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 In Genesis 3, we read about the fall of mankind.

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 As you remember, our first parents ate from the forbidden tree,

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 and we were removed from the garden.

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 As we come to Genesis 4, do you think mankind will have learned their lesson about the dangers of sin?

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 We'll find out in today's study of two brothers, Cain and Abel.

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 In the late 1600s, there was an author named John Milton.

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 Now, does anyone know what John Milton wrote?

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 Anyone?

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 Paradise Lost.

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 Paradise Lost.

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 Have you read it?

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 You love poetry more than I do.

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 John Milton.

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 Paradise Lost.

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 Now, this is a big deal.

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 Paradise Lost.

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 I'm not a big poetry guy.

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 That's my failing.

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 But Paradise Lost was about the fall, or at least the ramifications of the fall.

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 You have the fall.

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 You have Adam and Eve.

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 They're dwelling in the garden.

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 Everything's going swimmingly.

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 Everything is going great.

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 Things are so wonderful in the garden.

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 You have not lived an entire day in your whole life.

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 that is as good as half a second as what Adam and Eve had in the garden.

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 So John Milton wrote this poem called Paradise Lost,

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 and it talked about the fall, the fall from grace,

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 the fall into this terrible estate in which Adam and Eve dwelled thereafter.

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 Now imagine Adam and Eve.

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 You see, we look at this world and circumstances, and we don't know any better.

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 We look at a sunny day like this and go, this is pretty good, right?

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 We look at aspects of our life and say, this isn't so bad.

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 But that's because all we know is sin.

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 It's like fish, all they know is water.

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 You and I live in a culture, a sin-drenched culture,

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 where we drink down sin like it's water, so we don't know any better.

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 Adam and Eve did.

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 Adam and Eve remembered back.

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 They remembered the garden.

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 Remember after they were cast from the garden,

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 there was an angel with a fiery sword, cherubim, guarding the way back in.

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 Imagine what went through their minds as they think about what they lost,

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 as they think about the lushness of the garden and all the fruits

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 and all the creatures and how wonderful it was.

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 All that's gone.

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 Now what they have is fear.

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 Now they have wild beasts.

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 Now they have thorns and thistles.

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 Now they sweat in order to have anything to eat.

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 Everything came hard.

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 Everything was difficult.

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 And soon violence would fill the globe around them,

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 propagated initially by their own son.

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 When Adam and Eve thought back to the garden,

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 paradise lost.

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 When they looked back to the garden in their own mind's eye,

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 they had to hate sin all the more

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 because they knew what it had cost them.

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 Adam and Eve listened to the serpent.

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 The serpent said, you know, here's the thing.

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 Your life is pretty good right now, I grant you that, but it'll be better if you just do this.

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 Eat from the tree, the one tree that God said don't eat from, just do it.

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 God's withholding something from you.

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 If you have it, if you take it, if you eat of it, your life is going to be better.

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 And so they did.

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 And what happened?

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 Everything got demonstrably worse.

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 You know, when you're tempted, you're tempted to do things you want to do.

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 That's what temptation is.

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 Temptation is when you're enticed to do that which you already want to do.

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 If you didn't want to do it, it wouldn't be called temptation.

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 You're tempted to do things that you want to do, and part of you tells yourself it'll be better if

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 you do it, and if you partake, and if you have the fruit. Will it? Is it? When you look back at the

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 sins of your youth, when you look back at the sins of last week, have they borne the fruit that you

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 wanted them to bear? Well, probably not. In fact, emphatically not. Paradise lost. Adam and Eve knew

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 what they had lost, and they knew how their present reality was way, way worse. And soon,

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 soon they would know it to an even greater extent in Genesis 4 in today's text.

