I'd like to talk about, uh, all of
the varieties and pluralisms and ways...
It seems that God sees things in stark
alternatives and polarities.
And in the Psalms we see a consistent
theme, the wicked and the righteous.
I went through the Psalms, not all the
Psalms, but I was fingering back through my
notes that I've written right into the Psalms,
because the reading of the Psalms is part
of my daily devotional.
I somehow stirred up by this thought somewhere
in the early morning hours when my brother's
wife called from, uh, Burundi, thinking that her
husband would be right at the phone.
Well, we've not yet come to sharing the
same bed.
But once I'm waking, that's it, I'm up.
And so it was an opportunity to look
at this morning's material and to look back
into the Psalms.
And I invite you to do that.
You'll see the persistent theme of the cry
of the righteous, who are the object of
oppression and persecution by the wicked.
What characterizes the wicked is their ruthless violence,
particularly vented upon the righteous.
There's something about the righteous that provokes the
wicked and reveals what they are in their
innermost being.
In fact, I think I found a place
in the Psalms where it says they are
born that way.
Let me see if I can find it.
And that they are liars and murderers, which
is, of course, the nature of their father.
You'll see that as the persistent theme, the
cry of the righteous.
And for God's intervention, because it's more than
their safety or bodily hurt that they're
expressing, but that the honor of God is
involved in his defense of the righteous.
It's God's name and honor standing for righteousness
that is more the wellspring of the cry
of the psalmist than it is their own
personal safety.
It's warning God to show himself, because their
detractors are saying, where is your God?
It's an object of scorn and derision that
somehow God seems to be absent from the
defense of his own saints and that they
are the merciless and defenseless victims of the
wicked.
So get into the texture of the Psalms
and see how that resonates virtually through every
Psalm and the cries that are registered there.
The cry of how long would and be
still before the Lord and wait patiently for
him.
Do not fret over those who prosper in
their way, over those who carry out evil
devices.
You deliver the weak from those too strong
for them, the weak and needy from those
who despoil them.
The wicked are invariably the defenseless and the
weak.
Who have made God their defense.
The Lord is my refuge, my power, my
strength.
That very conviction and very announcement to the
principalities and powers is a clear invitation to
be the object of oppression.
So if you want to avoid any of
this in your experience, just be a rank
and file commonplace Christian who has no intention
of making God his refuge and you'll be
spared.
But in this radical utterness of casting yourself
upon God and not seeing to your own
strength as your safety, the powers of darkness
hate such a one and will test him.
And the Lord allows it, evidently, as we
can read in the cry of the Psalmists
who are experiencing this oppression without the immediate
relief of God.
Where is he?
How long, O Lord?
Why are you silent?
Why don't you come and answer the cries
of the righteous?
So that's why I call the Book of
Psalms an end-time book.
It speaks more of the realities that we're
going to face than we can know.
And the Psalmists have a knowledge of God.
And so often the Psalm does not end
with a happy note.
Where God comes through.
But rather what's expressed is that there's such
a hopeful confidence in the future that he
will show himself strong, that he will vindicate
his name, that that confidence and that trust
is what sustains the suffering Psalmist now.
It's the assurance that God will act that
is what sustains the Psalmist, not the act
of God himself.
And where does that confidence come from?
God's faithfulness in the past.
Because he has come through before, because he
has honored his covenant, because he has shown
himself faithful, the Psalmist is assured that though
right now there's no present evidence of God,
he's allowing me to suffer this, yet I
am confident that he will because that's what
he's done in the past.
It's the history with God that saves men
in all of the perils and the uncertainties
of the future.
That's why they that overcome will overcome by
the blood of the Lamb and the word
of their testimony.
What does that mean?
That they have a residue of a history
of God's faithfulness that though in this moment
for reasons of his own that he is
not obliged to reveal, he is not coming
through, yet we have the confidence that he
will ultimately vindicate his name because he has
come through in the past and we have
a solid residue of God's past faithfulness that
will sustain us.
So I'm always encouraging young saints to accumulate
a history in God.
Where you put yourself in the place of
jeopardy that if God be not God, you
will perish.
And that's when he will give answer.
We can spend the whole morning just going
through the Psalms would be a precious time.
The Lord is my light and my salvation,
whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life,
of whom shall I be afraid?
When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh,
my adversaries and foes, they shall stumble and
fall.
