Okay, back to Genesis chapter 4.
Before we take a better look at Cain,
I had some thoughts about Abel this morning
that I want to try out on you.
Maybe it's just a summary of what we've
been considering.
Beginning with a question, was Abel so naive
as not to suspect that this invitation to
take a walk in the field was an
invitation to death?
Did he not suspect or intuit, knowing his
brother, that this invitation was not some innocent
chat, but a prelude to his own death?
And was his willingness to take that walk
something of the righteousness of God in Abel,
sensing that his death has something to do
with the possible redemption of his brother, and
not, therefore, unwilling to give it?
And that that is itself the very definition
of righteousness.
A picture of Jesus himself that Abel prefigures,
who gave his life in just that way
for just that purpose.
And that why his offering was acceptable, the
firstlings of the flock with their fat, was
because it was a symbol and a statement
of himself as offering.
That the animal sacrifice is a statement of
our own willingness to be laid upon the
altar, and the Lord accepts it as that
statement.
Understand?
It's a statement of uttermost sacrifice, the best
of the flock, where a man himself would
be that sacrifice, should God want it.
And in fact, by making that sacrifice, it's
reiterating that statement to God.
Yes, this is a substitute, but what it
represents is my own willingness to be on
the altar of God for your purpose at
any moment that it's required.
And that's what validates that offering, and that's
what makes that offering acceptable in God's sight.
The man himself is the offering, and as
the episode itself unfolds, he becomes that willingly
and not by artifice.
It wasn't that he was tricked to go
out in the field.
I think a man who has this kind
of relationship with God can only too readily
intuit and sense what that walk into the
field would mean, but he did not withhold
himself from making it, because he had already
made it in giving the best of the
flock, which is to say the giving of
himself.
What made it valid was that it symbolized
or represented the sacrifice of himself, which is
now being called for.
When you make that offering, you're saying to
the Lord, whenever it's called for, it's made,
it's done, it's settled in my heart.
My life is not my own.
I'm only breathing and walking because now it
pleases you and it's serving purposes.
But the whole end of my life and
its purpose in being is your glorification, whether
by my life or by my death, the
issue is settled.
And when I put my sacrifice up before
you, my offering, it's the reiteration of that
statement, which is exactly the opposite of what
Cain's offering meant.
Cain was buying something, seeking to transact.
He was in a commercial venture, wanting to
receive some kind of blessing in exchange for
something that did not cost him greatly.
It was despicable because the man's life is
lived unto himself and for himself, as is
seen in his willingness to ventilate his hatred
in the murder of his own brother.
And yet when God penalizes him for that
murder, his cry is like a stung animal.
This is too much.
Isn't this too severe for me?
How is it that God doesn't require your
life but just makes you to be a
wanderer?
And you think that that's too severe?
And you're afraid that someone's going to take
your life?
And God will assure that it will not
be taken by giving you a mark?
And you're complaining?
Where was your sensitivity for Abel's life, seeing
that you're such a stuck pig now for
your own?
How is it that you're bemoaning your fate
now and sucking your lower lip at the
severity of this penalty, and you didn't hesitate
for a moment to take your brother's life?
Where was your sensitivity then?
And this is what we'll be able to
say to those bleeding hearts who are concerned
for the endangered species and are just wringing
their fingers and crying great tears for the
extinct whales or the Minnesota wolves.
But when it comes to doing us in,
they'll not blink an eye.
God had given Saul an absolute commandment about
the Amalekites, their king, their people, and all
that they have.
And when Samuel heard the bleeding of the
sheep and the lowing of the oxen, what
is this that my ear hears?
Oh, well, I couldn't quite bring myself to
a total obedience to what God required, but
I saved the best of the sheep of
the oxen for sacrifice.
Remember that?
1 Chronicles 15.
This is that same bleeding heart quote, sympathy
and compassion that we heard in these articles
and Anne Lennon is, oh, yes, you poor,
suffering dear.
No, you're not different.
No, you're okay, and we applaud what you're
doing.
It's heroic, and you're changing your sex.
Pity on those who can't be sympathetic like
your father, who think that you're offending against
God, who does all things well from the
beginning.
I think Adam mentioned this yesterday, this false
compassion, this syrupy saccharine tear and concern for
treating homosexuals in a right way.
Why discriminate against them?
They have every right to be Boy Scout
leaders as anyone else.
What difference does their sexual preference make except
that what they'll have opportunity to do in
dark and tense at night with helpless kids?
Let me finish this morning's little thing that
I wrote down.
If our offerings are given as an exchange
for reward, that's what Cain's offering was, an
unspoken transaction, I'll do this if God will
give me this, or even and especially to
obtain a protection from harm or loss of
life.
I'm not talking now about commercial transaction that
God is going to help me in the
field because I've made this cheap sacrifice, but
God is going to preserve me from suffering.
God is going to protect me because I'm
righteous and have made an offering that's acceptable
in His sight.
So even there, though it has moved from
a commercial motivation to a spiritual one, is
still transactional.
It is still not the celebration of God
as God in and for Himself.
Now there's a spiritual end, my protection.
We say, isn't that the theme that is
throughout all the psalms, that the psalmists are
crying out, Lord, where are you and how
long must I suffer this oppression and this
persecution because I stand for you and I'm
righteous?
Isn't that the psalmist wanting exactly God to
act in this way?
In a sense, yes, but in the greater
sense, not because the psalmist who is suffering
for righteousness' sake wants to be alleviated from
that suffering, but he wants God vindicated through
that suffering.
He wants God to show Himself faithful to
His own covenant promises and His identification with
His own people.
That is the greater motive, not the alleviation
of the pain or the distress, but the
vindication of God's name.
