Let's read the first five or
six verses here in Genesis chapter 4. And Adam knew Eve his wife, and
she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man
from the Lord. And she again bare his brother
Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep,
but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time
it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an
offering unto the Lord. And Abel he also brought of the
firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord
had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and
to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth. and
his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain,
Why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen?
For 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." Now, tonight
I want us to Look at Adam and Eve's two oldest children, Cain
and Abel, their first two. And these two children represent
the first two people after the fall to hear the gospel. These are the first two children
after the fall of man to hear the gospel. And I'll show you
in a little while how I know they heard the gospel. But they
heard this gospel from a man. the gospel of God's redeeming
grace in Christ, and these two children would establish things
by what they heard and how they reacted to what they heard that
God would do many times over in the history of man. And I
hope to give you three things tonight that I see in these first
five verses of Genesis chapter 4. I want us to consider one
of these things, which is what can be known about these first
two worshippers of God, these first two men who heard the gospel
and approached God. And then I want us to consider
their coming before the Lord. And then thirdly, I want us to
see how they came and how God received their offerings. So
let's just take a few minutes tonight and let's look at what
we know about Cain and Abel. These were the first two sons
of Adam and Eve, children born of fallen man. Now we understand
by the New Testament and these things that have taken place
in our day, the day of revelation, the day of light, we understand
exactly how sin entered into the world through Adam and passed
on all his sons. But here we have the first two.
And I pointed out to you in Genesis chapter 3 some things about Adam
after his fall, something of his character. And we're given
back here, we're not given a lot of details like you are in the
New Testament, but we're given things in their nugget form.
We're given things that they say a lot, but you've got to
dig a lot to see them. They're in nugget form. They're
back here in their beginning. And some of these things that
this woman that he loved and gave himself for, willingly put
himself under the curse of God and under the wrath of God, willingly
disobeyed God for this woman that he loved, and then immediately,
immediately having transgressed God, he sells her out. He said, this woman, that's why,
it's her, it's her fault. And then he goes on to charge
God with his seed, he not only said, the woman was the fault
of it, but he said, the woman which thou gavest me. I wouldn't
have done it if you didn't give me this woman. And he charges
God with his seed. So we see a lot of his character
here in how he reacted to those things. And then he hides. You
find him hiding from God. God comes down to walk with him
in the cool of the day. God comes down to commune with
him. And Adam hides from God. And he hides among the trees.
And he knows he's naked, and he knows sooner or later he has
to face God, so he takes fig leaves and sews them together
and makes apron form. So we see the effects of sin
and falling Adam in their nugget form, and now he has children. Let's see if they're any better.
I just want you to consider their names. I'm learning a lot. sometimes in these word studies.
I look at them and I go back and see what they meant. The
old timers didn't just name their children so their children would
know when they yelled at them to look up. They had meanings
to their names. They named them for reasons and
causes. And so that's what I find out. Now here was Cain. He was the
firstborn. He was the eldest. And upon seeing
her firstborn child, now you remember the promise that God
gave concerning the woman. He said, the woman's seed is
going to come, and Satan is going to bruise his heel, but he's
going to crush his head. He's going to bruise the head
of the serpent. And so when Cain, her firstborn child, came into
the world, And that promise of a coming Redeemer fresh on her
mind, she cries out, I have gotten... I think this is a wrong translation
here which says, I have gotten a man. I believe what she's saying
is, I have gotten the man. The man. And I'll show you why,
because it's in his name. And I know this is what she meant
by that name. Cain means to strike suddenly. That's what the name means. It
means swiftly, like the point of a spear as it hits its mark.
That name means to acquire, to purchase, to redeem. So here's
what she's saying in this firstborn child when she names him. She's
saying that this is that man. I have begotten the man of God,
and God through this man quickly, quickly is going to redeem all
that was forfeited in the garden. He's going to strike quickly.
God's not going to wait generations and generations, but the first
generation He's going to strike. I've gotten the man, and He's
going to be the Redeemer. And so she names him Cain. And
she saw in that firstborn son, she saw the coming Redeemer. She saw the fulfillment of all
God promised to do. She saw that seed. The old serpent,
his head was going to be crushed. And then Abel was born. Now,
I don't know if these were twins. It doesn't really say. If Cain
was born and then, you know, 18 months later has another son
and names him Abel, I suspect that's how it happened. But whether
they were twins or whether they were born one at a time really
doesn't make any difference. But Abel's name, on the other
hand, he must have appeared to be totally insignificant to her
after Cain. You know, because of what he
named her. I had no idea this name. I was
really surprised by these names. But able means emptiness. It
means vanity. It means unsatisfactory. It means
unnecessary. This child was just extra. He
was just extra. There was no planning in it.
