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 manchild with the help of the LORD.” 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.
A great deal transpires in the first two verses of Genesis 4 that is not specified for us.
Adam has relations with his wife, she has Cain, then she has Abel, and Cain is a grower of produce and Abel is a shepherd. That’s what we’re told there and nothing more.
So we’re taken from Adam and Eve freshly evicted from the Garden of Eden, to having two grown sons with their own businesses, all in two verses.
This makes me wonder at some of the speculations we hear now and then that try to provide some sort of psychological evaluation of the central characters of the Bible.
It seems that type of public speaking has been popular in recent years, where the speaker decides to be a profiler, as though he is a trained psychologist working for the FBI or something, and based on the sketchy information given us in scripture he wows his audience with speculations about a doting father and a scheming mother and so forth.
“Well you see, Cain, being the firstborn, had a lot of responsibility put on his shoulders and he also proved to be a disappointment to his mother. You see, she thought he was going to be the one promised by God in Genesis 3:15 and when that didn’t seem to be the case she began to pay less attention to him. So when Abel came around Cain resented his little brother, who was doted on by Adam and given pet sheep at an early age, so Cain held this underlying grudge and it turned him into a bitter, rebellious soul whose resentments roiled and festered until in a burst of anger he killed his brother in the field.”
Of course they would tie all that in with some supposedly connected reason why he offered an unacceptable sacrifice and so on, and if the listener is not careful he’ll leave the place feeling like he has really been given some insight into the psyche of this dysfunctional family and will have missed the point of scripture altogether.
Listen. Eve gave birth to a boy and named him Cain. At some later point she gave birth to a son and named him Abel. Cain was a grower of crops and Abel was a herder of sheep. That’s all we’re told. Don’t read into it what isn’t there and don’t listen to the crackpots that need to give it a T.V. miniseries type of spin in order to sound like they have anything to say.
There are just a few things we can read from between the lines. For example, they knew something of making sacrifices to God and those things must have been based on things He taught Adam and Eve and they passed down.
I say that because God made the first animal sacrifice there in chapter 3, and Adam and Eve apparently understood and believed that the covering for sin required the shedding of blood.
God would not have held Cain accountable for an unacceptable sacrifice if Cain did not know what an acceptable sacrifice was.
What I want to do today is bypass all these speculations and minor points that get us off focus, and just look at what was revealed to us here by the Holy Spirit in reference to the cross and salvation’s plan.
ENMITY OF THE SEED
Genesis 3:15
In Cain and Abel we have a picture of the two sides of mankind; those who walk in righteousness by faith and those who refuse to believe God and therefore live a Godless existence, with a murderous hatred in their hearts for God’s people.
Now in using the term, ‘the two sides of mankind’, I don’t mean to imply that we should see ourselves as the good guys and every unbeliever as the bad guy. They are without God and without hope in the world and they deserve to be treated by us with respect as we lovingly bring the message of the Gospel to them.
The truth remains the truth however, that this is the clearest and the widest division of all among men. It’s not race, it’s not color or gender or religious preference or sexual preference or personal philosophy of life or any of the things that men see as divisive and controversial.
The single great division between men on earth and throughout history is that they are either spiritually alive or spiritually dead. They are of God or they are of Satan, meaning they belong to one or the other; serve one Master or the other master.
And something we have not seen a great deal of in this country simply because we are governed by a democracy with laws aimed at fairness is open and violent persecution against God’s people by Satan’s people. But in most countries around the world it is dangerous and always has been dangerous to be a Christian, and believers in Jesus, I want you to know that it is going to become dangerous to be a Christian right here in the United States of America. Anyone who cannot see it coming down the road is blind or unwilling to see.
Satan’s seed hates the seed of the woman and has only murder in his heart against Him and therefore against those who also become the seed of the woman through regeneration and adoption into the family of God.
Cain was not ignorant and he did not act in ignorance in offering an unworthy sacrifice. Cain was evil and under the influence of his spiritual ‘father’, Satan, he faithlessly chose to approach God on his own terms and not God’s.
