Well, we started looking at Christ
in all the Scriptures last week, though having said that, I think
from about the second or third time I was ever asked to preach,
I don't believe I aimed to do anything other than to look for
Christ in all the Scriptures, because He is the key to the
Scriptures. There is nothing else. I honestly,
it amazes me that there are men who are called pastors who can
be bothered to get out of bed and prepare a sermon that doesn't
have Christ at its center. I just cannot believe that they
take the time to do it, and how it is that they find value in
anything other than Christ and Him crucified. What did Paul
say? I determined to know nothing other than Jesus Christ and him
crucified. That's it. He said, I have preached
unto you, he said to the Ephesian elders, I've preached unto you
the whole counsel of God. And then in that other verse
he said, I determined to know nothing other than Jesus Christ
and him crucified. Sounds incompatible, that, doesn't
it? He preached the whole counsel of God, and yet he was determined
to know nothing other than Jesus Christ and him crucified. Do
you know how those two statements are reconciled? Our Lord Jesus
Christ and him crucified is the whole counsel of God. God has
got nothing else to say. His word says to his people how
he saves his people. And how does he save his people?
Jesus Christ and him crucified. That reminds me of Happy Jack,
you know, I'm a poor sinner and nothing at all. What's his doctrine? Not some great treatise, not
some great hefty volume. I'm a poor sinner and nothing
at all, but Jesus Christ is my all in all. That's it. That's
it. That's the sum total of it. That's
what this book is about. Jesus Christ is my all in all.
Even in the fall we saw last week, when Adam and Eve fell
from that state of innocence in the Garden of Eden, There,
it speaks of Jesus Christ and him crucified. There, you know
where Adam, Adam not deceived, knew what he was doing, why did
he go down into sin? For love of his wife, Eve. And what does that speak to us
of? Christ, he who knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we
might be made the righteousness of God in him. He gave him, he
loved his church, his bride, and gave himself for it, that
he might have it as a perfect bride. Without blemish and without
spot, he paid the sin debt of his people. He went down into
that place of separation from his father, crying, My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me? For that reason You know, he
despised not the shame, the shame of the death of the cross, bearing
the sin, he despised it not for love of his people. And even
there, in Adam and Eve, falling from that state of innocence,
we see a picture of Christ redeeming his church. Back in Genesis chapter
3, verse 15, right at the start, God says, following the fall,
he says to Adam and Eve, I will put enmity between thee, the
serpent, devil, and the woman, and between thy seed and her
seed. It, the seed of the woman, shall
bruise, sorry, the seed of the serpent shall bruise thy head,
and thou shalt bruise his heel. Christ will bruise the heel of
the serpent. Sorry, the other way around.
It shall bruise thy head, fatally. The seed of the serpent shall
be bruised, fatally. But in the process, Christ will
be bruised in his heel. So there's a promise of a Redeemer
right there. And it's even pictured in verse
21 of chapter 3. Because Adam and Eve were naked,
and they knew that they were naked, and God said, Who told
you that you were naked? It was the nakedness of their
sin which was now open before the gaze of God, and they tried
to cover themselves And it says in verse 20, Adam called his
wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. And
unto Adam also and to his wife, listen, did the Lord God make
coats of skins, animal skins, and clothed them. He clothed
them in a covering that was acceptable. He clothed them in that which
pictured the Lord Jesus Christ and his righteousness, clothing
his people before the gaze of his justice, of his law, of his
truth, of his nature. He clothed them with animal skins,
something that had died, and he clothes his people in the
perfect robe of the righteousness of Christ. You see, right at
the very beginning, there are these pictures. There are these
pictures of salvation in Christ, of grace in Christ. They were
driven out of the Garden of Eden. And they were barred access to
the tree of life. There was that tree, that mysterious
tree in the center of the Garden of Eden which was the tree of
life. And they were barred access to it. Why? For this reason,
to learn to trust Christ alone in the world. There they were,
fallen from a state of innocence, but experiencing the grace of
God in salvation. They knew the gospel. Right there
they knew the gospel. They had no children before the
fall, before they sinned. No children then, but afterwards
they had I don't know how many. Adam lived to 930 years old,
we're told in the scriptures. By the time he died, there would
have been thousands upon thousands of descendants. There was such
a rich gene pool there in Adam and Eve. You know the idea that
now close members of families should not intermarry because
it has bad effects on the offspring of those unions. Well, the gene
pool then was so rich that it was perfectly possible. That's
where Cain and the others, that's where they got their wives from.