There was no purpose in it. There was no significance to
it. And so she just named him able.
She just named him able. Unnecessary. Unsatisfactory.
And I don't think it would be stretching anything to say that
Cain got most of the attention. He got most of the attention.
Why? Because they thought he was the coming Redeemer. They
thought he was going to be the one. And evidently by his looks,
I think it shows that all through Scripture, that when man looks
on something that has to do with the promise of God, he always
looks as a man looks. He looks on his outward countenance.
He looks on his character. You take Jacob and Esau. Esau
was a man's man. He was a hunter. He was a man. His daddy loved him. His mama
loved him. Everybody loved Esau. Nobody
liked Jacob. He was a supplanter. He was always
trying to sneak and do deals and take shortcuts. Nobody liked
him except God. This is the way it is with Cain
and Abel. They looked at Cain and, man, he was it. I mean,
he was it. This is my firstborn. This is
the heir. This is the eldest. This is the
one. This is the Redeemer. And that's
how they treated him all through his life, growing up. Man, he
was something. You're going to be the head of
the family. You're going to be the heir of the farm. You're
going to get it all. You're going to run things. And
Abel was a son, but he was insignificant in the light of who Cain was
and who they thought he was. And all through his life, you
know that's how they treated him. You know it is. But God
had his eye on the weaker vessel. He didn't have his eye on Cain.
He had his eye on Abel. And God would set a precedence
here that he would confirm over and over and over throughout
the Scripture. He would make the elder to serve
the younger. Why? Why? That the purpose of
God according to election might stand. Now that's what it says
in Romans chapter 9. Here's Jacob and Esau, neither
one of them born. Both of them had the same daddy,
same mama. They wasn't born. They hadn't
done any good or evil. They hadn't done anything to
manifest anything. God said to her, the elder is
going to serve the younger. That's just the way it's going
to be. And he said, I'm telling you this, that my purpose according
to election might stand. And that's the way it is here
with Cain and Abel. We've got no other recourse of
this except what's revealed in Scripture. And I tell you this,
I found this not only, you find that in Joseph, Joseph had brothers
who were, you know, as far as outward things, they were much
better qualified than he was, and they despised him. He was
daddy's little favorite runt, and they didn't like him, and
they finally just sold him into slavery. They had no eye for
him whatsoever. You find this with David. David
wasn't even considered. The prophet came down to anoint
the king. They went through all the sons. Even the prophet didn't
consider David. Nobody considered him except
God. Because God doesn't look on the outward countenance. He
looks on the heart. And I find this in my own experience.
I'm the youngest of nine children. And the Lord's only dealt, as
far as I can tell, in my family with two of my sisters. And that's
it. That's it. Perhaps my dad. But
my sisters and that? Two out of five. And my three
brothers, as far as I know, none of them have an interest in the
gospel. I see it everywhere. I see it
in these preachers. I see it in churches. I see it
in the world. What the world will have, God
won't have. He's over here. Everybody's over
here, whoop-de-doing-it-up, and this is it. Here's where God
is. Here's where the Redeemer is.
Here's where salvation is. Is it? No. It's over here. It's over here. And that's the
case. That's what was going on right
here with these first two children. All the attention was over here
on Cain all the while God was dealing with Abel. He was dealing
with Abel. And you just find that. I find
that precedent all the way through the Scripture. All right, now
let's look at their coming before the Lord. And there are two things
here that I want you to see, two statements that I believe
demand our attention and consideration. First, he says in verse 3 of
Genesis chapter 4, in the process of time. When you read the Scriptures,
you need to read them slowly and prayerfully and think about
them. Think about them. Ask God to
reveal to you the depth of them and what's taking place in here. He talks here about the process
of time. There is a process of time. See,
we get the idea because religion's drummed it into our head that
we're just out here in a vacuum floating around and we react
to circumstance and we react to things and situations and
things that come along and we're just kind of all out here in
a vacuum. But that's not the way the Scriptures
declare it. The Scriptures declare that there's
a process going on. Time is for a purpose. Time is
a tool that God uses to accomplish His purpose. And all through
the Scriptures you just keep running into this thing. When
the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son
made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were
under the law. When the fullness of the time
was come, He went in there, he preached to those Jews, they
got angry, took a hold of him, was going to go out, that city
was up on a hill, that synagogue, they were going to go out there,
there was a big cliff, they were going to throw him off of it,
do away with him, get him out of their hair. And they went
out there, and he just turned and walked right through their
midst. Do you remember why? For a time was not yet, that's
what it said. There was a time when God would
turn him over to the hands of men, but that wasn't it. That
wasn't it. There's a process of time. A
process of time. In Ecclesiastes chapter 3, we're
told that to everything there is a season and a time to every
purpose under heaven. And you can read down through
that chapter and see a time for planting, a time for harvesting,
a time for all things under heaven. There's a process of time. I
preached to you over in Genesis chapter 1 when we talked about
the lights in the firmament when God shed all these lights in
the firmament. He said they are for days and for weeks and for
years. They are for seasons and times.
