We spent the evening in Dyersburg,
Tennessee, coming up this time. And exactly one year ago on that
day, we were in a moving van, spending the night at the same
motel. And Kathy said, isn't that something? She said, we were going south
a year ago today, and now we've got our suitcases going north. Turn with me to the book of Genesis,
the fourth chapter. Genesis chapter 4. And let me read for you quickly
the first 16 verses. And Adam knew Eve his wife, and
she conceived and bear Cain, and said, and this is the literal
translation, I have gotten thee man from the Lord. And she again
bare his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of the 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 bearer of, 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 failed. And the Lord said unto Cain,
Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen?
If thou doest well, shall 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 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, not my sin, 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, I want to talk to you tonight from this
story of Cain and Abel on this subject. living in the land of
Nod. That's where Cain wound up. That's where his abode was. That's
where he spent the rest of his days. This fourth chapter of
Genesis tells the story of Cain and Abel and how they came before
God. And then after this offering
was over and after this judgment was pronounced, God never mentioned
his name again. until the New Testament. And
there's three places, make a good message, there's three places
in the New Testament where his name is called again. Once in Hebrews chapter 11, which he gives to identify those
without faith. Once in 1 John chapter 3, Talking
about that power of God in the heart that brings love and affection
in the heart for your brother, not as Cain, who was of the evil
one, the wicked one. And once again in Jude, where
he talks about false prophets and their influence and how that
their influence brought the entire company of Israel who wandered
in the desert to carcasses falling in the sand. A third of the heavenly
host falling at the influence of Satan spinning his yarns.
And the folks in Sodom and Gomorrah who practiced the imagination
of God in their minds and wound up in moral degradation and went,
it says, the way of Cain. This is the story of Cain and
Abel. It's the story of good and evil, faith and unbelief,
salvation and damnation, reconciliation and rejection. This is the story
of Adam's first two sons and the story of all his sons unto
this day. This is a story worth reading.
It's a story worth paying attention to. In these first two men are
represented all the religions of the earth, all mankind represented
in these two men. God will declare the end from
the beginning because God is God. He cannot and will not change. What He manifests in these two
men, He'll manifest to the end. What He sets forth and declares
here, He'll declare all the way to the end. God is God. He cannot and will not change.
He cannot and will not be turned. He cannot be defeated, frustrated,
surprised, or even questioned. as to His will. None can stay
His hand, the prophet said, or say unto Him, What doest thou?
And as these first two men come before God, God establishes,
the first thing He establishes, if you have any understanding
or have ever studied in these early verses of Genesis, God
establishes here the preaching of the gospel. He establishes
the preaching of the gospel. How did Abel know to bring a
lamp? He just sat around and said,
well, my brother's bringing carrots and melons and gourds. I guess I'll just bring a lamp.
No. His father instructed him to bring a lamp because God came
to him in the garden when he was lost and reconciled him with
that lamp. and slayed that lamb in his presence,
and clothed him with its skins, and then gave him the promise
of the coming Redeemer. And he said, see that lamb and
these skins? View those things through him,
and you'll have an understanding of the blood. You'll have an
understanding of that covering, and I'll give you this promise.
And this is the gospel he preached to these two sons. He establishes
the preaching of the gospel here. He establishes the imputation
of righteousness. By faith, it says, Abel offered
a more excellent sacrifice unto God than Cain, by which he obtained
witness that he was righteous. God testifying of his gifts.
And though he would not ever speak again of Cain until these
last days and in that in the negative, from that day forward,
Abel continued to speak and still speaks. Cain could not quiet
him. Even in murder he couldn't shut
him up. He's still preaching the same
gospel. He establishes this imputation
of righteousness by faith. He establishes here the new birth.
If you'll carefully study 1 John chapter 3 and what it has to
say about Cain, I think you'll see that new birth that took
place in Aden. This sacrifice that faith brings,
this sacrificial lamb is established right here with these two men.