The Apostle John clarified this point for us under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit when he wrote:
“For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another; not as Cain, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s were righteous.” (I Jn 3:11, 12)
In Genesis 3 God pronounced His curse on the serpent, whom we understand to be the devil, saying that He would put enmity between her seed, that is the woman’s seed, and his seed, meaning Satan’s seed. And as a snake strikes at the heel because it slithers on the ground, so Satan’s seed would strike at the heel of the woman’s seed, but the woman’s seed would crush the serpent’s head.
Now the word enmity means a deep seated dislike or ill will. Some synonyms are hostility, animosity, rancor, antagonism.
Cain harbored animosity against his brother, why? Because his brother’s deeds were righteous and his were evil. So, Church, we should never be surprised when those who do not belong to God through faith in Christ act with animosity and antagonism against us. In fact, we should be amazed every time we have contact with them and they reign in their hostility and deal with us on any peaceable level at all.
But I will guarantee you that the more you behave like Jesus, the more outspoken you are concerning your relationship to Him and the closer to Him you get the more you will see the animosity because the spirit in them hates the Spirit in you and the more they see of Him the less able they will be to suppress that hatred.
Cain offered a bloodless sacrifice, of something that was harvested by his own hands, thinking He would approach God on his own merits. The Law of Moses was still far into the future and so were the ordinances for Temple worship and sacrifices. So there’s no reason to assume that he was offering some type of wave offering to the Lord in thankfulness for a good crop.
He was offering in faithlessness and disobedience and when his unacceptable offering was rejected by God, he became murderously angry and the one who by faith and obedience was accepted by God. So he killed his brother and for punishment God sent him away and Cain went and began his own Godless society and mankind has existed in these two camps ever since.
You are God’s or you are not. You walk by faith or you do not. You believe the promises and appropriate His provision to yourself through faith in the shed blood of the Lamb for salvation, or you walk in absolute rebellion against a holy God, refusing to believe His Word and therefore dead in trespasses and sins and destined for eternity in the outer darkness and alone.
It’s that simple.
GOD’S GRACE EVEN IN DISCIPLINE
Genesis 4:6,7
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.”
The first and perhaps the most heinous manifestation of the sinful condition of mankind is his penchant for casting doubt upon the character of God. Men question His motives, they doubt His promises, they accuse Him of evil, they refuse to believe His words.
Yet God’s grace and goodness and His love and desire for His creatures is profoundly displayed throughout the scriptures, beginning on the very first page.
How, you may ask, is God’s grace and goodness displayed on the first page of the Bible? It is in the wondrous world He created for man to live on.
Then His grace and goodness are displayed on the second page. How? In that He created man at all, knowing that man would quickly break His heart.
Then He created the most wonderful thing God made in all of His creating; the woman. And He placed the man and the woman in a beautiful garden containing all they would ever need for sustenance and comfort and fulfillment of their physical needs.
Then on the third or fourth page of scripture, depending on the size of your Bible and the size of its print, after man sinned and broke fellowship with God He graciously provided the way to be right with Him again by offering a promise for them to put their faith in and thereby be rescued from death.
And yet men ask foolish and sinful questions like, ‘Why would a loving God allow innocent children to suffer?’ ‘Why would a good God allow evil to exist?’
Listen to the goodness and grace of a loving God:
“Why are you angry?” He knew why Cain was angry! He wanted Cain to stop and consider his folly and repent of it.
“Why has your countenance fallen?” In other words, Cain was having a pity party. He was pouting like a little kid who can’t have the toy he craves.
But God is gracious. God is good. He tries to warn Cain for his own good. In saying “If you do well…” God was encouraging Cain to make a proper sacrifice. A ‘thank’ offering will not do when a ‘sin’ offering is in order and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness for sin. (Heb 9:22)
Now here is something all of us need to consider and apply to ourselves with conscious effort so we don’t let it slip by. Listen carefully.
“…sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
Children of God, there is so much in that sentence that is seldom under careful scrutiny by any of us, but ought to be brought to our attention often.
Sin is an entity that crouches like an animal waiting to pounce. Its desire is for us, like a starving cougar desires the young fawn. And here is the part that we need to understand and not deny…
God expects us to control it.
Whoa! Wait, Clark! What about dying to sin and turning from sin and all those things we say about Jesus paying for our sin and taking it out of the way and all that stuff?
It’s all true. He paid the penalty for our sin and there is no condemnation for the one who has put his faith in the shed blood of Christ.
But sin didn’t die on the cross. It was judged. But it still crouches and it still desires you, Christian, and God calls you to master it, not give in to it; not lay down and expose your neck to it.
“Submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” James 4:7
“No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide a way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” (I Cor 10:13)
What way of escape did God in His grace and goodness offer Cain? Make an acceptable sacrifice. It was that simple.
Of course, it would have required a repentant and contrite heart, and that was the rub. Cain was ‘of the evil one’ and ‘his deeds were evil’.
So God’s goodness and grace are not in question here. They are made manifest and can be clearly seen with eyes of faith.
ABEL’S LAMB
Hebrews 11:4
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.
Was there something inherently wrong with Cain’s sacrifice? Nah. I’m sure he brought the very best of his crops. After all, he wanted to impress.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the big checks people drop in the offering plate or the cheerfulness with which they embark on two-week missions trips, sleeping bag rolled and stashed in the trunk, or the canned goods they drop off at the food drive.
Done for the right reasons those are all good things. The problem is always in the heart. The sin always lies with the motive.
In Genesis 4 when it says God had regard for Abel’s offering but no regard for Cain’s, the wording there means that He looked at Abel’s offering but did not look at Cain’s. And it is a careful examination type of looking, not just a glance.
So God didn’t reject Cain’s offering because He didn’t like the way it looked. He didn’t even look at it. He was looking at hearts, not gifts.
Got it?
Abel’s faith was not in the earning of God’s acceptance by the act of making the sacrifice.
Abel’s faith was in the goodness and grace of God who had taught them that forgiveness of sins was in the shedding of the blood of an innocent who would stand in their place and that the offering of the lamb was symbolic of that future sacrifice.
Do you think I’m stretching? No, I’m not. Because throughout scripture there is not one indication given anywhere that a man can be right with God by any other means.
In Genesis 3:15 God promised a redeemer. Adam and Eve understood that promise and they understood the symbolism of a blood sacrifice, and every time God’s people of the Old Testament made a blood sacrifice they understood it to represent the One who would come and give Himself a sacrifice for the many.
Abel’s lamb was a clear picture of the Lamb of God who would come to take away the sin of the world, and Abel’s faith was not in that lamb but in the promise of the One the lamb represented. Therefore he obtained the testimony that he was right with God.
ABEL’S VOICE
Hebrews 11:4 12:24
In Genesis 4:10 God told Cain that the voice of Abel’s blood was crying to Him from the ground. Can you just picture Cain virtually shrinking in size as he heard those words?
“And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” (Heb 4:13)
Cain covered up his anger by talking normally with his brother and waited until they were alone working in a field. Can you see it?
Maybe Abel was helping Cain turn up some ground for planting or clearing rocks in preparation for it. All of a sudden down comes a hoe or a shovel or maybe one of the rocks and the innocent blood of Abel gushes out and soaks into the dirt.
Cain thinks he has thus regained his lost dignity as the older brother, who should have been shown more respect. Well, now the competition was gone and he probably went back to Mom and Dad with big tears and cries of grief and told them poor Abel had an accident and wouldn’t be coming home.
“Be sure your sin will find you out”, said Moses to the Children of Israel. (Num 32:23)
“Be sure your sin will find you out”! And however clever a man thinks he is in hiding his sin there will come that day that he will find himself alone and without defense as God confronts him with every dirty detail!
“Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” Kinda sounds like something by Edgar Allen Poe, doesn’t it? “The Telltale Heart”?
What did Abel’s blood speak of? His innocence and in sharp contrast, Cain’s guilt.
But there is blood that speaks more clearly than that of Abel, friend. It is the shed blood of God’s Lamb.
Hebrews 12:24 “…and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.”
Why better? Because Abel’s blood spoke of the innocence of one and the guilt of one. But the blood of Jesus speaks of the guilt of all and the innocence of the One, (capital ‘O’)
And it speaks of a new covenant. Not as the old that only offered the covering of sin until a later time, but the taking away of sin for all time for all who believe.
19 Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; (Heb 10:19-23)
There is still wonder working power, in the precious blood of the Lamb.
