Yuba-Sutter Grace Church would
like to invite you to listen to a sermon by our pastor, Rick
Warda. We currently meet at the Yuba
County Library, located at 303 2nd Street in downtown Marysville,
California, on the corner of 2nd and C Street. Weekly services
are held on Sunday at 11 a.m. at the library. For more information,
visit our website at ysgracechurch.com. Now, here's our pastor, Rick
Warda. The title of our sermon today is The Blood That Speaks
Better. The scripture is found in Genesis
chapter 4 verses 1 through 14. And Adam knew Eve his wife, and
she conceived and bare Cain, 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 not 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, shalt thou not 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
the Lord 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. What does the Bible teach
about Cain and Abel? First, Eve named her firstborn
son Cain. His name means gotten. Adam and
Eve looked in hope for God to fulfill his promise to give one
who would bruise the serpent's head, one who was the seed of
the woman. Eve named her firstborn son Cain
because she believed through him God would destroy the works
of the devil. But Cain was not God's promised
Christ. Cain was no savior. Though Cain
was Adam's firstborn son, he was a sinner. Our best is full
of sin, Job asked. Who can bring a clean thing out
of an unclean? Not one, Job 14.4. No one becomes
a child of God because he is born to the right parents. No
one becomes a child of God through physical birth. Jesus told Nicodemus,
you must be born again. We must be born into God's kingdom
by spiritual birth. No one becomes a child of God
by the will of man. God said that those who believe
Christ are born of God. Those who believe on his name
were born, the Lord says, not of blood, nor of the will of
the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. We are not sons
of God by our parents. We are not sons of God by the
will of man. And we most certainly are not
sons of God by our own so-called free will. Adam and Eve hoped
Cain would be God's Christ. But Cain proved that he was of
that wicked one. The Apostle John said, This is
the message that you have heard from the beginning that we should
love one another, not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and
slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because
his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous. All
of us are born sinners. All of us are slaves to Satan
by our natural birth. We all walk according to the
course of this world, according to Satan's enslaving deception
and influence, fulfilling the lusts of the flesh and of our
mind, and are by nature the children of wrath, even as others." Ephesians
2 verse 1 through 3. We must be translated from the
kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear son, Colossians
1.13. We must be set free from Satan's
castle. Only Christ, who is stronger
than Satan, can deliver us. Only Christ delivers from Satan,
and this is why he came into the world. This is what the Lord
Jesus did by his own death. We are delivered from Satan by
the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. In his own death Christ bruised
the devil's head. He destroyed his work. Hebrews
2.14 and 1 John 3.8 Cain was of that wicked one. If we do
not believe Christ and die in our unbelief then we too are
of that wicked one just as Cain and just as Judas who was called
in scripture the son of perdition. Cain proved himself to be a son
of perdition. Cain murdered his brother, Abel. God promised Cain that if he
did well, he would be accepted. But God also warned Cain. God
warned Cain that if he did not come to Him by Christ, his own
sin would master him. The Lord said to Cain, If thou
doest well, shalt thou not be accepted, and if thou doest not
well, sin lieth at the door. To do well is to come to God
by Christ. If Cain came to God by faith
in Christ's blood, coming to Him for acceptance, coming to
worship God by the blood of Jesus only, then God would accept him. But he did not come that way.
He invented his own way. All who reject Christ come by
their own way, by their own work. Therefore, Cain remained under
the complete control of his own sinful nature. Sin ruled over
him, and sin's desire was Cain's only desire. God told Cain, If
thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. As a crouching lion,
sin took Cain as its captive servant. He hated his brother,
and hatred in the heart is murder. The Apostle John said, Whosoever
hateth his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer
hath eternal life abiding in him. 1 John 3 verse 15 By his
unbelief and by his hatred for Abel, Cain proved himself to
be of that wicked one. He never repented. He remained
in his sin, enslaved to his blinding pride, enslaved to his unbelief,
enslaved to his ignorance of God. He was in darkness. He did
not know God. He had no faith in Christ and
in his sacrifice. God never showed him mercy. God
never granted him repentance to life. God gave Cain up to
his own heart's lust to do evil things. Though he was born to
Adam, his spiritual father was the devil. He hated Christ. He hated his own brother Abel.
