Say good morning to everyone. Appreciate each one again this morning. Another good looking crowd. And appreciate that. And I know it's already been said, but I'll repeat it real quickly. We do appreciate each one that came out this morning to help. Or it says yesterday to help clean the building. I know some has cleaned throughout the week. Wayne Rebecca cleaned the pulpit and put a fresh coat of pledge on it. Wiped a little bit of it and sent me a picture of it. And I thought, you know, that would preach. The bikes, the pews, and you know what's, well, I'm gonna beat it. Our church, I've been proficiently clean. I have no complaints. But sometimes a deep cleaning is a little bit different. And as this church was kind of deep cleaned, you saw some of the things that, is it on? Okay, now it is. That doesn't, is not always seen. And as they wiped the tops of these pews off, and they sent me a before and after picture of that, I wondered in our spiritual life sometimes how often we get deep cleaned. I wonder how often we're willing to let God deep clean us. Sometimes I'm afraid we fight against that a little bit, but we need to let God have his way in our life and say, God, you look through me, if you see any, as David said, if there be any clean ways, you show me. And I'm gonna tell you something, I think each Christian, every Christian should, from time to time, ask God to clean them. You've heard me mention David Gibbs preaches a message, and that is one of his major points, is not cleaner, but clean. You see, there's a difference. We need to be clean, not just cleaner. We cleaned some of the things at the church yesterday. This back awning back here, I thought, well, we got this lift, we got the chance, we need to clean it off. Well, Jay and I went in on it, and it had been painted through the years. I'm not complaining about, quarreling about that. I'm just simply saying it made it what would be a somewhat simple job, it's gonna make a very complicated, big, drawn-out job. But it's a little bit cleaner, but it's not clean. And that's how we are a lot of times in our Christian life. We'll let God clean a little bit of things here and there, but those things, it takes a little bit of scrubbing. We're not too interested in them sometimes. It hurts, it's painful, it's sorrowful. And I don't know, I may get into this message and I may be into it now, I'm not sure. But sometimes when God wants to clean things in our lives, because we know it's going to take a little bit of elbow grease on our part. We're not really interested in that. And I've been through that experience. I've asked God to clean me. Then a few months later, I thought, man, why in the world did I ever bother to pray that? I wish I'd never said those words. But afterwards, I didn't enjoy it while the cleaning was going on. The Brillo pad, the wire brush, the harsh chemical that needed to be used, I didn't care for it. But oh, the after effects. The after effects I'm thankful for because while I was going through that trial, through that heartache and through that pain, now it's worth it. I look back and I think, God, I have such a better relationship with you and with others, and I have peace in my life that I didn't have. I have assurance in my heart that I didn't have them. And I thank God for it. Turn with me to Genesis chapter four. We're gonna go through this again. Same areas last week, but we're gonna look at it a little bit again, a little bit different today. I'm gonna bring it from a little bit different perspective. We will mention some things we did last week, but I still, this is where God has led me. This goes along with what everything I just said. Genesis chapter four. When you find it, you're able to please stand in awe of the reading of the word of God. Verse one, it says, Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bared Cain and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bared his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. In the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought the fruit of the ground and offered it to the Lord, and Abel he also brought to 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. The Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance falling? 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. 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. The Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel, thy brother? And he said, I know not. Am I my brother's keeper? Quite a harsh response, to say the least. Recall, and he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth. which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. Will thou tell us the ground that shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength? A fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord, 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, for every one that findeth me shall slay me. The Lord said unto him, therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. The Lord set a mark upon Cain, that any man finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. Father, we thank you again for this time together. Thank you, God, for this day. Thank you, God, for your word, for everything we know about us and everything we know about you. God, we thank you that we learn about forgiveness and salvation, sanctification, God, everything we need from you, from your word. Thank you, Jesus, for your autobiography that lives. God, I don't know the book on earth, Lord, that even comes close to being compared to your word, to the word of God, the most precious thing we'll ever hold in touch. And I thank you and I praise you, Lord, for that. God, give me the words needed at this time. Lord, you take me whatever direction you want me to go, Spirit, I'm yours. Use me as you see fit. God, as much as I can, know how I'll yield myself to you. Help me, God, not to preach with myself with pride, but God, simply with your authority, God, and your power, and your anointing, and God, your understanding. I thank you and I praise you. Lord Jesus Christ, in the name we pray, amen. To be honest, as I'm reading this, I'm somewhat a little bit struggling with the thought that I started there on, and I may get back to that, and I may jump to another place in the Bible here in a little bit and take off on a complete different area. but I preached on this last week and I pointed out some things about Cain and about this story and how he handled the situation. It's so amazing to me that God gave them simple directions. Now, they didn't just come, I don't believe that they just by chance showed up one day when God told them to and God said, well, you guys come bring sacrifices. I think God gave them some directions and instructions. See, God will lead us and sometimes he wants us to go by faith, but they didn't have the spirit of God inside of them They couldn't be led of him like you and I are. They had to be told. And they were setting the stage for everything, and I said that Cain brought forth the fruit of the ground, and it's been heavily debated on what was wrong with his offerings. Some say it's because it didn't include blood. I'll agree with that. Some say it's because the baby didn't bring his best. I don't think the Bible teaches that. I go back and I mentioned last week that God cursed the ground when Adam and Eve sinned, and I kind of think along the lines of that. If God cursed something, I promise you, he doesn't want you to bring him a sacrifice from something that is cursed. So I'm gonna go with the fact that because it wasn't blood, because it's always been blood, it'll always be the blood. It's just that simple. And Cain had his own ideas, and Cain decided, that he didn't like the fact that God demanded or commanded this, so I believe he brought what he thought was his best. I think, honestly, I'll tell you the truth, I believe he brought his best head of cabbage. I believe he brought the finest ear of corn he had in the field. I believe he brought the best looking taters and maters that there was. But it wasn't what, it wasn't that, it's just the simple fact that God said, this is what I want, and this is what I say, and this is the way it'll be. You've heard me say this before. I've seen t-shirts or bumper stickers that God said it, I believe it, and that settles it. Well, I'm glad you believe it, because you better believe it, because it settles it if he said it, whether you believe it or not. But I titled last week's message in this one, too, Don't Raise Cain. Too much of our life we spend raising cane. Now last week I mentioned about how I went to a long introduction and I got to my three points was God's calling us gentle, God's calling us gracious, and God's calling us glorious. And truly that is. He gently calls us. He doesn't reach and grab ahold of us and drag us, although he has after I've gotten saved because I was hard-headed a few times. but he gave us a gentle calling, and his calling is gracious. How easily he can look to Cain. You see, he gave Cain a couple chances here. Number one, he come to him after Cain brought the sacrifice, and God rejected him, and it says Cain was wroth, which that means very angry. He was upset, and in our good old country phrase, he was ticked off. And he was a little bit out of sorts here. And it said, and it's counting, it's failed. I believe if you've seen someone who was mad, brokenhearted and upset, and you can tell by the look on their face, as soon as you see them, something is wrong. Something's not right. Well, this was Cain. And the thing is, what's magical about it is sometimes, sometimes I can be having a bad day. And I can be in this kind of situation, but I can put on enough smile to somewhat fool some people. And I can get some people convinced that I'm really okay, it's not that big a deal. I'm all right, just something on my mind, no big deal. All right, but the thing is, God doesn't work that way. You're not gonna fool God, you're not gonna trick him. And I heard a message one time, and I mentioned this, about my need is greater than my offense. And the fact is, we get mad at God, and I've said, if you're mad at God, tell him people look at me with angst. I said, he knows it anyway. Now, you shouldn't be belligerent or anything like that about it. I think you still need to be respectful to him because if you're not, he'll get your respect, trust me. But Cain had a chance to get it right. How much of our life do we get upset because we raised Cain with God and we don't want to do things his way? More than anything, we'll do something to say, God, why can't you accept it? You know, I think about Abraham and Ishmael. Now most of you in here has kids, and some of you don't, but even those of you that don't, I think you can still relate and understand some of what I'm getting ready to say. The most precious thing in my life, outside of that Bible right there, is my wife and my two kids. You can mess with me, you can poke me, you can gouge me, but you mess with my wife and two kids, and I'm probably not going to be a very good example for a pastor at that moment. Whatever I've got, you're gonna get. If I ain't enough, I'll get help. It's out there in the truck right now. I used to carry it in here on me, but I feel like I'm pretty good shape now, so I don't have to. You're picking up on what I'm laying down there, aren't you? And a lot of times, we'll think about stuff like this, but we don't see it as it is. Abraham had Ishmael. Understand, this was his first son. This is what he had prayed for and longed for for 80, 90 some years. And he had a baby boy that he could hold. And he held that baby boy, and I believe as Ishmael grew, I believe Abraham was proud of him, saying, yes, son, that's good, and just encouraging him on and everything else, and saying, hey, that's my boy. And alongside of him came Isaac. And I believe he said, there's my boy. I believe he loved those two boys equally. We think because Ishmael was a mistake, Abraham didn't love him. Abraham did love him. He would have given his life for that boy. And Abraham did his best to get God to accept Ishmael. And God said, no, he is not what I told you. I promise you, you do not wait. This is man-made ability, not God ability, and I will not accept him. Remember, Abraham loved Ishmael. But God said, it doesn't matter how much you love him. It doesn't matter how much you enjoy him. I don't care if he can fish better than Isaac. I don't care if he can throw a rock farther than Isaac. He is not the one I said I would promise you with. I will reject him forever. A lot of times in our life, God asked us to do something. We'll play Monty Hall. Some of you don't remember that show. It was a game show on years ago called Let's Make a Deal. Monty Hall would have three doors right there. And he would offer you $100 or $500. He'd say, Morgan, here's $500, or you can choose what's behind one of these doors. You might walk away at the new car, or you might walk away at a kiddie pool full of mud. You don't know what you's gonna get. He didn't say, let's make a deal. Then he may offer you another $100 to choose one of the doors. Then he may offer it and say, here's, and you gotta decide which one you're gonna do. God doesn't work that way. Abraham did his best to make a deal with God, and God rejected it every single time. As I think about David, and I don't know why I'm on this, but we're gonna go with it. David come to God. And I don't know why I've been in this area so much, but God knows. And David came to God, and finally, after over a year of carrying the weight and the guilt of that sin, of all that he'd done, he finally said, okay, God, you're right. I have sinned, and I'm sorry. Cleanse me of my ways. Why do we fight so hard against letting God clean us? I'm going to give you a couple ideas, and I'll try to get off this and let God have his way in my heart here. You know what I think one of them is? You know, the Bible says, the Bible's real plain sometimes, isn't it? It's even easy enough for you and I to figure it out, and we're just two old dumb hillbillies, ain't we? Amen, I knew you'd agree with me. You know, it's amazing sometimes how simple it really is. And we still reject it. You ever think about that? It is sometimes. God tells us plainly in his word, certain things we're to do and not do. And we do our best to say, but God, you don't understand. Have you ever said that to God? I'm the only one? Let me try this again. Me and LJ is the only two. Have you ever said that to God? God, you just don't understand. And I believe as David was in that moment, I believe he was trying in his heart and mind to justify what he had done over the past year. And I believe he was trying to get God to accept that child that him and Bathsheba had together. And I believe he was praying, asking for God to touch that child. And somewhere in that prayer, when they said they was afraid to even go to him, because they was afraid he'd turn around and chop their head off or something, let him know the baby had died. Or the child, I'd say. I believe he was a few months old. And there, they wouldn't even go to him because they was afraid of him. I wonder if David, in his heart and in his mind, somewhere was thinking, I need to get forgiveness. Too much of the time, we try to money haul God, or we try to get God to accept a half-sacrifice. A half of a confession. You see, Cain had the chance to get it right, and he rejected it. He didn't want that. So here's what Cain did. Pray for me. Number one, Cain was rejected, so Cain rejected. You see, he was rejected of God because we do what exactly, we raise Cain just like he did. We raise Cain with God. We bring something to God and we say, but God, isn't this good enough? And God is saying, no, this is what I asked for. And we still go back and we say, but God, look what I did here. And God, this really did cost me something. What, five minutes? Hey, I'm going to be honest with you folks. People in this church has come to me and had ideas. They want to do this, they want to do that. Until you can show me you can come to the church when the doors are open, I'm not going to take it serious. I'm sorry. I can't. I can't depend on you to be half-hearted and me hand something over to you and you not fulfill it and then it's dumped on all of us to try to make it work. And I'm already maxed out. And so there's others. Don't work that way. And we can't play Monty Hall with God and we can't play half-hearted confessions because God will reject a half-hearted confession. He wants it all. David sat there for over a year, miserable. A miserable human being. And finally it took Nathan to come to him and grab him kind of by the shirt, if you will, and shake him right real good. And said, it's time to straighten up, David. It's time. So David confessed and he got peace. You know the amazing thing about God is no matter how uneventful it may seem, no matter how fearful we are of coming clean with what he's telling us to do, in the end, it will be a peace. that you can't explain. The world around you could be falling apart, people could be upset at you, mad at you, people could be, but there's a peace between you and God that absolutely nothing can come close to touching that, and that is where it's at. Cain had that chance, and he blew it. He didn't want it. He was rejected. God's calling is gentle, and Cain's wrath was rejected, and Cain was rejected because of number two. Cain wanted revenge. God's gentle, God's gracious. And we raise Cain because we want revenge. Wait there, but God's gentle and God's gracious. We get rejected and we want revenge. You see, sometimes our confession, now I know, let me be careful where I'll say this. If you come to God with a true heart, he won't reject you. But if you come to God with the attitude that, God, this is the best I'm going to offer you, guess what? You're fixing to get rejected. Or if you come to God and say, God, I'm going to confess this sin, but I'm going to keep doing it. You see, that's what I was going to get to a minute ago when I said you and I are just dumb hillbillies. We can figure something out sometimes. But God says, I need it all, and we bring half. You know why we don't do that? Because we love the sin we are doing more than we love God's presence and God's word, or we would stop it, or we would try. There'd at least be some effort put forth. If there's no effort put forth, you're raising Cain because one of the problems with Cain was he showed zero concern for his sin. He showed zero compassion for Abel, who he had just killed. He showed zero conscience over his sin. None. And if you say, preacher, I don't like my sin, but you keep right on doing it, I've got to believe you do like it. You're getting some kind of enjoyment out of it, but you wouldn't do it. You know why I eat Reese's Cups? Why I preach for them and against mayonnaise and mustard? Because I don't like mayonnaise and mustard. I don't enjoy it. I don't want it in anything I eat. But you can put, bring, I'd love to see Bagherishi cups in the altar and pulpit every Sunday. It wouldn't hurt my feelings a bit. You don't have to do that. They had some fresh ones at a gas station. We stopped there today and it's cash only. I thought, man, I ain't got any money on me. Somebody, some church had made them. If we think we can get by with a sin, we'll try it. we'll give it our best shot. And then we'll ask God to accept it because we said I'm only human and I was tempted. God, you don't understand. Oh, God does understand. Oh yeah, oh well, he understands. He understands you're ignoring what he's saying and you're fixing to pay a price. Number three. Cain went to be a refugee. Boy, there's a phrase we hear a lot in our day and time anymore. Refugees, because they was forced out of their land. I got it here, right here. I'm not texting, I'm getting a definition. A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. If there's something between you and God, you may not be forced to leave this church, You don't be forced to leave your home. You don't be forced to leave Kenora or Lincoln or Putnam or whatever county you live in. But spiritually speaking, you'll be a refugee. For the rest of Cain's life, he had a mark. I don't know what kind of mark he had. Couldn't tell you. I don't know if he had a rooster or a coon sticking out of his head. I don't know. I have no idea. Bible doesn't say. but there was something that identified him, and everybody knew you didn't kill him. Because if you did, you'd be offended 70-fold. And I don't know, I mean, it couldn't get much worse than what Cain went through. I think one of the saddest scriptures in all the word of God, and I said this last week, and Cain went out from the presence of the Lord. The only one I know that is maybe a little bit sadder is talking about Samson when it said he did not know that the presence of the Lord left him. That was pretty sad, too. You know, Paul, over in, let me turn there so I can get it right. In Galatians, chapter five, verse 17, I realize this is speaking of, Paul's right about circumcision, how it doesn't do any good. Spiritually speaking, it was under the law, but Paul's making a point in verse 17 here of chapter six of Galatians, he says, from henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus. Cain bore in the body the marks of sin and rejection, but Paul bore in the body the marks of being a servant of God, of Jesus Christ, and one who could write words like that and knew the presence of God unlike hardly any man that's ever lived, had revelations from God so great that God had to send a thorn, a message from Satan to buffet him, but yet we have Cain who rejected God, who didn't want anything to do with him, he wanted revenge, and therefore he became a spiritual refugee the rest of his life. Now let me ask you a question. How viable is your sin to you? Is it valuable enough to you to hold on to it? To say, I'll be a refugee for the rest of my life, spiritually speaking? Possibly. You say, a preacher's not going to work like that. Are you any different now than all the other millions of people sitting on the face of the earth? No. You find me in the Bible where God changed His mind about sin, I'll sit down and hush. I'll go fishing on Sundays or four-wheeler riding. Whatever else I feel like doing. But God hasn't. Sometimes church, I may call out things or say things and I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm not, I'm not attacking you. We went to Walmart yesterday evening. And I enjoy the summertime, I enjoy a lot of activities, come with it. But there was already girls and some men too, already half naked and it's not even warm yet. I like to see women wear clothes. I like to see men wear clothes. I don't see men like me going around their wife beaters. Bad. I don't like to see women going around half-dressed, drawing attention to themselves. Let me tell you something, you let your little girls dress in nice clothes that's considered in style and form and fashion. Let me tell you, the attention your little girls get is not the attention you want her to get. Men, let me explain something to you. Other men don't look at your little girl like you do. She's not your little girl in their eyes. Amen, preacher. My little girl's only a year old, but if she gets 12, 13, she ain't gonna dress like that, because other men don't look at her like I am. You say, you're a freak. No, I'm not. I'm being honest. I'm trying to help you. But you've got to, and I know I've been kind of all over the place a little bit this morning, it's kind of been a shotgun message, it just went everywhere, but you've got to realize some things, church, and I'm trying to help you, I really am. I don't know why I've been on this same type of subject for weeks in a row now. I don't know why. But when it comes to sin in your life, you have got to get it clean. We have got to get it out of our lives and quit practicing and living in it and letting God just say, thank you, it'll be okay. It won't be okay! It won't be okay. It's wrong. And it'll always be wrong. Whatever it is, and you can look back, and I'm done with this, I'll finish, I'll hear this in a couple minutes, I promise. The other thing we do is in being a refugee and rejecting revenge and a refugee, spiritually speaking, is we'll start comparing our sin. And we'll compare it to where our sin was last year compared to where our sin is this year. Is it still sin? We'll compare our sins to other people's sins. Is it still sin? Okay, let's compare it to God. And let's see how short, it doesn't matter if you're doing better than me. You probably ought to be, because that ain't saying a whole lot to be honest with you. But when it comes to God's word, where's it at? Where's it at there? We got a thing mounted on Drew's wall. It reminds me we need to update it. It's a growth chart. We're at Union Mountaineers. I know some of you will amen at, some of you won't. And we got marked on there at ages how he's gotten taller. In our spiritual life we should start to see some growth. There's going to be dips, but consistently over time we should keep going up, not staying the same. If your child, if you measured your child for three years on a growth chart and it never changed, would you not be concerned? You would say, something's wrong. Get this kid to the doctor. Figure out what's going on. The doctor is speaking to you because something is wrong. And you need to hear what the doctor is saying. And you can say, yes, but preacher, no. It's God says, this is sin. Don't raise Cain with God. He tried it. You saw how it worked. It didn't turn out too good. You know what? I've tried it once or twice myself. You know how it worked for me? I was broken. Miserably broken. There was times I said, God, what's so wrong with this? What's so wrong with that? God would say, just because I said it. I said, but God, I can do this and this and it'll be okay. And I went and tried this and this and you know what? It wasn't okay. This and this led to that and that and then some more and then a little bit more and then just a little bit more and before I knew it, I was in trouble. In a matter of, I believe, potentially one day, Cain went from being accepted to a refugee in probably one day, one week at the most. You say it could happen that fast. Yes, it can. Sure can. I know a guy, know him well. He was praying one night on top of a hill with someone. I'm not gonna mention any names, give anybody any ideas. He challenged the devil. You see a preacher I haven't done that. Cain didn't either. And in a week's time, in about two days' time, he went from, his wife was ready to leave him, sitting in his driveway drinking a can of beer, it wasn't nothing to do with God or church. Less than a week. Less than a week. It can happen that fast, church. If there's something in your life, please, I'm begging you, please quit playing with it. Please quit playing with fire. Because you are, and I promise, you're fixing to get burnt. That's what we say when we get a song.