And these two men, God will make a distinction in the earth. And
all of its population is going to be divided over what happens
with these two men. We wonder sometimes, we come
in here and I look at the folks down there and I watch them go
out and I'm already seeing the I'm already seeing this in that
church there and I've seen it here and I'm seeing it here tonight.
You folks come here and you hear the gospel and God works in power
in your heart and He blesses you and He gives you an understanding
and He changes that heart, gives you a new heart, a new mind,
breaks you, brings you down, gives you that that power of
God and establishes that reign of grace in your heart. And you
go out of here and folks are influenced by you. They're influenced by what you
say and what you do. The earth was not vacant. There
wasn't just Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel. You read through
this chapter, you'll find out that the earth was populated.
And the more I read and researched, the more I believe there was
a lot of folks around. There was thousands of people.
Cain went over here in the land of Nod and built a city. He didn't
do that for his children. He built a city because a population
went with him. He wasn't the only one who left
the altar of Abel. A lot of them left that altar
and went with Cain because he represented a lot of folks. He
influenced a lot of folks. And therefore, over in the book
of Jude, he's identified with those who creep in. Those who you don't even pay
any attention to, nobody paid any attention to him. Nobody
thought he was off his marble. They thought he was just fine.
They thought he was sane. Everything's fine with him. But
it wasn't fine with him. And by his influence, and by
this sacrifice declared of God, the whole population of the earth
was split right down the middle. Some went this way. Some went
that way. From that day to this, same thing.
Same thing. God never changes. He never changes. It's the story. It's the same
story. It plays itself out over and
over and over again. And I don't have a lot of time
to get into it tonight, but I want you to look at verse 3, where
the Holy Ghost tells us at the beginning of these things And all these things that's about
to come to pass did so in the process of time. Do you realize that there is
a process to time? I've read over that so many times. I'm ashamed to tell you how often
I've read over that and never seen it. There is a process to
time. And God warns us about it, tells
us about it, declares it all the way through the Scriptures.
Over in Ecclesiastes chapter 3, it tells us to everything
there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.
That's pretty clear, isn't it? There is a process to time. And
after establishing these things clearly, he sums all these things
up in Ecclesiastes 3, down in verse 14, saying this, Whatsoever
God doeth, it shall be forever. Nothing can be put to it, nor
anything taken from it. And God doeth it that men should
fear before him. This process of time is of God. And what He does, you can't add
to it, and you can't take away from it. What happened here with
Cain and Abel happened in the process of time, God's time. There's a time. There's a time
for you and a time for me and a time to every purpose under
the sun. There's a time. In Ephesians
chapter 1, verse 10, we're told of a gathering, a dispensation
of the fullness of times and a gathering that's going to take
place. All things are both going to be gathered together in one
in Christ. All things everywhere, under
the earth, in the earth, above the earth. All things are going
to be gathered to Him in this fullness of times. And when it's
all done, God said, this is my purpose. This is what I want
you to understand. I'm going to gather all these
things in that day. I'm going to gather them in Christ.
That's what's going on. That's what was going on back
yonder in eternity when I chose you and put you in Christ. That's
what was going on when I blessed you with all spiritual blessings
in Christ before the foundation of the world. That's what was
going on when I typified and set forth the tabernacle and
the temple and the priesthood and all those things to picture
and tell you about redemption. That's what was taking place
in the garden when I came and reconciled Adam. That's what
took place here with Cain and Abel. It's been taking place
all these times, and now Christ has come, been manifested, nailed
on a cross, buried, risen, seated at the right hand of God. And
this gathering is still going on. Still going on. Who's doing
the gathering? Who's doing this? Who's causing
this? Whose purpose is this? He that worketh all things after
the counsel of his own will. According to the counsel of his
own will. According to his purpose. According
to his end. All of these things he identifies
in 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 15. You need to go down and read
that someday. Who will end his times. His times. That's whose
times they are. His times. He's going to show
you who is the blessed and only potentate. He's going to show
you who is king of kings and lord of lords and who reigns
over time and who reigns over these circumstances and so-called
chances of life. He's going to show you that even
those who nailed his son to the tree, who gathered themselves
together and did exactly what they wanted to do, did what they
did according to his counsel and his hand. And you may be like Cain and
swell all up and flush up in the face. That's what that word
wrath means. It means to kindle a flame. Your
blood may boil when you hear the gospel. I ain't going to
believe that mess. You're doing exactly according
to what God is going to allow you to do in your rebellion.
