You can turn again in your Bibles to Genesis 4. As I was studying this passage, the word that kept coming to my mind was the word "juxtaposition". It's a great word - it's two things that are placed right next to one another. And the juxtaposition of two things in this passage is what makes this passage unique: an offering placed right next to a murder; sacrifice placed right next to brooding anger; stewardship placed right next to sibling homicide. The fact that these two things, so totally opposed to one another, would be placed this close together tells us something very, very important about what life, this side of the Garden, is actually all about.
Reading Genesis 4
Let me read again for you, if you would turn there. Genesis 4: "Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord." And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of 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 face fell. The Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it." Cain spoke to Abel his brother. 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 Abel your brother?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" And the Lord said, "What have you done?
The voice of your brother's blood is crying 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." (Genesis 4:1-11) You know, if you look at the first few verses of Genesis 4, life after the Fall seems pretty normal. You have a husband and a wife; you have the birth of two boys; you have work; you have worship. It doesn't appear that a whole lot has changed. Until you get yourself to verse 5. And I want to look at verses 3-5 with you in this moment: "In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of 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 face fell." (Genesis 4:3-5) Two offerings - one by Abel, an animal offering, accepted by God; an offering by Cain, of the fruit of the ground, not accepted by God. And then this response of discouragement and anger by Cain. What's going on? What is the reason for what we read here? Why was Abel's sacrifice accepted? Why was Cain's rejected? That's the focus, the key question, of this passage.
Why would God accept one man? Why would he reject one man? Why would God accept one offering? Why would God reject another offering? And maybe this passage tempts us into all kinds of conjecture. We would say, "Well, maybe it was because Abel gave an animal sacrifice, and that was a better sacrifice than a fruit or plant sacrifice." Well, the passage doesn't push us there. Or maybe we would say, "It says Abel brought the firstborn of his flock, and it doesn't say that Cain brought the first fruit of his harvest, and maybe that's it."
And I would propose to you, you don't really have to do that kind of conjecture to understand this passage. Look at the verses with me again: Verse 5 - "but for Cain and his offering he [that is God] had no regard. [now watch this] So Cain was very angry, and his face fell." Now all we need to understand what's going on here is the response of Cain to God's rejection. The response of Cain to God's rejection is the dead giveaway in this passage, because if Cain's heart was in the right place at the moment he gave this sacrifice, rather than his response being anger, his response would have been confession, his response would have been remorse, his response would have been humility - his response would have been confession and repentance.
Cain's Face Fell
But that's not the response of Cain. In fact, his response is pictured even by the way his face looked; you've seen that "head down" response before. Now what is all that about? Listen - you learn something very important about sacrifice in this passage. You see, the problem was not the substance of the sacrifice; the problem was not the process of the sacrifice. The problem was in the heart of the person making the sacrifice. You see, God isn't satisfied with just the external acts of worship from us.
God isn't satisfied with just singing and service and fellowship and giving - God wants our hearts. Turn with me, if you would, to Isaiah chapter 1. Amazing words written here in Isaiah: "Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom! Give ear to the teaching of our God, you people of Gomorrah! "What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats.
"When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations-- I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; (could these words be any stronger?) they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause." - (Isaiah 1:10-17, ESV) God says to Israel, "I want your hearts!" Now how should we receive Genesis 4? As we look at Cain, what should we be thinking? Here's what we should be thinking: Cain's struggle is my struggle. Cain's struggle is your struggle. Sin causes us to turn acts of worship into occasions of self-righteousness.
Sin causes us to turn ministry into moments of self-aggrandizement. Sin causes us to turn acts of service into occasions for placing people in our debt and in our power. Even the most apparently God-directed act of worship can, in fact, be an act of worship masquerading as an act of self-worship. Worship isn't always what it seems on the surface. You say, "Well, Paul, I'm not sure what you mean." Have you ever recited the phraseology of your prayer over and over again before you prayed publicly, not so much as an act of service, but because you want to be esteemed of men?
Now you know the rehearsal isn't for the Lord, he hears the rehearsal; he hears your unedited prayer; he got the first rendition. Even what seems to be this act where I recognize the existence of God, where I would be so courageous as to speak words of a prayer to a God I cannot see, can be occasion of wanting people to look at me and esteem me - that's the struggle this side of the Garden, that there's such a strong desire in us to be acclaimed, that we love ourselves so deeply and so fully, that even moments of worship and moments of ministry and moments of service get polluted by the love of self.
I Have That Heart Too
And when you look at Cain, you shouldn't say, "What an awful man Cain is!" You ought to say, "I have that heart, too! And there are occasions where I am a skilled glory thief. In a moment where God should be receiving glory, I take that glory on myself." That's all of us, that's all of us, that's all of us. That's the struggle of Cain. Look back at the words again, as the Lord comes to Cain in this moment of grace and this moment of counsel, and he says, "Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen?
