Truth and Tragedy

Perhaps you’ll remember a few weeks ago, I gave you some statistics about the things that Canadians rate as the most important priorities in their lives.

• Canadians say that having a happy family life is their highest priority

• Enjoying good health was the second highest priority.

• The priority that was ranked least often as #1, with only 6%, was to be faithful to their religion (or we might say, to be faithful to God.)

Today we come to Genesis 4. It’s the story of the first family in human history – Adam and Eve, and their sons Cain and Abel. And far from being the story of a happy family life, it is a tragedy. One of the brothers murdered the other. It is a story about family relationships gone terribly wrong.

But the story of Cain and Abel is not just a story about family, it is also a story about faith. And I would suggest that the priority of faith is foundational to the priority of having a happy family life.

You see, in spite of what most Canadians believe, life’s most important relationship is not our relationship with our family—it’s our relationship with God. And when things are not right in our relationship with God, things will not be right in our relationship with our family. That’s what Genesis 4 is all about.

So if we want to have a happy family life, we need first to answer the question “How can I have a right relationship with God?”

In Genesis 4, the story begins with the birth of a child. Look at v. 1:

Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man.”

Parents have always had great expectations for their kids. Have you ever noticed that when you are expecting a child, all you want is for the baby to be normal? But then, as soon as the baby is born, normal is no longer enough! You’re hoping that that child will be brilliant; a genius; a child prodigy – someone who stands out in the world.

If you’re musical, you might want your child to be like Mozart. At the age of four, little Wolfgang would come home from church, sit down at the family spinet, and play from memory, note perfect, all the hymns he had just heard that morning.

Academically, you want your child to excel. You might want him to be like the great mathematician Blaise Pascal. Pascal began his schooling at a very young age by studying ancient languages. One day, one of his teachers happened to mention the subject of geometry—the study of shapes and their properties. Pascal immediately became fascinated with geometry. The fact that he didn’t have a geometry textbook didn’t slow him down, for by the age of nine, he had independently discovered the first 32 theorems of Euclidean geometry.

As parents, we want our children to be above average in intelligence. We want their grades to be high. We want them to be good looking. We want them to be successful. And, as parents, we often project on our children our own unrealized ambitions. We want them to succeed where we have failed, to be strong where we are weak.

Let me tell you, there have never been greater expectations for a child than the hope that Adam and Eve had for their firstborn son, Cain. Remember, Cain was born after Adam and Eve had been expelled from the Garden of Eden. Their hopes had been dashed by sin; their dreams were ruined; and they found themselves homeless and humiliated. But the birth of Cain brought a new ray of hope into their lives.

When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, they fully expected to die as a result of God’s judgment. But they didn’t die, at least not immediately. Instead, God gave them a promise in Gen. 3:15. He told them that a deliverer was going to come to defeat Satan. He told them that this deliverer would be the seed of the woman.

Now we know, from our vantage point, that God was referring to the birth of Jesus Christ, the one who was born of a virgin; the one who would defeat Satan and take away sin by his death on the cross. But Adam and Eve didn’t know all that. As far as they were concerned, the birth of their firstborn son—the very first baby ever born in human history—was the fulfilment of God’s promise.

Adam and Eve thought that their son Cain was going to be the deliverer who would take away the curse of sin on their lives and restore them to Paradise. In Hebrew, the name Cain is very similar to the word for “acquired”. The name means literally “Here he is! He has arrived! We have gotten him.”

They called Cain “Here he is… we have gotten him. Here he is, the one the Lord promised us. He’ll get us back to the Garden. He’ll undo all the wrong that we have done. He’ll take away our sin. He’ll be our deliverer.” They certainly had great expectations for their #1 son!

But then in v. 2, we read that something surprising happened. They had another baby—another son. Now they weren’t quite sure where he fit into God’s plan, so they called him Abel. You know what the word “Abel” means in Hebrew? It means “temporary, meaningless, futile”. It’s exactly the same word that is translated in the book of Ecclesiastes—vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

How would you like to have a name like that? Your mother calls out: “Vanity, come for supper.” Your brother says: “Hey Futile. Where’d you put my towel?” A name like that would be wonderful for your self-image, wouldn’t it?

Adam and Eve were placing all of their hopes and expectations on Cain, their #1 son. When Abel came along, as far as they were concerned, he was just excess baggage. The British tabloids call Prince William and Prince Harry the “heir and the spare”. That’s what it was like with Cain and Abel.

The boys grew up and Cain became a farmer, while Abel became a shepherd. Then the time came for them to bring an offering to the Lord. Look at verse 3…

In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.

