Cain and Abel
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
It falls to our lot to connect the links between our last study and today's.
1. We have Adam naming his wife, "Eve." Here is the Scripture: "And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living." This Scripture forever does away with the possibility of there being others upon the earth beside Eve. She could not be the mother of all living if there were others living beside her.
In addition, Eve is the mother of all living, in the sense that she is mother to Mary, of whom was born the Christ. What we mean is, that through Eve, as concerning the flesh, Christ came: and in Christ, born of a virgin, Son of God, and God the Son, we all have life.
2. The coats of skins. God gave unto Adam and to his wife coats of skins for their clothing. We remember how the naked pair had sought to clothe themselves with fig leaves. It is still true that what man seeks to cover, God uncovers. There is no robe by which man can cover his sin, other than the robe of the slain Lamb of God. In Revelation we read, "These are they which * * have washed their robes, and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb."
It is wonderful to us that we have so clear a picture of the Cross in this act of God God seemed to be saying, "You cannot clothe your nakedness with the robes of the bloodless fig leaves, you must be clothed with the robes of slain beasts, because Christ crucified is the Saviour of men."
3. The expulsion. God drove man out of the Garden of Eden. This is the same story that we have all about us unto this day. Sin plays havoc with every best interest of man. Sin robs us of our Edens. Sin forces us out into the wilderness barren of the gracious fruit of the Spirit the love, joy, and peace of life.
Where is man today? He is without God, and without hope in the world. He is a stranger to the covenants of promise, and an alien from the commonwealth of Israel. We do thank God, however, that there is a gate that stands ajar. Christ has said, "I am the Door: by Me if any man enter in, He shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture." Over the door that enters in, is that wonderful word, "Whosoever." It is summed up thus, "By Me if any man enter."
The voice of the Old Testament is the voice of expulsion. The voice of the New Testament is the call to enter in. The voice of the Old Testament is the safeguarding of the way to the tree of life, for the cherubims, and the flaming sword which turned every way, was placed in Eden to keep the way of the tree of life. In God's New Jerusalem, however, there will be open doors which shall never be closed, and they who keep His commandments shall have right to the tree of life, and shall enter in through the gates to the City.
I. THE FIRST TWO SONS BORN TO EVE (Genesis 4:1)
1. Eve's first born. When Cain was born, Eve said, "I have gotten a man from the Lord." Unto this day we speak of infants as the gift of God. Eve, however, doubtless had another thought in mind. She knew that the seed of the woman should bruise Satan's head, and she may have thought that the Lord had sent her that seed. Her hopes went high as her first-born son was placed in her arms.
We read of Cain, however, that he was of that wicked one. Satan was not slow to seek an inroad into the life and heart of earth's first-born child. There is nothing in the record to show that Cain was vile, or corrupted in character, until he became dominated by satanic power and influence.
2. Eve's second born. When Abel came, it was not long until there developed between him and his brother marked distinctions in their ideals. Cain was a tiller of the ground. Abel was a keeper of sheep. We pause a moment to take our journey back into the scenes that surrounded that first home. Then, as now, the ground had to be tilled, the seed sown, and the harvest reaped. The sheep had to be kept, and the cattle watched.
More marked, however, than this contrast, is the contrast in their spiritual conceptions. The two boys were, no doubt, fully taught by their parents concerning creation, concerning the sin which overtook their parents, concerning the curse, and the cure which God pronounced in the Garden, and concerning the expulsion from Eden.
Fathers and mothers of today will do well to instruct their children in the things of God. Then, if in after years their children go astray, the parents will at least know that the fault cannot be laid to their door.
II. THE TWO OFFERINGS (Genesis 4:3-4)
In the process of time the two boys offered up their own personal offerings. The significance of these have a great bearing, even upon our own times.
1. A contrast in their offerings. Cain, who was a tiller of the ground, brought of his fruit. Abel, who was a keeper of the sheep, brought an offering of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. Cain's offering, however, was not made according to instructions which must have been given. It is easy to see that the offering of the fruit of the ground was a bloodless offering, while Abel's offering was a sacrifice Divinely ordered.
