The Offerings of Cain and Abel

Introduction and Prayer for Illumination

0:05 On Sunday evening, March 8th, 1992, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey.

0:16 Now let us turn together in our Bibles to the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, that wonderful book of beginnings, Genesis chapter 4, and I shall read in your hearing verses 1 through 8, Genesis 4 and verse 1. And the man knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah. And again she bare his brother Abel.

1:00 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 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 Jehovah. And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof.

1:22 And Jehovah had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.

1:34 And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. And Jehovah said unto Cain, Why are you? And why is your countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shall it not be lifted up?

1:51 And if thou doest not well, sin coucheth at the door, and unto thee shall be its desire, but do thou rule over it? And Cain told Abel his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

2:18 Now as we begin our studies in this very vital portion of the word of God, let us ask again for God's gracious spirit to be given as the spirit of illumination and understanding to each of our minds, the spirit of unction, and the spirit of profitable hearing of the word of God. Let us pray. Surely our Father, none would count a man who fools, who went to the author of a book to ask that author his true meaning in that which came from his pen.

2:59 We therefore come to you, the author of the scriptures, and we pray that you will teach us their meaning, that by your spirit you will open the eyes of our understanding, that we may know your mind as revealed in the scriptures. Help us, O God. Help us, O God. Help us, O God.

3:22 Help us, O God. Help us, O God, that we shall receive all that is written, but that we shall resist every temptation to go beyond what is written. May we manifest our submission and humility by being content that you have told us just as much and no more than we need to know for our salvation, our edification, and your glory. We therefore pray, that you will mortify idle curiosity, mortify resistance to what is clear,

4:01 and enable us by the Spirit to profit from the teaching and preaching of your word. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Now, as we take up our studies tonight in the life of Cain and Abel, we do well to pause on the threshold of this study that brings us, immediately, into chapter 4 of the book of Genesis, briefly to summarize what has already been unfolded to us in the first three chapters of Genesis.

Context: Genesis 1-3 and the Seed of the Woman/Serpent

4:41 I trust that even the youngest of you children knows that the basic subject matter of chapter 1 of Genesis is the record of God's creation of the heavens and the earth, and that in six days. And that chapter 1 of Genesis is the record of God's creation of the heavens and the earth, and that chapter 2 begins with the account of God hallowing and sanctifying the seventh day, and resting on that day, and then giving to us an amplified description of the conditions of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, and also the details of how He created the man and the woman in His own image.

5:24 Then in chapter 3 we have, the account of the necessary test of man resulting in his tragic fall, and at the same time we are informed of God's judgment upon man, upon the serpent, and even upon the earth, and yet in the midst of that pronouncement of judgment, we have that first gracious word of gospel promise in which God Himself comes to the man, the man and the woman who have now aligned themselves with the serpent, the devil, and says that He will inject a gracious enmity,

6:08 and that He will perpetuate that enmity, and that eventually the seed of the woman would bruise and crush the head of the serpent, though while in the process the heel of the seed of the woman would be bruised. And that chapter ends with the second chapter, the sad picture of Adam and Eve banished from the Garden, and God Himself guarding that entrance to the Garden that none should enter and partake of the Tree of Life. Now then, when we come to chapter 4, our attention is immediately drawn to two individuals,

6:51 and God draws our attention to these two individuals, to demonstrate to us how that at the very threshold of the development of the human race, both having their origin from the same parents, that God's promise in chapter 3 and verse 15 begins to find a very pronounced fulfillment. For in the history and the incidents in conjunction with Cain and Abel, we see, though coming from the physical seed of the woman, that God is forming that spiritual seed of the woman,

7:33 the believing line that will eventually issue in the coming of Messiah, her great and glorious seed, and also that seed of the serpent, finding its embodiment in that evil man, Cain, who becomes like his father, the devil, both a murderer and a blatant liar. And so in this chapter, chapter 4, verses 1 to 16, focus upon these two individuals and how that division of mankind is set before us in bold relief. Then in verses 17 to 24,

8:18 we are given an account of the development of the family, of the seed of the serpent, the development of the family of Cain, and how Cain becomes the head of a whole line of the ungodly. And then verses 25 and 26 close the chapter with God's record of the establishment of a godly line. Abel having been slain, God brings forth through Adam and Eve a son named Seth, who becomes the head of a line of the godly,

8:58 those who are part of the believing seed of the woman. And so the chapter ends with the words, Then began men to call upon the name of Jehovah. Now I trust keeping that broad outline in mind will be helpful that as we get into the details, we will never forget, in the midst of all of the details and drawing forth many of the very pointed practical applications, we must never forget the larger picture within which the smaller minute details are set before us.

