Amen. Well, if you turn with me to the book of Genesis chapter 4, we're going to look at verses 1-7 this morning. Genesis chapter 4, 1-7 last time we saw Adam and Eve's faith in the salvation promise of God, even as all that they had in their sinless state was now lost or corrupted. Think of it, the immediate, regular presence of God, communion with God, intimate fellowship with God, walking with Him in the garden daily. They lost His well-pleasedness in them in everything that they did and everything that they thought and everything that they said because they were righteous, they were holy in His sight, they were His perfect image-bearers, their works pleased Him without having to go through a mediator. They could come directly to Him because they were righteous, they lost that. They lost immortality in body and in soul. In fact, they were actually spiritually dead already and their bodies were dying. They were mortal now and they would return to the dust. They lost being able to live in God's garden where they and they alone could eat from all of the trees, the trees that God planted. That's what Scripture says in Genesis 2, God planted a garden. They could eat from all of them but one and now they're all taken away and now they're sent out of the garden to eat the herb of the field just like the animals eat the herb of the field. Not only that beloved, but I believe in I think Scripture shows, certainly in the little pictures that we get of the New Heavens and the New Earth, that all of the earth and all of the creatures would have responded to Adam and Eve immediately to their voice. The earth and the creatures would have responded to them. They would have had a command of the earth because the earth was blessed and they were blessed and they were righteous and so they would have been able to do so much, so much easier than we are where we have to force the ground to give us the food that we want and where cords get tangled and they don't get untangled. Things become worse unless we actively intervene in the world, it would have been the opposite. Things would have become better and Adam and Eve would have just by their efforts made it even quicker. The whole world was turned around when they fell and now life would be more difficult. Now they would know what it was like to have sinful desires, sinful affections that they couldn't get rid of, a sinful nature. Now they would know suffering and pain and sorrow and frustration and conflict and anxiety and fear and ultimately death. They would know death and yet beloved, in spite of all that, they knew that they would live. God said that even in the midst of the judgments. They would eat, it would be through labor but they would eat, they would have children, it would be through pain but they would have children, they would live, they would continue to live and they had and they could have and they could know that they had God's approval of their worship as they worshiped Him in the way God showed them by sacrificing the animals in such a way that their guilt would be covered and their prayers no doubt would be heard because they could come to God now through bond, through sacrifice, through offerings and they could do all of this as they trusted in God's promise. God promised a deliverer, a seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent, who would take away Satan's victory and bring back to them victory and therefore the fullness of salvation. And so they left the Garden of Eden, no doubt accepting the hardships and the judgments of God on their sin as merciful, as greatly restrained, as necessary, responses. Not to destroy them, not to destroy their children, but to bridle and frustrate their sinful natures in order to lead them to the place of all their hope and the only way that they could be saved trusting in the promise. God promised a seed, would crush the head and as they trusted in that promise they could by faith have that victory now and they could worship God now through sacrifice because that seed would crush the head of the serpent and therefore that would be the end of the curse and the end of death and bring back righteousness and life and all of the blessings and they believed that and we saw that and how they responded as they left the Garden of Eden. And how Adam lovingly names his wife, not death, but life, he could only do that by faith. And Eve says that she's got a man by the Lord with the Lord and she could only do that by faith. They trusted in God. What about the next generation? How did the next generation do? That's what we're about to look at this morning in today's text. We're going to get the first half of the story of the factual account of the historical record of Kane and April. This is praise we turn to God's Word. Father, we pray that you would bless and establish this Word in our hearts, that we would hear this Word, that we would know that it's true, that we would ascent to its truth and that we would trust in your saving message in even this text, that we would be assured and that we would be encouraged and emboldened to live for you until you call us home and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. You're now the Word of the Lord from Genesis chapter 4, beginning in verse 1. This is God's holy and infallible and inerent Word. Now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived in Lord Kane and said, I have acquired a man from the Lord. Then she bore again this time his brother, Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Kane was a tiller of the ground. And in the process of time it came to pass, that Kane brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat, and the Lord respected Abel and his offering, but he did not respect Kane and his offering. And Kane was very angry and his countenance fell. So the Lord said to Kane, why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. May