We're gonna be in Genesis chapter four tonight. If you remember for the last time that I was speaking, oh, so I'm gonna be in the New American Standard tonight, so it may be a little different than what yours reads, depending on what you have. You may have a New American Standard, it's gonna be fine. It'll be just like what I'm reading. Last week, the last time I was speaking, I talked about they didn't have a prayer. And it was about Adam and Eve just didn't pray. Their conversations were initiated by God, not by them. Now, they did answer him, but the answers were pretty short. They were not long answers. If you remember, Adam's conversation with God was, the woman thou gavest me. Eve's conversation with God was, the serpent which you made tempted me and I did eat. So their conversation was rather short. It didn't have much worship in it. It was a forced conversation, if you understand what I'm saying. It's answering what God was asking of you. Well, tonight I want to talk about like father, like son, and we're going to be in Genesis 4 looking at Cain's prayers. I don't always find him as a hero in any of our New Testament studies or any other Bible studies for that matter, but tonight I'd like to look at some things we know and some things we don't know about those two boys, Cain and Abel. We don't know how many other children Adam and Eve had, and I'm not exactly sure why these two were there, or if they were the only ones. I think there were other sons and daughters that were there. I think they're highlighted because of what they did. This was the first murder in the Bible. It's the first real, if I can say, the first real expression of the twist that's in all of us that we got from Adam. So if you've got your notes, my notes are a little fuller than yours. I gave you the basic outline there. And we're gonna try to fill that in tonight. Looking at Genesis 4, we read this. Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, I've gotten a man child with the help of the Lord. Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. Now I want you to notice, we assume this is the first time he had relations with his wife. It does not say that. It simply says that he knew his wife and she had a son. So it does not say that that was their first child. It just simply says that she had a son and then she had another son, Abel. Again, verse two, again, she gave birth to his brother Abel, and Abel was keeper of the flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering. But for Cain and for his offering, he had, oops, turned too many pages. He had no regard. So Cain became very angry, and his countenance fell. Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and it's desire is for you, but you must master it. Cain told Abel his brother, and it came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you. You'll be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth. Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is too great to bear. Behold, you have driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from your face I will be hidden, and I'll be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth. Whoever finds me will kill me. So the Lord said to him, therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain so that no one finding him would slay him. Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Let's look to the Lord in prayer. Father, I want to thank you for this account of what happened in the days before the flood. There's not much we know about those days, Father, but we want to thank you for the things that you were willing to share with us, the things that you did want us to know. We're going to give you praise for that. Now we ask that in the name of Jesus, you'll open our hearts to understand the things which have been freely given us by you. Thank you for the truth of the word of God, and thank you for what this shows us. We'll give you praise in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. All right, let's go back to verse one. Let's kind of pick up here, I tell you what let's do, let's go back to chapter 3. Let's pick up on verse 20. Now the man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now he might stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So he drove the man out, and at the east of the garden, At the east of the Garden of Eden, he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword, which turned every direction to guard the way to three of life. So that's how they're out in this wilderness right now. And they're having, this is, they're out now in the area that Adam was made in. You remember Adam was made in the wilderness, Eve was made in the garden. Now they're back out where Adam was made. And while they're out there, I want you to notice, here's some things that we can see from chapter three. God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and he clothed them. So God's clothed them with the skin of, we're assuming, some kind of animal. Then he goes on to say in verse 23, therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. What was Adam's job when he goes out of the garden? Cultivate the garden, right? Cultivate the ground, I should say. Cultivate the ground, so that's what he's supposed to do. So, let's pick up and see in verse two of chapter four. And again, she gave birth to his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of flocks. Where did he get that job? What had him with that job? Why did he choose that job? What was Adam's job when he left? Cultivate the ground. So how is it that this man is choosing to keep the flocks? He's probably gonna be the first, well, matter of fact, let's just go back to our notes and we'll bring it up. From the time Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden until the time at least two of their children were adults, no prayer from anyone is recorded. Now, this argument from silence does not prove that no prayer was done. It merely demonstrates that none was recorded. Now, I'm gonna think that perhaps no prayer was done, and here's why I'm doing that. Go with me to chapter four and verse 26. To Seth, to him also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. then men began to call upon the name of the Lord. Now, if I'm reading this correctly, that's after Seth is born. It's not until his son Enosh is born that men begin to call on the name of the Lord, which makes me think they weren't praying until the time Enosh was born. And let's see if we can figure out what that was. It's picked up here. Verse six of chapter five. It tells us that Seth lived 105 years and became the father of Enosh. So it's at least 105 years from the time they left the garden. Well, actually, it's a little bit before the time they left the garden. Then the days of Adam, after he became the father of Seth, were 800. Now see, oh, here we go. Verse three says, when Adam had lived 130 years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth. So Adam was 130 years. So if he's 130 years, that's 130 years from the time of creation. So I take 130, and then I add the 105, Isn't that right? Seth lived 105 years, so 130, 105, that's 35, 30, 235 years. So it's 235 years before anybody calls on the name of the Lord. Now, before I get too critical, let me ask, what do these guys know about prayer? Not a thing. We don't know they know anything about prayer at all. Prayer was supposed to be, when they were back in the garden, Initiated by God, God meets with them, and