Cain and Abel

Well, good morning and blessings to you all. You can turn your Bibles with me to Genesis 4. Genesis 4, beginning at verse 1, 1 through 15, I'll read the passage.

"And Adam knew Eve, his 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 of 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, shall 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. 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.

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, and unto thee her strength. A fugitive and a vagabond shall 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 that everyone that findeth me shall slay me.' And the Lord said unto him, 'Therefore whosoever slaeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.'

And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.'" Maybe I'll just read verse 16 yet. "And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden."

Just a little bit of a background here. If we back up into chapter 3, right here on the heels of the great fall, the sin, the brokenness, everything that came into the world, it seemed now the end of chapter 3, we see God clothed them with skins, Adam and Eve, and sort of gave them a new beginning, set them in place outside the garden.

And here this, could we say, a brand new family with a new start in a fallen world and somewhat of a blessing from God that even in the midst of all this fallenness, brokenness, here we are. And to me, it appears that they're quite a happy family. I mean, there's anticipation here.

Adam and Eve are intimate, and she conceives. And here we go in verse 1, the response of the first child, the first human being on record that has ever been born. Eve says, "I have gotten a man from the Lord. It's a boy." You see the excitement? This is the first time birth has ever been happened as far as we know.

Now, is this what the anticipation was in Eve's voice when she said that, "This is a child from God, a manchild"? And it's strange. I mean, think of it. Mothers and fathers, we know how that is to have a child, and especially the first one. This is really exciting. But here's a woman delivering, giving birth to a man. Maybe that's what fascinated Eve about this whole thing.

Or maybe it's just simply because it's their first child that seems to be a delight. There's another possibility we can look at. If we go back, we just page back in our Bibles to chapter 3 in verse 14 and 15, the prophecy that was given to the serpent after the fall. God gave this prophecy to the serpent in verse 14. It says, "The Lord 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 shall thou go, and dust shall thou eat all the days of thy life.'" I mean, what a blow. What a blow to that serpent, that old serpent, Revelations, I believe, refers to, the old serpent, the devil.

This is his lot in life. And verse 15, and I'm just assuming that Adam and Eve were right there and heard God give this prophecy. I'm just assuming.

In verse 15, he says still to the serpent, he says, "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." That is a powerful verse.

That is the first gospel verse in the entire Bible, isn't it? That is speaking of good news. And see, we understand that verse different, I'm assuming, than Adam and Eve understood it. But I think if Adam and Eve were listening, they could glean from that verse that something good is in the forefront, something really exciting. There's going to be a remedy. There's going to be a redeemer. There's going to be something in the future that has to come from the seed of the woman.

This verse just inspires me. This verse is for us today.

Where he says, "It shall bruise thy head," speaking of the seed of the woman, and we like to think of it pointing towards Jesus, the seed of the woman shall bruise thy head and all the heads of thy descendants, could we say. Your seed, Satan, or serpent, will be bruised.

How does that apply to our life today? That great prophecy that was given in Genesis 3, the coming redeemer, the coming Messiah, the good news of this great Jesus, the picture we get when the head is bruised, it's total defeat, totally defeat.

And when our Jesus was on the cross and he lifted up his voice unto God and said, "It is finished," what was finished?

What was finished? Do you just suppose Jesus, in that comment, had in mind this verse, that Satan, from this day on, that old serpent and all his descendants have had their heads bruised once and for all, and it's finished? That we serve a victorious God, and Satan and all the darkness has been defeated by the crushing, the bruising of the head.

When that Sunday morning appeared and that monstrous stone was rolled away from the grave and Jesus arose, the heads of the serpent were demolished, defeated, and Jesus stood up. The Bible says he's been given a name that is above every name. Every other power shall bow under him. And he's the ultimate this morning, Jesus Christ, our Savior. We have this history. Adam and Eve may not have had it.

We're sitting here this morning, and we might, "I don't know what all your troubles are." But if we would take a list of woes this morning from each person sitting here, we'd all have a story to tell of pain, of suffering. I see Sister Sherlock sitting in a wheelchair. What's that all about?

Pain and suffering, isn't it? All Satan could do was bruise your heel. Suffering, disappointment. Some of you are going through cancer treatment. You know what that is? Satan was allowed to bruise the heel of man. But Jesus Christ came to bruise the head of Satan.

And if we're in Jesus Christ this morning, I don't care what your light in life is. Maybe you've been rejected this week by a loved one. Maybe you've lost a loved one. Maybe you're experiencing just the shakes this morning. Maybe you got up this morning and you're limping and your heel feels bruised terribly. Life brings with it a whole list of things. But brothers and sisters, if we lump them all together, you know what it is?

Satan is bruising the heel of mankind. But you know what? If we're in Jesus Christ this morning, we're on top of him. We're safe. We're protected.

Yeah, we're living a dying and a broken world. But Jesus told Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus died, "If you believe in me, though you were dead, yet you shall live." And he goes on to say, "If you live, any man that liveth and believeth in me shall never die."

Now, whose head is bruised and whose heel is bruised, folks, this morning? That is the good news verse that we glean from this. He is the bright and morning star. He's the head of the church. He's the giver of all good things. The troubles we face in this life, let's lump them together and say it's so short-lived. And if we live for Jesus, we have the victory of Jesus in our life, we're above all that. And we have hope beyond the grave that this is all going to fade away.

Now, I don't know what Adam and Eve took of this prophecy, but let's just suppose. Let's go into this story supposing that Eve

took this as a good news verse and she was anticipating that through her seed, the seed of the woman, there's going to be a remedy. There's going to be a redeemer.

And possibly that was in the tone of her voice when that first child was born, "I have received a child, a man from the Lord." But what a disappointment, as we know the story. Anything but that. This firstborn became the first murderer of humankind.

How sad those parents must have been. How sad. What a disappointment for Adam and Eve. What a disappointment. Well, let's think of the happy family here in the beginnings. The brothers at home. The word brother here is used, I think, in the text that I read, if I count it correctly, the word brother or thy brother referring to each other as brothers is used at least seven or eight times in this short text.

So we take from that that brothers, family, relationships are very close to the heart of God, and he sees all of that, this happy family. This has the greatest blessing pronounced on them since the fall. We just get a pretty good picture in the first verses of this new family.

Some people believe they were twins. We can't prove that. But we do see here that Cain was born first. Then it says in the next verse that his brother Abel then was born. Now, we don't know how much age difference between these brothers, but apparently it was pretty close, it seems, we get here. They grew up together.

The home was prospering. And then the next part we come to, the brothers are at work and they find jobs, so they grow up. They each get a job. They're working, which is very necessary according to scripture. The prophecy was given to Adam that because of your sin, now all of a sudden you're going to have to work. You're going to have to sweat. By the sweat of thy face, thou shalt eat bread, in verse 19 of chapter 3.

So that was given as a responsibility. They're taking that responsibility. Each has their different job. Cain, it says, was a worker in the field, and Abel kept the flocks.

He was a shepherd, I guess we see here, working with animals and so on. So they worked, I'd like to think they worked together. They worked together, somewhat overlapped in their work, we can assume. And then the next part we notice, they evidently have been taught by Adam and Eve that it's very important to worship their great God. So they bring their offerings, and naturally speaking, their offerings, Cain brings his offering.

In the process of time, so we don't know how much time elapsed here and what all they've been taught, how much they knew about offering their and what all that meant to them, to what level, we don't know for sure. But we do know from the passage here, they were taught something about bringing an offering unto the Lord.

Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, of the fruit of the ground, to the earth. So I'm guessing whatever that fruit, whatever he harvested, that fruit I'm going to stop here a little bit. I'm going to go back to and this is extra. I'm going to go back to our Sunday school discussion just a little bit. Speaking from this side of things, the double honor to me, one of them is we were discussing the practical things this morning, and that's good and fine and has its place. But to me, a double honor for the one that labors in the word and in doctrine is more of a spiritual thing.

If any teacher or instructor or preacher or teacher labors in the word or whatever it might be, and those that he's trying to teach are receiving and taking in and responding to that, thinking of an individual even, when we meet with an individual and we try to give direction and speak into the individual's life, and that individual responds to that truth, that to me is double honor. It's double honor.

If that's just rejected and sneered at or whatever, is anything but honor. So that was extra. The other thing for preaching, we say sometimes, "Well, that was a boring preacher," or, "That was an interesting preacher," or, "Whatever." And from this side of the thing is, my experience is we don't preach by ourselves. Would other preachers agree to that? Iron sharpens iron, and I'm putting out a little appeal this morning. I had an experience last winter. I was asked to preach a series of revival meetings at a particular congregation, and it so happened it was right through the heels of COVID, and some of us were sick, and I was one of them. And that week was a hard, long week.

I was sick and just not feeling the best and tired and long evenings. And most of the congregation, I think, felt that way. Very attentive, though. But there were several brothers in that congregation that kept me preaching all week simply by their attendance, their, "I'm with you," the response, the feedback. And I'll leave that for whatever it's worth. But if you want a good preacher, you have to be a good audience.

I've preached to some boring congregations. Whatever this is all worth, I'll just put that out. So if you're sleepy this morning, jerk up, wake up, and stay with me. And let's get into this word together and see what we can learn from Cain and from God this morning.

So stay with us.

So now where did we stop? Eve's response to this new child, we're on down into these offerings. Now, Cain offers, Abel offers. And if I look at it, it looks when we look at it at this point, it's very noble for both of them. So it's only natural for Cain to take of the fruits of his labor. So whether it's wheat, I don't know what he must have been harvesting. He takes that and brings a portion of it to God and offers it in worship. And Abel does the same thing. He takes from his labors, and he offers.

So commentators make a big deal out of this. What was it? The Bible says that God had respect for Abel's offering and had no respect for Cain's offering. Now, then people question God. Well, what kind of God is he?

He has disrespect and respect. Is he a respecter of persons? Let's get into this and find out what we can find from God's word together. What is going on? One important part we have to notice here, it says that he had respect for Abel and his offering.

Let's not miss that part. And he says he had dis or no respect for Cain and his offering. So let's keep the person in focus this morning. It wasn't only the offering that he had no respect for, but it was the person and his offering.

Very important part of this. Let's not miss this. So what's going on? Well, some say that because Cain's offering had not in it a blood spill where Abel's offering was animal, well, that was under Moses' law.

The shedding of blood is pointing forward to the dying Savior and his blood to cover sin. And Cain came with that not to offer with his crops. No shedding of blood there. But I would leave that as it is.

Maybe that was part of it, but let's give Cain a little bit of a break on that. I mean, where did he go for animal sacrifice? If he didn't work animals, it just seemed natural for him to take of his wheat or corn or whatever it was to offer unto the Lord.

So we have the brothers at home. We have the brothers at worship. And now we have the brothers at variance. So there's something happening here now. There's the first conflict probably in the human family of all history. Right here it begins. And let's notice how God comes, and he asks the question for Abel.

Well, let's settle it with Abel. Let's settle that. Abel's sacrifice was acceptable. In Hebrews 11:4, it says, "By faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." That's in Hebrews 11:4, the faith chapter. And then two verses later in Hebrews 11:6, the Hebrew writer continues with that thought, and he says, "But without faith, it is impossible to please him."

So from that, from the Hebrew writer's take of it, he is saying that by faith Abel offered. So it had to do with the person, how he offered this offering. It is by faith, and he goes on to say, "Without faith, it is impossible to please God." So the challenge for us this morning, when we come to the Lord, do we come in faith? If we do, and what does that mean?

In faith, we think, when we think of faith, it's, well, we believe or we trust. But in the word faith, there's also this idea of worship and honor and respect and all of that. And we take from Hebrews that Abel came this way.

He had faith in a great God that he loved, and everything he did reflected that. So by faith, Jesus says one place, or is this from Isaiah, "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me."

Now, how can that be? How can we draw near to God with our mouth and our lips or with our offering, maybe like Cain did? Maybe Cain was coming really close to God with his offering. He went through the motions. We can do that.

We can draw really close to God. We can come to church with all the wrong reasons. Do you know that? With our mouth, with our lips, we go close to God. But he says their heart was far from me. And I take from this lesson that Cain had a heart problem. Let's look at this.

So he goes well, another thing about let's finish a little bit more with Abel here. Jesus says in Matthew 23:34 and 35, he says, "Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets," talking to the scribes, the Pharisees, Israel there, "wherefore, behold, I sent unto you prophets and wise men and scribes, and some of them you shall kill and crucify, and some of them shall you scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city, that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias." So Jesus declared Abel to be a righteous man.

So he's taken care of. Abel is safe, declared by Jesus Christ himself that he is righteous.

Now, if we look at 1 John 3:12, the Apostle John says, "Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous." 1 John 3:12. And then he continues that thought in that context to teach us today.

We know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer had eternal life abiding in him.

Wow, he's dealing with the heart, isn't he? The Apostle John turns that thing right around to the heart. Now, let's look at the appeal that God makes in verse 6 and 7.

Right after it seemed that it was discovered by Cain that God was not accepting his offering or there was no respect for it, God asked Cain this question, "Why art thou wroth? Why art thou wroth?" We don't use that word today much in our language, do we?

What does it mean?

I think I had to go to the dictionary to see exactly what that means in our language today, and I have it written down what the dictionary says here, but now I can't find it.

If I remember correctly, it had the idea of a deep anger.

My Bible says furious. Furious. There you go. Cedric, why are you furious? That is quite the question, isn't it? I mean, God coming down from heaven and pointing right into him and saying, "Why?" Now, we can ask ourselves that question.

Why am I furious? And why has my countenance fallen? I understand the idea of a countenance. It's written all over us. It's maybe the way we walk and the way our smile turns, or not is there, not or our countenance. What is a countenance? We express what's going on in our heart by our countenance if we're angry. This past week or whenever it was, I was on the road, and here was a young Amish lady. It looked like she might have been 17 or so. She was out beside the highway in a two-wheeled cart with her horse, and it was a wild-looking horse. I mean, he was trying to rear and everything else.

And there were several big trucks going by, some construction trucks, and she had pulled in the ditch off the road, off the shoulder. And that horse was just a rearing and a prancing. And there was this young Amish lady. If I could have, I would have stopped and tried to help.

But everything on her countenance was like, "I don't know what to do." I mean, there's truck traffic. There's a wild horse. There's mailboxes here. And it was just written on her countenance that something was terribly wrong. And apparently, God saw that in Cain.

Why are you angry? Why is your countenance fallen? Something had gone wrong in Cain's life. Do we feel that way sometimes? I just got up this morning, and I feel miserable. I just don't feel good. We say feelings are flimsy, but God doesn't say that. He's concerned about Cain's feelings.

Why are you feeling angry? What's going on, Cain? Why do you look so hopeless? I think he's asking these questions so that Cain would begin to think, "Well, why am I? What is going on?" And that's a good question for all of us.

He wants us to do research when there's issues in our life. Let's do a little research. What's going on? Is it a root of bitterness? Is it envy? Is it just a plain old hurt from someone, and I'm allowing this thing to destroy my hope, and it's showing on my countenance? Or what is going on?

He's targeting Cain's heart here.

And then, I mean, it's just an appeal. It's an appeal that he's making.

He's not dealing with the offering, is he? "Cain, why did you not bring the best of your flock like your brother did that sheds blood?" Or I mean, he's not even mentioning that. He's tackling, he's targeting something much deeper than the offering, much deeper.

Didn't David discover that in his repenting? He told God that if I could give you a sacrifice or a burnt offering, I would. If you would want that, I could give it to you. But he says the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a contrite heart.

That's what God is fishing for right here in Cain. "I don't so much care about your offering." Yes, he does, but I'm more concerned. What about that thing that you have allowed in your heart that has changed your whole view of God and man?

Let's talk about that. Let's talk about it. God wants to talk about it. God cares about our feelings. He cares about that root of bitterness. He cares about that seed of unforgiveness. Does he not? He wants to talk with us about it. And you know what? He has nothing to offer but good news.

Verse 7, he just tells him he lays before him life and blessing. "I tell you, Cain, if you're willing to look at this problem, we're going to go through this together. If you're willing to look at it, I'm going to restore everything about you." And I take in verse where he says in verse 7, he says the end of verse 7, "And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him." I take of that now, I know there's different understandings of what that could mean, but I like to take it this way.

Back in those days, the elder said that the younger was to serve the elder in a family, and the elder was and is he referring that everything that went wrong between you and your brother is going to be restored?

You're going to be the elder child, and your younger brother's going to respect you for that. And on top of all of that, you're going to be accepted by me if you do well. In other words, if you repent, if you look at your problem that's in your heart and you repent and you change that, everything about our relationship is going to be restored, and all is going to be well for you.

You're going to be at rest. You're going to be at peace. Your happy family is going to be restored. That is a promise for us today on our part when we're willing to deal with our hurt, whatever it is, and lay it down, give it to God. God wants to step through all of that with us, and everything that went wrong will be restored.

What a great God. What a caring God. What a God that steps all the way from heaven, and he sees just the way you feel. And he's wanting to talk about your personal feelings this morning and your countenance. Let's talk about it.

I tell you, if you change this, everything's going to be well for you. What a promise. What a blessing.

If we are willing

I like what the Psalm writer says in Psalm 133, first couple of verses, "How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity, for there the Lord commanded the blessing even life evermore." When God commands a blessing, the blessing will be there.

Ask Balaam and Balac, which one opened his mouth to curse, and all that came out was blessing. When we get this right, this relationship that was broken between these two brothers, when we get that right and we allow God to come in and whatever is between us, we resolve that. Right there, the Psalm writer tells us where the blessing is going to be, and it's not going to go away. Neither height nor death nor principalities or any other power can destroy that blessing when God puts it there.

What a power. What a blessing.

I just am so inspired when I look at this account, how that God did not give up easily on Cain. So far, we see no response from Cain, not whatsoever, in tenderness, in repentance. And yet, God is there standing at the door and knocking. "Come on, Cain. Let's resolve this thing."

And then he says in the same verse, "If thou doest not well." In other words, that's God's way of saying, if you don't repent, he sets before him death and a curse. So see, God, is he a respecter of persons?

I don't see it that way here. He's giving Cain the same opportunity of rightness, of righteousness, of right living, and of right choices as his brother Abel had. God is offering all of that to Cain right here. He says, "If you don't repent or if you don't do well," he says, "sin lieth at the door." That's scary.

That is scary. What that reminds me of when I was a child at home nowadays, we have these telemarketers call almost daily. When I was young and at home, we had the salesmen coming to the door, not daily but quite often.

And when my parents were at home, they would answer the door, and they knew how to deal with them or tell them whether they're interested or not. But when mom and dad were not home and a bunch of us kids were at home and a salesperson would come to the door, our first reaction was, "Take off upstairs in a bedroom, close the door, and hide until they leave."

And it seemed those were the persons that a lot of times hung around. They'd go to the front door and knock and knock and knock. They'd go to the other door and knock and then to the back door. And now I look back and I say, "Well, duh, I think they heard us running and scurrying and whispering and talking and peeking out behind the curtains. They knew somebody was at home." I get that picture here. God tells Cain, "As long as you have this in your heart, sin is just like that salesman was. Sin knows, 'Here is an opportunity, and I'm going to keep knocking, and I'm going to wait.'" So you have sin in the back door, and you have God in the front door, and the choice is up to Cain. "What am I going to do?

What am I going to do?" That's scary when we know that sin is pursuing us that way. And in the front door, God is just knocking as well. "Let's talk about your feelings. Let's talk about your hurt and your pain. If we can't talk about it, you have trouble in the forefront."

And let's not be deceived, folks. If we allow murder in our heart, if we allow lust in our heart, if we allow covetousness in our heart, it's going to ruin our life. It just will. There's no getting around. That is a law that God put in place.

Let's take heed. Let's learn something from Cain this morning from his mistake.

Now we have the brothers both at judgment, the judgment bar. They're both there. We talked about Abel. He's already, we believe at this point, met God. He's been declared righteous. He's been received as innocent. Not that Abel was completely perfect all his life, but he was justified. He was received and accepted. And we believe today he's in the hands of a merciful God, safe.

The contrast we see another couple of questions. After this is after the murder now, we see old Cain was not willing. Not one inch he was going to budge. He's not even opening one inch. And he allows the feeling of hatred, jealousy to continue to grow. And what happened? We know the story. We read it. They were in the field, and as they were talking, the Bible says that he up and slew his brother.

Now, that is very unfortunate. The first human birth that the mother, Eve, was so delighted about, her firstborn, and he does this to his younger brother. What a disappointment to the parents, to God, and to everything else around them. What a disappointment. But I find here we want to look at God again.

After this great sin happened, what does God do? He comes back again to Cain. And this is only by the steps of mercy because I think according to justice, Cain should have been killed as well.

Now, God is overriding that. This is the great God we serve today. And we should all be saying together with one voice, "I delight to do the will of my oh my God, I delight to do thy will. Thy law is in my heart."

Because this is the great God that came back, and every step he came back to Cain was a step of mercy. "Cain, where is your brother?"

"Cain, I don't know.

Am I my brother's keeper?" That's a very worldly question. The world asks that question today. God's people should never ask that question. "Am I my brother's keeper?"

It might be a reflection against God because God, after all, you were supposed to keep him. How should I know where he is? See, he's taking no responsibility. No responsibility. The next question, "What have you done?" All those questions, you think if there's any kind of tenderness in his heart, they would pierce. "Where's your brother?" "I don't know.

What have you done?"

God comes back in his mercy, and he just gives him another chance. Do you know what I think God is doing with Cain right now? He is fishing. He's appealing. He's asking the sinner. He's asking the murderer, "Would you please look at what you've done to your brother?

Let's talk about it.

Where is he?" And I believe God was going to give him another chance.

Only if he would have said, "I'm so sorry," and he would have had a true, genuine sorrow for his sin, God would have made a new beginning. Does God not make a new beginning for the broken spirit and the contrite heart? But he just couldn't fish that out of Cain, could he? He tried. He appealed. He pled. He invited. God still does that today.

All of us here this morning are operating in one way or the other from God's great mercy.

Every one of us. We have all failed and come short of the glory of God. All of us. What's going to save us? If we maintain a spirit that is broken, a heart that is contrite, and a tenderness toward God, and we confess, say, "I was wrong. I was wrong. Is there forgiveness for me?" And God gave his Son so that we can find forgiveness. What a gospel.

But oh, if we hold out, if we hold out like Cain did, and I ask us the question, for Cain, we don't maybe have the whole story, but the few things we have about his life, the petty little thing that he was holding on to, he really sold out cheap, didn't he?

He really sold out cheap. In all of his future punishment and judgment, if we could hear him say today, "Oh, what a trade-off. What a trade-off," don't we do the same things today sometimes? It's just that one little thing that hinders me. Jesus came to the rich young ruler one day, and the rich young ruler had a history of doing well.

He kept the commandments. But Jesus had to tell him, "There's only one thing. Just one thing." And I see that with Cain. There's one thing that held him. Was it pride? Was it just that deep Cedric, what did you call that? Furious. Furious.

That anger. He just couldn't let it go.

We say, "Well, that's cheap, isn't it? To trade your blessing that God laid in front of you, your restoration, your promise of life, your promise of a good future, your promise of a good relationship in your family, and today we could say in your church."

But oh, so many times we just want to hold on. Let's together sharpen each other, encourage each other to let go because we serve a great and a merciful God, a great God that desires our friendship, our relationship.

When we look at Cain's life, the little bit of history we have of his life, he rejected. He simply rejected God. He rejected God's appeal. He rejected the offer that God wanted to give in repentance.

He even rejected his judgment. If we continue to read, do we read that part? That after God cursed him and judged him, and then he turns around, "God, this thing that you've given to me is more than I can handle," still no remorse, still no sorrow for his sin, just a lamenting and a complaining about the judgment that is greater than I can handle.

Do you know that there's going to be millions of souls, I think, going to be repeating that throughout all eternity? The judgment is greater than I can handle.

Well, God cursed him, and he sent him out. And he says he's going to be a vagabond, and I understand a fugitive. Our language maybe be just a restless wanderer. There's no place on the earth for him. His labors will not prosper anymore. That's the judgment he faces in this life.

And if we continue to read, and Cain verse 16 went out from the presence of the Lord, he's basically on his own.

What can we learn from this lesson this morning? First of all, what can we learn from Cain? One thing Cain has learned for sure that's still true today, with God, we cannot do wrong and get by. We just can't.

He also learned that God was a patient and a merciful God, but he also learned that God will not always strive with man, and there's a day of reckoning coming. He learned that. That's still true today. We serve a patient God, a God that stands at the front door and saying, "Come on. Let's go."

Another thing Cain learned, or we can learn from his life, I don't know how much of this he realized, but we look at the story and we continue reading the passage, we find that the choices that Cain made did not only affect himself, but they affected generations.

Do you know several generations after this, we have the first case of polygamy? So the origin of the sin of polygamy has its roots right back to this man that held on to this chinzy little thing of pride, and he wouldn't let go. And we take that generations after him lived that way.

It wasn't until his younger brother Seth was born to Adam and Eve again, the Bible says, "And then men began to call on the name of the Lord." So we get the picture, all those generations between Cain and Seth, and I'm not sure I didn't count how many, but there's a number of them there, I believe.

We get the picture that not a one of those committed their ways and called on the name of the Lord. And it makes you wonder how much of that had to do with their great, great-granddaddy that was too proud and too stubborn to let go and let God rule his life.

What can we learn from our great God in this story?

We learned, and we talked about it, God is very interested in all the details of our life, beginning at our feelings this morning. How do you feel? Ladies, sisters put a lot of emphasis on feelings and emotions.

Did you know that's okay, but did you also know in the story this morning we learned that God is very concerned about how you feel this morning? Do you feel grumpy? Do you feel cheerful? Do you feel hurt? God is very interested in that. And he wants us to take a tour together with him on our feelings and our countenance. Whether we're sad or happy, angry, upset, bitter, hopeless, or depressed, he stands at the front door, and he wants to offer nothing but hope and life. That's his goal. That's what we saw here with Cain, hope and life. The countenance was going to be changed. It was going to be a countenance of hope and life.

Another thing we learn in this story, and we talked about it a little bit, is that when we do fail, which we all do, we all fail, every one of us, that even when we're a failure, and we've failed immensely, we have just dropped the ball, we have done so wrong, we've wronged somebody, or we cheated somebody, that God still is interested in us, and he wants to talk about that. He does not completely reject us when we fail. He comes back and asks, "What have you done?

Where's your brother or where's your sister?" God wants to give us a chance to get back up, to move forward, to bring hope, to bring restitution, to bring whatever we can, but his offer is life and blessing. Together, we can take care of the problem. I think Cain thought whatever problems there is, he was capable maybe of taking care of them himself.

Was he? Not really.

With such a great, merciful, loving God, let's say together as we leave this place, "I delight to do thy will, O God.

Yea, thy law is within my heart." May that be our testimony this week as we go out and about, and let's continue to give our hearts and our feelings, all the details of our life. Let's learn what it means to take them to God over and over again because he careth.