity. What a strange contrast. The
first son is named Got because he's gotten from the Lord. He
is named Cain because the name Cain, that noun form, derives
at least its sounds from the Hebrew verb, I have gotten. And so when this second son is
born, he is named Vanity. Now why? For you children must
know, if you've not yet been told by mom and dad and your
Sunday school teachers, that in the whole Hebrew context and
thinking, a name was not just a verbal handle to put on a birth
certificate to distinguish us from someone else. And names
were not chosen just because they sounded mellifluous on the
ear, or they matched, or they weren't difficult to pronounce.
Names were either to signify a circumstance in conjunction
with the birth, or something of the destiny of the one born. And when this second child is
named Able, Breath, Vapor, or Vanity, why was he so named? Well, it seems to me there are
only several possibilities. It could be that it was a prophetic
naming of this one. whose life would be, relatively
speaking, but a vapor, who would live out perhaps not even two
decades of his life in a day when people lived hundreds and
hundreds of years. It could have been a prophetic
impression given to Adam and to Eve. Most likely, they named
him Abel. breath, vapor, vanity, because
enough time had passed from their banishment from Eden, enough
time had passed from the initial euphoria of saying, I've gotten
a man from Jehovah, and the wonder of holding that little one in
her arms and nestling it to her breast, enough time had passed
to begin to see and feel the cumulative bitter realities of
life in a sinful world. Perhaps Cain had begun already
to manifest the nature he had inherited from his mother and
father. Perhaps she had begun to see
that from that gurgling, smiling little bundle of what appears
to be semi-angelic flesh, there was emerging a little son of
the devil. for that is exactly what he's
called later on. Could it be that she had begun
to feel something of the bitterness of life in a state of banishment
from God? A bitterness which even the legitimate
joys of the intimacies of marriage, the fruition of a seed in a son
that could only have been given by Jehovah? Well, whatever the
reason may have been, the second son was named Abel, that is,
Vanity. Well that's how the two lads
are introduced to us. Now notice secondly, as the emphasis
takes us immediately from the introduction of Cain and Abel
to the occupations of Cain and Abel. To be, and Abel was a keeper
of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. Do you see how
the narrative passes over all that is not relevant to the great
concern of this portion of the Word of God? It leaps over all
of the stages from infancy until what appears to be at least the
threshold of adult life. And we know nothing about the
intervening period. It's as though you went to a
home and someone said, here is a photo album of my two sons
from birth until middle age. And you open up the first two
pages, and like so many parents, I mean, they've got pictures
of that baby doing everything but standing on its right ear.
Every goo-goo, gurgle, cross-eyed, every bubble thought, pictures,
pictures, pictures everywhere. Babies, babies. First two pages.
And you think, oh boy, at this rate, It'll be 20 pages before
we get to see them go into school. And you turn the page, and lo
and behold, one of the sons is sitting there behind the desk
with his name on it, and in the background you see law firm of
so-and-so and so-and-so, and the other one is standing beside
his tractor. And there's no pictures of anything
from infancy to young adulthood. Now that's exactly what the Word
of God does. Skips over the whole business. Because it's not germane
to God's purposes. And we are introduced to their
occupations, at least on the threshold of their manhood. First of all, Abel's occupation
and then Cain's. And Abel was a keeper of sheep. He was a shepherd of sheep. And
if not technically sheep, the Hebrew word refers to smaller
domestic animals such as sheep and goats would have been. Thus he would have had responsibility,
again, to a shepherd or to a keeper of livestock. So that was Abel's
occupation. The Holy Spirit passes over a
hundred other things we'd love to know and focuses upon Abel's
occupation. Then he focuses upon Cain's occupation. But Cain was a killer of the
ground, literally a server of the ground. He was a server of
the ground, one involved in agricultural pursuits, one whose time and
energies were spent in the cultivation of the earth, in the bringing
forth of crops from the earth. Now these facts should raise
two questions in our minds, at least I find them inescapable
to my mind. Number one, where did they acquire
proficiency in these professions? They're just don't don'ts. One is a shepherd and the other
is an agriculturalist. He's a farmer. Well, the most
compelling inference, and that's all it is, is an inference, but
I say compelling inference, is that Adam himself had begun to
master these skills of both the shepherd and the keeper or tiller
of the ground, for he was commanded to do what? To multiply and to
subdue the earth. He was placed into the garden
to dress it and to keep it. His first and most immediate
task was that which his firstborn took up in his train, a tiller
of the ground. But you remember after the fall,
God took skins to clothe the man, and that became nothing