That's how the population grew so much. There was a very, very
wide gene pool. but the first man that was born
to Adam and Eve was Cain. Cain, in verse 1 of chapter 4. And Eve said, I have gotten a
man from the Lord. Why did she say that? God had
promised that there would be a seed of the woman. A seed of
the woman that would accomplish their restoration. before the
law and justice of God, that there would be a seed of the
woman. And when this child was born, this man was born, she
said, I've gotten a man from the Lord. I wonder, I imagine
she did. Lots of commentators think this.
She thought that this was the promised redeemer that was born
of her. That God's promised a seed who
will put right everything that the fall has done wrong, and
here he is. She thought that Cain was that one. I've gotten
a man from the Lord. And no doubt there were many
more sons and daughters born. Don't think for one reason that
there were only two and then a third one later. There were
many, many, many, many sons and daughters born. But here we're
just told about two. We don't know how many years
there were between Cain and Abel. We don't know how many other
brothers and sisters. But we do know, the scripture's very
economical in what it says. We do know that Abel was born. These two brothers stand as symbols
and illustrations of God's dealings with mankind. Here we see in
these early days of people on the earth, here we see the explanation
for everything we see around us today in society. Adam and
Eve were created in innocence. in holiness, in purity. Who knows
the capacity of those human beings that God created? You know, don't
think about evolution and the ascent of man. No, it's been
nothing other than the descent of man since God created Adam
and Eve. Adam must have been an absolutely
wonderful creation. We just cannot understand from
our position as sinners how amazing that first man was in terms of
knowledge and understanding and all of those things that came
in that state of purity before God. And we see an echo of it
today still, don't we, in people? Don't we see an echo of it? How
else do you explain this? You look at mankind And you see
the highest self-sacrificing good, don't you? You know, you
see things like the charity program on Friday evening, you know,
the children in need program, and you see some stories in there
of ordinary people doing the most amazing self-sacrificing
things for others. This is in human beings. Where else does that come from
other than that state of innocent creation? And at the same time,
you see in human beings the most abject, depraved wickedness and
evil, both at the same time. You know, I really do not think
that a theory of evolution can explain what we see in terms
of the highest moral good, the highest self-sacrificing moral
good and in the same beings the most absolutely abject, disgraceful,
abhorrent evil, both at the same time. It all comes from the creation
and from the fall. Now here's a question, and this
is the question. Right at the very start When
Adam and Eve started to have children after the fall, here's
the question, how are the sinful offspring of Adam and Eve to
be just with God? How are they to find acceptance
with God? How is it that they're to find
acceptance with God? Adam and Eve, it says, knew good
and evil. They knew good and evil. They
knew sin, and its effects. I'm sure before the fall, Adam
knew what sin was. He was aware that it was that
thing that God had said. The day that you do this, it
was disobedience, it was transgression of what God had said. They knew
sin and its effects, and now they knew sin and its effects
practically. They knew how drastically, terribly,
they had been removed from the presence and good of God. But
they also experienced the grace of God. in redemption, in the
promise of a Redeemer, in the clothing with the skins of animals.
They knew the gospel, and Adam knew the gospel that we know
and that we preach, and he focused on Christ. And Adam was determined
to know nothing other than Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He
was. He was. He knew that that's how God would
save his people. Look at verse 3 of chapter 4.