the Lord establish this word in our hearts this morning. I love going through the Sunday school Bible stories, right? The stories that we learned as children in Sunday school, David and Goliath, Kane and Abel, Abraham, Lord willing, we'll get there in a few years. But Kane and Abel is a good story, we're only going to do the first half this morning. And I want to notice four really foundational things for life in this text. As even I said last time, we're all like Adam and Eve, living in a sinful world with sinful natures, but with God's promise to restore all things. We have so much more of that promise and so much more even of the restoration as we see things like the Church of Christ. We know that he's already come. He's already won the victory and all of that. But I think the same thing is true in the story, in the historical record. This is history we're reading of Kane and Abel. And so I want you to notice, first of all, this morning work, just one word. I want you to notice work. Kane and Abel are identified here by what they did, notice it in verse two. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep and Kane was a tiller of the ground. You know, that's biblical to be named for what you do. You know, we talk about someone and you meet someone and they may say, oh, hi, I'm Ray, I'm a carpenter, you know, or I'm a coder, I don't know what happened. A people do nowadays when it comes to computer jobs, but you know, I'm a teacher, right? We say that right away. It's one of the first things we say about ourselves. This is what we do. Why do we do that? Because it is fundamental to human nature to work. We are made to work. We are children. In our parents' house, we learn things. We learn how to talk and speak and so forth. But then at some point in puberty, we become adults. And at that point, we begin to be responsible, right, to live and to work and to earn our way. Young adults should all be given in their parents' home, certain tasks to do. You should do that young parents. As soon as your kids are old enough to be a little bit responsible, give them some tasks and maybe give them some, you know, allowance or something as they do their tasks. There's nothing wrong with that. That's showing them that as you work, you earn things. And that's the way God designed life. We're supposed to work. Work is not the curse, right? I think sometimes we think that, oh, Adam and Eve's sentence and all they have to work. No. They were created for work. Work is part of our glory. It's part of our delight even to this day. The fact that we work is so good for us, right, when you do things. And you see the fruit of your work. You know, I can still drive by the houses in Salzburg that I helped to build or put roofs on in the summer when I was working for a subcontractor. And it does my heart good to see, I did that, right? It's kind of harder to do that as like a minister or something like that where you're not actually building something that you can see, especially when I worked at Fox as a graphic artist. We would spend sometimes weeks putting together packages for some news story that was breaking or something or some big sports events. And then it would get on the screen for like 15 seconds. I know it was going. There was no trace of it. Sometimes the story would be canceled. I'd work all day for two days, three days, and then the producer in the program, you know, killed section six, and it's gone. Nobody even sees it. Nobody knows he did anything. I mean, he's still got paid, but there was this, am I doing anything in this digital world? But work, beloved. It is. It's a blast. It's really destructive to human beings to not work. It's really cruel in our society where we have systems that actually pay people not to work. It destroys their humanity. If you've ever worked with people in different situations, you know, and recovery homes and so forth, it's almost always the fact that it's because they're not working and they don't have to work, that they begin to destroy themselves and that they have all this depression and all this anxiety and all this fear and all this frustration and all this despair. Why? Because they're not doing anything and God made them to do something. And if they would be forced to do something, they would actually begin to feel better about themselves. It's just a fact. There are many places like the administration, like teen challenge, which take people who are strung out on drugs who are killing themselves and they get to this place and they have to work. You can't stay there if you don't work and it's better than prison so they work. They learn how to guard and they learn how to build cabinets and they're not allowed to have any drugs and they're there and they have normal lives. They begin to learn things and they have to go to the group meetings and they begin to function and they're there for about a year because they're being forced to work and too often it happens as soon as they are set free and they can do what they want to do, they destroy themselves again. And in two months they're homeless on the street strung out on drugs and they want to kill themselves again. And that's what we see in Cain and Abel, they're taught by their parents to work and they work. No doubt Adam was the first shepherd because God when he killed the animals to make the skins would have shown them that they need certain domesticated animals and I think it was a lamb. And so he would have been a keeper of sheep as Cain was, I'm sorry as Abel was and Adam often are also would have had to kill the ground. So he would have done both these things and now their first two sons no doubt. They begin to sort of specialize and Cain's going to take care of the ground and Adam's going to take care of the sheep. We see that and we see like we think biblical shepherd Jesus, David, right, the shepherd is the noble