Introduction of Cain and Abel: Births and Naming

9:40 Now tonight it's my purpose to expound and apply in your hearing verses 1 through 5a of this chapter. And in those verses we have basically three things set before us. First of all we have the introduction of Cain and Abel, verses 1 and 2a. Then secondly the focus is upon the occupations of Cain and Abel, verse 2b.

10:11 And then thirdly, and that which is most prominent in this early section, the offerings of Cain and Abel, verses 3 through 5a. First of all then the introduction of Cain and Abel. And in that introduction we first of all have the account of the birth and naming of Cain, and then secondly the birth and the naming of Abel. And the man knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man with the help of Abel.

10:48 With the help of Jehovah. The birth and naming of Cain begins with a very judicious, simple, straightforward, tasteful, euphemistic description of the fact that as the result of normal sexual intimacy within the sanctity of the marriage bond, for the man knew Eve his wife, she conceived and obviously passed through the normal period of gestation that many of you children have seen and are witnessing with your own mommies,

11:29 as her dresses get a bit tight and then she goes to those maternity dresses until toward the end of that time she wobbles like a duck before she goes to the hospital and brings forth the little one. Well we are told in this passage, in this introduction, of these two characters that in conjunction with the birth and the naming of Cain that Cain came into the world in the way in which all of us come into the world and that God speaks of these things in the holy sanctified way in which they ought to be spoken of.

12:11 And in using the euphemism the man knew Eve, God is not being prudish about sexual intimacy but rather he is setting forth a profound reality that the sexual intimacy between a husband and wife in the covenant of marriage is more than making love and having sex. And we could learn oodles of lesson just from the way God describes this. And the man knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain. And upon bearing this firstborn, apparently, though it is not explicit,

12:54 the emphasis of the passage would seem to indicate that it was she who took the lead in the naming of Cain and his name was derived from her response upon the occasion of his birth. For having bore Cain, she said, I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah. Now in the old 1901 the words the help of are in italics because they are supplied to give sense to the rather abbreviated almost verbal shorthand of the Hebrew construction.

13:35 I have gotten a man with Jehovah. Some would even be so bold as to render it, and they are not fools nor ignorant of the Hebrew language. I have gotten a man, even Jehovah. And they would read into Eve's words that she had a tremendous elevated measure of faith to believe that the promise of Genesis 3 and verse 15 was fulfilled in her firstborn, and that here would be the promised seed to crush the head of the serpent.

14:16 However, more responsible commentators regard that position as being rather far-fetched and certainly not necessitated by the language, and I find my judgment agreeing with them, for the little preposition does in other settings, even in the book of Genesis, mean precisely what we find the translators of the 1901 supplying. I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah. The same way in other passages when God says to His people, I will be with you, He means I will be there to assist and to uphold and to strengthen you.

15:00 Now there is a play on words in the Hebrew. When she gets this child, she names him Gott. That is what we would do in English. I have gotten a child with the help of Jehovah, therefore I'll name him Gott.

15:19 So every time I see him and say, Gott, come in for supper, I will be reminded that he was gotten by the help of Jehovah. Now what was it that made Eve's mind move in such a direction in conjunction with the birth and naming of Cain? Well, if you will go back to chapter 3, I think you will see the answer. Verse 16, Unto the woman God said, I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception.

15:53 In pain thou shalt bring forth children. Now pause for a moment. Some of you young women with child for the first time, those of you who have been mothers more than once or twice, can you remember when you were with child for the first time? And one of your great concerns was to ask your mother or an intimate friend or intimate friends who had gone through the ordeal of childbirth, what is it like?

16:29 Isn't that true? I doubt there is anyone who has gone onto a birthing table, into a birthing ward who has not, before she entered, sought to solicit from some person, solicit from some close friend, preferably in every case it ought to be a mother if a mother is still alive and at hand. What more wonderful thing can a mother do than to try to prepare her daughter both for the ordeal and the trauma as well as the blessedness and the mystery of bringing forth a human life. But who could Eve go to and say,

17:13 what does it mean in pain I shall bring forth a child? No doubt she beheld the animals that Adam had named and had watched those animals in labor, had heard the peculiar intense mooing of a cow in labor as I've heard cows in labor. And perhaps the peculiarly piercing bleat of a sheep in labor bringing forth a little one. But she did not know, one thing she did know, that when her birth pangs began to come upon her they were of such a nature as to be permeated

17:55 with the curse of God for her involvement in that first sin of her husband. That much she knew. Whatever I'm experiencing it is not only something that may be native contractions that expel the child from the womb but they are interlaced with the curse of God and you mothers know when your labor pains go from seven minutes apart to six, to five, to four and get more and more intense you wonder, am I going to make it? Eve went through all of that and she had no Dick Grantley read books to read