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 Whatever the case is, God had told them, this is going to be bad. Don't do it. The day you eat of

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 it, you will die. They were cast from the garden. Death entered their ontology. They were consigned

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 to death. They got achy joints, achy knees. All these things started to go wrong in the world

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 around them. But they clung to a promise. Even as they thought back to Paradise Lost, and even as

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 they lamented what they lost, they did look ahead in this one regard. They looked ahead because God

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 had told him that although you've lost all that, one will come to restore all things. Even though

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 you've lost what you had, even though there's now a fracture, your interaction with me won't be what

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 it once was. There's now a sword, a fire sword blocking you from the garden, blocking you from

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 the access with me you used to have. Even that's true. Even though that fracture exists, a day is

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 coming when a seed, a seed, which is an anticipation of the Messiah, of Jesus, the seed will come and

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 he will make all things right. He'll make all things new. So if you were Eve, even though you

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 look back at what you lost, you also looked ahead and you said, there's one coming. There's one

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 coming. There's one coming. Through my union with my husband, one is going to come ultimately that

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 will right everything, that will fix everything that we broke. One's coming. One's coming. One's

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 coming. Well, what we're going to see here in verses one and two is that one came, one showed

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 up, and Eve probably had higher hopes for him. It didn't work out. Let's look at verses one and two

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 and see what happened. Chapter 4, verses 1 and 2. I'll read this, and again, we'll kind of work

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 our way through the balance of these 12 verses. Verse 1. Now, Adam knew Eve, his wife. They had

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 union. Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived. And she bore Cain and said, I have acquired a man

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 from the Lord. Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now, Abel was a keeper of sheep,

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 but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

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 All right, so chapter four begins

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 and you see this ray of hope.

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 Adam knows his wife Eve, she conceives

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 and she bears a child and his name is Cain

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 and she declares emphatically,

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 I've acquired, I've gotten a man from the Lord.

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 Now, what do you think she might've been hoping?

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 If you were Eve, what would you have been hoping

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 at that moment?

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 God had promised one would come ultimately

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 from your union with your husband

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 that ultimately there'd be a progeny,

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 one would come to make all things right.

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 Well, she gave birth and she declares, I've gained, I've gotten, I have obtained, acquired a man from

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 the Lord. There's a sense, there's a sense in which possibly she hoped that this would be the one,

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 that Cain would be the one, that he would be the one to make all things right, that this would be

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 the seed. How cool would that have been if you're Eve? You know, things got broken not long ago,

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 but it'll be right any moment now because here's the seed. You probably hoped that.

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 Was that what happened? Well, no. Now Cain, what do we know about Cain? Well, initially we know

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 this. He's the first child born by procreation, right? Adam and Eve came into being through a

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 different fashion, but Cain is the first child born by procreation. Again, he probably represented

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 Eve's greatest hopes, the defeat of Satan, reconciliation with God. Now what else we know

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 about Cain is he may or may not have been twins with Abel. If you look at verse 1, it says,

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 knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain, and then she bore again this time his brother

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 Abel. Some look at that text in verses 1 and 2, and they say, well, there's only one conception

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 mentioned. She conceived and bore Cain, and then she bore Abel. So some look at this and say, well,

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 possibly, possibly, since there's one conception, these are twins. If you look at Jacob and Esau as

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 an example, there is later precedent for that. I don't know that to be the case here, but I just

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 mention that some do see that as a possibility that they were twins. Whatever the case is,

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 we know that Cain is first. Cain is the Esau in this equation. Cain came along first. However,

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 rather than be the fulfillment of Eve's desires, rather than be the seed, he ends up being the exact

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 opposite. Rather than being the seed, rather than being one of virtue, rather than being one who

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 could withstand the serpent, we see something entirely different. We see a man who would grow

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 up to be history's first villain. History's first villain. Now, let me ask you a question.

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 In psychology, if you've been through any level of schooling, at some point, at some point,

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 you came into contact with the concept of nature versus nurture, right? Nature versus nurture.

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 So you look at an individual and you say, are you a byproduct of your nature or just the way

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 you grew up? And sometimes we look at an individual and the decisions that they're

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 making. We say, the reason they're making the decisions that they're making is a function of

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 how they grew up, their environment, or what have you.

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 Their environment shaped them.

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 So we've heard that.

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 Now, how about Cain?

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 Irrespective of what you think about others in the world around us,

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 what about Cain?

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 Let's start with him.

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 Is Cain's sin, Cain's evil, Cain's depravity,

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 a function of nature or nurture?

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 Anyone nature?

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 Let's see a few hands.

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 Anyone nurture?

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 We'll talk later.

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 Nature or nurture?

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 See, it's not nurture.

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 We know this much.

