Let's have prayer and we'll get into our lesson tonight. Heavenly Father, thank you for the opportunity to be in your house this evening and to study your Word. And we ask that you would open our understanding and make this to be a real benefit to us to help us to understand ourselves and understand our relationship to you and to gain a better understanding of the human race at large. and that your word is completely true in its account of the condition of the human race, and as well in its account of your provision to save us from our sins. We ask your blessing now in this study, in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, we're going to stick with the Scriptural version of everything I've had opportunity to learn this week about the that the book of Jasher is is actually available and it's very tempting to go through and and study that and and Give give a lot of the details that are included in that but since our focus is to study the Bible. We will let the Book of Jasher go by the wayside as far as our study goes, but it does make some interesting reading and it is available online. You can Google Book of Jasher and read it and take it for what it's worth. We're going to stick with the biblical account here of Cain and Abel tonight. And I'd like to remind you that that in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and after seven days of working on the heavens and the earth, the Lord said, it is very good. In fact, the only thing that he could find that was not very good was that the man was alone. But God fixed that. because he gave Adam and helper suitable for him, a help meet for Adam's need and so even though there was that one point of difficulty God took care of that and then everything was very good. But in chapter 3 we saw that Adam and Eve chose to sin. There was a fatal flaw in this very good creation and that was that God had given Adam and Eve free will. God had given Adam and Eve a choice and it was inevitable that those beings, those human beings, those creatures without infinite knowledge, without infinite righteousness, without the infinite character of God, of course God can't create God, that's why they didn't have those qualities, But that those finite, limited creatures would eventually choose to sin. And of course God knew all of that before He created. And God knew that Adam and Eve were going to choose to sin, because God knows everything. In the book of Psalms, Psalm 147, verse 5, the Scripture tells us that, Great is our Lord, and of great power His understanding is infinite. So the Lord knew that when He created Adam and Eve, He knew what they were going to do. He knew the human condition, but God determined to go ahead and create the human race because God had a plan. and God's plan was to go ahead and create those creatures that would fall into sin and provide for their forgiveness and provide for their restoration to Him and that the restoration would last for eternity and that God was going to going to fix our will and I don't mean fix in the sense of repair but I mean fix in the sense of set it once and for all in the direction of righteousness. And God's plan was going to be achieved through the work of Christ, and through Christ's death on the cross, and through the regeneration, the new birth that one could receive in Christ. And God made that plan to save people through Jesus Christ. He made that plan before the world began. And I know that those of us in this church have heard that before somewhere. Somebody preached something about that in this church at least once or maybe twice. Or actually more like as Lum Eddards would say, more like a thousand or a hundred times we have heard that preached. But I would like to give you a couple of references to that before we move into our chapter today. One of those is in 1 Peter 1. And what this is, again, this is a reference to the fact that God planned that He would redeem people through Jesus Christ. He made that plan before the world began. And Peter references that. Peter refers to that plan here in 1 Peter 1. He says, let's begin in verse 15, As he which hath called you is holy, So be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. And if ye call on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear, forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers. But and he implies but ye were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world but was manifest in these last times for you Christ was ordained before the world began before the foundation of the world that he would pay the price of redemption quickly. What does that mean? Well, if you go to Leviticus chapter 25, what I want to do is put some meaning to that word redemption. Redemption is a long theological word that we come across in the scripture and that we'll hear preachers use from time to time, but it has a very easy and and very powerful meaning if you come to Leviticus chapter 25 you'll see the term redemption defined by a law in Leviticus chapter 25 verses 47 through 49 the scripture says and if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by thee and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee or to the stock of the stranger's family after that he is sold he may be redeemed again one of his brethren may redeem him Either his uncle or his uncle's son may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto him of his family may redeem him. Or, if he be able, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold unto him until the year of Jubilee, and the price of his sale shall be according to the number of years, according to the time of an hired servant shall it be with him. So if a poor man, in order to pay his debt, sells himself as a slave to this rich man, well there's a law that comes into effect here, and that law is the law of the kinsman redeemer. And if he has a kinsman, if he has a relative, and of course we would assume that a relative would be someone that would care, whether he's a slave or not. If he has a relative that has the money, that relative can come in and pay the price to set the poor man free. And of course that's the law. Now the rich man might say, oh no, no, no. No, I'm quite happy to have him serve me all the rest of these years. I do not accept the price. He will be my slave. Uh-uh. No, God's