Murder in the First Family

Tonight we're going to look at a family, specifically a young man in scripture. I want to tell you about that young man before we talk about where it is in scripture. So you have some like context for and some relatability for what we're talking about. So this young man, I'm going to describe his family and his upbringing first. This young man was born to parents that had solid testimonies. They were radically changed by the gospel. This young man, these parents grew up in sinful lives, but God saved them and they brought up their children to love and fear God. And they never stopped talking about what God had done in their lives.

So these kids grew up hearing about the gospel from their parents. So this man was always taken to church. He grew up seeing his parents worshiping. He grew up being brought to church himself. He grew up going to church in a particular place, in a particular time. This young man knew the word of God and tried to live a life that was pleasing to the Lord. But ultimately when this young man grew up, he grew up and left the faith. And sin just kind of ran rampant and roughshod through his whole life. And it really just kind of destroyed him. So does that sound relatable? It does.

So before I tell you that we're going to Genesis 3, I'm going to tell you about all those things to help you kind of connect with these people before we talk about their context. Because sometimes we can look at these things and see them a little bit more abstractly than they're meant to. So this lesson is part of a series that we did with the youth. And I actually taught this to an adult Sunday school class years ago. And we've done it with the youth sum. It's called a series called Acceptable Worship. And it comes out of this passage in Hebrews where it talks about coming before the Lord and offering up to him acceptable worship.

Which for me as a worship leader, growing up and being in college and being a worship leader through those years caught my attention because I looked at that and I thought, okay, if there's such a thing as acceptable worship, then there has to be such a thing as unacceptable worship. And I want to know what that is. Like I want to know what biblically defines acceptable worship to the Lord. Because in our culture and our day, worship is a wide gamut of things. A lot of things get labeled as being worshipful or they're being, you know, it's just so good. God was there. God was in it. A lot of things get labeled as being acceptable worship.

But what are the biblical standards for worship? So we asked two questions through this series. What made their worship acceptable or unacceptable? And we're focusing on particular people through this series. And what can we take away from these examples as worshipers ourselves? So if you're going to give our talk tonight a title, and this is meant to be clever, maybe it's less clever than I wish it was, but it's called Murder in the First Family. Murder in the First Family. A little not clever play on words there. So you probably have surmised by that title that we're going to talk about Cain. So we know the story of Cain.

We're all familiar with his story and kind of where that ended up. But before we talk about Cain, let's talk about the world that Cain was born into. So the world of Adam and Eve and kind of what their story was and what their testimony was, because it's very relevant to Cain himself. So we're going to kind of surmise or summarize, excuse me, Genesis 1 through 3 real quickly. So we'll just escape through the high points here. So you have the count of creation in Genesis 1 through 2. And then you have the fall in Genesis 3. So we know that story. The serpent deceives Eve. Even Adam both eat the fruit and their eyes are opened.

And remember, God comes to the garden like he would regularly. And Adam and Eve are, what are they doing? They're hiding, right? They're hiding in the bushes from God. You don't play hide and go seek with God. And that's meant to be funny because he's going to win every time. God calls to him. He says, where are you? And they come and confess. And remember, God places a curse on the serpent. God places a curse on the woman. And God places a curse on the man. And they are all ejected, Adam and Eve are ejected from the garden of Eden.

So Genesis 3.15, if you want to flip over there, if you just want to wait till we get to the parts about Cain, we'll just read this from the text. But 3.15 says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. So in this moment where God is calling to account what's happened, he's got Adam and Eve and the serpent there. And you remember from the text, they all blame one another. It just kind of goes down the line. Adam says, she did it, she says the serpent did it, just kind of blamed, just kind of flows down there.

But God puts this judgment when he's speaking to the serpent. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. So this is what we're zooming in for just a minute because it's relevant to what we're talking about tonight. And there's another passage in Genesis 3.21. Let's focus on two. It says, "And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them." Now it may sound like a dumb question, but how do you make garments of skin? Something has to die, right? For you to make garments of skin, something has to die.

So it says, "And the Lord God made for Adam and Eve, Adam and his for his wife, garments of skin and he clothed them." So who slew an animal? God did. It says, "The Lord God made these garments of skin." So there's the first time in creation blood is spilled to make a garment, a covering for Adam and Eve after they've been caught in their sin and they've been judged. God makes garments of skin for them and he clothes them. Now that's relevant to what we're talking about tonight because this is what's known. This is the big fancy word that people use, the protoevangelium, which is just a very fancy word. It means first gospel. First gospel.