Though an army encamp against me, my heart
shall not fear.
Though war rise up against me, yet I
will be confident.
So this is a precious tenor of all
of the psalmists.
Why the reference to fear about being assailed?
Because they're the object of the most malicious
violent activity of those who hate God and
somehow have a unique way to find out
those who stand in that identification with God
that they can ventilate on that visible piece
of flesh and blood a hatred and a
violence that cannot be perpetrated against the God
who is invisible.
See what I mean?
God is wanting this fellowship but when you
obtain it, know that you're mocked and that
you'll be the object of the ventilation of
a hatred against God.
The whole world is at enmity against God.
God-hatred is the distinction of the unbelieving
world.
And where do they ventilate that?
God who is invisible?
No.
That expression of God that is visible and
before them in every locality and community, the
people of God, the remnant, church.
But their confidence is in God.
It doesn't say if evildoers will assail me
but when they assail me.
It's not a question of whether it will
come.
It's only a question of when it will
come.
But when it will come, they shall stumble
and fall because God is my strength, my
stronghold, my fortress and my tower.
He will hide me in his shelter in
the day of trouble but there will be
a day of trouble.
He will set me high upon a rock.
Now my head is lifted up above my
enemies all around me.
What has made them your enemies?
Your love of God and your standing for
Him and for His righteousness in a world
that despises both.
That's why they're your enemies.
And I will offer in His tabernacle sacrifices
with shouts of joy.
I will sing and make melodies to the
Lord.
Not because His answer has come but before
His answer has come in the sublime confidence
that it will come.
And if it doesn't come in this life,
it will come in eternity.
That in fact eternity needs to be factored
in to this life where this life is
without meaning.
It's without righteousness if we have only to
understand it within the parameters of this life.
But when eternity is factored in and God's
judgments that are eternal then those who have
gotten away with murder in this life will
have their comeuppance.
And those who have suffered for righteousness sake
in this life without recompense will receive it
eternally as a crown.
And then the name of God and the
honor of God is vindicated because eternity has
rightly been factored in to time.
Get the idea?
So already that is the divine perspective.
That's the normative way of perceiving reality.
And for those Christians who have not rightly
considered eternity and are only waiting to die
to come into it they're losing the great
benefit and the solace of what can be
rightly anticipated where God will be fully vindicated
and that those who have gotten away with
murder and where is God?
Didn't he see it?
Why didn't he act?
Well because he's not required in our time
to perform that.
But that eternity what lies beyond this life
is where the full reckoning takes place.
And one of the distinctives of the church
is that it does not limit itself to
this life only.
In fact it's more to be said that
it's comprehension of eternity and what lies beyond
this life is the greater reality than this
life itself and gives meaning to this life.
And I'll tell you I talk about sanity
and that's either uttermost insanity or it is
uttermost sanity.
And the world will hate you all the
more because you take eternity into your consideration
and do not invest in this life the
kind of uttermost value that they give it.
You see what I mean?
And that's why you can walk through this
life not at all intimidated as if everything
depends upon now because you're seeing beyond and
you're taking that into your present consideration.
Like Paul who seeing the things that are
invisible and eternal made his present suffering momentary
and light.
That future consideration was so vivid in his
apostolic heart and mind that it actually affected
the way in which he bore his apostolic
suffering.
In fact it's not an exaggeration to say
that his apostolic suffering was in no little
measure the consequence of his eternal view.
That that's what provoked the world and its
religion to spitefully abuse him.
And it will be so for us also.
Thank you Lord.
Well let's look at our text for this
morning.
Genesis chapter 4.
Cain and Abel.
Cain is the first fruit the first child
of Adam and Eve outside the garden and
in the earth that now bears the curse
and with the pronouncements of the Lord in
judgment upon them for their sin.
So now the man knew his wife Eve
and she conceived and bore Cain saying I
have produced the man with the help of
the Lord.
Next she bore his brother Abel.
Now Abel was a keeper of sheep and
Cain a tiller of the ground.
In the course of time Cain brought to
the Lord an offering of the fruit of
the ground and Abel for his part brought
of the firstlings of his flock their fat
portions and the Lord had regard for Abel
and his offering but for Cain and his
offering he had no regard.
So Cain was very angry and his countenance
fell.
The Lord said to Cain why are you
angry and why has your countenance fallen?
