Slaughter in the Fields

Most of y’all know that I’m an only child. Perhaps the rest of you are unsurprised. Annette figured it out the first time she showed up at my house and had to wash my dishes in order to make dinner.

Maybe I grew up a little spoiled as an only child. But that’s not really my fault, now, is it? I’M not the one who spoiled me.

In my defense, I always WANTED a sibling. In my mind, it would’ve been a sister or a little brother whom I could’ve looked out for and stood up for when people were taking advantage of them or trying to hurt them.

But as I’ve grown older and encountered more and more families with siblings — especially as a pastor coming into those families in times of crisis and emotional stress — the truth about brothers and sisters has become plain.

Relationships between siblings CAN be sunshine and roses. But they’re just as likely to be stormy and full of prickly thorns.

I’ve lost track of the number of families I’ve met where siblings — even well into their adulthood — refuse to speak to one another or even spend time in the same room together.

Sibling rivalries. Toxic siblings. Scapegoated siblings. The list goes on and on.

For a guy who grew up wanting a sibling so badly, it’s just heartbreaking.

I wonder what causes these kinds of problems between siblings. Anybody have any ideas?

Well, sin!

And, conveniently, that’s the topic of the series we started last week. Perhaps you’ll recall that I’ve titled it “Sin, According to the Experts.”

Last week, we looked at the first sin, back in the Garden of Eden, the one that unleashed the brokenness and suffering we see all around us today.

But I hope you’ll not be surprised to hear me tell you this morning that the first sin wasn’t the LAST sin. If that DOES surprise you, then we probably need to have a different conversation.

When they coveted the authority to declare things to be good or evil, an authority that belongs to God alone because He alone is perfectly righteousness and holy, Adam and Eve set the wrecking ball of sin into motion.

And that wrecking ball began its work by destroying their fellowship with God, their mutual love and respect for one another, and so much else. Even the ground itself was cursed because of their sin.

The perfect shalom — the perfect peace and contentment and fulfillment of their lives in the Garden of Eden — in the presence of God Himself — was shattered.

But every one of us contributes to the destruction of shalom each time we sin — each time we fail to reflect the character of the righteous, compassionate, holy God who created us in His image, to be LIKE Him.

We sin, and the wrecking ball does what wrecking balls do. Relationships are broken. People are hurt and sometimes killed. We’re alienated from God.

And what we’re going to see today is that this was also true in the very next generation after Adam and Eve, the first sinners.

We’re going to study the familiar story of Cain and Abel this morning and see what the first dysfunctional relationship between siblings can teach us about sin.

We’ll see what it can teach us about how to honor God. We’ll see what it can teach us about God’s grace.

And along the way, we’ll see something surprising about Jesus, the SINLESS Son of God, who gave HIs life to pay the penalty WE deserve for OUR sins.

We’ll be looking at the first 16 verses of Genesis, chapter 4, today. Let’s read them together, and then we’ll come back and talk about the lessons we can learn from this tragic series of events.

Genesis 4:1–16 NASB95

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.” 2 Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. 4 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; 5 but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. 6 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.” 8 Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. 9 Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 He said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground. 11 “Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 “When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you; you will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.” 13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is too great to bear! 14 “Behold, You have driven me this day from the face of the ground; and from Your face I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” 15 So the Lord said to him, “Therefore whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him. 16 Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

Now, remember that Adam and Eve had been exiled from the Garden of Eden for their sin against God. They’d been cut off from fellowship with Him. But the RELATIONSHIP hadn’t been severed.

Clearly, they’d taught their first two sons — and surely, their other children, as well — about their Creator. Otherwise, why would Cain and Abel have been making sacrifices in the first place?

And if we read between the lines of verse 1, we can see that they now had hope — even in the broken world to which they’d been exiled.

And, significantly, their hope seems to have been in God as one who would keep His promise to them.

Do you remember the promise? We saw it last week, back in Genesis 3:15, a verse that’s known among Bible scholars as the protoevangelium. Remember that?

It’s the first seed of the gospel. The first dawning light of the good news of a savior.

It was God’s promise that though the children of Satan would injure a descendant of Eve, that descendant would crush the head of the serpent.

This is God’s first hint at what He would accomplish for fallen mankind through Jesus Christ, His unique and eternal Son.

Thousands of years after the lives of Adam and Eve, in God’s perfect timing, Jesus would come and take upon Himself the flesh of mankind.

He would live as a man, except without sin. And He would give Himself as a sacrifice at the cross, where He took upon Himself the sins of all mankind, along with their just punishment.

And He would do this so that all who would turn to Him in faith could be saved from the punishment each one of us deserves for our sins against God.

As Jesus suffered and died upon that cross at Calvary, Satan must have thought he’d won his battle against God. He’d tempted the Pharisees to demand the death of the God’s Son and Israel’s promised Messiah.

