I've got a four-letter sermon for you this morning, Accepted in the Beloved. So we've looked at He is able, Christ is all, accepted in the beloved. If the Lord would give you the grace to know those words and to believe them from your heart, you'll be a finer theologian than all of the fancy ones in this world.

Okay, turn with me in your Bibles. I want us to read a verse out of Jude to set the scene and set us knowing, a few verses out of Jude, knowing why we're looking at the story Jude is a letter written with a great sense of urgency and a great sense of seriousness and it's a letter written about the creeping men, the verse 4, the certain men who have crept in unawares, Jude verse 4. They were of old ordained to this condemnation. They're ungodly men. These people are creeping. They honor God with their lips and their hearts are far from him. They're ungodly. They're unworshipping men. They're unreverent men. They don't bow before God at all. And so we are called upon by Jude to contend for this faith.

But it speaks of these people and it says, In verse 10 of Judas says, these speak evil of things which they know not, but what they know naturally is brute beast. In those things, they corrupt themselves. And then he says, woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain. They've taken the journey of Cain and run greedily into the error of Balaam for reward. perished in the gainsaying. And that's to speak evil of, to speak against, to debate, to argue the gainsaying of Korah. Korah stood opposed to Moses and Aaron and said that it's perfectly right for anyone to take the place of the high priest in God's temple and anyone can go into the presence of God. All three of them are laid before us in the scriptures as people to whom we need to be warned very deeply and very, very seriously about and how serious the warnings are, how eternal matters lie before us all.

You might remember Lynn and her family. Her younger brother died a few days ago and it's good to have these moments where we contemplate what the Lord is doing and what it is for us to live in this world and for us to be preachers and not creators, for us to be not those As we see ourselves to be in charge of our lives, and as Satan said to Adam and Eve in the garden, you shall be as gods. One day we'll find out that we are not gods, and I pray that it's soon, very, very soon indeed for all of us and remain so.

So let's turn in our Bibles to Genesis chapter four and we want to spend some time just looking at this passage of scripture and looking at these two men. These two men. This is the first event recorded outside of the Garden of Eden. This is the first event in human history outside of the Garden of Eden.

Verse 23 of chapter 3 says, Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was taken. Now listen to this. So he drove out the man. And he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life. And the Lord Jesus Christ is the Tree of Life. To have eternal life, you have to have to get to the Tree of Life.

There were two trees in the garden. There was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is the Tree of More and the Tree of Works. And there is the Tree of Life. And that Tree of Life is protected by these cherubim and this flaming sword, which turned every way to keep the way of the Tree of Life. And they threw it on.

And Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. She again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in the 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 firstling 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? Why are ye so angry? And why is your countenance, why is your face 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, he debated, he argued with his brother Abel. And we know what they were arguing about. They were arguing about acceptance with God. They were arguing about what God accepts as nothing. They were arguing about what it is to be righteous before God. How does one have righteousness before God?

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. First active man outside the garden after church. is to murder. The second act of man, having murdered, is to lie. What is Satan? What is Satan? He's a liar and a murderer. How does he murder people? By lying to them. His lies are murder to the souls of all who are taken captive by him. He says, I know not, am I? And he said, what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. Hebrews 11 says that that same voice still speaks.

Before we sing again, I just wanted to read you the first article in our bulletin today from Octavius Winslow, and I just think it's just a wonderful picture of what we're going to look at for the rest of the day. If you turn in your bulletins, on the very first page, number one, there's a lovely hymn on the second page, which is Abel's song.

Not what my hands have done can save my guilty soul.
Not what my toiling flesh has borne can make my spirit whole.
Not what I feel or do can give me peace with God.
Not all my prayers and sights and tears can bear my awful load.
Thy work alone, O Christ. can ease this weight of sin.
Thy blood alone, O Lamb of God, can give me peace within.

But let's read this article because I read it yesterday for the first time and I thought this is all that I want to say today in the most remarkable way. Abel was a keeper of sheep. As a shepherd, Abel sanctified his work to the glory of God and offered the sacrifice of blood upon his altar. And the Lord had respect under Abel and his offering. This early type of our Lord is exceedingly clear and distinct. Like the first streak of light which tinges the east at sunrise, it does not reveal everything, but it clearly manifests the great fact that the sun is coming. As we see Abel, a shepherd and yet a priest, offering a sacrifice of sweet smell unto God, we discern our Lord who brings before his Father a sacrifice to which has respect. Abel was hated by his brother, hated without a cause, and even so was the Saviour. The natural and carnal man hateth the accepted man, in whom the Spirit of grace was found, and rested not until his blood had been shed. Abel fell and sprinkled his altar and sacrifice with his own blood. And therein sets forth the Lord Jesus, slain by the enmity of man, while serving as a priest before the Lord. The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Let us weep over him as we view him slain by the hatred of mankind, staining the horns of his altar with his own blood.

Abel's blood speaks. The Lord said unto Cain, The voice of your brother's blood cries unto me from the ground. The blood of Jesus has a mighty tongue. and the importance of its prevailing cry is not vengeance, but mercy. It is precious, beyond all preciousness, to stand at the altar of our good shepherd, to see him bleeding there as the slaughtered priest, and then to hear his blood speaking peace to all peace between man and his offended maker, peace all down the ages of eternity for blood-washed men, able the first shepherd in the order of time.

But our hearts shall ever place Jesus, first of order in excellence, great keeper of the sheep. We, the people of your pasture, bless you with our whole hearts when we see you slain for us.

OK, we're going to sing again, number 28.

? For me, the spotless Lamb, I plead ?
? His Father's love demand ?
? For me, His precious blood, He shed ?
? My guilty soul He spared ?
? Oh, we bless her, oh, so blessed be ?
? In triumph of the grave ?
? He moves, oh, things in sovereign sway ?
? Thy help, oh, so to say ?
? The night, the hour, the day, and place, the night, the day ?
Take its written, all its rest, inscribe thy praise and love. For we, thy saviors, love.

Oh Let's read these few verses again. He drove the man out, verse 24 of chapter three. He drove the man, out the man, and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden cherubims and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. And Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain and said, I've gotten a man from the Lord. And to get she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was the keeper of the sheep, but Cain was the tiller of the ground. And in the process of time, it came