And there is a process of time. And there are reasons for time.
Time has a purpose. And time is not a permanent thing.
Time is not just going to go on and on and on. He said when
that angel Sticks this foot here and this
foot here. He said time is going to be no more. Time is over with.
There is a time for grace and there is a time for eternity
and a time for judgment and that's it. That's it. We are born and we live so many
years in this world and we have time. God has given you a space
of time. Over there, when he talked to
those proud philosophers over there in Athens, in Acts chapter
17, and he toured down there and he saw all these sun gods
and moon gods and snake gods and they directed a god to everything.
And he toured through that city and he said, as I walked through
there, he said, I found this little statue over there that
you put there just in case somebody feel left out, and you said to
the unknown god. He said, that's who I'm going
to tell you about. He said, this unknown God made of all nations
of one blood, of one blood, and hath before determined the times
appointed. Ain't that what he said? And
set the bounds of their habitation. There is a process of time. We're
born into this world and there's a time, a period of space in
your life. And one day before judgment you're
going to stand and you're going to give an account for this time.
And during this time, God gives you light. He gives you the light
of your conscience and He gives you the light of creation. And
in some cases, He gives you the light of His grace and His gospel.
And you're going to give an account for it. We stand accountable
for it. What did we do when we heard
it? We're not just checkers on a board. God just moves them
around like some inanimate object. We're responsible and accountable. And there's a process to time.
Old Nebuchadnezzar, it said of him, it was prophesied of him
that God was going to cause his nails to grow like birds' claws
and his hair like eagle's feathers until seven times passed over
him. That's the time of perfection.
Until he knew that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of God
and giveth it to whomsoever he will. Seven times. I'm telling you, we have a time.
There's a time in this life. What a precious time this is
to gather and hear this gospel preached, to come before God
by His grace and have an access to the throne and call upon Him
and rejoice in Christ. What a gracious time this is. There's going to be a time when
time is no more. No more. In 1 Timothy 6, verse 15, it
says, In his times he shall show who is the blessed and only potentate
King of kings and Lord of lords. And what I'm saying to you is
every man In every circumstance, every event, every advent of
history, every tick of the clock is an unveiling of the purpose
of God in redemption. He's accomplishing. Paul said,
I preach and I don't preach a yea and nay gospel. My gospel is
yea and amen in Christ. But some, it's a savor of death
unto death. That's what's accomplished when
they hear it. To another, it's life unto life. But both are
accomplished at the same time. God accomplishes His purpose.
He's got vessels of wrath. He's got vessels of honor. He
accomplishes those things in time. In time. Oh, the fullness of time. And then the second phrase here
I want you to see is this. In the process of time, it says,
and it came to pass. Everything God has determined
to do, He's going to bring to pass. That's what this time is
all about. That's what it's all about. God
has determined sometime in the space of eternity, a period when
time began and when time shall end. And all during this time,
He accomplishes His purpose according to redemption. He's going to
show His glory in this time. And for all eternity, it's going
to stand. It's going to stand, just manifesting
of His glory. It came to pass. And I tell you,
get your strong concordance, look up the word pass, and see
how many times, I couldn't count them all, how many times this
phrase is used in Scripture from cover to cover. There's not a
single book in the Bible that doesn't have it in there. And
all through this thing, and it came to pass, it came to pass,
it came to pass, it came to pass, all the way through Scripture.
