I didn't realize until we were
singing that song what an appropriate song it is for the text of scripture
we'll be looking at this for. And those of you who are familiar
with the story of Cain and Abel will see, I think, the appropriateness
of it. Not what these hands have done
can save my guilty soul. Not what this toiling flesh hath
borne can make my spirit whole. Cain didn't know that, did he?
He came with the works of his hands and presented himself before
a holy God and said, here I am, and came for acceptance with
God. But Abel, in essence, cried out
this, thy work alone, my Savior. He brought a lamb and killed
it before God. You see the significance of that.
A substitute, a victim that didn't do anything wrong. That lamb
didn't do anything. That lamb died for Abel's sin. By blood alone, O Lamb of God, can give me peace within. That's
what Abel was saying in his heart when he brought that lamb and
sacrificed it before a holy God. Can you hear me okay? It seems
a little bit... Can you turn it up a little bit
more, D-Rad? I think it's on, but it's not loud as usual, I
don't believe. I want to welcome Mark Daniels and Donna. Is that
right? And their children, two daughters,
I can see back there, I believe. Good to have y'all. We have some
visitors. Make sure you get acquainted with everybody after service
this morning. We gathered around the Lord's
table together this morning as we do once a month to remember the Lord Jesus Christ
and his broken body and shed blood. And I'd like to do so
in the context this morning of Genesis chapter 4. This is a
common passage of scripture and one that you have probably heard
preached on before because it is so significant. In the book
of Genesis there are so many essential, basic gospel truths
presented that is just such a blessing to look into. From Genesis chapter
4, in this account involving these two brothers, we're taught
regarding how God had prescribed that he be worshipped, that he
be honored, that he be approached, how favor was to be had with
God after the fall. Now stay with me on that. How
can we have favor with God? God has cast us out of his garden. We have sinned and fell, and
he has promised us that in the day we do, we're dead. And he cast us out of the garden,
but before he did, before he did, he slew an animal, didn't
he? And he covered his Aaron children,
Adam and Eve, with the skins of an animal whose blood he had
shed. covered their nakedness, and
taught them the gospel of Christ, prophesied the seed of woman
who would crush the serpent's head, and gave them hope. And in this we see that he had
taught regarding how he was to be approached. God can still
be worshipped. There can still be communion
with God. There can be acceptance with
God. Isn't that what it's about? When he was talking to Cain after
Cain had sinned? Didn't he say, if you do well,
you'll be what? Accepted? The whole issue here
this morning is acceptance with God. That's what this is about. It's not about you accepting
him. It's about whether or not God will accept you. That's the
issue. That was the issue then, and
it's the issue this morning. Will God accept me? He will. But he will do so on his terms.
And they are revealed here in this passage of scripture. It's
not unworthy of our notice, first of all, that God has always prescribed
a time and place for public worship. That's important now. Look at
it with me. Look at verse 3. And in process of time, what
that means literally is when the time came. When the time came, it came to
pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering. Where did he take it to? He took
it unto the Lord. You see, there's a time and a
place. We're not told where that unto
the Lord is, but there was a certain place where God said, I'll meet
with you here. Has he done that for us this
morning? Has he said, I will meet with
you in a specific place? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. We're going to see that in a
minute. But most likely, this place where they came unto the
Lord, when the time came, was on the east end of the Garden
of Eden, which is referred to in Genesis 3 and verse 24. It says, He drove out the man,
and he placed at the east of the Garden of Eden, cherubims,
and a flaming sword. There is a translation That can
be translated that the Shekinah glory of God was there, that
flaming sword, the Shekinah glory which turned every way to keep
the way of the tree of life. And there are those who say that
that Shekinah glory welcomed Adam and Eve to the tree of life,
and there are others that say it kept them from the tree of
life. And I don't know about that, but I know this. The presence
of God was at that east end of the Garden of Eden. And I believe
that's where they went to worship. It doesn't matter. We know there
was a certain place where God said, I'll meet you. They brought
it unto the Lord. They didn't just take it out under a tree somewhere.
They brought it unto the Lord. And they did it when it was time.
