Ways of Cain

Jude 1:11

Way of Cain

Jude 1:11, Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. Three historic apostate judgments.

• Israel,
• Angels, and
• Sodom and Gomorrah.

Three characteristics of apostate nature

• Immorality,
• Disobedience/insubordination, and
• Blasphemy/irreverence.

Three connections to apostate examples

 Cain,  Balaam, and  Korah.

Three who model what these current, contemporary apostates do.

• These current ones have gone the way of Cain.
• They have rushed into the error of Balaam.
• They have perished in the rebellion of Korah.

They have followed the path that Cain followed. They have followed the path that Balaam followed. They have followed the path that Korah followed. Notice the progression.

• They have gone the way of Cain,
• They have rushed into the error of Balaam, and
• They have perished in the rebellion of Korah.

First there is a path they take. Then there is an escalation of their speed, and ultimately their disastrous. They start out in the way. They go into the error, and they perish in the rebellion.

• Cain is a model of one who disobeyed God.
• Balaam is a model of one who tries to influence others to disobey God.
• Korah who led a full rebellion.

Apostates are the spiritual children of Cain, Balaam, and Korah. The biblical mandate for Christians to love and serve each other, as brothers. We should be able to understand what that means.

1 Peter 3:8-9, Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. 9 Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing. Brothers (and sisters) should treat each other with respect. Family should be enough. But unfortunately, the statistics on violent crime in the world tell a different story. More murders are committed between family members (husbands and wives) that between any other segments of our society.

But that started early, didn’t it? Let’s revisit the story of Cain. It contains a warning. Cain was not an atheist. Cain was a deeply religious man. The way of Cain is not the way of atheism but apostate.

Cain was the firstborn of Adam and Eve. Cain followed in his father’s footsteps and became a farmer. Abel tended flocks. The rabbis speculate that there was tension between them for a variety of reasons.

Genesis 4:1-8, Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.” 2 Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. 4 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, 5 but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. 6 So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.” 8 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.

There are lots of firsts in this story. First human births, the births of Cain and Abel.

First family. The first family dispute. First case of sibling rivalry. We have the first record of worship. The very first worship war, between Cain and Abel. First mention of the word sin. First murder. One brother murdering another.

First case of the wicked persecuting the righteous, because Cain’s murder of Abel is religiously motivated, and it’s therefore the first record of the conflict between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, as prophesied in

Genesis 3:15. First death, the death of Abel, who was both a saint (he is a righteous Abel), and therefore the first martyr in the Old Testament church. V 1-2, Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, “I have acquired a man from the Lord.” 2 Then she bore again, this time his brother Abel.

Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. Cain’s name sounds sort of like the Hebrew word for “gotten” or “obtained,” so there’s some assonance here between those words.

Eve’s words here seem to be in response to Genesis 3:15, where the Lord had said that through the seed of the woman the serpent’s head would be crushed. You can imagine her hopes. Here is the very first birth, the very first pregnancy.

She feels the kicks of this little baby and the anticipation, not knowing exactly what’s happening to her or what’s going to take place, and then she has this child, she delivers the child. “I have gotten a man with help from the Lord.”

You can imagine the excitement. Maybe she thinks, “This is him! This is the seed! This is the deliverer! This is the one who’s going to come and is going to crush the serpent’s head.” How tragically disappointed she must have been at the outcome.

Eve bears another child, Cain’s brother Abel.

• Abel was a keeper of sheep and
• Cain a worker of the ground.

Their vocation as men. The narrative from here on out is really on Cain and God. Abel never even speaks!

After this, Cain is only mentioned three other times in Scripture, each time in a negative context. The New Testament seems to view Cain as typical of the wicked person, so that Jude in his letter, warns of apostates.

1. The Worship that God Rejects

V 3-4, And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. 4 Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, So, two different kinds of offerings.

We have not given a lot of detail about the two offerings. God accepts one and rejects the other.

What are the differences between them? The nature of their offerings.

• Cain is bringing a fruit offering. He’s bringing an offering from the produce of his crop.
• Whereas Abel is bringing a sacrificial offering. He’s offering the firstborn of his flock.

Some commentators have thought that perhaps God had already begun to institute animal sacrifice as the means of atonement for sin. That God had revealed this and Abel, in response, offers a blood sacrifice, whereas Cain does not.

But Scripture doesn’t say that, so we are not sure that that’s the case. Important to realize that the law of God prescribed both animal sacrifices as well as grain offerings. Both kinds of offerings were prescribed by God in the Torah.

So, both could be approved. So, it’s probably not merely the nature of their offerings. The quality of the two offerings. Abel brings the firstborn of his flock. Any Israelite who reads this would know that it was the firstborn that was consecrated to the Lord, and especially the fat portions, the best part of the offering, the best part of the flock. That’s what Abel brings.

