STUDY THEME: QUESTIONS ABOUT ORIGINS. 8-25-02
"RELATIONSHIPS: WHO NEEDS THEM?" GENESIS 4: 1-16
GENESIS 4: 1-2, 3-7, 8-12, 13-16.
PLEASE OPEN YOUR BIBLES TO GENESIS 4.
Today we conclude the series of lessons on "Questions About Origins." In September we will cover a five-session study dealing with "God’s Grace and Glory": We will have lessons on God’s attributes of holiness, justice, and patience and His actions in forgiving and in providing. These Bible passages will provide a variety of ways to hear and speak to God.
Last Sunday we saw Adam and Eve lose their place in the Garden of Eden when they disobeyed God. He clothed them with garments of animal skins and to prevent their eating of the tree of life, evicted them from the Garden. The light occupation of Eden changed to burdensome labor, because of the earth’s being cursed.
In the movie Casablanca, one of the characters says to another, "you may have noticed that life is cheap in Casablanca." Sadly, it’s been that way a long time and not just in Casablanca.
Human life is cheap, isn’t it? At least that is the mind-set of many in the world today, whether they would admit it or not. Nothing is more diametrically opposed to unity and family relationships than hatred and murder. The list of related sins includes slavery, abortion, euthanasia, and homicide, just to name a few. How could people do such things to others, who like themselves, were created in the image of God? Such rampant disregard for human life shows how deeply sin has corrupted every child of Adam and Eve. And this was manifested in the very first generation after Adam and Eve had sinned and were driven by God from the garden of Eden.
In modern America culture, good relationships are often sacrificed on the altar of personal convenience, self-advancement, and material wealth. Self-centered people view relationships as the means to selfish ends. Such persons make decisions, on the basis of the personal benefits they can experience as a result. God and other people may be viewed either as pawns to be controlled or as obstacles to be overcome. But God created people to live in relationship with Himself and with others. Living in right relationship with God is foundational to living a good and successful life and to treating others as God expects.
Today’s lesson addresses the Life Question, "Why should I care about building relationships with other people?" We will explore the Biblical Truth, God created people to live in relationship with Him and with others, but sin destroys those relationships and can lead to horrible acts of wickedness. I trust this lesson will help us live in right relationship with God and with others. Right relationships with others begin with right relationships within the family.
The Biblical Setting for today’s lesson begins with the record in Genesis 3 of the rebellion of Adam and Eve against God, and this rebellion was passed on to their children as seen in Ch. 4. Both Cain and Abel worshipped God, but only one of them worshipped God in an acceptable way. Gen. 4 demonstrates that sin has both immediate and far-reaching consequences.
In these verses the first couple became the first family. On the sixth day of creation-week when God created them He told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and increase in numbers. Their stay in the Garden of Eden was so brief that no child was born into their family before they sinned. But now Adam and Eve brought the first child into the world. The first three humans came into the world in a different way: Adam was created, by God from the dust of the ground: Eve was made by God from Adam’s rib or side: Cain was begotten by Adam through Eve. However, God’s pattern for all subsequent births, and thus for all future family relationships, is established here: a husband has sexual relations with his wife and impregnates her so she gives birth to a child.
In Vs. 1 Eve explained the reason she named her son Cain: "With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man." Even though Eve had just been through the pains of bearing a child, she rejoiced over the birth of the first child born. She had found part of her own calling as a woman. After noting that the first woman came from the man, Paul said in 1 Cor. 11:12 "that every man since then has come of a woman." Some Bible students believe that Eve’s exclamation shows that she expected her firstborn to fulfill the prophecy of Gen. 3: 15; others believe that she was only recognizing the Lord’s part in the birth of her son.
No doubt Eve’s statement referred to the ‘offspring" or "seed" of the woman whom the Lord had promised in 3:15. Eve expected her first child to be the progenitor of the promised seed. She was right to expect God to fulfill His promise about the seed, but she was wrong to think Cain would be the patriarch of that seed, Jesus Christ.