short of an ordinance, the matter of clothing in a fallen world. And where do you get skins for
clothing? Not from lilies, but you get
them from animals. And therefore, Adam would have
begun to be a keeper of small animals from which hide could
be taken for clothing. There would be sheep whose wool
would be spun into cloth. for clothing and adornment, and
so it is most likely that Adam, in fulfilling his God-given mandate,
even with the added burden of the curse upon the earth, that
it would not yield as freely as before, because thorns and
thistles would be there to hinder that original, pristine, creative
energy and power. Nonetheless, As he was given
food and God mandated a vegetarian diet in Genesis 1.29 and not
until after the flood does God mandate and allow the eating
of flesh, it would appear that Adam, in fulfilling that original
directive to dress the garden, to keep it, in which he began
to cultivate the skills, of a farmer would carry those skills with
him outside of Eden, and in having the animals with him needed for
these various ways, would have attained to some degree of proficiency,
and therefore it was Adam, their father, who guided his sons into
their respective careers. Now the next question, was one
occupation superior to the other? And I'm amazed, whenever I get
into this kind of study, I try to read very, very wisely, widely. Not so wisely at times, but widely. Because unlike working through
a New Testament epistle, where you're dealing with dense thought
that has grammatical construction and there is not the same kind
of range for imagination and for the other faculties to fill
in the gaps. You get much more difference
among good men as to why certain things are the way they are.
And so if one is not to be foolish, one must read very widely, and
it's a very interesting at times, laughable experience, other times
fascinating, other times very humbling, because you say, you
dummy, that's so plain in the text, why didn't you ever see
it? Until now. But with respect to this matter
of this question, was one occupation superior to the other? There
was one writer who tried to make a very, very big case of the
fact that Cain showed at a very early age that he was a worldly. Because to be a farmer meant
you'd be more settled, but to be a shepherd you'd be nomadic,
and therefore Abel had the spirit of a pilgrim in the earth, and
he draws out all this marvelous spiritual truth. But I think
it's building a castle on air. It ain't got a very solid foundation. I think it is much more likely
that Adam in common grace would have seen very early and sought
to respond as any godly, sensitive father to the native inclinations
and dispositions of his sons. Perhaps they were just beyond
the toddler stage when Adam could communicate verbally and he would
say to Cain and Abel, Daddy's going out to round up some sheep. It's time to clip them and have
Mommy make some wool. And when he'd say, sheep, Abel
would be right at his heels. Daddy, can I go with you? Mommy,
pack a load so I can go with Daddy. And Cain would say, well,
you know, there's some flowers out in the back. I think I'll
dig around in the flower bed. He just didn't have a natural
inclination towards the sheep. But when Papa Adam said, well,
I've got to go out and do some hoeing in the garden today, the
moment Cain heard garden, his ears perked up and he said, Daddy,
can I go out and work in the garden? And I think it's most
likely that Adam, I say, as any godly, sensitive father, would
seek to be sensitive to the native inclinations that were bred into
the constitution of those boys in their mother's wombs. And
here I want to make a point of application. There is little
in the way of parental cruelty to exceed the cruelty of a father
who has determined in his mind, my son is going to be this. even before he's born. Not, O
God, if it please you, guide my son, give him a disposition
to be this or that. There is nothing wrong with pouring
out your aspirations in the presence of God. But to impose your arbitrary
inclinations upon your children is cruelty. It's a denial of
Psalm 139 that God selects from the gene pool and knits our children
together in their mothers' wombs. And some, when they hear sheep,
want to lunch and want to run with daddy. Some, when they hear
hoe and garden, want to lunch and want to run with daddy. And
may God have mercy on any parents in Trinity Church who think that
they have some kind of pipeline to heaven that gives them the
right to force their children into an occupation for which
God has not given them the disposition, the inclination, the temperament. May God help any of you. If you're
in the process of doing that, and if you've done it, may you
own your folly and repent. No, it is most likely, there
is nothing from the text to indicate that there was anything more
noble in one occupation or the other, for both of them come
under the rubric of God's command to subdue the earth. Well, We've had the two men introduced
to us, the two boys. We've looked at their occupations.
Now we come, thirdly, to the offering of Cain and of Abel,
verses 3 through 5a. And, of course, you know from
your previous study of the passage that it's in conjunction with
the offering that the true differences in their character come into
sharp focus. And under this heading of the
offerings of Cain and Abel, notice the four stages that unfold.
