the the I invite your attention back to
Genesis chapter 4, Over the past three or four weeks,
I've heard the names, Cain and Abel, brought up in discussions
on news programs and TV programs for some reason. It seems that
it's mentioned over and over again. Most of the time it has
to do with murder. But I heard one show recently
where the fellow blamed God for not policing very well. and not
taking care of its heritage because out of the four people that existed
on the face of the earth, one of them turned out to be a murderer.
Fact is, all four of them were murderers. One of them actually
committed the act. We're all murderers. Picking
up a gun and shooting someone doesn't make us a murderer. We
do that because we are a murderer. We are a murderer. That's what's
in our heart. This is an old story. really the second story
in the book. And it is a story that's amazing,
amazingly full of gospel. It's chock full of gospel teaching. And it's probably one of the
better known accounts in the Word of God. And it's the story
of the first murder, but not the story of the first death.
Not the story of the first death. Even those beasts slain by God
is not the story of the first death. What Jesus Christ is the
lamb slain prior to the foundation of the world. With death and
glory in the presence of God. Whether there was ever death
on this earth. It is the story of the nature
of human pride and the nature of submission
to God. The gospel applications of this
passage are manifold, but the subject is singular. If you strip
the incidentals, this is all about how to worship God. That's what this is about. How
to worship God. and the singular way in which
he is to be worshipped and the only way he is worshipped. Worship so-called in this day
has become for the most part a side show, very entertaining,
a showbiz production, and it is the same kind of worship that
Cain offered on this fateful day. Cain was the firstborn. and believed by Eve to be the
promised Messiah. When she said in the latter part
of verse 1 of chapter 4, I have gotten a man from God, she actually
said, I have gotten the man from God. I have gotten The God-man,
who's that? If you look back at chapter 15,
or chapter 3 and verse 15, our Lord said to the serpent, and
I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy
seed and her seed, and it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt
bruise his heel. That's called the Proto-Evangelium,
the first mention of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and
his substitutionary work. And when Cain was born to Eve,
she said, I have gotten the man. So he was the firstborn, and
believed by his mom and dad probably to be the Messiah. Being firstborn,
he had the birthright, and the secondborn would always be in
submission to him. That is what the Lord was talking
about in the latter part of verse 7 when He says, And unto thee
shall his be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. What
he's saying there is that though Abel was accepted and Cain was
rejected, it doesn't change the things in the natural realm.
We're talking about spiritual truth. We're talking about spiritual
truth. Being the firstborn, Cain followed
in the footsteps of his father and became a tiller of the ground.
Now Adam wasn't a tiller of the ground to start with. He was
a keeper of the garden. What does that mean? He got up
in the morning and went and picked what God had fed him with. That's
what that meant. He didn't plow. He didn't till. Part of the curse was he would
work the ground with the sweat of his face. He'd become a tiller
of the ground. That was part of the curse. Before
that, it was all grace. Get up and there was a pomegranate
or an orange or an apple. They were all there. Whatever
they needed to eat was there, supplied by God. But because
of the curse, he became a tiller of the ground. Became a tiller
of the ground, and we find that Cain followed in his father's
footsteps. He was a tiller of the ground also. And this is
all any person can really do with the birth that he's born
with naturally, with his first birth. He can follow the trade
of his father. That's all he can do. He can
follow the trait of his father. In our natural birth, we take
on the occupation of our father, Adam, because that's all we can
do. And apart from a second birth,
we will follow his sinful ways, born of the curse, till we return
to the ground from which we came. Cain acted against God and sought
out a way to worship God that would bring recognition to his
works and to himself and to the works and labor of his hands.