profession. That's actually not the way that you would read that. When Moses is writing these things down at the time of the Exodus, they're given all the cleanliness laws and uncleanness and and shepherds were often unclean because they had to deal with animal waste and animal, you know, liquids that came out of them that would make them unclean and death and blood and all that stuff with the animals. The shepherds were looked on it. If you were reading this text, you would see Cain as the more noble one, Cain is the killer of the ground. Oh, that's, that's what the Jews did when they went into the Promised Land, they had their own vineyards and they had their own crops. It worked. It's a curse. Everyone is called to work. That's how we're like God. It's part of our nature. If we're not working, we're corrupting our own humanity and no wonder we have bad effects from it. This is why Paul says in the New Testament, if a man will not work, let him not eat. It's not, I'm telling you guys, it is not mercy when you give money to those people on the street, more and more of them, though we see it pretty much every intersection and they have these signs and you know, you'll see people once and a while give them some money. They're not actually helping them, you're hurting them, if they were forced to work, they wouldn't be doing that. They wouldn't be destroying their lives. That's not a good thing, it's not a nice thing, it actually destroys them. Paul said again, if a man will not work, let him not eat, if you wouldn't really help them, don't give them anything and if everybody did that, they wouldn't be there anymore and then have to go out and do something and they would actually have a better life and they would actually feel better about themselves. Ah, beloved. We don't only see the work here of Abel and Kane. We see Eve again in her faith and I want to show this because Eve as far as we know is at work also as a full-time mom and wife and as she named Kane in faith and we saw the reason why Kane cannot to get to acquire, I have gotten a con from the Lord with the Lord as I think, but it's interesting that we're not told why she names Abel, Abel. It just says she bore again this time, his brother, Abel, now we know exactly what the word Abel means, Abel is a very common word in scripture and it's kind of striking that we're not told why she named him Abel. By the way, many of the commentators think they're twins because it says she conceived in bore Kane and it doesn't say she conceived again in bore Abel, it just says and then she bore Abel. In fact, many commentators believe that even the women of the first few generations would have probably more often had twins than not twins because of again the richness of the genetic pull and how healthy they were in all sorts of other ways, that's why they lived so long. Again, as we'll look at in the later text. The word Abel is found 86 times in the Old Testament, 38 times in the book of Ecclesiastes, the next closest is 10 times, both Jeremiah and Psalms, why do you think? What is Ecclesiastes? Can you think of the word that maybe Abel means, it's the word for vanity? The word Abel appears five times in Ecclesiastes 1 verse 2, vanity of vanity says the preacher, vanity of vanity is all is vanity, you can translate it, Abel of Abel says the preacher, Abel of Abel is all is abel, all is vapor, all is nothing, all is insubstantialness, all is that which doesn't matter, what is going on here is this a very bad example or a very powerful example of bad parenting, I'm going to name my child nothing, vapor vanity, is that what Eve is doing? Is that what people think that she's doing? Actually, there are some who think that she so believed that Cain was the promised seed that Abel's superfluous, I don't need him, I already have the seed, you know, Abel extra, not needed. The promise is in Cain, I don't think that's the case at all, I think that does great injustice to our first mother, I think she who was sinless understood God's commands a lot better and God had commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, that means more than one sign. In fact, I think by the time of our text, they would have had many other children but the text is just telling us about Adam or about Cain and Abel. Calvin says it's probable that Cain's already married by the time of our text. I think so. There are don't men now, which means a few dozen years have probably passed, they clearly would have had a lot more children but were only given the account of Cain and Abel. Why does Cain name him, vanity? John Calvin commenting on that opinion that she thought he was extra not needed. He says this quote, the opinion of some that he was so called by his mother out of contempt as if he would prove superfluous and almost useless is perfectly absurd. That's Calvin's comment on that and I agree with him, it's absolutely absurd. There's no way she would have done that. Again, she heard the Cain be fruitful, multiply, they're supposed to have lots of children. I think what we see in this text beloved is a profound example of a godly woman teaching not only them but all of us to this day, a crucial lesson that we all need to learn. Eve is again showing her faith in God's promise, her wisdom, her love, she's exhorting all of us to a virtue, to a gift that we all sorely need and that's humility. That we would all remember that we are but dust. We actually said that in our cold worship this morning. Do you see the cold worship? The last part of it, surely every man is a vapor. You know what that text says? Surely every man is Abel. Every man is Abel. Eve wasn't picking on this sign. She was just as she was trusting in God's promise and naming Cain. She's trusting in God's promise and reminding the whole human race that we are all Abel, all of us, we're Abel, we're vanity. You know, Pastor Appleton has a custom