That's exactly what you're going to manifest. And you'll keep on manifesting
it unless God in His eternal glory and strength and majesty
and according to His grace might arrest you and bring you down
and show you something about His grace like He did Abel. In
the process of time, and then look at these next words, it
came to pass. Isn't that something? He said, here's what I'm going
to do, and it came to pass. He said, I'm going to save a
people. It came to pass. It came to pass. We ain't going
to let it. It came to pass in the process of time. Preacher,
that's fatalism. No, that's the God with whom
we have to do. That's what that is. There's
a time when every son of Adam will come before God. You better
hear me. They don't all come when they
hear the gospel. They don't all come into an assembly
like this. They don't all come this way.
Some of them come by conscience and creation. But you're coming. And you're coming before Him.
In the process of time, it's going to come to pass. And when
it does, you're going to manifest your standing before God. That's
exactly what happened with these two men. And that's exactly what's
going to happen. There's a time when every son
of Adam will come before God. He may come in the light of conscience
and creation. He may come in the light of gospel
declaration. He may come in the light of spiritual
revelation. But he's coming because the Creator
has purposed it to be. Paul stood up on Mars Hill and
talked to those proud philosophers and they were going to do this
and that and allow this and allow that. and make God this and make
God that. He said, let me tell you something.
He said, the God that you don't know anything about, let me tell
you something about it. He made of one blood all nations
of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. And he hath
before determined the times before appointed and set the bounds
of their habitation. Why did he do that? That they
might seek the Lord. You're coming in the process
of time. It's going to come to pass. And
you're going to manifest what you are, and you're going to
manifest your standing before God. One way or the other. Everybody's coming. Nobody's
going to escape it. His times are going to be that
they're going to bring you before the Lord just as they had this
night, and you're going to manifest your standing before God. Not
going to be any doubts about it. Not going to be any reservations
about it. No excuses, no buts, ifs, ands. Nothing. These two men heard
the gospel, and one of them heard it in power and demonstration
of the Spirit, and the other one just heard a man. That's
all he heard. One was broken in spirit and
brought down to the dust. The other one, he just reasoned
it all away. Well, that don't seem right to
me. That's exactly what Cain said.
One was moved. by the goodness of God, turned
from himself, turned from this world. The other was disturbed
a little bit, but he soon found something to patch things up.
Isn't that the way it happens? One embraced the promised Redeemer,
rested his soul in his hands. The other vested all his hopes
in his own commitment, in his own decision. in his own free
will, in his own works. When a man comes before God,
he comes with something to offer. Now listen to me. Thereby acknowledging
that to worship God, God must first be appeased. That's why
he brings what he brought. If God's not upset, if he's not
offended, there's no need to bring anything. Just come. That's
what he tells us to do. The way is open. God is appeased.
Come on. Come. But if God's still angry,
you have to bring something. These two men brought something.
Now, if he comes knowing that God must be appeased, he also
admits his guilt. Else, why would he bring it? If he admits of his guilt of
offending God, the sacrifice he brings becomes the evidence
and testimony of what he believes God requires to be reconciled. Now, we came here tonight to
worship God. Had Cain come to share his fruits
with Abel, his brother, there'd be no problem. If Cain came with the fruits
of his labors and said, I want to feed the poor, there would
have been no problem. But he came with the fruits of
his labors and laid them on an altar of worship. Abel brought
a lamb. We came here tonight to worship.