Everything that God determined to do from the beginning. And
what I'm laboring to point out to you here is that these two
men coming before the Lord on this particular day was no accident. It wasn't an accident. This wasn't
just a circumstance. Their coming here was fixed of
God. And your coming here tonight
and my being here tonight is fixed of God. There's a time. And there's a time in every man's
life when he's confronted with the living God by whatever light
God is pleased to give him, whether it be of conscience and creation,
of law, or of the light of God's sovereign grace in Christ. All
through this life, we have light. He said this is condemnation,
that light has come into the world, and men love darkness
rather than light because their deeds were evil. If their deeds
were good, they'd come to the light. But their deeds are evil,
and they prefer darkness. They stay away from the light.
I'll tell you something. How we react to this light will
manifest where we stand before God. I need to say that again. How we react to this light will
manifest where we stand before God. We're not chosen of God
to salvation in such a way as that nothing you do or say makes
any difference. Don't ever get that in your head.
What will be, will be. An old fellow told me one time,
whether it ever comes to pass or not. That's the dumbest thing
I ever heard in my life. That's man's stupidity. What
you do and what you say determines God's work of grace in you or
the lack of it. That's what it's about. The whole book of Romans is about
justification by faith. justified, he said, freely by
His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom
God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. That
whole book is about justification before God by faith. You read
through that book, not by words, not by words. By faith. And so we conclude, Paul said,
that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
But the book of James is also about justification. It also
talks about justification. But in James he talks about justifying
what kind of faith you have. What kind of faith. Saving faith is the free gift
of God. Now, I want you to listen to
me here. This is important in this story that is before us
here tonight. Saving faith is the free gift
of God and its objects, according to Ephesians 2, verse 10, are
His workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which
God hath before ordained that he should walk in them. There's
no such thing as a man having faith and not works. No such
thing. Get that out of your head. Just
get it out of your head. Oh, he's got faith. If he don't have works, he don't
have faith. That's exactly what James, you read through the book
of James. And some of them old timers, they just want to rip
the book of James out and throw it away. And I know why. I know
why, because they didn't have the Spirit of God in their heart
sanctifying them and giving them the ability to do these good
works. They had no desire. They had
not saving faith. They just had a profession. And I tell you this, when Paul
said this, I want you to turn with me over to Ephesians chapter
2. We'll just look at this for a minute. This is important. Over here in Ephesians 2, I want you to listen to this, here
in verse 8. For by grace are you saved through
faith, and that, not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast, for we are his workmanship. After stating that this salvation
by faith is not of work, then he goes on to tell you that you've
been ordained to good works and you're going to walk in them,
but that ain't the cause of it. The cause of it is His free grace.
The effects of it, the effects of it is the desire of your heart.
Faith without works is dead, being alone. Faith is born of
regeneration. Faith is the creation of God.
It's in His hand and for His glory. And it's evidenced in
all His sons. Faith always obeys, submits,
believes, and rejoices. Always. No exception. All who
believe, He said, do enter into rest. Every one of them. Every one of them. Believing
is not the cause. It's the evidence of life and
justification and redemption. And when men and women come before
God in the process of time, things come to pass. Now that's what's
being said before us back here in Genesis. Things come to pass. Men and women, they come. They
come through the door and they sit down in here and they hear
the gospel and they go back out the door. Something came to pass. It wasn't just in idle time.
I stand up here and preach to you. Something comes to pass. You're either slipping farther
and farther away or you're being drawn nearer and nearer to God,
one or the other. But you don't just sit here in
a vacuum. Something comes to pass. These two boys came before God
because that's where the providence of God brought them. And they
reacted according to the dictates of their heart. That's what I
want you to see. That's what this message is all
about. Now let's look at their coming and how they came and
see if God will teach us something about His grace and mercy. These
two boys were of the same father, the same mother, They both heard
the same gospel from the same man who heard it from God, and
through the experience of grace, he experienced it in the garden.
God drove him out of the garden, but not till he gave him the
promise of redemption. And then he sent him out. And
this man, he was faithful to preach this to his two sons.
And he preached this gospel to them. Otherwise, they wouldn't
even have known why they were approaching God. They wouldn't
have known anything about it. These two boys were the same
father, the same mother. They both heard the same gospel
by the same man who was taught this gospel by word and experience. On one, there was a profound
change. A profound change. I'm going
to show that to you here in just a bit. There was a change in
his heart and a change in his mind. There was a change in his
reasoning. There was a change in his way.
There was a change in his temperament. There was a change in his affection
and there was a change in his conception of God. Everything
changed when he heard this gospel. On the other, there was no change.
