Genesis 4
Peace be with you, listening
friends. We greet you in the name of God, the Lord of peace, who wants everyone
to understand and submit to the way of righteousness that He has established,
and have true peace with Him forever. We are happy to be able to return today
to present your program The Way of Righteousness.
Last time, in our study in the Torah, we saw that God,
after Adam and Eve sinned, began to announce His plan to bring into the world
One who would deliver the children of Adam from the power of Satan and sin and
hell. We also saw how God refused to accept the clothes of leaves that Adam and
Eve made for themselves. God wanted to teach them that sinners have no way of
covering their shame before the Holy One who must judge them. Only God can save
sinners from their guilt. Thus, we saw how God Himself sacrificed some animals,
made clothes of skin, and put them on Adam and Eve. God
made the first blood sacrifice. We also read how God announced that there
would be two lines of people on earth: those who refuse to believe the Word of
God, and those who believe it.
Today we will read about Adam and Eve's first two
sons: Cain, who refused to believe God, and Abel, who believed God. As
we saw, Adam and Eve were now living outside the Garden of Paradise (Eden). God
had expelled them because of their transgression. Because of their sin, they
could no longer live in the blessings of the Garden of Paradise. Their sin had
spoiled their relationship with God. However, God still loved them and cared
for them.
Now then, let us read together from the Torah. In the
fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, it is written, "Adam
lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.
She said, 'With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.' Later she
gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain
worked the soil." (Gen. 4:1,2)
Adam and Eve bore two sons, Cain and Abel. They were
sinners, just like their parents. The sin of Adam spread to his children, like
a contagious disease. Cain and Abel were conceived in sin. Thus, the Scriptures
say: "Adam bore sons in his own
likeness." (Gen.
5:3). "Like father, like son." Cain and Abel
were born with a sinful nature. The children grew physically and increased
in knowledge. Cain became a farmer. He was a serious laborer and was not afraid
of hard work. Abel was a shepherd. Both knew about
God. They
knew that God exists and that He is holy and hates sin. And both should have
known that to approach God, they needed to
come by the way of the blood sacrifice which God had ordained.
There came a day in the lives of Cain and Abel, when
they decided to worship God and present to Him a sacrifice. Thus, the
Scriptures say:
"In the course of
time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.
But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The
Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering
he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was
downcast." (Gen. 4:3-5)
Let us consider what happened. Two people wanted to
worship God. Both presented sacrifices to God. But the Scriptures say: "The
Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering
he did not look with favor." Why did God accept Abel's sacrifice, and
refuse Cain's sacrifice? What was the difference between those two sacrifices?
Truly, Cain's sacrifice and Abel's sacrifice were very
different. Cain brought to God beautiful vegetables and
delicious fruit.
As for Abel, he brought to God the blood of a lamb without
blemish.
God forgave Abel of his sins, but did not forgive Cain of his sins.
Why did God forgive the sins of Abel, who brought the
blood of a lamb, and did not forgive the sins of Cain, who brought vegetables
and fruit? Was it because God does not like vegetables and fruit? No, that is
not the reason! Why, then, did God judge Abel as righteous, and leave Cain in
his sin? Here is the reason: Abel brought the sacrifice that
God required, but Cain brought something else. What was it that God
required so that He could forgive their sins without compromising His
righteousness? He required the blood--the life--of an unblemished
animal. Abel believed God and brought a blood sacrifice, just as God required.
Thus, the Scripture says: "By faith Abel
offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a
righteous man, when God spoke well of his [sacrifice]." (Heb. 11:4) Abel
believed God, but Cain did not believe Him.
What does it mean to
believe God? To believe God is to have confidence in
God to the point of obeying His Word. To believe God is to
accept what God says as true. If you say, "I believe in
God," but you do not believe what God says in the Holy Scriptures, then
you do not really believe God. God and His Word are one. If you believe God, you
will believe and obey His Word. If you do not believe what God says, it is God
Himself you are rejecting.
God accepted Abel because he believed His Word and
came with the blood of a lamb, as God had commanded. God did not accept Cain,
because he did not honestly believe the Word of God. Cain claimed to believe in
God, but his actions denied it, because he did not bring a blood sacrifice, as
God had commanded.
Someone may be asking, "Why did God command
animal sacrifices? Why did God say, "Without
the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin"? Here is the reason:
God's holy Law declares that the payment (wages, penalty) of
sin is death!
That is why blood had to be shed. God did not say, "Sin's penalty can be
paid with fruits and vegetables." Nor did God say, "The payment for
sin is praying and fasting and doing good works." No! What God, in His
holiness, did say is: The payment required for sin is death!
God, in the Writings of the Prophets, shows us that
every person, every child of Adam has sinned and that each sinner has a
great debt before
God, the Holy One. The sinner must die and then pay that debt of sin in hell
forever. The debt of sin is huge and you cannot produce enough good works to
cancel it before God. The penalty of sin is death and
hell,
which is why good works can never pay it off!
