Cain: The Portrait of a Doomed Sinner, Part 2
Genesis 4:6-16
Well, we come to our time in the Word of God; and, as always, this takes us, as it were, into the divine presence, and we hear God Himself speak to us. We are in Genesis chapter 4. Genesis chapter 4. I confess to you that I usually am pretty good at making a transition mentally from the morning message to the evening message; and they are almost always very divergent subjects. And this is certainly the case today. But, this is one of those times when such a transition has been somewhat difficult. I have been so preoccupied and so devoured by the theme that we have been dealing with in the morning that it's a challenge to be able to sort of unthink all of that and replace it with the matters before us tonight. But we're going to seek the goodness of God to allow us to do that as we come to this most significant and important chapter in Genesis chapter 4.
For those of you visiting with us, we are in a study of origins, and Genesis is the book of origins. There are the origins of the material world here and there are the origins of the spiritual world as well. And we're in chapter 4; and the story is the famous story of Cain and Abel. Cain is presented here as the prototype of the doomed. He is the classic model of an unconverted, undelivered, unsaved, lost sinner. He is the original apostate who, when confronted by God, with the opportunity for forgiveness and the opportunity for deliverance, refuses. He is the first unbeliever who ever lived. Adam was a believer as we've learned; Eve was a believer; and this passage indicates to us that Abel was a believer. These are the only four people on the planet. Here is the first unbeliever; the original rejecter, the first fool; the first man utterly without God, without hope, without blessing. Cain's history is a tragic, tragic story. Let me remind you of it by reading the text to you.
"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.' Again she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. 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; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 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.' Cain told his brother Abel," or spoke, rather, to his brother Abel; and as a result of that conversation we read on, "And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Where is Abel your brother?' And he said, 'I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?' He said, 'What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.' Cain said to the Lord, 'My punishment is too great to bear! Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.' So the Lord said to him, 'Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.' And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him. Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden." That's the story of Cain.
His history, as I said, is a sad tragedy. There are several points that I am pointing out to you as we look through these 16 verses. We began last ________ and let me remind you that only the first point is positive. The first point is this: the doomed have hopeful beginnings. Cain shows us that even the lost and the damned have hopeful beginnings. And in his case it was very hopeful. Verse 1, "the man had relations with his wife." The actual Hebrew word, he knew 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."
She knew that this child was a gift from God, as are all those precious little ones that come into the world - some of whom we have celebrated even tonight in our parent dedication. It is the Lord who allows us the privilege of having that life come into our family. Eve recognized that with the help of the Lord she had been given a son. As I pointed out last time, she may have even believed that this son was the fulfillment of the promise back in chapter 3, verse 15, that she would have a seed who would bruise the serpent's head. Maybe she believed that this was the fulfillment of that promise from God; that this was the one who would come and would bruise the serpent's head. That terrible, dreadful, disastrous, deadly serpent, who had led the human race into sin, needed to be destroyed. He needed to be overturned; his power needed to be vanquished, and Paradise needed to be regained. And God said there would come a seed out of the woman who would do just that. And it may well have been that she believed this was that fulfillment in her son.
Cain - Qayin in the Hebrew - means, "a formed thing; a creature; something made." The word can even mean, "a smith, or a refiner, or a craftsman who makes something." And so she names her son, "that one that was made with the help of the Lord." What hopeful beginnings she must have felt in her heart when that first child was born. Perhaps that child was to be the one who would bring the end of Satan and restore Paradise.
And then, again, in verse 2, she gave birth to another son. Some believe they were twins; there's no real compelling indication in the text of that. But again, at some time, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel's name, Hebel, means, "a mere breath." And certainly, he was aptly named because his life was so very brief. It's reasonable to assume he died somewhere in his teenage years, when everybody else potentially lived to be 8- or 900 years old; so his life was very brief.
Soon after these boys had reached adulthood, all of those wonderful hopeful beginnings for Cain came to an abrupt end, and his real spiritual condition was clearly revealed; and it was revealed in an act of worship. And that took us to the second point - the doom to offer unacceptable worship. Everybody is a worshipper. We pointed that out. Even the damned and the lost and those people who reject God and are apostate and refuse to believe - they are worshippers. They - you either worship the true God in the true way, or you worship the true God in a false way, or you worship some other gods, who are demons, or you worship yourself. Everybody worships at some shrine; everybody has some god. It may be the true God; truly worship the true God, falsely worship; or a false god worshipped, or self. But really, in the end, there are only two possibilities. You either worship the true God in the true way, or you have a damning worship - a worship that is rejected by God. Cain was a worshipper. And he even worshipped the true God - the God he knew to be the Creator God. But he worshipped Him in a false and wrong way.
And so, verse 3, it says, "So it came about in the course of time," that is an undetermined length of time, "Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground." No doubt there was a command of God to worship Him by bringing an offering. A standard was established by God at some point. Though it's not recorded in the Book of Genesis, we can certainly assume that it happened - that Cain is responding to some command and some direction to worship God. However, he brought the fruit of the ground, which apparently, as the text indicates, is unacceptable to God. It must have been that God revealed that what He wanted was a sacrifice of an animal - that there needed to be a death.