What did we bring? We better have brought the lamb.
The lamb. Abel came with the lamb of God,
came with the fruit of his labors. By these two men, God represents
all the religions of the earth. By these two men, God declares
and establishes forever certain things concerning those who come
to Him and come before Him as guilty sinners, hoping to find
peace and reconciliation with God. And God establishes at the
beginning of creation four things about this offering that men
are told to bring. Number one, this offering is
particular. You better bring the lamb. Don't
bring the lamb and, just bring the lamb. And secondly, that
this offering is sufficient. That's all you need. You don't
need anything else. Just bring the lamb. The third thing is
that it's effectual to reconcile. When God came to Adam and Eve
in the garden, what did He bring? He brought a lamb. When Adam
told his rebellious sons that they needed to be reconciled
to God, what did he tell them to bring? Bring the lamb. It's
effectual. It's all you need. I don't need
to build a gymnasium on the church down there so I can fill it up.
I just need to preach the lamb. The lamb is effectual. It's all
you need. If you can enter in, if God will
give you an understanding of this lamb and its blood and its
Righteous covering, if He can give you an understanding of
that, it's effectual. That's what He tells us in 2
Corinthians chapter 5, this ministry of reconciliation. Tell folks
about the Lamb. Point Him to the cross. Point
Him to the Lamb. It's effectual. And that this
whole thing is the work of God in the heart by grace through
faith that will bring this sacrifice and wait on God to approve the
work. These two men heard the gospel
preached. Adam, their father, related to
the boys what happened in the garden, how Eve was deceived
by the old serpent, how he put forth his own hand in rebellion
and took that fruit of her hand and ate that fruit in defiance
of God. How ignorance and darkness flooded
his heart and mind. How confusion and fleshly reasoning
left him hiding behind the trees in God's garden, wearing a little
fig leaf apron. Ignorance floods the soul of
the fallen man. And then, how before this darkness
swallowed him all up, in the cool of the day, God came down
and reconciled him. Told him about the Lamb. Give
him the promised seed. And then God gave him this promised
Redeemer, so that as he looked at that dying lamb, he could
understand it. Understand what that covering was all about. Something I thought about when
I preached through the third chapter of Genesis was this,
that before God expelled Adam and Eve out into the world, He
gave them the gospel. And they went out with the gospel.
And that's what he gives us. We're still in the world. And
the world's still in us. But we have the gospel. We have
the gospel. And he preached this gospel to
Cain and Abel who in turn told it to their children and their
children's children. And they heard that gospel preached.
Abel heard this gospel and was affected. He was broken in heart
and spirit and moved to repentance, moved to humility, realized his
guilt and shame. He found by an experience of
grace that nothing could reconcile him to God but that dying lamb. That was it. Wasn't any other
hope. And he brought it before God
and he slid it's throat and with his blood on his hand, he looked
at that sacrifice and thought upon that promise saved and rested,
rested it. all his hope, put all his eggs
in one basket. God testified of his gifts. He
said, I can respect that. I can respect that. King heard
this gospel. He was not affected. He had no
change in heart, no change in mind, no change in direction.
Oh, he shook his head when his daddy said, do you understand
what I'm telling you, son? Huh? How many of your children
do that? Look like that little dog you
set in the back window of the car going down the road. That's
what they do. Do they hear it? No. No. He had no change in heart. He
told everybody he was reconciled. He pretended to be a child of
God. That's what you do when you bring something other than
what God told you to bring. It's a pretense. It's just a
pretense. If anything serious had happened
in the heart, he'd have brought a lamb. You see, that's what
revelation is. Folks think revelation is like
a dream in the middle of the night. Pow, come here it is.
I see it all. No. No. It's all here. It's not hidden. What hides it
is the blindness that the God of this world has put in your
mind with preconceived notions and all these things of religion.
