God never changes, does he? Well, I want you to turn back
to 1 John chapter 3. The past several weeks I've been
going through this chapter under the heading of this title, The
Children of God Manifested. I took that title from verse
10 and I'm going to conclude this this morning on this issue
in this. And whatever this is there, that's
important. In this, the children of God are manifest, made known,
made evident. And the children of the devil,
the children of the evil one. And then he says, whosoever doeth
not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his
brother. Now in this passage here, beginning
up in chapter 2 and verse 29 and carrying on through, we've
talked about the state of grace. A state of grace is a state of
salvation by the grace of God. It's the state of a child of
God, a sinner saved by grace who has truly been washed in
the blood of Christ. who is standing before God clothed
in His righteousness imputed or accounted or charged to us.
For we stand in the grace of God in Christ. Paul, the apostle, as he was
inspired by the Holy Spirit, pled out and cried out his desire
when he said, O that I may know Him and be found in Him. in Christ,
not having mine own righteousness which is of the law by my works,
but that which is through the faith or the faithfulness of
Christ. I stand in his merits alone,
and I say with boldness, as often I do, my hope is built on nothing
less than Jesus' blood and righteousness." Now that's a state of grace.
We who are saved by grace, we who are believers who've been
given that precious gift of faith in Christ, we're children of
God right now. And that's a marvelous thing.
It's an amazing thing. And then secondly, we spoke of
the foundation of grace. Now those who are in a state
of grace are founded upon one thing, and as I've already said
it, that's the work of Christ. Christ was manifested, that is,
He came into the world. The Word was made flesh and dwelt
among us, God in human flesh. And He did that in verse 5 of
1 John 3, to take away our sins. John the Baptist said that. Same
message John the Baptist preached. He said, Behold the Lamb of God
which taketh away the sin of the world. He bore our sins in
His body on the tree. That's what Christ did. He was
made sin Christ who knew no sin for us that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him. When He came to this world and
at that appointed time that was appointed before the foundation
of the world, as God chose us in Him before the foundation
of the world, Christ came into the world. And he bore our sins,
he took upon himself the legal responsibility and accountability
and the guilt of all the sins of all of God's elect, his sheep,
through each successive generation. And he bore those sins in his
sorrow and agony and pain on Calvary's tree. And shedding
his blood unto death, he satisfied the justice of God and took away
those sins. in his own body on the tree.
He established righteousness which would enable God, a holy
God who must punish sin, a holy God who judges according to truth
at all times, a holy God who is no respecter of persons, Christ
brought forth a righteousness in which we stand before that
God and still can be justified, counted righteous in His sight,
a sinner. That's an amazing thing. And
God can be both a just God and a Savior, a righteous judge and
a loving Father because of this foundation of grace. And so Christ
was manifested to take away our sins and in Him is no sin as
we stand in Him. And so that's the result of grace.
Let's look back at verse eight one more time. He says, he that
commiteth sin is of the devil. What's he talking about committing
sin here? He's talking about a sinner without
Christ. A sinner to whom God imputeth
iniquity. David said in Psalm 32, blessed
is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. That's what he's
talking about. He that has no savior, no mediator,
no redeemer, no blood, no righteousness. He that commit a sin. He's talking
about one who would not even desire to come to Christ and
reside in him. He says, for the devil sinneth
from the beginning. The devil's main goal is to keep
sinners from Christ. It's what the Bible teaches.