God slays an animal and clothes them with it and he gives them also a promise in that text that we just read in 315. "I will put imminency between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel." And we know from the completeness of the biblical narrative that that person he's talking about here is Christ. It's ultimately Christ will crush the head of the serpent and he will have victory. That's the offspring that's talking about there because Christ is the eventual offspring from Eve.

So that's the promise that's talked about here and there's a great quote from John MacArthur about this. "Before punishment is placed on their backs, hope is placed in their hearts." Before punishment is placed on their backs, hope is placed in their hearts. Why is this relevant? Because this is the gospel that Adam and Eve knew. This is their testimony. These are the stories they would have told to their children when they all sat around for meals and they prayed and they heard mom and dad talk about the good old days. Maybe they called them the bad old days.

I don't know what they called them, but when mom and dad talked about their history, this is their testimony. And they passed these things down to their children and the promises that God gave to them in the garden were the things that they communicated to their children. Adam and Eve had a testimony of how God saved them. When they blew it, God made coverings for them. There was an offering. Blood was spilled and God gave them a promise that they held onto. Now, I don't know what their understanding was of that promise.

I'm not saying they had a complete view of the entire biblical story in that moment, but they had a promise from God and they believed in it. And I believe they communicated that on down to their children as well. So this is the world that Cain was born into. So let's jump over to Genesis chapter 4. We're going to pick up in verse 1. We're going to spend most of our time tonight in Genesis chapter 4. Genesis chapter 4 starting with verse 1. "Now Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, 'I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.' And again she bore his brother Abel.

Now Abel was a keeper of the sheep and Cain was a worker of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel in his offering, but for Cain in his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.

Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.'" So here's the money question that's part of this whole series, the same question we ask. Why? Why is Cain's offering unacceptable? What makes his offering unacceptable and his brother's offering acceptable? So that's what we're going to kind of dig down into tonight. So there are several theories about why. Why is it that God rejected Cain's offering? So the first theory would be what I call the type theory, meaning was it the type of offering that he brought, the type theory? So was this a technical offense? Meaning that Cain's offering was the wrong type.

So what kind of offering did Cain bring? He brought produce. He worked the ground. He grew things, and when he came time for offering, he brought produce. And Abel brought of the things that he grew, which was he brought an animal because he was a shepherd. He had animals, and that was what he brought for an offering to their worship service. It was an animal sacrifice. So there is a pretty strong argument for this theory that because there is a model here, God slew the first animal to make coverings for Adam and Eve. So it kind of is the model for how worship and their relationship with God was supposed to be modeled.

There had to be a blood offering in order for there to be relationship with God. So that's the theory there, is that his offering was unacceptable because it was of the ground and not an animal blood sacrifice. So that's one theory. Theory number two would be the quality theory. Was it the quality of the offering that he brought? So what does it say about the quality of the offering that Cain brought? In Genesis 4, 3-4, look again what it says. "In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord in the offering of the fruit of the ground.

And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions." So the text is very clear and maybe a little bit one-sided about how it's describing each of their offerings. Now we can read a lot into this, maybe more than what's here, but it says that "Cain brought in offering and Abel brought of the firstborn of his flocks and of their fat portions." So there's as far as like descriptive quality from a literary point of view, one guy gets a lot of description and one guy gets he brought an offering. And then Abel brought the firstborn of his flock and their fat portions, the best parts of those offerings.

He brought something that was costly and Cain brought an offering. So that theory is more about the quality they're offering, not the type of their offering, but the quality of their offering. So the next theory would be, was it just the sovereign choice of God to find one offering acceptable and reject the other offering? So this theory is kind of the, if you're a parent, it's kind of the I told you so, because I told you so theory, it's just that God chose to accept one and reject the other just based on his sovereign choice.

So I have a fourth theory, and this is a theory that I personally believe fits within the text, the story, and I think digs a little bit deeper than just beyond focusing on the offering itself. And that theory is, was it the heart of the man that made the offering unacceptable? A lot of attention gets put on the offering that Cain brought, but what about the man who brought the offering? What did God think about that man in his offering? So let's look at the text again in Genesis 4, 4 and see what it says.

Genesis 4, 4 through 5, "And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard." Now I'm not speaking as a original language expert, but when I read this text, there are two things that God has regard or no regard for. And the first thing it says is, "And the Lord had regard for Abel and the Lord had regard for Abel, the man, and his offering." And then it says, "But for Cain and his offering, he had no regard." So the text speaks about the man before it speaks about the offering. And it says that Abel, God had regard for Abel, but God had no regard for Cain.