It says, and in process of time, it came to pass that these two
boys brought their offerings. That phrase, in process of time,
you see the marginal reference there, if you've got a Bible
with a marginal translation, at the end of days. And at the
end of days, what it means is, at the regular time, there was
a time set aside for worship. Just like in our society here,
we're able to set aside this hour on a Sunday morning for
the worship of God. They had a time when they came,
and Adam had taught his children the gospel of grace. But in these
two boys coming, these two men coming, Cain and Abel, we see
the division between right religion, the religion of God, the gospel
of God, and the religion of man, of fallen man. We see the sheep
and the goats divided, as it were. Christ talks about dividing
his sheep from his goats. The sheep are the ones that are
blessed of the Father, and the goats are the ones that God has
passed by, and he separates them. And we see in these two, the
sheep and the goats divided. We see Cain's offering and Abel's
offering put side by side. We see works righteousness and
we see grace righteousness, side by side. And God rejects one
and accepts the other. Now then, does that make you
think I need to know which is the one that God accepts? Cain's
was works righteousness, and God rejected it. Abel's was grace
righteousness, and God accepted it. Let's look at Cain's offering.
What was wrong with Cain's offering? He did his best, didn't he? He
was a hard worker, he was a tiller of the ground, he was a farmer,
he worked hard, he sowed the seed, he planted crops. He got
a good harvest, and out of what he did, because he was a good
chap, he did his best, and he brought what he had done to God
as an offering at the place of worship, in the process of time,
at the end of days, in the regular, he brought what he had done.
Because he was a good chap. I'll tell you what was wrong
with it. It was bloodless. There was no blood in it. You
know we sing, don't we, in the hymns so much about the blood
of Christ. Why is that so important? Cain's
offering had no blood in it. Listen to Leviticus 17 verse
11. for the life of the flesh is
in the blood and I have given it to you upon the altar to make
an atonement for your souls to make an atonement is what the
atonement just split it up atonement means atonement it means making
sinful man and holy god at one to make an atonement it's the
blood upon the altar that makes an atonement for your souls for
it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul and Paul reinforces
this in Hebrews 9 22 almost all things are by the law purged
with blood and without the shedding of blood there is no remission
there is no dealing with sin it must be by the shedding of
blood it's blood that pays the sin debt redemption is the payment
of the sin debt redemption is a purchase it's a payment of
a price Redemption, the payment of the sin debt, by blood, is
set against that which Cain attempted, redemption by works. The two
are complete opposites. You cannot have a bit of one
and a bit of the other. You cannot mix them in any way
whatsoever. Romans 11 verse 6 says this,
if by grace, then it is no more of works. Otherwise, grace is
no more grace. But if it be of works, then it
is no more of grace, otherwise work is no more work. They're
completely incompatible. You cannot say, I am saved by
grace, but oh, I'll have a little bit of works just to make me
feel better. No. One or the other. Paul says to
the Galatians, He says, if you be circumcised, which is what
the Judaizing false teachers were telling them they needed
to be to add to the gospel that they believed, he says this,
he says, Christ will profit you nothing. He said, Christ is become
of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law,
you are fallen from grace. That state of grace you thought
you were in, you weren't. You're proving that you weren't
in that state of grace. You cannot mix law and grace. You cannot mix the religion of
Cain with the religion of Abel. Cain's offering denied the need
for Christ. Cain thought he could approach
God on the basis of who he was and what he had done. He came
with his own righteousnesses, his own self-righteousnesses. And the word of God tells us
that our own self-righteousnesses are filthy rags. They're worthless
currency. They're unable to do anything,
to pay any sin debt. Cain wouldn't believe the gospel
that Adam had taught him. No, I'm good enough on my own.
I'll bring the fruit of what I've done, and God will accept
that or not, it's up to him, but what I've done is good enough.