And he says, for this purpose the Son of God was manifested
that he might destroy the works of the devil. The devil brought
the whole world in Adam under condemnation. Christ took care
of that problem for his people, for his sheep on the cross of
Calvary. So he says in verse nine, whosoever
is born of God doth not commit sin. Now that applies to believers
only and in two ways. First of all, positionally as
we are considered in Christ. He's our representative. Jesus
Christ the righteous, he's our advocate. John wrote that in
1 John 2. We stand in him. We stand washed
in his blood, clothed in his righteousness, and we cannot
be condemned. That's what that means. We cannot
be condemned. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? And secondly, it applies to believers
in the sense that we cannot sin so as to totally forsake Christ. He says it right here, verse
9, whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed,
his children, his offspring, the children of God. That's what
he's talking about, the seed there. Whose seed are we? His seed. Who's Christ? We belong
to him. His seed remaineth in him. In other words, if you're his
child, in a state of grace based upon the foundation of grace
then you're the result of grace and you'll never be anything
else now you may do a lot of things you may act like a child
of God one day and act like a hellion the next day that's not good
and that's not promoted grace doesn't promote that and there's
no excuse for it but one thing that'll never change is you'll
never totally utterly forsake Christ. You'll never do it. If you ever do, now listen to
me, if you ever, you who profess to believe, if you ever forsake
Christ totally, you know what that means? We'll look back over
in 1 John 2, we've read it before. Here's what it said just across
the page there. John writes in verse 18 of chapter 2, little
children, it is the last time. And as you've heard that Antichrist
shall come, even now there are many Antichrists, it's the spirit
of Antichrist, whereby we know that is the last time. Now here's
the situation, verse 19. They went out from us, but they
were not of us. In other words, if you forsake
Christ, whom you profess to believe in, what does he say here? You
weren't of us. You weren't in that state of
grace. He says, for if they had been of us, They would no doubt
have continued with us. But they went out that they might
be made manifest that they were not all of us. That's all that happens there.
Nobody loses their salvation. Look over at the book of Hebrews.
Look back at Hebrews chapter 10. Paul deals with this in the book of Hebrews. He talks
about this. I had a television listener write
me about this verse. Hebrews 10 and verse 26. Now
listen to what he's saying here. The whole chapter of Hebrews
10 starts out talking about the power and efficacy of the blood
of Christ to put away sin. That one offering. Not like those
old covenant offerings that were made daily and weekly and monthly
and yearly. which could never take away sin,
the blood of animals, the blood of bulls and goats could never
take away sin but the blood of Christ shed one time on the cross
of Calvary put away all the sins of all of God's elect all of
Christ's sheep And he says that offering, listen, look back at
verse 18. He says, well, look at verse
17. He says, and their sins and iniquities will I remember no
more. What that means is not God changing his mind or forgetting
something. What he means is he will not
hold them against us who are in Christ. If we're in Christ,
God does not charge us with sin. That's what that means. He'll
never bring them back up again. He's not like us. We bring up
the past all the time. In fact, we can't get past the
past. But God'll never bring it up again. The charges on the
law books of God's court are wiped clean by the blood of Christ. And He'll never bring them back
up again. And He says, now look at verse 18. He says, now where
remission of these is, Listen to what he's saying. Where sins
are put away totally by the blood of Christ, there is no more offering
for sin. Now you see, this is the problem
today with people who claim to be Christian. It's really not
the blood of Christ that puts away their sins, it's something
else. It's their decision, or their joining a church, or their
baptism, or their tithing, or their tears of repentance. You've
gotta add something to what Christ did to make it effectual. And
my friend, that's a deception. That's anti-Christ. To try to
add something to the work of Christ to put away my sins is
a denial of Christ. It's what the Bible teaches.
So he says, where Christ has put away these sins by his one
offering, there is no more offering. What could you offer that would
do that, that would put away sin? You say, well, I'll try
to do better tomorrow. Well, do better tomorrow, but
that's not going to put away your sins. There's not but one
thing that'll put away sin. the blood of Christ. There's
not one thing that will justify a sinner before God, and that's
the righteousness of Christ imputed, charged, accounted to me. My
works won't do it, my efforts won't do it, nothing will do
it but Him. So in other words, here's what he's teaching. If
you don't have Christ, If you're not pleading His blood alone
and His righteousness alone, you have nothing to offer God
to put away your sins. You're in your sins. You see
that? Now, in the book of Hebrews,
some of these Hebrew believers, they had professed to believe
Christ, but then because of persecution and ridicule from unbelievers,
they left it. They left it, just like in 1
John, they went out from us. And what they did here, he says
in verse 24, look at verse 24. Well, look at verse 23, he says,
let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering.
Well, how are we going to do that? Well, here's the answer,
for he is faithful that promised. And let us consider one another
to provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together. Now, you know, a lot of preachers
use that to get people to come to church. Well, you ought to
come to church. You ought to come and study the
Word of God. You ought to come and worship God. We ought to
be worshipers. But what he's talking about there is people
who had totally forsaken the assembly of believers and forsaken
Christ. In other words, they denied what
they claimed earlier to believe. That's what he's talking about
there. They left and renounced Christ. In fact, even some of
them even went so far as to call Him accursed. All right? And that's what he's saying,
as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another, and much
more as you see the day approaching. Now, look at verse 26. He says,
for if we sin willfully after that we receive the knowledge
of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins. Now,
you know how people go to town on that one, don't you? If we
sin willfully. I had a lady tell me one time,
said, well, believers sin, but they don't do it willingly. And
I told her, I said, lady, you better wake up. Where have you
been? On the moon? Listen, we do very
few things unwillingly. That's right now, be honest.