that many ministers do. After he reads scripture, he says, the grass, withers, and the flower fades. The word of our God scans forever. You know that that text is not talking about grass, right? It's not talking about flowers. It's not about the weeds. It's talking about us. There are three places where that text occurs. The fullest place where it's gone from the Moses from Isaiah chapter 40 where it says, the voice said, cry out and he said, what shall I cry? All flesh is grass and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass, withers, the flower fades because the breath of the Lord blows upon it. Surely the people are grass. We're the grass that withers. We're the flower that fades and then verse 8, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God stands forever. Beloved Eve, our mother, our teacher is teaching us. Remember you are by dust. We're all able. We need to remember that. In fact, Matthew Henry commenting on this verse, points out the very thing that we just read in our call to worship. He says this quote, the name given to this son is put upon the whole race in Psalm 39.5, which was our call to worship. Every man is in his best state, able. Matthew Henry says, every man in his best state is able. Let us labor to see both ourselves and others so. We need to labor to see ourselves as able because we don't think we are. We think we are very substantial and that we are anything that vanity. Now maybe the other people robbed us, but man, we have a lot to offer, right? At least on our good days. That's what we think. That's our natural disposition. Eve is wisely again doing the work of a godly mother and cheese. Her work is not, is still continuing. Just like we saw on the script read, their works continue. The work of the tiller in the garden is gone when he dies. And the work of the keeper of sheep is gone when he dies. But your works is Christians. When you do things out of faith in God, they continue. Eve continues to bless us to this day by naming her child able. John Calvin says this about it, quote, she celebrated the grace of God in the naming of King. Then he says this, she afterwards, in her other offspring, returned, listen to this, to the recollection of the miseries of the human race. Therefore, listen, in the name she gave her second son, John Calvin, in the name she gave her second son, she would hold up a mirror by which she would admonish her whole progeny of the vanity of man. Eve is declaring the book of Ecclesiastes to us before God inspired it the second time. She's saying that we're all vanity, just as Solomon would say, we are all vanity. This is work, beloved. May we work the works of God as we see in Eve. Notice secondly, worship. I want you to notice worship. Verse three says in the process of time and it came to pass that came brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. In the Hebrew text it says at the end of the days, at the end of days, the definite article is not there. At the end of days, as if there is a definite period of time and at the end of that period of time, because that's what that phrase means, you are supposed to worship. Adam and Eve clearly taught their sons to worship. And they taught them to worship by bringing an offering. The offering word here is minha, which is just the very general word for offering gift tribute that you can give to a person or that you give to God. But it's most often translated in Leviticus and Numbers as a grain offering. This is the word for grain offering in Leviticus and Numbers. In fact, it appears some 98 times in Leviticus and Numbers alone. Grain offering, grain offering, grain offering, every time. Minha, minha, just this grain offering from the ground. There's nothing wrong with bringing a grain offering from the ground. You're supposed to 98 times in Leviticus and Numbers. Let's just notice that for a minute. Cain is the first born. He brings an offering from what he has. He's been taught by his parents to approach God this way with an offering. Do not come to God empty handed. By the way, worship is always a response. We never initiate worship. That's why we always start our worship services with a call to worship from the scripture. Do you ever think of that? I mean, we didn't invent that. That goes way back into history of the church. But God calls us to worship. We read that and then we worship. Worship is our response to God. It can never be we go to God and then he has to respond to us. And so they come at the end of the day. Maybe this is many people think it's the end of the week. It's the Sabbath because God had shown them. He works six days and you rest one. Or maybe it's the new moon. Maybe it's the end of the month. Whatever it was, there was a definite period of time. They knew it was time to worship. They bring their offerings. Cain goes first. He's the oldest. He brings an offering of the fruit of the ground. Able follows his older brother. And he brings up the first born of his flock and of their fat. Now that explicitly says, able brought the best. The first born and the fat were the best. The fat was the prize part. We see the fat and we think, oh, that's the part you cut off and throw away. The fat was the most precious part. I mean, the fatty parts were the juiciest, the fatty, with the fat, they could make grease and oil and all sorts of other things. The fatty part was the most costly. It was the best. Adam, I'm sorry, able brought the best. That's explicitly stated. It is not stated whether or not Cain did. Now, it is a possible inference that Cain didn't because it doesn't say that he did. But that's an argument from science. You could say, well, why doesn't it say that he didn't or did when it says that about Cain? Well, we're told why Cain was named what he was named but we're not told about Able. I'm telling you what the word Able means and what I believe he was doing.
