A Murder after Church - Part A

We see now the effects of what happened in the previous chapter, the choice that Adam make. In chapter three then is the root of sin. Chapter four is the fruit of sin.

It grows now. Today on Connect with Skip Heiting, Pastor Skip shares the story of Cain and Abel and looks at the reality that the first murder was committed by someone who claimed to worship God. But first, did you know that you can have an eternal impact as you help share God's Word with more people through this ministry?

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800-922-1888. Thank you for changing lives. Okay, we're turning to Genesis 4 for today's lesson as we join Skip. The Bible is filled with comparisons where two people are compared, two men or two women. For example, there are two men evaluating a birthright in Genesis 25, Jacob and Esau. Two men who build a house, Jesus talked about in Matthew 7, one on a solid foundation, the other on sand. Two men who are at the judgment in Luke chapter 17, two women grinding at the mill in the same chapter. Jesus spoke about two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. There were two men crucified next to Jesus, and Jesus spoke about two men who died and met God, Lazarus and Abigail.

That's Luke chapter 16. Genesis chapter 4 is a story of two worshipers who happen to be brothers, Cain and Abel, and one's sacrifice or offering was accepted by God, but the other one crashed and burned, and that is Cain. Now Cain and Abel were similar, we discover. There are certain things that were identical in their lives.

They both had the same parents, they both had the same opportunities, they both had the same access to God, they both came to worship God, but that's where their similarity ends and the differences begin. I'm calling this message a murder after church. A murder after church because, think about this, the first murderer was a worshiper.

The first murderer in history was a religious person. Cain killed his brother Abel after a worship service. Last week in New York City on a Friday night, two men went into a church, a Methodist church in New York, for a service of some kind. While they were in that service together, a fight broke out between them, a fistfight.

One of them left, the other one stayed. When the service was done, the man who had left was waiting outside and he attacked the man, the other man, with a machete in the streets of New York after church. When I read that news article, I thought about Jesse James. I've told you about him before. Jesse James was a baptized member of the Kearney County Baptist Church in Kearney, Missouri. Jesse James, the notorious outlaw, loved to sing in the choir, loved to sing the old hymns, loved to teach the hymns to younger members of the choir. He taught hymns to young people. He taught hymns to young members of the choir. He taught hymns to young people. And he talked about how much he loved to go to church.

The problem is Sundays were a conflict to him because Sundays were his days to kill people and rob trains, so he couldn't always make church. We have a similar story here in the book of Genesis chapter 4. As we begin the chapter, we see now the effects of what happened in the previous chapter, the choice that Adam make. In chapter 3, then, is the root of sin. Chapter 4 is the fruit of sin.

It grows now. And I want to remind you of how Paul summed up this episode in history. In his book, Romans chapter 5, he said, through one man sin entered the world sin entered the world and death through sin so that death spread to all men for sin and death reigned from Adam to Moses.

We're seeing that here. We're seeing now death reigning and death spreading as we get into the fourth chapter. And one other thing we discover, we discover many things, but there's a lot of firsts in Genesis chapter 4. The first pregnancy ever, the first birth ever, the first family, the first dysfunctional family, the first crime ever committed, the first death. So Cain is the first baby ever born on the earth.

Now, just indulge me for a second. I read something that I thought was fascinating. Inside every cell is what's called DNA. And DNA is the coded information that instructs, a set of instructions that tells every cell how to act from birth to death. 95% of DNA is found in the nucleus of the cell. But on the outside of the nucleus are little energy producing components known as mitochondria.

Bear with me. In the mitochondria, there are circular strands of that DNA material, genetic material, called mitochondrial DNA. The mitochondrial DNA is all maternal. That is, it is derived from the mother only. We know that you have 23 sets of chromosomes, half from mom, half from dad, but all of the ones in the mitochondria come back from the mother. Now, I'm bringing that up because in 1987, University of California, Berkeley, did a research test of 147 people in the world, 147 people from five different geographical locations on the earth. And they made the discovery that all 147 all had the same female ancestor, whom they called, get this, Mitochondrial Eve. Mitochondrial Eve. And they have referred to her as that, whoever this one ancestor is, we don't know, they say. And some believe that she came from Africa, others believe she came from Asia, others believe she came from Europe.

Why is that fascinating? Because after Adam came a flood, when Noah settled, his three daughters-in-law raised their children around Mount Ararat, which happens to be the area that is the borderland for Asia and Africa and Europe. So here is Cain, the first baby ever born, who becomes the first murderer. And we have five titles that I want to give you for Cain, five designations that map out his life choices, his journey. The first is worker. He was a worker. Genesis 4, verse 1, now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain and said, I have acquired a man from the Lord. Then she bore again, and this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. That defines their work. So the chapter opens with joy.

It opens with optimism. There has been a fall. There has been a banishment from the garden, but now a woman is pregnant. Eve is pregnant, and I'm sure that Adam got all excited as that tummy began to grow, and he would feel the movement of that baby, and he probably even said something like, you know, Eve, you're putting on a little weight. Now she wouldn't have cared about that because there were no other women to compare to, right?