He murdered his own brother Abel. Whatever we do to the least of
Jesus's brethren, we do it to Christ himself. Therefore, Cain
not only hated Abel, but he murdered the Son of God. He considered
his own offering to be on par with Christ's offering of himself. Cain effectively placed his offering
above Christ crucified. He considered the blood of Christ
an unholy thing because he placed his unholy offering before Christ. By self-righteous, stubborn pride,
in willful unbelief, Cain refused to come to God by Christ. He
therefore opposed his own salvation. He trampled underfoot the blood
of the Son of God. God therefore dealt with him
in justice. He had no mercy on Cain. Cain
murdered his brother Abel because his works were evil and his brothers
were righteous. We all know something of envy.
We can all recall our own reaction when someone did the right thing
that we failed to do. Cain reacted with envy and hatred
when he saw that Abel offered the lamb that pointed to Christ.
Cain was angry because God accepted Abel. What about you? What about
me? If God accepted the person next
to you, but punished you in hell forever for your sins, would
God be unfair? Would God be just if He left
you in your sins and by His own free grace saved your neighbor
for Christ's sake alone? We naturally think that if God
were to treat us as our sins deserve, He would be unfair.
We think that God cannot have mercy on anyone unless he has
mercy on me too. But to think that way is to think
like Cain. It is to think God owes salvation
to me, that He owes me something. But when God convinces us of
our sin, we agree that if He told me to depart from Him forever,
it would only be just and right. And if He saved me for Christ's
sake alone, it would be to the praise of His grace alone. All cause for boasting in myself
is removed by the way God saves sinners. Cain offered to God
the fruit of the cursed ground to be accepted by Him. Cain plowed
the cursed ground. He planted seed into the cursed
ground. He watered that seed in the cursed
ground. And then, when God gave the increase
to it, Cain brought the fruit of his labors to the Lord to
be accepted by Him. The lesson is clear. God cannot
accept anything from a sinner. Whatever comes from my mind or
is produced by my work comes from a wicked heart, and that
makes it unclean. God accepts only one offering,
the sacrifice of Christ of himself on the cross. Cain did not do
well. God warned Cain what would happen
if he did not come by Christ. He told Cain that if he brought
the right offering by faith in Christ, he would be accepted.
Jesus said this, this is the will of him that sent me, that
everyone which seeth the son and believeth on him may have
everlasting life and I will raise him up at the last day. John
6 verse 40. To believe Christ is to do well. To look to Christ alone for all
of my salvation and to come to God by him is what God requires
of us. The Prophet Micah asked, What
doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly, and to love
mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? To do justly is to come
to God by the blood of Christ as a sinner with nothing, needing
everything, and coming to God to find my all in Christ. Salvation and all blessings are
in Christ alone. God is a just God and a Savior
because He justifies the ungodly by the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is what God thinks of Christ
that justifies a man To do justly, therefore, is to come to God
for acceptance and to worship God by the blood of Christ. It
is bringing nothing but coming for everything and waiting on
God to give me all things for Christ's sake. My sin is great
and I am helpless. I, therefore, need a great Savior
who does all for me. God's law is holy. I need to
be clothed in the righteousness of Christ to stand before God.
When we look to Christ alone for all of our salvation, we
come to God in the only way God can be just and justify the ungodly. And this coming is itself the
work of God's grace. It is not the work of man's free
will. Jesus said this, This is the
work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent." John
6, verse 29. Our belief in Christ, our faith,
is God's work. Saving faith is not only God's
gift, but it is the spiritual understanding and the full persuasion
that God cleanses us from our sins and clothes us in His righteousness
and accepts us, who are sinners, in His Son, Christ is the Beloved
of the Lord. And God the Father made all those
he chose in Christ and predestined as his children to be accepted
in the Beloved, that is, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians
1.6 says, He hath made us accepted in the Beloved. But Cain did
not do well. He did not come to God looking
to Christ, the Lamb of God, who offered himself by God's eternal
will. All who reject Christ are like
Cain. God passed by all the other things
in Cain's life. To focus our attention on this
one thing, the difference between Cain and Abel, was Christ. Cain rejected Christ. Abel believed
the Lord Jesus. Abel brought a lamb by faith
in Christ. God made the difference. God
left Cain in his sin, but God had mercy on Abel. The difference
God makes between those he saves and those he leaves in their
sin and unbelief is always seen by the faith God gives them in