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 it can't be nurture. It can't be nurture. Where was the culture to shape him? What violent video

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 games did Cain play in order to form the evil in him? What violent horror movies or what have you

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 shaped the Cain that would become the first villain? Well, there was none. There was zero.

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 There was no society, no culture. You can't blame government. You can't blame the institutions. You

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 can't blame the media. So what's left? His nature. You say he's not a sinner because he learned to

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 sin. You say he was a sinner because that is what he was born to be. This is the concept of original

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 sin, which takes longer time than we have time to unpack here this morning. But the concept of

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 original sin is this, that we come into this world broken. What did the psalmist say? He said,

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 in sin my mother conceived me. We come in, dead in our sins and our trespasses. Now, that's not

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 just the teaching of Genesis 4. You'll find that throughout the New Testament as well, most

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 helpfully in Romans chapter 5. In Romans 5, we read this, through one man, sin entered the world

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 and death came through sin and thus death spread to all men, right? So you want to know how Cain

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 became a sinner. He became a sinner because Adam's sin tainted Cain and you and me. This is not just

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 guesswork. This is the overt teaching of scripture. Again, Romans 5, through one man, Adam, through one

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 man, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men. You do not have

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 to like that teaching, but it is. It is the overt teaching of the book. All right, whatever the case

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 is, before we move to verses 3 through 7, I would just have you note that when you have Cain, you

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 have Abel. These two individuals, they represent all of humanity. It's fascinating how God does

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 Whether it's twins like Jacob and Esau, right?

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 Jacob I have loved, Esau I have what?

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 Esau I have hated.

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 Whether it's Cain and Abel or Jacob and Esau.

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 Whether it's Isaac and Ishmael.

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 Whether it's the two different thieves on either side of Jesus on the cross.

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 Whether it's sheep and goats.

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 God has routinely, routinely, pedagogically, he uses this as a teaching tool.

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 He has routinely utilized twins and brothers and goats and sheep

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 in these different contrasts in order to identify for us

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 that all of humanity falls in one of two categories,

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 the children of God or those of the devil.

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 This is what Jesus said to the Pharisees.

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 Remember, Jesus and the Pharisees, they're interacting as they often did,

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 and the Pharisees are attacking Jesus,

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 and Jesus is just teaching them truth after truth after truth,

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 and they hate it, and they talk about their father Abraham,

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 their father Abraham, and Jesus stops them and says,

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 no way, no dice.

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 He says, you've got it all wrong.

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 You think you're of your father Abraham?

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 you think God of heaven is your father? No, you are of your father all right, but your father is

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 different than who you think it is. You are of your father, the devil. All of humanity, all of

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 humanity, so the goats or sheep, all of humanity, all of humanity, are there Cain's or Abel's?

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 All of humanity, all of humanity, are there Jacob's or Esau's? There is no middle ground.

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 Scripture does not teach a middle ground anywhere. There's none who are morally neutral.

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 no free agents. They're only reprobates and sinners and lost people until such time as God

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 changes their hearts and adopts them into his family, at which point they can rightly say,

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 God is my father. All right, let's look at verses three through seven. Verse three,

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 in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground of

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 the Lord. And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord

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 respected Abel and his offering, but he did not respect Cain and his offering. And so Cain was

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 very angry and his countenance fell. So the Lord said to Cain, why are you angry? Why has your

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 countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin

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 lies at the door and its desire is for you. All right. If I were to ask you whether the Bible's

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 villains? Guys like, well, Cain here, or Pharaoh, or Ahab, or the Pharisees. If I were to say,

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 are the villains in scripture, generally speaking, are they religious people or not religious? What

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 do you think? I'm hearing different takes on this. So remember who we're talking about. We're

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 talking about Cain. What's Cain doing right here? What's he doing? He's giving an offering, right?

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 At least from 10,000 feet, that looks religious. What about Pharaoh? Pharaoh had all manner of

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 gods. He went down to the Nile and took his little showers and prayed all the deities of the Nile.

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 He had all sorts of gods. The Pharisees. The Pharisees were religious, at least from 10,000

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 feet. They were religious. The problem was their religiosity was faulty in one or two regards.