18:40 no Lamaze classes to attend she had had no practice in deep breathing none of that. No wonder when going through the trauma of the throes of birth and coming to that point where she wondered if she could bear anymore and suddenly all of the trauma is over and she holds in her arms this precious life what else could she do but exclaim in a mingled sense of both gratitude and humility and thankfulness

19:22 I have gotten a man with the help of Jehovah. Though his curse is upon me for my sin and has come into focus in a unique way in the experience of birthing this child who but Jehovah is. Jehovah could make a baby who but Jehovah can sustain a mother through the throes of birth and so it's natural that when she says I have gotten the Hebrew word Kana I have gotten a man from Jehovah he is named Cain

20:07 he is named Gott and that's how we're introduced to Cain he was surrounded at his birth with the evidences if not of genuine piety of a deep God consciousness on the part of Eve he had the ideal environment with which to take his first breaths the name Jehovah is spoken in his ear before he can distinguish sounds of any kind that's the birth and the naming of Cain well then what about the birth

20:52 and naming of Abel verse 2a the birth and naming of Abel and again she bare his brother Abel here a briefer account of the birth and naming of Abel now because the conception is not mentioned many responsible commentators among them even the notable esteemed John Calvin not only suggests that they were twins but he says in a rather cheeky irritated way it seems to me there's no other reasonable explanation I leave to others to give a better one if they don't accept mine

21:36 it's a very bit of humorous stroke in John Calvin and he's not the only one who shares that opinion but again in having sought to examine scripture interpreting scripture there are many scriptures at least another dozen places in the book of Genesis alone where the term and she bare and she bare and she bare without any mention of the conception is a very common phraseology in the writing of Moses under the influence of the Holy Spirit and so I believe it is wrong for us to assume that they were twins unless the scriptures gave us the data that would force such a conclusion upon us

22:21 we should not assume that he was a twin but after a reasonable period of time passed at least another nine or ten months a second son is born but surprisingly when this one is born we're not told whether Adam or Eve took the lead in naming him or whether they together again agreed upon his name I would like to think that they did but this one is named Abel and the name Abel comes from the Hebrew word which means breath vapor or vanity

23:05 what a strange contrast the first son is named Gath because he's gotten from the Lord he is named Cain because the name Cain that noun form derives at least it sounds from the Hebrew verb I have gotten and so when this second son is born he is named vanity now why for you children must know if you've not yet been told by mom and dad and your Sunday school teachers that in the whole Hebrew context and thinking a name was not just a verbal handle to put on a birth certificate to distinguish us from someone else

23:49 and names were not chosen just because they sounded mellifluous on the ear or they matched or they weren't difficult to pronounce names were either to signify a circumstance in conjunction with the birth or something of the destiny of the one born and when this second child is named Abel breath vapor or vanity why was he so named well it seems to me there are only several possibilities it could be that it was a prophetic naming of this one whose life would be relatively speaking but a vapor who would live out

24:34 perhaps not even two decades of his life in a day when people lived hundreds and hundreds of years it could have been a prophetic impression given to Adam and to Eve most likely they named him Abel breath vapor vanity because enough time had passed from their banishment from Eden enough time had passed from the initial euphoria of saying I have gotten a man from Jehovah and the wonder of holding that little one in her arms and nestling it to her breast enough time had passed

25:18 to begin to see and feel the cumulative bitter realities of life in a sinful world perhaps Cain had begun already to manifest the nature he had inherited from his mother and father perhaps she had begun to see that from that gurgling smiling little bundle of what appears to be semi-angelic flesh there was a man who was a man who was emerging a little son of the devil for that is exactly what he is called later on could it be that she had begun to feel something

26:03 of the bitterness of life in a state of banishment from God a bitterness which even the legitimate joys of the intimacies of marriage the fruition of a seed in the sun that could only have been given by Jehovah well whatever the reason may have been the second son was named Abel that is vanity well that's how the two lads are introduced to us now notice secondly as the emphasis takes us immediately from the introduction of Cain and Abel to the occupations of Cain and Abel

Occupations of Cain and Abel: Shepherd and Tiller

26:47 to be and Abel was a keeper of sheep but Cain was a tiller of the ground now do you see how the narrative passes over all that is not relevant to the great concern of this portion of the word of God it leaps over all of the stages from infancy until what appears to be at least the threshold of adult life and we know nothing about the intervening period it's as though you went to a home and someone said here is a photo album of two sons from birth until middle age and you open

27:32 up the first two pages and like so many parents I mean they've got pictures of that baby doing everything but standing on its right ear every goo-goo gurgle cross-eyed every bubble for pictures pictures pictures everywhere babies first two pages and you think oh boy at this rate it will be 20 pages before we get to the point of the next one it's a very important part in the story of this story and I hope that you will enjoy

28:15 it and I hope that you will like to see it and it Abel's occupation, and then Cain's. And Abel was a keeper of sheep. He was a shepherd of sheep, and if not technically sheep, the Hebrew word refers to smaller domestic animals such as sheep and goats would have been.