Cain likewise followed in the footstep of his father in trying
to cover his sinful deeds. Adam with fig leaves and Cain
tried to bury his brother in the dirt and then acted like
he didn't know where he was. Am I my brother's keeper? He
blamed someone else for his problem. He blamed Abel for his problem. Many more things could be said
about the Acts of Cain, but the singular thing that this teaches
is that God is to be worshipped one way. If we could get this
message out and have folks believe it, this would be a fine place,
a fine world to live in. We understood this singular principle. God is to be worshipped one way
and no other worship, no matter how pleasing to the flesh or
how beautiful or how grand or how it makes you feel or even
how sincere, no other worship than the one worship is ever
and will ever be accepted by God Almighty. None other. What
about all these other people? They're worshipping God. No,
they're not. They're doing like Cain did.
They're doing like Cain did. From the beginning, from the
beginning, God was to be worshipped through the shed blood of a substitute. From the beginning. That's where
all worship is. All worship is there. There must
be blood, for without the shedding of blood there is no remission
of sin. There must be death between man and God, or else there is
no worship at all. There must be a death here, because
a death is required. And if God is worshipped in creation,
He is worshipped in the new creation. That is the salvation of His
elect through the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. The blood
of the Lamb. If God is honored in creation,
it's as it pictures the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If
God is to be worshipped in providence, it is through the Lamb that was
slain at the appointed time to bring all things to their appointed
end. The glorification of God through the salvation of the
elect or for the salvation of the elect by the blood of the
Lamb. This all rests here and here
alone. There's no worship outside of
this. You can't worship where the gospel is not declared and
where the gospel is not believed and the God of the gospel is
honored for His work in salvation. This book is about God getting
glory for Himself in the salvation of His people. From Genesis 1
to Revelation 22, that's what this book is about. And what
is called worship today is nothing but fanfare and foolishness.
No worship is ever offered to God that does not honor Him in
the salvation of His people. It's simply not possible. Abel was the second born, and
only those who have been born a second time can truly worship
God. As a son of Adam, as he is born
as such, can never worship God, and can only glorify God in His
eternal punishment. As it says in the Revelation,
when all the church gathers together and praises God for sending Babylon
and all her followers into hell. That's the only way a son of
Adam, who's only a son of Adam and not a son of God, can honor
God, is in judgment. in judgment. No matter what man's
efforts is, whether sincere or not, he is incapable of worshipping
God as God is to be worshipped. That doesn't say he don't worship.
Cain worshipped, but he wasn't accepted. Cain
was rejected, but he worshipped. Abel believed God. Cain did not
believe God. It's that simple. Abel believed
God and Cain did not. Hold your place there in Genesis.
Turn over to Hebrews chapter 11. In Hebrews chapter 11, find that passage and hold your
finger there and turn back to Genesis just for a moment. I
want you to compare two verses here. Verse 4 of Genesis chapter
4 says, He also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and
the fat thereof. And we know the fat was what
was to be offered to God first, when the law came about. For
the fat belongeth to the Lord. It was burnt before God, and
that sweet-smelling savor rose up into the nozzles of God as
the accepted sacrifice. The fat belongeth to the Lord.
When Samuel came along and when found out Phineas and Hopni were
in the temple, they were not offering fat unto the Lord. They
were keeping the fat for themselves. They were saying that they deserved
the offering, that they deserved honor, that they deserved glory. The fat belongs to the Lord.
So Abel offers his sacrifice with the fat thereof. And the
Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. And notice the
chronology there, or the way it's lined up, he had respect
to Abel and his offering, and his offering. That tells us something
about the estate of Abel when he made the offering. He wasn't
accepted because of the offering, he was accepted and therefore
offered the proper offering to God, as all God's children do. The priests of God offers acceptable
sacrifices unto the Lord acceptable by the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ according to 1st Peter now in Hebrews chapter 11 verse
4 by faith wait a minute there you go By faith Abel offered
unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained
the witness that he was righteous. God testifying of his gifts,
and by it he being dead yet speaketh, as he is speaking to us this
morning. He yet speaks throughout the
ages of a one singular way to worship God. The one singing
away through a blood sacrifice. Abel was one of God's elect.
Cain was not. Abel was chosen. Cain was not. And neither of these men did
what they did in the offering unto the Lord in ignorance. In
ignorance. They had both heard the gospel. Cain had heard it and Abel had
heard it. Both of them had heard the gospel.