And that's the heart of the cry of
the psalms.
So who is putting up an offering before
the Lord?
Free from any subtle, unspoken, transactional thing that
puts God at obligation to give an answer
to our benefit.
And the only answer is the one who
has put His life on the altar is
free from the necessity of any kind of
transaction.
There's nothing that redounds to Him for benefit
because His whole life is an offering and
what He's putting on as a spotless animal
with the fat is the statement of His
life.
Reiterating again to God, it's not my own.
So much as I give up this animal,
so much is my life given up and
it's yours to be required at any moment
of your choosing, even now when my brother
wants to take me out into the field
for a walk.
Though I'm younger than he and have every
right to live my life and I'm not
yet married and I've not yet enjoyed the
blessing of conjugal relationship and children and have
not had an opportunity to develop my own
relationship with you, my own ministry, I don't
offer, I don't in any way allow self
-pity to impede what I have already made
clear.
My life is not my own and it's
yours to take now and not later.
And there won't be a whimper from me
as if there's a mistake.
So that when Stephen is made the first
New Testament martyr who is so brilliant that
the doctors of the law cannot gainsay the
brilliance of his testimony as he gives them
a whole encapsulated history of Israel and the
failure of Israel before God and the Holy
Spirit.
And that invites his death.
It brings such a retaliation.
So isn't it tragic that a man as
gifted as that full of the Holy Ghost
who sees the heaven opens and the glory
of God and that of the Father not
just in the moment of his death but
in all his moments that that life should
be removed?
Isn't that a tragic waste?
Is it a sacrifice that should not have
been made?
Rightly does a watchman say that the principle
of waste is the principle of power.
It's the principle of glory.
What purpose is this waste?
Well, the purpose is that the whole house
is filled with the fragrance.
That's the purpose.
That for all of your correctness it was
an antiseptic house but what this woman has
done shall be spoken of wherever this gospel
shall be proclaimed for she was lavish in
recklessly pouring out that which could not be
taken back again.
She didn't just screw off the cap and
toss out a few drops.
She dashed the whole content a year's wages
and broke the box itself where it could
not be emitted without that brokenness.
And God honored that as a good work
which is a comment he never made for
anything else that men did in his generation.
So, Stephen is a fragrance for the house
of God and so is Abel.
And pitying them is a revelation that we're
still alive to self-pity because we're really
not thinking so much of Stephen or of
Abel but of ourselves.
We want to be preserved.
Yes, we're all for the Lord but Yes,
our life is an offering but wait until
I'm married.
Wait until I've had children.
Wait until my ministry has been developed.
Unless it's totally given over without any buts
it's not a sweet-smelling offering that can
be consumed by fire.
It's still a transaction and that is why
God will not intervene to spare a saint
and why the righteous necessarily suffer.
Why didn't God intervene?
I can bring you my Jewish commentary on
this text and you can't help but read
the comment that has been traditional in Jewish
rabbinical literature that implicates God in not protecting
Abel from Cain that God is at fault
for allowing this righteous son to die and
that he should have preserved him if he's
any kind of God and that somehow it
has raised an unanswerable enigma about God.
How do you answer that?
And I'm saying that there's a reason why
God cannot spare Abel.
Why he's got to allow the righteous both
to suffer and to die?
Because to spare them is to indicate that
their righteousness has somehow put him under obligation
and that they were righteous in order to
be spared but what is righteousness in the
last analysis is the life given all the
way unto suffering and unto death and that
alone is righteous.
Understand what I'm saying?
I'm over my head.
I don't even know how to say what
I'm saying but I've looked at two bible
dictionaries while you were asleep this morning over
the word righteousness and I was not satisfied
with the explanation of either except that the
only righteousness that is righteousness is the righteousness
that God himself is and that righteousness has
been imputed to us and that's a righteousness
that does not hold back but gives itself
over unto death.
For God to spare and to protect the
righteous is to not allow righteousness itself to
be demonstrated and it's only righteousness when it's
unto death and to save them from the
death is to prevent the statement of what
righteousness is in its ultimate expression which is
unto death and that's why none of us
are going to be saved by a righteousness
but rather it's going to put us in
the place of jeopardy and invite suffering and
death and the thing that really makes us
righteous is that we don't bite our lips
and become sullen over that and say how
come me but actually rejoice for the privilege
to demonstrate God in a righteousness unto death
for that's what God is and that's what
he demonstrated at the cross in the giving
up of his only begotten son.
When we replicate that sacrifice unto death we
are expressing as nothing else can the righteousness
of God and it's a privilege to have
share in his sufferings and his reproach for
Christ's sake.
So that's why God will not intervene to
spare a saint and why the righteous necessarily
suffer and rejoice in the privilege of filling
up the sufferings that remain for Christ's sake.
The cry of the psalmist for deliverance from
the oppressor is not so much that as
for personal alleviation as the vindication of God
in his covenant faithfulness and righteousness and in
the last analysis it is the primacy of
God in every consideration that is the issue
of God's glory his honor and his name
that is put above anyone's consideration for one's
self that is the definition of what righteousness
is.
All listen to this thing.
What is righteousness in the last analysis?
Why is Abel willing to go out in
the field and suffer that death?
Because the core of Abel in righteousness is
the regard for God, his glory his name
and his honor in every way above and
beyond any consideration for himself.
It is the complete antithesis of the world
its values and how it lives for itself.
This is the repudiation of self and the
celebration of God as being the uttermost motive
for being and that is righteousness.
That's what Jesus demonstrated.
No regard for himself as every consideration was
what would glorify the father.
This sickness is not unto death speaking of
Lazarus but to glorify the father and glorify
the son.