You think about this. He's talking about something
specific here. What is this willful sin here? It's willfully forsaking
Christ. That's what he's talking about.
Just like he said, listen, where remission of sins by the blood
of Christ is, there is no more offering. Now if you reject Christ,
what does he say here? There remaineth no more sacrifice.
There's nothing else. He's it or nothing. He's all
or nothing. That's what he's saying. So those
who profess to believe Christ and then totally forsake him
and turn against him, there's no more sacrifice for sin. And
he even goes as far as to say there that these, in Hebrews
chapter six, he talks about them too, said that there's no hope
for them. There's absolutely no hope for
them. Now jump over to verse 38 of Hebrews 10. I'm not purposely skipping these
verses. I just don't have time to go
into all of them, but you read the whole chapter. I'm not taking
these things out of context now. That willful sin is the willful
rejection of Christ as your only salvation, your only righteousness
before God, your only way of forgiveness by His blood. If
you reject Him, there's nothing else you can go to or turn to.
You may think there is, but there's not. So he says in verse 38,
now the just, the justified shall live by faith. What is it to
live by faith? It's to live your life looking
to and resting in Christ for all salvation. It's the same
thing as doing righteousness. Living by faith is the same thing
that John puts in 1 John 3 as doing righteousness. It's a life
lived in and by the grace of God looking to and resting in
Christ for all salvation, all forgiveness, all righteousness,
all life, and all glory. That's what it is. So the justified,
those whom God has declared not guilty. How can God declare me
a sinner not guilty? Only by the blood of Christ to
pay for my sins, to pay my debt. Am I right? The justified, that's
one whom God declares righteous. You know what righteousness is,
don't you? Perfect satisfaction to God's law and justice. Nothing
less will cut it. Anything else is sin. For all
have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So how can
God look at a sinner like me and declare me righteous? Only
as I stand in Christ because he put away my sins and in him
is no sin. So the justified shall live by
faith. I don't live by my works. I live
by Christ and his work. But he says, but if any man draw
back, that is, reject Christ, my soul shall have no pleasure
in him. But look at verse 39. But we, now who's the we there?
The justified who live by faith. We are not of them which draw
back unto perdition. Perdition is damnation. Now,
we may get away for a little while. We may go astray for a
little while. We're like dumb sheep, you know.
But we'll never draw back unto damnation. We'll never totally
reject Christ. But of them that believe to the
saving of the soul. Now, why is it we will never
reject Christ? All right, two reasons. Look
back at 1 John 3. The first reason that a believer
cannot sin in the sense that he cannot totally leave Christ,
draw back under perdition, is because he's kept and preserved
by a higher and greater power than himself. If it were conditioned
on me, I'd leave a thousand times a day. Wouldn't you? But I'm
kept. We're kept people. A thousand
times a day were kept all day long for eternity. His seed,
verse 9, His seed, Christ's seed, His children, remaineth in Him. We remain in Christ. We abide
in Christ. Continue in Christ. The Bible
says in 1 Corinthians 15, let me just read you some scripture.
It says, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy
victory? The sting of death is sin. You
know, the analogy there being like a wasp or a bee and they
sting and that's poison. That's deadly to some more than
others, but the sting of sin is deadly to all if it reaches
its goal. And what is the goal of sin? Well, James said it's death.
Sin, when it reaches its end, is death. The wages of sin is
death. So he says the sting of death
is sin. And then listen to this now.
He says the strength of sin is the law. The power of sin is
the law. Whose law? God's law. Now what
does that mean? Well, it means this. It means
that the power of sin to condemn me is the law of God. Do you
know if there were no law from God, there'd be no power to condemn? Think about it. Think about this,
Terry. If all laws were just moved out of the way, you couldn't
put anybody in jail, because you wouldn't have the authority
of the law to do so. And that's what he's saying here.