Cain seemed to be admitting no sin, and no need of a sacrifice. He came before God in a complimentary way, merely passing the respects of the day; feeling that he had a perfect right to approach God on his own works and worth.
Abel, on the other hand, approached God with a sacrifice, in which he confessed himself a sinner in need of a sacrifice. He came before the Lord through a daysman, a substitution.
There may be some who will doubt what we have just said. Of such we ask, "Why then does the Holy Spirit, in Hebrews, say, "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts"? Would God have accepted Abel apart from the blood? No. From any aesthetic viewpoint, Cain's offering was by far the more beautiful. It was faith in the blood that made Abel's offering more excellent.
2. A contrast in the offerings of today. Cain and Abel have both come to town again. Cain is here in those men who are preaching salvation by character, and who are saying that the Blood of Jesus Christ carries no more value than the blood of cock robin. Abel is here in the millions who have received the Atonement which Christ offered upon Calvary.
III. CAIN'S WRATH (Genesis 4:5-7)
1. God's acceptance of Abel and rejection of Cain. To Abel's offering God had respect; to Cain's offering He had not respect. The one was received, the other was rejected. Here is room for real consideration. Was the difference in God's attitude due to the difference in the character of Cain and Abel? This is impossible, for both were sinners. If Abel was better morally than Cain, nothing in the record thus far suggests it.
No, the difference is the difference between a true, and a false token. Rahab, the harlot, was safe because she anchored behind a scarlet cord. The fact of her harlotry did not condemn her, because in confession and contrition she hovered under the blood.
An evil man who comes to Christ, by the way of the Cross, is absolutely safe, whereas a good man who rejects the Cross, will go down to destruction.
2. Cain's anger. When Cain saw that he was not acceptable, he was wroth with Abel. There never has been, and never will be, any basts of fellowship between the saint and the sinner. Christ said, "The world hateth you." The Cross of Jesus Christ makes an impassable gulf between the redeemed and the unredeemed.
(1) God's query. God said unto Cain, "Why art thou wroth?" Had Cain done well he would have been accepted. God is not partial against one, and openhearted toward another. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to a knowledge of the Truth.
God told Cain that if he did not do well, "Sin lieth at the door." He who refuses Christ, is a sinner of sinners. The Spirit is today convicting men of sin, because they believe not on Him.
There was not only sin at Cain's door, but there was also a sin-offering. Had Cain been willing, he could have been accepted, the same as was his brother Abel, even by offering a sin-offering.
IV. THE FIRST MURDER (Genesis 4:8)
1. The consultation. After God's conversation with Cain, Cain talked with his brother Abel. The text of their conversation is not given. It is not difficult for us, however, to imagine the theme of their discussion.
They talked of their sacrifices, of why God had respected the one, and rejected the other. It is doubtful as to whether Cain told Abel all that the Lord had told him, because that would have been an admission of guilt. What Cain did was to find fault with God, and because he could not take it out on the Almighty, he thought he would avenge himself upon his brother Abel.
2. The vengeance of Cain. As they talked by the way, Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. He slew his brother because there was no ground of communion, and no basis of fellowship between them. Abel, in following with God, had severed himself from his brother Cain, with an impassable gulf.
Cain slew his brother because his own deeds were evil, and his brother's were righteous. Back of this first murder, was Satan himself. We believe that the devil entered into Cain, and slew Abel; just as much as, in after years, he entered into Judas and slew Christ. The hatred against Abel was on a par with the hatred against the Son of God.
V. THE GREAT JUDGE (Genesis 4:9)
1. Sin will out. Cain probably thought that he might cover his sin. When the Lord asked him, "Where is Abel thy brother?" he endeavored to evade a direct answer. God, however, knew Cain altogether.
There is a verse which says, "Be sure your sin will find you out." That is, they will discover you, and pounce upon you. Men may hide successfully their sins from men, but they cannot hide them from God. The Lord hath searched us and known us. He knows our down-sitting and our uprising. He understandeth our thoughts afar off. He compasses our path and our lying down, and is acquainted with all our ways. He besets us behind and before.
If any one would seek to hide from God, whither should he flee? If he ascends into Heaven, God is there; if he makes his bed in hell, God is there; if he takes to himself the wings of the morning, and dwells in the uttermost part of the sea, even there God's hand will hold him; if he thinks the darkness will cover him, it will prove only light unto God.
