Cain and Abel

Cain and Abel

<< Genesis 4 >> King James Version

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1And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD. 2And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD. 4And 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:5But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. 6And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7If 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. 8And 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.

9And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? 10And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. 11And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; 12When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.13And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14Behold, 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 every one that findeth me shall slay me. 15And 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.

16And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

17And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch. 18And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech. 19And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. 20And Adah bare Jabal: he was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as havecattle. 21And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ. 22And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

23And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah 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.

24If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.

25And 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. 26And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the LORD.

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Sermon

So now we look at the life of Adam and Eve after they leave the Garden of Eden.

1And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

The word knew here refers to sexual activity. Completely legal as Eve was his wife, so it was right and proper that he should have intercourse with her!

So Eve bares a son, and called his name Cain, which means a man from The Lord. It was a great mercy that the Lord gave Adam and Eve a son. Even though mankind is utterly depraved and sinful, yet The Lord allows our race to continue, and gives us children. But the human race will not continue forever, let that be noted!

2And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

Again Eve has another baby at a later date, and she calls his name Abel. It doesn’t seem certain of the origin of Abel’s name, but some have suggested “herdsman”.

So Abel takes of the job looking after sheep, and his brother Cain takes up the job as a gardener. Both jobs are right and proper for a man to occupy himself with!

3And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.

Presumably, Adam had encouraged both his sons to give offerings unto God, probably a peace offering asking for forgiveness for Adam and Eve’s sin in taking of the fruit, which sin is passed on through the generations. So Adam is trying here to teach his sons not to make the same mistakes he himself had made!

4And 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:

In the same way, Abel brought his offering. And God accepted Abel’s offering.

5But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

Yet God did not accept the offering of Cain.

It is not stated in this book what the reason of Abel being given more preference than Cain was, but Hebrews 11 gives us an indication that the difference might have been simply that Abel offered his sacrifice in faith while Cain did not have faith but rather, did it as more of a ritual.

It’s kind of like prayers in a way. God will only respect your prayer if it is done in faith. I sometimes worry about how we pray just before the meal, when we say the so called ‘grace’. Do we just say the words of a well known prayer, or do we truly and faithfully thank God for His great mercy in allowing us to eat and to live yet another day? Prayer is no prayer without faith.

6And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

Wroth means “angry”.

“Countenance Fallen” is probably a reference to mild depression, where people become so obsessed about something that has gone wrong, instead of focusing on the good points.

Cain was angry at God. And that is a very dangerous state to be in! An enemy of God will never be able to stand.

Perhaps it’s understandable, Cain is trying to do the right thing by giving an offering to the Lord, and yet God would not hear. God often does that to us, we pray sometimes and God doesn’t seem to listen, or He brings more adversity upon us.

Jeremiah said: 8Also when I cry and shout, he shutteth out my prayer. (Lamentations 3:8)

7If 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.

This verse gives us an indication that Cain was very sinful. Sin lieth at the door, it’s evident that the first thing that you see when you see a sinner, typified here as a house, that the first thing you see is sin. You might try and white wash the whole house, yet if you open the door, there lies sin.

The Bible is full of parables. Parables help you see the text in a slightly different way, and can often be a way of explaining the meaning of a text in a simpler form.

8And 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.

Cain and Abel were talking alone in the field. Things began to get really heated as they began talking about God, and Abel started telling Cain that if he wanted God to accept him, he would need to have a little more faith. Then Cain gets really angry at his little brother who thinks he all so much better than he is, and in the heat of the moment Cain picks up a huge rock and hurls it at Abel, and Abel falls to the ground. Cain goes over feeling a bit remorseful and shakes his little brother to get him up, but Abel is dead as a doornail. Cain did not go out with the intention to kill his brother, it just happened. It’s like a lot of the sins we do, we don’t get up in the morning and think... “I’ll do this that and the other sin today”, no rather we think, we’ll do only good things and yet at the end of the day, we have done some terrible things.

Well that’s all for now, we will see the resolution to this great problem in our next session.

Lord bless His word!

Amen!

The Fall (part 3)

The Fall (part 3)

<< Genesis 3 >> King James Version 15And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. 16Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. 17And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. 20And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. 21Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. 22And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: 23Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. 24So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Sermon

So we carry on from where we left off. Adam and Eve have both eaten from the tree of the Knowledge of good and Evil, which God had commanded then not to do.

The Lord has found out what they had done, and points to Adam for an explanation. Adam Immediately blames it all upon Eve, and Eve in turn shifts the blame onto the Serpent who is the Devil incarnate.

And now The Lord turns to Satan and starts to curse him for what he has done.

15And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Satan had hoped that in tempting Adam and Eve into sinning, he would procure the allegiance of the whole human race in his battle against God. And indeed he did do to an extent, but in this passage God talks about the seed or descendants of Eve who will be fighting against Satan. This seed that is mentioned is the church and all Christians.

Also here is what has been termed “the first Gospel” because it talks of Jesus coming to this world, and though Satan will bruise Jesus’ heel, or cause Jesus great pain, which is the crucifixion on the cross, yet Jesus will have the ultimate victory over Satan when He gives Satan the fatal blow over the head, which is when He arose from the dead and claimed a portion of the human race who will go with Him to reign forever in glory!

What a blessing that even in the midst of all the curses, there is yet the promise of Salvation! Adam and Eve would not have know what this passage meant, yet they would have known that it was a promise to them that one day they would get their own back on the Devil. And doubtless through the hard years that followed them they would again and again pray that the Lord would even come now and crush the Devil’s head. But The Lord had His set time to favour Zion and that time would not come for about 4000 years.

God is never late, nor is He early, He arrives precisely when He means to!

16Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

I will never know the pains that a woman goes through when she brings forth a child. I know that it is extremely painful, but it is something I can never go through myself.

In the same way we can never really understand what another human being is going through in the path of life. And because we shall never fully understand, much wisdom is needed when talking to someone else about their trials and afflictions. My advice is that you listen more than you speak. Sometimes people just want to know that there is someone who cares.

So here the Lord stops talking to the Devil, and turns to Eve, who probably thought that God bought into her little scheme of pinning all the guilt onto the Devil. And Eve has her turn to be cursed.

Do you realise that all of us as human beings are cursed? We inherit all these curses that Adam and Eve were given. Don’t believe me? Just try having a baby, then you’ll believe me.

“he shall rule over thee”

Maybe at the beginning of creation, man and woman were created equal. Perhaps there needed to be no hierarchy because everyone did that which was right in the sight of God, but when man started doing that which was right in his own eyes there needed to be some kind of hierarchy so that we had someone other than ourselves checking to see whether what we were doing is right.

17And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

Now here God turns to Adam.

Here God curses the ground, that it will be very hard to make money. There are no easy jobs are there? But before the creation life was great, work was great; no-one had to do anything they didn’t like. But sin’s turned all that the other way around, and work’s become a bore.

But everyone must work to live, this is Biblical teaching. And it’s in hard work that we have satisfaction.

Thank God if He allows you to have a job which you really enjoy. I have a great job! I work as a Health Care Assistant at a hospital, and I’m helping people all day long, I find great satisfaction in doing it, even though sometimes it can be quite physically demanding.

18Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

Thorns and thistles are very prickly, and really hurt if you touch them. This is kind of like temptations. Work is full of temptations. For me as a young man, there are continuously lovely girls around with loose morals, and you begin to find yourself thinking wicked thoughts about them. But like the thorns and thistles, it really is best not to touch them at all. “Touch not the unclean thing”.

“The herb of the field”

Even though the Lord has planted thorns and thistles, yet it is a mercy that He also gives us herbs to eat.

Herbs are a spice, it flavours food. A Christian’s food is the Word of God. When God adds spices to the word, it is like when we hear a minister preach about a certain subject, and the way in which he preaches gives you a whole new perspective on the passage so that you see it in different light. Now the passage is no more dry food, it has become seasoned because you understand it better.

19In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Work’s hard and indeed our whole life will be hard. That doesn’t mean we can’t be joyful all the time though. You might remember that in Philippians 4:4 Paul exhorts us to “rejoice in The Lord always”.

“dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return”

This is referring to the 6^th day when God created Adam out of dust. And one day we shall all die and our bodies will rot in a grave, and bacteria will eat at our corpses until there is nothing left of us but dust.

Will anyone remember us after we are gone? What really is the point in life? These questions are probably the questions everyone asks themselves when they first realise that life is short and they will soon die. If you are asking these questions, I advise that you read carefully through the book of Ecclesiastes. In this book Solomon looks at the meaning of life, and finally comes to a gracious conclusion, which should be more than suitable for the average person of today.

20And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

The name Eve means “living”.

21Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

Remember that they realised that they were naked and were ashamed, and so they made themselves clothes out of fig leaves. Now God takes the skin or fur of an animal and makes it into clothes for Adam and Eve. Notice that this is the first ever recorded death in the Bible. God must have killed an animal to skin it. I wonder whether Adam and Eve looked at what this signified: the death of one to cover the sins of another!

22And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: 23Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. 24So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life

“one of us”

Again this is talking about the Trinity, God in three persons, not about multiple gods.

“know good and evil”

The tree of knowledge really did work; it was not just a symbolic thing.

So now that Adam and Eve had knowledge, they realise that they should have taken from the tree of life instead of the tree of knowledge, and would have corrected their mistake, had God not have thrown them out of the Garden of Eden and barred them from ever getting to the tree of life again.

And God placed cherubim to guard the entrance to the Garden of Eden.

Cherubim are a form of angel, we don’t know too much about them, but it seems that they are lower rank, and they would take their orders from Michael who is the prince of the angels. And as we learn from this chapter that they are extremely powerful as they withstood any attempt of mankind to try and enter the Garden of Eden.

So this is the last we hear of the Garden of Eden.

The garden is nowhere to be seen on any of our modern day maps. It is my opinion that it was destroyed in the flood which seemed to have rearranged a bit of the geography of the land.

Well we have come to the end of the chapter. God willing in the next sermon we will carry on the narrative from Chapter 4 of Genesis.

I hope and trust that this has been of use to someone’s never dying soul. And that God will use it for His own honour and glory.

Amen!

The Fall (part 2)

The Fall (part 2)

<< Genesis 3 >> King James Version 8And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. 9And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. 11And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? 12And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. 13And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat. 14And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 15And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. 16Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. 17And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. 20And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. 21Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. 22And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: 23Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. 24So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Sermon

So we carry on from where we left off. Adam and Eve have both eaten from the tree of the Knowledge of good and Evil, which God had commanded then not to do.

They are now aware that they are naked, and have made themselves clothes out of the fig leaves that they had sown together.

So we shall carry on from where we left off in our last session.

8And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

In the cool of the day, would probably be evening when it was starting to get cooler.

Adam and Eve hid from the voice of God. This is proof that they knew what they had done was wrong, they had not done it in ignorance but wilfully. Both the ignorant sinner and the wilful sinner are both guilty, yet the wilful sinner has the greater condemnation.

9And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

The Lord knew exactly where Adam was, for the Lord is all knowing and knows all things. But the Lord called to Adam because He wanted Adam to have a chance to confess his sins before the Lord. And what a mercy if the Lord doesn’t leave us in our sins, but asks us the same question that He asks Adam here, and the Question which He asked Elijah: “what doest thou here Elijah?”.

10And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

And here it is; Adam’s confession. He realises that he has sins and realises that it is no use in hiding any longer from the Lord, and so he confesses his sins. What a mercy if we are brought to do likewise!

11And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

Again The Lord asks a soul searching question. Have you done that which I have told you not to do? Have you disobeyed my commands?

Think back to when the Lord convinced you of your sins. Where there these searching questions? Did the Lord make you feel very low and insignificant? This is really a mercy, because God cannot raise you to glory unless He sink you very low to start with.

12And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

Ahh, but now Adam’s starting to make excuses. He’s saying something like: God you gave me this woman, she told me to eat this fruit, so really it’s not my problem but yours. God you really should have chosen a better wife for me!

Isn’t it kind of like when we are professing Christians and we really want to do something bad, so to do that wicked thing we try and convince ourselves that we are doing it for God’s sake? For instance, we want to go out partying with our friends, and we try and reason that it must be right because God is the God of providence, so He must have given us these friends for a reason, besides I might even be able to witness to them when I’m drunk and out of my mind!

Although probably you wouldn’t go with the intention to get drunk in the first place. But it’s just so hard to try and run a separate way from the herd, and if your mates are drinking, you figure one drink can’t hurt, then you have another, and before you know it, you look worse than the Devil himself!

13And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

So here God hears what Adam says, and points to the woman and asks, Is this your fault? Will you take the blame?

And Eve answers and says, No it’s not my fault, it’s the snakes fault, he tricked me into eating it, I didn’t even realise I had done anything wrong!

So if you didn’t realise you had done anything wrong, why were you hiding from me?

You see, the only way to deal with sin is by first confessing that you are a sinner. It’s like me, I used to be quite fat, but I didn’t think I was really too bad. But once I realised that it was becoming a problem, and then I could go to the gym, and confess to my personal trainer that I had a problem and I really need to deal with it. Then and only then was I able to lose any fat. You will never be able to deal with your sins until you realise that it is a problem, and then you can come to God to help you!

14And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

So God turns to Satan and curses his incarnate form. And there’s Adam and Eve standing by clapping their hands that justice has been brought upon the one who “tricked” them into eating the fruit. This is great with the Devil gone, everything can go back to how there were before when they could just enjoy life in the Garden of Eden, and not be afraid of ever being tempted again.

If you read the following verses you will notice that Adam and Eve will stop clapping their hands and realise that they too will have similar curses pronounced upon them. God didn’t find the guilty one, He found the guilty ONES!

Before these occurrences, the snake would have had legs and probably look something like a very long lizard.

I’m going to have to stop there for now. If the Lord wills, we shall continue our study in our next session!

The Lord bless His word!

Amen!