So there's plenty about the nature of Cain's heart here that we can look at to see why his offering was unacceptable. So Genesis 4, 5, let's look at that verse. So Cain was very angry and his face fell. That word angry there, when you look at the definition of it from the language, it means to be hot, to be furious, to burn, to become angry, to be kindled. Now this is God speaking to Cain directly, giving him, rejecting his offering, but giving him discipline through that. And Cain's response is important because it tells us something about the kind of character that Cain has, the person that he is.

And it says, "So Cain was very angry and his face fell." Now is this the attitude of repentance? Is his anger the attitude of repentance here? Is this the heart of a humble child receiving correction and instruction? No he's mad about what God has told him. He's angry about the things that God is saying to him. So it says something about Cain himself by looking at the way he reacts to God giving him correction in this. So Genesis 4, 6, 3, 7, let's continue to read. It says, "The Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? And why has your face fallen?

If you do well, will you not be accepted?'" So the implication here, and I'm making maybe a lot out of very little, but the implication here is that he's not doing well. He's not doing well. Maybe it's not just his offering. Maybe it's about things that are going on internally. And maybe there are other evidences in his life of how he's not doing well in his relationship with the Lord. "If you do well, will you not be accepted?" So this is conviction from God against Cain. He's not acceptable to the Lord. So Cain has a heart problem, and it's what's going on in his heart that's making his worship unacceptable.

Maybe not what's in his hands, but what's in his heart. So Genesis 4, 7, "If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it." This is part of God's correction to him. This is part of God's discipline to him. And I think there's a lot for us to see here in what he's saying to Cain. He says, "If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it." The implication here is if he doesn't rule over sin, it's going to rule over him.

If he doesn't find a way to master what's going on in his heart, then that sin is going to run all over him. So this is a reality check from God to Cain. He's not doing well, and his moment to repent is at hand. And if he blows it, sin is crouching at the door, ready to just take everything from him. This past weekend, JP got to go spend the weekend with his grandparents. We call them nan and pops, but he calls them neon pots. So he got to spend the night at their house, and they took him to the zoo. And we got pictures of JP running around the zoo, just running wild through the zoo, like a small animal that's been released from the zoo.

And one of the pictures was my mom holding him in front of a tiger cage, and it's one of those live photos that's got a little movement to it. It's like a little video. And that tiger is pacing back and forth in his cage. And I'm looking at this photo as a parent, and it just kind of, I don't know, you know it's a zoo, you know the tiger's in a cage, but I'm looking at my one and three quarters old year old son in front of this tiger that in the video is literally just pacing back and forth and growling and making noise, and it's clearly agitated because there are just, you know, hundreds of children running around, and maybe he wants to snack on a few of them.

It worries me when I see that. I know it's a zoo. I know it's they probably got it in hand, but it looks like chicken wire to me, and it doesn't look very, doesn't look very sturdy. I've seen Jurassic Park. I know how this goes. Those things can get out. So but that's the picture here. When God speaks to Cain, he says sin is crouching at the door. And I'm sure for Cain, there was a very vivid image that came to his mind when God said that.

Being people that lived outdoors and worked outdoors, I'm sure he was familiar with predators in their area that would come, and they would pray on the sheep that his brother would run and the animals his brother would raise. When he says sin is crouching at the door, I'm sure he had in his mind a very vivid picture of some predator crouching, waiting for its moment to take the life of some other creature. It's a very vivid picture. So we as Christians have to remember something. Sin is always crouching at the door. Sin is always crouching at the door.

The moment that we get comfortable and we think that we've got it all figured out is the moment that we forget that sin is crouching at the door, right? We've always got to be on the defense and realizing that sin is always crouching at the door. Either by God's power and grace, we master it, or it's going to run all over us. It's going to run all over us. It's always looking for a moment, an opportunity, a moment of vulnerability. Speaking of zoo pictures, have you ever seen these pictures of videos on the internet of somebody at the zoo and they'll intentionally turn their back to a lion or a tiger that's on the other side of glass?

That tiger will creep up and pounce on them and jump on the glass because they see somebody that's not paying attention and that tiger sees its moment to get a snack and will attack like that man is vulnerable. It's really creepy to watch and people do it on purpose because they know that animal's going to come and attack the glass while they're turned around. It's always looking, always crouching, always waiting for the moment. So we as Christians have to remember, sin is always crouching at the door.