But the bottom line is we know God accepted Able in his offering. God did not accept Cain in his offering. By the way, how do you think that was made now? It says God had a regard to God looked upon some of the word. How did they know that? How did they know that Able in his offering was accepted in Cain and his warrant? Many scholars believe it was God answered by fire from heaven. Many times when worship is acceptable to God, fire supernatured from heaven at the tabernacle at the temple. David to stop the plague. Manoa, when the angel appears to him and his wife Gideon, when he offers the angel with the staff and fire comes out, over and over again, Elijah on Mount Carmel, who's the true God, fire from heaven, accepts the offering of Elijah, not the offering of Baal. So it may be fire from heaven came down and received Able and his Able's offering, not Able, obviously. But whatever the case may be, Able was accepted.
Now, one of the things that I want to point out here is that something that we do in the reformed faith as well, in addition to having called a worship, we believe in something called the regulative principle, which is how we do worship. The regulative principle means that we are only allowed to do in worship what is positively commanded, all right? Sometimes it's said this way, whatever is not commanded is forbidden, okay? Maybe you've gone to some churches where on a Sunday morning they'll say, you know, ordinarily we preach the sermon, but today we're going to have a play. We're going to have a skin. We're not going to have a sermon today. My mom's gone to some of those churches when she was alive. She would visit different evangelical churches. One Sunday she visited. It happened to be Valentine's Day. The pastor went up during the sermon time. He said, normally we do a sermon at this time, but it's Valentine's Day. So I'm going to take all the men and talk about being a good husband. And my wife's going to take all the women and talk about being good-wise. And you might say, well, you know, there's some good in that. Yeah, there is. I'm not going to deny that, but is that what we're supposed to do in worship? Is that what God wants us to do? Do you see how that not only imposes human thoughts on people, but think of the people that that leaves out? What about all the single people? What about all the widows and widowers who aren't interested in being a godly husband or wife anymore? Do you see that? What sounds like a good idea? Actually, doesn't help people. And it makes everybody else do something that you don't know if God wants you to do or not because he never says that he does. To say, well, we won't do what God forbids. Well, then, pretty much you can do anything. How big of a book would you need? You know, nowhere in the Bible does it say that we can't have a time of standing on your head and juggling velcro balls to the glory of God. So we're all going to start doing that now. It's anymore. You know, you could, it doesn't say you can't do that. I mean, if you have to say what you're not allowed to do, there would be a million things, but worship is about pleasing God. What is worship? Worship is ascribing God the glory, do His name as He has told us. If we humble ourselves and come into God's presence, we're not going to do whatever we want. We're only going to do what we know He wants, right? And isn't that how you honor people? I mean, if you buy someone a birthday present, do you buy them what you know they want? Or do you buy them what you think they should have? Which one are they going to like better? I remember when I think it was Taylor made was coming out with these new drivers. And they were $400 a piece. And this was like 15 years ago. And I knew for our anniversary that Robin couldn't afford to pass up a Taylor made driver if it came down to $120, which it did. That was something that our family couldn't afford not to buy. Now she didn't see it that way, but I was trying to save family money. I thought this was a nice anniversary present to us.