now they're going to pray. They're going to have a conversation with God. That's all prayer really is, is a conversation with God. You're getting what God says, and you're replying to what God says. Right now, we use the Word of God, the Bible, as how we do it. We interact with the Word of God, hearing from God, and then we talk back. But we're also free now to initiate prayer. We're not just waiting for God to come and speak with us. We can speak to him 24-7. At any given point in our life, we can speak with him, all right? Letter B in our outline, we're not told how these two boys, Cain and Abel, came to their occupations, but we are told that the younger Abel kept flocks, meaning he may be the first shepherd. This caring for flocks reflects the command, the command blessing given to his parents to have dominion over things over the earth. So he's not violating anything because God did tell him that they were to have dominion over the things that walked on the earth, over the birds of the air, over the things in the sea. They were supposed to take care of them. They were going to be, if I could say it, shepherds for all those things. So what do you call a, want to take care, a birdard? You got a shepherd that takes care of sheep. Is it someone who takes care of the birds, a birdard? And is someone who takes care of fish, a fishard? I don't know what they were, but they're supposed to take care of all of them, right? That's what they were supposed to be doing, all right? So, he was to care for them as God cares for them. Our leadership on this earth is to reflect God's providential care for all people. Now, kids, we need to get a hold of this concept. We have, because we have this sovereignty thing going for us, we have this God-like thing, I want to be like God, we have this desire to control and rule things rather than take care of them as God does. God gives you a lot of freedom in your life, does he not? I mean, there's a lot of choices that you're making all the time. Granted, they're within the framework he gave you, but he's given you lots of opportunity to make your own choices. You'll pay your own consequences, but you get your own choices. And when you pray, he often is meeting every one of those needs that you have. That's why we can pray for Carrie and Beth and assume there's gonna be an answer to it, because that is what he's like. We know we can pray. Well, that is that the very life of prayer is in the glory of God, because that is the way He takes care of things. Everybody see where we're coming from on this? Our leadership is supposed to be taking care of the things on this planet, not controlling and making things do what we want to do. We are not told why he chose, why Seth chose this line of work, but we can know it was not the primary assignment given to Adam when he was expelled from the garden. Adam was supposed to cultivate the ground. But that's not what this guy's doing. Adam was told to till the ground in Genesis 3.22 as he had been assigned that same duty first when he came into the garden, Genesis 2.15. That's what he was supposed to do when he came to the garden. So tilling the ground was supposed to be what's being done. The older son, Cain, was a tiller of the ground. His occupation was in line with what his father had been told to do. We do not know if this was the same type of work that we call farming today. I think you'll know just as, if you've looked at history at all, farming apparently was not something that was done early on. It looks like from what they can see from archeology, people didn't start farming until quite far along in history. Now, at what point it was in history, I think that's a very debatable thing. But apparently some people were practicing something that's akin to farming, that is, mostly gardening, taking care of the things that were in the garden, taking care of the things, the plants, to make sure that there's plenty for you, plenty for the animals that are around. So that was something they were all doing. All right. Now, We do not know if this was the same type of work that we call farming today. That seems to have been a much later development in the evolution of society. But we can say he was a gardener and probably a master gardener at that. We're also not told in the text how or why these two young men came to the idea of bringing an offering to the Lord. How did they get that knowledge? What made them want to bring an offering to the Lord? Was there some unrecorded instruction given to the families of the earth? Or was this a spontaneous action? Did both of them just kind of get a spontaneous sense to, let's go offer something to the Lord. Let's offer a gift to the Lord. I don't know. It does not tell us in the text. Did God speak with them personally to make those offerings? If so, it also went unrecorded. We are also not told in the text if any other human beings were making offerings of a similar type. We don't know. We don't know if Adam and Eve ever did or not. Now we can make the assumption that Adam and Eve must have done something and taught their boys to do it. But it does not say that in the text, okay? But going on further, it is not recorded that Adam and Eve ever made such an offering. Were these brothers the first to offer things to God? We cannot see from the text that it was or was not the customary practice of the original parents or their offspring. Once again, these are arguments from silence and are not to be used as proof of anything except God did not record it. Moses is writing this account to a people who are already familiar with making sacrificial offerings. Now, I'm going to stop just a minute. Let's talk about inspiration. We like to understand that Moses is the one that wrote this book. He wrote the first five books, the Pentateuch, the Torah. Torah is a word that means instruction. It can mean law, but most of the time it means instruction. So the first five books are the instruction of God as to what went on in the world. It tells us how the world began. It tells us how the nations began. It tells us how Israel began. It tells us the history of Israel. It gives us all that information. Moses is the one who recorded that for us. But Moses is writing about, what, 2,500 years after this account in Genesis. So let's move ourselves up. By the time I'm up here, back here, this is going to be Cain and Abel, all right? They are just fresh in the wilderness. They've never had instruction about prayer. They've never had instruction about offerings. As a matter of fact, they've been alienated from God. Mom and dad obviously didn't do a great job of getting along with God. They're out in the wilderness now, and they're having families out in the wilderness, and they don't know much about prayer. Matter of fact, nothing's ever recorded about them. But if I can, the development of prayer and offerings and sacrifices has all been going on, and we're up here now with Moses, who's writing this stuff. And Moses has been given understanding by God on how all the offerings to work. That's what the book of Leviticus is about. And he's telling you what you gotta cut here, what parts you can offer, how you burn it, where you take the hide, all those kind of things are being done, and it's very elaborate. He's going into it, telling very great details about what's supposed to be done up here. He is going to be writing what these guys did back here. And there's a whole lot of assumption going on because the