God's law is eternal. It's in force. And the only way
that sin can condemn us is as the law judges us guilty. Well,
here's the glory for a believer. In Christ there is no sin. In
Christ the law judges me righteous by his blood and his righteousness
alone. You see? So he says the strength of sin
is the law but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through
our Lord Jesus Christ. That's why we cannot fall. The
law cannot condemn us. We've already been judged for
all our, we who know Christ now, I'm not talking about all without
exception here, I'm talking about all who know and believe and
trust Christ, those who cannot sin, his children, his church. Listen, all our sins were judged
on Calvary and paid for in full. The scripture says, that we're
confident of this very thing, that He, which hath begun a good
work in us, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. God,
who began the work, He'll complete it. That's why we cannot fall.
We're in the hands of a higher power than ourselves. Paul wrote
in Philippians chapter two in verse 12, he said, wherefore
my beloved, as you've always obeyed, not as in my presence
only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling. That's our responsibility. To
endure, to persevere, to continue. Why? Verse 13, for it is God
which worketh in you both to will and to do his good pleasure. Jude 24 and 25, now unto him
who is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless
before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. To the only
wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power
both now and forever. Paul said this, he said in 2
Timothy 1 verse 12, I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded
that what? He is able. To do what? To keep that which I've committed
unto Him against that day. I'll never leave Christ because
He keeps me. He said, no man shall pluck them
out of my Father's hand. But here's the second reason
that we cannot fall away. Look back at 1 John 3. It says,
and he cannot sin, verse 9, because he's born of God. He's born of
God. We've been born again by the
Spirit. We have the indwelling presence of the Spirit. He's
given me a new heart, a new mind, ears to hear, eyes to see. He's
given me a desire to be like Christ, to follow Christ. He's
shown me who I am. He's shown me my sin and my depravity
and the impossibility of any salvation based upon my best
efforts to keep the law. And he's shown me the glory of
Christ. Now, look what he says here. Look at verse 10. He says,
in this the children of God are manifest and the children of
the devil. Now, how are they manifest? Here it is. Whosoever
doeth not righteousness is not of God. What's he talking about?
Well, if you do righteousness, you're of God. What is it to
do righteousness? It's to live a life in the grace
and by the grace of God in Christ. Look into Jesus, the author and
finisher of your faith. Who is your hope of salvation?
What is your hope of salvation? What does it take to make you
righteous before God? Think about it. How would you
answer that question? What does it take to put away
your sins? Is it Christ alone or is it Christ plus whatever? Whatever your denomination or
your persuasion adds to it. Well, I'm going to tell you something.
If it's Christ plus, it's not doing righteousness. Because
anything less than Christ falls short of righteousness. You see
that? And that's how you know a child
of God. He's got no other hope. He's a sinner saved by the grace
of God now and in the middle and forever. He has one righteousness to plead
before God. Christ and Him crucified. He
has one plea for forgiveness, the blood of the Lamb. He has one claim of worthiness,
worthy is the Lamb that was slain. No other claim. You say, well,
I was born in America. That's okay, that's being blessed
of God, but that will not put away your sins. You might carry
some coins in your pocket to say, in God we trust, but that
won't do it either. You might join a Baptist church
or whatever church you decide, that will not do it. Won't do
it, will it? Only the blood of Christ. And
so that's how you tell the difference. And he says, then he goes on.
Now listen, he says, neither he that loveth not his brother.
loveth not his brother." Now that's a big subject. And it's
one that most people really don't understand when you think about
love. What he's talking about is godly
love here. He's not talking about love of emotion. He's not talking
about love of feeling. He's not talking about love of
society. He's not talking about love of
mutual likes and dislikes. He's not talking about personalities
here. He's, listen to me, now be careful
here now, but I wanna be honest about this. He's not even talking
about how we get along. He's really not. Now, should
we get along? Yes, and we all should make a
whole lot bigger effort than, me too now, than we do in that
area. That's not what he's talking
about. You know what he's talking about? He's talking about love
in Christ. Love in the truth that binds
us together despite all that other stuff. That's what he's
talking about. That binds us together in a mutual
admiration society. Mutually admiring, worshiping,
and honoring Christ. And that's the only thing that's
going to keep us together now. We love one another in the truth.
Now this love manifests itself in many ways, even from the highest
way. He says in verse 13, I'm coming
back to verse 11 and 12, but just hold on. He says, marvel
not, my brethren, if the world hates you. We know that we've
passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that
loveth not his brother abideth in death. Without this love of
the brethren, it's foolish for us to claim that we've been born
again. He says in verse 15, whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.