First of all, the time of their offerings. Verse 3, And in the
process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit
of the ground. This phrase, it came to pass
in the process of time, literally rendered is, after the end of
the days. After the end of what days? Well, you see, it is deliberately
an indefinite phrase. After the end of the days. Well, it may refer to the end
of the growing year, after the end of the days, when the harvest
is ready to come in, then we find Cain bringing of the fruit
of the ground and offering unto the Lord. Some suggest that it
may refer after the end of the days, that is, of their coming
into maturity, where no longer are they strictly under the roof
of Adam and Eve. and participants in the family
sacrifices, if there were such. And others suggest that we may
even have an allusion here to the creation ordinance of the
Sabbath. At the end of the days, that
is the days of a six-day cycle, when it is time on the seventh
day to be engaged in the rest of holy, specific worship, But
whatever it is, if it needed to be more definite than that,
God would have told us, but He hasn't, and those are the possibilities. So the time of the offering was
one which, this much is clear, both of the men recognized it
was the appropriate time to bring an offering to the Lord. That's
the only thing we can say with dogmatism. But then notice, secondly,
having considered the time of the offering, the nature of their
offering. Cain's offering and then Abel's
offering. Cain brought of the fruit of
the ground an offering unto Jehovah. In conjunction with both offerings,
a word is used that refers to offerings in the most general
sense. So to begin to build a case on
the blood and bloodless offerings of the two men is to go beyond
the pressure of the word used for offering. It is not the more
limited technical word of sacrifice, though that word is used in the
New Testament in Hebrews 11.4 concerning Abel's sacrifice,
and I'm fully aware of that. But in this particular setting,
there is nothing to indicate that the significance of Cain's
offering is to be found in that it was brought from the fruit
of the ground. He brought to God that which
was the fruit of his labor and God's blessing upon it. What
is significant, by way of contrast, is that the language used is
very, very general. Cain brought of the fruit of
the ground, an offering unto Jehovah. It doesn't say it was
the first fruits, indicating that he was jealous that God
should be honored first. It doesn't say it was the choicest
fruits, the best fruits. He just brought some of his produce
as an offering unto Jehovah. Alright? That's the nature of
his offering. Now, what's the nature of Abel's offering? The
text says, Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock,
and of the fat thereof." Here the language underscores the
contrast. He brought the firstlings, the
best. There were those first lambs
that were born. and out of the first, recognizing
that all of the blessing of God upon his labors as a shepherd
were the blessing of God from heaven upon man in the earth
in his sinful state. He seeks to show his jealousy
for God's rights and God's glory by bringing of the firstlings,
but not just out of the firstlings. Notice it says, and of the fact
thereof. Now, that term and the fact thereof
is used in many places in the Old Testament to refer to the
best of anything. Let me give you just two examples.
I trust to convince your judgment. Genesis 45 and verse 18, Genesis
45. and verse 18. Take your father and your households
and come to me and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt
and ye shall eat the fat of the land. Now does that mean he was
going to take them to some place where all the excess fat trimmed
off at the butchers was thrown in a pile and they'd sit there
and eat? You say that's gross, Pastor.