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 Either like Pharaoh, they worshiped the wrong god, or like the Pharisees, they worshiped the

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 right god in the wrong way. Well, Cain here worshiped the right god. There was only one god,

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 and he got to talk to him. We see in this text, God talks to Cain, not from a million miles away

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 wrote him a letter in the sand or something. He talked to him directly, and Cain brought God an

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 offering. So what was the problem? Well, some believe that the problem was that he approached

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 this God in the wrong fashion. Let's explore that a little bit. We have two offerings. You have Cain,

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 you have Abel. Now, if you look there in verses 3 through 7, you see that Cain brings the first

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 offering. It's offering the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Remember what we read earlier? He's a

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 tiller of the ground. He's a farmer. He's a harvester. So he brings some of his harvest

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 to God. That's what we see here in verse 3. Abel also brought an offering, but his offering is

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 different. Because he's a tenderer of sheep, a keeper of sheep, he brought of the firstborn of

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 his flock and of their fat. So you have two offerings both brought to God. However, God

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 looks at both these offerings, and more importantly, he looks at the hearts of the men who

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 offered it, and one pleases him and one doesn't. Now again, from 10,000 feet, you look at that and

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 they say, well, these are two guys approaching the same God. They both bring offerings. What's wrong?

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 Why was God dismissive, rejecting Cain's offering? Again, Cain wanted to understand this. Cain was

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 angry that God had rejected it. Now, scholars, there's not an overt explanation given to us in

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 these verses of exactly what the issue was, but scholars have looked at this and said it's probably

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 one of two or three different things. Some think that the problem is that one guy, one of the

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 brothers brought meat, and the other brought vegetables. Now, when I sit down for a tasty meal,

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 you can guess which plate of food I am more excited to receive. You know, a nice po' boy or a rib

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 witch or something like that. I don't want celery. I don't want vegetables or what have you. So some

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 look at this and say, you know, God has discriminating taste. He doesn't want no vegetables. He wants

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 meat. Now, sometimes they look and they say, well, the issue is even slightly different than that.

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 It's really not meat and vegetables. The issue is blood. They're making an offering here, and without

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 the shedding of blood, there's no remission of sin. So if this is an offering of repentance,

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 then only an offering of repentance that is bound in blood, so to speak, is satisfactory and

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 vegetables don't count. So others look at it and say that's maybe the issue. Now another school of

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 thoughts is it's not really so much the meat versus the vegetables. Another school of thought

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 is they say, well look, look at what it says about Abel. Abel brought the best, right? It doesn't say

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 anything about Cain bringing the best. It says he just brought some fruit and vegetables and things

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 that he got from the ground and said, here you go. But we see that Abel, Abel brought, he brought

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 the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And Hebrew context, this is a way of saying he brought

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 the best he had. He didn't bring, you know, the three-toed, lazy-eyed, buck-toothed sheep. I got

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 to give God a sheep today. Which one? Well, that mangy critter over there. He didn't do that. He

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 gave the firstborn and of their fat, which at that point had some significant value. So he gave God

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 what's best. And meanwhile, Cain just gave him apparently whatever happened to be lying around

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 vegetable was. So some people say that's the problem. I'm not convinced that's a problem

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 either. It really could be an issue of A or B. It could be the first problem, the second problem,

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 or some combination. I think the problem was the motivation of Cain's heart. I think that was the

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 issue. I think Cain could have rolled in there and sacrificed sheep to the rafters. But as long

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 as his heart perceived God incorrectly, as long as his heart was not filled with a motivation of

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 repentance and adoration and worship, as long as he was just going through the motions, I don't

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 think it mattered what he gave God. I think the problem here is the motivation of the heart. And

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 the reason I think is a problem is the motivation of the heart is look how depraved his heart was.

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 Like two verses later, he's going to kill his own brother, right? This is a guy who had all manner

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 of evil and sinful things going on within him. Even God knows it because God says in these very

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 verses, he says, Cain, I know what's going on, and I know this much, that sin is laying at its door,

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 and you're toying with the possibility of opening it. Don't. Sin lies at your door. Its desire is

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 for you, but Cain, you must rule over it. I think the motivation of Cain's heart was desperately,

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 desperately wrong. Now, one final note of those verses before we move on to verse 8.

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 I think it's interesting here that although when mankind was evicted from the garden,

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 although when they were expelled from the garden,

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 a sword, a fiery sword that's shown in all directions was set up,

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 guarding the way back, preventing access from fallen sinful men with a holy God.