28:52 Thus, he would have had responsibility akin to a shepherd or to a keeper of livestock. So that was Abel's occupation. The Holy Spirit passes over a hundred other things we'd love to know and focuses upon Abel's occupation. Then he focuses upon Cain's occupation.

29:17 But Cain was a killer of the ground, literally a server of the ground. He was a server of the ground. One involved in agricultural work. One whose time and energies were spent in the cultivation of the earth, in the bringing forth of crops from the earth.

29:43 Now these facts should raise two questions in our minds. At least I find them inescapable to my mind. Number one, where did they acquire proficiency in these professions? They're just dumps on us.

29:59 One is a shepherd. And the other is an agriculturalist. He's a farmer. Well, the most compelling inference, and that's all it is, is an inference, but I say compelling inference, is that Adam himself had begun to master these skills of both the shepherd and the keeper or tiller of the ground, for he was commanded to do what?

30:30 To multiply and to subdue the earth. He was placed into the garden to dress it and to keep it. His first and most immediate task was that which his firstborn took up in his train, a tiller of the ground. But you'll remember after the fall, God took skins to clothe the man, and that became nothing short of an ordinance, the matter of clothing.

31:00 Clothing in a fallen world. And where do you get skins for clothing? Not from lilies, but you get them from animals. And therefore, Adam would have begun to be a keeper of small animals from which hide could be taken for clothing.

31:23 There would be sheep whose wool would be spun into cloth for clothing and adornment. And so it is most likely that Adam, in fulfilling his God-given mandate, even with the added burden of the curse upon the earth, that it would not yield as freely as before, because thorns and thistles would be there to hinder that original, pristine, creative energy and power. Nonetheless, as he was given food and God mandated a vegetarian diet in Genesis 1,

32:02 29, and not until after the flood does God mandate and allow the eating of flesh, it would appear that Adam, in fulfilling that original directive to dress the garden, to keep it in which he began to cultivate the skills of a farmer, would carry those skills with him outside of Eden, and in having the animals with him needed for these various ways, would have a chance to live in the garden of Eden. They would have attained to some degree of proficiency, and therefore it was Adam their father who guided his sons into their respective careers.

32:46 But now the next question, was one occupation superior to the other?

32:52 And I'm amazed, whenever I get into this kind of study, I try to read very, very wisely, widely, not so wisely at times, but widely. Because unlike what I've done in the past, when you're working through a New Testament epistle, where you're dealing with dense thought that has grammatical construction, and there is not the same kind of range for imagination, and for the other faculties to fill in the gaps, you get much more difference among good men as to why certain things are the way they are. And so if one is not to be foolish, one must read very widely, and it's a very interesting, at times, laughable experience,

33:36 other times, fascinating, other times, very humbling. Because you say, you dummy, that's so plain in the text, why didn't you ever see it until now? But with respect to this matter of this question, was one occupation superior to the other? There was one writer who tried to make a very, very big case of the fact that Cain showed at a very early age that he was a worldly.

34:01 Because to be a farmer meant you'd be more settled, but to be a shepherd, you'd be nomadic, and therefore, able, had the spirit of a pilgrim in the earth, and he draws out all this marvelous spiritual truth. But I think it's building a castle on air. Ain't got a very solid foundation. I think it is much more likely that Adam, in common grace, would have seen very early and sought to respond as if he were a man.

34:32 As any godly, sensitive father to the native inclinations and dispositions of his sons. Perhaps they were just beyond the toddler stage when Adam could communicate verbally, and he would say to Cain and Abel, now, sons, daddy's going out to round up some sheep. It's time to clip them and have mommy make some wool. And when he'd say, sheep, Abel would be right at his heels.

35:09 Daddy, can I go with you? Mommy, pack a load so I can go with daddy. And Cain would say, well, you know, there's some flowers out in the back. I think I'll dig around in the flower bed.

35:19 He just didn't have a natural inclination towards the sheep. But when Papa Adam said, well, I've got to go out and do some hoeing in the garden today, the moment Cain heard garden, his ears perked up, and he said, daddy, can I go out and work in the garden? And I think it's most likely that Adam, I say, as any godly sensitive father, would seek to be sensitive to the native inclinations that were bred into the constitution of those boys in their mother's wombs. And here I want to make a point of application.

35:58 There is little in the way of parental cruelty to exceed the cruelty of our parents. A father who has determined in his mind his son is going to be even before he's born, not, oh, God, if it please you, guide my son, give him a disposition to be this or that. There is nothing wrong with pouring out your aspirations in the presence of God, but to impose your own inclinations upon your children is cruelty. It's a denial.