That's what I want you to understand. And this has always been the
case. God can be and is worshipped in the hearts of his people at
any time And when we pray, that's not, I'm not saying you can't
worship unless you come to a certain place. You can worship in your
heart wherever you are. But there is a prescribed time
and place for public worship of God. And it's all through
the scriptures. There was a tabernacle in the
wilderness when the people of Israel were wandering in the
wilderness for 40 years. That tabernacle was the place
where God said, I will meet with you there. The mercy seat was
in there. And that's where the Shekinah
glory dwelt, again, between the cherubim, like at the east end
of Eden. And then the temple at Jerusalem,
when the nation of Israel was established, and Jerusalem being
the chief city, they built a more permanent temple. But that was
the specific place where God was to be worshipped at certain
times. As the Lord Jesus Christ, you
remember when he talked with the woman at the well, and he
said the time is coming, and even now is, that in this mountain,
or in this city, or anywhere, there won't be a specific place
prescribed for worship. But God will be worshipped in
spirit and in truth. Wherever his people are gathered
together, whether it's on a mountaintop, or in a valley, or in College
Grove, or somewhere on the other side of this planet, that's where
God is worshipped. You see what he was saying? There
won't be a temple that God's presence is especially in. There
won't be a tabernacle. There won't be a specific place
for wherever God's people meet. That's what he's saying. In Matthew 18-20, for where two
or three are gathered together in my name, there I Well, wasn't God with me before
I got here this morning? In a sense, yes. The spirit of
God dwells in his people. If you're his, he was. If you're
one of his, he was. But he said, I'll meet with you
in a special sense. The Lord's presence is in the
assembly of his saints to bless, to teach, to reveal himself,
to save sinners by the preaching of his gospel. That's how he
said it, pleased he could do that. And so in a special sense
of blessing and favor, God is where his people meet. And we
see that it has always been that way, even in Genesis chapter
4. In Hebrews 10.21 it says this,
And having an high priest over the house of God, Let us draw
near with a true heart and full assurance of faith, having our
hearts sprinkled from a noble conscience and our bodies washed
with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession
of our faith without wavering, for He is faithful with promise. Let us consider one another to
provoke unto love and to good works, not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together. as the matter of some is, but
exhorting one another in so much the more, as you see the day
approaching. Wherever this place has ever
been throughout all of the history of time, at the east end of Eden
or at College Grove Grace Church, it has been four things. It has
been a place where men and women gather in his name. We didn't
come here to talk about us this morning, did we? We didn't come
here to compare notes on what happened throughout the week.
We may do some of that before we leave. But during this worship
service, what are we here for? We're here in his name. We're
here to worship him. We're here to find out what God
said and to glorify him, to lift him up, to praise his holy name. And then secondly, it's a place
where God meets with sinners. wherever they took those sacrifices,
they took them unto the Lord. And God said, if you meet here
in my name, I'll be there with you. I'll meet you there. I'll
meet you there. Can you imagine that? The Son
of God has made an appointment with us, and will you be slack
in keeping that appointment? May it never be so. And then
it's a place where God is worshipped in Christ. Don't come before
God except in Christ. You can't. You may think you're
coming before God, but if you're not in Christ, you don't know
who God is. We worship him in his Son. We're
going to partake of these elements this morning. This is nothing
but wine and bread. But God ordained that we partake
of these things in remembrance of the Son of God who loved us
and gave himself That makes it special. It's not
just any wine and bread. This is the wine and bread that
we're going to eat to remember Him, to commune with Him as a
family, as the family of God. And I look forward to that. And
then fourthly, it's a place of the blessing of the Lord. Wherever
you commune with Him and meet with Him, it's blessing, isn't
it? There's blessing involved. and he's going to lift up and
edify his church. And he's going to reveal himself
to us if he's pleased to do so. And his word is taught and preached
in the place of worship. It's a place of blessing in it.