people who are reading this are contemporary with Moses. They already have lots of instruction about offerings and that sort of thing. They're going to be looking back here, and I don't know how many assumptions they're making about what they think Cain and Abel knew. They just know this, some offerings are being made. Now, let me describe this a little bit more. Moses is writing this account to a people who are already familiar with making sacrificial offerings. It may have been so common and so understood that no explanation for their act was needed. We are not so informed as they were. So here, let's say this is about 2500 BC. Moses is now doing all these things here. You and I are at the other end of the pew. We're 4,000 years removed from them. And how long has it been since we've been offering sacrifices? I don't know about you, but I never offered one. My family never offered one. Matter of fact, I didn't even know any families that ever offered one. And I can know this, that in the history of what most of us sitting in here were a part of, offerings have not been made since 2000, or for 2000 years. Are you following where I'm coming from? Because Jesus, I don't know if Jesus ever made offerings or not, but with the sacrifice of Jesus, the offerings ended. So I wouldn't have any knowledge of it. So here I am, about 4,000 years removed, well, more than that, 5,000, almost 6,000 years removed from these guys here trying to understand what it was they did. And I don't have a good understanding of it, and I'll tell you why. Because most of what I know about offerings is what I've read here in Leviticus. a long way removed. Is any of that making sense to you? Do you follow where I'm coming from? I'm just trying to understand how the Bible works, because I know this book was written to the people who are contemporary with Moses. I am benefiting from it 4,000 years that way. I'm understanding what they had to say, but I'm not grasping what they had to say because I'm not familiar with what they were doing. I know it wasn't for food. That one I can know because they were all still vegetarians. Matter of fact, they're not going to eat those guys until after the flood. Yeah. So does that mean that they were now wise enough that they understood how to shear sheep? and make clothing from that, because there's a complicated procedure that goes on here. You've got to know how to cut that all off, and then turn that into thread, and then somehow make a loom, or weave it, or do something to make that work. So if that's what they were keeping them for, wow, these people were sharper than we give them credit for. This is not Stone Age folk. This is something elaborate that's going on here. No, we're not. It was a flock. As a matter of fact, the word that's used here, herdings. So you had the herdings recounted the cattle, the ox, the sheep, the goats, any group of animals that herded together. So we don't even know that they were sheep. I don't know if perhaps this was, they're going to kill them for their hides. Maybe that's where clothing is coming from. Because I don't know how everybody's being clothed. I know that God made some clothing for them that was leather. But I don't know. Yeah. But in fairness, I'm gonna go back and look at this. I know that the animals were not afraid of people. So they must have been relatively domesticated. Because it's not until the flood that the fear of people starts coming on the animals. I think that's one of the things that helped Noah do such a good job with the animals. They weren't afraid of him. But once you get off the ark, they're going to be afraid of animals, or animals are going to be afraid of humans from that point on, okay? Those are, these are great questions. I think this is exciting to go back and look at this and try to figure out what's going on here. What do I know, what do I not know? So, thanks for asking those questions. The usual explanation for their action is from the example of God taking the skin of an animal to cover Adam and Eve after they had sinned against God. Now, what do I mean by that? When people are trying to figure out why, were Cain and Abel making offering at all, the usual explanation is to say, well, let's go back to the garden again, because in the garden, that's where God killed an animal. Notice, it doesn't say that God killed an animal, it says that God made clothing for them from skins. Now, we can make an assumption that it must have been an animal, but it doesn't say he killed the animal. But what they're doing is they're saying that they knew to make this offering because God had killed an animal to clothe their parents. And maybe that was the practice all of them were doing from there on. I don't know. The text does not tell us. Since most animals do not give up their skins willingly, it is assumed that God killed some beast or beasts of adequate skin size to cover them. It is also assumed that the animals were clean. You know, they were the clean type animals, because that's all you could offer. When Moses is telling us up here that they're offering some animal, Moses has already described that the animals had to be clean. So the assumption is those were clean animals also. He's not killing catfish. He's not killing any of the unclean animals. And that this sacrificial death is a sin offering. Though we should see from the text, it is not said to be a sin offering. The text does not tell us that these boys are offering a sin offering. It doesn't tell us even about their awareness of sin. Romans tells us this in Romans chapter five, that where there is no law, there is no knowledge of sin. So this is years before the law is given, do they even know they're sinning? One of them's about to. One of them is going to do something that's really wrong. He is going to kill his brother. But were they aware of sin? And so what sin are they aware of? What are you going to know is wrong? Right. It was because it was direct disobedience. But they're out of the garden now. So Cain and Abel can't choose to pick on the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. They can't pick that one because it's not available to them anymore. So what sin are they doing? There's no law there. So I don't know that they even knew what a sin was. Consequently, I don't know that they were making a sin offering. Does that make sense? Because it doesn't tell us. Matter of fact, it doesn't even say that God made coverings for Adam and Eve to pay for their sin, or to cover their sin. He covered their nakedness, but it doesn't say He covered their sin. Everybody follow where I'm at? So it's not that He's making a sin offering for them, or at least the text doesn't say He's making a sin offering for them. Yeah. Exactly. We don't know what it was. It doesn't tell us what it is. But we can know that one was accepted, the other wasn't. Let's go on and look a little further and see if we can find. These are great discussion points. I'm glad we're having these discussions. We are not told in the text how often such offerings were to be made or how they are made. Jerry, as you pointed out, he said, over the course of time. So was this the first offering? Had they been making them before? It kind of looks like this is the first offering. It doesn't really look like anybody had done that before. But anyway, altars are not mentioned. So let me ask the question, how were they making this offering to the Lord? It doesn't mention anything about