Christ crucified. Faith is the gift of God, and
faith is God's gift to sinners that changes their mind towards
Christ and Him crucified. Abel's name means breath. His
name was prophetic. His life would be cut short,
ended in apparent uselessness. Scripture says our lives are
but a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes
away. James 4 verse 14. Our lives are
but a breath. That is the way Abel lived. That
is the way all believers live. Though Abel's life was brief,
though Cain murdered him, he still speaks, because he believed
Christ and Him crucified. In Hebrews 11.4 it says, By faith
Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain
by the witch. He obtained witness that he was
righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it he being
dead yet speaketh. By faith, Abel offered to God
a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. By offering the sacrifice
God required in faith, Abel obtained witness from God that he was
righteous. God credited the obedience and
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ as Abel's own righteousness. By the blood of Christ, all of
Abel's sins were forgiven by God. By the obedience of the
Lord Jesus Christ, Abel was washed from his sins and clothed in
the righteousness of Christ. Abel's sacrifice was excellent. By that sacrifice, God imputed
righteousness to Abel. Abel's faith was God's gift,
given because Christ sacrificed himself for him. Abel believed
in Christ and looked to Christ when he offered the lamb from
his flock. That is the very definition of saving faith. Faith looks
to the Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews 12 verse 2 and Isaiah
45 verse 22. Faith comes to Christ, John 6,
35. Faith calls on Christ as the
sovereign Lord who alone can save. As God testified of Abel,
God testifies in scripture that all who believe Christ are righteous
because in Christ they have fulfilled God's holy law. Romans 10.4 says
Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. God said Abel's works were righteous. No man on earth can do one thing
without sin. Ecclesiastes 7 verse 20 says,
There is not a just man upon earth that doeth good and sinneth
not. And the Apostle Paul said about
himself, When I would do good, evil is present with me. Therefore,
Abel's works were righteous not because he did them perfectly,
but because God counted the obedience of Christ to Abel as his own
righteousness. Remember the publican of whom
Jesus spoke in Luke chapter 18, who went to the temple to pray?
Remember how he cried to God, God, be merciful to me, the sinner? In his cry for mercy, the sinful
publican pleaded for God to look and consider the sprinkled blood
of Christ on the mercy seat of heaven's throne. Jesus said that
man went down to his house justified. God will not clear the guilty.
Yet Jesus said the publican who was a sinner was justified. God
justifies sinners by the blood of Christ, because in His obedience,
He laid down His life to make satisfaction to God for His people. Romans 5, verse 9. God considers
Christ. His sin-atoning blood justifies. By the blood of Christ, God is
both just and the justifier of the ungodly. Abel brought a lamb
from his flock. He did what the publican did.
He believed God would only accept him because of God's response
to Christ's blood. It is God's response to Christ
that justifies sinners, not our response to God. Abel was the
first martyr on earth. Cain was the first murderer.
Cain did what his father, the devil, did. The devil is a murderer
from the beginning. When Cain murdered Abel, he proved
who his true father was. Cain was the son of the devil. The devil murdered the human
race by tempting Adam and Eve to sin against God. He knew that
God in justice would fulfill the curse of his law when he
said, In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
And in Abel's death, we see the death of our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. We see that wicked men by wicked
hands killed Christ, just as Cain killed Abel, his brother.
In Abel's death, we see the will of God to sacrifice his own son. It was his predetermined will. What Cain did to Abel, anti-Christ
religion does to Christ and to Christ's disciples throughout
time. Religious men, trusting their
own good works, hate Christ because their deeds are evil, and Christ's
works alone are righteous. For no cause in the Lord Jesus,
proud, self-righteous, wicked men envied and hated and killed
him for wicked motives found in their own hearts. Abel's blood
cried to God for vengeance against Cain, his murderer. But in this
also, Abel teaches us something very wonderful about the Lord
Jesus Christ. Because the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ speaks better things than the blood of Abel. By contrast,
Abel teaches us something incomparably wonderful about the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ. In Hebrews chapter 12, God says,
the blood of Christ speaks better things than that of Abel's blood. God told Cain that his brother's
blood cried to him from the ground. The blood cried. Have you ever
heard blood cry? Did you know that God hears the
cry of blood? And did you ever stop to think
that it is the cry of the blood that determines if I am condemned