He says, he says this, and you know that no murderer hath eternal
life abiding in him. Hereby perceive we the love of
God because he laid down his life for us. That's the highest
expression of love. To lay down your life for your
brother or sister in Christ. And that's not in us by nature,
is it? That's by the power and grace of God. And he says, and
we ought to lay down our lives for the bread. That's what we
ought to do. Now, we know that. Think about it. Christ laid down
his life. He loved his own until the end. That literary in John 13 means
he loved his own sheep to finish the work. And what was the work? To die on Calvary's cross to
put away our sins and establish righteousness. And then this
love will express itself in supplying the necessities of this life. He says in verse 17, But whoso
hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth
up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of
God in him? In other words, we'll take care
of each other when it's called for, when it's needed. That's
what he's saying. Because we're bound together in the truth.
And again, it's not love of feeling, love of emotion, love of anything
like that. I was telling somebody in the
back, I said, I'm sure that you Ohio State loving Christians
still love me today. Even though you don't like what
happened Friday night. And I can say, speaking for us
Kentucky fans, we'd love you too if it had turned out the
other way. But you see, this love has nothing
to do with that stuff. What does it have to do with?
We'll go back in verse 11 now. He says, for this is the message
that you heard from the beginning. And I'll tell you, one of the
things that really impresses me about the scripture is the simplicity
of it. Because he takes us all the way
back to the beginning. And he says that we should love
one another. And where does he go? He goes
to Genesis chapter four. Cain and Abel. He says, not as
Cain who was of that wicked one. Cain was a child of the devil.
And remember what he said, in this is manifested the children
of God and the children of them. Here's Cain, he was a child of
the devil. He was of the wicked one. Cain is represented here
as one who doeth not righteousness, who sins, commiteth sin. Remember back up here, he said,
whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin. Cain wasn't born
of God, Cain committed sin. And he says, what else? Well,
he didn't love his brother, he slew his brother. Now, there's
been a lot of books written on Cain and Abel. Basically, if you've got any,
you can go home and throw them all away. And I say that without
reservation. Because what I find that most
people do when they go in to write books on Cain and Abel
is they do this. They try to climb into the head of Cain and
climb into the head of Abel, and they always make Abel something
more than Abel probably really was, and they always make Cain
something less than he probably was in the eyes of humans. What
I suggest you do, if you want to learn about this, is go strictly
to the Word of God. What does God say about Cain?
What does God say about Abel? Now, Cain killed Abel. That was
the first murder. Do you realize that? That was
the first murder. And what was it over? We look
at verse 12 of 1 John 3. Not as Cain, who was of that
wicked one, and slew his brother, and wherefore slew he him. Now
that's just an old English way of saying why did Cain slay Abel? Why did Cain kill Abel? Here's
your answer. And it'll supersede all the books
that have been written on it. Because his own works were evil,
and his brother's righteous. Cain's works were evil. Cain
committed sin. Cain doeth not righteousness. You see that? Cain did not abide
in Christ. But Abel's works were righteous. Abel commiteth not sin. Abel doeth righteousness. Let's
elaborate on it just for a few minutes. Turn over to Hebrews
chapter 11 again. We read this in the opening of
our service. Why was Cain's works evil? Why was Abel's works righteous?
Well, listen to the commentary on this. Now, remember we read
that there in chapter 10, Paul said, the justified live by faith.
What do they do? They live in the grace of God,
by the grace of God, looking to Christ, resting in Him, resting
in His blood for the complete, total, eternal, unchangeable
forgiveness of all my sins. Resting in His righteousness
imputed as my complete, total, unchangeable, everlasting justification
before God. Now that's what it means to say
Christ is all and in all, right there. You see, that means something. So he says in verse one, he says,
now faith is the substance of things hoped for. That word substance
you may have in your concordance means the foundation, it means
the ground, the confidence. And when he says faith there,
he's not talking about my believing or my act of believing. What
is faith here? Faith is the promise of God to
send Christ to do all that he sent him to do. It's the promise
of God. We believe God. Faith has an
object. It's not just some elusive butterfly or dream, you know,
waving out there that you grab hold of and try to just believe
it, you know. It's not a genie in a bottle.