But there's kind of an other side to this that God was kind of sharing, showing me last night the text, some things I had not thought of before. There's a picture of a door here and God's telling Cain that sin is crouching on the other side. But also we have to remember that sin is always crouching at the door. But what we also have to remember is this, we can't barricade the door, dig a hole in the ground and just live in a bunker and just never go out and be that kind of Christian. What I mean by that is this, we can't treat sin as merely an external force that we can bar out of our lives. We can't turn off sin in our lives.

If we chunk all the computers in the garbage, we take our phones and throw them in the nearest toilet. If we cut the cable, if we turn off all the movies, if we do everything we can to insulate ourselves from sinful external forces, guess what? Sin is still crouching at the door, right? Now there have been movements and people who believe that they could insulate themselves from sinful influence completely. I call them bunker Christians because effectively that's what they're doing. They're digging a hole, they're finding themselves a bunker and they're going to stay there until this thing is over with.

So that doesn't work because the human heart is wicked and evil and corrupt and you're taking that with you into the bunker, okay? So let me ask you this, did Cain and Abel have TikTok? Did Cain and Abel have Facebook, Instagram? Did Cain and Abel have cable TV? Did Cain and Abel go to public school? Did Cain and Abel ride the school bus? The things that we identify today as being bad influences on children and people, did they have any of those things? Was sin still crouching at the door? Yes it was. Yes it was. And effectively, the idea here is not don't go through the door.

God's telling Cain, you're going to go through the door but you've got to figure out what to do with that sin that's crouching at the door when it comes at you. You've got to be able to master it. You've got to be able to rule over it or else it's going to run roughshod all over you. So the idea here is not that you bar the door and wait for the creature to run away. The idea here is that you have mastery over that, not that you barricade yourself in. We don't believe in bunker Christianity. So we also have to remember that the power to master sin does not come from us. God is not challenging Cain to be a better man.

God is not challenging Cain to find it within himself to master sin because Cain does not have it within himself to master sin. God is challenging Cain to take inventory of himself and realize that there is a void there that only God can fill. God is challenging Cain to look and see, you know what, I can't. I can't master sin. God I'm going to need you to do work in my life. There needs to be an attitude of repentance. There needs to be an attitude of an awareness of his need for God there that's clearly not there. And we as Christians have to remember that our ability to deal with sin does not come from us.

There's a song that we sing on a regular basis that has a wonderful verse about that. I can't obey these commands in and of myself. I need Christ to do this work in me. We talked about Sunday that the power that God used to raise Christ from the dead is made available to us as believers for everyday living. That's the power that's made available to us. And that's where we find our strength to master sin. The second that we start pulling on our own self reservoirs to walk with God and to fight sin is the moment that we've blown it because that will is poisoned and it's corrupt and it's not going to help you master sin.

It can only come from a relationship with Christ and the power of Christ to give us victory over sin. Cain didn't have that. And I think that was the point. God was trying to show Cain that he didn't have that kind of relationship with God. There was no attitude of repentance. There was no belief in the promises that his parents preached to him. In Christ we can rule over the sin that crouches at the door. And there's something else in this text I want to point out in verse 4-7. We're making a lot of hay here on this verse but it's worth it. He says that if you do not do well sin is crouching at the door.

Its desire is contrary to you but you must rule over it. Its desire, so it's talking about here that God's speaking of is sin. Sin's desire is contrary to you. The thing that Cain wanted, the thing that his heart lusted after, the things that Cain's heart desired, what God is telling him is these things are contrary to you Cain. They don't have good in mind for you. These things are contrary to you. This is a thought experiment. Maybe you just call it a moment just to imagine something but imagine for a moment that if the whole world could realize that sin is contrary to them. Just kind of let your mind run with that.

Like what if the whole world had this sudden revelation that sin is contrary. That all the things that people desire and they run after, that it's contrary to them, it's bad for them. Its desire is to destroy them. What kind of world would we wake up to tomorrow if people could realize that? I think everything would shut down. I think people wouldn't get out of bed because you're just taking away all the things that people work hard for and they desire and they get up and they're motivated for. I think people would just wouldn't get up out of bed. He's trying to show Cain that sin is contrary to him. It wants to destroy him.

