All right, brethren, let's open
our Bibles to Genesis chapter 4. This will be our next popular
story. We're going through these stories
everybody's familiar with in the Scripture. And these aren't
just stories. These really happen. Let's start reading in Genesis
4, and we'll read down to verse 16. It says, And Adam knew Eve
his wife, and she conceived, and there came and said, I have
gotten a man from the Lord. And she again 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 the Lord. And Abel he also brought of the
firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord
had respect unto Abel and to his offering. But unto Cain and
to his offering he had no respect. And Cain was very wroth, and
his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain,
Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou
doest well, shall not thou be accepted? And if thou doest not
well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire,
and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with 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. And the Lord said unto Cain,
Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not. Am I
my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done?
The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
And now art thou cursed from the earth. which hath opened
her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou
tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee
her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond shalt
thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord,
My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast
driven me out this day from the face of the earth, and from thy
face shall I be hid. And I shall be a fugitive and
a vagabond in the earth, And it shall come to pass that every
one that findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord said unto him,
Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him
sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon
Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from
the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the
east of Eden. Now we live in a very religious
world. A world where everybody is religious.
There's all kinds of religions in the world. There's only one
true religion. That's God's religion. But if
you take all the religions of the world and you just bring
them down to two religions, This is what we have represented here
in this text. There's the way of Cain, and
there's the way of Abel. It's the way of grace. That's
the way of Abel, the way of grace. God's electing grace, Christ's
redeeming grace, the Holy Spirit's regenerating grace, God's preserving
grace, God's resurrecting grace, His glorifying grace, all of
grace, beginning to end. Not of our works, of His grace.
And then there's the way of Cain. And the way of Cain is the way
of works, is the way of self-separation and self-righteousness and self-exaltation
and self-glory. And the Scripture says, Woe unto
them, woe unto them that have gone the way of Cain. We want to be found in Christ
the way. That's the way of Abel. We don't
want to be found in the way of Cain. Now, naturally, as we're
born into this world, it seems like we think to ourselves, I
can believe when I want to. I can pick up the Bible when
I want to. I can read when I want to. I can call on God when I
want to. And I can reform my life if I
want to. All of these things we think
is the right way. And that's the way of Cain. That's
the way of Cain. We have no idea of the true way. by nature. There's a way that
seems right unto man, and the ways thereof are the ways of
death. Now, which way are you going?
Which way am I going? This is the question. All of
us, by nature, are either going the way of Cain, which we all
were going by birth, or by God's grace, we're going the way of
Abel. I want to know which way is the way. I pray God will take
you out of the way of Cain, put you in the way of Abel. All right,
now Genesis 4. First notice here, there's no
difference in Cain and Abel according to their natural birth. No difference
in them. Both were born of Adam. It says
there, Adam knew Eve, his wife. She conceived and bared Cain.
And then verse 2 says, she again bared his brother Abel. So both
of these men are born of the same father and the same mother.
They have the same father and the same mother. So they're both
born of Adam's corrupt seed. This is after the fall. This
is after sin's entered in. This is when Adam's nature's
become corrupted. And they all have the same, they
both have the same nature. And then, two, they both heard
the same word. They heard the same word. They
knew where to go. They knew when to go. And they
knew they had to bring an offering. Both of them knew this. Both
of them knew this. Adam in the garden, whenever
God came to Adam after he sinned, God said to Adam, He called him
out of the trees and stripped him of his fig leaves, and God
told him in Genesis 3.15, He said, I'm going to put enmity
between Satan and the seed of woman. Satan and Hersey. And he says,
and he, Satan's going to bruise his heel, but Christ's going
to bruise his head in the process. And Adam knew this. And then
when God took him to the, before he took him and cast him out
of the garden, God took an innocent animal and slew that animal and
made coats of skins and covered Adam and Eve's nakedness. That's
a picture of substitution. An innocent one dying in the
place of Adam and Eve. And God covering them with that
skin is a picture of the righteousness of Christ. And then when He cast
him out of the garden, at the edge of the garden, He put a
flaming sword there. That's an example of the gospel
of Christ and Him crucified to keep the way of the tree of life.
This is where they would come. This is where they had to come
to worship God. This is how they had to come to enter into God's
presence. There's only one way into God's
presence, and that's Christ. Well, they had both heard this.
They both heard this gospel just like everybody sitting here has
heard this gospel. So we see there's no difference
in them in that regard. But Hebrews 4 tells us something.