This was the attitude of Cain. He wouldn't believe the gospel
that Adam had taught him. Adam taught him this, though
Paul wrote it thousands of years later, Ephesians 1-7, talking
of Christ, in whom we have redemption through his blood. That's how
the debt's in, debt's paid. Redemption through his blood
and the forgiveness of sins. Not the works that we do. Cain
was religious. He wasn't an unbeliever in that
sense. He was religious. He was self-righteous. He was proud. He was disobedient
to the gospel that he'd been taught. He was Pharisaical, even
though the Pharisees hadn't arisen at that time. He was wicked in
the sense that he didn't believe the gospel. When God speaks of
the wicked, he's talking about unbelief. He didn't believe the
gospel that his father had taught him. Cain's religion is called
the Way of Cain. In the little epistle of Jude,
just before Revelation, in verses 10 and 11, Jude is writing about
false Christ-denying religionists. Those who are so self-righteous,
and they've got their religion, and they've got their rights,
and their ceremonies, and the way that they do things, and
their legalism, and all of these other things, and he says, woe
unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain. What is the
way of Cain? Proverbs 14 verse 12 tells us,
there is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end
thereof are the ways of death. Think of that. There is a way
which seemeth right unto a man in his fallen sinful state But
the end thereof are the ways of death. That's the way of Cain's
religion. That's the result of Cain's religion. The ways of death. The religion
of the religious world. Whether it be Islam, or Hinduism,
or Catholicism, or the pseudo-Christian sects. Even, even, now then this
will shock some people, even many reformed Calvinistic Baptists
Most, if not all, have gone in the way of Cain. And what's the
way of Cain? We saw it in verse 16 of Genesis
chapter 4. He went out from the presence
of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. The land of Nod means the land
of wandering. He's in that state that Paul
describes in Ephesians 2 verse 12. He's without Christ. You look around. Look at the
numbers without Christ being aliens from the Commonwealth
of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise. And
what's the result? They have no hope and they're
without God in the world. That's Cain's offering. That's
Cain's religion. Let's look at Abel's offering.
Abel's offering that was accepted. Abel's offering, Abel's lamb
because he kept sheep and he brought a lamb His lamb looked
to Christ. His lamb spoke of Christ. His lamb pointed to the Lamb
of God who takes away the sin of the world. John the Baptist,
behold he said to his disciples, behold the Lamb of God when Jesus
came. Behold the Lamb of God which
taketh away the sin of the world. Abel's lamb looked to Christ. It was an offering of faith. And you know what faith is? It's
the gift of God. It's the sight of the soul that
God gives to his people. It's the evidence of things not
seen. Hebrews 11 verse 4, by faith, by what he saw spiritually,
by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than
Cain. Cain's was worthless. It was
self-righteous works. Abel's looked to Christ. to the
precious blood of Christ, to the blood which pays the penalty
for sin, to the blood which declares the sinner to be righteous in
the sight of God, and brings the forgiveness of sins. It says
he offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which
he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of
his gifts, and by it he being dead yet speak today. 2014, Abel's offering, Abel's faith
still speaks, it speaks to us today. He brought a lamb. What
was it about a lamb? Well you have to go forward to
the Passover to get the scriptural account. He says in Exodus chapter
12 describing what the lamb, you know there was the lamb of
the Passover whose blood had to be painted on the doorpost
that the angel of death might not visit the Israelites and
kill their firstborn. Your lamb shall be without blemish,
a male of the first year. You shall take it out from the
sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it up until the
fourteenth day of the same month, and the whole assembly of the
congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening." A lamb
is an innocent, harmless creature, and it speaks of the Lamb of
God. who is holy, harmless, undefiled, without blemish, examined for
14 days to see if there's any lameness in it or any faultiness
in any aspect of it. And Christ was under the gaze
of the law. He was made of a woman, made
under the law to redeem those who are under the law. He was
put under the gaze of the holy law of God and he was found perfect
in every way. He was found without blemish
and without spot, and the Lamb speaks of an innocent victim
dying in the place of those who are guilty. It speaks of a male
in the prime of his life. It speaks of a perfect specimen.