Here is demonstration that the sinner deserves to die. Here is demonstration that somebody innocent has to die in the sinner's place; and that's what substitutionary death is all about. And you remember that God had already instituted that back in chapter 3, verse 21, when God killed the first animal to make coverings to cover Adam and Eve in their sinful shame. God Himself then slays the first animal to make the first covering to cover the sinner. God takes an innocent animal and slays that animal as a substitute to provide a covering for sinners, and that is the first illustration of the ultimate and only real sacrifice Jesus Christ - God taking the innocent Son of God, the innocent Jesus Christ, putting Him on the cross, making Him a sacrifice for sinners, and then taking His righteousness to cover the guilty. And so, the picture of substitutionary death - the substitutionary death of an innocent has already been established by God, and apparently was what God required in sacrifice.
So here, what you have is the first example of false worship of the true God. Here is the first example of self-righteousness. Apparently, Cain doesn't feel he needs a substitute; he doesn't feel that death needs to occur on his behalf. He can bring God something of his own achievement. He is himself able to approach God without sacrifice. He comes in an attitude of self-righteousness based upon human achievement, and he worships God in a false way, offering hypocritical worship. It doesn't tell us anything about the quality of what he brought; it just says he brought something of the fruit of the ground; something of the fruit of his own labor.
Abel, on the other hand, brought, verse 4 says, "the firstlings of his flock and their fat portions." He brought animals - not just that he raised animals, and that's why he brought them; but he brought animals who were the best of the best. That's what that means in the Hebrew - "the firstlings of the flock and their fat portions." He brought the very best of the very best, which is obviously what God required. He required a sacrifice of the very best. And that, too, pictures the ultimate sacrifice for sin, Jesus Christ - the very best of the very best, the perfect, spotless, lamb who was offered for sinners in order that they might be covered by His righteousness.
And we saw last time, importantly so, verse 4, "And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard." There are two elements there; very, very important. God had regard for Abel and his offering. First for Abel - and when it says He had regard for Abel, it meant that God saw the heart of Abel was in exercising pure worship. He sees into the heart of Abel and recognizes that Abel's heart is right toward God; that he comes as a penitent, humble sinner; and not only is his heart right, but therefore his sacrifice is right. He brings what God wants, he comes in obedience, he offers God the sacrifice, which is a way the sinner can say, "I'm not good; I know I'm a sinner. I need a covering. I need to die; I deserve to die. I thank You that you will provide someone to die in my place, even as You slew an animal to cover my parents." So, his attitude was right and his act was right. He had a right heart attitude of the sinner who knew he needed and deserved death, and needed a substitute to die in his place. That was Abel.
In the case of Cain, God had no regard for Cain or his offering. The heart of Cain wasn't right - it was self-righteous; and the offering therefore was not right either. It spoke nothing of his need for a sacrifice; it spoke nothing of his sin, nothing of his deserving death. So here is false, self-righteous, hypocritical worship. Cain did not please God. And he is catalogued, therefore, with those who don't please God. Remember the Book of Jude, verse 11? "Woe to them," meaning false teachers, "who have gone the way of Cain, who have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. They are hidden reefs in your love feasts, they are clouds without water, they are carried along by winds; autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up their own shame like foam; they are wandering stars, for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever." Those are the people in the way of Cain. They may be religious, but they're false. They're like those who rebelled in the rebellion of Korah. They're like that false prophet Balaam who could be bought, and who would prophesy for hire to the highest bidder. Cain is classified with those who are doomed. His religion was hypocritical, self-righteous, and false. So the doomed have hopeful beginnings, but offer to God unacceptable worship.
Thirdly, the doomed resent the true people of God. They resent the true people of God. In verse 5 it says Cain became very angry, and his countenance, or his face, fell. He was showing in his physical body the attitude of anger in his mind. He hated the blessing that was bestowed upon his righteous brother. He hated the fact that Abel was righteous. And the righteous are always a rebuke to the self-righteous. Those who are sinners, those who are broken over their sin, those who confess the need for sacrifice and substitution and a covering; those who realize they deserve nothing and must receive a righteousness not their own. Those who are therefore blessed by God are always hated by the self-righteous because the self-righteous are not accepted by God. They're not accepted as equals.
When we talk about the gospel, when we say the only way to be saved is to come to God as a penitent sinner, broken over your own sin, realizing you have nothing to please God and falling down and crying out for God's mercy - when you come like that, we also at the same time say, "You can't offer God your works, you can't offer God your self-righteousness; nothing you can do can earn your salvation." And at the same time we say that, we are rebuking all those who come to God on the basis of their own goodness. And that's how everybody else comes that doesn't come the true way. We are a rebuke to all of those people because we have to proclaim a gospel that does not accept them. God is saying to them, "I do not accept you. Salvation is by grace through faith, and not of works."
In today's climate, of course, as we said this morning, all religion is to be treated as equal, and nobody is to say, "Ours is the truth and yours is not." It is intolerable to the non-Christian; it is intolerable to the doomed people; it is intolerable to the false worshippers for us to say that ours is the only truth, and we are the only people of God.