But what Satan didn’t realize as God hung on that cross in the person of His Son was that in dying as a substitute for sinners, Jesus had conquered sin itself.

And He certainly must not have expected that on the third day after the crucifixion, a resurrected Jesus would conquer even death, leaving an empty tomb as witness to God’s great power.

Of course, Adam and Eve didn’t understand any of this. God had given them only an inkling of what was to come.

But in verse 1, we see that they’d believed Him and that they’d placed their hope for themselves and all their descendants in His promise.

We can see this in Eve’s statement at the end of that verse: “I have gotten a manchild with the help of the Lord.”

The Hebrew word that’s translated as “gotten” here can also refer to God’s originating, creating, or redeeming His people. And the word translated as “manchild” can also refer to a champion or great warrior.

So, it seems that Eve hopes this child, Cain, will be the one God promised would crush the head of Satan, the one who’d rescue fallen mankind from the oppression of sin she and Adam had unleashed.

And there’s a lesson for us here already. Adam and Eve had sinned and been exiled from the presence of God. Their fellowship with Him had been broken. But the relationship was still there.

What I want you to see is that our sins work like a wrecking ball to God’s perfect shalom. They destroy relationships and cause suffering and hurt that we can’t foresee. They damage our fellowship with God.

But, for we who’ve turned to Jesus in faith that He is who He said He is and He’ll do what He said He’ll do, the RELATIONSHIP with God continues.

So, we can have assurance in our salvation. Not because of what WE do, but because of who GOD is and what Christ JESUS has done.

Now, in verses 3 and 4, we see that Cain and his brother Abel are making sacrifices to God.

Cain works the ground, so he gives a sacrifice from the fruits of the ground. Abel keeps flocks, so his sacrifice is from his flocks.

There wasn’t anything inherently wrong with Cain’s sacrifice from what he’d grown. Even under the Mosaic Law, which came later, there were grain offerings.

And it’s proper to expect that folks give back to God from what HE’S given THEM.

But something made Abel’s offering acceptable in God’s sight, while Cain’s offering was NOT.

I think the clue is in what’s said about Abel’s offering that ISN’T said about Cain’s.

Notice that in verse 4, Moses, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, says Abel “brought of the FIRSTLINGS of his flock and of their fat portions.”

In other words, he brought the first fruits. He gave to God FIRST, before taking for himself. And he did so in faith that the God who’d provided the first fruits would also provide for his own needs.

He brought the fat portions, as well. These were considered the choicest parts of the animals. So, Abel was giving the very best that he had to God.

And Abel’s offering here is a good example for us as we think about how to give back to God. We need to give Him our best, and we need to do so in faith that He’ll provide for our needs.

But we don’t see any such descriptions of Cain’s offering. We’re simply told that he “brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.”

The writer of the Book of Hebrews seems to confirm this understanding of what was going on. In Hebrews, chapter 11, he writes:

Hebrews 11:4 NASB95

4 By 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.

Do you see that? By FAITH, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain.

And because of Abel’s faith, God counted him as righteous, just as He’d later do for Abraham. Just as He does for each person who turns to JESUS in faith.

So, God had regard for — He validated — Abel’s offering in faith. But He rejected the offering that Cain seems to have made simply out of a sense of duty.

And we get confirmation of Cain’s poor motives in verses 5 through 7, where God confronts him about his anger.

“Why are you angry? What’s your problem, Cain? If you’d change your bad attitude and turn to Me in faith, you’d be happy. There’d be no reason for you to be upset.”

This was Cain’s chance to repent. And if he didn’t, God warned — If he continued to rebel against God — If he continued in his sinful attitude — If he didn’t master his sin, then his sin would master him.

See that word, “desire,” there in verse 7? It’s the same word that God used back in chapter 3, when He talked about the struggle for control that Adam and Eve would have with each other.

And here’s another lesson for us: The more we let sin into our lives, the more it becomes our master. The more we rebel against God, the more rebellious we become.

And the answer to this problem is repentance. Quick repentance. Genuine repentance. Agreeing with God that our sins are sins and then turning from them.

Sadly, though, that’s not the choice Cain made.

He waited until he and Abel were in the field together and then killed him. The Hebrew word there means “to slaughter.”

This was a premeditated and brutally violent act, not an act of passion, and it came out of Cain’s envy. He envied Abel’s acceptance by God. He envied Abel’s righteousness.

He hated his brother and chose to take the first human life lost on planet Earth. And Abel became the first martyr in history.

And we might expect God to have sent a sudden bolt of lightning to deal with Cain, right then and there.

But God is gracious, and He loves even those who’ve rejected Him.