And in all those ways, it speaks of our Lord Jesus Christ. It
speaks of divine justice satisfied. The blood of that lamb never
took away any sins. It pictured that which takes
away sins. It typified Christ. It typified
divine justice satisfied. by the death of a suitable victim,
and only that way, a suitable substitute. There are two differences
between Cain and Abel. Primarily, two differences. Abel
had faith, which Cain did not have. Faith? Not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God. By grace, Abel had faith. And by faith, Abel looked to
the blood of Christ to make satisfaction to the justice of God for his
sin. The way of Abel, unlike the way
of Cain, the way of Abel is the way of Christ. And what does
Christ say about himself? John 14 verse 6, I am the way,
the truth and the life. No man comes to the father but
by me. You want to get into the kingdom
of God. John 10 verse 9, he said, I am the door. This is the way. This is the way. He's the way
in. Not like the way of Cain, he is the way. The way of Christ,
the way of Abel is him. I am the door, by me if any man
enter in, he shall be saved. This is what separates the elect
of God from the lost religious world, or the world in general. It separates completely those
who believe the true gospel from the lost world, religious or
not around us. And what is it that makes the
difference? Paul asks the Corinthians this in 1 Corinthians 4 verse
7. For who maketh thee to differ
from another? And what hast thou that thou
didst not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it? What's
that saying? What makes you to differ? The
sovereign grace of God alone. So that the child of God truly,
the question that we'll ask is why me? Why me? Why was God gracious
to me? He didn't need to me, but he
was. God was gracious to me. This
is what separated Cain from Abel. It's what divides families even
to this day. You know, Jesus said, he said,
you know, those that don't know Christ truly talk about gentle
Jesus, meek and mild, and they make up their own Jesus. Jesus
said, I didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. I didn't
come to bring peace, but a sword, because he's gospel. His gospel
message will bring separation. Matthew 10, 35 and 36, for I
am come, he said, I am come to set a man at variance against
his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law, and a man's foes shall be they of
his own household. Why is that? Because some, the
elect of God, believe the gospel of sovereign grace. Sovereign
grace and particular redemption. That it's not of him that wills,
nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy. That's
what separates. The sovereign grace of God. A
man doesn't like that. A man shakes his fist in the
face of God and says that's not fair. But that's what God has
revealed. And God will be vindicated completely.
When did the gospel of Christianity start? In the New Testament,
was it? Was it then that Christianity,
it was all Old Testament religion and priests and temples and stuff
like that and sacrifices and then Jesus came and everything
was new and that's when the gospel started. No, it didn't. Read
the scriptures. Read what we're reading now in
Genesis 3 and 4, that's when the gospel was first declared.
Clearly, in Genesis 3 and 4, long before, thousands of years
before the law was given at Mount Sinai, the gospel was declared
there. Abraham believed the gospel,
Noah believed the gospel, Seth believed the gospel, all of these
believed the gospel of God's grace, this same gospel of Christ
and him crucified that we believe today. Let's compare Abel's blood
and Christ's blood. Let's compare them. If you look
in Hebrews chapter 12, verses 22 to 24, we read this. There
Paul is talking to Hebrew believers who were
wondering about whether they were doing the right thing and
were they missing out on something that their old religion had.
And he says, you're not come to Mount Sinai, where the law
was given, the tablets of stone, and it was fearful and it was
a place of dread. You're not come there, but he
says in verse 22, ye are come unto Mount Zion. and unto the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
which are written in heaven, and to God, the judge of all,
and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the
mediator of the new covenant, and listen to the blood of sprinkling
that speaketh better things than that of Abel." The blood of sprinkling,
Christ's blood, shed on the altar of the cross, Christ's blood,
shed there, it speaks better things than that of Abel. False
religion always persecutes truth. That's a fact. They hated Christ
without a cause, we read, and the reason they hated is because
of hatred, of sovereign grace, and particular redemption. And
because of that, Cain slew Abel. He shed his blood. Cain shed
the blood of his brother, the first blood, the first human
blood that we read of to be shed, and blood speaks. I've already
said in the hymns so often, we read about the blood, we sing
about the blood. Blood speaks. God said to Cain,
This, look at verse 10 of Genesis chapter 4. What hast thou done? This is what God said to Cain.