Well, obviously it doesn't mean that. It means you shall eat
of the what? Of the best of the lamb. Similarly, in Psalm 147
and verse 14, the same reference is given. So there we have Cain's
offering and Abel's offering. He brings from the fruit of his
labors, not just something, not just anything, but the best out
of the best. Now then, thirdly, having looked
at the time of their offering, at the end of the days, the nature
of the offering, Cain and Abel, the response of God, listen carefully
now, to the offerer and to his offering. The response of God
to the offerer and his offering. For that's what the Holy Spirit
describes for us in the next verse. Verse 4, And Abel he also
brought of the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof,
and Jehovah had respect unto Abel his person and to his offering. But unto Cain and to his offering
he had not respect. Here we have described for us
the response of God to the offerers and their offering. First we see God's favor was
towards Abel and towards his offering. The word respect literally
means to gaze and came to mean in common usage to gaze with
favor and approval. like the young man sitting at
home, propped up on his elbows, gazing at the picture of his
present heartthrob. Minutes can pass into an hour,
and it seems no time at all. He's gazing upon his heartthrob. That's something of the connotation
of the use of the word. When it says that God had respect
unto Abel, He gazed with approval. He gazed with favor upon the
man, Abel, and upon that which Abel's hands brought, namely,
the best of the best of his flock. But then we have God's disfavor
toward Cain and his offering, but unto Cain, his person, and
to his offering he had not the gaze of approbation and delight
and approval? How was this disfavor shown? How was the favor shown to Abel's
offering and the disfavor to Cain's? Do you know what the
answer is? Like Tevye, when he says, do you know why I wear
this hat? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And I will neither
confuse you nor amuse you by telling you all the suggestions
people make. We might say the most likely
conjecture, and that's all we can make, is arguing from what's
called the analogy of scripture. How did God show his pleasure
in other situations where there were acceptable and unacceptable
offerers and offerings? By sending the fire of heaven
to consume the sacrifice. That's what he did upon Mount
Carmel. You remember in that great encounter with Elijah and
the false prophets of Baal. But we don't know that he did
that. But this much is very, very clear. God's favor to Abel
and his sacrifice was known to Abel and perceived and seen by
Cain. For the subsequent context shows
that Cain was very aware of Abel's acceptance and of his own rejection. All we know is that God's disposition
was radically different to the two men and to their offering,
and God clearly revealed His disposition to both of them. Now, having looked at the time
of the offering, the nature of the offering, the response of
God to the offerer and the offering, we come fourthly and finally
to the reason for God's radically different response. This will
set the framework for one very vital pointed application tonight. What was the reason for God's
radically different response? Was God being arbitrary? Did
He flip a coin that morning and say, well, let's see today, will
I respect those who bring of the fruit of the ground or those
who bring of the flock? Flip a coin, it's flocks today,
it could be flowers tomorrow. You say, no, pastor, that's not
the way God is. And I'm glad you respond that
way. I hope every child in your own heart. So that's not right
to even talk that way about God. God's not like that. No, he is
not like that. He's not arbitrary. He's not
capricious. Was it because he was prejudiced
against shepherds? Prejudiced in favor of farmers
or vice versa. Well, here's where we can thank
God for a complete Bible. Because God, the Holy Ghost,
who moved Moses to write the fact that God clearly showed
to these men his response to favor and disfavor, has told
us why he responded differently. And here I want you to turn with
me to the New Testament for the Spirit-inspired answer to that
question. Hebrews chapter 11. And then
we'll look at a text in Matthew and one in 1 John. Hebrews chapter
11 and verse 4. By faith Abel offered unto God
a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which He had witness
born to Him, notice, that He was righteous. God bore witness
that He accepted Abel as a righteous man, and as a righteous man,
a believing man, His sacrifice was acceptable because it was
brought in faith. Why was God's response what it
was to Abel's offering? The answer is, he brought his
offering as a believing man. A man who had embraced everything
God had revealed to man the creature up to that point. When his father
Adam told him the amazing story, of how he found himself awake
in God's world. He didn't sit there with a squinty,
skeptical look and say, I don't believe that, Dad. How can all
of this come from just the word of Jehovah's mouth? Nobody can
talk and make worlds and sun and moon and stars. No. When he heard the account of
creation, He said, Dad, that's just like God to do something
like that. And when his father told him
the tragic story of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, he believed it. And when his father told him
of the tragic banishment from Eden, he believed him. And when
his father told him that in the midst of the curse, there was
a promise. And in that promise, God himself
was taking a gracious initiative to realign mankind. Mankind that had sold itself
to the devil. God says, I'm going to put enmity
between the serpent and between the woman. Between the offspring
of the serpent, the offspring of the woman. And whatever Abel
was given to understand of the ultimate fulfillment of God's
gracious intervention through the seed of the woman who would
be Christ, I am not ready to pronounce, but this much is clear. When he brought that offering,
he brought it as a believing man. a man who had come to see
his own sin, to own his own guilt, to know that if there were any
hope for him to find acceptance with God, that hope was to be
founded not on what he did, but on God's gracious intervention. And as a man of faith, he also
manifested that he was a man of devotion. By faith, he offered
a more excellent sacrifice. It was faith that caused him
to give God his best. He didn't give God his best to
earn God's favor. He gave God his best because
he basked under the wonder of God's favor conferred by grace. By faith, he offered unto God
a more excellent sacrifice. The inference is inescapable,
though it does not explicitly state it, that Cain brought his
offering as an unbeliever. He is the prototype of the formalist
that we heard about in Sunday school this morning. He had learned
from his daddy, most likely. that offerings and sacrifices
were to be rendered to God. And I hope to take that up in
what will probably be a catch-all of curious questions at the end
of our study. Where did sacrifice first get
introduced? Here it is. It just comes as
an ordinary thing. There it is before us. We turn
over the page and boom, the boys are sacrificing. Unlikely that
this was conjured up out of the notions of their own hearts darkened
by sin. If something's to be done in
faith, it can only be done in faith if there is a word from
God which directs that activity. Otherwise, God calls it will
worship. And we'll go into that. But you see, Cain comes in a
posture of unbelief. Oh, yes, he's learned all the
same Bible stories at the knee of his daddy and his mama that
Abel learned. And he may believe them in a
kind of off-handed way, just like he believes that certain
flowers are different color from other flowers, and you've got
to cultivate certain foods this way and others that way if you're
going to get optimum reproduction. Oh yes, he believed it! But it
was that which merely sat on the surface of his brain and
never possessed his inner being and his heart. Because you see,
he sees nothing in God worthy of the best. He's been told that
good people go to church. So at the end of the days, when
it's time to go to church and his brother's going to church
and going to do his religious thing, he'll go along, too. I
mean, he's not going to show himself up to be a rocker. He's
not going to show himself up to be scum, lowlife. Sure, at the end of the days.
