Genesis chapter 4, And Adam knew Eve his
wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and
said, I have gotten a man from God,
from the Lord.
And she again bare his brother Abel.
And Abel was the keeper of sheep, but
Cain was the tiller of the ground.
And in the 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, notice
the phrase, he had no respect.
And Cain was very wroth, his countenance fell.
The Bible talks to us about the imminent
return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The greatest hope that I have today in
my heart, and you have in your heart,
is the fact that Jesus is coming again.
The reality of that.
Every problem you have and I have is
going to be solved when He comes.
You say, well that's escapism.
You call it what you want.
I'm enjoying the fact He's coming back.
Jesus is coming.
If you are in love with someone, do
you not want to see them?
I'm in love with Jesus.
Jesus is in love with me.
I want to see Him.
I'm so excited about going to the Holy
Land in November because I'm like a kid
at Christmas.
Man, I love that.
I can't wait.
I can't wait for promise to be seen.
I'm already working on services.
I'm excited about what we're going to see
and enjoy.
But that's just an earthly anticipation.
The way things are shaping up, we'll do
the Holy Land together.
And it won't be John of Sod doing
our guiding.
It'll be the Lord Jesus Christ.
How will that be?
That'll be good.
We have that hope.
Jesus said, I'm not going to tell you
the day I return.
I'm not going to tell you the hour
I return.
That's a secret.
No man knows.
Not even the angels.
Of that day and of that hour, no
one knows.
But He said, I will tell you two
clues.
And, Dennis, here's the two clues.
He said, if you want to know when
I'm coming, you study what was going on
during Noah's day.
And you study what was going on during
Lot's day.
And if you'll study those two things, when
you see them happening in your society, your
culture, your time, then you'll know I'm not
even at the door.
So we've been studying, as a church family,
Noah's days.
I want to introduce this thought to you.
The works of Cain.
The works of unbelief.
The works of Cain's hands.
Here's one way you could view this.
Cain's will is now overriding God's Word.
Self-will becomes more important.
What I think and what I want becomes
more important than biblical principles.
Cain's will is over God's Word.
And if you allow that to happen, what
happens is that the works of Cain then
bear fruit.
And the fruit of that is wrath and
anger.
And it is discord and an unsettled spirit.
And it becomes and grows into wickedness.
And what we find is the discord of
Cain's heart.
The dissatisfaction of Cain's heart.
Turned into anger.
And anger mutated into murder.
In verse 3, we find out the reason
that Cain brought of the fruit of the
ground an offering unto the Lord.
In verse 5, we see what Cain got
upset about.
But unto Cain and to his offering, the
Word of God says that God had no
respect.
Why did God disrespect Cain?
Why did God disrespect his offering?
Because Cain brought the wrong sacrifice.
He brought the offering and the labor of
his self-will.
Now, Cain was very contemporary in his thinking.
Cain was trying to please the society of
his day.
He wanted to have a politically correct offering.
He did not want to have a bloody
sacrifice that had been shown to him as
the way to appease God.
He wanted to have a softer approach to
the holiness of God.
So Cain changed his thinking.
Cain ignored God.
Cain turned around twice and he abandoned his
heritage.
Old time religion was out of touch.
The old time way wouldn't work.
So he offered the wrong sacrifice in self
-will.
Cain, when we read this passage, expresses not
one hint of guilt.
Nowhere is he crying like Isaiah, I am
a man of unclean lips.
Nowhere is he saying, God have mercy on
me.
Abel had already been overwhelmed by God's grace.
Cain was offering his works.
Abel was offering God's works.
Cain was saying, look what I've done.
Abel was saying, look what God's done.
Cain was saying, I am great.
I am good.
I've worked hard.
Abel saying, I don't deserve this land.
I don't deserve grass growing on the land.
I don't deserve the sheep that God gave
me.
I don't deserve the air that's in my
lungs.
But I've been blessed by God.
And God looked my way.
And God had mercy.
And God's Lamb, I'll take it over to
the altar.
And I'll give a sacrifice that cost a
life.
He presented the blood sacrifice.
Cain ignored God's plan.
Cain expressed no guilt.
And he also, if you read this carefully,
he acknowledged not anywhere here about faith in
any kind of atonement that man would be
reconciled to God.
If you have time in your personal study
this week, look at Hebrews 9.22 about
the shedding of blood for the remission of
sin.
A powerful verse in Hebrews 11.
How does Hebrews 11 verse 4 read?
Notice the phrasing in your Bible.
By faith able.
This is Hebrews 11.4. By faith able.
Offered unto God.
And what did He offer unto God?
A more excellent sacrifice.
And then God doesn't stop there.
He says, He mentions it again in His
Word.
That able offered a more excellent sacrifice unto
God.
And not only did He state that, but
here's what He said, Brian.
He said, And it was better than Cain's.
That's strong.
But that same verse in Hebrews 11.4,
it goes on to say, He obtained witness
that He was righteous.
He obtained witness.
Who was the witness?
God Himself.
The next line in that verse says, God
testifying of His gifts.
And by it, He being dead yet speaketh.
He said, He got murdered.
He got killed.
But the very fact He's dead, He's still
preaching.
Out of the ground.
The biblical principles of what He did.
To do business with a holy God.
Cain offered a sacrifice.
Brother Bill, in the Hebrew, that word is
a word, Mishnah.
M-I-N-C-H-A.
And it means that His sacrifice, there in
the book of Genesis, is a Eucharist offering.
It's an offering of the earth.
It's an offering there of the fruit of
the ground.
And what Cain did is he ignored his
own sinfulness and his greatest fault was he
ignored his own personal need of divine intervention.
He was going to help God redeem Himself.
One of the truths of this Bible that
our flesh does not want to receive is
the total depravity of man.
Man doesn't want to hear.
He's depraved.
Men and women, teenagers and young adults, don't
want to hear.
They're depraved.
Sociologists and people that are working and psychologists
and counselors and therapists, they're always trying to
fan the spark of goodness inside of man.
And we'll fan that.
Cain was not without education concerning proper worship
or the words and requirements of a three
times holy God.
I don't have time to read all this
Scripture into your hearing, but go to Genesis
chapter 2, verses 8 and 9, and you'll
read about the Garden of Eden.
You'll see God planted a garden and there
He put man.
Go to Genesis chapter 2, verses 15, 16
and 17.
You'll find out there's a tree of life
in the midst of the garden.
There's also a tree of knowledge of good
and evil.
You'll also go to chapter 3 and you'll
find that sin is in the Garden of
Eden now.
Eve and Adam have sinned.
Genesis 3, 6 and 7.
And the Bible said, she took of the
fruit thereof and did eat.
And ladies, let me just tell you something.
This is Mother's Day and we're honoring you
today.
But ladies, young teenage girls, young single ladies
in our church, moms, let me just share
something with you.
There's not a more powerful force in this
building today outside of the Holy Spirit of
God than a godly woman.
The power of a godly woman.
The power of a young lady surrendered to
God.
The power of a teenage girl that walks
with King Jesus.
Nothing more powerful.
You say, what are you talking about preacher?
God made man the head of the home.
But God put man's heart in the hands
of a woman.
You read this book and you understand what
this book says.
And it says right here that she took
the fruit thereof and did eat and gave
also unto her husband.
And the next phrase, it says, her husband
with her.
There's no comma, there's no pause, there's no
period.
It says, her husband with her.
Her husband loved her.
Adam didn't sin.
Adam wasn't tricked.
Adam loved Eve.
He's the type of Christ.
We're a type of Eve, the church.
Boy, this will preach forever.
But it's good truth.
And the Bible says that she gave her
husband with her and he did eat.
I'm going to tell you ladies, you have
the power to lead your home, the power
to lead your husband, your children, teenagers.
You've got the power to lead other teenagers,
single young ladies.
You've got the power to influence the party,
the crowd, the car you're in, the music
that's being listened to.
You've got that power.
God gave you the heart, the power to
touch the heart.
The Bible says he did eat and the
eyes of both of them were opened.
Genesis 3, 22.
Here's what we read, Jackie.
We read the gardens now.
It's taken away.
They lost it all.
They had everything.
They had the tree of life.
They had food.
They had fruit.
They had everything.
And now, it's all going to be taken
away.
It's removed.
In Genesis 3, verses 22 and 23, the
Lord sent him forth from the garden of
Eden.
And so he drove out the man.
And heavenly beings are now placed at the
gate.
Here's the garden of Eden.
If the platform's the garden, and here's the
gate in, and now there's heavenly beings, angels,
cherubims, and they're guarding the gate so Adam
and Eve cannot come back in.
So man can't enter back into the garden.
Not only that, but we read something else.
What does it say here in verse 23?
And therefore the Lord God sent him forth
from the garden of Eden to till the
ground from whence he was taken.
So verse 24, he drove out the man
and he placed at the east of the
garden of Eden, cherubims.
And notice this, a flaming sword which turns
every way to keep the way of the
tree of life.
God said, I'm not only going to put
angels, but I'm going to do a flaming
sword.
Now church, you read this with me carefully.
It doesn't say that the sword's even in
the hand of the angels.
What does it say?
It said I put cherubims and what?
And a flaming sword.
And not only is it a flaming sword,
but it's a smart flaming sword.
Men think they're so smart they've got laser
-guided weapons.
God had a laser-guided sword in Genesis
3.
I'll sneak around.
That sword's right there.
I'll go.
That sword's right there.
Laser-guided.
Motion detector.
Heat-seeking.
Infrared.
Divine flaming sword.
You say, it's all in the Hebrew.
You've got to read this.
This is good.
The tree of life is represented as a
sinful nation is trying to have life eternal.
Why did God block that tree of life?
Sinful men, sinful women.
Watch this.
If they could get into the garden and
they're sinners now, and they could get to
the tree of life and they could eat
that, those fallen natures would have lived forever.
And God blocked that.
God didn't allow it.
You know what?
Cain knew this history.
Cain had been there.
Adam and Eve.
How many times had Adam and Eve got
their boys and Adam's holding on to the
hand of Cain and Eve's holding on to
the hand of Abel, and they said, come
on boys, we need to show you something.
And they walked over to the gate.
Those little boys' eyes got big.
See those big angels?
Said, we used to live inside there boys.
Look in there.
You see that big tall tree?
That's a tree of life.
Mom and Daddy, we used to sing under
that tree.
We used to picnic under there.
You see that?
We used to walk with God.
First time I ever saw that tree, God
walked me over and said, look at this.
God provided for us.
Boys, we used to fellowship with God.
We know He's God and we know He's
great, but it used to be different.
It used to be a lot more personal.
It just wasn't on Sunday.
It was every day.
We walked with Him and talked with Him
as we traveled life's road.
That's why you're so blessed as Bible believers,
because Jesus said, if I go away, I
won't leave you comfortless.
And He's put the Holy Ghost inside of
us.
We're having restored fellowship.
Adam and Eve, the fellowship was broken.
We have that restored fellowship.
Notice here something powerful.
Not only did they look in and see
that tree, that tall tree, but Cain and
Abel grew up looking at the gate.
They saw the angel standing guard.
They witnessed the flaming sword that turned to
block men from entering into the Garden of
Eden.
Adam and Eve told them in the evenings,
they told them around the supper table, boys,
let me tell you something.
As you grow up, I know we're sitting
here and I'm having to work and to
plow and to till, but let me tell
you something while you're having your dessert.
I remember a day when roses had no
thorns.
I remember when there were no weeds in
the garden.
I remember, son, how it used to be
when the power of God was on our
church.
I remember when there was all-time religion.
I remember when there was conviction.
I remember when it was more than a
production of man's hands.
I remember more that God was good and
gracious and we traded it all off, boys.
Don't you guys trade it off.
Don't you lose what God's given you.
Don't waste the sacrifice of our pain of
disobedience.
You stay true.
They fellowshiped around their dinner table.
They told bedtime stories.
Cain and Abel grew up hearing about the
day of Genesis 3.23 when God sent
them forth from the garden.
The Hebrew word shalach is to actually send
away or to cast out.
And they were cast out of the garden.
And God spoke to Adam and Eve and
spoke to them to teach Cain and Abel,
boys, whatever you do, serve God.
Boys, you don't have to worry about your
talents.
Everyone can be faithful.
Be faithful, boys.
Be faithful to God.
Obey His Word.
Don't ever do anything to cause God to
send you away.
We heard Him.
We rejected His Word.
We disobeyed Him.
And He sent us away.
I'm forgiven today, boys.
God made the sacrifice.
God killed the animals.
God made my first set of clothes.
He hid my nakedness from His searching eyes.
But boys, don't ever sin against God.
God will forgive you.
But the price of sin will always remain.
The wages of sin is death.
Let me tell you something.
I can come up here to Brother Ricky,
and I can pick at him and pick
at him and punch at him and punch
at him until finally he gets angry.
He stands up, and he pops me right
in the nose.
And he can go home, and his sweet
wife can say, Now, I know the pastor
was asking for it, and I know he
pushed you over the threshold, and I know
you got mad, but you shouldn't have broken
the preacher's nose.
And he'll get in the car, and he'll
drive over here and he'll say, Preacher, you
know I love you.
You know I got mad.
I'm sorry I broke your nose.
And I can say, You know what, Brother
Ricky, I deserve that.
I was way out of line.
I had sin in my heart.
I want you to forgive me.
And he says, Well, Pastor, will you forgive
me for breaking your nose?
And I say, Sure, I will.
And we'll get down and we'll pray together.
And God forgives me, and God forgives him.
But watch this.
I still have a broken nose.
Two big old black eyes.
He's right with God.
I'm right with God.
And I'm walking around here.
Oh.
What happened?
Oh, none of your business.
You love God?
Yes, I love God.
Oh, my head's killing me.
Are you going to heaven?
Yeah, I'm going to heaven.
My nose will quit bleeding.
It costs to break fellowship with a holy
God.
You don't want to lose God's touch on
your life.
You don't want any little root of bitterness
to come in there and break your fellowship.
The devil doesn't have to drive a train
wreck into your life to break your fellowship.
All he wants to do is take the
edge off your sword.
Take your joy.
Take your victory.
They were warned.
The boys grew up with the first person
accounts of what disobedience will do.
They knew the cost of sin.
Genesis 3.24 says, So he drove.
Hebrew.
Drove.
Garash.
G-A-R-A-S-H.
That word means to drive out.
But I like the second meaning of that
word because the second meaning of that word
says to drive away from a possession.
They possessed the garden.
They had the land.
And guess what?
Their sin caused God to drive them away
from what they once possessed.
When you backslide, you lose that possession.
God forgives you, but it takes a long
time to get restored what you have traded
away at the flea market of Satan.
Adam and Eve are now found begging God
in Genesis 3.24. What do you think
happened?
What do you think occurred?
I believe God said, You can't stay here.
If you eat of the tree of life,
you'll live forever.
But Cliff, what are they going to do?
They don't want to leave.
This is utopia.
This is paradise.
Everything is provided.
So I believe when God came to them,
they said, God, please.
Can't we have another chance?
God, please.
Let us stay.
God, I promise you we won't do that
again.
God, please.
Give us another opportunity.
God, please.
The Bible says that they were driven out.
I believe they left crying and begging to
stay because of the phrasing of that Hebrew
verb, I believe they were driven out against
their own will.
They wanted to stay.
And God said, You can't.
If you break and make another mistake and
eat of that tree, you'll live forever with
a fallen nature.
And that will never happen.
He said, I've got a promise coming.
Genesis 3, verse 15.
There's help on the way.
But until then, that blood sacrifice will have
to happen.
And Cain and Abel knew this and Cain
ignored God's Word.
And so what he did is he gathered
up his fruit, his labor, his vegetables, his
pears and apples and oranges and apricots and
zucchini and squash.
He gathered all his pumpkins.
He gathered all his corn and green beans
and greasy cut shorts and big boy tomatoes.
And he gathered all of his flowers and
all of his blooms.
And he brought them up and he said,
Here God, I love you too.
And God looked at him and He said,
Son, you know the rules.
You're trying to do it a new way
and it's not going to work.
You can't save yourself with your own works.
He brought a curse to cure a curse.
And you can't cure a curse with a
curse.
The only thing that will lift a curse
is the blood sacrifice.
Two thousand years ago outside of Jerusalem, Jesus
Christ, the kinsman redeemer, the Lamb of God
was nailed to a tree, Eddie, so you
and I could be at church today and
know our sins have been forgiven.
You say, Well, Brother Ralph, I'm here today.
I'm watching on the internet.
I'm watching on TV.
I'm listening on the radio.
You don't know how bad I am.
You don't know what I've done.
You don't know where I've been.
You don't know what I've gotten into.
Oh, I know.
But you don't know how great He is
and how powerful He is and how rich
His royal blood is and how marvelous His
grace is and how long-suffering His mercy
is.
All you've got to do is bring all
of that waste and filth and garbage and
mess-ups and mess-ups and disasters and
hopelessness and helplessness and just bring all that
junk and bring it over here and say,
Could I trade this in for life eternal?
Can I start all over?
And He'll just take, Tam, that precious blood
and He'll wipe all that past away.
And He'll look down at you and say,
You're brand new there.
Just like you never sinned.
I love you.
You're my child.
You walk with me.
A new day with God is now the
cause of the blood.
Cain made the mistake of trying to do
it in self-will and self-help.
Cain thought he was better educated than his
parents.
Adam and Eve were good, well-meaning people,
but they were sort of old-fashioned.
They were tuned to the past.
Cain said, I've got new technology, new ways
to farm.
I'm more sophisticated.
I've got self-importance.
People look up to me in the community.
I'm a leader.
I don't have to go that low road.