He was angry. He was angry, and his face slumped in despair and in fury. It's the way it is for people who hold on to their sin and their self-righteousness, who reject God, loving their sin, loving themselves. It is part of their attitude to be angry with the Bible; to be angry with the God of the Bible; to be angry with those who believe the Bible. We're constantly threatened with that in the public discourse. If you bring the Bible into anything, they're gonna throw you out.
I read this week, there's a mission in Florida that serves meals to homeless people. And the government has been providing them money - a portion of money to give those meals to the homeless. The government found out that, after the meal, there was a chapel service, and immediately cut off all the funds - because of the chapel service. The Bible was being preached. Our world is essentially the society of Cain; and it hates the truth, and the people of the truth, and the God of the truth. And it works feverishly and angrily to obliterate the God of the Bible and the people who proclaim the Bible from social influence and public discourse.
So, the unbelievers have a hopeful beginning. They offer God unacceptable worship, and they inevitably resent those who truly worship God as He desires to be worshipped, and are therefore blessed.
Now let's pick it up where we left off - number four. Unbelievers, or the doomed, reject the Word of God. This is obvious, but it's laid out right here for us. I think this is really a very fascinating dialogue. Verse 6, "Then the Lord said to Cain," now this is direct from God. There's no written Scripture, so the Lord speaks directly. "The Lord said to Cain." Now I want to stop there for a moment just to say this is really the direct Word of God - no more direct than the Bible, but this is the direct Word of God, right from God's mouth to Cain.
There's no getting around it; there's no equivocating. There's nothing in this conversation to indicate that Cain suspected that it really wasn't God. He knew it was God speaking to him. This is a flat-out rejection of what he knows to be the Word of God. This is direct revelation from God; God speaking pointedly, specifically to no one but Cain. This is a one-on-one conversation. God demonstrates compassion; God speaks to him with crystal clarity; God gives him a clear invitation to do the right thing, make the right choice, make the right move; God is literally offering the sinner the opportunity to be delivered from his sin. God still speaks pointedly. He still speaks directly through the pages of Scripture.
In verse 6, "Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?'" Now let me say very quickly, God is not seeking information. God never seeks information. He knows all of that. God is prompting dialogue. He's initiating a conversation; and he's going to the heart. He's trying to cause Cain to take an honest look at what motivates him - to get him to take a look at his sinful heart and his brooding rage toward his brother and toward God. You see, in the words of James 1, lust was at work in him. And lust, when it conceives, brings forth what? Sin. And it was gonna bring forth a deadly sin.
And so God is saying essentially to Cain, "Take a look at your motives. Why are you angry? Why has your face slumped? Why is this brooding rage taking over? Take a look at what's going on in you. Why are you so angry at Me and angry at your brother?" And then He says to him in very gracious words, "This doesn't have to be the end of the story; this doesn't have to be the way it is." Look at verse 7. "'If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?'" It doesn't have to be this way. "If you do well." What does He mean? If you do what's right. Here is God - this will tell you that God is by nature a savior. Here is God saying, "You can repent; you can do what Isaiah said, 'Cleanse your hearts, you sinners.' You can go back after you've repented and ask for cleansing, and offer God the sacrifice that is acceptable from a right heart. And if you do that, your face is gonna be lifted up. You don't have to be in this condition. You don't have to be brooding; you don't have to have lust conceiving greater, deadly sin in your heart. You don't have to be motivated by this anger. Just do what's right. Do what's right in your heart before Me. Repent; acknowledge your self-righteousness, acknowledge your hypocrisy, acknowledge the failure to recognize your desperate sinfulness and need of a sacrifice - and then go do what's right. And your despair will go away and your anger will go away, because I'll forgive you." That's what He's saying. "Just do what's right. And what is right is to do what I told you."
God is offering to the sinner joy - the joy of forgiveness. Your face will be lifted up. The opposite of being slumped down in rage; it's being lifted up in joy. This is the joy of repentance; this is the joy of forgiveness; this is the joy of obedience. You remember the - Luke 18 - the publican went into the Temple to pray with the Pharisee, and he was beating on his breast saying, "'God be merciful to me a sinner'"? And the text says, he wouldn't so much as do what? Lift up his eyes. He was humiliated. But then, because of his humiliation, because of his honest repentance, he was forgiven. And the man went home justified.
Well, here is a man that was also bowed down. He's bowed down, not in contrition and brokenness; he's bowed down and slumped in anger - fury against God and his brother. And God offers forgiveness. "Just do what's right. Just believe me; just do what I told you to do with a right heart. Be penitent, and I'll lift up your face." God would have applied right then and right there the sacrifice of Jesus, who wouldn't die for thousands of years. God would have still applied the sacrifice of Christ to Cain, and forgiven him if he had repented.
On the other hand, verse 7, "'If you do not do well,'" or if you do not do what is right, you haven't seen anything yet. "'Sin is crouching at the door.'" And sin is depicted like a beast of prey; like a rapacious lion. And its desire is for you, but you must master it.&nb