Didn't work out that way, unfortunately. But in a sense, when we go to God and we bring him what we want, what makes us feel good. I mean, think of the concept that came out, I know, 30 years ago, seeker sensitive worship. Why would we ever be interested in that? Why would we ever be interested in creating a worship service that people will be drawn to? Shouldn't we only do what God told us to do? If we want to draw people to God and not to whatever they want, shouldn't we only do what God says? That's why in this church you're always going to have a sermon. You're always going to have singing. I mean, even if the government would say we can't sing, we're still going to sing here. I'm still going to sing. I can tell you that. And we're still going to pray. And we're still going to re-scripture. But we're not going to do a skit or a play. We might do a skitter or play on a Saturday morning or for Sunday school, or maybe we'll have a special skitter play that the youth group puts on for us. Wonderful, great idea. Not as a substitute for worship. When we come into his presence and he's holy,
why was Abel accepted but not Cain? We don't have to try to figure it out. It may have something to do with what they actually brought. But let me tell you this. If Abel would have trusted in the fact that he brought the first born and the fat, he wouldn't have been accepted either. The New Testament makes it clear. Did you catch it from Pastor Appleson's reading? By faith, we understand the world's were framed by the word of God. By faith, second line, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. What is scripture say explicitly, not possibly, but definitely was the reason why Cain was not accepted and Abel was. By faith, Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain through which he obtained witness that he was righteous. It was because he believed. It was because he had faith and whatever else Cain did. Maybe Cain did bring the first fruits. Maybe he brought the best of his crops but he brought them without faith. That's the key here, beloved, because the New Testament says it was by faith that Abel's offering was more excellent. We never want to resort to externalism. Well, if we just do the outwardly right thing, God will be pleased with us. That was the whole downfall of Israel. They still did circumcision. They still did the feasts. They still brought the sacrifice. They still kept the ceremonial laws. They kept them to the letter. And God says they're a stench in my nostrils because they were trusting in them. They turned them into externalism. And they trusted in them rather than trusting in God. And so I want you to notice faith, thirdly faith. We looked at worship faith. What is faith? Faith is when we look away from ourselves to someone else by definition, right? When you have faith in someone or something, you're not trusting here. You've got it. It's other oriented by definition. Cain did not come to God by faith. We know this because Scripture said that's the very thing that made Abel's sacrifice excellent, more excellent, acceptable. So in faith, we looked away from ourselves to others. And the one promise they'd been given from God was the seed of the woman. Abel's confidence, therefore, when he offered the best was not in that he was offering the best. His hope, his confidence, his belief was that that seed of the woman would accomplish his salvation with God. And therefore I can bring this to God because that promise from God is true. Abel believed. He believed he had faith and faith necessarily takes a humble posture. I can only look to God for salvation and I only will look to God for salvation when I know that I am Abel, that I am dust, that I am vanity, that the best that I can do is insubstantial, is nothing, is worthless. I have to look to God because I'm Abel.
I'm vanity. And it's knowing that we're sinners that causes us to hope in Christ. That's why we preach against sin here. Not because we don't like people who want to make you feel bad because we want you to be saved. And you can't come to Jesus any other way. Then as a humble sinner looking for salvation, then as Abel trusting only in the promise of God, we know Cain didn't have faith. Even if the New Testament wouldn't tell us, we know. How do we know? We know it from the second half of verse 5. He did not respect Cain in his offering and Cain was very in his confidence now. Now if Cain knew that he was Abel and worthless, would he be angry? He would know that his offering isn't worth anything. God shouldn't accept that. It's not good enough. He wouldn't be angry at all. Cain thought he did something worthwhile. He planted those crops. He worked hard. He went out and picked them. He put them in his little wheelbarrow. He brought them over to the place of offering. He had to kindle the fire. I mean, God should pay him a little respect for this. He did something. It cost him some time and effort and sweat and labor. God needs to recognize that. Look at me. Look what I've done here. I took a lot of time and energy, God. He's very angry because he believes he deserved better from God, because he wasn't trusting in God. He was trusting in Cain. Cain was not Abel. Cain was Cain. And he deserved something. And when he didn't get it, he was very, very angry. Faith by definition will submit to God's will and believe its best of God doesn't accept me, while that's right. Faith would be like Job. Even if he slaves me, but just doesn't regard my offering, even if he slaves me, Job said, I'll still believe. Can you imagine Job being killed by God with his last breast still believing in God? That's what Job said he would do. If he kills me, I'll still believe. Yet will I trust him. Though he slain me, yet will I trust him. Job 13, 15. But you see, for Cain beloved, worship was not the end. It was not the goal. Worship was a means. Worship was a means for Cain to get the recognition that he deserved. To get recognized. Look what I'm doing. Look how I'm a good person. Worship was a means to an end and not the end when worship has to be the end. Worship is that we're here to worship. We're here to worship God, not to get something out of it. We know by the grace of God that as we worship and trust him, we will be blessed. But we don't do it for that. You've got to make