He was left to himself to arrive at his own conclusions, to his
own reasoning, to his own natural understanding. And he heard this
gospel and he sat down at night and tried to figure it out. That's
what he did. There was no change in his will,
no change in his nature, no change in his ways, no change in his
concepts of God. One Saul was spiritualized, one
Saul was naturalized. One Saul with a believing heart,
the other one with natural logic. One came in humility and fear,
the other came in pride and presumption. One came with blood, the other
one came with works. One came in love and the other
one came because he had to. In the process of time, it came
to pass. It came to pass. In Hebrews chapter
3, Paul tells about a time in the history of Israel when that
very thing happened. They walked through the wilderness
and he gives ten times, he said, these ten times, these ten times,
he said, you have provoked me. It's called the provocation.
You can read about it in Hebrews chapter 4, I think it is, and
chapter 3. He said, these ten times, he said, you've provoked
me to anger. He said, it ain't going to happen
no more. He said, as I live by my name, I swear not one of you
is going to enter into my rest and your carcasses are going
to fall unrecognized in the wilderness. And every last one of them over
20 years of age, some 2 million people died and there wasn't
so much as giving a decent burial, their carcasses just fell and
rotted and was given off to the buzzards in the wilderness. And
only those born in the wilderness entered into that, except for
Joshua and Caleb. Joshua and Caleb. Oh, and listen to this, Hebrews
4, verse 2, In the light of that, Paul said, For unto us was the
gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word did not profit
them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. It wasn't
mixed in faith. No faith involved. For we which
have believed do enter into rest. The gospel is not preached to
change God's mind about men, or to change God's intentions
toward man, or to change their destiny. That's not why we preach. The gospel we preach is preached
to manifest the will and mercy and grace of God to His elect. That's why we preach. The gospel
they hear by regeneration, by the spoken word, and it sets
them apart from other men. Paul said to those Thessalonians,
he said, I know your election of God, for when the gospel came
to you, it came not in word only, but it came in power and demonstration
of the Holy Ghost. Men wiser and stronger and better
had more to offer, more promise, men whose lives appear cleaner
and better and more holy, whose past are clean as a houndstooth.
Man, my history reads like a jailbird. I'm just a total rebel and ashamed
of it. And people with way better qualifications
than me have been left out here to themselves. And so it is here
with Cain and Abel. Abel, I'm telling you, this man,
I can just picture him, and I know by experience what I'm talking
about. This man was a man's man. Anybody and everybody would have
thought this was going to be the man God was going to use,
if he was going to use anybody. And God snubbed his nose to him
and saved Abel. And He manifests this. How does
He do it? Through the preaching of the
gospel. That's how it's done. And the sanctification of His
Spirit. Oh, by His divine authority, Peter says, He has given to us
all things that pertain unto life and godliness through the
knowledge of Him that has called us to glory and virtue. Virtue. Listen to this, "...given
to us who have obtained like precious faith, great and precious
promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature."
Why is that necessary? "...having escaped the corruption
that is in the flesh by lust." There has to be one stronger
than the strong man who abides in here and he has to go in and
wrestle him down and take his goods from him. You can't do
it and I can't do it, but God does it. And He does it through
the preaching of the gospel and the power of His Spirit. And
all of a sudden, pow! He manifests it. And I know when
He does. I know that's His child. That's
His child. How do I know it? Because natural
man, he can't put it on. He can't make it up. He can't
do it. overpowering the flesh, outshining
the flesh, contrary to the flesh, creating in us virtuous things
that were not there before. Humility. Try to get a proud
son of Adam to show humility. He can't do it. He can't do it.
Shame, hope in God, joy in Christ, a merciful, gracious spirit,
love, peace and understanding, all by faith. What am I saying? I'm saying to you that faith
is an attitude of heart. It's not a consent to a system
of theology. It's an attitude of heart. It's
a change of nature. It's a new creation. That's what
it is. In the man. Paul said, with the
heart, man believeth unto righteousness. With the heart. But you can't
without it. You can't do it, can you? Winston
tried. So did I. I tried and tried and
tried. You can't pray a prayer. You
can't pray a prayer. I tell you, you find out who
God is and He brings you down to that state and you see what
you are and you just sit there, you're as helpless as helpless
can be. You see yourself in His hand
and can't get out. And if He don't give you grace,
you ain't going to have none. Every child of God comes to Him
just that way. He's going to bring you down.