So she was, yeah, it's awesome. I want pickles and ice cream. I don't know what she's craving, but I can just imagine the familiar experience. So a baby is born, and she names the baby Cain, which is a word that means to get or to acquire. Now I'm guessing that what they meant by this, Cain or acquire, I've gotten somebody from the Lord, is they saw this baby as the fulfillment of a promise made in the previous chapter, where God promised that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent, and they probably thought, this is it.

I have gotten, I have acquired this promised seed, this deliverer. So while they thought they were holding the deliverer, they were actually holding a murderer, one who would grow up to not be what they thought. We're not given a lot of detail about the family life. We're not given a lot of detail about Cain and Abel's upbringing. There's just Adam and Eve out there raising Cain.

That's all we know. A little girl went to her mother and said, Mommy, where did the human race come from? And the mother said, sweetheart, there was a man named Adam and a woman named Eve.

They had a child named Cain and then Abel, and the whole human race came from them. Well, a couple days later, she decided to ask her father the same question. He said, many years ago, there were monkeys, and we evolved from monkeys. So she's confused, went back to her mother and said, Mom, I just don't get it. You said God created us. Dad said we evolved from monkeys.

Which is it? And the mother smiled and said, it's simple, really, sweetheart. I told you about my side of the family. Your father was telling you about his side of the family.

You can take and use that anywhere you'd like. So they grew up, and Cain follows in his father's footsteps. He becomes a farmer. His brother becomes a rancher. Cain is a tiller of the family.

Cain is a tiller of the ground, we are told. Now, both occupations were honorable occupations. Both were necessary occupations.

Most people in those days lived off of a combination of tilling the ground for farm and raising animals as well. So one chose one and one the other. This was their work. This was their occupation.

Now, I'm highlighting this for this reason. Some people say, well, part of the curse that God put on mankind is to have us work. Work is part of the curse.

Those are just people who don't like to do their work. So they say it's a curse from God. It's not a curse from God. It's a blessing from God.

What was a curse was the painful toil that was the result of the curse put upon the earth. But work itself was seen as a blessing. God put Adam in the garden. The Bible says to work the land, to work the land.

So it was part of what God originally designed for people to do upon the earth. And Cain's work is tied to Cain's worship, we will see. That is, his occupation is the basis for his adoration. He brings to God what he grows from the ground.

So he is a worker. Second, he is a worshiper. Verse three. And in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the Lord. Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat. And the Lord respected Abel and his offering. But he did not respect Cain and his offering. And Cain was very angry and his countenance fell. Now it tells us that in the process of time this happened. If your Bible has a marginal note like mine does, it will give you the literal translation of that, which is at the end of days, at the end of days.

In other words, it's a precise period of time at the end of something, perhaps the end of the agricultural year when a sacrifice by God was in view. And this isn't necessarily the first time it happened. This could be something they regularly did. And it would seem as though God had some means of showing his approval or disapproval, of receiving or not receiving, accepting or not accepting the sacrifice.

For example, when Elijah is on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings chapter 18, fire comes down from heaven and consumes the sacrifice. It could be something like that. Now here's the question.

Everybody asks it. Why does God say yes to one offering, accepting Abel's sacrifice, and no to the other offering, not accepting Cain's sacrifice? Now the easy answer, and it's not really the accurate answer I don't think, is that well, one was an animal, the other was a plant. God accepted the animal and wanted the blood sacrifice.

He didn't want the plant. I think that's a little too simplistic. In fact, it's not really Abel's sacrifice. In fact, it's not really a biblical answer. So the biblical answer is this. There's two reasons God did not accept Cain's worship. And first of all, it's the quality of the offering.

The quality of the offering. Notice in verse 4, there's a special note that Abel brought of the horn of his flock and of their fat. So there's a little note there that says, here's a guy who with intentionality wanted to bring the very best to God, the highest quality. All the rabbinical commentators say this shows that he is picking the very best, the first and thus the very best to the Lord. He is very careful about it.

Cain was indifferent. There's no mention at all about the quality of his sacrifice, probably because he didn't care about it. So it's the quality. The second reason is the character of the offeror. One is the quality of the offering.

Second is the character of the offeror. Now notice down in verse 7, I'm skipping ahead just a bit. God says to Cain, if you do well or if you live right, will you not be accepted? In other words, you know, if you lived right, your offering would be acceptable to me. Why would God say that?

Here's the principle. God does not see worship apart from the worshiper. To God, it's not like, ooh, that's such a wonderful sacrifice.

He's looking over the person who gives the sacrifice. So if you're corrupt, so is your gift. Now why was Cain corrupt?

Here's the answer. He lacked faith. He lacked faith. The life-transforming faith, saving faith that would motivate him to righteous living. I want you to listen to Hebrews chapter 11, verse 4.