that distinction in your head, and it may be that there are times where you don't get anything out of it, or at least you don't feel like you do. Right? But we still do it because it's right. And you still go to work even when you don't like it. You still exercise even when you don't want to, because you know it works. It's good for you, and it's good for us to worship God even when we don't feel like it. Even when we don't see the benefit of it. We are made to worship. And so Cain is one of those who uses God for profit. In fact, the New Testament speaks of Cain this way. In the book of Jude, verse 11, he's speaking of false teachers who have crept into the church and have turned the grace of God into ludeness. And then he says, this, verse 11, woe to them for they have gone in the way of Cain. All right? And they have run greedily in the air of veilum for profit, and they have perished in the rebellion of Cora. Cain, veilum and Cora, what did they all have in common? They were out for themselves. Veilum wanted to get money for what he did. Cora wanted to be just like Moses and be a leader because he has the spirit too. And Cain, he wanted to be recognized. They were all doing it for themselves. This is the error of Cain though, the way of Cain to do it, to worship God for yourself. Faith never looks to self face. Faith always looks to God because faith says, I'm not worthy. Faith begins with me saying I'm able. I'm vanity. In fact, I'm a sinner. And I'm not even just nothing. I ought to be cursed. That's the only way we can worship God, beloved. The only way to worship God is to come to him by able. We don't worship him to gain his acceptance, to gain his approval, to gain anything from him. We worship him. We believe in him because he's worthy. Because it's the greatest thing we can do to worship God. He's already accepted us and approved of us. That's why we worship him because we're trusting in his promise that we are saved because of the seed of the woman, not because we're giving something to God. And so I want you to notice, fourthly and lastly, repentance. I want you to notice, repentance. Cain offered worship to God based on his own worthiness. God should have received it in his mind. He deserved it. So he's really upset when God didn't. No, it's interesting that God doesn't kill Cain at that moment. Think of Nadab and Abihu. They offer strange fire to the Lord. It wasn't forbidden. He just didn't command it. And God kills them. Think of us when he reaches out to touch the ark because it's going to fall. He didn't have any bad intentions in that. He was a priest. He knew better. He touched what God said. Thou shalt not touch God struck him dead. God doesn't do that here. And in a sense Cain's transgression is worse. Why doesn't he? Cain. I think what we see in this text is God coming to Cain with the gospel. There's a sense in which God is the first preacher of the gospel to Cain. Why do I say that? Notice how God comes to Cain afterwards. Verse 6, So the Lord said to Cain. Cain's very angry. By the way, faith can never be angry with God. You can never be angry with God out of faith. You can't out of sin. And unbelief and Christians can commit that sin. I'm not saying you can. But if you trust in God who is perfect, who is holy, who is beautiful, who always and only does everything good, and you are the one who never does, how could you ever be angry with God? Cain's angry because God didn't accept him.
And so God comes to Cain with questions. The Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? Why yes? That's the way he came to Adam and Eve, isn't it? Questions. That's the gospel. He's giving Cain a chance to examine himself, to confess his sin, to trust in God. He's not coming to him as judge, which he does in other places. He's coming to Cain with grace, with the gospel. You know, we believe in the reformed church in the universal offer of the gospel. We believe in particular redemption. Don't get me wrong. We believe in limited atonement, particular redemption. Christ dies for the sheep from all eternity. He knows who they are. He knows who the reprobate are. God knows that Cain is reprobate. When he's talking to him, he still offers him some reason. He still offers him the gospel. The only reason anybody isn't saved beloved is because they will fully turn away from the grace of God. We believe that in the reformed church. God ordains, yes, both the wicked and the righteous, but the wicked only actually leave and say no to God and run into their sins because that's what they want. God doesn't make them want to. They choose that.
God comes to Cain. He's offering him. He's showing him. Why are you angry? Why are you counting us falling? In other words, in the end, it's as easy. I shouldn't be. I shouldn't immediately be embarrassed by that. Yeah, you're right. I shouldn't be. Right? And then what is he saying? If you do well, will you not be accepted? This is the tough verse here, right? If you do, is God saying to Cain, you know, if you do enough good works, I'll justify you by your works. I can't be saying that. They're outside the garden because they're fallen. They're dead in their trespasses and sins. In their works, he's not saying that. If you do well, well enough, you'll be accepted and you don't do well enough then, since I said, or you can rule over sin, you can do it. You can be sinless, Cain. So what God said. It's the context of worship. It's the context of someone coming to God with a sacrifice. Obviously, I am someone who does not deserve God. I'm offering something to him. I'm coming to him by way of offering, by way of sacrifice. That's the only way I can't come because I'm not good enough. And it's in that context that God says, if you do well, will you not be accepted? If you come to me like your brother did, why was Cable accepted because of faith? That's what doing well here means. If you do well, if you come to me the right way, if you come to me by faith, I've already given you the promise. If you would just believe and then worship me on that basis, you'll be accepted. I'm not playing favorites here. I'm not choosing your brother over you for some other reason. You're all sinners. You're all April. Trust in my promise. Come to me by way of repentance, by way of faith, and you'll be accepted, Gang.
