A strong and stable foundation is essential to building a towering building. Great architectural features and adornments cannot make up for the lack of strong and deep foundations. As it is with buildings, so it is with a life, a family, a community and a church. We need foundations that are strong - and we WILL stand in the storms that come.
One such foundational truth must be addressed before we can become what we were meant to be. Though in our last time together we saw six principles, today we will camp only on ONE. It is of such magnitude and so tremendously impacting – we cannot gloss over it.
Key Principle: I cannot become what pleases God. I can only accept salvation as a gift undeserved and provided by His good hand. Only submission to His power can overcome my rebellion.
In our opening study in Genesis, we saw principles that we want to build on in this study. We observed that the book was originally a prologue (1:1-2:3) with ten stories placed together into the book of Genesis. Each story has a point, and a plot. Most of all, each contains timeless truths and principles for every follower of the God of Abraham.
From the Prologue in 1:1-2:3 we looked briefly at two foundational principles:
The universe and all that is in it was created by a personal God Who truly exists and had a plan and purpose for His creation.
From Scroll I: (2:4-4:26) and the “account of the heavens and earth”, we examined four other principles:
God purposed that men would work and accomplish things. He knows what men need, but uses lack to teach us His filling in our lives.
In the middle of the story of the Heavens and the Earth, the account of sin’s entry into the human race is highlighted. The painful struggle of today is directly related to rebellion against God and its effects. For a resolution, God provided a covering – but it required the life of another. The issue in every man’s life is submission versus rebellion in his heart. We left off last time with the advent of sin and its initial effects in the world.
The largest thermonuclear bomb ever built and detonated on Earth was exploded on October 30, 1961 above Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Circle. The bomb was dropped by Russian Soviets in an attempt to intimidate Americans. Its name: “Tsar Bomba” or “King of the Bombs.” It had the explosive power of 53 megatons (53 million tons of TNT) - more than ten times the power of all the bombs dropped during World War II, including the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima (15 kilotons) and Nagasaki (22 kilotons). The explosion was so intense that the flash was visible over 600 miles away, and people felt the air move over 160 miles away. Everything in a radius of 15.25 miles was completely destroyed. Very severe damage extended to a distance of 21.5 miles & the heat was so intense that people over 60 miles away would have experienced third degree burns if anyone had been there. All this came from a bomb that was a little over 26 feet long & with a diameter of a little over 6 feet. It was large to be sure, but it was tiny when you look at the power it packed. Big things come in little packages. The same is true of sin. (sermon central illustrations).
What came from the fall was:
• LOSS of INNOCENCE – “eyes were opened” (3:7a),
• DEATH of intrinsic positive SELF IMAGE – “knew they were naked” (3:7b),
• SHAME – “covered themselves” (3:7b);
• DISTANCE from God (3:8)
• GUILT – the FEAR to be seen of God (3:10).
• BLAME: Man tried to blame the woman (3:12)! Woman blamed the tempter (3:13)!
Coming out of the Garden in chapter three, we encounter a new world. The rules were different from the one that Adam was created for. He, his wife and his children were faced with adapting to a world that was alien to them. The distance created by rebellion left a vacuum in His heart that was shaped like God, but could quickly be filled with a self enthroned man. Man lacked the intimate and loving work of the Father within, and he would face moment by moment the choice of yielding to God’s hand or being full of self.
Look carefully at the words of God to the guilty:
First, God addressed both the serpent, and the spiritual enemy that used the serpent’s body. He asked no questions, for he knew the enemy’s face – no mater what form it used.
3:14 “The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
God outline the new rules of the human WARS that characterize our world until this day. God promised to put a battle between the deceiver and man through the Messianic seed (3:15). He would allow the very vessel that was deceived, the woman, to deliver the death blow to the rebellion of humanity. She would produce the offspring that would crush Satan’s hold on power. The enemy would be defeated by a young woman, who would bear a man-child of incredible power. The enemy would inflict wounds on that man-child, but in the end, the Cross’s occupant would crush the enemy’s hold on any power. A young woman would do this with “seed” apart from any man – it would be a God thing!
Next, God turned to the woman who was deceived. She stood guilty of rebellion. She was no longer the helper she was called to be. She helped the man do WRONG. A chief joy and fulfillment that God made within her – the desire to nurture and care for young would be accompanied by the reminder of rebellion in the PHYSICAL PAIN that now joined her reproductive system. Along with this pain came the perversion of her self image. She would no longer WANT the role God gave to her, but wrestle to have a role that belonged to her covering – her husband. He failed her, and she would struggle evermore to trust that covering! She had become a REBELLION HELPER: Woman was made to AID man in his walk with God – and now she would COMPETE with him and help him by supplying her own rebellion (3:16b).