altars. So did Cain just cut down a bunch of vegetation and lay it in a pile? Or did he put it on an altar and burn it? Notice no fire is mentioned any place. So I don't know how they were doing it. Whatever they were doing, God's gonna accept one. Verse four, if an animal sacrifice is the expected offering to be given to God, now by that I mean if indeed the offering that was made by God to cover Adam and Eve's sin was what's expected, then Cain knew he was not making an acceptable offering. See that? He already knew what's supposed to be offered if that's the example. But if this is the first offering that's being made, it's a long time after that fall. And we don't know anything about what they were doing this offering for. So Cain had to know that the offering he was making was already unacceptable to God. Later, if it's about the content, if it's about what the offering material is, then he would already know this isn't the right stuff. I don't think it's about the material at all. Let me see if I can share with you why. Later, the same author of this book, Moses, is going to record that some parts of the plant could be offered in some types of offering, but the offerings mentioned with their use are not sin offerings. Sin offerings always required a blood offering through the substitutionary death of an innocent animal. There were parts of a plant that you could offer as part of your sacrifice. There was a grain offering that you could offer. You could grind a grain with incense, with wine, and that could be offered. You could burn that up, and that could be offered. But it's not a sin offering, it's a Thanksgiving offering. It's a praise offering. It's just to say, I want to acknowledge this is firstfruits. You've done great by me, and this is a wonderful thing that you've given. You could offer those there, but they're not in any way going to cover any of your sin if that's what this offering is for. But once again, I don't know that this is a sin offering because I don't know they knew that they'd sinned. They're not making any confession of doing wrong. They're living out in the wilderness, all right? Number five. In our text, it is Cain who makes the offering first, and he's choosing to use the vegetation God had given to all the earth creatures to eat. He was offering his food to God. Now, does that mean that he was offering God a meal? Because this is his food. It doesn't say God eats this stuff, but this is his food. And that's what he's offering. I don't know whether he cut down some vegetation and brought it and put it someplace. I don't know if he burned it. I don't know if he cooked it. I don't know what he did with it, okay? It just says that he's offering. The text does not tell us that his offering was of the first fruits of the vegetation. Let's go to verse four again, and let's see what it says about him. In the course of time, the boys make an offering, it says in verse three, and it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. What does it say about that? Just simply that it was the fruit of the ground, right? It doesn't say it was first fruits. It doesn't say it was the first that came up of anything. Matter of fact, I don't even know that it, well, it doesn't say there what it was. The text does not tell us that his offering was in the first fruits of the vegetation But this is the beginnings of understanding offerings. So they're they're just understanding offerings. There's been no to our knowledge Nothing you find the text tells what kind of offerings you give again the book of Leviticus Leviticus tells us the exact mixture you have to have it's a what a I'll say a minor of flour and a cruise of oil and a couple other things that you have to mix to it. That's pretty technical. It's telling you what you got to have. There is nothing like that back here for the boys. They don't have any knowledge of what to offer up here. So is this where we're starting offerings? Is this how we're going to begin doing offerings? Are we learning how to do offerings at this point? Do we know anything about prayer at this point? These guys are going to grow, and they're learning from what they're doing now, all right? By the time of Moses, the author of this text, a rather elaborate system of required offerings had been outlined by God in the covenant He was making with the children of Israel many hundreds of years later. We should not read back into the text of the early years of societal life and relationships with God after the fall the details created over a couple of thousand years later. We have no reason to believe the antediluvian people had a complicated scheme of offerings since it is not recorded for us. So everything from Genesis 1 to 11, We have no prescription given of what kind of offerings to give. We have no prescription given of what mixture it has to be. We don't have any prescription about altars that's going to be used, whether fire is supposed to be used. We don't have any of that. So we don't know how these Boids are making this offering. All right. Yes, it is going to be about murder. It's also going to be about, as we'll come to Genesis, or I'm sorry, Hebrews 11, it's about the faith that was involved with it. One of the boys offered something by faith. The other one did not. And that's really where the emphasis is going to be. This is really to let us know about the first murder. This is to let us know what's going to happen and decline after all of that. So it's not so much about the offerings, but where I want to focus is on the prayers. Number six in your outline Abel is said to also make an offering whether it was at the same time as Cain or in the same vicinity as Cain. We're not told in the text. Were they side by side? You know what what was going on there? I'm going to assume they weren't side by side because Cain is going to go back and tell Abel what God said to him. So I'm going to assume that they were not in the same place to hear the same thing. But I am looking at this. Cain is an awful lot like his father. Let's go a little further. We're going to assume that Abel killed the animal since he's not only offering the animal, but also the animal's fat. Now, you can't get to the animal's fat without cutting him open. And that's where you find the prosperity of the animal is in his fat. Has he had a good year? If he's had a good year, then there's a lot of storage going on there, and he's got stored fat. The only way he could offer that fat is if he killed the animal, opened it up, cut the fat out. So we're going to assume that he killed him. Now, the fat could be encased in the body of a living animal, but Abel is not as likely to know how to distinguish the fat from the rest of the living animal if he's not killed and removed the fat from him. Okay, so Abel could have been just bringing his flock in and creating a corral and saying, God, I'm going to leave these guys right here with you. These are going to be your sheep, your cattle, your ostriches, whatever they were. he's gonna leave them there and then he's gonna walk away or something. We don't know what he's doing. That could have been what he did, but we're thinking he must have killed the animals. But we're not sure whether he burned the animals, burned the fat, or at least just offered the fat. I don't know how he was doing it. And I'm not sure that that's critical at this point, because once again, what's the prescription down here for offerings? Zero, nada, we don't have