All the things he desires are contrary to him. So Cain has a sin problem. Cain has a heart problem and Cain has a master problem. Now what do I mean when I say Cain has a master problem? This is John 8 34. This is Christ speaking. Just answer them. Truly, truly I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin. Christ is identifying a sin problem is a master problem because the master you have when you have a sin problem is sin. You are a slave to sin. You have a master problem in that who is your master and your master is sin. Cain has that kind of problem.

John 3 19 says, "And this is the judgment, the light is coming to the world and people love the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil." Cain loved his sin. He was enslaved to it. He desired sin and he loved it. God was not his master. His sin was. So let's look at the rest of the story and I think we all know where it's going but let's examine the text, just as 4 8 through 16. So this is where the fruit of sin rears its horrible head in Cain's life. So verse 8, "Cain spoke to Abel his brother and when they were in the field Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Where is Abel your brother?' He said, 'I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?' And the Lord said, 'What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground and now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.' Cain said to the Lord, 'My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold you have driven me today away from the ground. From your face I shall be hidden.

I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth and whoever finds me will kill me.' Then the Lord said to him, 'Not so. When Cain kills Cain vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.' And the Lord put a mark on Cain lest any who found him should attack him. Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod east of Eden." So there are some more things about Cain that we can glean from this text and how Cain responds. So verse 9, let's look at that again.

"Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Where is Abel your brother?' And he said, 'I do not know, am I my brother's keeper?'" Now let's compare this event to the event that his parents found themselves in when God came asking where Adam and Eve were. Now what did Adam and Eve do when God came calling for them and they had sinned? The head, right, which in a way is kind of ridiculous in and of itself. But what did Cain do? He lied straight to God. He didn't hide in a bush. At least his parents had the good sense to run and hide, right? Cain didn't even have that much sense. He lied straight to God.

God asked him, "Where is your brother?" And Cain said, "I don't know. I don't know. I'm not my brother's keeper. How should I know?" He says something about Cain and his hard-heartedness that he looked God straight in the eye. And I don't know how God spoke to him or what that looked like, but God spoke to him. That's what the text says. God spoke to him and said, "Where is your brother?" And he said, "I don't know." Lied straight to God. It says a lot about Cain looking at how they responded. It's evidence of an unrepentant heart. Now let's skip ahead a little bit to verse 13 and look at how Cain responds to his judgment.

Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." So there's more evidence of his unrepentant heart here. So let's listen to how he responds to God's judgment. What's the first thing that he complains about in this text? "Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground." That's the first thing he complains about is the fact that God put a curse on the ground and God is driving away from the work that he does.

God's taking the work that he probably found a lot of self-identity in. He's taking the work away from him. And that's the first thing he complains about. The second thing he complains about, and he says, "And from your face I shall be hidden." So the fact that he was away from the presence of God got number two after the fact that God took away his work. Now again, I may be making a lot more hay out of that than what's meant to, but he complains about the fact that God took away his work before he ever talks about the fact that he's going to be run away from the presence of God.

So the third thing he complains about, "I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." So he's going to be ejected from his home. And it's a little ironic, the first murderer complains and whines about the fact that somebody might find him and murder him. That's a little ironic, isn't it? He just slew his brother and the complaint he gives to God is, "But God, what if somebody finds me and murders me?" Can you see that it's not just irony. It gives you a glimpse and the nature and the hardness of his heart. It gives you a glimpse of the nature, the hardness of his heart.

It says in Genesis 4.16, "Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden." Now we know from the text that Cain moved on, and I'm fairly certain he got married, had children, and lived a full life away from the presence of the Lord. Now again, this is me speculating a little bit, but I'm pretty sure he lived a pretty full and maybe a happy life after that. I think that's the saddest part of all this, is that after he's ejected from the presence of the Lord, from God's people, which is this family, he goes on and lives just fairly normal life.

He just kind of leaves the things of God and goes on and just does whatever he does for the rest of his life. Now does that sound a little bit sad to you? It does to me. It's sad because I don't even know if he can really equate what he's lost. I don't even know if he's aware of the fact that he's just lost everything, and he's doomed to a life outside of the presence of God, away from the face of God is the way it's put in the text. "Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden." He probably lived the rest of his life, maybe he was happy. He was finally away from God and all his demands.

Does that make sense? He's finally away from the pressure of trying to be a good church kid. He's finally away from all those, from God, always riding him about what he was doing and how he was blowing it. He finally got to live the life the way he wanted to. He was finally off the leash and could just live however he wanted to.