This passage indicates that there was an appointed time for the offering. The phrase “in the course of time” means literally, “at the end of days”, meaning perhaps at the end of the year. Evidently there was a certain time that this offering was to be brought. Now if there was an appointed time, there might also have been an appointed place.

Where might this appointed place have been? Well, Scripture doesn’t tell us, but I’ll hazard a guess. The appointed place may have been at the gate of the Garden of Eden, where the cherubim and the flaming sword were. I believe that God set up there an altar and a mercy-seat to receive the worship of Adam and his family.

Remember God had placed the cherubim there to guard the way back to the Tree of Life. Satan wanted to close that way down. He wanted to cut man off from God permanently. But as long as the cherubim were there—and the cherubim were always found around the throne of God—there would be a way open for man to come into the presence of God and gain eternal life. That’s why I believe that God set up an altar for man to worship him at the gates of the Garden.

Now if there was an appointed time and an appointed place, there must also have been an appointed method, and in fact, there was. God revealed this method to Adam, and Adam was responsible for passing this down to his sons. Let’s read on a bit. Look at the end of verse 4

The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor.

Here is the most important question in this whole passage: Why did God look with favor on Abel’s offering, but not on Cain’s offering?

Many Bible scholars have suggested that it was because of the attitude with which Cain brought his offering. Cain had a bad attitude. If Cain’s heart attitude had been right, then God would have looked with favor on his offering.

But I do not believe that that explanation goes far enough. Certainly Cain had a bad attitude. His heart wasn’t right. What he did to Abel afterward proves that. But I believe that there was more involved here than just attitude. I believe that God rejected Cain’s offering, not only because of his heart attitude, but because he brought the wrong offering.

Do you remember when Adam and Eve sinned they immediately felt shame and tried to cover up their sin by covering up their bodies? Previously, they had been naked and not ashamed. But now that they had become sinners, they wanted to cover themselves up physically. What did they use? Fig leaves.

But fig leaves weren’t good enough. They had the right idea—their sin needed to be covered—but fig leaves weren’t the right method. Gen. 3:21 reveals the right method. God made garments of skin and covered Adam and Eve. In so doing, a couple of animals had to be killed.

You see, God was giving Adam and Eve an object lesson. If your sin is going to be covered, it is going to cost the life of an innocent substitute. The penalty of sin is death. You cannot deal with sin by just sweeping it under the rug—by just covering it over with fig leaves, so to speak. It is a matter of life and death. Hebrews 9:22 says:

Without the shedding of blood, there can be no covering, or remission, of sin.

God is holy and we are sinful. And when we approach God, we must have our sin covered. And that covering can only be a covering that involves the shedding of blood, because the penalty for sin is death.

Now the good news of the Gospel is that we can approach God—we can enter his presence; we can worship Him; we can have fellowship with Him—because Jesus Christ has shed his blood for us and covered our sin. When he died on the cross, he was our innocent substitute. His shed blood takes away our sin. This is the central message of Christianity.

But what about the people who lived before Jesus did that? What about the people in the OT? What did they do if they wanted to worship God? Well, in the Old Testament, God made it possible for people to come into his presence and worship him by means of an animal sacrifice.

Not that the blood of that animal would take away their sin. That blood was just a reminder—it was an object lesson that their sin was deadly, that it required an innocent substitute to give up its life in order for them to be in the presence of God. But the blood of the animals sacrificed in the OT merely prefigured, or pointed the way to the one and only sufficient sacrifice for sin—the death of God’s only Son on the cross.

Now I’ve said all that to say this: God taught Adam that the only way to cover sin and to enter His presence was the way of blood. That was God’s prescribed method. And Adam was responsible for passing that truth along to his sons. But something went wrong. In Gen. 4, when the time for sacrifice came, Abel brought a blood offering, but Cain did not.

What did he bring? He brought the fruit of the ground. He brought to God the fruit of his own labor. He brought to God his own good works. Now Cain’s offering probably looked attractive. I have no doubt that it was an impressive and beautiful offering. But his offering was wrong and it was wrong because it was not according to God’s revealed will. That is why it says in Hebrews 11:4

By faith, Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did.

It doesn’t say “he had a better attitude than Cain did”; it says “he offered a better sacrifice than Cain did.” You see, the question isn’t just attitude. The question is obedience. Abel obeyed the revealed will of God; and Cain did not.

That is why God says to Cain in Gen. 4:7

If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?

God didn’t tell Cain to change his attitude, He told Him to change his offering. He told him to do what is right. Because by doing what is right, he would be demonstrating that he had changed his attitude.