36:41 It's a denial of Psalm 139 that God selects from the gene pool and knits our children together in their mother's wombs. And some, when they hear sheep, want a lunch and want to run with daddy. Some, when they hear hoe and garden, want a lunch and want to run with daddy. And may God have mercy on any parents in Trinity Church who speak the truth.

37:12 Let's think that they have some kind of pipeline to heaven that gives them the right to force their children into an occupation for which God has not given them the disposition, the inclination, the temperament. May God help any of you. If you're in the process of doing that and if you've done it, may you own your folly and repent. No, it is most likely there is nothing from the text to indicate that there was anything more noble in one occupation or the other,

37:50 for both of them come under the rubric of God's command to subdue the earth.

The Offerings of Cain and Abel: Time and Nature

38:00 Well, we've had the two men introduced to us, the two boys. We've looked at their occupations. Now we come, thirdly, to the offering of Cain and Abel, verses 3 through 5a. And, of course, you know from your previous study of the passage that it's in conjunction with the offering that the true differences in their character come into sharp focus.

38:30 And under this heading of the offerings of Cain and Abel, notice the four stages that unfold. First of all, the time of their offerings, verse 3. And in the process of time, it came to be that Cain and Abel came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground. This phrase, it came to pass in the process of time, literally rendered is after the end of the days.

39:06 After the end of what days? Well, you see, it is deliberately an indefinite phrase. After the end of the days. Well, it means...

39:20 It may refer to the end of the growing year. After the end of the days, when the harvest is ready to come in, then we find Cain bringing of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. Some suggest that it may refer after the end of the days, that is, of their coming into maturity, where no longer are they strictly under the roof of Adam and Eve, and participants in the family sacrifices, if there were such.

39:58 And others suggest that we may even have an allusion here to the creation ordinance of the Sabbath. At the end of the days, that is, the days of a six-day cycle, when it is time on the seventh day to be engaged in the rest of holy, specific worship. But whatever it is, if it needed to be more definite, then that God would have told us, but He hasn't, and those are the possibilities. So the time of the offering was one which, this much is clear, both of the men recognized it was the appropriate time to bring an offering to the Lord.

40:36 That's the only thing we can say with dogmatism. But then notice, secondly, having considered the time of the offering, the nature of their offerings. Cain's offering and then Abel's offering. Cain brought of the fruit...

40:51 ...of the ground, an offering unto Jehovah.

40:56 In conjunction with both offerings, a word is used that refers to offerings in the most general sense. So to begin to build a case on the blood and bloodless offerings of the two men is to go beyond the pressure of the word used for offering. It is not the more limited technical word of sacrifice, though that...

41:21 That word is used in the New Testament in Hebrews 11.4 concerning Abel's sacrifice, and I'm fully aware of that. But in this particular setting, there is nothing to indicate that the significance of Cain's offering is to be found in that it was brought from the fruit of the ground. He brought to God that which was the fruit of his labor and God's blessing upon it.

41:51 What is significant, by way of contrast, is that the language used is very, very general. Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto Jehovah. It doesn't say it was the first fruits, indicating that he was jealous that God should be honored first. It doesn't say it was the choicest fruits, the best fruits.

42:19 He just brought some of his produce, as an offering unto Jehovah. All right? That's the nature of his offering. Now, what's the nature of Abel's offering?

42:30 The text says, Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof.

42:46 Here, the language underscores the contrast. He brought the firstlings, the best, there were those first lambs that were born. And out of the first, recognizing that all of the blessing of God upon his labors as a shepherd were the blessing of God from heaven upon man in the earth in his sinful state, he seeks to show his jealousy for God's rights and God's glory by bringing of the firstlings, but not just out of the firstlings, the firstlings, notice it says, and of the fat thereof. Now, that term, and the fat thereof,

43:30 is used in many places in the Old Testament to refer to the best of anything. Let me give you just two examples I trust to convince your judgment. Genesis 45 and verse 18. Genesis 45 and verse 18.

43:49 Take your father and your households and come to me and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt and ye shall eat, the fat of the land. Now, does that mean he was going to take them to some place where all the excess fat trimmed off at the butcher's was thrown in a pile and they'd sit there and eat? You say, that's gross, Pastor. Well, obviously it doesn't mean that.

44:10 It means you shall eat of the what? Of the best of the land. Similarly, in Psalm 147 and verse 14, the same reference is given. So there we have Cain's offering and Abel's offering.

God's Response to the Offerings

44:26 He brings from the fruit of his labors not just something, not just anything, but the best, out of the best. Now then, thirdly, having looked at the time of their offering, at the end of the days, the nature of the offering, Cain and Abel, the response of God, listen carefully now, to the offerer and to his offering, the response of God, to the offerer and his offering. For that's what the Holy Spirit describes for us in the next verse. Verse 4,

45:08 And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and the fat thereof, and Jehovah had respect unto Abel, his person, and to his offering. But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. Here we have described for us the response of God to the offerers and their offering. First we see God's favor was towards Abel and towards his offering.