16 “To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.”
Next, God turned to Adam. God told him that life was about to take on a new STRUGGLE: The work He gave to man would now will now be a struggle – for the ground wouldn’t cooperate (3:17b-19). God was clear with Adam – you followed instead of leading. Now you will be unable to lead the earth – and it will wrestle with you and eventually your body will wear out, and you will return to the earth from which you were made.
17 “Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. 18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”
Tucked into the passage is the notation that man had named his wife (chawvaw) “life giver”. Ironic, because the verse follows the pronouncement that their bodies would die because of the actions taken by the two of them. Paired with that note was the fact that GOD PROVIDED A COVERING in the skin of an animal. It may be the first time that Adam saw an animal killed – we have no previous record of an animal’s death. It is implied, so we must be careful here, but the pattern of death and covering certainly would become a well established feature of human worship – and the story of Cain and Abel assume sacrifice as part of the ongoing relationship between God and man. Man was clothed, and the garments came at a sacrifice to the animal who lost its skin. There it is – sin caused death immediately in spirit – separation of “natural intimacy” with God, and eventual separation of breath from the body.
20 “Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.”
Finally, the passage closes with God expelling man from the setting of the Garden. His loss of innocence forced God to remove him from the place of unique blessing that enveloped him. Sin caused a forced breach between man and God – blessing intended for him could not become his. The penalty of death must not be breached, so the tree that could keep man from that penalty needed to be removed from his midst. Man was now working for the enemy, and protections needed to be taken for God’s garden. The man that was created to work for God was now working for God’s enemy. Each of his offspring would need to choose to follow God and seek Him – and that would seem unnatural to them.
22 “Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life”.
I stop on this passage a second time to look carefully at it for good reason. The pain of every minute of every day from that time until now came from that Garden scene. You can draw a direct line between that rebellion long ago and the painful experiences we see all around us today.
According to one record, in America every 24 hours:
• 3,000 children see their parents divorced.
• 1,629 children are put in adult jail.
• 3,228 children run away from home.
• 1,512 children drop out of school.
• 7,742 teens become sexually active.
Pain. Stop and consider how devastating the Garden scene was for each of us. Every innocent child that has been abused can draw a line back to that moment of rebellion. Every cancer patient can draw that same line. Hum in the background the anthem of humanity before God. Can you hear it? “I Did It My Way” is more than Frank Sinatra’s theme. It is also the story of the fallen human nature. It is not just human nature in general – it is yours and mine as well. Our insistence on our way rather than God’s way explains a lot of human experience.
Now step forward and ook at our children! Even in the midst of sinfulness, God blesses our lives with a future as He works out his plan. You can see it in the next line of the Hebrew text:
Genesis 4:1 “Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a man child with the help of the LORD.”
Though man and woman came together – God created the children. Eve knew it. She had seen God in the cool of the garden. She remembered His tender voice. She did not dispute her “lost-ness” – she remembered how it came about. She ached inside to have that intimacy, and God in mercy gave her an experience that was LIKE it in the bearing and nurturing of a child. She saw those children grow and faced the pain of the parent. She learned to know what it meant to feel the sting of rebellion as her Creator felt.
Genesis 4: 2 “Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. 4 Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; 5 but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. 6 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” 8 Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.”
Here is the pattern’s beginning that would so often be repeated in humanity:
Birth – hope (4:1-2). There was joy in Adam’s house, and laughter. There was grace amid the shadow of the expulsion from the garden. It wasn’t over – God promised a redeemer, and this just might be the One!
Individual paths of life (4:2). Cain followed his father’s trade as a farmer. His brother left the family farm for the flocks on the hillside and cut new ground. Both could please God as what God made them to be. Proverbs 22:6 reminds us “Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Individual bowing in worship before God (4:4-5). Every man needs to choose to bow one their own. No one can submit FOR you. Rebellion is a personal matter – and so is surrender. To follow God completely is a personal choice.
Much has been said about the reason why God did not accept the sacrifice (minchah: apportionment) of Cain. The text says that God “looked away” from the offering of Cain (shaw-aw: to gaze away or disregard). Later revealed truth leaves us a clearer picture:
Hebrews 11:4 “By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.”