In contrast, Cain probably is just bringing a token gift and not the first fruits of his crop, but just bringing a token gift to God. So, the quality of their offerings is different.

The motivation behind them.

Hebrews 11:4, By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when

God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead. This seems to be the biggest difference between the two men. Abel had faith, whereas Cain did not.

• Abel brings a sacrificial offering to the Lord, and he brings it in faith, he brings the very best to the Lord in faith.
• Cain brings a token sacrifice, and he doesn’t have faith. He doesn’t have a deep trust in God.

God’s response. V 4-5, Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering, 5 but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell.

God was pleased with Abel, but not with Cain. God was pleased with Abel’s offering and was not pleased with Cain’s offering.

Worship God according to His pattern. We must worship God according to His will and not our own wishes. The pattern in Scripture, over and again, is that God reveals Himself to men. God describes how He is to be worshipped, and then we are to respond appropriately to that worship.

God gives the pattern, God gives the revelation, and we respond. Worship is not left up to us, to just decide how we want to do it, do it any way we can. Worship is our response to God’s self- revelation. God does not just accept anybody’s worship. He doesn’t accept Cain’s worship.

We only worship God when we worship God as He has revealed Himself to be, according to the pattern that He has revealed in His word. We are to worship God as God decides, not as we decide. We don’t have the liberty to just change anything we want to in church. There are certain things that belong in worship.

We are to worship with song, prayer, the word, and the table. These are things that God has instituted in His word.

God deserves our very best. Abel offered his best, the firstborn of his flock and Cain did not. God received Abel’s offering and He did not receive Cain’s. God deserves our very best.

Romans 12:1, Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

God deserves our very best, not our second best, not our leftovers.

2. Cain disobedience.

Cain’s worship was not accepted, and Cain’s response set him on a collision course with tragedy. V 5, but He did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. Cain’s first reaction was one of deep anger because his offering was not accepted, whereas Abel’s was, and his face fell. That means he is dejected and cast down.

V 6-7, So the Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it.”

The very first words that God ever asked a human being, outside the garden of Eden were, why is your face fallen?

Why are you angry? Cain had just come from a prayer meeting where He had offered something to God! Should a man’s face be downcast just after a worship service? You are a deeply religious person. Then why is your countenance clouded?

Sin is personified as a power, likened to a predator. Sin is crouching at the door like a beast lying in wait. The idea here is that sin is like a beast lying in wait for us, and we must be careful. We must be on our guard.

The Lord is confronting Cain with his anger and is saying, “Cain, watch out! You are in a dangerous position.”

Even right here you see grace on the part of God, as he comes correcting and guiding Cain. Cain, of course, does not receive the direction. Cain didn’t listen to God, for he had no fear of God. Instead, he went from God’s presence and killed his brother.

V 8, Now Cain talked with Abel his brother; and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. The beast has sprung. The monster’s awake, and now Cain is a murderer.

The dynamics of sin and how sin works in our lives. It shows us not only the predatory nature of sin, but it shows us the progression of sin. Notice the progression in Cain’s life. His first sin is really the sin of unbelief. There’s something wrong in his relationship with God vertically.

Unbelief in his worship. Then his reaction to God’s rejection of his worship is one of anger. The anger leads to dejection. His face has fallen. He is cast down and that leads to murder. There is a progression here. There is a development of sin.

Horizontal sins follow vertical sins. Sins against human beings follow sins against God. You think about all these problems, the horizontal plane. They need to be addressed, but I want you to know that we will never deal with those problems until we deal with the more fundamental problem, which is a broken relationship with God Himself.

The horizontal problems flow out of the vertical problems. Cain murdered Abel because he was angry. He was angry because he didn’t trust God. Because he didn’t worship God rightly and he didn’t respond to God in faith and repentance.

Sins start small and always get bigger.

James 1:13-15, When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; 14 but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. 15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

There is a development.

• It starts with a desire,
• The desire conceives,
• Conception leads into an act,
• When the act is fully matured,
• Results in death.

The Lord warned him of it! Cain ignores the warning, and the beast springs. One reason why internal sins are so deadly, and in the New Testament, where Jesus spoke about this in the sermon on the mount.

Matthew 5:21-48, Jesus explains ⁶ practical ways how we can deceive ourselves. Jesus knows that sin never stays small, because Jesus knows that sin in the heart is a seed that always grows and develops into something else.

What choices are we making that are turning the central self, the central part of our souls, away from God? Where are we nurturing the beastly nature of sin in our hearts and lives?

How are we changing as persons?

Are we changing into better, more and more Christ-like people, or are we changing for the worse? We must heed the warning of Scripture. The Lord tells Cain he must rule over the sin. As New Testament believers, we know that we have the resources to do that.

Romans 6:1-4, What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we are baptized into Christ, we are baptized into his death, and we are raised to walk in newness of life, we have died to the power of sin, and if we have died to the power of sin, it doesn’t have authority anymore!

