Cain & Abel Yesterday & Today: People are the same!

Cain & Abel Yesterday & Today                             Kelly Durant 11-15-09

A study in Genesis 4:1-11

There was a preacher bringing conviction to the hearers of the sermon and people went to give their all to God. This was in Oklahoma back in the 1900’s. A native American went up and put a handwoven blanket on the altar. The preacher said nothing. The Indian taken back that there was no reaction went up again to the altar and put down his tomahawk and still the preacher said nothing. Then, the Indian went up and was sorrowful and he said, “Now I understand, Indian  will give Indian (himself) to God!

After this first severe lesson of the fall of man which we read in Genesis 4, how man directly disobeyed God, we right away also get a second lesson from Cain and Abel, on how to worship and please, or displease God. What do you give God anyway?

In the scripture today we read how God expected worship from the first people on earth, the sons of Adam and Eve.  We deduct that God expressed how He wanted the sacrifice to be and the reaction was that Abel gave it to God as God desired and God favored Him, but the other brother Cain gave to God what he wanted to give. Cain’s was rejected, not done in a true worshipping spirit.

Cain did it his way, and not God’s way and God’s voice of consciousness spoke deep inside of Him that he was rejected and not favored.                                     What are the principles most all inspired theologians conclude from this: That

-God expects a sacrifice done His way in order for us to prove our loyalty to Him,

-God will not accept what we want to give, it must be what He commands, and

-All people that react to God’s requests like Abel obtain God’s favor and blessings

-Or like Cain in rebellion against the Lord’s commands, we conclude that this provokes their own self destruction by being disobedient to God.

What destroyed Cain was he got filled with an anger so extreme that he wanted to kill his own brother. And he did kill him! His reaction to his rejection from God was not one of repentance and a going back and doing it again to get it right this time. His reaction was one of jealously thinking he needed to eliminate the competition he had with his brother so God would have to just accept him anyway, sins and all, little sacrifice and all, but that didn’t work at all.

Cain passionately hated the fact that his brother proved that it was possible to achieve a higher standard of holiness sacrificially by loving God. He hated the fact that he needed to pay a higher price now in order to obtain acceptance and favor with God.

Cain did not want to sacrifice God’s way. Why? Because he was selfish and had no love for God or his brother! He did not want to feel the pain in his offering; he was not willing to give something of value even to his own Creator. He only wanted to appease God with his own idea of giving, worship, and sacrifice, a giving of what he wanted to, however his way did not please God and this exposed his dirty heart.

You may be thinking, so what is in this lesson for me, I come to church, I obey what I can and I think God accepts me pretty well. What does the scripture say in verse 6? That God’s rejection of Him provoked a depression in Cain.  There are Christians here, as in every place living with too little of the joy of the Lord. They are living their faith with a somber seriousness that is like a black cloud of depression over their lives. But a real holy life implies one that is not depressed but joyful, so joyful that it is contagious and everyone wants to be around you.

At that point of depression Cain could have just repented and gotten an animal to sacrifice to please God. But Cain was carnal, not spiritual. In Cain’s mind it was all Abel, his brother’s fault, that he was rejected and that was why he was depressed and down. And it was God’s fault too, after all, how could God not be happy with his gift? What was wrong with God that He just couldn’t accept what he wanted to give?

Cain’s half-hearted gift led to his rejection, which then led him to more sin. It led to a hard-hearted un-repentedness which led to the sin of hate, jealousy, rejection of God, and anger, and ultimately that anger led him to the violent killing of his own brother!

Abel died praised as the first martyr, but Cain lived and died a cursed shamed life. For several millenniums now no one names their son Cain because of the stigma that accompanies this name, the name of one who failed God.

Now let’s apply this story in our modern-day context of the church. What we observe in all churches and amongst all people is that there are the Abel and Cain influences of character.

First the positive, what were the characteristics of Abel? The question is, do you have these qualities? Is God accepting and blessing you?

-Abel was obedient and gave to God what God desired. The spirit of Abel is like the Christian that reads God’s word to know what God wants for his life and he just does it. When God says, ‘Love me and others as yourself’, the authentic obedient person just does it killing his own feelings of rebelliousness inside towards submission to God and loving those that are rude and unloving in return.

-Abel with a sincere heart worshipped God. I doubt he enjoyed giving up the best animal from his herd, but even though he did not understand it, even though for sure he did not like it, he did it anyway and still loved and honored God, His Creator, in the process.  

-He lived with internal peace with God, but he also had war in the world suffering the hatred and persecution of his brother. Abel lived with a contradiction of peace and turmoil but God gave him favor. God used him as an example of how everyone should be, and for eternity his name is praised.

Hebrews 11:4
By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.

Paul addressing the Hebrews was also making the point to them that they needed to stop sacrificing to God in their own way, and start doing it in the higher standard of holiness way with Jesus. For 2,000 years Christians are still leaning this lesson.

Now what were the characteristics of Cain? Ask yourself, do I harbor any of these characteristics? If so, you have 2 choices, you can repent and find favor with God, or you can go down the bitter road of sin and self-destruction as Cain.