any prescription down here. We're not gonna get that for another 2,000 years. So, all right. We are not told why he distinguished the fat from the rest of the critter or how he came to the conclusion that the fat was some sort of special offering with which God would be pleased. Why did he choose the fat? I mean, there's nothing in the text that tells us why he chose the fat. But something he thought was so important about that fat that he wanted to show that to God. Now, let me go back a little further. I don't want to make a whole lot of assumptions about the boy either. How does he know about fat? I know how I know about fat. I've got about 4,000 years of history here to go on. What do these guys have? What was it they were doing that he recognized fat has some special meaning? I don't know. We're not told, all right? We're not told why he distinguished the fat from the rest of the critter, or how he came to the conclusion the fat was some sort of special offering of which God would be pleased. We can speculate much, but it is only speculation. It is not to be taken as biblical truth. So I don't know what it was in making speculations fun, but it's not the equivalent of truth. Letter D, we are not told how the boys came to know that God had accepted one offering and not the other. What was it that God did that helped them know? It says here in chapter four, verse six, is it? No, no, no, no. It's verse five, or four and five. Abel on his part also brought the firstlings of his flock. Notice, what does he bring? The firstlings. He's bringing the good ones. These are the first things that had come for him. And of their fat portions, the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering. Now notice, it's not just the offering. That's why I'm saying it's more than the content of the offering. He's not just happy with Abel's content. It's not just the offering he likes. He's regarding Abel for doing it. Are you with me? That's what he's regarding here. And then it goes on to say, but for Cain and for his offering, he had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Now, we're not told how he knew that. How did the boys know that God really liked Abel's offering and really didn't like Cain's offering? Did he say so? The text doesn't say that. Did he consume one with fire and let the other one alone? What was the signal that would let them know God liked one and didn't like the other? I don't have that. And I know we can speculate again, but I don't have that. And I'm not sure that that's really what is special to God. Somehow the boys knew that. And that's what's important. The boys knew that. But somehow they knew that God had chosen one over the other. Cain is very upset when God has made it clear that his offering was not acceptable. He became very angry. This could have been a good occasion for prayer. You follow that? Here's where I want to get to the point. What a great occasion for prayer. You just, you put out an offering there that you assumed God's gonna like. I mean, what offering has been made before? I don't know. I just don't know they've ever, this may have been the first offering that was ever made at all. And it's a free will offering. It doesn't look like God told him to do something. So here they're making this free will offering and God's not liking it. How would you feel about that? If you can understand where Cain's coming from, that didn't please him very much. He'd done something nobody else had done. Did any of his brothers and sisters make offerings? Did his mom and dad make offerings? Not that we know of. It's not recorded if it was. So he's making his first time offering. Matter of fact, from the chronology, it looks like he offered first and then Abel offered. They might've been doing it at the same time. Again, the text does not tell us that, okay? This could have been a good occasion for prayer. He had no written text to go to for instruction as far as we know. He could have turned to God and simply said, whoa, so what'd I do wrong? What was it I did? Can I approach you just a moment and ask you, what should I do next time? Because obviously you didn't like what I had. What should I do next time? But for whatever purpose or whatever reason, These boys back here don't know about prayer. Why? Adam and Eve didn't know about prayer. For Adam and Eve, prayer was an initiated thing by God, not their initiation. So they must not have known about prayer either. And the boys are not reflecting that. But here would be an occasion to just stop and say, can you tell me what I did wrong? I don't want to make that mistake again. I know you like my brother's offering pretty good. Is it always animal? Is that what it is? Is it an animal that has to be offered? Or was there a different food? Is there a vegetation you like better than other vegetation? That could have been an occasion for prayer. All right. So he could not go back and re-read the directions, he didn't have one. But he could have approached God and asked him what he had done wrong. Or did he already know and felt that God had been unfair to him? Did you recognize that the offering he was making wasn't the right kind of offering? An offering is an offering, right? Why should God be so picky? How did his brother know to do this thing so that God would choose his offering? Abel's not better than Cain, right? God was showing favoritism. Everyone should be treated equally. Can you hear the arguments going through Cain's mind? Since they're both offering voluntary offerings, there's not a prescription for what it takes to be an offering. Is Abel better than me? I don't think so. I'm his older brother. I made the offering first. What is the matter here? What's going on? And it seems that it comes from the fact that Cain did not do this with faith. We'll show you that back in Hebrews in just a minute. Matter of fact, let's go there right now. Let's go to Hebrews chapter 11, just a moment. Hebrews chapter 11. Verse four, by faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain. Notice, Cain's not mentioned of having any faith. It's Abel that offers by faith, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous. How is he righteous? Is it because he offered animals, that's what made him righteous? No, think with me. What makes a person righteous? Faith, right? It's faith that makes a person righteous. A person has faith, God counts it to them for righteousness. So Abel is testifying that he's righteous, not because he made the better offering, but because he believed God, because he trusted God. It goes on, God testifying about his gifts and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. So we're reading about this tonight, and Abel is still speaking to us about how to make a good offering. It's not the content as much as it is the faith through which you're offering that gift. There's a lady named Mary that's gonna do that same thing one day. She's going to take a very costly bottle of perfume and ointment, and she's going to cover the Lord Jesus Christ with that. And Jesus is going to count that as righteousness for her because she's doing it by faith. She's demonstrating her trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that's what Abel seems to be doing. He's demonstrating his trust also. Okay, let's go. Like his father before him, Cain waits for God to come to him. Cain simply pouts over his disappointment with God. He is mad at God because things did not work out the way he had