He may not have brought you down yet, but if you're His, you're
coming down. You're coming down. And I tell
you this, from that day forward, all you're going to do is look
up. You're not going to look down anymore, because He's going
to bring you down in such a way, you're going to look up. You're
going to see everybody else more worthy than you. Everybody else. Arguments come in the church.
You know who He said to get to settle arguments? The least esteemed. The man nobody gets, the most
ignorant one in the bunch, that man that nobody would get to
settle an argument, you go get him. Coming to God is what manifests
what's on your heart and what's in your heart. Cain brought her
the fruit of the ground. He brought the fruit of his labors.
He brought the best he could produce, the best he had to offer. And he brought it with pride,
expecting the blessing of God. He brought it with his mother's
expectation and encouragement, thinking himself to be God's
seed. He brought an offering without reason, without any association
to the glory of God or the gospel he heard. He brought something
he thought to be better than the gospel. Ain't that what they're preaching?
Something better? Higher? You got to have tongues. Why?
Oh, it's better. This is the high life. This is
as high as I want to get right here. Seated with Him in the
heavenlies. I don't want no higher than that.
That's high enough. The high life. Seek this. Get this. Get this evidence. Get this hope. Oh, he brought what he brought
thinking that God would acknowledge him as his son, and God spit
on it. He spit on it. He had no respect
to it whatsoever. Now, there's a difference when
you have a cake judging, and you've got two cakes here, and
they both look pretty good, but this one looks a little bit better.
That's one thing. That's not what he's talking
about here. He walked up and did it. He had no respect for
it whatsoever. It didn't get the pink ribbon
and this one got the blue ribbon. He spit on this one and said,
throw it out. Throw it out. Your righteousnesses,
he says, what you hope in and what you think is going to get
you in, ain't going to get you in, they're filthy rags. They're
menstrual cloths. They're that rag that the leper
held over his slimy, pus-running mouth. That's what it is. That's
what our righteousness is all about. This boy, he didn't come,
he came in humility and he took that lamb and he slit its throat
and he watched that poor creature die on the ground and in that
bloody mess, he saw his Savior dying on the cross. That's why
God had respect to His offering and had none to His. That's why. Oh, it wasn't what
he gave up. Undecaying in his offering, it
says, verse 5, he had no respect. God snubbed his nose to it. Abel
brought that lamb of the firstling of his flock, a lamb without
blemish, a lamb without spot, a lamb that was the best of the
bunch. And he brought it in fear and
trembling, and he offered it up to God in faith. And it wasn't
the doctrine of the lamb that set him apart, although there
was a doctrine proclaimed. There had to be a doctrine. There
had to be a reason why he took a lamb. That's what his daddy
told him to take. There was a doctrine involved,
but it wasn't the doctrine that made his sacrifice more acceptable
than his brother's. It was not the fact of a particular
lamb, although a certain lamb was chosen, I've got no doubt
about it. But in Hebrews 11, verse 4, it says, By faith Abel
offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which
he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of
his gift. And by it him being dead yet
speaketh. He is still talking about it.
Still sets it forward. We are talking about it tonight.
that Lamb that he offered up. Abel's Lamb was a reflection
of the Lamb of God that would come and take away the sin of
the world. Abel's Lamb was the expression
of his heart and of his love, an expression of his heart in
union with Christ and that coming Redeemer. Abel's Lamb was a confession
of all he believed and rested in. And Abel's lamb is how he
was convinced of the Spirit of God that God must be worshipped
and approached with a lamb. And God testified and was satisfied
and gave respect to his offering. My soul. Think about what we're
talking about. A sinful man, fallen, deserving
of hell. This sinner comes and he's trembling,
and he knows his judgment of God, and he does exactly what
God tells him to do. That's faith. That's faith. And looks and sees that coming
Redeemer, that dying Lamb that's going to come. That's why when
old John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb, he starts at Abel,
and he follows that Lamb all the way through Scripture, and
he said, Here's the Lamb. Behold the Lamb. Oh, God give
us a heart and attitude and all that we do in this place to give
all the preeminence to Christ. Give it to Him. He deserves it.
Bow to Him. See everything and rejoice in
Him and rest in Him. God be pleased to give us an
understanding of what I preached here tonight, especially me.
I don't want to preach to others and find myself in the end to
be a castaway. I want to preach these things
and enter into them. There's rejoicing. There's things
to rejoice in. There's things to rest in, everlasting
rest.