God in His grace allows Adam and Eve to be fruitful and replenish the earth. Then a second son, Abel, is born. He has an interesting name. In Hebrew Abel means "breath" or "temporary" which foreshadows that Abel’s life will be cut short. The two boys grow up and choose different careers. Able becomes a shepherd with f locks, while Cain becomes a farmer with crops; which is reminiscent of God’s "placing Adam in the garden to work it and take care of it," while Abel’s occupation reflects Adam’s naming of the all the animals. Thus both occupations have divine sanction even before the fall. As will be explained further below, the Lord’s acceptance of Abel’s sacrifice and His rejection of Cain’s offering had nothing to do with the occupation or the kind of sacrifice each man made. Instead, it was related to each man’s heart attitude as reflected in the specific choice of sacrifice from his available resources.
Cain is a type of the mere man of the earth. His religion was destitute of any adequate sense of sin or need of atonement. This religious type is described in 2 Peter 2. Seven things are said of him: he (1) worships in self-will; (2) is angry with God; (3) refuses to bring a sin offering; (4) murders his brother; (5) lies to God; (6) becomes a wanderer; and (7) is, nevertheless, the object of the divine solicitude.
But God hasn’t finished with His damaged creation. He allows life to continue in the fallen world because His objective is to renew and restore. He won't accept that His divine purposes are to be thwarted by evil. The author of Genesis turns to the second generation and here we see a picture of life after Eden. It sets the scene for humanity in a way that we can see our own world and ourselves. On the positive side, there’s the beginning of community life with the expanding population developing into the occupations of agriculture and farming. The early humans were consciously of spiritual life, for the in-built desire for worship was there. Men and women still bear the image of God, although grossly distorted.
All that is good but underlying this progress is the problem of the human predicament. The sins of the first parents are ingrained in the nature of the children. Yet, God hasn’t abandoned His creation. Here in the world, disordered by the entrance of sin, God is still revealing Himself and looking for a response from each individual, for all are accountable to Him. This is clearly seen in the life and times of Cain and Abel, the first of the many case histories that the Bible provides for our understanding.
These two sons of Adam and Eve are representatives of Everyman. Abel is the man who pleased God, while Cain didn’t. In this world there’s "Abel", and there’s "Cain". Let’s see what we can learn from them, for in ourselves also, perhaps there’s a little of "Abel", and there’s a little of "Cain." It’s important to know to which we identify.
We see two brothers, but so different. Cain was the firstborn, followed by Abel. They had the same parents but soon developed into different characters. There’s nothing wrong with that because God has made us as individuals, each a unique person. The present talk of cloning human beings is quite alien to God’s creation. We must pray that the evil will be thwarted.
People’s names in the O.T. are often significant and indicate their characters. Experts in language tell us that "Cain" points to self-sufficiency, to strength, to the first born with first rights to everything, for power and self assertion. By contrast, "Abel" means nothingness and "frailty". This paints a picture of two brothers who have completely different attitudes to life. Cain is the dominant of the two. He needs to be at the center of things and life revolves around him. He will use others for his own purposes. Abel, on the other hand, is the "also-ran", the weakling. In modern language, he could be called "wet." That’s the background to the point being made about the conduct of Cain and Able.
When we look at the world around us there are so many things that are inequitable. We need to acknowledge that sometimes we meet a bound to our understanding. We have to fall back on the mystery of God’s gracious providence.
The account of Cain and Abel is telling us that life must be seen from God’s perspective. From any other aspect, it’s all wrong and unfair. It’s essential that we understand that God is free to act as He wills without asking our permission. Cain had no rights over God—and that’s true of each one of us. No one has rights over God. Only God is in a position to say why things are as they are, apparently fair or unfair. In His sovereign wisdom, He chose Abel, just as in His sovereign wisdom He chose the Hebrews to be His people, not because of anything they had done, but simply because He loves them. And why did He cause you and me to be born or live here in this good and pleasant land and have the opportunity to hear the gospel, when there are millions in far less pleasant circumstances.
Someone looking superficially at the two men would have found that they had much in common. They were brothers and they both had honorable vocations. But that is only half the story, for the storyteller quickly goes on to say: "The Lord had regard for Abel---but for Cain—He had no regard." Why was this? We find a clue to this as we think of the two motivations for worship.