planned them. Aren't you glad that that only happens there? It doesn't happen with any of us today, okay? Because we're past all that. That's the immature Cain, and we're past all that. He was being good by offering God some of his food. That's the way Cain's looking at this thing. He was giving God what he thought God should have. God should just accept our sincerity, our generosity, no matter what we give. Why is the gift so important? He can come up with all kinds of reasons why his offering was just as good as Abel's. So he's got lots of things he can reason out that God is at fault in this thing, because God went around and made a clear favoritism decision to like Abel's offering. Letter B, like his dad, he did not go to God in what should have been a natural, rather natural conversation of letting God know he had blown it. Now, Adam, as soon as Adam and Eve had sinned, it was an occasion for prayer. That was an opportunity for them to run to God and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, we got tricked. Something really went wrong here. We listened to this guy here and this is what went wrong. But instead, they wait for God to come look for them. They cover up, they hide themselves, they go away, they blame somebody else. And that's the same thing that Cain is doing here. He did not go to God in what should have been a rather natural conversation of letting God know he had blown it. He could have been humble and sought God's presence and mercy. Instead, like his father Adam, God has to come looking for him. Number one, when God comes to him, he does not explain why one offering is better than another. He doesn't come to him saying that. Matter of fact, let's take a look. Let's go back to Genesis four again. And in verse six. Then the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it. Now, let's start with that one. God doesn't explain why one offering is better than the other. Cain doesn't ask. He just simply says, what are you upset about? You've seen what I like. Can't you do that? Rather than be upset, can't you just go back and say, hey Cain, can I buy some of your animals from you? Or Abel, can I buy some of your animals from you? Can I get something from you there? Or how did you do the animal thing? How did you know this is what to do? How'd you know God would like the fat? Can you show me what your offering is? But he was proud. He would not go to his brother. He would not ask those kind of questions. God should have accepted his offering. He was sincere in making that offering and God should have accepted it. Yes. Yeah. He's saying there's no reason for you to be angry. Just go get a different offering and make a different offering. This is not a real brainy type thought. You don't have to be a rocket scientist here, Cain. You saw what I like. Go get what I like. Bring it in faith. But that's not what he wants to do. His pride is too strong for him. Instead he appeals to the inner motivations of Cain Look at him. You see if you do well, will you not you go go inside son? Look at look yourself over do well now While I'm right here at this verse Let me pick up with here if you do not do well sin is crouching at the door see that statement So I want you get the picture here. He is standing in the front door and And there's a nice step right there. And off to the side of that step, you can see sin crouching, waiting for him. Just step a little further. Step a little more out that door. I gotcha. The phrase that's used here is the same phrase that's used in Genesis 3. Yeah, let's take a look at that one. See where it says here that sin is, its desire is for you, but you must master it? Now, go back to Genesis 3 with me just for a moment. In verse 16, to the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children, yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." Same phrase. And there the woman is pictured in the same crouching position as Sin was for Cain at his door. Everybody see where we're coming from? exactly the same position, where sin was crouching and waiting to get Cain as soon as he stepped out the door. Now it's the woman who's crouching and waiting for her husband to step out the door. There's gonna be a conflict between the husband and the wife. It's gonna say, he has to rule over you, just like he said to Cain, you're gonna have to get in charge of that sin, man. You're going to have to put that where it is. Don't let that happen to you. Everybody see where I'm at? Yeah. Cain's anger and pride is keeping him from looking at the thing the way it really is. What did he have to do? Just go get a different offering. That's all he had to do. Yeah? But he's not going to do that. And instead, sin is going to nab him. And he's not going to rule over it. And since sin grabs him, what's the wages of sin? Something's got to die. Matter of fact, two boys are going to die that day. Okay? Let's take a look at it. His word is like a searchlight looking for the source of Cain's anger. God lets him know that he did know what was right, but he had not done it. He still had time to make it right, but if he chose to keep his moral compass set on his own sovereignty, sin was crouching at the door ready to take him captive. Can you see here is Cain holding on to his own integrity. I wasn't wrong. I was right and God should have accepted what I did. I did that sincerely. God should have accepted it. There's nothing any better about Abel's offering than my offering. God should have accepted. So he's willing to stick with his own integrity, his own sovereignty, his own rulership that he knows just as much as God does. Okay. But if he chose to keep his moral compass set on his own sovereignty, sin was crouching at the door ready to take him captive. Death had to follow, for the wages of sin is death. He could win this huge battle with humility and confession of sin. That's prayer. If he just came in prayer and said, boy, you're right, I see what's going on. Inside of my heart, there's a raging inferno that wants to kill my brother. I like what he did. He could have won that one. Let us note that Cain says absolutely nothing according to the text. He doesn't answer God at all. He doesn't say anything back to God. No repentance, no humility, no confession, just the inward boiling of bitterness that is eating his soul. Nothing God could say to him now matters at all. Like his father, he walks away having heard from God, but being left unchanged to accept his life as it is. Number two. The stewing older brother chooses to talk to his brother rather than talk to God. So look with me again at Genesis four, let's look at verse seven, or verse eight. Cain told Abel his brother, or went to talk to Abel his brother. Of all the things, why not talk to God? What's Abel gonna do for him? He's telling Abel now, this is what God said to me. So they're going to have some kind of discussion. It came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. So let's talk through that. Instead of prayer, he's letting his anger concoct from him a murderous plan. He cannot kill God, but he can kill the image of God in his brother. We know from Scripture that this plan is coming from the wicked one. How do I know that? Turn with me to 1 John chapter 3 just for a moment. 1 John chapter 3. And let's pick up at verse eight. The one who practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil. No one who is born of God practices sin because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin because he's born of God. I'll explain that one another time. That's a great verse. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain, watch this, who was of the evil one and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous. So I can know this, Cain is of the devil. And by letting this seething anger, this seething bitterness go on in him, he has opened a door. And I've tried to, I think maybe I've shared with you before, that your spirit is like a temple with 12 gates. It's like a picture of Jerusalem. You've got 12 gates in your life. They're the gates of humility. They're the gates of love of God. They're all these gates. And any time you are operating just as a good believer in Christ, those gates are opening and closing to the things they ought to let in. You're taking in the thoughts of God. You're breathing out the prayers back to God. You're taking in a love for your brethren, love from God, and you're breathing out love for your brethren and love for God back. So your body is taken in all the time. Your temple is the, your spirit is the temple of the Holy Spirit. But anytime that you leave one of those gates unguarded, let's say you're going to choose bitterness. When you leave that gate unguarded, it's wide open and it doesn't close back because you're not letting it close back. And that's when the adversary takes full advantage of you. He comes charging through that opening right there and he builds a fortress in your life. And that fortress in your life, he fires on the rest of you all the rest of the days of your life. It says he possess you? No. Can the devil possess a believer's life? No. The Holy Spirit does, but he's here to influence your thinking from now on. And as long as you're gonna let bitterness be what guides you, as long as you're gonna let lust be what guides you, as long as you're gonna let coveting be what guides you, as long as you're gonna let false values be what drives you, you have opened that gate and you can't close it. And he charges right through there, builds up all kinds of fortresses in your life. That's what's going on here. Because he left that bitterness gate wide open, the adversary chose an opportunity to build a fortress in his head. You can hear him saying, kill him. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him. He's wrong. You were right. You were just as good as he is. Kill him. Instead of prayer, he's letting his anger concoct for him a murderous plan. He cannot kill God, but he can kill the image of God in his brother. We know from scripture that this plan is coming from the wicked one. By letting this bitterness see this inner man, he opened a huge door for the adversary to set up camp, build a fortress of wicked thought, and create a deadly plan. Cain kills his brother. Again, like his father before him, rather than run to God anywhere along this process and gain the help from God, he chose to stay within his own self-pleasing integrity. He would just steer clear of God. He would openly hide from God. Just keep busy in the field and go on with life. Ignore God and perhaps he'll ignore you. As he had done with his father before him, God seeks out Cain. As he had done with his father, he holds him accountable for his actions. But with even more pride than his father, he answers with impudence that he is not responsible for anyone else. This non-answer is met with the curse of God. God gave him a chance to confess and perhaps find the mercy of God. God demonstrates that he already knows what Cain has done to his brother. Now Cain is cursed. Instead of humility, this proud seed of the devil decries God's unfairness. Rather than repent and plead with God, he accepts separation from God and the life of a fugitive as acceptable. He cannot accept that all men will see him as a target for revenge, though. He's willing to walk away from the Lord. He does not desire a relationship with him. In God's mercy, he gives Cain a mark that will cause all men to avoid him and take no vengeance on him for killing his brother. Cain goes out from the presence of God to live and die a vagabond. all for the lack of humble prayer. Now, let's see if I can show you where that happens. Verse 9, Then the Lord said to Cain, Where's Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? He said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. Now you're a curse from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you. You will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth. Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is too great to bear." Where is the humility? This is a prayer that's pride. You follow where we're coming from? This is a prayer that is burning from anger, from bitterness, from pride, from murder. Behold, you have driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from your face I will be hidden, and I'll be a vagrant wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. So the Lord said to him, therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. The Lord appointed a sign for him so that no one finding him would slay him. Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and I could say, never to return, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Boy, I wish I knew. We're not told what it was. I wish I knew what that sign is. There's lots of novels have been written about the sign of Cain and the mark of Cain and that sort of thing, but we're not told. People had to know what it meant. Yes. Yeah. Now, isn't it funny how God marks things throughout? He marks people with his mark, the people that are his. When the Antichrist comes, there's the mark of the Antichrist is there. I don't know what his mark was. I mean, it doesn't say anything here. You know, I've wondered at times, did any of the kids go by where the garden had been, not knowing that's what the garden was, and see all of the caribbean? You know, caribbean are fire things. They're shiny things. So you had to find some mountain range or something that was the Garden of Eden, because most believe the Garden of Eden was on a a large mountain. So there would have been all these flaming cherubim all around it to make sure nobody got up that mountain again. Sort of like you would see with the presence of the Lord Shekinah. So you just wonder at times, did any of them ever go by and say, what's making that mountain do that? Hey mom, dad, what's on that mountain? Because that looks like real beings there. Yeah. That's where the garden was. What garden? That's where we used to live. We don't live there anymore. You just gotta wonder, did anybody ask? And did they go ahead and tell the story? Or was that story not told Did they create a legend about that instead of a truth about it? Did they create a mythology about it instead of the truth about it? Here's something I know is going to come up. By the time you get to Genesis 6, you are now going to have angels breeding with people, and that's going to be creation of mythologies and legends. Now truth is going to be lost all over the place. That's one of the reasons why you're going to have to have Moses write the Torah. Because what he's got to do is now correct all the mythologies that the Babylonians told, the Hittites told, the Akkadians told. All those different people had different mythologies about how creation came about. That's how you get all the stories of the wars and the battles and all the things that went on. And you get myths and you get legends