The V Shaped Story of Sin
Notes
Transcript
So what’s the deal with this Cain and Abel story?
Last week Allen brilliantly led us into this story.
Sin entered into the world that God had made good.
He presented to us two options for this story.
Is it a comedy? One with a redemptive conclusion?
Or a tragedy? One where the redemption is squandered or lost.
As the rest of the story after Adam and Eve’s fall in the garden unfolds, we learn two things.
First, this is an incredible comedy. The redemptive work of God is seen right on through the story, coming to a brilliant pinnacle at the advent of Christ and His crucifixion.
But along the way there are many tragedies.
Redemption and restoration is thrown away, even when it is offered quite clearly.
So what are some things that we learn right away from this?
Adam and Eve don’t give up on God’s dominion mandate, and they start to populate the earth.
And at some point along the way they end up with two sons.
One of them is a shepherd, and one of them is a farmer.
Another thing that we quickly learn is that even though Adam and Eve have been banished from the Garden,
God is not out of the picture.
In fact he still speaks with his creatures, and desires for them to worship Him.
This is a big clue to us that even though Adam and Eve may not walk with God in the garden, God is intimately involved with His creation and is not going to let Satan have the final word.
So clearly Adam and Eve have taught their sons that they must worship YHWH and make sacrifices to Him.
And these two sons each have their own skills.
One is skilled at bringing food out of the ground,
the other is skilled at caring for flocks.
So we also see that existence after the fall wasn’t total anarchy.
In fact they seem to be to at least some degree participating in Creation care.
Cain brings some of his produce as an offering.
Abel brings some firstborn from his flocks.
God accepted Abel’s offering, but not Cain’s.
Why?
It’s not because God only likes offerings of lambs and not vegetables.
I thought about making a meme.
Kevin.
But no it’s not that at all.
Here in the very earliest pages of Scripture we are confronted with a reality that will carry all throughout the rest of the Bible.
Man looks at outward appearances, but God looks at the heart.
God doesn’t need sacrifice.
He wants obedience.
But not just strict obedience that compels us to show up, do the thing,
and never regard God.
God sees the attitude of our heart and wants our hearts turned to Him in worship.
Two brief examples of this.
In Leviticus chapter 10 we read the story of Nadab and Abihu.
Two sons of Aaron...
Now with that in mind, let’s turn to
18 A large number of the people—many from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun—were ritually unclean, yet they had eaten the Passover contrary to what was written. But Hezekiah had interceded for them, saying, “May the good Lord provide atonement on behalf of 19 whoever sets his whole heart on seeking God, Yahweh, the God of his ancestors, even though not according to the purification rules of the sanctuary.” 20 So the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people. 21 The Israelites who were present in Jerusalem observed the Festival of Unleavened Bread seven days with great joy, and the Levites and the priests praised the Lord day after day with loud instruments. 22 Then Hezekiah encouraged all the Levites who performed skillfully before the Lord. They ate at the appointed festival for seven days, sacrificing fellowship offerings and giving thanks to Yahweh, the God of their ancestors. 23 The whole congregation decided to observe seven more days, so they observed seven days with joy, 24 for Hezekiah king of Judah contributed 1,000 bulls and 7,000 sheep for the congregation. Also, the officials contributed 1,000 bulls and 10,000 sheep for the congregation, and many priests consecrated themselves. 25 Then the whole assembly of Judah with the priests and Levites, the whole assembly that came from Israel, the foreigners who came from the land of Israel, and those who were living in Judah, rejoiced. 26 There was great rejoicing in Jerusalem, for nothing like this was known since the days of Solomon son of David, the king of Israel. 27 Then the priests and the Levites stood to bless the people, and God heard their voice, and their prayer came into His holy dwelling place in heaven.
We cannot DO BETTER for God.
We bend our hearts to him in faith.
And THAT is what delights God our Father.
14 Now those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.
Hebrews 11 is a long list of people all through the biblical story.
And for every single one of them, they are commended on the basis of their faith.
That list in Hebrews,
The list of people who are justified before God,
the list is full of adulterers, prostitutes, murderers, and people who STRUGGLED with their faith.
I need to know this at my core.
On my best days I need to be reminded that the stuff that I do for God is in danger of being offensive to Him if I divorce that action from faith and love for God.
And on my worst days I need to know that I am not nearly the first person to struggle.
Not nearly the first to falter in faith.
Not nearly the first to sin.
For the rest of our time this morning we are going to look at Sin like a Vshaped story.
Sin is Hereditary
Sin is Hereditary
Or you could say sin is a family business.
We all inherit things from our parents.
Oftentimes it’s good things.
Eye color
Height
A certain way of laughing,
The way your hair sticks up in the back.
But what about bad things?
Have you ever
We don’t know if Cain was the very first child of Adam and Eve.
But we do know he was their first male child.
And this would have been significant to them.
Remember the promise made to the serpent?
15 And I will put hostility between you and between the woman, and between your offspring and between her offspring; he will strike you on the head, and you will strike him on the heel.”
Maybe Cain would be their liberator!
Maybe Cain would crush the serpents head!
It didn’t die out with Adam and Eve.
This seems like a terrible condition to be in.
And it is.
But consider this.
God knew that sin would be passed on to Adam’s children.
The very fact that God did not instantly kill Adam and Eve in the garden tells us two things.
God is more powerful than Satan
God’s ability to renew His creation overshadows whatever devastating effects of sin may come.
Sin is Generational
Sin is Generational
After this scene with Cain and Abel, the story fast forwards through several generations after Cain.