Let's go there. Hebrews chapter 4. Hebrews 4
tells us there was a difference between these two boys. I'm sorry, Hebrews 11. Hebrews
11, 4. Did I say that? Hebrews 11.4. Alright. It says here, By faith, by faith, trust in
God, believe in God, by faith Abel offered unto God a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness.
God bore witness that he was righteous. God testifying of
his gifts. and by it he being dead yet speaketh."
Now, how did Abel have faith in God? How did he have faith
in God? Well, I guess he just sat there
right along with Cain and when he heard Adam preach the gospel
to him, he just of his own will believed. Well, that's not what
the Scripture says. The Scripture says in Ephesians
2, by grace are you saved through faith. and that not of yourselves. The grace is not of you, the
salvation is not of you, and the faith is not of you. That
not of yourselves, not of works, lest any man should boast, is
the gift of God. Grace is a gift, faith is a gift,
salvation is a gift. It's the gift of God, where His
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, and ordained to believe
and to repent and to follow after Christ and to love one another. These are things He ordained
before the foundation of the world. And God brings these dead
sinners through this Gospel. He brings us to believe on Christ
and repent from us and our works and our way and rest in Him.
Who maketh thee to differ, the Scripture says? What do you have
that you didn't receive? And if we received it, why on
earth would we ever boast about it then? Everything we have in
grace, God gave to us. Everything we have in this life,
God gave to us. We wouldn't have anything without
Him. So Abel's born of the Spirit of God. Now there's a difference
in him. God put the difference there. God made the difference
there. The difference is the difference God makes. Now, alright,
secondly, let's see their ways of approaching God. Genesis 4,
3 says, "...and in process of time it came to pass..." The
word there is at the end of days. At the end of days. The Lord
had sanctified the seventh day, and the Scripture says at the
end of the days, at the end of the week, they came and worshipped
God. We're not Sabbatarians and we
don't observe a Sabbath day. But we do come together to worship
the Lord. We come together on a day He's
designated, the place He's designated with His people at the feet of
Christ, our altar, to worship the Lord. And so it says here,
that came to pass, Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an
offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also, he brought
of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. Now Cain
is a tiller of the ground. That's what Cain does. He's a
tiller of the ground. And so Cain brought of the fruit
of the ground an offering unto the Lord. Now you notice there's
a difference here in these two offerings. Cain, it doesn't say
Cain brought the first of his fruits. It doesn't say he brought
the first fruits. It says Abel brought the firstlings
of his flock. It doesn't say Cain brought the
first fruits, his first fruits. You know what the law of the
first fruits said? A lot of the first fruits said that whenever
you have your field, your harvest, and you've been waiting all year
for that to come in. And when those first ripe fruits
come in, they're the best, the first ripe fruit. I told the
young people on Friday that I always used to love to get my granddad's
purple hull peas, the first ones that came off the bush. And while
my grandmother would cook those with some ham hocks and some
cornbread and I just, that was a meal. That by itself was the
meal. That was good. Well, the first
fruits, God said, you take those first fruits. Your family's sitting
there, they're waiting, they're hungry, they want to eat. There's
nothing else on that vine but the first fruits. You take all
those first fruits off that vine. And you bring those first fruits
to God and you give them to God. If I'm going to do that, I don't
even know if those vines are going to produce any more vegetables.
I don't even know if I'm going to have any more food for my
house. And I'm taking this and giving it to God? Cleaning out
my storehouse and giving it to God right off the bat? It signified that we come to
God by faith. We're born of His Word, of His
will, begot He us by the Word of God that we should be a kind
of first fruits. When you're a first fruit, you're
giving yourself wholly, lock, stock, and barrel to God, trusting
God's going to provide. He's provided in the firstborn
Son of God, in the first begotten, only begotten Son of God, in
His firstling, He's provided righteousness for me. And I'm
coming for us and He's going to provide. He's provided me
righteousness, and holiness, and redemption, and He saved
me from the curse. He's going to provide everything
else I need. And so God's child comes with
faith, trust in God, given to God Himself first. Everything
He has. Everything. He comes and says,
I'm resting in you, I'm trusting in you, I'm not looking at me,
I'm right here. This is it. He comes with everything
that's the best. Because everything He has, God's
given Him. And he gives him the first. Everything he has is his. It's his. Timeliness. His dress. He doesn't dress one
way on Sunday and another way in the midweek. He dresses the
same every time because he's giving his best to God. He comes
and gives his best to God. And that's what Abel did, but
Cain didn't do that. Cain didn't do that. It means
Cain's offering was without faith. There was no blood in his offering.