Therefore though it brings reproach though you'll not
understand my delaying though I'm setting in motion
my own death those motives that have to
do with my consideration are nothing what is
the wellspring of my life is one thing
only that which glorifies God and honors his
name.
That's righteousness.
And that is so above the righteousness of
giving gay boy scout leaders the privilege of
equal rights that that's the righteousness of man
that's the righteousness of the world it's a
filthy corrupt shallow sentimental shot through with self
-righteousness of identification of people who also want
that kind of consideration of themselves because they're
perverse in one way or another but the
righteousness of God is so ultimate and so
holy that no man can have it by
virtue of his own exercise but only as
gift.
Amen.
It's the righteousness of God this is what
God is in himself he doesn't think it
too much to give of himself and that's
the righteousness that needs to be displayed and
to which men need to be invited.
So if so facto without my knowing the
details and able to wrestle through all of
the issues that have made this a controversy
the last century and a half I know
that I know that I know that the
church must be in the earth at this
time and identify itself with a persecuted people
and open themselves up to a suffering in
their behalf even perhaps at their hands that
our first persecutors will not be so much
the world but our Jewish kinsmen who in
their misapprehension just as they misinterpreted Stephen and
could not abide his presence they may so
react against us and we will bear it
with the same grace as he and the
same magnanimity and say Lord lay this not
lay this sin not to their charge So
God will not intervene to spare a saint
and why the righteousness necessarily suffer and rejoice
because of the privilege of filling in the
suffering that remains for Christ's sake.
The cry of the psalmist for deliverance from
the oppressor is not so much that of
personal alleviation as it is the vindication of
God in his covenant faithfulness and for righteousness
and in the last analysis it is the
primacy of God in every consideration as it
in view of his glory his name and
his honor over every consideration of oneself that
is the definition of righteousness righteousness is the
celebration of God righteousness is the primacy of
God the purpose for our being is his
honor his name his glory over any consideration
of that which redounds to ourselves amen that
is righteousness and that is so uncommon that
is so contrary to every corpuscle of our
natural being that wants to be flattered, pampered,
powdered fed, cared for, nurtured preserved that only
God can impart this righteousness contrary to that
which is so natural to the flesh and
what we see in Cain and Abel are
the prototypes of the two sons the righteous
and the wicked the God celebrating and the
self seeking God rejecting the striver and the
one who appropriates and what's the word?
acquires as against the foolish vapor, the puff
the defenseless, the weak whose life is for
God I think it's Matthew Henry that says
how do you think it is that one
became a tender of sheep and the other
became a tiller of the field did God
assign them their vocations or did they freely
choose them isn't that an interesting thought and
why would a man choose the field which
in our modern agriculture today is a form
of gambling and profit, hope of profit making
though the small farms are now fading out
had other considerations why would a man choose
to be a shepherd of the sheep and
Matthew Henry says because that vocation is the
issue of the tent and the altar that
vocation gives a man time that gives a
man time to be with God, to consider
God, to worship God to brood upon God,
to make him his foremost consideration and that
Abel chose the vocation that was in keeping
with his disposition of his heart toward God
that would give him opportunity for God how
about our vocations what was the basis for
the choice of your vocation I have the
privilege of early morning risings to have communion
with God but how come I have that
privilege because I've made it evident in choices
that have preceded it that have given me
now this enablement where I don't have to
spin wheels and strive to make a living
and punch clocks and time cards and things
like that, the Lord has saved me out
of redundant and unnecessary labors because my heart
has chosen to make him foremost and primary
and he's made time for it he's given
me the privilege of it so even in
the choice of vocation from the beginning the
two polar suns who are prototypes of righteousness
or wickedness are already revealing their heart in
what they have chosen for themselves, you know
when I meet somebody what my first question
is what do you do for a living
Adam is with me but first question what
do you do for a living, because what
a man will choose to do is the
statement of himself but you make that choice,
you're willing to do that with your time
is that the best thing that serves the
purposes of God that's what I'm thinking to
myself you need to know there's room for
choice you don't have to be boxed in
and formed into certain conventional categories because the
world condones and gives promise that certain vocations
will be more rewarding what's the vocation that
permits you to be for God what he
desires and can you be it in that
vocation you know what I'm praying in the
early morning hours that not the least of
the result of the way that the Lord
is leading us is that he's going to
inculcate such a love for righteousness to love
righteousness Lord we can hardly define it but
let the saliva run let the juices form
in our mouth at just the very sound
of the word so much so that when
we pick up articles like this and hear
this kind of stuff we hate, we hate
iniquity we hate what is vile what was
that black athlete who murdered his wife and
got away with it because of Jewish lawyers
OJ Simpson becomes a culture hero, a national
hero and the Jewish executive of a television
network was reprimanded for interviewing him he said
well he's still news and the public wants
to hear and we have an obligation, what
he's thinking of our ratings and the rate
that we charge the advertisers by having a
celebrity who in fact I believe with all
my heart is clearly a murderer and that
he has won his freedom through the wit
of Jews employed where is their stand for
righteousness and that the man is now culture
hero and that the jury that absolved him
was largely black and making their decision on
their affinity with a kinsman rather than on
the issues of righteousness is a statement that
is more than race so lord give us
a hatred for what is vile and we
ask that though this man is on the
golf course having a ball and raking it
in as a celebrity that your spirit my
god will convict him we want to see
him spared eternal torment because though he's getting
away with it in this life there is
an eternity that eclipses in timelessness the few
days of wafting moments that he's enjoying for
which he will have to pay inexpressibly dearly
and we're asking lord that it's a mercy
that this man would be convicted and acknowledge
his sin and be willing to pay the
debt of it in society and before you
and plead your blood that he not have
to face you on the day of judgment
who cannot be buffaloed and intimidated and won
over by charm or any other manipulative thing
because you're a god of righteousness who has
winged in times past but commands all men
everywhere now to repent lord I repent for
a nation that has let this man off
the hook clear cold blooded murder and I
pray my god that you'll yet give us
opportunity to repent of our condescension and the
way we have allowed him to be a
celebrity if there was ever an occasion for
letters to the editor and letters to the
TV studio and companies it's having allowed this
man his status as a celebrity and not
having been revolted too much my god has
been gotten away with and with every such
act our sensibilities are being progressively deadened that
when we will have to make a searing
choice one day soon for righteousness or the
other we will find ourselves incapable of choosing
rightly so give us that love of righteousness
lord that alone saves us from deception sharpen
us in this lord that we love righteousness
lord and we hate iniquity thank you that
we might enjoy the identification of the sons
of god going back to the son that
Abel was and to which we ourselves are
called in this last day and we thank
you give you praise for the privilege of
that call that we can freely choose and
affirm by the offering that we make of
a totality toward god for his name and
glory and honor whatever the cost is alone
righteous in Jesus name we pray amen came
a little bit because it gives us an
anatomy of sin nexus of repeating the sin
of his father Adam in rejecting or repudiating
the word of god but even brought yet
to a more sinful pitch because it's right
on the heels of god's pleading that he
murders his brother so just to read in
verse 6 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 remarkable statement that deserves the balance of
our time and more to just examine what
god is saying in his great wisdom what
a man cannot know about himself it's the
grace of god to be told and as
we said yesterday sin by its very nature
deceives itself it conceals itself as sin so
here's god in his wonderful mercy knowing that
explaining to the man how precarious his condition
is and there's yet time to repent of
it and turn from what will be its
inevitable conclusion and right on the hearing of
those words the act of murder is perpetrated.
I don't have a word for this talk
about the depravity of man I don't know
of another occasion in scripture where it's more
set forth as vividly but just to play
with this a little bit will you not
be accepted it's not just the issue of
your offering being accepted it's you being accepted
because as we have indicated by Abel's offering
the offering is the man and there's a
desperate necessity to have acceptance and most of
mankind is driven by that need and it's
amazing what men are willing to do in
order to obtain acceptance which they can if
they have not that acceptance from god will
never come to a place of peace in
anything that can be derived from them probably
there's more to be said for broken marriages
where one spouse could not find what they
had hoped for or desired in the other
because god had been neglected and there's nothing
that man can give one to another that
can anyway substitute for the profound and elementary
acceptance that must come from god to know
that you're accepted in the beloved is the
most marvelous freedom that god could give to
any man and then you're free to be
to men what you ought you don't need
from them what only god himself can give
and here is god saying I know you
need that and you can obtain it as
Abel himself has but fight this battle make
this choice but another choice is made and
the choice is for murder and for acting
out of this anger.
Cain was very angry and his countenance fell
why are you angry and why has your
countenance fallen?
Anybody have an insight in that how the
face is the trademark, the emblem, the statement
of the truth of a man and his
condition and situation and that we're responsible for
our faces and that god identifies the condition
by pointing to the face he may not
even have been aware.
Ingo often says to me you're so angry
so what are you talking about?
If you can only see yourself she said
I'm not aware of it but I need
to see as I'm being seen and undoubtedly
Cain was not aware of it but why
has your countenance fallen?
Why are you pouting?
Why are you allowing yourself the luxury of
this kind of self pity that is turning
up the heat and allowing you to think
the most sinful thoughts of murder because you're
envious of a relationship that your brother has
with me that could equally as be yours
if you're willing to be as surrendered to
me as he is there's no necessity for
this anger or the consequence or the outcome
of it if you recognize it and not
act it out you know what we don't
know God is speaking to a man personally
when's the last time you've heard from God
like that?
What a condescension for God the creator to
come down to a man and speak to
him explicitly and clearly about his condition and
his need and that there's an alternative I
don't have a word for this if God
had come down and recited the alphabet or
said abracadabra that's enough to get down on
your face that God the most holy the
unutterable God whom no man has seen is
actually addressing me I don't even care what
the content but that God is condescending to
speak to me that's enough reason for me
to go down on my face that God
the great God is willing to humble himself
to address me so the condition of Cain
evidently is so coarse so dense so unable
to recognize the tribute of God the willingness
of God to condescend to come down let
alone what God said that he continues in
his anger so evidently there's a whole history
that precedes this that has already unfitted him
to receive the grace of God speaking and
maybe that's what we need to recognize that
though there's a moment of consequence and comeuppance
it's preceded by a whole host of moments
that had gone before where we had opportunity
to be corrected to be brought to a
place of repentance to change but a consistent
failure to receive those graces brings us to
a point where incapacitated to receive this final
grace nevertheless God himself makes it and the
fact that he does make it shows that
there's even hope in that final moment and
that it required the condescension and the humility
of God to come down and to speak
and God was not unwilling to do it
he did not withhold himself the very God
came and addressed the man to save him
from his act of sin and right after
that we read Cain said to his brother
let us go out to the field and
when they were in the field Cain rose
up against his brother Abel and killed him
clear cold blooded premeditated murder then the Lord
said to Cain here's a second speaking where
is your brother Abel instead of an accusation
instead of lowering the boom didn't I tell
you now you're going to really catch it
rather it's raised us a question talk about
grace where is your brother that in having
to answer that question a man could in
a moment recognize what have I done my
God where is my brother what have I
done and to fall before the God who
gently is raising the question and ask forgiveness
and find repentance instead we hear this wise
alachy retort that is absolutely insolent and disrespectful
am I my brother's keeper how dare any
man answer God in that way if this
is not the anatomy of wickedness I don't
know what is it's a good question to
raise I don't know that we could answer
it in one statement but I'll bet that
there are Cain like responses coming forth all
the time and of which we ourselves are
capable if we are unguarded in any moment
and are not loving righteousness and walking in
it this insolence toward God and I'll answer
your question how about our insolence toward men
in authority by God in the church who
says you're an elder and why am I
under obligation to heed you or of a
child to a parent what do you mean
I have to be home by midnight why
Johnny doesn't have to be home and Mary's
allowed to stay out till 2 o'clock
how come me because I said so I'm
your parent I'm in responsibility before God for
your well-being I'm not under obligation to
explain insolence is probably one of the chief
characteristics of this age and I've seen little
snot-nosed kids so openly contradict their parents
and contend against them that it's horrific to
observe it's the spirit of the age Cain
is prevailing even in children and in the
church in the insolence of members of the
church toward authority and maybe what we need
to recognize is if it's not a snot
-nosed answer like this insolence can yet be
expressed in a more Godded way and yet
the spirit of it is as defiant as
this may God give us the eyes to
see it and to hear it particularly if
we are the actor look at the contrast
of Abel his every act, thought impulse, deed
is in deference to God he's a man
whose life is lived for God even if
it means giving his life his brother is
full of outward disrespect for God it's the
exact antithesis, not only not a regard that's
polite but an insolent disrespect and a devaluation
of God as God who has humbled himself
to come down and speak, to completely ignore
his counsel perform the murder and when he's
questioned in the most gentle way, where's your
brother to answer God in this snot-nosed
and insolent way am I my brother's keeper?
it's a great question and probably he's not
his brother's keeper he has no regard for
his brother though he is an older brother
and should by every reckoning even nature itself
tells us that the older should be protective
and condescending and careful for the well-being
of the younger not only does he not
have that but he's even insulting God by
implying I'm not under obligation to have this
relationship with a brother it's your baby, not
my baby I didn't make him can you
understand all that's not said that rings in
this impertinent and insolent statement how can we
be in right relationship with brothers if we're
not in right relationship with the father so
what we're really seeing here is the same
thing that gave rise to a rotten, stinking
offering and sacrifice that did not rightfully regard
the stature of God and thought that it
would be acceptable by him is the same
basis for his inability to be a brother
if you don't have it with the father
how can you have it with a brother
so if you have disdain for the father
what will you have about anything that issues
from him and so probably anti-semitism and
the expressions in the 20th century and recent
centuries that are fratricidal of Germans killing Jews
that are in the bosom of the German
civilization for 2,000 years is a statement
not so much of the attitude toward the
Jew as it is the attitude toward the
father that their behavior toward the Jew that
has not regarded the bodily well-being of
the brother put in their midst, though different
from themselves as Abel was from Cain is
really the statement of a disdain for the
father despite their evangelical reformed faith and the
land of Luther and what they have as
externality as outward and conventional religion is really
false because the thing that would reveal its
truth and its authenticity is the relationship with
the brother which is the statement of the
relationship with the father.
I praise God for that that we're not
left to abstract realms but that there's a
reality right here on the earth in the
grip of authentic relationship where the thing that
is heavenly is testified to or contradicted it's
our attitude toward our brother.
Don't think murder or death is only to
be understood in those graphic terms.
Murder is an attitude.
Anger when you're angry you're murdering your brother
already death is more than determination of physical
life so what that elder brother was exhibiting
in his heart in his unwillingness to come
in and humble himself and rejoice for the
younger brother's return was an attitude of murder
and of death and the father spoke to
him as graciously as God spoke to Cain
isn't everything that I have yours?
Why are you begrudging him?
The murder of saints and the torture of
saints is probably nothing less than what an
unregenerate mankind moved by the spirits of darkness
ventilating on men what they would prefer to
ventilate on God.
If only they could get their hands on
him and when they got their hands on
him what they did left that man so
wasted, so devastated that he had no beauty
that any should desire him.
He was marred more than any man because
the powers of darkness had full sway to
ventilate the depth of the hatred of the
world against God.
So in the absence of a God upon
whom to lay one's hands, what's the next
best that the world can find is ourselves.
Here's Cain not only committing a murder but
lying.
I don't know am I my brother's keeper?
I don't know where he is.
So the father of lies is also a
murderer and a liar from the beginning and
Cain who is filled with that spirit now
through condescension to the wrong God is now
speaking out of that wisdom and revealing that
character as Abel in his act of righteousness
is revealing the character of the father.
Cain is revealing his father in lies and
in murder.
I want to burrow into the anatomy of
sin by saying did Adam think did Cain
think that God did not observe his act
of murder?
Did he think that he went into a
secret part of the field that was concealed
by the shadow of some trees that God
would not see that act?
You know what I'm getting at?
Talk about disrespect for God as if God
is not God.
As if God is not a God who
sees.
As if he's not a God before whom
all things are naked transparent and known.
This is an utter contempt for God as
if God does not see which is to
say God is not God and that is
projected further by am I my brother's keeper?
I don't know what happened to him.
As if God does not know where Cain
is and that he can lie and deceive
God and contradict and confound him.
Can man be so reduced in his attitude
toward God to be that contemptuous that disdainful
and that negating of God as God.
What is sin in the last analysis but
this way of perceiving God that makes him
non-God and what is a lie?
Not only do I read a chapter from
the book of Psalms every day, I read
a corresponding chapter from the book of Proverbs.
So today is the 25th I read the
25th chapter of Proverbs you can go the
month that way and I'll tell you this
when you are daily in the Proverbs.
You know the one sin that is more
heinous and referred to with greater consternation than
any other it's not murder.
It's lying.
God no liar, no effeminate, no murder, no
impure can enter the kingdom of heaven.
There's something about lying that is so offensive
to God because it deprecates, it depreciates God
as if he's not witness to the truth
of the thing that you're contradicting in your
life.
The liar thinks he can get away with
it as if God is not seeing and
that he can give an alternative statement about
what is evidently true.
Lying is the most profound disrespect for God
as if he's not there to hear and
not there to know and with your face
sticking out.
Adam and I have been involved with another
party where that party had to be contradicted
because Adam was told one thing and I'm
saying okay here's what he's saying, here's what
you're saying.
What's the truth now?
And finally that person had to blurt out,
I lied but I had to.
I was so distressed in my emotion.
That person was also a flatterer and in
the book of Proverbs God shows the symmetry
between flattering and lying because after all what
is flattering but a lie?
So we're going to love righteousness saints, we're
going to love truth, we're going to hate
the lie because the lie is a way
to extricate ourselves from an embarrassment or predicament
by fudging because we don't want to suffer
the embarrassment or the humiliation of being found
out.
So my answer is don't allow yourself to
be in a situation where you need that
desperate expediency.
Walk in such a way that you don't
need a lie to cover you because your
rotten, depraved heart will quickly find the lie
to get you off the hook and in
God's sight it's a betrayal of himself as
if he's not there to know and you're
lying right in his teeth and if you
can lie in the face of brothers and
sisters in the faith what are we doing
before the Lord?
Lying is not a white lie.
Lying is not a little secondary sin that
we're required from time to time to employ
because it's a expedient way to get out
of an otherwise embarrassing situation.
Lying is detestable.
There's no such thing as white.
Truth which means to cross because truth is
painful before it's glorious.
Truth will always make a requirement.
Truth will always be hurtful.
Truth may be misunderstood or misconstrued.
It's easier to flatter.
It's easier to fudge.
It's easier to be accommodating in language and
save yourself from the moment.
Truth is hard and he came full of
grace and truth so we can do a
lot of damage in the name of truth
if our truth is not accompanied by grace.
So it puts a double requirement upon us.
Fidelity to what is true and the grace
to express it.
That we need not bring any added or
unnecessary difficulty to the one to whom it's
being spoken.
That means that it's a requirement beyond any
ability in ourselves.
And that's why Ann Landers and playwrights and
Hollywood stars cannot be righteous because righteousness keeping
the truth, speaking the truth, living the truth
and being the truth requires God.
Judaism is nothing more than an ethical what
I tell a rabbi, it's an ethical philosophy
gilded over lightly with biblical and other religious
overtures.
In its essence, its emphasis is on man's
ability to be ethical and to be moral,
unaided and by himself.
Just as David said, against you and against
you only have I sinned.
And if there's not a God to be
offended by what we have done, what then
is it to man?
David recognized that the depth of his sin
was against God.
And until we understand our act in face
of God, sin does not have its import
and does not bring us to the place
of altar to bring blood.
And that's why he gave the chintzy offering
that he did.
He did not regard himself as a sinner.
In fact, I would suspect that the root
of his envy and anger was he saw
himself not only equal to Abel but superior.
Abel was only after all a shepherd which
is the most disrespectful and the least estimable
vocations of men.
The Egyptians despised the Hebrews because they were
shepherds.
Because any dum-dum can stand out all
day with sheep.
But a man who is engineering and tilling
his fields and investing for the future and
going to make a killing on the market
and doing this and experimenting, why he's so
evidently superior to the inferior brother that he
does not need and cannot see himself therefore
as a total deception.
And that's why God had to speak to
him.
But if you'll not accept God's word about
your condition what then can God do?
And our Jewish tragedy is we will not
receive God's word about our condition.
So that when the Holocaust book is published
that brings before Jewish consideration what it does
not know about its own history and our
own failures and our own idolatries the condition
of which prevails still.
They are indignant that any suggestion that the
Holocaust could be in measure of sins there's
no sin consciousness because they have not regarded
God's word.
That not only does God give us the
grace of his word to describe our condition
that we might know it, but he gives
us a brother that can give us a
clear index of our condition by our very
attitude and relationship with him.
If we miss the word how can we
miss our daily relationship with our brother?
And if we're in a grudging, envious, and
covetous attitude toward him, if we're looking disdainfully
upon him as being superior, shouldn't that indicate
to us that something is wrong in our
own heart and attitude that needs a repentant
acknowledgement before God?
It's the attitude toward the brother that is
the powerfully revealing thing so that if Germany
failed to understand the truth of its spiritual
condition, flattering itself by being the land of
the Reformation it should have been revealed to
them in their failure toward their brother, the
Jew, and their ability not only to care
for his body, but in the end to
destroy and to annihilate it.
The issue of the brother is the issue
of God and Gerhard von Rad the German
theologian says responsibility before God is responsibility for
one's brother and those that are unconcerned for
their brothers and take no care when they
have opportunity to prevent hurt to their bodies
do in effect speak Cain's language and if
we're going to be in disregard for their
bodies with what ability are we going to
uphold them in their souls?
With what concern, if we're going to allow
Jewish bodies to be cremated what concern for
their souls?
The thing the external and bodily thing that's
before us is a much deeper statement of
what our responsibility is toward our brothers and
why were Jews 2,000 years in the
bosom of the German nation and the land
of the Reformation?
Was it not that God would give that
nation opportunity to convey to a people in
judgment the reason for being outside the land?
Was the first responsibility of that nation to
make known to the Jews within it the
condition of their souls?
And if the German church failed to communicate
that because they did not give a rap
sufficiently for the souls of their brothers how
long will it be before they would allow
their bodies to go up in the ovens
as smoke?
This issue of am I my brother's keeper
is more profound than we know.
God's going to give us one further and
last opportunity to regard our brother and when
that moment will be passed the judge that
will have come will say and what did
you do for the least of these my
brethren?
Lord when did we see you?
Or Lord we didn't recognize them as your
brethren because we did not recognize them as
our brethren because we had a faulty apprehension
of you we could not recognize what you
recognize that this Jewish people even in their
apostate Cain condition are still the object of
your love and your mercy and you were
waiting for us to recognize that and extend
mercy that they could obtain mercy.
We had disregard for their bodies because we
had disregard for their souls because we had
disregard for you who is the creator of
the bodies and souls of men.
That's how history ends over the issue of
his brethren and our recognition of them as
our brethren even in their apostate and unbelieving
and hostile condition.
I think that the Jewish people who have
been resident in Germany for 2000 years can
say to the German nation and the so
called church and Christians of that nation you
did not care for my soul you didn't
love me enough to confront me in my
own condition you allowed me to be deceived
about the truth of my condition and placated
me in my Judaism because your Christianity was
only the Gentile equivalent of the same cross
evasion and God evasion that my Judaism is
and because you condescended to that for your
German people to give them a syrupy benign
Sunday service and state church system then you
allowed us to languish in our condition you
did not love us our souls enough to
confront us and run the risk of offending
us by speaking the truth of our condition
because you probably were not even able to
discern it because of the lie of your
condition that was nicely insulated in your Protestantism
and state church Christianity the tragedy of the
Holocaust, the failure of the German church to
care for the souls of those who were
entrusted to them is the statement of the
failure of their Christianity which has been historically
and to this present day even in its
Pentecostal and charismatic forms, a religion of convenience
a cheap and inadequate offering that somehow they
think fulfills the requirement of God so what
I'm saying by all that is this there's
only one alternative if we're going to serve
our brother it must issue out of a
knowledge of God as God that is reflected
in the kind of offering that we put
before him that requires the primacy of God
as the foremost issue of our life and
being for Germany the foremost issue of its
life and being was its imperial ambition the
rise of its industrial and commercial development the
elevation of its culture and its civilization for
which Christianity was only a Sunday addendum in
a word they were not in the righteousness
of God that requires the primacy of God
his glory, his honor and his name as
a foremost consideration even for the nation and
in that absence in the Cain like religion
of an inferior stinking human substitute for offering
which their Sunday Christianity was the necessary victim
of that would be the brother in their
midst as the necessary victim of Cain was
the brother in his midst and the tragedy
is that having all that taken place it
continues on still as a religion of convenience
only now with some charismatic embellishment if you
want to read the statement that God gave
me on the last day at Nuremberg, Germany
on true and false German repentance to the
Jew it's this statement and when it came
on a final night because I had typed
up something in Berlin attending for four days
the agonizing conference on Israel and the Jew
that was so sentimental, so self-serving so
cathartic their final night prayer for Israel almost
made me puke it was so self-serving
that these Germans only wanted to be alleviated
in their disturbed conscience they were placating their
own consciences by a play acting at repentant
prayer that was without repentance that would have
to be repeated again and again because you
could never serve either the Jew or themselves
I went home in the room I stayed
in Berlin, an apartment formerly occupied by Jews
who perished in the Holocaust in the Jewish
neighborhood and I typed up, trying to get
this frustration out of my soul why I'm
so afraid by this play acting what is
true repentance to the Jew by a German
put it in my briefcase, came to Nuremberg
on the last night, take it out and
make that your message and I spoke that
word the wife of the pastor who was
the head of the worship team we had
never ever jailed and that worship was as
you can imagine she said from the moment
you opened your mouth it was like a
sword and they went down on their faces
I mean just a proliferation of bodies all
over the altar, over the steps up the
aisle ways, wherever you could look and such
groanings as would break your heart to hear
for the Lord had convicted them of the
historic sin of the German church and as
it was expressed in their failure toward the
Jew and that the failure continues still and
out of those groanings and deep brokenness of
their own sin of a religion of convenience
and Sunday supplement and inadequate totality toward God
that birthed a totalitarian system, if you'll not
give it to God you're going to give
it to the devil and he'll require it
all the groans were unbelievable and after I
don't know how long, out of the groans
began to come a song of worship and
when I heard this pure Holy Ghost worship
coming up out of the depths of repentance
I can't tell you what my heart was
feeling and I took the mic and I
said now this is terrifying the powers of
darkness over Germany nothing else you have done
with your loud speakers, your taking cities for
Christ, your praise militant words this song this
Holy Ghost thing issuing out of the brokenness
of repentance for a failed faith is terrifying
the powers of darkness overhead and liberating men.
The issue of the brother is the issue
of God and we will miss the whole
tragedy of the Holocaust we don't read it
and understand it or write because it makes
way for the next.
The statement of our relationship with our brother
is the statement of our understanding of relationship
with God.
Yes we are our brother's keeper.
Just to sum up what that calf represents
is religion contrived to meet the needs and
bring satisfaction to men and worship, the true
sacrifice is that which is unto God.
One is a total requirement and a sacrifice
the other is a convenience The Lord tells
Cain that his brother's blood is crying out
to him from the ground and you are
cursed from the ground which has opened its
mouth to receive your brother's blood.
When you chill the ground it will no
longer yield to you its strength.
You'll be a fugitive and a wanderer on
the earth.
And Cain said to the Lord My punishment
is greater than I can bear Today you
have driven me away from the soil because
he was a farmer and I shall be
hidden from your face.
I shall be a fugitive and wander in
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 The Lord put a mark on
Cain so that no one who came upon
him would kill him And Cain went out
from the presence of the Lord and settled
in the land of Nod east of Eden
What is the final capstone and punctuation of
this sinner as this episode ends?
What is his own act that shows himself
yet without contrition still defiant against the word
of God because the Lord said you will
be a wanderer in the land of over
the face of the earth.
There's not a place where you're going to
settle you cannot the soil will always be
hospitable to you and it says and Cain
went out from the presence of the Lord.
Why didn't he complain about that?
Lord I can suffer everything but I can't
suffer this being out from your presence.
That's death.
Not a whimper about that but only the
concern for his flesh and life.
Men will kill me This is self And
then he went out from the presence and
settled in the land of Nod east of
Eden God said you'll be a wanderer and
he settled and in the settling establishes the
first cities and the descendants out from his
line Tubal and Lamech and all these men
who are at the heart of technology cities
and rebellion against God.
We have the configuration of what will be
the revolt of nations against God in chapter
11 having its seed here when a man
disobeyed God's final requirement that his penalty would
be as a wanderer he disregarded the word
again and chose to settle and here's the
icing on the cake he calls the place
where he settled Nod because Nod means a
wanderer so instead of experiencing the requirement of
God's judgment he takes the word of it
and makes it to stand for the reality
of it.
He makes the word a lie as if
to give the name to the city Nod
fulfills the requirement of God to be the
Nod, to be the wanderer to be the
restless one so right to the very last
act we see what sin and rebellion and
defiance disrespect, dishonoring to God is to the
end and that sets in motion the next
segment of sin that leads to the final
revolt of nations having their origin in the
cities that began with Nod this is how
it was in the beginning and finally God
is going to have to bring the whole
thing under judgment in flood you can almost
intuit an imaginary conversation between that same tempter
and this cane have God said that you
should be a wanderer?
why don't you settle in a city of
your choosing and your convenience and just call
it wandering that will satisfy the requirement of
God because he doesn't insist that you actually
have to do this have God said?
what is a man saying when he's saying
my judgment my penalty is too great what
is he saying about God?
God is unjust he's wrong he's too severe.
If I were God I would have come
with a much more equitable and just requirement
so therefore I'm better higher and more exalted
than you you're in error even in your
judgment it's too rough you know why this
is so valuable saints?
because to one degree or another we are
all of us flirting with and touching the
periphery of these grounds in our own self
justifications in our own evasion of the ultimate
determinate requirements of God we find a way
to be conditional relativistic to take the sting
out of it to modify it have God
really said?
well yes but in my time what we're
really saying was he right in that?
this is so deep and there's going to
be a righteous church in the earth to
confront the Ann Landers mentality of the world.
It has got to be the impeccable righteousness
of God we've got to allow God to
search our hearts and to show us our
own deviance and compromising condescensions because righteousness is
utter, ultimate and total or it's not if
the requirement of righteousness is this exact that
we dare not miss it and make small
concessions until little by little we find we've
come to a place where we either cannot
hear God or we'll be rebuting God how
can we keep such a daily vigilance over
our souls independent of each other I need
my brother's love for my soul I need
his jealous regard because I know that I
know however well meaning my intention there are
areas that I cannot see in which I've
taken a liberty that only he can observe
will he love me enough to bring that
to my attention?
Will I love him enough to receive it
for my good?
You see the church is not a little
Sunday convenience it's God's most profound provision for
righteousness of the saints.
If we will avail ourselves of what God
intended and not be a congregation looking at
the back of one another's heads being mesmerized
by what's going up on the platform by
professionals there is a place for speaking the
truth in love and rebuking and correcting and
admonishing that makes the church the church and
makes righteousness righteousness we have nothing to say
to the world and if we say it
we're not saying it with a conviction and
an authority that would impress them so bless
the Lord for the church How is history
going to conclude?
A time of Jacob's trouble we spoke of
it at the beginning of this morning and
we're going to end with it that God
is going to sift this nation through all
nations there will not be a nation absolved
or not implicated by the movement of Jews
where they need to recognize this dispirited and
broken people as being not only the brethren
of the Lord but our brethren and so
I wrote here the time of Jacob's trouble
gives final opportunity to save their souls by
saving their bodies they will be in flight
from persecution and death our first obligation is
to preserve their bodies and in preserving their
bodies to preserve their souls they perished in
the holocaust because their bodies were destroyed because
their souls were ignored now God gives us
their bodies that we might save their souls
so precious God save us from the way
of Cain and bring us impeccably and consistently
to the kind of brother that Abel was
who knew that he was his brother's keeper
and that he was responsible for his brother
and was so willing for his redemption that
he put his own life on the line
for his brother what a contrast Lord between
these two polar prototypes and help us to
recognize my God everyday in the things that
come before us the way of Cain and
the way of Abel keep us my God
from the religion of convenience keep us from
inadequate offering keep us from self concern that
keeps us from being able to put everything
on the altar the best the firstlings of
the flock which is the statement of ourselves
thank you my God for all that was
implicit in this first murder continue still till
the end of the age yes we are
our brother's keepers Lord and we ask that
we have a new regard for each other
within the holy fellowship of the saints the
body of Christ the church that we will
be willing my God for the sacrifice and
the suffering of being misunderstood or whatever the
consequence of speaking the truth because we are
jealous for our brother's soul we love his
soul and we are jealous for his soul
because you have shown us if we will
not be jealous for his soul it will
not be long before we will not regard
his body either so we bless you Lord
write these things my God in our hearts
thank you for this examination keep us my
God from the way of wickedness grant us
that great love of righteousness which is the
love of God that will not condescend to
flattery or to lie however expedient and serving
thank you Lord we bless you for your
way