So, what we see, instead, is God giving Cain yet another chance to repent. That’s the point of all the questions.

God knew what had happened. He didn’t need Cain to tell Him. What He wanted was for Cain to admit what an atrocity he’d committed and seek forgiveness.

Sadly, that’s not what happened. Instead, we see Cain’s snotty reply: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” He’s not only unrepentant. He’s still in outright rebellion against God.

So, God finally reveals that He knows what’s happened. “The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.”

Indeed, if you look back at that verse from Hebrews, you’ll see that Abel’s blood is STILL crying out from the ground. Crying out for righteousness to be avenged.

But in Hebrews, chapter 12, we see something wonderful. Look at verse 24 of that chapter:

Hebrews 12:24 NASB95

24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel.

The resurrected Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, the promise that our sins will be forgiven through faith in HIS sacrifice.

And so, the righteous blood of Jesus, who was slaughtered on a Roman cross, brings something better than revenge. It brings forgiveness, not vengeance, And therefore, it speaks better than Abel’s righteous blood.

God is gracious, to be sure. And we see His grace throughout this passage in Genesis. But even His grace has its limits. And there are consequences for our sins. And now, Cain is about to find out the consequences for his.

This farmer, who made his living from the ground, is now cursed from the ground. He’d thrown his lot in with Satan to the point where he is cursed, just as the ground was cursed because of Adam and Eve’s sin.

Cain has made himself a seed of Satan in his rebellion, and now he begins to share in the curse of Satan back in chapter 3.

In verse 12, God says Cain will be a vagrant and a wanderer on earth. And this fate is confirmed in verse 16, where Moses writes that Cain settled in the land of Nod, which literally means wandering or homelessness.

So, Cain becomes the vagrant in the land of vagrants. Even the name of the land where he lived would be a constant reminder of his sin and his punishment.

And we might expect — or at least, hope — that all this would cause Cain to finally repent for his sins against God and against his brother.

But what we see in verses 13 and 14 isn’t repentance. What we see there is self-pity.

And that’s not far from how most of us react when we experience the consequences of our sin. We feel sorry for ourselves, instead of turning to the Lord in repentance.

Cain might still have been banished from the community of his family if he’d repented, but he’d have gained the most important thing: forgiveness and a relationship with God.

Sadly, though, we see no evidence in Scripture that he ever repented.

But what we DO see, and what gives me great hope and joy, is that God is STILL gracious to him.

In His grace, God allowed Cain to live. And he gave Him some mark of protection from those who might seek revenge for the murder of Abel, because life and death are God’s prerogatives, and vengeance belongs to HIM.

So, let me ask you now: What was Cain’s sin? Surely, he sinned when he murdered his brother. And, before that, he’d sinned when he envied God’s response to his brother’s offering.

But God saw the sin in Cain’s heart long before either of those things had happened. That’s WHY He’d rejected Cain’s offering.

And what God saw was the CAIN had rejected HIM. What God saw was that Cain was going through the motions of his sacrifice out of a sense of duty — perhaps a sense of duty to his parents.

God saw that Cain was rebelling against Him and rejecting Him even before those things were manifested in Cain’s actions.

God knew that Cain didn’t trust in God’s goodness. Didn’t trust that He keeps His promises. Didn’t trust that He’d provide what Cain needed to live.

And if Abel’s faith was counted to him as righteousness, then Cain’s LACK of faith must count as unrighteousness. As sin.

Folks, Jesus prayed that His Father would forgive even those who’d nailed Him to the cross. So, there’s no sin that’s too great for God to forgive.

No sin, that is, except for one: rejecting God by rejecting His Son, Jesus.

I don’t know how you’ve sinned, though I DO know that every one of you has sinned in some way, great or small.

And just like Cain, your sin has exiled you from the community of God. You’ve been cut off from Him.

But Jesus died so sinners could be forgiven through faith in Him and His finished work at the cross.

And He rose again to establish the promise that we who’ve been so forgiven can have eternal life WITH Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So that we sinners who were exiled as rebels against God’s kingdom can be welcomed into it as adopted sons and daughters of God.

At the cross, with arms stretched wide, Jesus bought forgiveness for ALL of our sins. HE paid the penalty we all deserve for rebelling against God in our unrighteousness.

And now, with arms stretched wide beside God’s throne in heaven, Jesus calls to each person here today. His offering to you is forgiveness, mercy and grace.

Cain rejected God’s grace, so he’s received God’s judgment, instead. Each of you has that same choice today.

If you’ve never chosen grace, then I’d like to ask you today: What are you waiting for? There will come a time, just as it did for Cain, when God stops calling you to repentance and leaves you in your lostness. As vagrants in the land of vagrants.

Won’t you heed His call this morning?

NOW is the acceptable time. Now is the day of salvation!