THE FIRST CHILDREN: Cain & Abel
Part 3
Genesis 4:9-15
THE LORD’S QUESTION AND CAIN’S REPLY
4:9 Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is your brother Abel? I don't know, he replied. Am I my brother's keeper?
ž God’s question to Cain was pedagogic, designed to elicit a confession from him and encouraging him to own up to his sin.
ž Cain compounded his sin of murder by blatantly lying to God and challenging His right to even to question him.
ž Destroyers are people who can leave you bleeding along the road and walk away feeling no guilt or sense of wrong for their actions. They are the kind of people for whom appearances are everything. They are manipulative, ruthless, insidious, and murderous. They will work against you, lie to your face, and chisel away at your emotional core until you are totally diminished spiritually, emotionally, and at times, physically. Destroying others guarantees their sense of self-worth.
ž Destroyers can hurt you deeply yet feel no sympathy. They are incapable of feeling hurt for anybody else, yet they are keenly aware of the emotional pain they themselves carry.
ž Destroyers are not interested in truth; they are only interested in proclaiming their own version of it.
ž Destroyers routinely lash out at others, while they refuse to own their part in the matter.
ž Destroyers will lie, twist, and distort the truth. At every turn they avoid taking responsibility for their actions and deny the need for mutual accountability.
Barring a sovereign intervention by God to subdue their rebel hearts, reconciliation with such people is seldom possible.
ž Cain was a destroyer, and his question (Am I my brother’s keeper?) betrayed the true condition of his heart. His heart was already hardened by the sins of anger, jealousy, and murder. Instead of fearing God and owning up to his sin, Cain questioned God.
ž The apostle John (1 John 3:12), in urging his hearers to love one another, used the story of Cain as an example of people who do the very opposite. Instead of loving, supporting, and protecting his brother, Cain hated him, and out of envy and jealousy, murdered him.
THE LORD’S JUDGMENT UPON CAIN
4:10-12 The Lord said, What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.
ž No matter how hard Cain attempted to avoid responsibility, he could not hide his sin from God. His brother’s blood cried out in judgment against him. His sin found him out. And so will ours.
ž As Adam and Eve were exiled from God’s garden, so Cain experienced another type of exile. His punishment meant that he was banished from the ground and forever “driven out from the presence of the Lord.”
ž Cain is a type of the unrepentant, rebellious sinner being banished to hell out of the presence of God forever. Hell means expulsion from the new earth and from the face of God where one is deprived of all that is comfortable and restful and to suffer torment forever.
2 Thessalonians 1:7-9 When the Lord Jesus appears from heaven He will come with His mighty angels in flaming fire, bringing judgment on those who don't know God and on those who refuse to obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with eternal destruction, forever separated from the Lord and from His glorious power.
ž Like Cain, those who attempt to earn their salvation by their good works find ultimately that, of themselves, they can produce only “thorns and thistles.” The true “good works” are those which God produces in the believer by the power of the Holy Spirit.
ž Every indication is that God had given Cain over to the sinful desires of his heart and therefore future repentance was not going to happen barring a gracious sovereign intervention by God.
CAIN’S RESPONSE TO HIS PUNISHMENT
4:13-14 Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.
ž Another sinful characteristic of Cain was complete self-centeredness. Once God passed judgment, Cain began to whine concerning his punishment.
ž There was no thought given to the pain Cain had inflicted on his brother when he was killed and no apology to his parents who surely grieved because of their oldest son’s crime. Cain’s entire focus was on his own predicament as a wanderer and a fugitive.
ž The self-centered person, even when found guilty, feels sorry for only himself because he alone is standing against an unjust world. You see, destroyers play by a different set of rules. There is plenty of sorrow and pity for themselves but none for those they have injured.
ž Cain was not pleading with God for forgiveness. His cries were not cries of repentance but cries of self-pity. There is no indication whatsoever of a humble, repentant spirit.
GOD FINAL WORDS FOR CAIN
4:15-16 But the Lord said to him, Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over. Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
ž God did spare Cain’s life, not exacting the penalty of capital punishment for murder that would later be required (Genesis 9:6). Most likely God wanted Cain alive as an example of what happens to those who disobey and will not repent.
ž Though Cain’s curse was drastic and symbolic of death, it was not the ultimate punishment. In this world God’s wrath is always mixed with mercy.
ž While God in His wrath, abandons people to their sinful desires, He also, in mercy, curbs human wickedness.
ž We have no idea what the mark or sign was that God gave to Cain, but it had the effect of giving him protection. God’s acts of kindness, forbearance, and patience are meant to lead sinners to repentance; but like Cain, few turn from their sin and rebellion.
Romans 2:4-5 Do you O sinner presume on the riches of God’s kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that His kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But because of your hard and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed.
ž The man who had been sentenced to be a wanderer settled in the Land of Wandering east of Eden and away from all that would remind him of God. Cain can be compared to Judas Iscariot, who “went out from the presence of the Lord in the night”.
ž Whereas the blood of Abel cries for God’s day of vengeance, the blood of Jesus cries salvation to all who believe.