If you do well will you not be
accepted?
And if you do not do well sin
is lurking at the door its desire is
for you but you must master it.
Cain said to his brother Abel let us
go out to the field and when they
were in the field Cain rose up against
his brother Abel and killed him.
Then the Lord said to Cain where is
your brother Abel?
And he answered I don't know am I
my brother's keeper?
And the Lord said what have you done?
Listen your brother's blood is crying out to
me from the ground and now you are
cursed from the ground which has opened its
mouth to receive your brother's blood from your
hand.
When you till the ground it will no
longer yield to you in strength you will
be a fugitive and a wanderer on the
earth.
Cain said to the Lord my punishment is
greater than I can bear.
Listen to this self pity.
Today you have driven me away from the
soil and I shall be hidden from your
face I shall be a fugitive and wanderer
on the earth and anyone who meets me
may kill me.
Then the Lord said to him not so
whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance
and the Lord put a mark on Cain
so that no one who came upon him
would kill him.
Then Cain went away from the presence of
the Lord and settled in the land of
Nod east of Eden.
Cain knew his wife she conceived him for
Enoch not the Enoch who was later transported
and he built a city and from that
city and the progeny that issue from Cain
is the beginning of the entire revolt against
God by the nations and the beginning of
the advent of technology and everything adverse to
God.
How shall I say that?
But it has its origin out of the
line that issues from Cain.
So isn't it remarkable in the biblical narratives
how the polarities are from birth Esau and
Jacob Isaac and Ishmael probably there are other
Joseph and his brothers there's like a holy
line a holy seed and then right alongside
and parallel with it the complete antithesis it's
the flesh and the spirit and the one
lusts against the other and that seems to
be a theme right till the end of
the age What shall we say about the
end of the age?
How about the church?
Will there be a remnant church that is
in the continuum of the holy line of
Abel and Seth and another bearing the same
word and name using the same vocabulary but
not only being opposite in character and kind
and spirit but ventilating an anger against the
other even unto murder and death who will
kill us and claim they are doing God
a service because it's interesting that the first
act of murder is over the issue of
sacrifice and altars so there's a lot here
that needs to be dug out and explored
and you need to participate in this because
I don't have definitive understandings and you notice
again how sparse the scriptures are isn't that
remarkable?
this is so unique a form of literature
that you can probably say it's only half
written there's an intention in God in keeping
it this lean that in order to complete
it and to give us the fullness of
meaning something is required from the reader something
is required from the student of the word
in which God completes what is only hinted
at that there's required an active interaction with
the word by the spirit to bring about
the completion of its understanding and those who
are not willing for that painful interaction being
called upon and summoned up out of their
own deeps to wrestle with this and to
be dealt with in this to see our
correspondence not only with Abel but with Cain
and maybe there's an Abel-Cain dichotomy going
on in our own hearts there's a war
between flesh and spirit that is needing to
be resolved that we might be the one
thing or the other so it's not an
abstract reading it's not an academic reading it's
a costly reading we're finding ourselves writ large
here we're being identified it's not some kind
of thing salted away as a chronicle finished
and passed and we're reading it with kind
of a curiosity of a mild historical interest
this is living this is the issue of
Burundi and the two what are the two
tribal groups Hutu and the this is fratricide
this is brother against brother this is tribe
against tribe this is not black against white
this is black against black there's something here
that will give us an illumination there and
maybe illumination of such a kind not only
to understand that fratricidal genocide but even to
be in a place to stand against it
for the future to speak to nations and
to men to before their short fuse is
ignited to identify for them what the root
of their anger is which if it's not
met will culminate in murder and in fact
in the very text do we not have
that?
does not God speak to Cain before the
murder?