Sin lies at the door, crouching for you. Wanting to have you. You know, I said earlier, this same phrase, you can see it right back in Genesis 3, 16, when God said to the woman, your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. This is how we know, by the way, that the double negative interpretation there is correct. Make it the double positive. Some of the older translations actually say that this is God assuring came that he's not going to lose his first born status. And so they make it after saying sin is crouching at the door, his able's desire is for you, but you should rule over able. You're still going to be the first born. And some of the reform commentators take that. I think the modern translations get it right. It's its desire, still talking about sin. Sin's desire is for you, and you shall rule over it. This way it has to be negative, both of them. Just as with the man and the woman, now that we're fallen, a woman's natural tendency is going to be to try to control her husband and use him. And a man's natural tendency is to try to tyrannize and oppress his wife and use her. She's going to use her skills, her strengths. To manipulate him, he's going to use his skill, his strength to intimidate her. That's our sinful tendency. That's what we do with sinners. That's in all relationships now. It's only in Christ that we can put to death our sinful nature and men can treat women with respect and love them and actually lay down their lives for them. And only with new natures, Christian natures can women actually willingly submit to men and honor them. But this is the sinful tendency. Your desire shall be for your husband, from now on, there's frustration and relationships. And he's going to try to crush you. That's exactly what God's saying to him. Think it, try to make it the other way around. Since desire is for you negative, but you should rule over it. You know, the way a man rules over his wife, you know, protect it and cherish it and provide for it. Obviously he's not saying that. You should rule over sin in this way. It has to be negative. It has to be even as Adam in his sinful nature is going to try to dominate his wife. You better try to dominate sin. You better try to crush sin. Master it, the ESV says. This isn't, you shall rule over it. You know, a man as the head of his wife and he's going to rule over her in this God, no, it's a negative thing. Crush sin, destroy sin. How can we do that? Only by taking it to the cross. Only by believing in God's promise. Only by believing that I'm a sinner and trusting in God's promise. Can I master sin? Can I actually have victory over sin? It doesn't mean I won't be sinless. It just means that I can continue to have victory over sin and sin won't make me its prisoner and I won't be enslaved by sin because I won't be in bondage if I'm trusting in the Savior. I'm free by faith. That's what God is saying to Abel. He's sorry to Cain. He's preaching him the gospel. He's saying yes, Cain. Sin wants to corrupt you. But you have to master it. You have to destroy it. And the only way to destroy it is to come to me in the acceptable way. The way your brother came. Knowing that you're able. Knowing that you're nothing. Knowing that you're vanity. And then you'll be able to resist and and you'll be able to worship me and you'll be able to live for me. This is the same thing God says to Israel over and over again, right? Over and over again as Israel becomes further and further from the Lord God cries out to them and Isaiah chapter 1. Come now, let us reason together. Though your sins are like scarlets, it's a desire to have you. They shall be white as snow. You shall master it. Why? But by becoming good enough. By trusting in the promised seed of Abraham, seed of David, our victory over sin beloved is in the promise that's first given here in the garden. And when we repent, we don't trust in ourselves. We trust in God. And by that, we can walk before him and be accepted. Let's pray. Father, we thank you. For your word, we thank you for the grace of the gospel. We thank you that the gospel is proclaimed to all flesh and that it's only our own hardness of heart that would only, that would, that would turn us away. It's only our own pride that would cause us to say, no, I don't need that. I'm good enough. I bring something to the table. Oh, Father, help each one of us to see that we truly are able. We truly are vain, apart from you. Our best works would be on the scales like dust. They wouldn't measure up. But in Christ, we are fully satisfying your righteousness, your holiness, and all of our sins are gone. Let us trust only in him. Let us be like able and come to you more and more every day by faith. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.