There was no blood in his offering. So Cain didn't come confessing
his sin. He didn't come confessing, I
need to die in another. Even when they gave the first
fruits, even when they came and gave those offerings years later
in the law, they had to come with blood. They couldn't come
without blood. Without the shedding of blood,
there's no remission of sin. You can't come to God unless
you come in the blood. Not at all. Cain was offering
his self-will and his self-ability and his fruits. And you consider
that. Those were fruits out of the
earth raised by a man who was out of the earth. Those were
just earthy fruits is all they were. That's what we offer if
we come to God outside of Christ expecting to be saved. Just earthly
fruit. But Abel, it says there in verse
4, Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof. He selected the firstborn. And
he selected the best, no spot, no blemish, just this pure lamb. And that's what he brought. You
have a man, he's sitting there, and he's got this one head of
stock, and it's lame, and it's got some blemishes in it. If
he took it to the sale barn, it wouldn't bring but about $100.
He's got this other one over here that's just perfect. It's
just perfect. If he took it to the sale barn,
it's gonna bring $500 to $1,000. That's the one he's going to
take to God. He said, that's the one I'm taking to God right
there. You take men, you know, that have something, it's not
any use to them. Somebody has some old clothes
or something like that, you know, and they're just sitting in the
basement. Let's give these to Goodwill or let's give these
to the veterans or something like that. Well, do that. That's
good. You should do that. But don't think that you've sacrificed
anything doing that. You wasn't wearing them. You
wasn't using them. Sacrificial is when you take what's yours
and give. And the picture there is this.
We're taking everything that we once trusted in, everything
we once hoped in, and we're laying that down and saying, I believe
God and I believe Christ is going to provide. That's what's pictured
here. He came by faith. He came with
that blood just declaring, I deserve to die right there in that place.
He came there, there's this little lamb, innocent, nothing wrong
with it, spotless. Little lamb just followed him
right there to that altar. And he got to that altar, and
he took the sharpest knife he had, and he cut that lamb's throat
and killed it. Why would you kill a little innocent
lamb like that? That's what God did for His people. He took His Son, holy, spotless,
without blame, and laid the iniquity of his people on his son, and
he slaughtered his son with a sword of divine justice so that his
people could go free. That's what Abel confessed by
his faith. I deserve to die. God saved me
by a substitute. He saved me by His grace. That's
what Abel testified. All right, thirdly, who did God
receive? Who did He receive? Verse 4 says
at the end, The Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering.
But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect." Now we read
in Hebrews 11, it said, by faith Abel offered unto God a more
excellent sacrifice than Cain. I've heard men say, well the
sacrifice didn't have anything to do with it. Oh yes it did.
It said if faith had everything to do with it too. He came by
faith. But he says he brought a more excellent sacrifice. And
it says the Lord had respect to Abel and his sacrifice. God has respect to Christ and
to the sacrifice Christ made. And all who come by faith in
Christ, God has respect to them in Christ, washed in His blood,
and He has respect to Christ, their one offering. That's the
truth of the gospel now. And he obtained witness, God-witness,
God bore witness in his heart, first of all, that he was righteous. The scripture says if you believe
on God, It'll be imputed to you. God'll make it known in the court
of your conscience, purging your conscience from dead works to
serve the living God, that you're righteous in Christ. And if you're
righteous, that means there's no charge that can be laid against
you. That means that it's done. God's received you. He accepts
you. You're complete. You can lay down all your vain
idolatry. And when He makes that known
in your heart, you'll start serving Him in love then. Serving Him
in love. And God testified of His gifts,
of His gifts. When you come to God in Christ,
you know, our singing, we think, it's not any good. God says,
that's a good gift to me. We pray, we pray, and you try
to pray, and you just, thoughts here and there, and you just
think, I can't even, I can't even sit and concentrate long
enough to pray. He comes up to God through Christ. God says, that's a good gift
to me. Whatever you do in the Lord,
God says, I'm testifying, that's a good gift. Not because of us,
because it comes in His Son, washed in His blood, holy in
His Son, a good gift, in His perfect gift, in His unspeakable
gift. And He being dead yet speaks.