That's what twists the truth. I told our folks the other day,
I said, there's 11-year-olds in here that's leaving their
parents with their mouth open because they understand election.
I said, there's nothing hard to understand about election.
God chose the people. You don't have to be a brain
surgeon to understand that. Where the problem is, where the
twisting is, where the confusion is, is where Daniel prayed over
in Daniel chapter 9 when God gave him that revelation of the
70 weeks. He was right up there with Jimmy Swaggart and the rest
of them. He didn't know what that 70 weeks was about. And
God revealed it to him that this promised seed was going to appear
at the end of this time. Oh, then Daniel began to pour
out his heart to God. And he said, we didn't listen.
Here's the problem. Here's why we're in confusion
of faces. We didn't listen to your prophets
who preached in your name. And our kings didn't listen,
and our leaders didn't listen, and the princes didn't listen,
and the people didn't listen. And now here we sit under this
day in confusion of faces. Oh, what is this revelation?
You look at it and believe it. That's that revelation. I look
and I say, ah, that's the Lamb. It's on every page. I never heard
the word sovereignty. and tell the Lord, preach the
gospel to me. It's on every page. Why couldn't
I see it? Because you don't want to see
it. Why couldn't I see the lamb?
It's on every page. Oh, Barnard said, drill your
hole right through your Bible and take a red thread. And that
way, every time you turn a page, you'll see the blood on that
page. It's on every page. Paul said, if our gospel be hid,
it's hid to the lost, to whom the God of this world hath blinded
the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of this glorious
gospel of Christ should shine unto them. When it does, they
see, and they bring the lamb. When they don't, they bring a
thing of carrots and throw it on the ground. He pretended to be a child of
God, but his sacrifice gave evidence to the contrary. He came in pride
and arrogance. He came expecting God to approve
his efforts. He came thinking that his coming
and his gifts would somehow obligate God to accept him. And he laid
those things out, washed them. I know he washed them because
that's what religious folks do. They wash themselves. And he
washed those vegetables and he had, like you see down at the
supermarket when they display them, they put that little mist
on them, you know. and stood back there in the sun and looked
at those things, and they were sparkling in the sun, had them
bib overalls, had them thumbs up in them straps, foot up against
that tree, Bobby, expecting, as soon as God sees this, I'm
in. I'm in. And God spit on it. He spit on it. He came to it
and kicked it out of the way. And he walked over to Abel's
lamb, that bloodied lamb. There he lay, tears rolling down
his face and blood on his hands and a knife and a dead lamb laying
before him. And God had respect to that sacrifice. And if you'll notice, both of
these men, when he had respect to the man, he respected the
sacrifice first. And when he disrespected the
sacrifice, he disrespected the man. And this silly notion that
religion's trying to pump everybody full of today about God loves
the sinner and hates his sin. You better give that another
thought. Oh, I tell you, we better listen.
We better read and think about these things. When this day was
over, God's judgment of the sacrifice declared. What lay hidden in
the heart of Cain came to the surf. Cain couldn't hold it in
anymore. He couldn't pretend anymore.
When does a man get like that? He and Abel got along fine until
they came to this altar. When they came to this altar
and God declared the difference. When he said, here is this one,
and here is this one, and I hate this one, and I love this one.
That's when folks get upset. You stand up here and preach
about Jesus all day long, ain't nobody gonna get upset. But you
take that religion and you stand it up and you make a mockery
out of it like God did that sacrifice of Cain and then show the respect
and honor and love of God and purpose of God in that sacrifice
of Abel. Cain's going to get upset. He's
going to get upset. Cain made three fatal mistakes. He came to this altar and underestimated
his sin. That's the first mistake men
and women make. They underestimate their sin before God. We're totally
depraved, totally ruined, dead in trespasses and sin. The second
mistake he made is he underestimated the character of God. He'd been told all of his life
God loved him, Christ died for him, just like this generation.