Have you ever left without being glad that you were there? It's
been good to have been in the house of the Lord. I've never
left it without saying that in my heart. Never once. Now we
don't observe a Sabbath because the Lord Jesus Christ is our
Sabbath. God ordained the Sabbath day
and commanded the Sabbath day he kept to picture Christ who
is the rest of his people. Sabbath means rest. And we don't rest in day keeping,
we rest in a person. Christ is our Sabbath. And we
don't acknowledge physical tabernacles or altars as holy places because
Christ is all these things to us. And I could give you a scripture
for it, but Christ is our altar. Christ is our great high priest.
Christ tabernacled among us. He's all these things to us and
more. But we worship on the first day
of the week as the apostles did, don't we? It says in Acts 20
verse 7, And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples
came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, running to the part of the morrow,
and continued his speech until midnight. I'm going to try to
stop somewhere short of midnight. But Paul preached on the first
day of the week. And the people met together on
the first day of the week. I think it's a pretty good day
to do it, don't you? It's the day that our Lord rose from the
dead on the first day of the week. John said in Revelation,
I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day. There's not a thing in the
world wrong with calling it the Lord's day, is there? Not because
we honor and observe a day as the Jews did, or as some do yet,
but because it's the day set aside for his worship. That's
okay to call it the Lord's Day, isn't it? John called it that.
It's his day because it's set aside to worship him, learn of
him, commune with him. And there's nothing holy about
this day, there's nothing holy about this building, in and of
itself it's just a building. But when God said to Moses, appeared
to Moses in that burning bush and he said, Moses, take off
your shoes because the ground you're standing on is what kind
of ground? Holy ground. Do you think he said that because
it was better dirt than the dirt over there somewhere? No, he
said that because it was holy because of the presence of God
in that place. Isn't that right? It wasn't better
dirt. It was holy because God was there. And I'll tell you this, as I
said, there's nothing wholly special about the wood and brick
that makes up this building. But God said, I'll meet with
you there. And if He's doing that, let's act like it. Do you
reckon we ought to do that? Let's act like we're here to
meet with the Son of God. And I know we can do that. And
then aside from the time and place of public worship, this
is the heart of what I want to get to this morning, there is
a way in which God is to be worshipped. We're here at this specific time
and place that has been designated for His worship. How will you
worship Him this morning? Notice the wording of the text,
verse 3. Genesis 4, 3. 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 the fat thereof. And the
Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. But as it came into his offering,
he had not respect. We're told one thing about the
way that they came before God. They brought something with them.
They brought a sacrifice. They brought an offering unto
God. That's the way that God is to
be worshipped. It's clear that both men had
been instructed in the way that God required sinners to come
before him, because both of them brought something with them.
This is final. This is not a history lesson
this morning. This is instruction regarding how God is worshipped
right now. God has not changed. Sin has
not changed. The wicked nature of man has
not changed. Your problem is Cain's problem. God's remedy for sin has not
changed. Do you have an offering this
morning? Did you come before God this morning with an offering?
If not, you need an offering. God is not to be approached without
an offering. And not just any offering. I
want you to notice, first of all, that neither person was
considered by God in and of themselves. Neither one of them was. As far
as our acceptance before God is concerned, we are vitally
connected to our offering. It was not unto Abel that God
had respect. It was unto Abel and his offering
that God had respect. Is that not right? And it was
unto Cain and his offering that God had not respect. Don't ever approach God without
an offering. He will have no respect. You
know what that word would mean? He couldn't have anything to
do. He had no regard for him, for Cain. No regard for him. What was wrong with Cain's offering?
Well, first of all, it was in direct disobedience to God. How
do you know that, Chris? There's no context here that
shows where Cain was taught all these things. Oh yeah, we don't
have to wonder about that. Look at verse 6. Cain's offering was in direct
disobedience to God. And most people are meeting in
churches this morning in direct disobedience to God. They come
ignoring, and in most cases, knowing what God requires in
their head and refusing to have anything to do with it. But look
at verse 6, And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth,
and why is thy countenance fallen? God don't ask questions like
that because he's wondering. He called on Cain to search his
own heart. He said, If you do well, shalt
thou not be accepted? What did he say the issue was?