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 Although a sword blocked the way for man to access God,

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 although that was true, interestingly, nothing prevented God from accessing man.

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 So mankind couldn't go back into the garden

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 any more than mankind can just heave himself into God's golden shores.

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 you and I cannot lasso heaven down and make it our own. We can't do it. But here what we see

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 is that God condescends to enter into that fallenness, so to speak, and to speak with the

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 most fallen man in existence at the time, which is Cain. Nothing stops God from rolling up his

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 sleeves and entering into the darkest environment on this globe and saving sinners. Nothing stops

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 his word from reaching into the darkest parts of the globe. In this case, the word reached Cain,

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 and yet Cain still rejected him. Let's look at that rejection now as we look at verse 8.

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 Verse 8, now Cain talked with Abel, his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field

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 that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and he killed him. All right, verse 7, God had warned

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 Cain. He said, sin's lying at your door, which should have meant something to Cain. He grew up

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 hearing the stories of his parents. Now they didn't have, they couldn't talk about what grandpa's

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 backstory, right? They couldn't talk about the old country. So what stories did Adam and Eve tell?

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 What did they have to tell? Well, their principal story probably involved the serpent, probably

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 involved the snake. The main story Adam and Eve had to tell, at least the story they told their

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 kids in order to warn them, was the story of a serpent who had slithered in, so to speak, and

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 tempted Eve and caused all this terribleness to follow. So here God says there's something waiting

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 for you, crouching at your door, laying at the door. What should have come to mind to Cain?

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 What God was telling Cain is that the serpent, he's got you, Cain, in the bullseye. What are you

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 going to do that's going to be any different than what your old man did? What are you going to do

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 that's any different? You must rule over it. You must rule over it. Whatever the case, you see in

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 verse 8, he didn't. Rather, in a short amount of time, like one verse later, he's talking with Abel.

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 He says, all right, time to die.

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 And he kills him here in verse 8.

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 Now, why?

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 Well, again, we don't know the full motivation, but we know this much.

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 It wasn't spontaneous.

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 Most sin isn't.

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 Most sin isn't.

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 Most of the grievous things that you've done in life, it wasn't like this spontaneous thing.

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 You just did it.

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 Most often, it's something that you thought about ahead of time.

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 Most of the sins that ensnare us do so gradually, so to speak.

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 They lasso our hearts and draw us closer, and we indulge, and we indulge, and we indulge.

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 In James 1, we read this,

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 Let no one say when he's tempted that I'm tempted by God, because God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anybody else.

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 But each one is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desires and enticed.

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 Temptation comes from within. It starts with desires.

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 It starts with thoughts. It starts with things spinning around in our head that entice us.

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 Again, it's called temptation because we want to do it.

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 So each one is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desires and enticed,

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 and then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin,

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 and sin, when it's full grown, brings forth death.

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 In all likelihood, the sin of Cain killing his brother

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 was not something that just happened in the heat of the moment.

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 In fact, the idea that God warned him just a verse earlier,

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 hey, I know what's going on with you, Cain,

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 suggests this is something he cultivated.

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 He sat there and he thought about it.

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 He thought about doing it. He obsessed about it.

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 He even pictured what's going to happen.

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 My brother, my brother, he thinks he's so great.

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 He thinks he's so smart.

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 God loves him.

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 God's angry at me.

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 What's going on here?

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 I'll show him, right?

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 I'll show him.

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 And then when the parents evidently aren't around to see it, he kills him.

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 But God sees him.

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 God sees him.

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 Let's look at God's response now as God comes to Cain in his moment of greatest sin.

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 Verses 9 through 12.

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 Then the Lord said to Cain, where is Abel, your brother?

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 and he said, I do not know. Liar. Liar. So he's compounding sins. He kills, then he lies. Liar.

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 Where is Abel, your brother? He says, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? Oh, this gets

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 more wicked every syllable out of his mouth. And so God says, what have you done? The voice of your

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 brother's blood is crying out to me even now from the ground. We see that in verse 10. So now,

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 Now, Cain, you are cursed from the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

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 Now, when you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you.

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 A fugitive and a vagabond you will be on the earth.

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 So God knows exactly what went down, just like he knew what Adam and Eve had done.