They don't understand God can just forgive. One man took an
eraser on a blackboard. I was in the service when he
did it. He said, that's how God gets rid of your sins. I don't think so. Folks underestimate
the character of God. And they underestimated the power
of Satan who ruled and reigned in their hearts. God told Cain
in his anger and embarrassment that if he did well, he'd be
accepted. He said, you're not going to lay that. Well, if I'd
have been a lit, I'd have brought the right sacrifice. You're not
going to lay that junk at God's feet. He said, now let me tell
you something. He said, if you'd have done right,
if you'd have done what you were told in the way you were told
to do it, and brought the sacrifice that I told you to bring, if
you'd have listened to the witness that I appointed, instead of
listening to your own heart, and brought it up here before
God, everything would have been fine. But if thou doest not well,
sin lieth at the door. Now we're going to have a little
word study. That word, lieth. at the door. It means to couch, to crouch. The idea is a predator and he's
got this territory. He's got this like a lion and
he's got this little section of jungle all marked out. He
went around and marked his territory and there's an entrance through
the rocks coming in and he gets right there where the entrance
is and he couches down. Anything that does enter his
domain He's going to pounce on it. Now God said, here's your problem.
Sin counteth by the door. Now watch this. If you look here
in Genesis chapter 4, down here in verse 7, if you look at that
last sentence of the verse, you see that shall be in italics?
Lift that out and read it again. Sin lieth at the door, and unto
thee his desire. There's no difference between
this man of sin that hides by the door and defends his domain.
There's no difference in his desire and your desire. His desire
is your desire. What possesses the man becomes
the man. The comedian used to say, the
devil made me do it. Well, he might have made you
do it, but you didn't. You didn't. Now watch this, sin coucheth
at the door like a predator defending his territory. And his desire,
it's the same as your desire. Same as your desire. Now, he said, you mastered. You gonna come before me and
worship, you master this first. Now wait a minute, preacher.
Nobody's going to master him. Nobody's going to master Satan.
Huh? The archangels won't tangle with
him. Nobody's going to master Satan. Greater is he that's in
you than he that's in the world. You're going to master him. Abel
mastered him. Christ in you will master him. But there's no hope of glory
outside of Christ in you. This whole thing, I'm telling
you, this country's full of folks who've given mental assent to
Calvinism and calling it salvation. That's not salvation. This sin
has to be mastered. And you have to master it. But
you can't. You can't, because it rang. What
did our Lord tell them over there? Listen to this. He said that
old man of sin, he called him the strong man. He said he was
armed and he keepeth this house and all of its goods are at peace
because he keeps it. He crouches by the door. He doesn't
let anybody in. He's armed. He ain't coming in.
He said the only way you're going to spoil his goods, the only
way you're going to move in that house is to conquer him. One stronger than he has to come
in and conquer that old man. That's what happens when faith
comes. Faith is an attitude of spirit. It's the evidence of
a new birth. That's why I say that this teaches
the new birth. Abel couldn't conquer that old
man of sin that crouches by the door apart from a new birth.
And he couldn't have faith apart from a new birth because faith
necessitates a new birth. You got to master this old man,
but you can't do it. You can't do it. So what are
you going to do? You're going to bring this lamb,
and you're going to look to the lamb who can. And God, by His
Spirit, is going to establish that faith in your heart. He's
going to establish that repentance. He's going to turn you. He's going to turn you. Be no worship of God, no approach
to his throne, no respect to your person or offerings until
that old man of sin is dealt with. And as that sin reigns
unto death, our Lord said, even so might grace reign unto righteousness
to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. And the same thing applies. What
possesses the man becomes the man. It becomes the man. I lived 30 some years, 40 some
years. Had no power to overcome anything. Had ideas of it, but
had no desire of the opposite direction. He gives you the desire. He creates the motives. He creates
the affections. All of a sudden you'd love the
people of God. I meet them for the first time,
I love them. Think the world of them. Had no problem with
them. All Cain did was hear a few words.