It's the word of God. And he says it's the evidence
or proof of things not seen. Now he goes down through what
they call the Hall of Fame of Faith. Look at verse 4. Now here's
what he says, By faith, because this is the way God told him
to. This is the commandment of God. By faith, now Abel did believe
him now, Abel believed God, but it was based upon faith What
God taught, by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice
than Cain. Now there's Abel's righteousness
right there. He had a more excellent sacrifice. Well, what was Abel's
sacrifice? It was the blood of a lamb. That's what it was. Why do you
suppose Abel brought the blood of a lamb? Go back to Genesis
chapter 3. Now hold your finger there at
Hebrews 11. Go back to Genesis chapter 3. And let me show you this and
then I'll close. When man fell, when Adam disobeyed
God, God began pronouncing the curses. He pronounced three curses
here. One upon the serpent, who was Satan. One upon the woman
and one upon the man. In the curse that he pronounced
upon the serpent, he included a promise of redemption for his
people. Verse 15, the first promise of
the gospel. He told the serpent, he said,
and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between
thy seed and her seed, the woman's seed. Now who's he talking about
there? He's talking about the Messiah,
the Christ. This is a promise of sending
one who would not be the seed of man, but the seed of woman.
That's talking about the virgin birth of Christ. It's talking
about God in human flesh. And he says, it shall bruise
thy head. That's a death blow. And thou shalt bruise his heel.
Now Christ died on the cross, but he didn't stay dead. He arose
again the third day. He got up on his feet. Put it
that way. He lived. Out of his death came
life. So there's the promise to send
the Messiah to undo what Satan did. Satan brought in condemnation,
Christ brought in the justification of his people, the salvation.
Now, you know, Adam and Eve, after they fell, they were ashamed
of their nakedness and they made coats of fig leaves, fig leaf
aprons to cover their nakedness, which represents symbolically
the works of men. You see, you can't cover your
sin and your shamaness and your guilt and your depravity with
your works. You can't do that. That won't
work. Fig leaf aprons, you know, every
fall, I hate to see the leaves fall. Because they're going to die
and lay there on my yard until I take them up. But they die,
and that's what happened to a fig leaf apron. It would die. Well,
look at what happened here. It says in verse 21 of Genesis
3, unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats
of skin and clothe them. Now how do you make coats of
skin? You kill an animal. You slay an animal. You shed
blood. What was God telling Adam and Eve? In the day that you
eat thereof you shall surely die and without the shedding
of blood there's no remission of sin. The wages of sin is death. And I believe here that God established
the sacrificial system of worship not to get Adam and Eve or anybody
to believe that the blood of animals can wash away our sin,
but as a type, as a picture, as an object lesson of this one
whom he'd already promised would come who is none other than the
Lamb of God that would take away the sins of his people, Christ. And so that when anyone who in
faith brought the blood of a lamb they were testifying, they were
saying, I'm a sinner and I cannot be saved by my works and my efforts
and the only hope I've got is the mercy and grace of God in
sending the Messiah to die in my place and put away my sins
and establish righteousness for me. So what happened here? What did Cain do and what did
Abel do here in Genesis chapter four? Abel, he was a keeper of
the sheep. Verse three it says, and in the
process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit
of the ground an offering unto the Lord. What was the fruit
of the ground? That was the works of his hands. Cain didn't believe God. He didn't
come by faith. Oh, he believed something. Now
see, that's what I'm talking about. It's not our belief. Cain
believed something. He believed that God would accept
him based upon his efforts. But that's not faith, my friend.
That's against faith. God never promised to save any
sinner based upon their works. And it says in Abel, verse 4,
he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. The only way you're going to
get the fat out of the firstling is to kill it. He slew that animal,
and the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering. But unto
Cain and his offering he had not respect. And Cain got angry. And over here in Hebrews 11,
in verse 4 it says, Abel brought a more excellent sacrifice than
Cain by which he obtained witness that he was righteous. In other
words, that sacrifice that typified the coming Lamb of God That was
a witness unto Abel that he was righteous in Christ. Abel looked to Christ to come. Abel gloried in the cross. Even
though the cross had not actually happened in time, Abel gloried
in it just like we glory in it today after the fact. God forbid
that I should gloat. But he says, God testifying of
his gifts, and by it he being dead, yet speaks. Abel is preaching
to you today. That's what he means by that.
And he's telling you, sinner, you have no hope of salvation,
but through the blood and the righteousness of the Lamb of
God. You have no hope of any acceptance before God, but in
Christ. All right.