It's a commentary on this section. By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain. Notice it's by faith. Through which he, Abel, was commended as being righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts, and through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. That was Abel. So with Cain, there was no real faith to produce righteous living. In other words, he was just going through the motions. What this means is if you think you can live any way you want to live Monday through Saturday, you can live as though God didn't exist.

You can live just like the rest of the world, dominated by all of the stuff that goes on in the world, and think that I can take one hour on Sunday and plop my sacrifice down, and God will say, that's awesome. It's not true. God never looks at the worship apart from the worshiper. They're one and the same. They're one and the same. Stephen Charnock, a Puritan author, said, without the heart, it is not worship.

It is a stage play. It is acting apart without being that person, really. It is a hypocrite. We may truly be said to worship God, though we lack perfection, but we cannot be said to worship him if we lack sincerity. Worship is not about going through the motions, raising the hand, reading a text, singing loudly, going to church. It's not about the motions.

It's about the locomotion. It's about being moved forward in obedience to him. So he's a worker. He's a worshiper.

There's a third title for him. He's a waverer. Notice at the end of verse 5, Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. That is, he frowned. He had the pouty face.

He wore his heart on his sleeve. You knew he was bummed out, because he just kind of pouted, got really bummed out. And so the Lord, verse 6, said to Cain, why art thou bummed out? Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen?

If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, and he was given the reason why, it's because sin lies at the door, and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it. Now, the real giveaway that Cain wasn't right with God was his response to God. He's mad. He's angry. He's angry at God. That's his response to God. He was mad when he should have been meek. He was angry when he should have been lowly. You know what the right response would have been? If God didn't accept it, he should have just said, oh Lord, I'm stopping in my tracks right now. I repent.

I want to do it right. I humble myself before you. It would have been good. But he got mad. He was mad at God. I meet people, as do you, who are mad at God. And the reason I know they're mad at God is because they discover, oh, you're a pastor. And they want to vent their anger at God at God's representative.

So I get it all the time. People are mad at God. And people are mad at God because God doesn't see things their way. They're mad that God doesn't accept people based on just sincerity or based on good behavior. They're mad about that. They're mad that God doesn't accept all religions as being equal, all religions being the same. They're mad that God would be so narrow and so restrictive as to say it's only through my son Jesus that anyone can get to heaven.

They're mad at that. And he was mad at God. But Cain was also mad at his brother, who brought an acceptable sacrifice to the Lord.

So his true colors are starting to show. And the seed of murder is growing in his heart. You know what the seed of murder is, right?

It's anger. Anger is what produces murder. Jesus said, you have heard that it was said by those of old, you shall not murder. But I say unto you, if you're angry at your brother without a cause, you're in line for the judgment. That's where it begins. Cain was a murderer in his heart long before he was a murderer with his hands. That concludes part one of Skip Heitzig's message, A Murder After Church, from the series Crash and Burn.

Find a full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. Right now, we want to share about a resource that will give you a glimpse of what eternity will be like for believers and for unbelievers. Hell. Here's what C.S. Lewis said about this subject.

C.S. Lewis wrote in his book, The Problem of Pain, these words, There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of spiritual and spiritual but it has the full support of scripture and especially of our Lord's own words.

It has always been held by Christendom and it has the support of reason. Ecclesiastes says God has put eternity in our heart. To help you understand what awaits both believers and unbelievers in eternity, we've put together an exciting resource called the Eternity Package featuring Skip's booklet, Hell, No, Don't Go, and seven of his strongest teachings about eternity, including the truth about hell and what most people don't know about heaven. This powerful new resource package is our thanks for your gift of $50 or more to support the broadcast ministry of Connect with Skip Heitzig. So get your copy of the Hell, No, Don't Go booklet and the Eternity Package on CD or as a digital download today when you get the gift of $50 or more.

Give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. This eternity package is some of the most powerful information for you and to give to family and friends. See, if there is no hell, then the Bible's a book of myths. If there is no hell, then Jesus was just a misguided soul. If there is no hell, then the crucifixion was pointless. There's no significance in dying to save us from what? If there's no hell, then you should sin as much as you possibly can because it's not sin. It's just fun, right?

It's just all about you getting pleasure in this life, sucking it like an orange dry at every drop of enjoyment you can. So get your copy of the Hell, No, Don't Go booklet and the Eternity Package on CD or as a digital download today when you give a gift of $50 or more. Give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Did you know that you can now connect with Pastor Skip and this ministry via text messaging? Simply text connect to 74759 to join the group. When you do, you'll receive a free digital booklet called Are We Living in the Last Days? Get a glimpse into the last days and how you can be ready for them.

So text connect to 74759 today. Come back tomorrow as Skip concludes his message on murder after church and urges you to give God your best, not just what's left. Most people are worshippers of themselves. It's about them.

They are consumers only. What does this do for me? Our basic problem is a worship problem. Cain didn't give his best. Sometimes people go, yeah, you know, there's a beat up old thing.

I don't use it anymore. Let's give it away to the church. Give God your best. Give God your best self, your best energy, your best time. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Hyten is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.