law is, if somebody shows up that cares about this guy, that's willing to pay his price, he will be redeemed. He will be set free. So when the Scripture tells us that we were redeemed, not with silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, it's telling us that we sold ourselves to the justice of God And we owe God an infinite payment, an infinite penalty for our sin, and it's going to take us for eternity to pay for it. Christ came, our kinsman, and He is our kinsman because He became a man. That's why He became a man, so that He could be one of us. Our kinsman came with the price to set us free. from our obligation to pay the debt to God's law. And Christ came and He paid the price to redeem us. And God made that plan before the world began. God created Adam and Eve knowing that they would sin, but God, before He created them and before they ever sinned, God had a plan that was going to restore them to fellowship with Him. But after Adam and Eve sinned, that sinful tendency that they received was passed on to their children and that brings us to chapter 2 because now we're going to see the degeneration of the human race and let's go and we'll try to move quickly through the first part of this because we've already looked at some of it but let's go on to verses 1 through 7 Adam knew Eve's wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought to the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him." Let's take just a moment and discuss this. First of all, Cain and Abel brought offerings to the Lord. There was a time that they were to bring their offerings to the Lord. Abel brought an offering of blood. Abel brought an offering of blood. Hebrews chapter 9 verse 22 says that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. Abel recognized by bringing that offering of blood, Abel recognized and showed that he understood that there was no way for his sin to be forgiven other than the death of an innocent substitute. Remember God had showed Adam and Eve that in the garden in Genesis chapter 3 verse 21 when Adam and Eve were still in the garden after they had sinned and after they had sowed fig leaves together to cover up their nakedness Whenever God came, Adam and Eve realized, hey, our works here were not good enough. And whenever God came, Adam and Eve ran and hid themselves. There was hostility between them and God. And they were afraid of God, and they were on the run from God because their works were not enough to satisfy God's righteousness so that they could be accepted by Him. So they ran. Of course, the Lord caught up with them. He will always catch up with us. He caught up with them and had a conversation with them about the consequences of their actions and he made them a promise that the seed of the woman would come which would destroy the works of the devil and in the process the devil would bruise the heels of the seed of the woman which we know is a reference to the crucifixion And then, before the Lord sent them out of the garden, the Lord provided an adequate covering for Adam and Eve's sin. But the way that He had to provide the covering was through the death of an innocent substitute. Because it says that the Lord covered them with coats of skins. The Lord covered Adam and Eve's nakedness with coats of skins to show them there's not going to be an adequate covering except through the death of an innocent substitute. So when Cain brought his offering of the fruits of the ground, Cain was bringing something to God that came from the cursed ground. Cain was bringing something that could never be acceptable to God. The product of the cursed ground, the product of Cain's tillage, Cain's hard work there, and then going and reaping the fruit of that, and then bringing the fruits of his labors to God. Cain was showing something very significant here. Abel's offering was a confession, I am a sinner. I need a substitute. Lord, my offering shows you I I am unworthy. Please accept me because of the death of this one. But Cain's offering, on the other hand, showed, Lord, I've been working real hard and I hope this pleases you. See, Cain's offering was an offering that did not acknowledge that he was a sinner. Abel's offering was an acknowledgement of sin and an acknowledgement of depending upon the seed of the woman that was going to come. How did God show His respect for Abel's offering, but not Cain's offering? Well, it doesn't say in Genesis, but we do have a couple of places in the Bible where God showed that He accepted someone's offering. One of those was when Elijah, in 1 Kings 8, in 1 Kings 8, Elijah made an offering to the Lord, which the Lord clearly accepted. Can anybody tell me how did the Lord show He accepted Elijah's offering? The fire came down from heaven and consumed the offering and the altar and burnt up the water that was in the trench around it. And another time, In 1 Chronicles chapter 21 verse 26, when David made an offering to the Lord it was consumed by fire. So the only pattern that we have that God accepted someone's offering is this pattern that fire fell from heaven and consumed it. Perhaps that's what the Lord did to show his acceptance of Abel's offering and when Cain gave his offering nothing happened. So we have the contrast of their sacrifices. And let's go to Hebrews 11, verse 4 to see God's comment about the different sacrifices of Cain and Abel. Hebrews 11, verse 4 gives us the Lord's inspired commentary on that passage, on their sacrifices. It says in Hebrews 11, verse 4, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, or God accepting his sacrifice, and by it, by faith, he being dead yet speaketh. So Abel is still talking to us today about the benefits of faith in the Lord. and faith in the Lord's work, faith in the Lord's Word. God's correction of Cain. Let's go to verses 6 and 7 there in Genesis. Of course, the first part of this is really quite clear, isn't it? Cain was very wroth, and this is very significant. When Cain saw that God accepted Abel's sacrifice and not Cain's own sacrifice, isn't it remarkable how Cain responded? I mean, look at Cain's options. Cain could have said, God should have accepted mine. And that's what he did. But he also could have said, ooh, what did I mess up? Abel, can I get one of your sheep and offer it to God? I'll pay you. I'll give you a whole basket of apples for it. I mean, you know, Cain could have worked out something. Okay, Lord, I'm going to get it right this time. You know, he could have done that, but he didn't respond in that way. He responded in anger. And actually, of course, he was ultimately angry with God, but he focused his anger on his brother a little bit later on, as we'll see. The Lord said, Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted. God is not telling Cain to keep rules and regulations in order for God to accept him. Abel, if you look up above there in verse 4, the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering. What made Abel acceptable to God? It was his offering. What did Cain have to do to be accepted of the Lord? Bring the same kind of an offering that Abel brought. This is not a passage that shows that you've got to do good works. This is a passage that shows you've got to have the right offering. And if you don't do well, sin lieth at the door. And then in the last portion of verse 7 it says, Unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. If you do well, and if you're accepted by the Lord, your brother Abel will be subject unto you. But the way it is right now, Abel is greater than you are. Abel has the excellency over you. In fact, the alternate reading in the margin there says that to have the excellency is the idea here. Abel had attained a higher degree, a higher position than Cain. But if Cain had offered the right kind of an offering, Cain would have had the higher degree and Abel would have been subject unto him. Well, Cain wasn't satisfied with that and Cain wasn't about to offer an offering to demonstrate his sinfulness because Cain had a real problem with self-righteousness. Come with me to verse 8. And Cain talked with Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. Isn't it noteworthy here that the first murder was religiously motivated. The first murder in human history was religiously motivated. Motivated by jealousy. Motivated by self-righteousness. A man that would not confess his sin, inventing his anger to the one that God had accepted. Verse 9, And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. Alright, let's stop at that point. You can see Cain has a problem with truthfulness, doesn't he? Cain has a problem with confessing his sin. Cain has a problem with being honest even with God. Cain has a problem with anger. here, and all of these things all come forth in this brief dialogue. Doesn't the Lord pack a lot into a few words? But one of the main things that we see here is that you can't hide your sins from God. Come with me to the book of Numbers. Numbers chapter 32, verse 23. There's a very famous passage here. Numbers chapter 32, verse 23. But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out." Now that's a passage we've heard quoted a lot, isn't it? Be sure your sin will find you out. You cannot hide your sin from God. Your sin will come looking for you. Or in other words, the results of your sin are going to catch up with you. The result, your sin, will find you out. You can't escape the consequences of sin. That's the thought there in Numbers 23. Also come with me to Isaiah chapter 59, verse 12, which says, For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, that is, in the presence of God, and our sins testify against us. For our transgressions are with us, and as for our iniquities, we know them, We know, we know what we've done wrong. So let's go back to Genesis 4. Cain knew what he had done wrong, but Cain, again, Cain is one that would not confess his sin. Cain had a real problem with self-righteousness. But as it says in Leviticus 17, 11, the life of the flesh is in the blood. And that's why the Lord said to Cain, by brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. Cain had taken his life. taken the life of his brother and then in verse 11 he says and now art thou cursed from the earth which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand when thou tillest the ground it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth So the Lord confronted Cain here in verses 9 through 12. And of course the first thing that he did was hold Cain accountable for the murder that he had committed, and then told him, there will be consequences. You are not going to be blessed as a result of what you've done. And you're going to be a fugitive and a vagabond. You're going to work here and try to bring forth fruit. It's not going to work. You're going to go there and try to bring forth fruit. It's not going to work. You're going to be on the run, and you're going to be traveling from place to place. And then Cain, the one who doesn't confess his sin, the one that hates his brother, the one that has a problem with truthfulness, the one that is unwilling to admit his fault, Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. What about the death of your brother? What about your guilt about that? Not a word said. Not a word said. Cain didn't experience repentance, did he? Cain was just sad that there were going to be consequences. My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth. And from thy face shall I be hid. And I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. And it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him." Lest any finding him should kill him? There were already other people in the world at this time. Wow! God didn't tell us about all the children that Adam and Eve had, did He? There were other children that Adam and Eve had. Even before Cain was sent out from the presence of the Lord, even before Cain had killed Abel, there were already other members of the Adam's family that were out there that would have killed Cain. And so the Lord put a mark on him. I don't know what that mark was, the scripture doesn't say, but Cain had an unmistakable mark so that everyone would know if you kill Cain, Cain is going to be avenged or going to be... the person who kills him will be punished seven times for killing Cain. Of course, that was God's way of saying, I will not tolerate another murder. I will not tolerate another murder here. So Cain complained, God responded by making it impossible for somebody to kill Cain or by setting that mark on him. And then let's take a look at the way of Cain here. We'll try to do this very fast. The Way of Cain, verses 16 through 24. Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod. It's interesting, the word Nod means wandering. He dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden and Cain knew his wife. Now I'm sorry, we have to stop for just a minute and answer this because everybody always wants to know where Cain got his wife. And I will tell you, my favorite answer to that question comes from Ken Ham. And he says, anytime somebody asks him, where did Cain get his wife? Ken Ham's response is, why are you so interested in another man's wife? So, you know, I kind of like that response, but it doesn't really answer the question. But obviously, in the days of Adam and Eve and Adam and Eve's children, someone married his sister. And perhaps several someones married their sisters back in those days. And before you know it, you had cousins, and then second cousins, and it didn't take too long for people to become distant relatives of one another. So that's just the nature of things. Of course, back at that time, the human race had not physically degenerated the effects of disease. and congenital defects and those things had not reached the proportion that they had a few thousand years later when, under Moses, God forbade the children of Israel to have relationships with somebody that was near of kin. But that was not the case in these early days. So for someone to marry their sister and have children, that was acceptable and that was the way that the earth was being populated. So that's where Cain got his wife. He either married his sister or married a cousin or somebody, or a distant cousin by that time. Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bear Enoch. And he built a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch. And unto Enoch was born Irad, and Irad begat Mehujael, and Mehujael begat Methuselah, and Methuselah begat Lamech. These chronicles are a lot of fun if you teach speech and want to teach people how to pronounce words, and you get a self-pronouncing Bible, it's a fun challenge. But those are remarkable names, aren't they? So there they are. We see from Cain to Lamech, we see six generations, and then we're going to see some amplification here of Cain's family. Verse 19, And Lamech took unto him two wives, And the name of Juan was Ada. Oh, by the way, you notice this is Juan variation from the original plan, isn't it? In the garden, we see one man, one wife. But here we are with Lamech, and we see Lamech's varying from God's original plan. This is the first time that we see polygamy. And Ada bear Jabal, he was the father of such as dwell in tents and of such as have cattle. So he was a rancher. And his brother's name was Jubal. He was the father of all such as handled the harp and organ. So he was a musician. In Zillah, she also bared Tubal Cain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron. And of course, he was a metal worker. And the sister of Tubal Cain was Nehama. And Lamech said unto his wives, Ada and Zillah, Hear my voice, ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech, for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt." The thing I'd like to point out to us here is simply this. We have a man in the lineage of Cain who was guilty of the same kind of thing that Cain was guilty of. Cain, a murderer, produced a family that also had another murderer in it. Verse 24, if Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold. So Lamech is making the assumption, well if God placed a mark on Cain to protect him, surely God will place a mark on me to protect me. I mean if God protected Cain a little bit, he's really going to protect me a lot. So there's Cain's family. And let's go ahead and finish the chapter here, verses 25 and 26. And Adam knew his wife again. Okay, now we're shifting back over to the original couple, Adam and Eve. And Adam knew his wife again, and she bare a son, and called his name Seth. For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed, instead of Abel, whom Cain slew. And to Seth, to him also there was born a son, and he called his name Enos. and then began men to call upon the name of the Lord." Well, that can only mean something good. That can only mean something good. We see the lineage of Cain, the murderer, and we see degeneration in that lineage, but we see that even as Cain was going away from the Lord, Eve had another child, Seth, and whenever that child had a son named Enos, then began men to call on the name of the Lord. We're looking at a spiritual awakening here. We're looking at a spiritual movement in which men acknowledge the Lord and call upon Him. And of course, calling on means dependence upon. the Lord. So this is a saved family. Now what I'd like to do at this point is contrast the lineage of Cain and Abel. See Adam, Cain and Seth were brothers. Cain had a son Enoch and Seth had one named Enos. Enoch begat Irad and Enos begat Cainan. and Irad-Begat-Mehuj-El and Kayan-Begat-Mehalaleel. You see these are people of the same generation. And then we have Methuselah in the lineage of Cain, but in the lineage of Seth we have Jared. What a contrast. The same generation in Cain's lineage, Lamech is a murderer, but the same generation in Seth's lineage is Enoch who walked with God and he vanished because God took him. What a contrast in the lineages, isn't it? And what a, I don't want to say coincidence, because it's not really, but what a remarkable difference. in the different families. Now, of course, does this mean that everybody in Cain's lineage was unsaved and everybody in Seth's lineage was saved? No, because we saw right there with Cain and Abel, every individual must make his own choice what he's going to do with the Lord. And that's how it was in these lineages. But we do see that there is a culture There is a culture that is established. And some people respond to that culture, others don't. But what we see in the culture of Seth, of that family that called on the name of the Lord, we see godliness. And in that culture that didn't, we see degeneration, we see more murder in their lineage. Next time we get together we'll take a look at the sons of God and the daughters of men in Genesis chapter 6 and we'll get the background on that. Let's bow for prayer.