that if he had been heeded in the
admonition that were given it need not have
taken place see how fraught with instruction this
is and how the elements are so classic
that are contained here but it waits for
us to bring them out not just for
our edification or our enjoyment but actually to
stand in the place of keeping this fratricidal
murder from taking place in our own generation,
this going to Africa is more than bringing
bible studies it's to avert a flood of
blood that will invariably come by people who
are frustrated, despairing angry and give ventilation to
that which will result in death we have
to stand for life and even if we
fail in it we still have to stand
for it why God would take those pains
to spare him is a remarkable thing why
he doesn't allow the full consequence of it
of his sin to fall upon him but
spares him is a remarkable statement of the
mercy of God both before and after the
mercy of God before in saying to him
why has your countenance fallen why are you
angry sin is at the door don't give
in to that and then having given to
that having turned a deaf ear to the
admonition and the pleading of God in his
love still when the judgment comes it's touched
by this mercy that he would be spared
by being mocked even the name Cain means
acquired I have obtained or acquired and the
word acquired runs into the word acquisition to
acquire property to acquire wealth is a certain
kind of mentality that is covetous and envious
of the possessions of others that are not
your own which is the root of the
murder because he was angry that his brother
had some kind of favor with God whose
sacrifice was accepted whereas his was rejected so
a man who is acquisitive and wants to
obtain resting by his own efforts is already
giving us the seeds of the tragedy that
is to come he's rightly named because in
biblical names the character is revealed in the
name able means vanity or like a puff
like an air like a light thing that
would dissipate with a breath like a foolishness
or a weakness so it's a real contrast
with the brothers and their names isn't it
interesting how often the Lord rejects the firstborn
and celebrates and chooses Jacob have I loved
but Esau have I hated try to understand
that even while they were in the womb
one was already identified as the enemy and
the other as the beloved and chosen think
of this in terms of the present state
of Israel and that which will come later
which will be the enduring prophetic fulfillment as
against this one whose character is more resonant
of Cain than it is of Abel and
of necessity one had to precede the other
just if you want to think this through
there's something thematic in the beginning every element
that's to be found in its continuum through
time and history right through to the conclusion
of the age and has its origins here
even her statement I have begotten leaves sounds
a kind of a tone or a note
that begins to give you a chill that
maybe this son is already doomed from his
birth in the very mentality of the mother
who takes almost a credit for it and
has an ambition for him that bodes ill
for the future I have begotten is the
very spirit of acquisition itself with the Lord's
help not the way Christians talk with the
Lord's help a secondary tribute in passing I
don't know what she said about the birth
of Abel but the way that God puts
this in the record how selective is the
word of God that in all of the
things that could be said, could be recorded
this is recorded because it's significant in already
something that comes right from the advent of
birth so the root of anger between brothers
where is brotherly love?
they're both born of the same parents to
what degree are the sins of the fathers
fallen on the sons to what degree are
we seeing the outworking of the death that
God said would take place if you eat
from this tree death not only in terms
of the abbreviation of longevity of life but
death in the form that it's going to
take in anger and murder something was sown
that is now beginning to have its repercussions
and expression that we need to know about
because what is God's judgment if you read
the holocaust book I'm answering at the end
of the book the questions raised by a
well known Jewish philosopher that the holocaust could
not have been God's judgment for two reasons,
one that the victims were not secular atheistic
Jews of the kind that populate the west,
but the principal victim were Polish Jews who
were the depository of orthodoxy and Judaism, why
would they be the victim and the second
question is how could it have been God's
judgment if a million and a half infants
and children were killed in the six million
is God going to allow innocent children to
be victimized you'll have to read my answer,
but I think it's a great question and
my answer is that that's what judgment is
judgment is not judgment if it only falls
exclusively upon the perpetrators of evil but they
need to know that in their perpetration of
evil others will be victim with them and
because of them and that that should be
one of the greatest restraints against allowing our
anger to be expressed as murder see what
I mean, or eating making a decision that
gratifies our eyes and our voluptuous desire because
others will be affected by our conduct I
can say for myself, I would be something
much less than what I am in God
and in his purposes today I don't know
if I would even be in the faith
if it were not for the fact that
I have obligation toward others see what I
mean, if it was only myself alone I
would have taken chances, I would have indulged
the kinds of things that might well have
brought me out of the faith but because
I have an obligation to others, it's a
restraint that keeps me in the faith, and
that knowledge that there's consequence for our acts
ought to restrain us in ways that we
would not otherwise be restrained, so we learn
this from the word our acts are consequential
even for generations ahead because you know that
where it says that his blood has cried
out to me from the ground the word
actually in Hebrew is plural his bloods have
cried out to me from the ground and
the rabbinical commentators give a very interesting explanation
why the word is made plural because in
the taking of the life of Abel, you're
taking every generation that would have issued from
him had he lived so it's the bloods,
it's many who are perishing with that one
man see what I mean?
How consequential are our acts?
Will that restrain a murderer when he knows
he's not just devastating what is before him,
but generations that might have had life had
that man been spared you think of the
tragedy of World War I, of which World
War II is only a continuation and World
War III might be a final expression that
men who made decisions in smoke filled back
rooms playing with tin soldiers the Kaisers and
Tsars and British naval commanders and all those
men who have ambition for military conquest, if
they could see what was the result of
their ambition, their sinful imperial ambitions that has
devastated the world taking 20 million in World
War I 40 million in World War II
and God knows what the conflagration will be
at the end but if you ever go
to France, you'll want to visit Verdun the
no man's land where the Germans and the
French went back and forth for a kilometer
of ground day after day, week after month
after month, spilling out the blood of an
entire generation that the bones of the victims
are contained in the ossuary that's the word
for bones that is as big as a
football field of a generation of the cream
of French and German civilization who exhausted their
lives over a battlefield with gas and bayonets
and barbed wire and mud and muck for
that which obtained nothing and set in motion
the tragedy of the whole of modern times
the world's innocence so to speak, was lost
by stumbling into the sin of that violence
that could have been avoided perhaps if there
were a church in the earth who would
have acted against the imperial ambition of nations
and not be content with their Sunday services
only what would have been the prophetic voice
of God warning nations of what the consequence
of their ruthless ambitions will be, not only
for that generation but all the generations thereafter
who else should know that but the church,
see what I mean that its silence makes
it complicit in the sin of the nations
so we need to borrow into this, if
we're going to be that church in the
last days and in Africa it says in
the course of time in verse 3, Cain
brought to the Lord an offering of the
fruit of the ground doesn't that sound like
something acceptable after all that's what his vocation
was he was a tiller of the ground
and he gave what he produced, it sounds
right and likewise Abel gave what he produced,
he was a shepherd and he gave the
first things of his flock and their fat
portions and the Lord had regard for Abel
look at the language here the Lord had
regard for Abel and his sacrifice as if
to say God will not consider the religious
act independent from the man who makes it
and that the act itself is the expression
of the man and if the man is
wanting in the authenticity of the truth and
devotion of his relationship to God that no
matter what he heaps up on the altar
will be found unacceptable, however overtly and superficially
it could be impressive, remember what I said
about that 10 day period of fasting and
prayer 24 hours around the clock was without
any strings attached, we were making no requirement
on God, we desperately needed fire to fall
from heaven we needed a fresh baptism of
spirit if I could tell you we needed
it desperately, we never made that a condition
for the sacrifice of sleeplessness and 24 hours
around the clock in prayer and 10 days
of abstaining from food it was a devotional
thing unto the Lord because he's God with
no strings attached and that's an offering that
is well pleasing and acceptable in his sight,
the moment that we come with ulterior motives
to placate God or to obtain as a
condition we have already demeaned God as God
as if we're in some kind of commercial
transactional relationship with the God who's the creator
who doesn't need our bulls and doesn't need
our offerings and our sacrifices am I going
to eat your sacrifice or drink your I've
made all this I don't need that don't
project upon me your commercial mentality as if
I'm calling you only to religion and if
you give me this I'll give you that
in exchange and we'll get along nicely you've
missed it and if you embark on that
there'll be a greater loss than just vain
religious offering in the end what begins in
that is going to end in sin murder,
violence and death you're setting up something from
the very first that is in error and
so the question is why was one brother's
offering found acceptable and there's a no of
God to the other the language is so
careful it's so lean that we would be
inclined to miss it because we're not used
to language like this we're not used to
being spoken to like this and what we
read in newspapers and magazines over triviality is
so verbose is so inundated in words they
go on and on almost that the more
shallow the content the greater the quantity of
words here in the greatness of the content
is the sparing of words but it makes
a requirement of us to dwell on every
word that has proceeded from the mouth of
God and when God says no which is
the word here for Cain in his offering
he had no regard not that he didn't
he had little regard he had no regard
is a statement of absolute totality that the
whole thing was totally unacceptable probably for what
we have already identified its motive stank it's
not what was given but the spirit in
which it was given the mentality in which
it was given was found altogether unacceptable and
if that was true for Cain to what
degree is it true for us how much
are we doing with this unspoken premise underlying
our conduct for God of placating him or
what it will get us or what we'll
obtain if we do it I have my
daily devotional I've read three chapters what do
you want a medal?
what do we have this mechanical and arithmetical
formula of what we have to do in
order to satisfy God's requirement and it's always
a minimal requirement and I often quote from
my high school teaching days how the students
would come to my desk the first day
of class Mr. Katz what is the minimal
amount that I need to do in order
to get by that's the mentality of the
world what's the minimal amount needed in order
to get by but God says my house
is the house of sacrifice and what he
gave was not minimal now that raises a
good question so what is signified in offering
something from the cursed ground that he thinks
God will accept and has no compunction or
even the thought to offer blood which would
have been a more expensive costly thing to
obtain in fact it would have required the
humiliation of obtaining the lamb from his brother
who is the shepherd and he could not
bring himself as the older brother to condescend
to come to a younger and ask him
for that which was needful so there's a
tremendous issue of pride here and an issue
of disrespect that thinks that God will be
accommodated to our understanding and that he will
find acceptable what we're putting before him raises
the question first of a lack of having
the curse of God on the ground fixed
on the tiller of the ground that is
not to say that God would not have
the ground to be tilled but to be
tilled with a reverential awareness that there's a
labor here that requires sweat because of a
foundational sin performed by my father in which
I am also implicated and therefore even as
I labor it's with a respectful reverence of
a God who has pronounced that judgment and
anything that comes out of such a ground
is a pure grace but that I'm not
offered as a sacrifice.
There's one thing that Cain lacked.
He lacked a reverential understanding of God and
why is it that on the other hand
Abel gave the sacrifice that was acceptable in
the firstlings from his flock is it because
they were accessible to him being a shepherd
or did he know that he knew that
he knew that only blood that there has
to be a sacrifice there has to be
an expression of death that would eventuate in
life that something was instinctive there's no law
that required that.
A man had to know this only by
relationship only by intuiting the holiness of God
could he understand the magnitude of the kind
of sacrifice that would be acceptable and that
would have to be blood how is it
that Abel would have this kind of understanding
of God and his brother older than he
is totally bereft and to what degree are
those choices before us now in Cain or
Abel decisions and how easy is it is
this a once and for all thing that
you make a determination after that you're on
the Abel line or is it a day
by day moment by moment consideration of doing
the cheap and the convenient thing or the
willingness because of the reverence for God of
always giving him the thing that's costly and
ultimate and sacrificial we're faced with these decisions
daily and moment by moment and a lot
of us are skating and getting by with
the minimal thing and no one is faulting
us but are we abounding in the relationship
and the blessedness that would be ours if
ours was an Abel rather than a Cain
walk this is not a once and for
all it's a tension that's before us continually
to act out of convenience so that for
example in two years at a Lutheran seminary
every day was a chapel service and every
day one professor or another of theology was
giving the chapel message and I don't remember
one of the hundreds that I heard why
is that not one of them was memorable
not one of them confronted me not one
of them required not one of them pierced
me is it because men were speaking out
of their convenience out of their knowledge because
their motive was not to seek God to
find his relevant word no matter what the
cost because you can believe if you're going
to speak a relevant word it's going to
cost you it's going to bring you up
before questions who do you think you are
addressing the faculty and the student body like
that what do you think that they are
you're talking to sinners remember you're not you're
not tenured yet you better watch for your
career there's a retirement involved here where you'll
have 98% of your salary for the
rest of your natural life so better play
it safe wise guy do you think you're
spiritual or something I don't say that these
men are conscious of that but you can
believe it's under the substratum of their lives
and what they spoke was biblically correct being
scholars and because they know that there are
men out there who are critically listening to
find one fault that they could address but
not one speaking was memorable let alone significant
because it did not issue from the life
of God but from the mind of man
serving the convenience of the moment who knew
months in advance on which day he would
be speaking and was preparing in such a
way not to serve God but to avoid
embarrassment and loss of prestige and status and
reputation and that is what characterizes the church
essentially today men concerned for their career their
reputation rather than what God will say are
acting in the cane way and bringing the
result of that into the entire congregation who
are not getting life they're getting death Sunday
after Sunday however correct and biblical and doctrinally
sound those messages are so whether we're ministers
or not we're faced with issues of this
kind and that's why we have to invest
ourselves in this text it's just an interesting