Romans 6:12-13, Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death

to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.

3. Blood that Cries for Justice

Murder then leads to a confrontation with God. The confrontation.

Genesis 4:9-10, Then the Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” “I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 The Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.

The Lord come to confront Cain. Cain adds to the sin of murder the sin of deceit and evasion of personal responsibility. There was an opportunity, right there, for Cain to repent. There was an opportunity right there for Cain to confess, for Cain to acknowledge his sin, and he doesn’t.

He heaps sin upon sin. It shows the hardness in his heart.

The blood of the innocent cries out to God for justice! It is wrong, the shedding of innocent blood, and that is true in whatever form it is shed, but not least of all through abortion. Dire consequences.

Genesis 4:11-12, Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12 When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth.”

When Adam and Eve sinned, God never cursed them. He only cursed the ground. But here, we see for the first time God cursing a man.

Genesis 3:14, where the serpent was cursed,

Genesis 3:17, where the ground was cursed.

It echoes that, but it develops and takes it further. This is the first time in Scripture where a human being is cursed, where God pronounces the curse on Cain himself, and it shows Cain’s identification here with the serpent.

1 John 3:11-12, For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12 Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And

why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. Cain was of the wicked one. God has set before Cain in this passage life if he will do what is right. He did not do what is right, and therefore the curse is upon him.

So, he is cursed from the ground, and this farmer now will no longer be able to yield a crop. He will no longer have success in seeking his livelihood. He will endure more hardship. A life of wandering and exile. From this time forward, Cain is a vagabond. He is a wanderer. He is a fugitive.

• Sin always breaks down relationships.
• Sin always leads to exile.
• Sin always leaves us wandering

It is the inevitable result of unrepentant sin. Cain was the first prodigal son, but sadly, his story did not end with a return to his father’s arms. But it ends with him in the land of Nod. The word “Nod” means wandering, or wanderer.

He just ends in wandering. That’s his life.

But the most tragic thing of all is that Cain was chased away from the presence of God.

Genesis 4:16, So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain is banished from God’s presence.

The word “presence” here is the Hebrew word for face, so it connotes the idea of God’s favour or His face or His goodwill. Cain lost the presence of God.

• He lost the fellowship of God.
• He was banished from God’s presence.
• This means that he loses God’s grace.

Summary

Cain was disobedient in a word, and the character of his heart, which led him to disobedience. Cain’s disobedience is manifest in his anger, in his sullenness, and in his immoral act by which he murdered his own brother.

 He is immoral.  He is insubordinate, and  He is irreverent.

He is a model of an apostate mentality. Sin dominates him. Self-will dominates him. He will invent his own kind of worship and not submit to God’s. Irreverence characterizes him as well, for he takes the life of one made, of course, in the image of God and distains God in the process.

His offering was a kind of blasphemy and irreverence. He rejected revelation, and he operated on his own instinct. He did what he wanted not what God instructed him to do. Cain here is the prototype apostate. These people in the church, these spiritual terrorists in the church who teach lies and they are all over the place.

They have an appearance of religion, but they are spiritual terrorists. They are not only blowing themselves into eternity with their lies but attempting to take other people with them. They are spiritual suicide bombers who are trying to collect to themselves. A whole lot of homosexual people who need to be confronted about the wretchedness of their sin and the hell that awaits them. There are preachers telling them what they

are doing is fine, and God approves of it. They are all going to blow up together and end up in hell. This isn’t the time for tolerance. We ought to confront them about their true condition. These apostates go in that path.

Conclusion

There is a cry heard in heaven, the angels are astonished. They rise up from their golden seats, and they enquire, "What is that cry?" God looks down and said, "It is the cry of blood, a man had been murdered by his brother who came from the bowels of the same mother. Then the cry was heard, loud, clear, strong, and it spoke—"Revenge! revenge! revenge!"

Hebrews 12:24, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Son of God. He hangs upon a tree. He is murdered by His own brothers. He bleeds. He dies.

Heard a cry in heaven. The astonished angels again start from their seats, and they say,"What is this? What is this cry that we hear?" God answers yet again, "It is the cry of blood. It is the cry of the blood of My only-begotten and well-beloved Son!"

God, uprising from his throne, looks down from heaven and listens to the cry.

What is the cry? It is not revenge but the voice cries out, "Mercy! mercy! mercy!" "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Abel's blood said, "Revenge!" Christ's blood cried "Mercy!" The blood of Jesus cries out. It cries out for forgiveness.

It cries out for our reconciliation. It cries out for us to be restored to the face of God. Sin is what expels us from the face of God, but the blood of Jesus Christ covers our sin, cleanses us from sin, so that we are restored to the face of God, we are restored to his presence, we are brought back into fellowship with God.