The point wasn’t that the offering was done better, or that it offered better material. The principle of a Minchah (Lev. 2) is to GIVE WHAT YOU HAVE at any point in your life. The problem wasn’t the sacrifice – it was the MAN MAKING IT. The sacrifice and its acceptance was to bear witness to the man – and something was wrong with Cain. God even addressed him directly. There was sin in his life that he would not master. Something else was in control of his life, and he did not fully submit to God. That lack of submission caused God to look away. It ALWAYS DOES.
Rogers
Our battle is to fight hard TO SURRENDER. We must yield all to our God.
Hard you say? You would be correct. In point of fact – impossible. The full surrender of inspection is reasonable according to Romans 12:1 and 2, but my sinfulness makes me shrink back from such a full exposure. There is always that one habit, that one thought. What am I to do? I haven’t the power to stop. I cannot please God with my best effort. I am undone! What is left for me?
John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature when he wrote such classics as The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, yet the novel Steinbeck considered his most important was East of Eden. The title came from Genesis 4:16. “So Cain went out from the LORD’S presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” Steinbeck wrote the book for his two young sons. The boys lived with their mother after she and Steinbeck divorced. He seldom saw them, but reportedly spoke often of them and thought of them constantly. He explained, “I am choosing to write this book to my sons. ... They have no background in the world of literature. They don’t know the great stories of the world as we do. And so I will tell them one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest story of all—the story of good and evil, of strength and weakness, of love and hate, of beauty and ugliness.” The book traces the lives of two families from the Civil War to World War I. Behind their stories is our story of Cain and Abel. At one point Steinbeck has the narrator in East of Eden explain: "Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil…We have only one story.” He referred to the story of evil’s unavoidable consequences. Steinbeck was both right and wrong. We all do live in the shadow of Cain and Abel. But he was wrong when he says that this is the only story. There’s another one that Steinbeck missed. It would be a sad world if all we knew was the story of Cain’s jealousy, anger, and revenge. There is another story. It is a story of God’s grace amid our sinfulness. It is the story of one who donned a crown of thorns to face a fallen planet riddled with thorns. It is the story fo a Messiah that reversed the doom of Cain. Thousands of years later, God kept the promise Eve expected in her first born. The deliverer did come. (sermon central illustrations).
In another garden in another place, he would reverse the stain of that first garden. In another Garden, the Redeemer would drown out the anthem “I did it my way,” with a strong tear-filled prayer, “not my will but yours be done.” On one very dark Friday morning, a tree – the very device that took the intimacy of God and man away – would become the tool God used to save man and replace that intimacy. The blood that was shed to offer man a covering after he sinned would be replaced once for all with the blood of the Savior’s sacrifice. He offered his own life as a sacrifice of blood and redemption. Three days God later raised him from the dead. To all who follow him in faith, he offers something better than Eden.
Listen to how the Bible explains our future: “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24).
The principle is clear: I cannot become what pleases God. I can only accept salvation as a gift undeserved and provided by His good hand.
He alone has the power to save, and He alone can empower you to be pleasing before a Holy God. Do not use powerlessness as an excuse. PLUG THE CORD IN. You CAN be what God desires, but not on your own power.
One such foundational truth must be addressed before we can become what we were meant to be. Though in our last time together we saw six principles, today we will camp only on ONE. It is of such magnitude and so tremendously impacting – we cannot gloss over it.
Key Principle: I cannot become what pleases God. I can only accept salvation as a gift undeserved and provided by His good hand. Only submission to His power can overcome my rebellion.
In our opening study in Genesis, we saw principles that we want to build on in this study. We observed that the book was originally a prologue (1:1-2:3) with ten stories placed together into the book of Genesis. Each story has a point, and a plot. Most of all, each contains timeless truths and principles for every follower of the God of Abraham.
From the Prologue in 1:1-2:3 we looked briefly at two foundational principles:
The universe and all that is in it was created by a personal God Who truly exists and had a plan and purpose for His creation.
From Scroll I: (2:4-4:26) and the “account of the heavens and earth”, we examined four other principles:
God purposed that men would work and accomplish things. He knows what men need, but uses lack to teach us His filling in our lives.
In the middle of the story of the Heavens and the Earth, the account of sin’s entry into the human race is highlighted. The painful struggle of today is directly related to rebellion against God and its effects. For a resolution, God provided a covering – but it required the life of another. The issue in every man’s life is submission versus rebellion in his heart. We left off last time with the advent of sin and its initial effects in the world.