little note in the firstlings of the flock
that Abel gives a sacrifice and their fat
portions what do we have to hear that
I mean what's the big deal about that
why is that mentioned what does that represent
what is in the sacrifices of Israel what
was the sweet fragrance and incense to God
it was not what we would think the
value the meat was not the sacrifice and
the hides were cast away with the dung
the sweet sacrifice were the entrails the guts
were the real issues of life in the
deep it's where we really live and the
fat what was the significance of fat that
it's mentioned here fat is obtained in rest
absolutely there's the statement of rest which is
the statement of faith whereas Cain is a
striver and a choirer and a covetous man
I looked up the word obtain or require
or acquisition means to gain by any means
usually by one's own exertions so he was
giving God what was obtained by his sweaty
exertions and Abel was given what was born
out of faith which is rest that was
acceptable and is acceptable still and what day
of the week is it where the exertions
of ministers of the greatest is Sunday and
their sweaty performances rather than issuing from the
rest of God like what are we going
to have for this Sunday's message last Sunday
was a doozy what was it it was
love your enemies what's this Sunday who knows
if it doesn't come out of the same
rest by which last Sunday's message came it'll
be a gritty nervous exertion that will not
bring life it has got to issue from
the rest have you the faith to believe
for it if you're the speaker on Sunday
laughter laughter or you can believe for me
I suspect that if he had been able
to humble himself to obtain a lamb he
would have found one inexpensive that had some
deformity laughter he would still want to get
by in a minimal way God is not
wanting two altars and two sacrifices but one
and so brotherhood real amity and fellowship and
unity and the offering of one sacrifice acceptable
to God because the relationship with with men
with one another as brothers even being both
Africans is relative to the relationship with God
if we have not that authentic thing in
truth what can we expect then between each
other so the answer to Africa is not
some social system or governmental requirement but a
renaissance or the birthing of that authentic relationship
with God that would recognize themselves to be
with each other brothers not in rivalry and
competition and even blotting out the tragedy of
the past but coming before the Lord together
as one and offering one sacrifice all the
more acceptable in his sight because it's offered
as one the fact that there were even
two independent sacrifices being offered is already the
seeds of the tragedy and maybe we have
to ask why the more spiritual one who
is able did not seek his brother to
ask that they might make the one sacrifice
together was there some kind of super spirituality
that enjoyed being distinct from his brother and
having this I don't know that's too dangerous
a speculation look at the language here in
the course of time verse 3 Cain brought
to the Lord an offering of the fruit
of ground what does it say in the
course of time what does that suggest more
than that in the course of time it's
as if he didn't do it from the
beginning but over a course of time it
finally dawned on him that maybe something needs
to be brought if he was going to
receive blessing in the field because he's seeing
something continually coming from his brother that was
not coming from him that finally registered upon
him as a necessity but was not his
understanding from the first in the course of
time see how the Lord doesn't spell out
these details but the phrases the language is
so pregnant but it requires our investment in
the wrestling with the expression knowing that there's
not a syllable a word, a piece of
punctuation out of place that this is in
the wisdom of God to give us this
record in this way in the course of
time, slow to realize what his brother had
all along been performing and maybe that's why
Cain was not brought in to Abel's sacrifice
because it had been so long spurned it
may well be, I would suspect that in
that course of time not only was Cain
not offering his own sacrifice, but he was
rebuking, reproaching and condemning what's the word, spitefully
persecuting or mocking his brother for that exercise
to finally have gone, maybe I ought to
be doing something none of this is told
us but we're looking at the anatomy of
murder the anatomy of violence the anatomy of
failure of brothers to be related and the
seeds of this pertain still so we're we're
not just taking antiquarian interest in a past
episode, we're looking at probably the most vital
issue of our generation not only between the
Hutus and the other tribe but what would
you say about the Serbians and the Croatians
and the Bosnians and the final group there
from Kosovo but what are they what's their
nationality?
they're Muslim they're from Albanians they're Albanians and
Muslims but ethnically and racially they are Swabs
they became Muslims out of the Turk-Ottoman
dominance in the 15th 16th centuries and retained
that as a religion of convenience whereas the
Orthodox and the Catholic remain quote Christian and
then there's been conflict and war and fighting
over the generations over these religious differences so
that when one has an opportunity to ventilate
the anger of the historic past when they
were on the receiving end, they do it
with a vengeance.
But yet ethnically, like the Africans, they are
racially the one, but in terms of a
tribal difference or a tradition or a religious
distinction or some episode out of the past
they are enemies and they ventilate that with
such unbelievable spite.
Two days ago on my computer and my
internet, a Yugoslavian brother who had been reporting
the war, also defending Serbia, sends me yet
another message.
He says the UN inspectors have not found
100,000 graves that have been reported of
those men who were shot in cold blood
and buried in surface graves.
They've only found 3,000 and maybe at
best they'll find 9,000.
So he says the whole report of Serbian
atrocity is greatly exaggerated and the war and
the bombings of Yugoslavia therefore were unjustified.
So I answered him and said since when
is atrocity the issue of number?
Does it matter whether it's 300,000, 100
,000 or 3,000 or 3?
But cold-blooded murder in anger and violence
and defenselessness is a crime and God's judgment
using the United States was not excessive at
all.
You need to bring that message of repentance
to your nation and stop justifying them.
Here's the great question just before I'll break.
How is it that Cain in seeing that
his brother's offering was accepted and his refused
was not contrite and broken at the failure
of his offering to find equally an acceptance?
Why instead of being contrite and broken, Lord
how did I miss it?
My brother's offering is acceptable and show me
my fault but instead it incurs an anger
which is going to eventuate in murder.
That is to say there was a pregnant
moment of choice as there always is in
every issue that ever comes before us on
how to interpret and rightly understand the meaning
of a given situation before God rather than
ignoring it and compounding our error and sin
the worse until it will manifest itself in
the form of death.
He missed a crucial moment when he could
have been contrite he reacted wrongly in anger
rather than in contrition and how many times
is that true of us?
So anytime you experience anger stop and ask
yourself is this a right response to this
provocation or to this event?
My reaction is wrong.
There's only one who's justified in righteous indignation,
it's God.
My anger at being hurt over the failure
of this husband, this man this church, this
minister my anger is suspect and I'm not
going to go further until I have put
that before you and you'll show me that
there's something wanting in me that explains this
reaction before I go any further.
That would have saved the church a lot
of unhappy failings, flights, discord and collapse.
Look how gracious and loving God is to
even take the initiative to lead Abel Cain
into the kind of consideration that would have
been redemptive by saying why is your countenance
fallen and why are you angry?
Not allowing the man himself to speculate but
even giving him drawing out his heart to
consider is the marvelous grace and mercy of
God that was completely ignored.
So we're beginning to get something of the
anatomy of sin where even the sin is
so hardened that it's impervious to the wooing
of the tender graces of God that could
have saved Abel Cain from murder.
The record is so sparse we're not told
but we can see from his actions and
his attitude there's already a history of sin
that has hardened to the point that now
makes him even deaf to the wooing of
God and sets in motion the rest of
that tragedy.
But how did Cain know that Abel's sacrifice
was accepted and his own was refused?
How would they know?
And for that I'm indebted to Matthew Henry
who says likely the accepted sacrifice was consumed
by a fire that fell from heaven.
And the other was left standing there to
rot and to reek.
Is God still acting like that today?
And can we tell the difference where his
fire has fallen and the other thing that
has offered is only reeking?
Or are our own self-assessments so dull
that we can't even tell the difference and
we're going on blithely in our ignorance?
Remember David said that he would not offer
to the Lord what cost him nothing.
That's why God loved David.
He was beloved because he knew that if
it's cost free it's unacceptable to God.
How about this school?
How about Ben Israel?
How about what has the potential now to
touch Africa?
Was that cost free?
Is this school a snap?
Are we pulling this out of our briefcase
session by session?
What is the sacrifice that makes this acceptable
to God because his fire is falling upon
it?
You know how I know?
Because someone is breaking, someone is weeping, someone
is being challenged, someone is examining their life
in the light of what God is saying.
He's approving.
It's a sacrifice.
Thank you Lord.
And Lord, it's a small sacrifice.
Very thank you for receiving it and honoring
it with your fire.
God forbid we should have gone through these
days and only received some mechanical instruction.
It was a good time.
I really enjoyed that blah blah blah.
We thank you Lord that when your fire
falls it becomes an event of enormous significance
for our own lives and the consequence for
the nations.
May it continue to fall Lord.
May it be sacrificial for us all.
May more of us be finding ourselves up
at 3 or 4 in the morning praying
for that day's class and whatever else is
required that this will be found in your
sight acceptable.