Brother's going to bring something from his flock, I'll go out and
grab an armful of something from my field. We'll go on up to church
together and mom and dad will say, ah, look at those two boys.
Isn't that wonderful? Carrying on the family traditions. One was a believer, the other
was a wretched unbeliever. That's the first reason why God's
reaction to the men and their offerings was radically different.
One was a believer who brought his offering as a believing man. The other brought his offering
as an unbeliever. As a believer, one brought to
God that which indicated that the God on whom he believed had
his heart. And the other brought that which
indicated God didn't have his heart. All he had was the motions
of his body. He didn't have the affections
of his heart. Second reason is Abel brought
his offering as a righteous man. And here we do have explicit
testimony. Cain brought his as an unrighteous,
wicked man, a son of the devil. Where do we get that information?
Matthew 23, 35. Matthew 23 and verse 35. Jesus is pronouncing the woes
upon his own generation. Then he says in verse 34, Behold,
I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of
them you shall kill and crucify. Some of them you shall scourge
in your synagogue and persecute from city to city, that upon
you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from
the blood of Abel the righteous. Abel the righteous one. Now, is that referring to the
righteousness he had based upon the death of Christ, the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world, the virtue of whose
sacrifice was applied equally to Old Testament believers as
to new? Is that the righteousness in
the court of heaven, or is that the righteousness imparted to
a believing man by which he lives a life of evangelical obedience. Well, I John 3.12, I believe,
answers the question. I John 3 and verse 12. It's wonderful when Scripture
gives you the infallible commentary. You don't need to read 20 books
and guess. I John 3.12, Not as Cain was
of the evil one, there he's called the seed of the serpent. the
offspring of the devil. Cain was of the evil one. Now notice carefully, he was
of the evil one and slew his brother. It doesn't say he became
of the evil one when he slew. He was of the evil one and as
a result of it slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because His works were evil,
that is, before he slew him he was an evildoer, and before he
was slain his brothers' works were righteous. Because his works
were evil and his brothers righteous. In other words, There was a pattern
of life that had already begun to be manifest in these two young
men before they ever brought their sacrifice. One was a believing
man, the other an unbeliever. The other, as a believer, was
a righteous man, seeking to live his life in all of its details
by the law of God. in the strength of God, out of
love to God, as we heard this morning, he could have sat here
and seen the list of the marks of a converted man and said,
Able could, by the grace of God, that's me. But not Cain. Not Cain. Oh, yes, he knew how
to do his religious thing, do it at the right time, and even
do it with his brother and make his mom and dad happy. But his
thoughts were thoughts of wickedness. His perspective on life, as we
shall see in the subsequent unfolding of what comes from this man in
terms of a whole wicked line, he was a worldling to the core
of his being. Self-centered. When the first
child born becomes a murderer and the second child born is
a martyr, The only thing he's concerned about when God apprehends
him is night punishments, more than I can bear. What a wretched, self-centered,
devilish, murdering liar. Where's your brother? I don't
know. You liar, you know. You killed him and dragged him
in the bushes. year of your father the devil,
he was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth. Why
did God not accept the offering of Abel? I'm sorry of Cain. We cannot say that he didn't
accept it because it wasn't a blood offering. That's imposing too
much on the passage. That may have entered. But we
cannot say with dogmatism that it did. But we can say from the
Word of God, God rejected Cain and rejected his offering because
he was an unbelieving and wicked man. And he accepted Cain and
accepted his offering. because he was a believing and
therefore a righteous man. I said this would bring us to
our conclusion with one very pointed application. Do you see
what that application is? This room tonight has only the
Society of Cain and the Society of Abel. That division that God
pronounced in Genesis 3 that immediately comes to light in
the first two sons that are born. They shared the same womb. They were surrounded with the
same influences. One of them even had a name that
would be helpful to his emerging consciousness of spiritual realities. whereas the other had a rather
dark and foreboding name that could have been a strike against
him. But there emerged from those two the society of Cain and the
society of Abel. And those are the only two divisions
here tonight, as we were reminded in our last hymn before the sermon.