45:48 The word respect literally means to gaze, and came to mean in common usage to gaze with favor and approval. Like the young man, saying at home, propped up on his elbows, gazing at the picture of his present heartthrob. Minutes can pass into an hour, and it seems no time at all. He's gazing upon his heartthrob.

46:18 That's something of the connotation of the use of the word. When it says that God had respect unto Abel, he gazed with approval. He gazed with approval. He gazed with favor upon the man, Abel, and upon that which Abel's hands brought.

46:42 Namely, the best of the best of his flock. But then we have God's disfavor toward Cain and his offering. But unto Cain, his person, and to his offering, he had not the gaze of approbation, and delight and approval? How was this disfavor shown?

47:11 How was the favor shown to Abel's offering and the disfavor to Cain's? Do you know what the answer is? Like Tevye, when he says, do you know why I wear this hat? I don't know.

47:27 I don't know. I don't know. And I will neither confuse you nor amuse you by telling you all the suggestions people make. We might say the most likely conjecture, and that's all we can make, is arguing from what's called the analogy of Scripture, how did God show His pleasure in other situations where there were acceptable and unacceptable offerers and offerings by sending the fire of heaven to consume the sacrifice?

48:00 That's what He did upon Mount Carmel. You remember in that great encounter with Elijah that he said, but we don't know that he did that. But this much is very, very clear. God's favor to Abel and his sacrifice was known to Abel and perceived and seen by Cain.

48:23 For the subsequent context shows that Cain was very aware of Abel's acceptance and of his own rejection. All we know is, is that God's disposition was radically different to the two men and to their offering, and God clearly revealed His disposition to both of them. Now, having looked at the time of the offering, the nature of the offering, the response of God to the offerer and the offering, we come, fourthly and finally, to the reason for God's radically different response. And this will set the framework for one very vital point

Reason for God's Different Response: Faith and Righteousness

49:07 in the application tonight. What was the reason for God's radically different response?

49:16 Was God being arbitrary? Was God being arbitrary? Flip a coin that morning and say, well, let's see today, will I respect those who bring of the fruit of the ground or those who bring of the flock? Flip a coin, it's flocks today, it could be flowers tomorrow.

49:34 You say, no, pastor, that's not the way God is. And I'm glad you respond that way. I hope every child in your own, so that's not right to even talk that way about God. God's not like that.

49:44 No, He is not like that. He's not arbitrary. He's not capricious. Was it because He was prejudiced against shepherds?

49:54 Prejudiced in favor of farmers? Or vice versa? Well, here's where we can thank God for a complete Bible. Because God the Holy Ghost who moved Moses to write the fact that God clearly showed to these men His response to favor and disfavor has told us why He responded differently.

50:17 And here I want you to turn with me to the New Testament for the Spirit-inspired answer to that question. Hebrews chapter 11, and then we'll look at a text in Matthew and one in 1 John. Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 4. By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he had witness born to him, notice, that he was righteous.

50:59 God bore witness that he accepted Abel as a righteous man, and as a righteous man, a believing man, his sacrifice was acceptable because it was brought in faith.

51:21 Why was God's response what it was to Abel's offering? The answer is he brought his offering as a believing man. A man who had embraced everything God had revealed to man, the creature up to that point. When his father Adam told him the amazing story of how he found himself, of how he found himself, of how he found himself, to awaken God's world, he didn't sit there with a squinty, skeptical look and say, I don't believe that, Dad.

52:00 How can all of this come from just the word of Jehovah's mouth? Nobody can talk and make worlds and sun and moon and stars. No. When he heard the account of creation, he said, Dad, that's just like God to do something like that.

52:23 And when his father told him, the tragic story of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he believed it. And when his father told him of the tragic banishment from Eden, he believed him. And when his father told him that in the midst of the curse, there was a promise. And in that promise, God himself was taking a gracious initiative to realign mankind, mankind that had sold itself to the devil.

52:54 God says, I'm going to put enmity between the serpent and between the woman, between the offspring of the serpent, the offspring of the woman. And whatever Cain was given, whatever Abel was given to understand that the ultimate fulfillment of God's gracious intervention through the seed of the woman who would be Christ, I am not ready to pronounce, but this much is clear. When he brought that, that offering, he brought it as a believing man, a man who had come to see his own sin, to own his own guilt, to know that if there were any hope for him to find acceptance with God,

53:39 that hope was to be founded not on what he did, but on God's gracious intervention.

53:47 And as a man of faith, he also manifested that he was a man of devotion. By faith, he offered a more excellent, sacrifice. It was faith that caused him to give God his best. He didn't give God his best to God's faith.