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 And just like he did with Adam and Eve, he gives them an opportunity to fess up, and we don't see that here.

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 There's no repentance.

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 There's no taking responsibility.

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 Just equivocating.

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 But God says, Cain, I know what you've done.

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 Furthermore, the very ground knows what you've done.

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 Your brother's blood is crying out from it, and that's going to be part of your curse.

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 You've been a tiller of the ground.

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 The vegetables and on the sweet potatoes and all this different stuff, no more.

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 No more.

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 Now the ground will produce nothing for you.

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 And you will be a vagabond upon the earth.

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 As we close this morning, let me ask you.

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 It's easy in today's text to know who the villain is and who the hero is,

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 or who the protagonist and who the antagonist is.

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 We know that Cain is the wicked one.

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 We know that Cain is the evil one.

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 We know that Cain is the one who had sinned.

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 We know that Cain is the one who had messed up.

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 But let me ask you a question.

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 In your own story, are you the Cain or are you the Abel?

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 You see, all of us fall into this mindset.

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 We're either victims or victimizers.

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 And no one looks in the mirror and sees a victimizer.

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 If you'd asked Cain what he was, he was a victim.

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 I've been wronged by God.

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 I've been wronged by my brother.

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 My parents don't treat me right.

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 My circumstances aren't great.

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 I'm the victim here.

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 How often do we do that?

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 We look at our circumstances.

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 We feel like we're the victim.

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 And because we think like we're the victim,

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 we think we're entitled to do what we want to correct the situation.

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 How many sins, how many things do we pursue

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 because we think we're entitled to.

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 Life owes me.

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 Life hasn't been fair.

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 I deserve this.

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 There's this hardship.

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 My spouse hurt me.

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 This thing happened.

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 This thing in the job, this thing in the work,

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 this thing in church, what have you.

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 Something has occurred to me,

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 and because it's occurred to me,

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 I'm entitled to do X, Y, Z.

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 It's not hard to fall into the trap of being Cain or Cain-ish.

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 It's not hard to fall into that trap

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 and suddenly to be sitting there spinning our wheels

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 about that which is wrong,

398
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 Suddenly be spinning our wheels about things we ought not do.

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 Suddenly be considering sinful paths we ought not walk down.

400
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 It's not a far leap.

401
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 So God's warning to us when we consider these things.

402
00:24:54,400 --> 00:24:57,320
 God's warning to us this week when some temptation comes to you.

403
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 And it'll come to each one of us in different forms, different ways.

404
00:25:00,220 --> 00:25:03,600
 When it comes to you, you must look at it, think of it,

405
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 as a serpent laying at the door.

406
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 As a serpent laying at the door whose desire is for you.

407
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 The question is, what are you going to do about it?

408
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 Well, God told Cain the same thing he'd tell us.

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 You must rule over it.

410
00:25:19,020 --> 00:25:22,620
 You must, with intentionality, say, I'm not going to be the man I used to be.

411
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 I'm not going to indulge what I indulged last week, last month, last year.

412
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 I'm not going to do what I've done in the past.

413
00:25:28,940 --> 00:25:31,360
 As I look at the things I've done in the past, it's like paradise lost.

414
00:25:31,440 --> 00:25:32,580
 I see what it's cost me.

415
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:34,140
 I don't want to live that way anymore.

416
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 I want to be different.

417
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 The good news is this.

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 God's hand's out to you even right now to help you to do that which is right.

419
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 And he will help guard you from doing that which is wrong.

420
00:25:50,800 --> 00:25:52,760
 But stop trusting in your own strength.

421
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 Stop trusting in your own wisdom.

422
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 Stop trusting in your own judgment.

423
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 Run to him, flee from sin.

424
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 You choose one path and one direction, it will lead you away from the other.

425
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 Run to God intentionally, through your decisions, through your actions,

426
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 through your choices, through your affections.

427
00:26:06,420 --> 00:26:07,680
 Cut off that which is wrong.

428
00:26:07,800 --> 00:26:08,940
 Cut off that which is sinful.

429
00:26:08,940 --> 00:26:10,000
 Stop pursuing it.

430
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 Start doing that which is right, and your story, your story will not be the story of Cain.

431
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 Let's pray.