Now at the beginning I tried to paint a picture here that makes this a little relatable to us, and we see generations of children who grow up in the church, and I've heard Chris say it once, I've heard him say it a thousand times, "Graduate from God and go on to live a life of sin away from the things of God, away from the church, away from the Word of God." And it's like they just get this moment of freedom and they're just gone and they usually don't come back. So that's the picture of what's happening with Cain here. It's relatable. It's relatable.

He lost everything when he left the presence of God, and yet if you probably asked him years later, he probably would have said, "I'm better now. Things are better now. I like it better." It was just, man, that Word of God, it just was always after me. It was always after me. And I want to relate this back to something that Chris pointed out when he taught on the parable of the sower. The thorny soul, the seed that was planted in the ground and the thorns grew up with that seed. It's a picture of somebody who has sin in their life and the gospel is there also, and those thorns grow up and they choke out the life of that plant.

And it's a picture of sin choking out the life of that growth, the gospel. And it's also a picture of how the Word persecutes that person, right? What was Cain persecuted by? He's persecuted by the Word of God. God disciplined him. God spoke truth to him and it burned him. He was angered by it. It persecuted him. And when he got out of town, he probably went, "Phew, glad that's over with. Now let's get on with the rest of my life." That's sad. That's sad, right? So what's the verdict? We've taken a lot of time to kind of like put a magnifying glass over Cain and examine all his behavior to see what it says about him.

So what's the verdict about all this? There are three things that Cain rejected. And I want you to hear this first and then I'll unpack this for you. Cain rejected the gospel. Cain rejected the Word of God. And Cain rejected God himself ultimately. Now you may stop and think, "Well, what do you mean he rejected gospel? What gospel did he have?" He had the gospel that his parents shared with him, didn't he? Didn't God promise Adam and Eve? He made them a promise that one day the Messiah would come and crush the head of the serpent? Wasn't that the gospel that Adam and Eve believed in?

Didn't they preach the gospel of, "Man, kids, we sinned against God and then God caught us and God slew an animal right there in front of us, blood and made skins and coverings for us and clothed us and gave us a promise." That was their gospel. That was the gospel that was given to him and that was the gospel that he rejected. He didn't believe in it. He didn't believe in that gospel. Cain rejected the Word of God. Again, you may be thinking, "What Word of God did Cain have?" He didn't have a printed copy of the Bible, did he? No, he didn't, but it says in the text that God spoke directly to him, didn't he?

Because the text records God speaking to him. We have the recorded and written Word of God telling us that God spoke directly to him. So he had the Word of God. He had the gospel. He had the Word of God. And ultimately, Cain still had all these things and he rejected God. He had all the elements in his life that some people in our culture believe will help you grow and become a good Christian person. Grew up in the church. They had organized worship. There was a time and a place where Cain and Abel would come and bring offerings to the Lord. They would go to church. They heard the gospel. He had the Word of God.

And despite all those things, he still rejected God. He still rejected God. There are some people who believe that maybe kids are a little bit like a recipe. As long as you get all the elements right, you're going to get the same result every time. If they grow up in church, you preach and teach them the Word of God, they're always going to grow up and turn out the same. That's just a surefire recipe. Well, it's not. Cain had the surefire recipe and Cain out a murderer, right?

I know we've talked a lot about his heart condition, his relationship with God, but let's also not forget that he murdered his brother in cold blood and then turned and lied straight to God about it. So Cain rejected the gospel. Cain rejected the Word and Cain rejected God. And ultimately, God rejected and ejected Cain. So first God rejected his worship, his offering, and he gave him a stern warning meant to cause him to repent, to take stock of what was going on inside of his heart. So God rejected his worship and then Cain rejected what God told him.

And ultimately God said, "All right, you're gone." He was ejected out of the presence of God. God sent him away. He was ejected away from the presence of God. Now this is not the only place where Scripture talks about Cain. It's amazing that the New Testament has a lot to say about Cain himself. First John 3, verse 11 through 12. Write that down and I'll read you the verse here. This is First John chapter 3, verses 11 through 12. For this is the message that you've heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him?

Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. So New Testament has commentary about Cain. The New Testament sheds more light and expands on what's going on in Cain's heart condition, which is awesome. The best commentary in the Bible is the Bible. So we've got commentary from the New Testament about Cain. And it says that Cain was of the evil one. Now I want to bring our attention back to that verse, Genesis 3, 15. I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. Two sets of offspring that she's talking about here.

The offspring that are of faith and the offspring that are of the serpent, right? So of these two children that are born to Adam and Eve, born to them genetically, biologically, but one of them was one of offspring of faith who had life, who was able. And one of them was an offspring of the serpent himself, which was Cain. Because that's what this text says in the New Testament, that Cain was an offspring of the evil one. So that's what 1 John says about it. Let's look somewhere else. John 8, the Gospel of John 8, verses 43 through 44. Can you just jot that down? You can look it up later. I'll read it to you.

This is Christ speaking to a group of Jews who had just claimed that their father was Abraham and that they were children of Abraham. So this is Christ's response to them. He says, "Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies." So again, he's speaking to a group of Jews who just claimed that their father was Abraham and they're children of Abraham, which makes them, you know, gives them religious good stock, I guess. But he's just tearing that apart here in front of them. And look what he says, "You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning." Now if you look at commentary in this verse and you look at, well, what is Jesus talking about? What is he, who's murderer? What murder are we talking about here?

There are two things that most commentators are point to. One is the murder of the spiritual life of Adam and Eve from the beginning. Now the other more literal interpretation would be the first murder that happened, which was Cain murdering Abel, murdering the first family that ever existed. So he was a murderer from the beginning, speaking of the serpent, excuse me, and does not stand in the truth because there's no truth in him. So he's accusing these batch of Jews of being of their father, the devil, just like we read in that verse before where it talks about how Cain was of his father, the devil. So what can we take away from all this?

What does it take for our worship to be acceptable? I would say this. I would say beware the unbelieving heart. And when I read this text and you see Abel and you see Cain, they grew up in the same set of circumstances. Cain can't look around and say, "Well, I didn't, you know, nobody discipled me when I was growing up." That's not true because you've got Abel right over here. His worship is acceptable, Lord. God is showing favor to Abel and his offering. And to Cain, he has no regard. Beware the unbelieving heart.

Hebrews 3.12 says, "Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God." Does that sound like a picture of Cain's life? Does that sound like what happened to Cain? Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God. That's why I think it's important to look at all those theories about the type of Cain's offering and all that stuff. That's fine and that's good. It may be right. But the real issue here is that he did not believe the gospel that his parents preached to him and taught him, right?

He didn't have the faith that his parents had in God's promise to them. He heard his parents grow up saying, "Yeah, we blew it. We blew it. We had everything and we blew it and we sinned against God and God slew an animal and covered us and gave us a promise." And he rejected that gospel. Now again, there may be some truth to the argument about the type of offering that he brought but to me it's just about his believing heart. He didn't believe the gospel. He didn't believe the gospel that his parents preached to him. The other thing I think we could take away from this is we must master sin by serving the right master.

Now God told Cain that he needed the master of the sin that was crouching at the door. And we have the same challenge before us today as Christians. We've got a master of that sin that's crouching at the door and by Christ's power and sufficiency in our life we can do that. We can do that. We must master sin by serving the right master. Matthew 11, 28 through 30, this is one of my favorite verses. "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest." This is Christ speaking.

"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light." So he's speaking to people who understand these visual things he's talking about. They were agricultural people. They understood yokes and animals and how a yoke was placed on an animal in order to purpose it towards a task and move it in one direction. It bound them to the master's will. It gave the people the ability to use those animals to do a task. So they understood this imagery. But when Christ talks about it, they're the ones that have the yoke on them.

He uses that picture for them that's very familiar and he says, "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden." They're laboring because they're slaves to sin and they're heavy laden by that sin. And he says, "Come to me and I will give you rest." So there's an exchange. There's an exchange of masters here that the text is talking about. They're taking the yoke of sin and they're exchanging it for the yoke of Christ's Lordship in their life. They don't have any exchange of masters here. He says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from it." He doesn't just free them from the yoke and let them run wild through the fields.

It's an exchange of yokes. They exchange the burden of sin, which always kills and always destroys, for the Lordship of Christ, which always brings life and growth and goodness. It's an exchange of masters. He says, "For I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Heavy laden by sin, burden by sin, these verses are about exchange of masters. This master of sin, exchange for the master of grace, the Lord Jesus Christ. His yoke is easy and his burden is light. It's an exchange of masters.