17 Cain was intimate with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. Then Cain became the builder of a city, and he named the city Enoch after his son. 18 Irad was born to Enoch, Irad fathered Mehujael, Mehujael fathered Methushael, and Methushael fathered Lamech. 19 Lamech took two wives for himself, one named Adah and the other named Zillah. 20 Adah bore Jabal; he was the father of the nomadic herdsmen. 21 His brother was named Jubal; he was the father of all who play the lyre and the flute. 22 Zillah bore Tubal-cain, who made all kinds of bronze and iron tools. Tubal-cain’s sister was Naamah. 23 Lamech said to his wives: Adah and Zillah, hear my voice; wives of Lamech, pay attention to my words. For I killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. 24 If Cain is to be avenged seven times over, then for Lamech it will be seventy-seven times!
Genealogies in the Bible can oftentimes elude us.
But when we spend time in them, interesting things come out.
For instance, at first glance this list of names seems sort of meaningless.
But the number of names and the names themselves are important.
For starters, including Adam, this list of names is 7 long from Adam to Lamech.
7 is the number of completion in biblical imagery.
These 7 men are listed,
and in the line of Cain what does it culminate in?
Polygamy.
Radical autonomy from God.
More murder.
Generational sin can crush us.
Faith breaks generational sin.
We see this over and over again.
The wickedness of our parents does not have to enslave us.
That is good news both for us,
and for our children.
Next week we will look at the next chapter where another genealogy is given, but this time from the line of Seth.
We will see how generational faith is passed down,
and in this case, culminating in Noah.
Sin is Defeatable
Sin is Defeatable
Sin is scary.
It’s detestable.
Cain is tempted, and God approaches Him
6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent? 7 If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”
The word used to describe sin crouching at the door was the same word used to describe a demon waiting to attack someone.
What does sin desire?
Dominance.
Same word given to Eve.
16 He said to the woman: I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children in anguish. Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.
We play with sin.
We treat sin like it’s cute.
We diminish the effects of it in our lives so that we can pretend we’re ok.
Sin is always deadly.
But it’s not just deadly.
It’s worse than that.
Sin wants to eat your lunch, make you a slave your whole life, and then kill you when it’s had enough of you.
Sin wants to dominate you.
The only relationship we can have with sin is either being it’s slave, or dying to it and being free.
And this is what is offered to Cain.
God tells Cain that he can rule over sin.
How can he do that when sin is so powerful?
By faith.
Through trusting God.
When we place our faith in God, we are given the strength we need to resist sin.
13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to humanity. God is faithful, and He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation He will also provide a way of escape so that you are able to bear it. 14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.
When we turn away from God, sin runs rampant with devastating effects.
The nature of satanic activity all through history is at it’s core,
man hating.
Body destroying.
Decay inducing.
It is astonishing that so rapidly after the fall we see murder.
This shows exactly what Satan wants.
He HATES mankind.
This is why the resurrection of the dead is THE defeat against Satan.
Satan’s best efforts result in the death of human beings.
But God remains Creator, not Satan.
And if God can create once, then He can recreate.
Hebrews says that Abel, though dead, still speaks.
That doesn’t mean he’s a ghost who speaks to us.
Abel wasn’t just the first human to be murdered.
He was the first human to die.
What the resurrection does so powerfully is
that it restores every last man woman and child who dies in faith
back to life.
From Abel, all the way to you as you lie on your deathbed one day.
Second Adam
Second Adam
All throughout time, we see sin effect every single human being.
They’re born, and it gets them.
One after another after another,
Romans 3:23 describes it this way,
“All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
in 3:10-11
“There is no one righteous, not even one;
11 there is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.
12 All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one.”[b]
History is like a giant sin factory where people are on this conveyor belt and one by one are stamped with the image of their father Adam which says “sinner.”
That is until Jesus comes along.
A second Adam.
This is why it’s critical for God to come as a man.
For God to be incarnate.
He’s on the same conveyor belt as the rest of us, but there’s a critical difference.
Adam isn’t His father.
God is.
The whole conveyor belt comes screeching to a halt now.
Imagine it this way,
Satan has happily stamped every single human in existence with the label “Sinner”,
and then here comes Jesus riding along that conveyor belt.
And Satan can’t stamp him.
He wants to, but he’s not allowed to.
Because even though Jesus is fully man, he’s not Adam’s son,
He’s God’s.
God is redoing what he did in the garden.
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
A sinless man is walking the earth for the first time in thousands of years.
So what does Satan do?
Exactly what He tried to do in the garden.
But this time he pulls out all the stops.
TEMPT THIS MAN.
Jesus model for sin resistance:
Faithful reliance on the Word of God.
Eve thought that Cain would be their hope.
Violence is not how God accomplishes His purposes.
Rather through weakness.
Abel was a shepherd presenting a sacrifice.
Jesus was THE Shepherd making a sacrifice once for all.
15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if by the one man’s trespass the many died, how much more have the grace of God and the gift overflowed to the many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. 16 And the gift is not like the one man’s sin, because from one sin came the judgment, resulting in condemnation, but from many trespasses came the gift, resulting in justification. 17 Since by the one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive the overflow of grace and the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ. 18 So then, as through one trespass there is condemnation for everyone, so also through one righteous act there is life-giving justification for everyone. 19 For just as through one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so also through the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous. 20 The law came along to multiply the trespass. But where sin multiplied, grace multiplied even more 21 so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace will reign through righteousness, resulting in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Jesus defeats our generational sin by inviting us into a new genealogy.
He adopts us into HIS family.
And this totally eclipses
LAST PAGE OF LAST BATTLE
“Lucy said, "We're so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often." "No fear of that," said Aslan. "Have you not guessed?" Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them. "There was a real railway accident," said Aslan softly. "Your father and mother and all of you are — as you used to call it in the ShadowLands — dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning." And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and 114 Clive Staples Lewis we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”