Abel's still preaching to us. We're sitting here hearing Abel
preach to us today. He's telling everybody here today, Whatever
you do, you come in the Lamb. Whatever you do, you come in
the blood. Whatever you do, you come to
God, bow down, confessing your sin, confessing your need, and
don't dare come in the fruit of your works. Don't come that
way. He's still preaching to us. Still
preaching to us. But Cain, this is what it says
of him, verse 5. Unto Cain and to his offering
God had no respect, had not respect, and Cain was very wroth and his
countenance fell." When this word wroth, I read there's nine
words in the Hebrew language for anger. And this word wroth,
from which this is translated, is the worst. It's the most angry that there
can be. Cain was angry. He was angry. But he didn't repent. He didn't repent. He didn't turn
to God and beg mercy and beg to be received and beg to be...
and ask God, what? How do I come, Lord, that you'll
receive me? He didn't do any of that. He
got mad. He got mad. He got real mad. This was the enmity of his heart
from the beginning. This was the enmity of his heart
against God when he came with the fruits of the ground. That's
why he didn't come in a lamb. He wasn't going to have God tell
him he was a sinner. He wasn't going to have God tell
him he couldn't do something good. He wasn't going to have
God tell him he couldn't make himself acceptable. And here's
this brother Abel. Younger brother. He's not even
daddy's favorite. Dad was a tiller of the ground.
He made me a tiller of the ground. I inherited daddy's business.
This boy right here. My name means inheritance. My
name means possession. When mama had me, she thought
she had the Christ. This boy's name means vanity.
God's going to receive him and not receive me? Cain was angry. There's no joy, there's no cheer
anywhere but in submission to God, in obedience to God, that
is, believing on his son. and worshiping Him and serving
in Him through the constraint of Christ's love alone. If I
got to whip you with the law and yoke you with the law and
guilt you into doing something, even if you do it, you ain't
done it before God. That's just true. Notice the
faults, not God's. It's Cain's, verse 6. And the
Lord said to Cain, Lord Cain do it. He said, why are you wroth?
And why is your countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou
not be accepted? If you come in the Lamb, if you
come in the blood, if you come renouncing yourself and your
works and everything you are, shall you not be accepted? The
fault's not God's fault. Men get angry and they say, I
don't like it that God chose some and didn't choose others.
Well, if He hadn't, you wouldn't have chosen God. You know, say, I don't like it
that Christ came and died and redeemed His particular people
and didn't redeem everybody. If He hadn't, there wouldn't
have been anybody washed in the blood. I don't like it that God
must come and give me life and give me repentance and draw me
to Himself and that no man can come through the Father except
through the Lamb and that by God drawing him. I don't like
that. You wouldn't come otherwise. And so, men can't take God down
off the throne and they can't kill God. We did once. He let us do it. But He laid
down His life doing it. But He gave Himself to us. But
we did it because we didn't like it. We didn't like Him. We didn't
like His grace. We didn't like His way. And we
were wroth with Him. We were wroth with Him. But now
they can't do that. So you know what they do now?
They sit there and get mad at the preacher and send him dirty
emails and send him dirty messages and all kinds of stuff. And if
they would, they'd kill him. And they do the same to his people.
I'm not going to hear that. I talked to a man this week,
and he called to say that he just was so thankful for the
message, some of the messages, and he said, I said, does anybody
in your family believe the gospel? And he said, my sister calls
me, and the first question out of her mouth is, if we're gonna
not talk about God, I'll talk to you. And he said, and she
claims to be a believer, claims to be a Christian, and I tell
her, you're a Christian, and I'm a Christian, and you mean
we can't talk about God? No. because we're not talking
about the same God. That's what the Scripture says
they'll say. Your rock's not like our rock. And He's sure
not. He's not. God's willing to save
all that'll come to Him through faith in Christ. He's willing. He's willing. Listen to this.
Turn over to John 3. Here's the problem. The fault's
not God's. Well, it's not God. He said,
you will not come to Me that you might have life. Here's the
fault right here. John 3, verse 19. This is the condemnation. Here's
the problem. Light is coming to the world.
Christ the Light has come. Men loved darkness rather than
light. Because their deeds were evil
deeds. They were evil deeds. Look at
this, "...and everyone that does evil hates the light, neither
comes to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But
he that does truth, he comes to the light, that his deeds
may be manifest that they are wrought in God." What are these
evil deeds? I've worked hard for God. I've
tilled this ground for God. I've grown these vegetables for
God. I've planted and picked and harvested
these vegetables in sweat for God. And now I'm going to the
house of God. And I'm going to give these gifts
to God. And God's going to love me and
receive me because I've done so much for God. And that man
is so evil, he won't come into the light and say, all those
deeds are just pure wickedness. God won't have me. But the man
that does truth comes and he comes in a lamb saying, Lord,
I have never done anything pleasing to you. I come in Christ your
righteousness alone. So the problem is not God's,
but instead they persecute and murder. Verse 8 says, Cain rose
up against Abel his brother and he killed him. He killed him. Has anything changed today? Paul
said this in Galatians 4.29, he said, As then he that was
born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit,
even so it is now. There's only two religions in
the world. The way of Cain, the way of Abel. The way of works
and the way of grace. The way of free will and the
way of God's sovereign will. That's only two ways. Only two
ways. Well, lastly, what happened to
these men? Well, God received Abel. We saw
there, he testified of his gifts, that he's righteous, and he received
him. Just like Enoch was translated, didn't see death, was translated
because he had this testimony that he pleased God. Abel, God
received him because he pleased God. Without faith, it's impossible
to please him, but he pleased God. What about Cain? God said
there in verse 11, Now art thou cursed from the earth. You're
cursed. And verse 16 says, Cain went
out from the presence of the Lord, cast him out, dwelt in
the land of Nod east of Eden. Christ said in the day of his
return, He said, I'm going to gather them up. I'm going to
gather all men together. I'm going to put my sheep on
my right hand. I'm going to put the goats on
the left. And He said, And to the goats, He said, these
shall go away into everlasting punishment. And you know how
He said they're going to go? They're going to go arguing with
God. They're going to go arguing, when did we not feed you? When
did we not clothe you? When did we not do wonderful
works for you, God? They're going to go to hell calling
God a liar. And He said, But the righteous
will go into eternal life. And he said, and they're going
to enter in saying, Lord, when did we ever feed you? When did
we ever clothe you? When did we ever do anything
for you? See the two different spirits? Two different spirits. That's the two beliefs, brethren.
Turn over Romans 11, 6. I want to end with this. Romans
11, 6. Well, can you compromise these?
Can you bring these two together and, like, you know, maybe just
meet in the middle? No way it can be done. Romans
11, verse 6. There's no way these two will
ever meet. There's no way they'll compromise
and no way they're going to shake hands and say, that's right. God told Cain, if you would bow,
and come with a sin offering, you'd be accepted. But you won't
do it. You're not going to be accepted.
Now look here, Romans 11, 6. If salvation's by grace, then
it is no more of works. That means your works do not
contribute one iota to salvation. The believer will do some works.
He'll do good works because he's ordained to do them and he's
going to do them. God foreordained that he shall walk in them and
God's going to bring him to walk in them. There's no doubt about
it. But your works are not going to add or take away from your
salvation at all, brethren. The works that are going to count
in that day of judgment before God are the works of Christ.
That's what God means when He says you're going to be judged
according to your works. Are you going to be judged whether
you rested in Christ and all His works are imputed to you?
Or are you going to be judged whether you came to God in your
own works like Cain did? Look at this now. If it's by
grace, it's no more of works. Otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it
is no more grace. Otherwise, work is no more work.
That means they'll never meet. They'll never come together.
You can't come partially by grace and partially by works. They
can't shake hands. They can't be in agreement. They're
mutually exclusive. It's either grace or it's works.
I pray God will graciously create a new heart. If you don't believe,
I pray He'll create in you a new heart and make you come the one
way, Christ the way. I pray that today. Amen. Let's
stand together, brethren. Father, we thank You for this
Word and we thank You for setting these things forth to us in simplicity. It's so easy to look at all these
religions in the world and think, How in the world can they all
be wrong? Lord, You've shown us right here
clearly. Every other religion, no matter who it is or where
it is, it always has at its heart man doing something, man contributing
something. But thanks be to God, your way,
the true way is Christ alone, through faith alone, by grace
alone. Lord, we pray now that you'd
bring us in this way. Make us to bow, make us to love
you and serve you honestly by the constraint of love. Make
us walk by faith, trusting you for everything. Forgive us, Lord,
of our unbelief. Forgive us of our hardness. We
ask it in Christ's name. Amen.