Let us try to illustrate it. Imagine that I owe a huge
amount of money to a creditor, and I go to him and say, "I know that I owe
you a lot of money. However, I am totally broke, and cannot pay my debt with
money, but I have another plan to pay you. Here's my plan: Every day, I will
sweep the porch of your house. Thus I will work for you until I pay off my
debt." How would the creditor respond to my proposition? Perhaps he would
get angry, or perhaps he would laugh at me, however, what is certain is that he
would not accept my idea! Why would the creditor not accept my plan? Because
there is no way I can pay my huge debt with my feeble "good works."
Similarly, no one can pay off their debt of sin with
good works. Only one thing can pay for sin--not money or good works--but death. The penalty of sin is
death and judgment. Consequently, God could not cancel Cain and Abel's debt of
sin based on the works of their own hands. God's plan to cancel their debt of
sin was through the blood of a sacrifice. The innocent must die in the place of
the guilty.
Forgiveness of sin is
not based on man's plan, but on God's plan. On the basis of the
(substitutionary) sacrifice, God opened a door of forgiveness and salvation for
the children of Adam. In earlier generations, God decreed that every sinner
must present an animal without blemish and slaughter it. The innocent animal
would die as a substitute for the sinner. Because of the blood of such a
sacrifice, God could be patient with Adam's descendants and cover their sins for a time.
But the blood of animals could not cancel the debt of man's sin,
because the value of an animal is not equal to that of a man. That is why the
Scriptures say that animal sacrifices were "only a
shadow of the good things that are coming, not the realities
themselves…because it is impossible for the blood of [animals] to
take away sins." (Heb. 10:1,4)
Thus, the most important thing to remember about
animal sacrifices is that they were mere
illustrations of the Savior who was to come into the world to pay the
debt of sin for the descendants of Adam. This Savior, whom God promised, would
die"for sins once for all, the righteous
for the unrighteous, to bring [them] to God." (1 Pet. 3:18) As it is
written in the Gospel {Injil}: "All the
prophets testify about [this Savior] that everyone who believes in Him
receives forgiveness of sins through His Name." (Acts 10:43)
However, in past generations, God's plan of salvation
required animal sacrifices. But Cain ignored God's plan. Cain came up with
another way, a religion of his own making. Cain created the
first false religion.
He brought to God the works of his own hands. He sacrificed to God that which
he had cultivated, that is, the produce of the cursed earth, which has no blood.
Did God accept such a bloodless "sacrifice"? No, God did not accept
it.
As for Abel, he brought to God a lamb without blemish
and slaughtered it so that the blood was shed. After that he burned it. Because
of that sacrifice, Abel had a clear conscience before God. He knew that, in
himself, he deserved to die, but the innocent
lamb had died in his place. Thus, Abel testified to his faith in the Redeemer
who would come into the world, to die in the place of sinners, to bear the
punishment for their sin.
We want to summarize today's story by asking a very
important question. Why did God not accept Cain's sacrifice? Was Cain a greater
sinner than Abel? That is not the reason. They were both sinners. Both
presented sacrifices to God. Cain was a religious person. On the surface,
perhaps we can even say that Cain's sacrifice was more respectable than Abel's
sacrifice. Vegetables and fruits are very beautiful, but a slaughtered lamb and
its blood is not a pleasant sight! However, sin is an offensive thing to God
and the way of forgiveness that God established declared: "Without
the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin!" Thus, God refused Cain
and his sacrifice, because Cain did not respect God's righteous way of
salvation.
No one can come to God, unless he comes by the
righteous way that God has ordained! God's way is
perfect and precise! It is like mathematics. If a teacher asks
a student at school, "How much is two plus two?" There is only one
correct answer.Two plus two equals four. The student who answers
three is wrong. The one who says five is wrong. The person who says four and a
half is also wrong. Two plus two can only equal four! That is the way it is
with the righteous way of salvation that God has established. There is only one
God and one way for sinners to be
reconciled to God, the Holy One! It is the way of the
absolutely perfect Sacrifice.
You who are listening today, do you know what the Word
of God says concerning the holy Sacrifice that God has provided to
cancel your debt of sin permanently? Do you know that God Himself sent down
to earth an almighty Savior so that you can be forgiven of your sins and have a
pure heart before
God? In coming lessons, we will be learning much about this wonderful Savior. Concerning
Him, the Holy Scriptures say: "Salvation is found in no
one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must
be saved." (Acts
4:12)
Friends, this is where we must stop today. In the will
of God, next time we will complete our study about Cain and Abel….
God bless you as you take time to contemplate His
basic law which says:
"Without the
shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin." (Heb. 9:22)
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