He heard the words of judgment. He saw what took place there.
He killed his brother. I'm telling you, this thing's
a heart work. It's a heart work. And after this manifestation
of grace and of sin, Cain leaves the presence of his brother's
altar. Now listen to me. He walks away from that established
place of worship. that God confirmed by the preaching
of the gospel and a work of God in the heart of a reconciled
sinner, and Cain left it. And he said, I'm going over here
to Nod, and that's where I'm going to worship God. He went to live in the land of
Nod. Nod means the place of a vagrant. And I saw that, and I thought,
That'll be worth looking up in a dictionary. So I looked it
up to see what it means. Here's what it means. A man with
nothing to offer. Huh? No visible signs of a living. He has no price to pay. Nothing
to offer. The land of not. He lives on
the garbage of others. He's a vagabond. In Hebrews chapter
10, Paul declares the way. This way shadowed and pictured
in Abel and Cain, this shadowed and pictured work of God that
was pictured back in the garden, pictured in Abel and Cain, pictured
in Noah, pictured all the way through, pictured in the law,
pictured in the priesthood, pictured in the tabernacle. Throughout
the history of men, that eternal way, that covenant redeemer and
surety, that great high priest who's entered into the holiest
of all by his own blood. and is able to save to the uttermost
those who come unto God by Him, who appeared one time in the
end of the world and put away sin by the sacrifice of themselves. Paul preaches that Redeemer.
And this offering, this Redeemer, this sacrifice, this way of reconciliation,
he said the Holy Ghost also witnesses. He witnesses it. Hebrews 10 verse
15. Riding this accomplished redemption,
this satisfied justice, this judgment passed and peace accomplished
on the hearts of reconciled sinners. Giving us boldness, he said,
to enter into the presence of God by a new and living way consecrated
through the body of Christ. And we can draw near. Neither,
with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts and
consciences purged from dead works to serve the living God.
And we don't forsake the assembling of ourselves together. We don't
go off to the land of naught. We stay right there at Abel's
altar. We stay right there and listen for their gospel. As the manner of some is. But
we stay and we worship God and we exhort one another and so
much more. As that great and final day approaches,
we either embrace and cherish and rest ourselves in the Redeemer,
or we throw it down like a wrapper on a candy bar and walk on it.
And he tells you what will happen if you do that. But he says this,
he said, if we sin willfully, after receiving the knowledge
of the truth, is that what can be? He stood with his own eyes and
heard with his own ears how God respected the lamb. But he said,
no lamb for me. No lamb for me. If we sin willfully,
having received the knowledge of the truth, bring something
else. Meet somewhere else. Listen to the dictates of our
own hearts and our own ideas. He said, there remaineth no more
sacrifice for sin. You're living in the land of
none. Living in the land of none. You
live and serve God in His kingdom, His way, by His direction, under
His authority, or you'll live in the land of none. Cain went
over there in the land of Nod and built him a city, and his
firstborn son he named the city after. He did everything in his
power, you read through that genealogy, to establish a name
for himself. And the one name that he establishes
for himself, I already told you. He's the man who stands for all
unbelievers. He's the man who stands for no
power of God in his heart. No affection for God in his heart.
And he's that man who influences and drags down the multitude
only to die in the land of Nod. And God never mentions him again.
Never mentions him again. You've heard the gospel. You've heard the gospel. What
are you going to bring? come before you and ask you to
use these words for the glory of your son and
for the glory of your name, to reconcile sinners to yourself. And we'd ask of you tonight that
we ourselves enter into this glory. I don't want to stand up here
and and talk to men and women just to find out that after all
these things have been said and done, that I miss Christ. Affect this heart. Affect this
mind. Affect this will for Christ's
sake. Amen.