54:10 He gave God his best because he basked under the wonder of God's favor conferred by grace.

54:22 By faith he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice. The inference is inescapable, though it does not explicitly state. It is that Cain brought his offering as an unbeliever.

54:42 He is the prototype of the formalist that we heard about in Sunday school this morning. He had learned from his daddy, most likely, that offerings and sacrifices were to be rendered to God. And I hope to take that up in what will probably be a catch-all of curious questions at the end of our study. Where did sacrifice first?

55:06 And where did it get introduced? Here it is. It just comes as an ordinary thing. It just, there it is before us.

55:12 We turn over the page, and boom, the boys are sacrificing. Unlikely that this was conjured up out of the notions of their own hearts darkened by sin. If something is to be done in faith, it can only be done in faith if there is a word from God which directs that activity. Otherwise, God calls it will-worship.

55:31 And we'll go into that. But you see, Cain comes in a posture of unbelief. Oh yes, he's learned all the same Bible stories at the knee of his daddy and his mama that Abel learned. And he may believe them in a kind of off-handed way, just like he believes that certain flowers are different color from other flowers, and you've got to cultivate certain foods this way and others that way if you're going to get optimum reproduction.

56:05 Oh yes, he believed it! But it was that which merely sat on the surface of his brain and never possessed his inner being and his heart. Because you see, he sees nothing in God worthy of the best. He's been told that good people go to church.

56:22 So at the end of the day, when it's time to go to church and his brother's going to church and going to do his religious thing, he'll go along too. I mean, he's not going to show himself up to be a rotter. He's not going to show himself up to be stum, lowlife. Sure, at the end of the day, at the end of the days, brother's going to bring something from his flock, I'll go out and grab an armful of something from my field.

56:46 We'll go on up to church together and mom and dad will say, I'll look at those two boys and that wonderful carrying on the family traditions. One was a believer! The other was a wretched unbeliever. That's the first reason why God's reaction to the men and their offerings was radically different.

57:09 One was a believer who brought his offering as a believing man. The other brought his offering as an unbeliever. As a believer, one brought to God that which indicated that the God on whom he believed had his heart. And the other brought that which indicated God didn't have his heart.

57:29 All he had was the motions of his body. He didn't have the affections of his heart. Second reason is, Abel brought his offering as a righteous man. And here we do have explicit testimony.

57:43 Cain brought his as an unrighteous, wicked man, a son of the devil. Where do we get that information? Matthew 23, 35. Matthew 23 and verse 35.

57:56 Jesus is pronouncing the woes upon his own generation. Then he says in verse 34, Behold, I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you shall kill and crucify. Some of them you shall scourge in your synagogue and persecute from city to city, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth from the blood of Abel the righteous.

58:32 Abel the righteous one. Now is that referring to the righteousness he had based upon the death of Christ, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, the virtue of whose sacrifice was applied equally to Old Testament believers as to new? Is that the righteousness in the court of heaven? Or is that the righteousness imparted to a believing man by which he lives a life of evangelical obedience?

59:08 Well, 1 John 3, 12 I believe answers the question. 1 John 3 and verse 12. It's wonderful when Scripture gives you the infallible commentary. You don't need to read 20 books and guess.

59:23 1 John 3, 12. Not as Cain was of the evil one. There he's called the seed of the serpent, the offspring of the devil. Cain was of the evil one.

59:40 Now notice carefully, he was of the evil one and slew his brother. It doesn't say he became of the evil one when he slew. He was of the evil one. And as a result of it slew his brother.

59:55 And wherefore slew he him? Because his works were evil. That is, before he slew him, he was an evildoer. And before he was slain, his brother's works were righteous.

60:12 Because his works were evil and his brother's righteous. In other words, there was a pattern of life that had already begun to be manifest in these two young men before they ever brought their sacrifice. One was a believing man, the other an unbeliever. The other, as a believer, was a righteous man seeking to live his life in all of its details by the law of God, in the strength of God, out of love to God, as we heard this morning.

60:51 He could have sat here and seen the list of the marks of a converted man and said, Abel could, by the grace of God, that's me, but not Cain, not Cain. Oh yes, he knew how to do his religious thing, do it at the right time and even do it with his brother and make his mom and dad happy. But his thoughts were thoughts. His perspective on life, as we shall see in the subsequent unfolding of what comes from this man in terms of a whole wicked line, he was a worldling to the core of his being.

61:34 When the first child born becomes a murderer and the second child born is a martyr, the only thing he's concerned about when God apprehends him is night punishment. It's more than I can bear. What a wretched, self-centered, devilish, murdering liar. Brother, I don't know.

62:06 You know, you killed him and dragged him in the bushes. Year of your father the devil, he was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in the truth. Why did God not accept the offering of Abel? I'm sorry, of Cain?