Acceptance with God. Abel went before the Lord with
an offering. A lamb slain. Why did he do that? Because he wanted to be accepted
with God. That's what I... Are you interested
in that? Or are you just worried about
accepting Jesus as your personal savior? We better find out what
God requires, and who he accepts, and on what basis he does so.
And inquiring to that, if you do well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin
lieth at the door. What is doing well but doing
what God says? That's the only time you ever
do well is when you do what God says. And what is sin but disobedience
to God? What God is saying to Cain is,
You've disobeyed me. You've done poorly. You've done
wrong. If he had done what I told you to do, you'd be accepted. But he didn't. Cain knew what
God required, but just like all religious people who know not
the Lord Jesus Christ, he did what he thought was right. I
know what God said, but it seems right to do it this way. Cain observed the time and the
place of worship, and what he brought, no doubt, was what he
considered to be very valuable. It was valuable to him, so surely
it will be valuable to God. He was a very religious person.
Don't think Cain was some kind of an infidel. He was a religious,
and he went there at the prescribed time, to the prescribed place,
and he had an offering. The problem is, it wasn't the
offering that God requires. It was not the only offering
that God will accept. And that's the problem with it.
He came in disobedience to God. And this would explain
his anger at the Lord not receiving. He thought it was a very valuable
thing, and surely God will accept this. And when God didn't, it
made him mad. You may not, we've done all these
wonderful works. And that doesn't get us Him?
This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has
sent. You believe on Christ? Have you
abandoned yourself and all that you've ever done, and counted
but loss before God? Count all of your own righteousnesses
as filthy rags in His sight, and done away with them, flown
into the Son of God, who is the sinner's only hope, the only
sacrifice that a holy God will accept, the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world. And then secondly, what was wrong
with it? It was a bloodless sacrifice. Hebrews 9.22 says, without the
shedding of blood, there's no remission. There's no remission
of sins. And your sins can't be done away
with. And you can't be reconciled with
God without the shedding of blood. That's why the Lord Jesus Christ
said, The cup that my Father giveth thee, shall I not drink
it? You've got to drink it if he's going to save you. If he's
going to have mercy on you, he's going to have to drink that cup.
There's never going to be any hope for a wretched, vile sinner
like you. He's going to have to set his
face like a flint to go to the place of death. And he did that
for me and for all who know him. To bring a bloodless sacrifice
is a denial of sin and its consequences. It's to say, well, I've done
some wrong things. I've done some bad things. But I'm just
as good as anybody else. No. No, you're not either. No, you're not. It is a rejection of Christ.
It's to say, I can approach God upon my own merit, with the works
of my own hands, with the fruit of my own labors. And how many
are coming before God this way as we meet here this morning?
Well, I've done this, and I've done that, and I know I did some
bad things, but I've turned over a new leaf, and I made a decision
for Jesus, and I walked it out, and I said a prayer, and I did
this, and I did that, all the way to hell. Trusting their own will, their
own decision, their own imagined goodness. Cain's sacrifice, his offering,
was a faithless act of religious ceremony, is all it was. He just
went through the motions of religion. He was there, he showed up, and
it looked like on the outside now that he was honoring God.
Look at all that I've brought. Look at these good things that
I give to God. But the truth of the matter was,
he was spitting in God's face. To offer up your vile, corrupt
works to a holy God is to do nothing but spit in his face
and to trample under your filthy feet the blood of his Son, to
count his blood an unworthy thing. That's what you're doing when
you bring your works before God. Instead of believing God and
submitting to his way of acceptance, Cain was like Naaman the leper
who became lost and said, I thought, I thought it was going to be
this way. I thought God would accept all these wonderful gifts
that I brought him. I thought. He came nigh unto
God with his lips, with the outward form. He did something for God. What could be wrong with that?
Everything's wrong with it. But he drew nigh with
his lips. In outward form he drew nigh,
but as Christ said of those who were lacking, your heart is far
from me. Oh, if his heart was anywhere
near God, he would have acknowledged that the only way to approach
God is by the blood of a substitute. Isaiah 55-7, let the wicked forsake
his way. Oh, it seems right. There's a
way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof is your sure
destruction. Don't come before God the way
it seems like ought to happen in your mind. Let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return to the Lord.