Romans 6.22 says, "But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and it's in eternal life." Again, we're not set free to run wild, do whatever we want to. We're set free to become slaves of God. We're set free to have that exchange of masters to where Christ is the Lord over us. We take his yoke upon us. This is kind of one of our final verses we're going to look at here. And I think it's relevant to this text and maybe that promise that Cain rejected. Romans 16.20 in the close of the letter, it says, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." Now, what is he talking about here? Crushing Satan under feet. How far back does that promise go? How far back does that relationship go? It goes all the way back. All the way back to the promise that Abeneath were given. One day of their offspring, somebody would come that would crush Satan. But I think the key to this verse is, listen to what he says, "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." Your feet? He's speaking to the church. God's going to crush Satan under your feet. They have victory in Christ to master over sin in their life.

They have the ability to walk with God in joy because that burden is easy, that yoke is light, and we have everything we need in Christ in order to master that sin that's crouching at the door. "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." Your feet. The church's feet. "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." That's encouraging to me. Now, we talked a lot about Cain, but we didn't talk about Abel very much. What about Abel? In Abel, we find all the things that were lacking in Cain. The New Testament has commentary on Abel as well.

Hebrews 11.4 says, "By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous." God commending him by accepting his gifts. "And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks." Now, there are a couple things that kind of match up with all the things that we're talking about here about what made their offering acceptable. Did Abel bring of the first and the best? Yes, he did. Is that what made his offering acceptable? No. His faith made his offering acceptable because he believed in the gospel that his parents preached to him.

He believed that he was a dirty rotten sinner, and he depended on the promises of God and trusted in the blood offering that God had made. He believed in those promises, and his faith, by faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable offering than Cain. It had nothing to do with his... Well, the offering was the output of his faith. It wasn't the thing that made his faith acceptable. Does that make sense? By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous. God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

Now when I read about the story of Cain and Abel, I always feel a little bit of pain and guilt for Abel because his life was short and brief. And we know so little about him. We don't know anything about his personality. We knew that he raised animals and that he loved God and that he made acceptable offerings to the Lord. That's what we know. And part of me reads that, and I think, "What a shame. What a brief life. What a waste." But Scripture says that his life and his faith speaks today. Scripture has a lot to say about Abel.

All throughout Scripture, all the way to the New Testament, the New Testament is still talking about the faith of Abel and how God commended him because of his believing faith. And that's not a waste. And sometimes I hear about these missionaries and these men who were great writers and went on the mission field and wound up getting killed and I think, "Ah, what a waste." That guy could have gone on and wrote in all kind of good books. He could have gone on and taught all sorts of people. He could have built a church. Man, it just feels like a waste. It's not a waste. It's not a waste.

Their faith still speaks and God honors their sacrifice and their offering. So the question you kind of end with is this, what makes your worship acceptable? What makes your worship acceptable? Is it believing heart of faith? God has done that work in you and has produced life in yourself and you have something to offer to God because of the work that God has done in you. Or do you have all the things right in your life? All the elements are there. There's no life. All the elements were there for Cain. Go back to the very beginning when I told you, he grew up with believing parents who had great testimonies. He grew up going to church.

They taught him how to worship. They had a time and a place where they would regularly go to worship. He had the Word of God. God spoke directly to him. Just as we have the written Word of God today, he had the audible voice of God speaking to him. He had the elements there. And yet at the center of all that is a cold, dead, unbelieving heart. And you look at these two brothers and you see the parable of the souls right there. You see how God prepared the soul on Abel's heart and yet the soul in Cain's heart is thorny and it does not produce fruit. And you have the world's first murderer.

And if you really, you know, I put this before a psychologist or a psychiatrist or wherever you want to take it to, you say, "Diagnosis guy." They'd say, "He's a sociopath. He has no grief over having murdered his brother in cold blood." I mean, God calls him on the carpet for murder and he says, "Oh, but my job." They'd call him a sociopath. It's a sobering warning. And when I share this to our students, and I did, it's been months ago, when I share this to our students, I'm painting them into that corner because they're those children. They are those children. They're here. They're at church. They're hearing the gospel.

But if they have an unbelieving heart, then it's a no-go. And I try to paint them in that corner with this message because they need to see themselves in that role. Either they are of a believing heart or they're not. Either they are receiving the gospel or they're not. Now, I'm not saying they're all going to grow up and be murderers, but I mean, sin is going to have its way in their life. Sin is crouching at the door. And you've got to go out the door. We all have to go out the door every day. We've got to go do our job. We've got to go do our thing. We've got to go to the grocery store.

We've got to just—we've got to live our lives and we've got to walk through that door. And we've got to either master sin or it's going to just have its way with us. Sin is always crouching at the door. Thank you all for letting me share. I'm going to pray and I guess this is how we rewrap this up on Wednesday nights.