Psalm 1 knows only two kinds of people, the righteous who
are blessed and all others who are cursed. Where are you tonight? Where are you tonight? Where
are you tonight? Are you a Cain? You've had the
privilege of having someone who knew God tell you about God. Imagine what it would have been
like to sit at Adam's knee and have the man who was directly
created by God tell you all about it. What a privilege. How could
anyone miss the glory of his identity as an image bearer when
the first one made in God's image tells you about it? How could
anyone miss the tragic reality of the fall when the ones who
were involved in it tell you about it. But though Cain heard
creation and fall and redemption, that God came saying, I will
put an end to it. I will intervene with gracious,
omnipotent mercy and make a division. All of that stuff fell on Cain's
ear and he began to emerge into adulthood. I said, what's this
got to do with where the action's at? Oh, yeah, the end of the
day, it's time to go to church. Oh, yeah, let me go out and grab
a few things and bring it up there so things will look well.
Is that who I'm talking to tonight, man, woman, boy or girl? Being
here is a boredom to you. You haven't given to God one-tenth
the energy of heart and mind that you give in a basketball
game, that you give if you're swimming is a lie. You give to
God. something out of the field. You
don't care what. Throw God a dandelion. Throw
God a half-wilted flower. Just give God something. Or are
you an emerging able who seeks even as a little child, as a
young boy, young man, young woman, you seek to give God the best
you have. And you seek to give Him the
best not to earn His favor. But you've come to believe in
the great truths you've learned from mom and dad and from this
pulpit and in the classrooms down below, that you're God's
creature made to know him and love him, made in his image.
You're God's creature fallen, ruined in sin. But you're God's
creature created and fallen, but one to whom the wonderful
message of redemption in the seed of the woman comes, saying,
Repent and believe the gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you will be saved. And sitting here tonight, oh,
I have reason to believe there are some of you young children,
some of you preteens and teenagers that have all the marks of being
the successors of Abel. You seek, according to your own
present understanding, to lay hold of all that you know of
God, of your sin, of Christ, and of His ways. And the proof
of it is you've even sat here today with a believing heart. You've received the Word with
a believing heart. And in your sphere of responsibility
to obey mommy and daddy and to seek to walk before your siblings
as one who knows God, you pray, not because mom and dad say it's
devotion time, but because you know God and you delight to pray. Oh, dear children, don't let
any of the canes of this world con you into thinking you're
missing something. Don't let them bully you into
thinking you're missing something because you're Sally Goodshoes. Cain is in hell. Abel's looking on the face of
Jesus. And we'll join him someday. Where are you? Pretty hard to
miss it, isn't it? There's the picture. What society
do you belong to? May God grant that you'll be
able to say, by the grace of God, my person and my offerings
are accepted because I'm a believing and a righteous man or woman. If you're not that, you're an
unbelieving, wicked man or woman, even though you may cloak your
wickedness under the pattern of Cain, who was the formalist,
who did his religious thing with no spiritual eyes and no heart. God grant that you will not be
banished from the presence of God as was Cain, but that you
will draw near through the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Our Father, how we thank you
for your holy word. Oh, how we praise you for the
livingness of that word, and we would beg of you this night
that it may not have been preached in vain. But, O God, find the
canes in this place tonight. O Lord, seek them out as you
sought out that first cane. And may they not lie and shift
and equivocate, but may they stand naked and stripped before
you and cry out, My leanness, my leanness, God, be merciful
to me, the sinner. And we pray for each one whom
you have made into an able. O God, whatever it may cost us,
even should it cost us our life's blood, may we be determined to
be loyal to you because you have poured out your life for us in
the person of your Son. Thank you for your word, for
your spirit, And we pray that our meditation tonight will be
blessed to our prophet and to your glory, we ask in Jesus'
name. Amen.