And he'll have mercy on him. And to our God, for he will abundantly
pardon. Didn't he say to Cain, if you
do well? He stood there, God Almighty
spoke with that wicked man Cain and said, if you do what I told
you to do, if you come before me on the basis of a blood sacrifice,
I will accept you." And he still wouldn't do it. Instead of coming
on the next appointed day to the place of worship and doing
right, he got mad and argued with his brother about it and
killed him. Abel's offering was everything
that James was not. is in direct obedience to God's
prescribed way of worship, which is illustrated throughout the
Word of God by the sacrifice of an innocent, spotless lamb. Abel's offering said this before
God, I am a sinner, and my wickedness deserves death. There's got to be death. Somebody's got to die. If it's
me, then there's no acceptance with God. If I die, if I perish
forever, then I do so without hope of return. If there's going
to be hope for me, somebody's got to die in my place. Is that
not what that sacrifice says? It has always said that. It was
by faith that Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.
And by faith in that sacrifice for sin that God will accept.
Sinners have been coming to him since the beginning of time.
And there's no other basis upon which you can approach a holy
God. You're going to have to come by the blood of the Lamb.
You're going to have to come by the blood of Jesus Christ
the righteous. And there's no other way. And
his offering said that, I cannot undo what I've done. I cannot
make up for what I am. Somebody's got to die. That's the only thing for it.
The wages of sin is death. And Abel's offering said before
God, by faith, I acknowledge the one offering for sin that
God will accept. the blood of the Lamb. The one
offering that is sufficient to pay my sin debt and make me acceptable
in the sight of God. Is that not what he said by that
offering? That's what Paul said, he said in Hebrews 11-4, I just
quoted it to you by faith. Believing God, able, offered
unto God an excellent sacrifice. It wasn't just the blood of the
animal. He offered the blood of the Son of God by faith, by
faith, because he believed God. He believed God. Now let me make
a few general observations this morning, and I'll be through
and we'll observe the table. Let me stress upon you again
that the issue here in this story of Cain and Abel is acceptance
with God. Acceptance with God. You're going
to have to come to terms with God. You're going to have to
do business with God now because you're enmity against him by
nature. You're born into this world shaking your fist in his
face, and you may not realize that. You may not realize that,
but don't trust what you think. Look at the word of God. Read
your Bible concerning yourself, concerning who God is, and what
you are before him. You have come into this world
lying on God. You've come into this world preferring
your own way to God. You've come into this world spitting
in his face and despising his son. And you're going to go out
of this world that way unless you come to terms, unless you
close with Christ, unless you do business with God. And the issue is acceptance. How can God be God and accept
you? How can he do that? How can he
stay on his throne? He can't stay on his throne and
just say, well, I'll just overlook your sins. He's not God anymore
if he does that. God's holy. He can't do that.
Your sins are going to have to be punished. How can He do that? How can He punish your sin fully
and justly and still pardon you? You're going to have to find
out. And you're going to have to submit
to that way. You're going to have to submit
to that one by whose blood redemption is accomplished. It's a finished
work. There's not anything for you
to do. Look to Him who's done it and bow. Receive Him. Trust Him. believe on him like
Abel did, long before he ever came into this world. Abel said,
that's my hope right there. If there's a way that God can
be just and yet have mercy on me, I submit, I bow, I acknowledge
him, that Lamb that's coming, he's my hope, he's the ground,
he's my righteousness, he's my set offering. Can you do that? And then secondly, just as a
general observation on this, Cain never did ask for mercy.
Did you notice that? He never did. God told him what
he did wrong. You tried to come another way.
You can't do that. There is no other way of acceptance.
You come the way I said sinners can come before me, and I'll
accept you. He never did ask for mercy. He
never did acknowledge his sins. Oh, only grace, even not after
the Lord reduced him for his bloodless offering, nor after
killing his brother out of spite and jealousy. And the Lord appeared
to him after that, and he still didn't ask for mercy. Only grace,
that eternity in hell will not break the black, wretched heart
of stone of a sinner. Only grace can break your heart.
Only the love of Christ can break your stony heart. And if he doesn't, you'll be
ushered into hell, crying out, but look what I've done. As they're
dragging you away to the bottomless pit, you'll be saying, but look
at all that I've done for the Lord. It's like Cain, look at
what I've done. And you'll do that until you
breathe your last breath of air. Unless God breaks your heart
with the love of his Son. Unless God does for you what
Blind Bartimaeus begged him to do. When he said, Jesus thou
Son of David, have mercy on me. You're going to have to cry out
for mercy, and he's going to have to give it to you. He doesn't
have to. That's why it's mercy. If he owed it to you, it wouldn't
be mercy. You shut up to his mercy, you
see. If you don't desire it, Jesus, thou son of David, have
mercy on me." And then finally, just as a general observation
on this, the first human blood ever shed
on this earth was the blood of a believer in the sovereign grace
of God by the blood of a substitute. And it was shed by a man trusting
in his own works. That enmity has existed since
the beginning of time. And don't ever expect anything
but enmity from those who despise our Lord. Because you won't get
it. You won't get it. Christ said
they hated me before they hated you. Who hated Christ? Religious
people. The most established, highly
respected religious people of his day. Who hates Christ today? The same one. The same one. There never has been, there
is not now, nor will there be while this world stands, but
two religions. You can mark it down. They may
go by many names, denominations and what not, but there are but
two. There is grace And there is works. And there is nothing in between
and nothing besides. There is grace. There is the
way of Abel. Lord, I'm a sinner. And I can't undo it. Somebody
got to die for my sin. And if there's going to be any
hope for me, it's going to be a substitute. There's going to
be an innocent victim die in my stead. And by faith in what
God has prophesied to them. I offer his blood. They're my
only hope. I offer the lamb. He's my righteousness. He's my sin offering. He is all
and in all Paul sinned. He wasn't exaggerating when he
said it. He's all. And then there's this. I know
what God said, but look what I've done. Look what I've done. Look at me. I've done some bad
things, but I can make up for it. I can make a decision. I can do better. I can turn over
a new leaf. I can please God by deciding
something, by exercising my faith. Call it whatever you want to
call it. If you do something in order
to please God, you've gone the way of Cain, and God will not
have respect unto you and your offering. There are those that believe
that God saves sinners because they believe on him, whereas
others did not believe on him. And there are those who believe
that God saves some sinners because he wants to. And there's nothing in between.
There ain't nobody else. because he wants to. Ephesians
1, 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places, according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ himself. according to the good pleasure
of his will. It sounds a whole lot like he
did it because he wanted to, doesn't it? Having made known
unto us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure,
which he purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the
fullness of time he might gather together in one all things in
Christ. Are you in Christ? both which
are in heaven and which are on earth, even in him, in whom also
we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according
to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel
of his own will." God always does what he wants to do, and
he always does it because he wants to do it. Is that all right
with you? Not because I did something.
Romans 9.15 will be through. For he said to Moses, I will
have mercy on whom I will have mercy. That's God's prerogative. That may offend you and you may
go look for another God. And that'd be okay. That'd be
all right. I wish you wouldn't. I wish you
wouldn't. But if you're going to know this
God, you're going to have to bow to his will, to who he is. You're going to have to acknowledge
him as the sovereign, and you're going to have to come to him
empty-handed for mercy. Mercy. I will have mercy on whom
I will have mercy. And I will have compassion on
whom I will have compassion." So then, Paul said, seeing that
that's the way God is, it is not of him that will us. What's
Paul talking about in that context in Romans 9? He's talking about
salvation. It's not of him that wills it.
You're not going to be saved because you want to. You're going
to be saved because God said, I will. I will. So then there is none of him
that willeth, nor of him that runneth, king. You can bring
everything you ever planted and raised and brought up, everything
that you had, you can bring it before God. It's worthless. It's meaningless. It's a spit
in his face is what it is. You can run and try to do his
will and try to please him. It's nothing but bondage. Well, how can a sinner be saved
then? It's not of him that willeth nor of him that doeth, runneth.
It's of God that showeth mercy. If I was you, I'd ask him for
mercy.