(listen to these words) If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it." What does it mean when God says to Cain, "If you do well, will you not be accepted?" God is saying to Cain, "Deal with the issue here, Cain. Deal with your heart. This is not about Abel's offering; this is not about favoritism; this is about the condition of your heart. Cain, look within - deal with what needs to be dealt with."
And then God gives this very pointed physical warning. He says this - "Sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is form but you must rule over it." Sin is like a crouching tiger. I had the occasion one summer to be preaching in South Africa and was asked one evening to go with some trackers to track lions on a hunt. They loaded us in a four-wheel-drive vehicle, and with infrared lights, we caught up with a pride of lions, and they started running across that bush land chasing kudu deer. It was an amazing thing.
And they separated four or five of these deer from the pack and they ran and ran and ran them until these kudu deer were beyond exhaustion. But they didn't attack. And I remember the guide saying, "Watch what happens here," he said. "You watch - you will notice, if you look at the deer, you will notice the muscles of those deer relax. And pay attention," he said. "There are lions about." And you could see it happen - these exhausted deer began to relax, and we heard the brush, and these crouching lions came forward, and in an explosion of violence, attacked these deer.
I remember this very well because I brought that video home to my family. They watched about twenty seconds of it and said, "Dad please turn this off - we can't watch this." You see, what God is saying to Cain is, "Cain - you're a sinner. Don't let your heart relax, because Cain, that tiger is inside of you. That tiger is in your heart; it's called sin. Don't relax. Examine your heart, Cain. There's hope if you do that; there's grace for you as you do that. Cain, look within - there is a tiger that lives inside of you.
It's called sin." We can't relax. We've got to be aware of the struggle within, that even would subvert moments of worship, moments of ministry, moments of service. Sadly, you know the story - Cain was unwilling to look within. He was angry at God, angry because Abel got what Cain thought he deserved. And God again comes to Cain in this moment of confronting grace and says, "Cain, where's your brother?" And you know what's happened - it's hard for me to imagine what went on in verse 8. There you have a very cosmetic telling of a horrible human moment: "Cain spoke to Abel his brother.
Cain Rose Up Against His Brother
And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him." There were no guns. I don't think Abel stepped on a landmine. There wasn't really time to poison him; you know what happened. In an explosion of anger against God, which is played out against his brother, Cain brutally murders his sibling with his own hands. You say, "But Paul, I'm not like that. I would never think of doing such a thing." And yet, we get very irritated at the people that a sovereign God has placed in our pathway.
We get very angry at people who don't offer us the respect that we think we're due. We get very discouraged at people as they don't recognize the gifts that we think God has given us. We wonder why we weren't chosen for that committee, why we didn't get to lead that ministry, why we weren't affirmed in the way that person is affirmed, and our anger at people is rooted in a dissatisfaction with our Lord. Our struggle is not first with people; our struggle first is with our Lord. And we really want him to endorse our kingdom when actually he's called us to be slaves in his.
What do we learn from Genesis 4? We learn that there's nothing simple anymore about sacrifice. There's nothing simple anymore about offering. There's nothing simple anymore about ministry, because there's a war that's taking place in the heart. And we are called, in this passage, to be people who live humbly, who live aware, who are willing not to relax, because we understand this side of the Garden, and this side of Heaven, life is war. Now you say, "Paul, you've encouraged us this evening. I have a heart more for ministry now that I've ever had.
I'm ready to serve." Well, I want to give you the capstone here, because it is very sweet. The sad result of this story is this rebellious and unrepentant, murderous man is driven out into the wilderness as a fugitive. But you can't read that account without remembering another fugitive, driven away from the presence of his Father, willing to hear and see his Father turn his back on him, that fugitive - the Lord Jesus Christ - so that there would be hope for us, so that the war for our hearts could be won, so that growth and change could happen inside of us, so that we could have moments where we could actually love our Lord with purity of heart, serve him with purity of motive, so that there would be a day when we would stand before him, and the tiger is dead, and we worship and we serve and we minister with absolute and complete purity of heart.
Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly! May we be humble. May we be wise. May we, as we serve and as we worship, remember: there is still a war going on, and may we worship and serve in joy and humility at the sacrifice that's been made for our rescue. Let's pray: Lord, how thankful we are for the narratives in your Word, how much we remember as we read these words that we are not free of the struggle of Cain. We do not always bring a worshipful, submissive, open heart to you. Very often, what appears to be the service of your kingdom is really the service of ours.
Very often, Lord, it's possible what appears to be the worship of you has degraded into the worship of self. It can be that the service of others degenerates into taking power over others. And Lord, we not only pray that you would forgive us for robbing you of the glory that's due your name, but Lord we pray that you would deliver us, that you would work fundamental change in our hearts, that we would find greater joy in your glory than any glory we could ever acquire for ourselves. And we would thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose sacrifice we find hope. In Jesus' name, amen.