-Cain displeased God by giving God what he wanted to give, not what God had desired. How many times do we see people do this? In the Salvation Army we see this a lot as people bring us their trash such as old dirty ragged clothes in a trash bag as if it is a great gift and then they praise their selves saying they just love to help people?! If they really loved people, they wouldn’t give them their trash they would buy them something new to donate like what they buy for their own selves.

Or the people, when you request they do a certain needed job, and they arrive late or make excuses and say, well I do enough already, and no one appreciates what I sacrifice already and I can’t do any more. The problem is not in the fact that you are sacrificing something, it is in the issue that as humans we often are giving what they want to give how they want to give it, and not responding to give or do what is needed.

Here is another example. Imagine you are on the Corps bus and the motor dies in the middle of the road and everyone is needed to get out and push it off the road. Right away there will always be those who don’t push it but say, ‘I am your leader’, here over here, you push more! And another one who says, I can’t push I’ll just walk now, I have a head cold and personal reasons you should know. And the other who says, here let me give out water while everyone else pushes!

 What we often forget is the seriousness that the church, even the Corps, is a piece of God’s kingdom that needs support and pushing to win souls and make war on the evils in society. But first each member has to also be willing to make war against the evil in our own hearts in order to become sincerely holy and useful to God and His work through this ministry in His Kingdom!

-Cain by his disobedience became aware that God was not accepting him and this led him to being filled with the opposite characteristics of God which are unmerited anger, hate, jealousy, bitterness, and depression. Have you ever noticed that the people who seem to always have a complaint and criticism of their spiritual brothers are usually exposing their own evil hearts? So many people in the world that live angry, bitter, and depressed lives, which are always having a problem with others, are also having serious problems with God don’t you think? No true converted Christian will accept living with the negative characteristics of Cain, but many people who think they are Christian are doing that!

- Cain refused to repent and instead persecuted and killed his brother. The final result of not sacrificing and worshiping and doing God’s work the way He needs it to be done will result in a shameful act of persecution and/or violence on others. Look at how many people you may have known in the past that are like Cain but they think they are good Christians. Recall when things did not go as they wanted, when they could not have it their way, they left the church and then they bitterly blamed someone and spiritually killed someone in the congregation, maybe the scapegoat was the pastor, and they also destroyed the image of the denomination.

People like this always seem to always proclaim their own righteousness, but does God take them to be righteous? See sin for what it is, people who persecute others who do good while still claiming to be Christians have the spirit of Cain and have either left the faith or have never had the faith to begin with!  

What God desired to show all humanity from the very beginning was that he wanted an animal sacrifice because it was the sacrifice of a life with the shedding of blood, and that satisfied the redemption of sins. The sacrifice was from the best lamb of the flock and this is was an early lesson, a parallel to the sacrifice of Jesus life that would take place with pain in order to take away sin and death forever from all humanity.

With the shedding of blood there is severe pain and God wants us as his created sons and daughters to feel pain in our lives we give to Him in order to understand Him better. Abel and anyone would feel pain and sadness when giving up in sacrificial death the life of an animal that you cared for until mature.  This is what Abel and all past worshippers experienced. Today this is about the same as asking you to sacrifice and kill your pet, your dog you love on the altar, and you would cry and break down, right?

So we learn that God’s heart cannot stand sin, it gives Him severe pain, so he exemplifies to man how for sin to be removed, pain must be the redemptive payment. Look at the horrible pain Jesus suffered on the cross! (Pause)

The lessons of God from His Holy Word should bring you salvation, joy and liberation! But joy and peace will only be present in our lives after we have had a holiness experience like Abel, a cleaning of the spirit. It is painful to look at your own faults.  Abel cleaned his spirit with his worship and sacrifice but Cain did not.

Are you worshipping and sacrificing to God giving to Him what he wants from you? I can tell you when I was young and arrogant I did not want to give my life to God to preach to just anyone and everyone like losers on the streets. I was like the Indian, it took a while for me to gain conviction after feeling God’s spirit. I boasted to people that I wanted to help the poor and serve others suffering, but when God opened the door of service to be a missionary I fought a violent battle in my head for 6 weeks to not do it! I wanted everyone to see me as spiritual, helping in the project neighborhoods like I use to go to while in the university. But it was not enough. God has different callings for different people.  God was not going to just accept my little acts of doing good here and there, I was called to serve him totally.  Only you and God know how you are called to serve.

And now to end, here is a truth from our lesson in Genesis, everyone is called to honor, worship, and serve God through the teachings of His son Jesus and we are called to be righteous as Abel was righteous. In our case as a Christian, we each offer the blood of Jesus as our saving redemptive sacrifice and in turn we give our lives in submission and service to Him daily to obey all of His commandments and desires.

Have you felt in yourself some of the bitter depressive anger of Cain? Make it right with God, confess it to Him all your dark emotions He will make clean again!

Have others in the spirit of Cain unjustly criticized your service to God? Come pray for those who persecute you and despitefully misuse you so you may heap coals of fire on their heads by being good to them anyway, as our Lord commands. I have had to pray that dozens of times and I have had to always pray for strength to be loving to the ones who are being unloving to me hundreds of times. And God’s love always wins! Whether you have been the persecuted or the persecutor come an ask God for holiness. Pray!