as Cain or justified by Christ? The publican cried to God as
a sinner that God would hear the blood of Christ for him when
he said, God, be merciful to me the sinner. Abel's blood called
for vengeance. Abel's blood cried for God to
satisfy his justice against Cain, his murderer. But Christ's blood
cries in heaven to God to justify the guilty. Christ's blood cries
for justification of his murderers. His blood does not justify all
who murdered Him, but those for whom His blood cries, those chosen
before by God, ordained to eternal life before time began. These
are the sinners for whom Christ laid down His life, and some
of them even murdered Him by their own wicked hands, though
all of them murdered Him by their own sin. Abel's blood cries for
vengeance that God's justice might be upheld. Christ's blood
cries for forgiveness that the glory of God's grace might be
made known. Abel was an unwilling victim,
but Christ willingly gave himself into the hands of his murderers
by the will of God. Abel's blood called for justice
to be served, for its demands to be satisfied in the punishment
of Cain. But Christ's blood speaks of
justice now satisfied in his blood. Abel's blood called for
payback. Christ's blood is the ransom
price that compensated God for the sins of his people. Abel's
blood condemned the guilty. Christ's blood justifies the
ungodly. Abel's blood called for judgment
from the ground. Christ's blood calls for forgiveness
and justification in heaven. Abel's blood would not let the
guilty go free, but Christ's blood redeemed ungodly sinners
from the curse and bondage of the law. Abel's blood banished
the guilty from the presence of the Lord, sending Cain away
from God's presence. But Christ's blood reconciled
us to God and brings us near. Abel's blood highlighted the
offense of Cain's sin to God. But Christ's blood highlighted
the act of God to reconcile guilty sinners by the death of his own
son. Abel's blood called for wrath,
but Christ's blood delivered us from the wrath to come. Abel's
blood arraigned Cain before the bar of God's justice, but Christ's
blood speaks to sinners in their conscience and says, neither
do I condemn thee. Go and sin no more. Abel's blood
exposed Cain's heart as unholy, ungodly, and full of sin. But
Christ's blood covers and cleanses us from all sin and makes us
holy before God. Abel's blood held Cain accountable
for his guilt and shut him up to the curse. But Christ's blood
abundantly pardons the wicked and released the lawfully imprisoned
debtor from sin with its guilt and condemnation. Abel's blood
kept an account of wrong, but Christ's blood made full remission
of our sins. Abel's blood left Cain guilty
before God and heightened Cain's anger and hatred for God, but
Christ's blood reconciled us to God, making peace in heaven
and giving us peace in our hearts to love God without looking for
any payment or reward in response to our works. Abel's blood cried
to God from the ground, but Christ's blood intercedes for us on the
throne of God. In religion, men must cry to
God to get Him to hear them even though God cannot hear sinners.
But Christ's blood cries to God for all for whom He offered Himself. Because of Abel's blood, God
cursed the ground for Cain's sake. All of Cain's former success
in his labors in the ground would no longer yield their fruits.
Cain's life and Cain's labors were cursed of God. All blessings
were taken from him. But for Christ's blood's sake,
God abundantly poured out His grace on the hateful sinner,
and removed the curse, and gives the fruit of heaven with all
of its blessings. Abel's blood left Cain cursed
and without hope, but Christ's blood justifies and gives faith
and hope in Christ, assuring sinners of everlasting life and
eternal inheritance with all spiritual blessings in Christ.
Abel's blood exposed Cain as ungodly, unholy, and full of
sin. But Christ's blood makes the
sinner holy before God, justifies and rewards the sinner with eternal
life in heaven. Truly the blood cries and truly
God hears the blood. Truly the blood of Jesus sprinkled
by Christ himself on the mercy seat of heaven's throne speaks
better things than Abel's blood that Cain shed on earth and that
brought a curse upon him. Jesus said, Look unto me, and
be ye saved all the ends of the earth, for I am God, and there
is none else. Isaiah 45, 22. Do you hear that
it is what God hears of Christ's blood that saves? Do you see
how God justifies sinners by the blood of Jesus? Do you therefore
come as the publican, crying as a sinner, that God would hear
the blood of Christ for you and receive you for what he received
from his Son? Do you trust Christ as your substitute
and so come to God by Him alone, worshiping God for His mercy
and grace in the Lamb of God? Oh, that God would hear Christ's
blood for you, that He would send His Spirit now into your
heart and give you to see that it is what God hears of Christ
that is all of your salvation. May you in so seeing come to
God by Him alone. Never trust what you did. Never
trust your experience. Look to the one to whom alone
God looks for sinners. Look to Christ. You have just heard a sermon
by our pastor, Rick Warda. You may contact us by email or
by phone, or download a copy of this sermon by visiting our
website at ysgracechurch.com.