Both men had the desire to worship God, so how did they go about it? Was it out of duty or was it motivated by devotion? That’s going to be the key to finding out why one was rejected and the other accepted. Heb. 11:4 says, "By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did." There are only two ways of worshipping God—either through self or by fait. It makes all the difference. Abel worshipped God by faith; Cain did not. So how did Cain fall? Did he bring the wrong offering?
Cain decided what he was going to do, acting on his own understanding. Worship for him was a formal matter. He wanted to acknowledge God and thank Him for the blessings of life. Cain would remember the worship practices of his parents, but a vital ingredient is missing.
Abel had a better motivation—he came to worship "by faith": To worship God in a manner pleasing to Him. Abel acted on the clear instructions God had given to his parents, but Cain ignored them. Abel wanted to please God while Cain was careless and went about worship according to his own ideas, Where do we get our instructions for worship: The only real source is in the Bible, the Word of God. This leads us to the reason who Abel’s offering found favor with God while Cain’s didn’t.
Abel knew that God had clothed his parents in skins, the result of the death of animals and the shedding of their blood. That’s why he approached God by way of sacrifice which anticipated the atoning sacrifice that only Jesus could offer for the sins of the world. God, in His mercy and grace, could see that Abel wasn’t relying on his own merits. That’s why God was able to accept his offering and the writer of Hebrews was inspired to record: "By faith Abel was commended as a righteous man."
Cain also approached God, but quite differently. His thinking went something like this: "I’ve done well and I’ll give something to God from what I’ve worked for, He’ll be pleased with it." Well, God wasn’t pleased because Cain had offered his self-righteousness and self-confidence. His worship was meaningless to God.
We don’t know how God made it know to Cain that his offering didn’t find divine favor, but Cain was very angry and upset. Cain’s anger towards God is then transferred into jealousy toward Abel. Any pretense of brotherly love that Cain had for his brother was swept away as a fit of jealousy came over him. He was determined to deal with that "goody, goody brother of his!
3, PLEASE READ GENESIS 4: 8-12.
Cain didn’t master the wild beast of sin. It began to devour him. Cain was really angry at the Lord but there was nothing he could do to Him. So his anger was directed at his younger brother, who was close by. When a man is wrong and won’t admit it, he always gets angry. Cain’s resentment and jealousy turned to deceit. Cain said to Abel, "Let’s go out to the field’---and he killed him." There was no human witness but God saw the foul deed and immediately challenged Cain: "Where is Abel your brother." The unrepentant Cain countered rather impertinently: "I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?"
The fist son murdered the first brother and demonstrated all too clearly that the first sin of the first parents had passed to the first generation. That was Cain’s reaction, but what about Abel? He was dead physically but alive in spirit. Jesus Himself confirmed in Matt. 23:35 that Abel was numbered with the martyred prophets of Israel, and the wrier to the Hebrews states:" and by faith he still speaks. The story of his faithful achievement speaks to us today in his perspective of life, his motivation for worship, and the sacrifice offered. Abel’s attitude to life and possessions and his commitment to God in worship speak volumes to us. But Vs. 12:24 in Hebrews says that he speaks still more clearly by reminding Everyman of the most important offering of all, "the sprinkled blood of Jesus."
Yes, the story of Cain and Abel is the story of Everyman. Those who like Abel have trusted only in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus need have no fears, but the "Cains" of this world can be sure that the "Divine Inspector" will call: "Where is Abel? What have you done?" The consequences of that confrontation will be appalling. It’s for us to decide in the footsteps of which brother we should follow.
How do we deal with anger? My guess is that there is probably no one in this room who has actually murdered some one like Cain did. But I do believe that unconquered anger can be very destructive. I think of the man in Los Angeles, who wrote to his insurance company, "Whenever I get angry, I close my eyes and count to ten. I was driving down the freeway when I remembered how mad I was at my sister. I closed my eyes to count to ten and the next thing I knew there was this terrible crash." Anger can also harm one’s health. Angry people die younger than those who are able to deal with their frustrations. Anger destroys relationships. I’ve known people who claim to be Christians who didn’t ever speak to each other because of anger that has festered for years. As someone said, "As long as anger lives, she continues to be a fruitful mother of many unhappy children." Uncontrolled anger and jealousy resulted in Abel’s death and destroyed Cain’s life too. Don’t let it happen in your life. Acknowledge that the attitude is wrong, confess it to the Lord, and ask His help in overcoming this destructive attitude.
4. PLEASE READ GENESIS 4: 13-16.
We now look at Cain’s life after his crime. God gave him several opportunities to confess his sin. Instead of confessing, Cain complained---at lest that is the usual way of translating Cain’s words in vs. 13. He complained to God "My punishment is more than I can bear." Cain saw the Lord’s judgment as too harsh since it had four elements to it, one stated and the other three implied: from banishment from his family; banishment from the Lord; never having a home again—the only one specifically mentioned by God; and fear for his life.
What we see is that sin has serious consequences. Now it obviously did for Abel. His life was cut off short, though there is a second part to his story. In vs. 25 we read that Adam and Eve have another son, Seth, who is to take Abel’s place. Seth becomes the ancestor for the godly line and the ancestor of the Messiah. But we need to realize that Cain’s sin devastated his life too. After he kills his brother, the crime is quickly discovered. The Lord said, "what have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries to me from the ground." The Lord then tells Cain the punishment for his brother’s death. God then chooses to show mercy to Cain. He promises to protect him and not allow anyone to kill him. Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. This is a distinguishing physical mark so that Cain will not be harmed.
Then Cain, a man who is guilty of first degree murder, is allowed to go to the land of Nod and build a city, where he and his family dwell. Where did Cain’s family come from? It seems clear that Cain’s wife was one of the many daughters of Adam and Eve mentioned in Genesis 5:4. Though being married to one’s sister is certainly a sinful relationship today, incest, God permitted it at that time because there was no one else around. But, Cain and his family don’t live happily ever after in the city of Nod. Violence apparently becomes a tradition within his family. In vs. 23 we see Lamech, who is Cain’s great-great-great-grandson, bragging because he has killed a man. Cain’s descendants grow up never experiencing God’s blessing because, as Vs. 16 says, when Cain left for Nod, he "went out from the Lord’s presence." All of Cain’s offspring died before or in the flood, and one of them, (Lamech) committed bigotry and murder.
I want to close today with what I think may be the most important lesson the Lord has for us in this text. It is this: How we relate to God affects how we related to others. Because Cain didn’t have a right relationship with God, his relationship with his brother Abel was not right either. If there are things wrong in our relationship with the Lord, it should not surprise us when we have problems in our relationship with other people. Now, one of the emphases in the N.T. is that we cannot have a good relationship with God if we have a poor relationship with people around us. For example; Matt. 6:15 says that unless we forgive others, we cannot expect to experience God’s forgiveness. We are also taught not to participate in the Lord’s supper or not to even try to worship God if another Christian has something against us.
When there is something wrong in my relationship with God, when I’m not spending time reading the Bible and praying as I should, when there is sin in my life that I am not confessing to the Lord, then I treat everyone around me worse than I should. If we are having a problem in our relation with another person, it is important that we ask ourselves this question: "Is my relationship with God what it should be? If it is not, that is going to affect how we treat others.
So, what should we do? I suggest that this week we take a look at o``ur relationship with God. Are we spending time regularly, daily, reading the Bible and praying? What are our motives for being involved in the church and serving the Lord? Are we taking sin seriously and going to the Lord for forgiveness whenever we find it in our life? Let’s make sure we have a relationship with the Lord which will enable us to avoid the kind of terrible conflict that infected Cain’s and Abel’s relationship. Let’s ask the Lord to draw us closer to Him so that we might also relate to each other in a way what would honor Him and bring joy to our lives.
NEXT SUNDAY FROM 1 CHRONICLES 16 OUR THEME IS "GOD IS HOLY."
A.V. DAUGHERTY 8-25-02.