to come out of it. Somebody's got to correct that and that's why Torah was written. This is what really happened. And God's only telling us the big things in it. Yep. I think this is going to be one of those situations where while he was on the mountain, and that's where it says that oftentimes when he was writing, he was in his tent where God was meeting with him, or he was on the mountain where God was meeting with him. So I'm thinking that part of what's going on here is that God is retelling the story. Now, I think with their family, they're going to know what Abraham was about. That's part of their family heritage. You're going to know what Isaac was about, what Jacob was about. They're going to have some of those stories that are already part of it, but you're going to have some corrections being made by God. Maybe you mistold a story about Jacob. Maybe the oral story wasn't quite the same one that God is correcting. So he's going to do some correcting along the way. That's a great question. When you're thinking about inspiration, I think these are great things to get to look at. How is God guiding? Is it dictation? I don't think it's dictation. Well, as we saw earlier, we know it's 235 years before anybody calls on the Lord. So that's 235 years of zero, nothing going on. The only ones that we have any record of doing anything are Cain and Abel, and they're not gonna repeat it again, because Cain realizes he doesn't have anything to offer, and his brother's not gonna do it again, he's dead. So you don't have anybody else doing anything until... Yeah. Yep. Right. And there really wasn't a relationship with God to build a conversation on. Because like I said, 235 years before anybody thinks about calling on the name of the Lord, nobody's thinking about a personal relationship. That had been severed at the garden. There's only two people that were involved in that, and that relationship had been severed at the garden. No one in the wilderness outside that garden knew anything about a personal relationship with God. Uh-huh? Yep. Oh yeah. Here's a question you're going to ask yourself. Did Adam and Eve pass on adequate information that they knew they had been made by God? If Adam and Eve, who are the only two who knew, if Adam and Eve are not retelling the story, if their shame is what they did, and they're not retelling the story at all, You're not going to go look it up in a book. It's not there. So what have you got? Each other and whatever angels are walking around, are talking around, are they telling the truth? Where's truth? These people are, they're on their own. They really are experiencing the divorce of God. And they're separated fully. That's death. Yeah, I don't know how I could say that. There's nothing that tells me they ever repeated anything. Nothing tells me they told the story. There's nothing I have to go on. If you say so, that's good for me, but if somebody says they didn't, they didn't. Thoughts or questions, anything else? Sure a lot of ignorance going on. Yep. It could be. We just don't see any place in the text that tells us how they told the story or if they told the story. Yes. Yeah, you do. And here's what you can know. When you look at the names, and that's a fun study. These are all Hebrew names that are listed for us. When you look at what those names are and what they mean, you can see that people were getting sick of what was going on. They were hoping some way there's a way out of this. They are no doubt remembering somebody told them the promise that a deliverer's gonna come. because they were looking for a deliverer. So I don't know what part Adam and Eve told or when they told it, but somebody is knowing that there's a deliverer going to come. Just think, is it Lamech? Is that Noah's dad? I think his name is Lamech or Lamech or however it is. Lamech names Noah, Noah, because that word means comfort. So you can see, this is almost 1,800 years down the road, and they're needing some comfort. This place is full of violence. It's full of weird creatures. The people are getting less and less, and whatever these strange Nephilim are, are more and more. Wars are going on, battles are going on, struggles are going on, violence is everywhere. You gotta know somebody wants some comfort. Get us out of this mess. So he names him Noah. In reality, Noah does get him out of that comfort, out of that mess. Everybody's going to die, but they did get out of that particular mess. Yes, it is. Yeah? Now, if you consider that Moses is writing this to a people who know the meanings of those names. So, they're not just getting to hear the genealogies. What they're getting is the story of the creation, the end of the Luvian period, and the flood. All those names are telling that story. Because you're just following a family line right down through. And can I say, you're not following all the family line. You're just following some of the family line as God is telling you the story. Now for us, 4,000 years removed, not knowing Hebrew, not knowing anything about it, those are just names and they're weird names. They don't go well off our tongue. But if you knew the language and you're right, that's telling you the whole story of what happened from Seth on. And you're hearing the whole thing. You're saying, ah, okay, I get it, I get it. Because remember, these people who he's writing to had been living in Egypt. And in Egypt, they're getting the whole mythology of Egypt. All the theology of the Egyptian gods are right there, and they're steeped in it. They have to hear it every day. It's a part of how they name their days. It's a part of how they name their months. It's a part of how they live their life. It tells them what time to get up. It tells them what time to go to bed. All of those things are in that mythology. Not far away are the Babylonians, and they've got a mythology that they've been hearing about, too. Egypt's trading with all these different countries, and they're trading with all these different countries. All of the religions of those countries are coming in there, and these people who only have an oral tradition, are hearing these mythologies all the time. So Moses has to get them out of Egypt, back over into a wilderness area where they have no other influence, and tell them the story. So that now they have the proper mythology. It wasn't what the Egyptians told them. It wasn't what the Hittites said. It wasn't what the Akkadians said. It wasn't what the Sumerians said. It wasn't what the Babylonians said. Here was what God said about himself. So they've got a lot of changes to make, all right? Yeah? All right. Hey, I better pray and let you go. It's way late, okay? Father, thank you so much for the Lord Jesus Christ. We do lift up Carrie and Beth and ask in Jesus' name, Father, you'll intervene in their lives and bring health to them. We lift up Sharon and Dave and ask that for Christ's sake, you'll bring healing to them. Thank you for the wonderful report you gave to us about Todd. Thank you for the people, Father, who are experiencing procedures, who are going to be going through things. We ask that you would pour out your spirit on the homeschools, on the Berean Christian School and Legacy. We ask you'd pour out your spirit in the public schools as well for all our good brothers and sisters who are in an environment that could be very hostile to them soon. Thank you for what you're going to do, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen.