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Are you interested in the spiritual? Are you fascinated? Is there a desire within you to get in touch with something spiritual because the physical world or your career or your relationships just aren’t satisfying you? You feel a void inside so you need to get in touch with something. Have you ever considered reading the Bible? Have you ever considered opening its pages and seeing what God says? This is where true spirituality is found. You say, “No, I’ve done that church thing. I’ve done the Bible thing—not as much as the church thing—but the people I see in the church, forget it. If that’s true spirituality I don’t want any part of it. Besides from all I’ve learned your God is awfully narrow and strict. On television they say I can get in touch with the spirit that is within me. That’s what I’m interested in. I’m interested in learning about the spirit within me.” Or as one man talks about on television: “Connecting with the mothership” which is going to lead you as a little ship right behind. Which of these is right: Connecting with the spirit within, discovering that and having some sort of spirituality of your own, or connecting with the Word of God? Which is right? If the Bible is right then the other is wrong. You don’t want to make a grave mistake so see what the Bible says and know what God says. Then you can make up your mind. At least then you will know the end of the path you have chosen to take.
You’ve been studying the book of Genesis, the book of beginnings. We have just left Genesis 3 where sin is introduced into the world through Adam and Eve listening to the serpent, listening to a lie. Now we are in Genesis 4 where God gives us the account of the first civilization and shows us how it begins. Remember that in Genesis 3, Adam names his wife Eve because she is the mother of all living. Thus Adam and Eve are the parents of all living from Genesis 3 on. All the way through the Bible they are the earthly parents. If we could trace our genealogy all the way back to before the Flood, we would find that Adam and Eve are in our genealogy. They are in the genealogy of Mary who gave birth to Jesus.
Genesis 4:1 Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the LORD.”
Kay can hear the excitement in Eve’s voice: She has produced a man. She is interested in producing a man because she was standing there when God spoke to the serpent:
Genesis 3:15 “And I will put enmity between you (the serpent) and the woman, and between your seed (the serpent is going to have a seed) and her (the woman’s) seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel.”
So she knows she is going to have a seed and that the seed is going to be masculine: He, the woman’s seed, will bruise the serpent’s seed’s head—the head of the serpent. The serpent will bruise the heel of the woman’s seed. The woman’s seed is going to be a man. “He shall bruise your head.” Now she knows the consequences of her sin. She knows what has happened because she listened to the liar. She understands death. She can see the change in the cool wind that has come into the Garden of Eden. She can see the air permeated with sin because:
Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—
Romans 8:22a For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers because of sin.
Now she’s had to leave the Garden of Eden and the way to the tree of life has been banned. Now she finds herself in a new environment. How wonderful to have a seed. How wonderful to have this young man by the name of Cain, this young man who can bruise the head of the serpent. Doesn’t that carry it a bit too far? Here is another way that it could be translated (It’s in the notes of the Inductive Study Bible if you have one.)
Genesis 4:1b “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the LORD.”
“I have gotten a man, the LORD.” The word “LORD” here is “Yahweh”, the holy name for God. To one degree or another she understood the promise of Genesis 3:15. She understood that a deliverer—a Messiah—was coming; that the Lord was coming and He would bruise the head of the serpent. It could be that all of her hopes and dreams were wrapped up in Cain. When that first son came forth from Kay’s body she thought, “I have a son! I have a son!” That son can be a delight to your heart—or that son can be the grief of your heart.
Genesis 4:2 Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
Why are they tilling the ground? It’s been cursed. When Adam and Eve sinned God turns to Adam and gives him this word:
Genesis 3:17-19 Then to Adam He said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you saying, ‘You shall not eat from it’; Cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you shall eat plants of the field; By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Now Cain is a tiller of the ground. This is the consequence of their sin. No longer is God supplying so easily the fruit of the trees of the Garden and the produce from that Garden. Now they have to earn it from the sweat of their brow. This does cause a little conflict in marriage because the wife asks, “Why are you always working?” It’s put in there: The Bible says in Exodus 20:9-12 “Six days you shall labor and the seventh you shall rest.”
So Cain is laboring. He is a tiller of the ground.
Genesis 4:3-4 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. And Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering;
They built an altar and come with their offering. They both approach—Cain the firstborn and Abel second. As Cain comes he heaps up a basket of the produce of the ground—beautiful fruit and grains and greens. He gives them to the Lord on the altar. Now Abel comes, the second born. Abel’s not a tiller of the ground but the keeper of the sheep. He decides to give God a firstling of the flock, which is the best. You see that in Exodus and Leviticus. Later, God says that the firstborn belongs to Him. When Abel makes that sacrifice to God, obviously he’s going to kill that lamb. He flays the lamb to remove its skin, he doesn’t take the fat. Fat tastes good. Butter, cream… Sauté something in fat and it tastes good. But Abel offers the fat also. It’s interesting because when you read about the offerings in Leviticus, the fat belongs to the Lord. They were not permitted to eat the blood nor the fat.
So here are two offerings. We don’t know where God is, but they do because He doesn’t accept Cain’s offering. He refuses it but accepts Abel’s offering. How does Cain react?
Genesis 4:5 But for Cain and for his offering He had no regard so Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.
Cain became very angry. You could see it written all over his face. He was no longer happy. He was no longer in a mood to worship or celebrate God. It was all simply because God said, “I won’t accept that offering.” Cain fumed. He becomes very angry. That word implies that he becomes very red. The word for “anger” here is “charah” and it means “to glow”. It means to grow warm, to blaze up; all the blood rushes into the face because you are fuming—and Cain was. He was absolutely fuming.
Genesis 4:6 Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?”
For God to ask that, you must know that God knows Cain has no reason to be angry. Why is Cain angry?
Genesis 4:7a “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well…
Sin is like a tiger or a lion. It is crouching at the door ready to leap. Its desire is for you. That word “desire” is the same word in Genesis 3 when God says to the woman, “And your desire shall be for your husband.” God is saying that sin’s desire is to overtake you, to run over you. It’s longing to have you. So God asks, “Why has your countenance fallen? Why are you so angry?” When God says, “If you do not do well” it implies that Cain knew what was right. That’s why God asked, “Why are you angry?” God says, “Here you are. You have brought me a basket of the labor of your hands. You have tilled the ground and brought it to me. Why are you angry because I don’t accept it? If you do well, I’ll accept it. If you do well, you’ll be all right.
Genesis 4:7b “And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
Sin wants to get you, to consume you. Sin wants to have you. Sin wants to possess you. It wants to overrule you. You say, “There is nothing wrong with what Cain did. He worked; he brought the work of his hands. It was a nice offering—at least he came to God. At least he brought God a sacrifice; there’s nothing wrong with that.” In your mind there may not be anything wrong with it. He’s doing right, doing well; he’s coming to God… But there’s something terribly wrong with it: He’s not coming to God God’s way. This is the difference between the spirituality that is being touted on television, books and other things, versus the true spirituality in the Word of God. You say, “How do we know that Cain knew what to bring?”
Faith
Hebrews 11 is the faith chapter. “Faith” is repeated over and over and even opens this chapter.
Hebrews 11:1 Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Romans 10:17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
Something is said. If you are convicted that it is true even though you don’t see it you live in the light of it. It is the assurance of things hoped for. Maybe a word is spoken that promises you that this or that will happen.
2 Corinthians 5:8 We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.
The word promises you that if you believe in Jesus Christ, when you die you’re absent from the body but immediately present with the Lord. It is an assurance of things hoped for if you’re facing death or you get a death sentence written over you, just as one of Kay’s staff’s husbands, John, has had a death sentence written over him.
Kay’s husband went to see John who said, “I’m going to die with dignity.” He will die with dignity holding onto the promise of God because he has the assurance of things hoped for. He has the evidence of things not seen. The minute that John closes his eyes, he’s in the presence of God Almighty. That’s faith. Faith is taking God at His word.
You say, “I have faith in other people.” Yes, you might have faith in the man teaching that you need to get in touch with the mothership and follow it. There are all sorts of winds of doctrine and teaching floating around like new age things. You can have faith in those but the strength of faith is in the one who said it—the one who made the proclamation that you believe. So if you believe about a mothership, you believe in a man who came up with something from the figment of his own imagination and is not as substantiated as the Word of God.
Hebrews 11:1-2 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.
If you want to gain approval with God, you have to believe God.
Hebrews 11:6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is (that He is God, that He exists), and that He is a rewarder of those who (diligently) seek Him.
There is a pursuing, a seeking, of God. Even the seeking of God is put within us to cause us to seek God. This is how the men of old gained approval.
Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
That’s how we believe. The belief in creation boils down to a matter of faith. Are you going to take God at His word or not? No one was there at the time but God. You’d be smart to believe Him because He was there.
Hebrews 11:4By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.
Abel brought that firstling of the flock even though he was a tender of the sheep. Could he have brought grain or anything else? No. He knew he had to offer this according to God’s word. He knew that without the shedding of blood there was no pleasing or approaching God. Where was blood shed for the first time? It is at the end of Genesis 3 when God removes the fig leaves to clothe Adam and Eve with the skin of an animal. That implies death.
Hebrews 11: 4a By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous,
This is Old Testament, yet what is the first incident you see? A man offering a sacrifice who was a sinner, conceived in sin, produced by Adam and Eve.
Romans 5:12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—
Here is Abel who is a sinner, offering by faith a sacrifice to God according to the word of God. And God declares him righteous. No works involved but simply approaching God His way. This is true spirituality.