You say, “So what? What does this story mean to us today?”

There are two ways I can choose to try to have a right relationship with God.

1. There is the way of Christ. It is the way of Truth, because it’s source is divine revelation. This way is revealed by God to me in the Bible. I wouldn’t know it otherwise.

And in the Bible, God tells me that the way of salvation—the way to have my sin covered so that I can enter into fellowship with Him—is supplied by His grace. In other words, I don’t provide my own way of salvation, God in His grace does. All I can do is accept by faith what God has done for me.

Ephesians 2:8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.

John 14:6 Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

The result of coming by the way of Christ is that God declares me to be righteous. The blood of Christ takes my sin away and I have right standing in God’s sight. And the relationship between God and me is one of favor and love. Remember, God looked with favor upon Abel. And God looks with favor on all those who, by faith, come to Him through Christ.

2. But there is another way that people try to come to God. And the Bible calls it the way of Cain (that very phrase is used in the book of Jude). It is a way that leads to Tragedy. The Bible says that there is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is the way of death.

The way of Cain says that I can come into a relationship with God in a way of my own choosing. Many people today are religious. Spirituality matters to them. They do want to enter into a relationship with God. But they want to come to God on their own terms, not on His terms.

They come to God with their own notions of what ought to be acceptable to Him; with their own good works, with the fruits of their own righteousness. They think “How could God turn me away – I’m so sincere.”

That’s the kind of offering they bring, and they expect God to accept it. After all, they’ve worked hard, they’ve done all these good things. So they feel that they deserve to get into heaven—they deserve God’s favor.

Try asking people this question: “If you were to die tonight and stand at the gates of heaven and God were to ask you ‘Why should I let you into heaven?’ what would you say?” Nine out of ten people will say: “Well, I’ve tried to be good, I’ve tried not to hurt anyone. Sure, I’ve done some things I shouldn’t have done, but I think that on the whole, my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds.”

You know where that reasoning comes from? It comes straight from the serpent. It is the lie of the devil. Satan wants us to believe that our sin is not a serious issue in God’s sight. That God can let us into His presence if we have 51% good in our lives. That our sin can be covered up by our good deeds.

Cain was the first person to believe that lie, and everybody who believes it today is following the way of Cain. In fact, God warned Cain in Genesis 4:6…

“Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

Cain wanted to come to God on his own terms, with his own offering. In other words, he rejected God’s way in favor of his own way—and that is the very essence and root of what the Bible calls sin. It is saying “God, my way is better than your way.” And that way of thinking can become a way of life.

And as long as Cain was thinking that way, God could not look with favor upon him, because Cain had already, in his heart, rejected God. And so the relationship between Cain and God became one of anger and resentment, of fear and of flight.

And significantly, Cain’s relationship with his family was damaged, too. Cain became a murderer, a liar, a fugitive, a wanderer.

Cain killed Abel because he couldn’t stand the thought that his humble little brother—the man whose name meant “futile”—enjoyed the favor of God, while he, in his own pride and arrogance, did not.

So the first interpersonal conflict; the first family feud; the first murder in human history happened over the issue of worship. Because our relationship with God is at the very root of our being. It is foundational to all other relationships.

I’ve talked to people who have been the only followers of Christ in their family. And often, they are rejected and treated with contempt by the other members of their family – even those who seem to be very religious. Why is that?

It is because the other members of the family are following the way of Cain. It is a way of pride. And human pride cannot bear to be confronted with the fact that the way to God has nothing to do with self-effort, self-promotion, self-righteousness. And when that truth comes from a family member—someone who is close—the reaction is not good.

Jesus said that this would happen. He said that His way would actually divide families. He said in Luke 12:52…

From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

Why? Because of sin and pride, that’s why. The way of Cain cannot coexist with the way of Christ. The Lie always wants to silence the Truth.

I’d like to ask you this morning, Which way are you following. You know it’s possible to attend an evangelical Christian Church all your life, and still be following the way of Cain. You may have heard the Gospel many times, but not actually have absorbed it and made it your own. You may be trying to come to God through your own efforts; on the strength of your own performance.

I want to give you an opportunity to commit your life to Jesus Christ this morning.

In so doing, you’re going to be saying “I want to lay aside my sinful pride. I want to abandon my self-righteous efforts to make myself acceptable to God and to come to him on my terms. I want to humble myself before God and accept His way – Jesus Christ as my salvation.”

If that desire represents the desire of your heart this morning, I’m going to ask you to get up out of your seat and come to the front of the church and kneel with me in prayer and ask Jesus to be your Savior.