2. Man's responsibility to man. Cain said, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Yes, he was. Every one of us is our brother's keeper. We are responsible for their best welfare. We have no right to lift up our hand against any man. We should seek to do good, and not evil, all the days of our life. We should help, but never harm.
As believers, we are responsible until we have carried the gospel message to the last man of earth. We may slay the heathen by neglecting them. Our skirts are not free from the blood of other men, until, so far as in us lies, we have done all we can to save them. To harm our brother is grievous sin; but to know to do good and to do it not is also sin.
VI. THE BLOOD AND ITS VOICE (Genesis 4:10)
1. The voice of Abel's blood cried for vengeance. The blood is the life, and he that taketh man's blood, by him shall man's blood be taken. If the voice of Abel's blood reached the ears of God, so also does the voice of all the blood of all of the men who have been slain throughout the ages come up before Him. We read concerning the world of Noah's day, "God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth." Concerning the men of Lot's day we read, "The men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly." We read of Nineveh, how God said, "Their wickedness is come up before Me," Thus it was in the case of Cain, the voice of his brother's blood cried unto God.
2. The voice of Christ's Blood cries, "Forgiveness." How wonderful is the verse, "The Blood of [Jesus Christ] * * speaketh better things than that of Abel!" And what does it speak? Even now we can hear the dying Lamb of God as He cried, "Father, forgive them." They shed His Blood, and the Blood they shed became the ransom for their sins. They opened His side, and the opened side became a Rock of Ages, in which they might hide from the wrath to come.
We have before us an echo. The voice of Abel's blood cried for vengeance, and the voice of Christ's Blood echoed back, and said, "Remission." Christ died that we might live. He suffered that we might sing.
VII. THE PRONOUNCEMENT OF THE CURSE (Genesis 4:11-15)
1. The curse upon Cain's labor. Cain was a tiller of the ground, and it was the ground which opened its mouth to receive his brother's blood. Therefore, God said, "When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength."
We have often heard eulogies of the boys who were slain on Flander's Field. Their blood is said to have nourished the poppies, and made them grow more profusely. Not so with the blood of Abel.
Is it not true that Israel's sin caused God to withhold the early and the latter rain? Malachi tells the story. The devourer had destroyed the fruits of their ground. Their vines had cast its fruit before the time in the field.
Joel said, "That which the palmer worm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten." God had laid waste their vineyards, their land mourned, their oil languished; the pomegranate, the palm tree, and the apple tree withered. One of the marks of sin's ravaging is famine and pestilence.
2. Cain was pronounced a fugitive and a vagabond. He was to be driven, as he felt, from the face of the earth, and from the face of God. The poor man felt quite differently about his own curse, than he did about Abel's 'death. He bemoaned himself, more than he did his brother. He said unto God, "My punishment is greater than I can bear." So it is with sin. Sin wrecks; sin slays. Sin takes the light out of the eye, the color out of the cheek, the joy out of the heart. What untold agony has been wrought by sin!
3. The mark set on Cain. The Lord said, "Whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold." It was Lamech afterward, who said, "Hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold."
AN ILLUSTRATION
Cain slew Abel, but Cain's worst enemy was himself.
"There is an old Icelandic legend that contains its own lesson. There was a man who was constantly pursued by a terrible spirit which took the form of a dwarf:
"'His grain ricks were fired, his barns unroofed, his cattle destroyed, his lands blasted, and his first-born slain. So he lay in wait for the monster where it lived in the caves near his house, and in the darkness of night he saw it With a cry he rushed upon it, and gripped it about the waist, and it turned upon him and held him by the shoulder.
"'Long he wrestled with it, reeling, staggering, falling, and rising again, but at length a flood of strength came to him, and he overthrew it, and stood over it, covering it, conquering it, with his. right hand set hard at its throat. Then he drew his knife to kill it, and the moon shot through a rack of cloud, opening an alley of light about it, and he saw its face, and lo! the face of the evil dwarf was his own.'
"We ourselves are our own worst enemy. The greatest business that we ever have to do is with God. Sin leaves such a stain that there is no power in all the world that can cleanse it.