What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood
cries to me from the ground. Blood speaks. The voice of your
brother's blood cries to me from the ground. You know, you see
these forensic science dramas, and I've been listening to a
series on the radio of short talks in the morning by a forensic
scientist reading the book that she's written, and it's fascinating
stuff how forensic evidence speaks. It does. It's got a story to
tell. It really does. And the forensic
scientist will tell you, yes, blood speaks in all sorts of
ways. Well, God said it first. Blood
speaks. The blood of your brother is
crying to me from the ground. Blood speaks. What have you done?
Abel's blood was speaking from the ground. Christ's blood also
speaks. as we read in Hebrews 12, 24,
the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things, the blood
of Christ speaks better things than that of Abel. They both,
the blood of Abel and the blood of Christ, they both cry out
for justice, they both do. The one for justice violated
in the murder. One cries out for justice violated
The other cries out for justice satisfied. The blood of Christ
cries out for justice satisfied. These points were made by Don
Faulkner in his book and I've put them on the back of the bulletin.
Abel's blood cries for vengeance. Vengeance. An offence has been
committed. A price must be paid. Justice
must be paid. You know, our society has completely
lost sight in its justice system of the need for justice. How
often do people who don't know anything about the law, haven't
studied the law, and they say, this is just not right. Justice
cries out for more than this. The fact that that offender can
be so many short years in prison and then set free, when the victims
that he murdered are forever dead. You know, people say, don't
they, naturally, it cries out for justice, justice hasn't been
satisfied. The murder of Abel, his blood
cried out for justice violated. The blood of Christ cries out
for justice satisfied. He cries out for mercy. One cries
out for vengeance, the other for mercy. Abel's blood calls
for punishment. Christ's blood calls for pardon. Christ's blood calls for pardon.
Forgive them. Forgive them. Abel's blood calls
out against his brother. You know, it accuses his brother
of what he's done. Christ's blood speaks in heaven
for his brethren. for those he calls his brethren,
it speaks for them. Abel's blood demands death, the
payment of sin. Christ's blood demands life,
give them life that they might now go free. Abel's blood cries
out from the ground which swallowed that blood. Christ's blood speaks
in heaven. Abel Abel's blood speaks against
Cain's conscience. He says, my punishment is greater
than I can bear. You're driving me out from the
face of the earth. He's a wanderer. His punishment
is great. Abel's blood speaks against Cain's
conscience. Christ's blood speaks for his
people in their conscience. my sin this is what Christ's
blood says my sin in the conscience of the believer Christ's blood
says this my sin of the bliss of this glorious thought my sin
not in part but the whole is nailed to his cross and I bear
it no more for his blood has paid it his blood has paid the
price for it Hebrews 12 verse 25 the very next verse after
that phrase that the blood of sprinkling that speaks better
things than that of Abel Hebrews 12 25 then says see that ye refuse
not him that speaketh see that you listen to it about the blood
of Christ listen to what it says about it cleansing from all sin
for the start of the Hebrews epistle chapter 2 and the second
verse asks this question, how shall we escape if we neglect
so great salvation? How shall we escape? We're going
to be partaking of bread and wine, and that is to remember
the price that Christ paid to secure the salvation of his people,
to secure the forgiveness of his people's sins. he paid with
his lifeblood. He paid with that blood, it says,
for the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given
it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls.
For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. We
have an altar, it's our Lord Jesus Christ, and his blood that
was shed for us, for his people, for those who believe him. Amen.