The largest thermonuclear bomb ever built and detonated on Earth was exploded on October 30, 1961 above Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Circle. The bomb was dropped by Russian Soviets in an attempt to intimidate Americans. Its name: “Tsar Bomba” or “King of the Bombs.” It had the explosive power of 53 megatons (53 million tons of TNT) - more than ten times the power of all the bombs dropped during World War II, including the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima (15 kilotons) and Nagasaki (22 kilotons). The explosion was so intense that the flash was visible over 600 miles away, and people felt the air move over 160 miles away. Everything in a radius of 15.25 miles was completely destroyed. Very severe damage extended to a distance of 21.5 miles & the heat was so intense that people over 60 miles away would have experienced third degree burns if anyone had been there. All this came from a bomb that was a little over 26 feet long & with a diameter of a little over 6 feet. It was large to be sure, but it was tiny when you look at the power it packed. Big things come in little packages. The same is true of sin. (sermon central illustrations).
What came from the fall was:
• LOSS of INNOCENCE – “eyes were opened” (3:7a),
• DEATH of intrinsic positive SELF IMAGE – “knew they were naked” (3:7b),
• SHAME – “covered themselves” (3:7b);
• DISTANCE from God (3:8)
• GUILT – the FEAR to be seen of God (3:10).
• BLAME: Man tried to blame the woman (3:12)! Woman blamed the tempter (3:13)!
Coming out of the Garden in chapter three, we encounter a new world. The rules were different from the one that Adam was created for. He, his wife and his children were faced with adapting to a world that was alien to them. The distance created by rebellion left a vacuum in His heart that was shaped like God, but could quickly be filled with a self enthroned man. Man lacked the intimate and loving work of the Father within, and he would face moment by moment the choice of yielding to God’s hand or being full of self.
Look carefully at the words of God to the guilty:
First, God addressed both the serpent, and the spiritual enemy that used the serpent’s body. He asked no questions, for he knew the enemy’s face – no mater what form it used.
3:14 “The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go, And dust you will eat All the days of your life; 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.”
God outline the new rules of the human WARS that characterize our world until this day. God promised to put a battle between the deceiver and man through the Messianic seed (3:15). He would allow the very vessel that was deceived, the woman, to deliver the death blow to the rebellion of humanity. She would produce the offspring that would crush Satan’s hold on power. The enemy would be defeated by a young woman, who would bear a man-child of incredible power. The enemy would inflict wounds on that man-child, but in the end, the Cross’s occupant would crush the enemy’s hold on any power. A young woman would do this with “seed” apart from any man – it would be a God thing!
Next, God turned to the woman who was deceived. She stood guilty of rebellion. She was no longer the helper she was called to be. She helped the man do WRONG. A chief joy and fulfillment that God made within her – the desire to nurture and care for young would be accompanied by the reminder of rebellion in the PHYSICAL PAIN that now joined her reproductive system. Along with this pain came the perversion of her self image. She would no longer WANT the role God gave to her, but wrestle to have a role that belonged to her covering – her husband. He failed her, and she would struggle evermore to trust that covering! She had become a REBELLION HELPER: Woman was made to AID man in his walk with God – and now she would COMPETE with him and help him by supplying her own rebellion (3:16b).
16 “To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children; Yet your desire will be for your husband, And he will rule over you.”
Next, God turned to Adam. God told him that life was about to take on a new STRUGGLE: The work He gave to man would now will now be a struggle – for the ground wouldn’t cooperate (3:17b-19). God was clear with Adam – you followed instead of leading. Now you will be unable to lead the earth – and it will wrestle with you and eventually your body will wear out, and you will return to the earth from which you were made.
17 “Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life. 18 “Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; And you will eat the plants of the field; 19 By the sweat of your face You will eat bread, Till you return to the ground, Because from it you were taken; For you are dust, And to dust you shall return.”
Tucked into the passage is the notation that man had named his wife (chawvaw) “life giver”. Ironic, because the verse follows the pronouncement that their bodies would die because of the actions taken by the two of them. Paired with that note was the fact that GOD PROVIDED A COVERING in the skin of an animal. It may be the first time that Adam saw an animal killed – we have no previous record of an animal’s death. It is implied, so we must be careful here, but the pattern of death and covering certainly would become a well established feature of human worship – and the story of Cain and Abel assume sacrifice as part of the ongoing relationship between God and man. Man was clothed, and the garments came at a sacrifice to the animal who lost its skin. There it is – sin caused death immediately in spirit – separation of “natural intimacy” with God, and eventual separation of breath from the body.
20 “Now the man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living. 21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.”
Finally, the passage closes with God expelling man from the setting of the Garden. His loss of innocence forced God to remove him from the place of unique blessing that enveloped him. Sin caused a forced breach between man and God – blessing intended for him could not become his. The penalty of death must not be breached, so the tree that could keep man from that penalty needed to be removed from his midst. Man was now working for the enemy, and protections needed to be taken for God’s garden. The man that was created to work for God was now working for God’s enemy. Each of his offspring would need to choose to follow God and seek Him – and that would seem unnatural to them.
22 “Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life”.
I stop on this passage a second time to look carefully at it for good reason. The pain of every minute of every day from that time until now came from that Garden scene. You can draw a direct line between that rebellion long ago and the painful experiences we see all around us today.
According to one record, in America every 24 hours:
• 3,000 children see their parents divorced.
• 1,629 children are put in adult jail.
• 3,228 children run away from home.
• 1,512 children drop out of school.
• 7,742 teens become sexually active.
Pain. Stop and consider how devastating the Garden scene was for each of us. Every innocent child that has been abused can draw a line back to that moment of rebellion. Every cancer patient can draw that same line. Hum in the background the anthem of humanity before God. Can you hear it? “I Did It My Way” is more than Frank Sinatra’s theme. It is also the story of the fallen human nature. It is not just human nature in general – it is yours and mine as well. Our insistence on our way rather than God’s way explains a lot of human experience.
Don’t squirm, we all know it is true. One Pastor wrote in an article I clipped: “There are people in our church involved in stealing. You go to work and turn in a time card or reimbursement or mileage sheet that you know is false. There are folks in our church involved in sexual sin. We have some in our church addicted to internet pornography. We have some involved in promiscuity or an extramarital affair. We have some who are so consumed with lust that they undress people around them with their imaginations. We have people here who lie. We like to call them “white lies” so they don’t sound as bad. According to James Emory White, “91% of all Americans confessed that they regularly lied. 79% had given out false phone numbers or invented new identities when meeting strangers on airplanes. 20% said they couldn’t get through even one day without going along with a previously manufactured lie. We have people here whose tongue is the most active muscle in their bodies. These are the ones who “don’t want to gossip, but…” There are people here who can’t talk to people nicely or who curse in anger.”
Don’t walk away – you came to the right place. We aren’t here because we are good. We are here specifically because we ARE NOT GOOD and are desperate for God’s love and grace amid our sin sick world. We get it. We don’t trust ourselves. We know better. We are our parents – fresh from the garden and full of rebellion!Now step forward and ook at our children! Even in the midst of sinfulness, God blesses our lives with a future as He works out his plan. You can see it in the next line of the Hebrew text:
Genesis 4:1 “Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a man child with the help of the LORD.”
Though man and woman came together – God created the children. Eve knew it. She had seen God in the cool of the garden. She remembered His tender voice. She did not dispute her “lost-ness” – she remembered how it came about. She ached inside to have that intimacy, and God in mercy gave her an experience that was LIKE it in the bearing and nurturing of a child. She saw those children grow and faced the pain of the parent. She learned to know what it meant to feel the sting of rebellion as her Creator felt.
Genesis 4: 2 “Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. 4 Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; 5 but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. 6 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” 8 Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.”
Here is the pattern’s beginning that would so often be repeated in humanity:
Birth – hope (4:1-2). There was joy in Adam’s house, and laughter. There was grace amid the shadow of the expulsion from the garden. It wasn’t over – God promised a redeemer, and this just might be the One!
Individual paths of life (4:2). Cain followed his father’s trade as a farmer. His brother left the family farm for the flocks on the hillside and cut new ground. Both could please God as what God made them to be. Proverbs 22:6 reminds us “Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Individual bowing in worship before God (4:4-5). Every man needs to choose to bow one their own. No one can submit FOR you. Rebellion is a personal matter – and so is surrender. To follow God completely is a personal choice.
Much has been said about the reason why God did not accept the sacrifice (minchah: apportionment) of Cain. The text says that God “looked away” from the offering of Cain (shaw-aw: to gaze away or disregard). Later revealed truth leaves us a clearer picture:
Hebrews 11:4 “By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.”
The point wasn’t that the offering was done better, or that it offered better material. The principle of a Minchah (Lev. 2) is to GIVE WHAT YOU HAVE at any point in your life. The problem wasn’t the sacrifice – it was the MAN MAKING IT. The sacrifice and its acceptance was to bear witness to the man – and something was wrong with Cain. God even addressed him directly. There was sin in his life that he would not master. Something else was in control of his life, and he did not fully submit to God. That lack of submission caused God to look away. It ALWAYS DOES.
Everything is submitted, or it is as if NOTHING has been. God is the God of totality. No un-yielded rooms in the mansion of your heart are acceptable. No dark shadows where you transact business with the enemy. All in – all surrendered – all His. As long as there is a hold out – the war continues.
WillOur battle is to fight hard TO SURRENDER. We must yield all to our God.
Hard you say? You would be correct. In point of fact – impossible. The full surrender of inspection is reasonable according to Romans 12:1 and 2, but my sinfulness makes me shrink back from such a full exposure. There is always that one habit, that one thought. What am I to do? I haven’t the power to stop. I cannot please God with my best effort. I am undone! What is left for me?
John Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature when he wrote such classics as The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men, yet the novel Steinbeck considered his most important was East of Eden. The title came from Genesis 4:16. “So Cain went out from the LORD’S presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.” Steinbeck wrote the book for his two young sons. The boys lived with their mother after she and Steinbeck divorced. He seldom saw them, but reportedly spoke often of them and thought of them constantly. He explained, “I am choosing to write this book to my sons. ... They have no background in the world of literature. They don’t know the great stories of the world as we do. And so I will tell them one of the greatest, perhaps the greatest story of all—the story of good and evil, of strength and weakness, of love and hate, of beauty and ugliness.” The book traces the lives of two families from the Civil War to World War I. Behind their stories is our story of Cain and Abel. At one point Steinbeck has the narrator in East of Eden explain: "Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil…We have only one story.” He referred to the story of evil’s unavoidable consequences. Steinbeck was both right and wrong. We all do live in the shadow of Cain and Abel. But he was wrong when he says that this is the only story. There’s another one that Steinbeck missed. It would be a sad world if all we knew was the story of Cain’s jealousy, anger, and revenge. There is another story. It is a story of God’s grace amid our sinfulness. It is the story of one who donned a crown of thorns to face a fallen planet riddled with thorns. It is the story fo a Messiah that reversed the doom of Cain. Thousands of years later, God kept the promise Eve expected in her first born. The deliverer did come. (sermon central illustrations).
In another garden in another place, he would reverse the stain of that first garden. In another Garden, the Redeemer would drown out the anthem “I did it my way,” with a strong tear-filled prayer, “not my will but yours be done.” On one very dark Friday morning, a tree – the very device that took the intimacy of God and man away – would become the tool God used to save man and replace that intimacy. The blood that was shed to offer man a covering after he sinned would be replaced once for all with the blood of the Savior’s sacrifice. He offered his own life as a sacrifice of blood and redemption. Three days God later raised him from the dead. To all who follow him in faith, he offers something better than Eden.
Listen to how the Bible explains our future: “But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24).
The principle is clear: I cannot become what pleases God. I can only accept salvation as a gift undeserved and provided by His good hand.
He alone has the power to save, and He alone can empower you to be pleasing before a Holy God. Do not use powerlessness as an excuse. PLUG THE CORD IN. You CAN be what God desires, but not on your own power.
Romans 6:8 “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. 10 For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.”
Without Him I can do nothing, but with His empowering I can stand before a sinful world and watch Him defeat my weakness to His glory!
A certain man and woman got married. Afterwards they climbed into his pickup truck where she sat right by his side. From that point on that was her spot in the truck. She always sat right next to him. Then when they had their first child she placed the baby between them. After several years and four children, she was sitting very uncomfortably by the door. Then one day, after the children grew up and moved out, the husband and wife were bouncing along in the old truck when the wife turned and noticed all the space between them. She asked her husband, “Do you remember how, when we first got married, I used to sit right there by your side?” “Yes” he replied, “I remember that.” What happened to us? We used to be so close.” The husband turned to his wife and looked her dead in the eye and responded, “I didn’t move.” Friend, that is how our sin separates us from God. It is not because God leaves us, it is because we leave God. (story adapted from sermon central illustrations).
I cannot become what pleases God. I can only accept salvation as a gift undeserved and provided by His good hand. Only submission to His power can overcome my rebellion.
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