One believed and the other didn't. One refused and rejected the
gospel while the other received and believed the gospel. Abel
offered his sacrifice in faith according to what we just read
in Hebrews chapter 11. And faith comes by hearing and
hearing by the Word of God. And we know the Word of God is
only preached when the gospel is preached. 1 Peter chapter
1 and verse 25. Only when the gospel is preached
is the word of God preached. And I know men can stand up and
take verses and take and text and gather proof texts and they
can get all kinds of really good ideas and they can preach on
a whole lot of stuff. This is a big book. Got a whole
lot of stuff in it. So a man can find a whole lot
of stuff to preach from. But I'm telling you this, unless
a man preaches Christ and Him crucified, unless a man preaches
the gospel, he's not preaching the gospel. And he's not preached
this Word. This Word does not contain the
Gospel. The Gospel contains this Word. We need to see that. We need to understand that clearly.
And faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, the
Gospel. Cain didn't have faith, and his
sacrifice operated in the only realm he could, in the realm
of nature. Cain's unbelief was not due to election. His refusal
of the gospel was his own doing. God said that. God said that
to him. And the sin of it lay at his
door. In verse 7, the first phrase, If thou do us well, shall thou
not be accepted? If thou do us not well, sin lieth
at the door. Sin lieth at the door. What was
available to Cain? All he would have to do is go
to Abel and say, look, I need a lamb. I know I'm a tiller of
the ground, but I don't raise lambs. I need a lamb to offer
to God. That's all he had to do. He could have bought it.
Perfectly legal to do that in Scripture for a person who doesn't
have a lamb to buy a lamb for an offering. But he didn't do
that. His problem was his own. It was
not due to the fact that he wasn't elected. He just acted in his
own way. Abel's obedience was God's doing,
however. It was God's doing, and can be
attributed only to the work of grace. Had Abel been left to
himself, had he not been given the gift of faith, he would have
continued to operate in the same realm of Cain, wouldn't he? Was
Abel a better guy? No. He wasn't a better guy. He was a sinner saved by grace.
Who maketh thee to differ from another, and why hast thou that
thou hast not received it? If you have received it, why do
you boast as if you have not received it? These fellows came to that altar knowing
and having heard the gospel. Cain didn't know it in his heart,
but he had heard it. Where did they hear the gospel? They go to church? No, church
wasn't around then. Where did they hear the gospel?
They heard it from Adam. They heard it from Adam. They
didn't hear it in paradise either. They heard it outside of paradise.
They heard it in the world, where everything around them was cursed.
Adam came out of the garden with the gospel. with the promise
of salvation through the seed of a woman and the blood of substitution. He came out with that. Adam came
out of the garden with the knowledge that the only reason he had not
been put to death for his sin when he sinned against God, for
God had said, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. He knew that the
only reason he wasn't put to death for his sin was that God
had provided Himself with a sacrifice when He killed those beasts to
make a covering for that sinful pair, and that sacrificial blood
was not what cleansed him. That pictured the sacrifice of
the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. But Adam knew that
for God to forgive sin, for God to cover sin, for God to atone
to sin under the old system, for God to do that, there must
be blood shed. He knew that. He told them boys
that. And when this altar was set up
at the east of Eden, they knew what to bring. They knew what
to bring. In the last two verses of the
previous chapter, we have an interesting contrast. In verse
23 of chapter 3, it says, Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from
the garden. He sent Adam forth. Have you
ever heard that kind of language in Scripture? He sent him forth.
What did the Lord say to His disciples? As the Lord, as God,
has sent me, so send I you. I send you into the world. Be
as harmless as doves, as wise as serpents. What did Isaiah
say when the Lord said, Who shall I send? He said, Send me. Send
me. Let me go tell it. So here the
language is that God sent him forth. And that language is almost
always employed in the sending forth with good tidings or good
news or to bear gifts or something. He sent him forth. But then in
verse 24 it says, So he drove out the man. He drove out the
man. Are these two different things?
Well, yes they are, and one says they really are. This picture
is, I believe, the early church. They were sent into the world
to preach the gospel. The Lord did that in Matthew
28, 19, and 20. Go into all the world and preach
the gospel. teaching them whatsoever I have
observed, and baptized them in the name of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit." And Luke, he said, go into the world preaching
the gospel and preaching repentance from sin. He gave this commission. Well, you know, they let out
as missionaries all over the world, didn't they? Where do
you find them next? In a room, all of them, by themselves,
waiting on the Holy Spirit. waiting on the Holy Spirit. And
when the Holy Spirit comes, They went out. But they were reticent
to leave Jerusalem just like Adam was reticent evidently to
leave Paradise. I would have been. I'm a natural
man. Paradise? I've got to go out there where
there's trouble and danger and thorns and thistles. That's all
that's going to grow out there? And I'm going to have to plow
this ground with the sweat of my face and have to raise a garden.
I've got to take care of myself. I'm going to leave being taken
care of day and night so I can go out there? I don't want to
go out there. Send you out there with the gospel, I'd just rather
not go. Well, then I'm going to shove you out there because
you're going to go. Sin is going to be left out of paradise. It
ain't going to be back here no more. It ain't going to be here
no more. The church was reticent to leave
Jerusalem. They were holed up in their conclave until the Spirit
came upon them with power. And even after they began to
preach the gospel, they didn't venture out of Jerusalem. But
God had said, Listen, when I, the Spirit, comes, you're going
out in this war. You're going from Jerusalem to Samaria to
all the uttermost parts of the earth. You're going everywhere
with the gospel. They didn't go nowhere. How did He get them out of there?
He drove them out. How did He do it? He used some
drovers. called infidels who hated the
gospel. The gospel they preached began
to turn the world upside down, and persecution ensued. And the
mighty hand of God's providence drove the sent ones into the
world with the gospel. To do what? To go to Jerusalem
and Samaria and the other parts of the earth, because that's
where the gospel is going to be preached. Throughout history, when the
people of God sit on the gospel, God sends strong persecution.
And as a result, the greatest revivals and the greatest spreading
of the gospel has happened during times of strong persecution of
the church. Check out the history. That's
when it happened. And God sent forth Adam with
the gospel. But Adam, being a natural man, didn't much want to be discomforted
by leaving home. So God drove him out. But he
didn't go empty-handed. He went with the gospel. He went
with the good news of the fact that there was the way of life. There was. He went with the message that
the way of life was in paradise, and that's where it's at right
now. And the good news of the fact
that you could get there through blood sacrifice. That's good news. That way was
Christ, and from the time of this first sacrifice offered
by man, until the coming of the Messiah, until the day he comes
again, the entrance into his presence, and the worship of
his person is tied up, locked, stock and barrel, in the blood
of a substitute. That's where it's all at. Approach
God any other way, Then through the declaration
of the good news of the accepted sacrifice, and there will be
no accepted worshipers, nor will there be acceptable worship.
Just that simple. People try different ways all
the time. God made man upright, but he sought out many inventions. How's that going to work? Well,
at the east of Eden, God placed an altar. And by description it is likened
unto the lid of the ark of the covenant with a cherubim and
a flaming sword. Verse 24 of chapter 3, So he
drove out the man and placed at the east of Eden cherubims
and a flaming sword, which turned every way to keep him out. He drove him out, but he kept
the way open. to keep the way of the tree of
life. And we know that tree of life
is Christ. There was cherubim facing one another, and there
was a flaming sword. It is also called a licking flame. The flame was employed to denote
an accepted sacrifice. Throughout Scripture, when God
accepted a sacrifice, fire came from heaven and devoured it. Devoured it, showing its acceptance.
The word placed, however, in verse 24, is the word shakhan. from which the word Shekinah
is derived. So between these two cherubim
was this flame, this light, this fire that accepted or rejected
sacrifice. What was it? It was Shekinah,
glory of God. The same one that was in the
temple, the same one that was in the tabernacle in the Holy
of Holies that dwelt between the cherubim, the Shekinah glory
of God that the priest had to shake smoke so he could cloud
up the place so he couldn't see it, where blood was sprinkled
once a year on the Day of Atonement before the Shekinah glory of
God. It was there before that Shekinah
glory of God that the blood of the Lamb was sprinkled. Why? To keep the way of the Tree of
Life. That's why it was done. Who was
that tree of life? Turn over to Psalm 1. I know this is often used to
tell folks how to act right. And I don't have any real problem
with that, but it's simply just not what it's about. In Psalm 1, this speaks of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed is the man that walketh
not in the counsel of the ungodly. You know anybody that's ever
done that? Not only not in the human race, just one person,
the Lord Jesus Christ. "...Nor standeth in the way of
sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight
is in the law of God, and in his law doth he meditate day
and night, He shall be like a tree, planted by the rivers of water,
that bringeth forth fruit in his season. His leaf also shall
not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. That's that
tree of life. That's the way of the tree of
life that was kept. When the law concerning sacrifice
was given on Sinai, was it something new? And they come up with Moses,
and Moses come up with it? Was it something new? No, it
was a reiteration and a rehearsal of what had been since the beginning.
And remember, this way is to the tree of life. This way ain't
to the law. The law points to Christ. If you don't understand that,
you don't understand the Law. How does it do so? First of all,
part of the Law, the Ten Words, the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue,
it condemns you. And then the Ceremonial Law shows
the need of a blood sacrifice for your forgiveness or your
atonement. So that all points to the Lord
Jesus Christ. So when the Law was given on
Sinai, what do they mean by the Ten Commandments and the Ceremonial
Sacrifices? This right here. That God is
worshipped through a blood sacrifice and that alone. And that sacrifice
is Christ. Scripture says Abel came in faith.
We read that in Hebrews chapter 11 with a blood sacrifice and
was accepted. And that faith was accounted
him for righteous. God testified that he was righteous. How did
he worship God? He worshipped God by approaching
God on the merits of the Lamb. Everybody we know in Cherokee
just about. I don't care whether they go
to church or they're just total, seemingly total infidels. Everybody
in Cherokee believes in God. You ever met anybody that didn't?
I ain't met a one yet. I've talked to literally thousands
of people since I've been here these 32 years. The minute I
say I'm a preacher, they start telling me how much they believe
in God. That's why I don't usually tell them I'm a preacher, because
I'm going to either ruin their day or ruin mine. One or the
other. But they all believe in God.
They all believe that God accepts them. They all believe that God
requires righteousness for salvation. They all believe that acceptance
must be merited. They believe that. The problem
is they don't believe how it's done. Cain believed that God
had to be approached meritoriously, didn't he? He didn't come empty-handed. He didn't go up there and say,
well, here I am, except me. He came believing that God requires
a meritorious offering, as does everybody in the world. Abel worshipped God. How did
he worship Him? He worshipped Him by approaching
on the merits of that lamb. Particularly he honored God in
the requirement of death for sin. That was the merits of that
lamb. It died. It was killed. Its blood was
shed, its fat was burned, and it was consumed by the fire of
God. That's how. He glorified God in His holiness
and righteousness and declared by His action that God was just
to justify a sinner based on the propitiatory sacrifice of
the Lamb. That's the merit in which He
approached. He was saying, Nothing in My hand I bring, simply to
Thy cross I cling. He was saying as the publican
of old, Put the blood on the mercy seat for Me. He was saying as the songwriter,
this is all my hope and peace, this is all my righteousness,
nothing but the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Cain was offended
because God accepted Abel without any regard to Abel's work or
Abel's person, but entirely on the basis of Christ crucified. That is an offense to religion.
You don't believe it is? Everybody says, we love Jesus.
Everybody says it. The sign over Knoxville says,
Jesus is Lord. And I don't doubt that they love
the Jesus that they've invented in their own mind. I don't doubt
that at all. Everybody says, we love Jesus.
Start telling them. that all of salvation, their
salvation, our salvation, every salvation is absolutely and completely,
totally and entirely conditioned upon the merits of Jesus Christ
alone and nothing else, nothing else, no church attendance, no
prayer, no confession, no walking down an aisle, not even faith! Abel's sacrifice was accepted
because it had already been accepted in Gloria. Abel was accepted
because he had already been chosen in Gloria. And it had nothing
to do with Abel whatsoever. That offended Cain. He didn't
do nothing. All he did was watch them sheep. He just looks at them. That's
all he does, just looks at them. God makes them live, gives them
life, the mother births them, the mother licks off all the
mess off of them, the mother takes them out of the pasture,
they eat green grass that God provided, and he takes one of
them and kills it, and God accepts that man based on that merit
of that sacrifice. It flies in the face of people. People don't like that. But it's
the same today. The gospel is resented and refused
because it allows nothing from man. Nothing. Seeks nothing from man. Accepts
nothing from the work of man's hands. Men are saved because
God has accepted the death of Jesus Christ on their behalf. That's why men are saved. And nothing else. And that's
why the gospel is offensive. There's something about us right
now that offends our flesh and nature right now, don't it? You
mean all this I do, all I've done, all the church I go to,
all the prayer? It don't mean a thing! Yesterday I watched the riots
in Egypt. Thousands and thousands, perhaps
millions of people crowding buildings. Five o'clock, buddy, they stopped,
they got out their mats, they got down on their knees and prayed
right in the middle of the riot. I'm thinking, well, how about
that? Everybody prays. Ain't no infidels
in a foxhole. Ain't no atheists in a foxhole,
the old saying said. I guarantee you, I guarantee
you, trouble gets bad enough, you're going to call out to God. But usually what's born in the
storm dies in the calm. I've found that over the years.
Cain is representative of natural worship. It's real. It feels
good. Cain was not irreligious. Cain
was not a man who lived an immoral existence. Cain was not a wicked
man in the sense that society would call him wicked. Cain was
a religious man. His unbelief did not indicate
that he did not believe in the existence of God. He brought
an offering to God. Nor was it an indication that
God did not require a sacrifice. He brought a sacrifice. He understood
that. His unbelief was a belief that
God was obligated to accept men based on the best that men could
do. And that's religion today. Do
the best you can. God will make up for the rest.
You'll perish for thinking that. He believed that the fruits of
his labor were sufficient sacrifice to declare that he was righteous.
What do men call righteousness? Other than a true believer, what
does religion call righteousness? It's just stuff we do. How we
live. Stuff we don't do. How we live. That's what they call righteousness.
Don't they? What do you call righteousness?
Well, you know, I don't drink. Okay. Adam didn't have any booze
not to drink. Abel didn't have any booze not
to drink. God said he's righteous. I don't go to the movie shows."
He didn't have no movies not to go to. How is he righteous? See what I'm saying? Men have
ideas. Say, well, he prayed. There's
no evidence he prayed. Anywhere in Scripture there's
no evidence that Abel prayed. I'm sure he did. He was a child of
God, but there's no evidence of it. You see, men offer what they
do as proof and evidence of their salvation as proof and evidence
that they have been accepted by God and that they are righteous
men. He was wrong, Cain was, and so
is every son of Adam who accounts anything but Christ, and his
effectual death is the basis for acceptance with God. His
sacrifice, Cain's sacrifice, as labor-intensive as it surely
was, and I don't think he brought the chaff from his wheat. I believe
he brought the wheat. Now I bring you about the best
tomatoes and the best turnips and the best pomegranates and
whatever he could. I bring you about the very best he had because
he was going to do it right for God. I'm going to give my best
for Jesus. But what he did was nothing short
of blasphemy. Blasphemy. And a declaration
that Christ's person and his work were not necessary and were
to no avail. Read the book of Galatians. Read it. What is it to fall from
grace? It's to leave the idea of grace
and the notion of grace for the notion that you have works that
will please God. That's what it is to fall from
grace. It ain't to be a drunk and then stop drinking and fall
off the wagon. That ain't falling from grace.
Falling from grace is saying you believe in grace. but looking
to your works for acceptance with God or as evidence of your
salvation. You've fallen from grace. That's
what it is. Read Galatians chapter 5. He
believed that God was obligated to accept him because he offered
proof and evidence of his labor. You can't question this man's
dedication, nor you can question his labor. He was there. He was
up front. He brought his stuff. He had proof of it. He offered
his sacrifice in pride of self and pride of place, as is clearly
seen in his reaction when God rejected him. He was downcast. He was angry and depressed because
God had rejected him and his sacrifice. He was angry, wroth,
and he was down. He was depressed. His countenance
changed. We have but to tell folks that
God accepts nothing but Christ and His death and see how angry
and depressed they become. I've had them get in my face.
Tell me, that's the devil's doctrine what you're preaching. You preach
grace like that and people just go out and sin all over the place.
No they won't, not if they're God's children. They're not looking
for a reason to sin, they're looking for a reason not to. And did not the law prohibit
murder? And the punishment for it was
so severe. In this day and age, the law prohibits murder. Punishment is severe. But let
me tell you, don't think for a moment that the outcome would
be any different than Cain and Abel if there wasn't the law
that prohibited it today in this land. I'm telling you. I remember the
Rushduniites. They were what they called theonomists. They believed that the church
should rule the world and that it should rule by the Ten Commandments
or the law of God. And I saw a fellow interview
one of the Rush Dunyites on TV and they said, well, what do
you do if people don't believe? He said, well, we'll put them
in jail. Okay. And this is somebody, he's supposed
to be a Christian. And he was Calvinist. God help us. Them
Calvinists is crazy people. And he went on to say, well,
what if they defy the law? He said, we'll kill them. We'll kill them. Don't think
for a moment it would be any different today if it weren't
for the law. Even today in places throughout
the world, men kill others because of the way they believe God accepts
them. Why do you think those planes
flew into that tower? Though they don't understand Christianity
whatsoever, not true Christianity, they believe that God accepts
them and does not accept those other people. Let's fly some
planes into their towers. Why do they do that? Why do they
say kill the infidels? Same reason the Christians said
it about the Native Americans way back when. Why do we kill
the infidel? Because they infidel. We can take their land. They're
infidels. It's always done in the name
of religion. Religion without Christ is murder. If not openly activated murder,
it is murder in the heart. Do you know how God accepts sinners? How is God approached? How is
God worshipped? How is a sinner accepted before
God? Only and entirely upon the merits of Jesus Christ and Him
crucified. That's it. Nothing else. Nothing.
Can you get a hold of that? Will that do you? Will that float
your boat? Like one old girl used to walk
over to me, she said, Will that trip your trigger? Will that
do it for you? If it won't, you're going to
perish in an eternal hell separated from God. Because that's how
you worship God and that's how you approach God. Now see, it
is simple. Very simple. Can you look at your own life
and what you have confidence in now? Can you take a little
brown paper bag and put all that hope that is not Jesus Christ
alone and just toss it out the door? Can you do it? Can you
look at your church attendance and your giving and your prayers
and your Bible reading and your praying? Can you take those things
and put them in a sack and throw them out the door? Because if
you look into any of them for salvation, all they'll prove
is kindling. Christ is the way, the truth,
and the life, and no man can approach to God but Him. True
worship and the only condition of acceptance is the blood and
death of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's it. That's why when we
partake the Lord's table this afternoon, we're not going to
say, We remember our prayers. We're not going to say we remember
our church attendance. We're not going to say we remember
our giving. We're not going to say we remember our love and
all the things we do. We're going to do one thing. We're going to remember the death
of Jesus Christ. Why? Because that's the only
thing that sets us in a right standing with God. That's why
we take that table. You do show forth my death until
I come again. Father bless us for our understanding.
We pray in Christ's name. Amen.