62:25 We cannot say that he didn't accept it because it wasn't a blood offering. That's imposing too much on the passage that may have entered. But we cannot say, with dogmatism that it did, but we can say, from the word of God, God rejected Cain and rejected his offering because he was an unbelieving and wicked man. And he accepted Cain and accepted his offering because he was a believing and therefore a righteous man.

Application: The Society of Cain and Abel

62:58 I said this would bring us to our conclusion with one very pointed application. Do you see what that application is? This room tonight has only the Society of Cain, and the Society of Abel. That division that God pronounced in Genesis 3 that immediately comes to light in the first two sons that are born.

63:30 They shared the same womb. They were surrounded with the same influences. One of them even had a name that would be helpful to his emerging consciousness of spiritual realities. Whereas the other had a rather dark and foreboding name that could have been a strike against him.

63:53 But there emerged from those two the Society of Cain and the Society of Abel. And those are the only two divisions here tonight as we were reminded in our last hymn before the sermon. Psalm 1 knows only two kinds of people. The righteous who are blessed and all others who are cursed.

64:16 Where are you tonight? Where are you tonight? Where are you tonight? Are you a Cain?

64:31 You've had the privilege of having someone who knew God tell you about God. Imagine what it would have been like to sit at Adam's knee and have the man who was directly created by God tell you all about it! What a privilege! How could anyone miss the glory of his identity as an image-bearer when the first one made in God's image tells you about it?

65:01 How could anyone miss the tragic reality of the fall when the ones who were involved in it tell you about it? But though Cain heard creation and fall and redemption, that God came saying, I'll put an end to it. I will intervene with gracious, omnipotent mercy and make a division. All of that stuff fell on Cain's ear and he began to emerge into adulthood.

65:37 He said, what's this got to do with where the action is? Oh yeah, the end of the day. It's time to go to church. Oh yeah, let me go on out and grab a few things and bring it up there so things will look well.

65:48 Is that who I'm talking to tonight? Man, woman, boy or girl? Being here is a boredom to you. You haven't given to God one tenth the energy of heart and mind that you give in a basketball game.

66:02 That you give if you're sweet. You give to God something out of the...

66:08 You don't care what. Throw God a dandelion. Throw God a half wilted flower. Just give God something.

66:18 Or are you an emerging able who seeks even as a little child, as a young boy, young man, young woman, you seek to give God the best you have. And you seek to give Him the best not to earn His favor. But you've come to believe in the great truths you've learned from Mom and Dad and from this pulpit and in the classrooms down below that you're God's creature made to know Him and love Him, made in His image. You're God's creature fallen, ruined in sin.

66:54 But you're God's creature created and fallen, but one to whom the wonderful message of redemption in the seed of the woman comes saying, repent and believe the gospel. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And sitting here tonight, oh, I have reason to believe there's some of you young children, some of you pre-teens and teenagers that have all the marks of being the successors of Abel. You seek according to your own present understanding to lay hold of all that you know of God, of your sins, of Christ, and of His ways.

67:38 And the proof of it is you've even sat here today with a believing heart. You've received the Word with a believing heart. And in your sphere of responsibility to obey Mommy and Daddy and to seek to walk before your siblings as one who knows God, you pray, not because Mom and Dad say it's devotion time, but because you know God and you delight to pray. Oh, dear children, don't let any of the kings of this world con you into thinking you're missing something.

68:13 Don't think you're missing something because you're Sally Goodshoes. Cain is in heaven. Abel's looking on the face of Jesus and will join him soon. Pretty hard to miss it, isn't it?

68:47 There's the picture. What society do you belong to? May God grant that you'll be able to say by the grace of God, my person and my offerings are accepted because I'm a believing and a righteous man or woman. If you're not that, you're an unbelieving, wicked man or woman, even though you may cloak your wickedness under the pattern of Cain, who was the formalist, who did his religious thing

Closing Prayer

69:31 with no spiritual eyes and no heart. God grant that you will not be banished from the presence of God as was Cain, but that you will draw near through the Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. Our Father, how we thank you for your holy word.

70:04 Oh, how we praise you for the livingness of that word. And we would beg of you this night that it may not have been preached in vain. But, oh, God, find the Cains in this place tonight. Oh, Lord, seek them out as you sought out that first Cain.

70:25 And may they not lie and shift and equivocate, but may they stand naked and stripped before you and cry out, my leanness, my leanness. God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And we pray for each one whom you have made into an able. Oh, God, whatever it may cost us, even should it cost us our life's blood, may we be determined to be loyal to you because you have poured out your life for us in the person of your Son.

71:02 Thank you for your word, for your spirit, and we pray that our meditation tonight will be blessed to our prophet and to your glory. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen.