Abel acted righteously because he acted obediently to the word of God in faith, believing the word of God and believing that if he came with a penitent heart, acknowledging his sin and knowing he needed a blood sacrifice for his sin, he would be accepted. Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible teaching ministry of John MacArthur. I am your host, Phil Johnson. It's history's most infamous sibling rivalry. I am talking about.
Cain and Abel, the bitter feud that ended in murder.
Now you may think it's a story about the dangers of jealousy or an example of why you shouldn't reject God's counsel, but today on Grace to You, John MacArthur will show you a critical aspect of this story that you may have missed. We're continuing John's series called "A Faith That Pleases God" with a look at the primitive faith of Abel, and how it's a model for how you and. I should worship God. With that lesson, now here is John Macarthur. We're going to return to our look at Hebrews chapter eleven.
Hebrews chapter eleven, as we embark upon the study of the power of faith.
Now we look at this verse. It's just one verse, verse four, and there are three progressive. Identifications here that are tied to Abel. First of all, he offered a better sacrifice. He was declared righteous by God.
That's a better word than saying he was made righteous. He was actually declared righteous. There was evidence that there was more than just a declaration, but the declaration was complete as righteousness was imputed to his, credited to his account, and he then becomes a model of faith, a preacher of faith to all who know his testimony.
So we see that Abel did what God required. That's the first thing about his act of faith. He brought the right sacrifice that was required by God. This is an act of obedient faith by faith. Then he brought a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.
It was better because it was blood, and it was better because it was required as a sacrifice for sin. In a real sense, it was a picture. Of course, as we all know, of the greater sacrifice that would be offered by Christ. Hebrews twelve twenty four says Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. The blood of Abel was the right sacrifice at the time.
The blood of Christ is far superior to the blood sacrifice offered by Abel. I want you to notice also that Abel's was not just a blood sacrifice, but he brought, according to verse four, the firstlings of his flock and their fat portions. This is long before the Mosaic Law comes, and God says, "I want." The lamb without blemish and without spot. I want the best that you have, but from the heart, Abel acting in obedient faith, does what God has told him to do, and brings the very, very best of the animals that he has. Abel believed God, approached God on God's terms, in the divinely appointed way.
On the other hand, Cain didn't do that. He didn't believe that he needed to bring a sacrifice, though it had been established by God that that was required. He thought he could approach God on his own terms. His own self-styled sacrifice could be brought, that which reflected his farming trade and skill. He didn't recognize apparently the need for atonement, and that's the bigger issue.
He didn't recognize the need for atonement. I think that these boys knew that death and atonement and covering were required by God. I think Abel understood that he was sinful. I think Abel understood that he needed an atonement that. He needed a sacrifice; that blood needed to be shed in order to cover his sins.
On the other hand, Cain didn't acknowledge his sin, didn't acknowledge the need for blood sacrifice and atonement. Thought he could approach God without sacrifice, without atonement, on his own terms. Jude 11 calls this the way of Cain. The way of false religion. Cain is the first purveyor of false religion.
He's the father of all false religion. Invented ways to God. Invented schemes to please God, and they all fail. They all fail. Cain then fails to acknowledge the fact of sin.
He fails to acknowledge the need for sacrifice for sin. He fails to obey God, and consequently, he is rejected. He is rejected. Verse five: For Cainan's offering, God had no regard—absolutely no regard. He went out from God.
He dwelt, tells us toward the end of the chapter. Verse sixteen in the land of Nod, east of Eden, out from the presence of the Lord. That's where all the people in false religion end up, out of the presence of the Lord. Takes us down to verse six. The Lord said to Cain, who is angry.
End of verse five. We should pick that up.
So Cain became very angry, angry at God, angry at his brother. And his face fell. It showed up on his countenance. In his fury, the Lord comes to him. All this may be going on right at the mercy seat, right on the eastern edge of Eden, right under the guarding cherubim and the flaming sword.
And Cain shows his fury on his face. And the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry?" Why has your countenance fallen? The Lord's not looking for information; He wants to hear from Cain. He wants to touch his heart, and so in verse seven, He actually extends an invitation to him: "If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? Or if you do right?" Surely you will be accepted.
Another way to translate that: If you do right, why don't you just do what is right? Why don't you just bring an animal sacrifice? Go to your brother, negotiate with him, purchase an animal. He may give you one. Bring that animal.
God gives Cain the invitation to obey. This is the mercy seat, after all. This is an invitation to forgiveness. This is an invitation to joy. This is an invitation to life.
If you do well, you'll be accepted. If you do what is right, if you do what you've been told. On the other hand, if you do not do well. If you continue in the path you're in, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you. But you must master it.
You either master sin and do what's right, or sin is going to eat you alive. It is crystal clear in this verse that these men knew what God required. God doesn't have to explain what they were to do. He just says, "Do what you know is right." There was no ignorance here. Abel's sacrifice of an animal was not some kind of accident.
Cain's was not some kind of accident in which neither of them knew what God wanted. Abel acted righteously because he acted obediently to the word of God in faith, believing the word of God and believing that if he came with a penitent heart, acknowledging his sin and knowing he needed a blood sacrifice for his sin, he would be accepted. Cain, on the other hand, was evil and wouldn't admit it. Didn't think he needed a sacrifice for his sin. Didn't believe the word of God was important.
Didn't obey the word of God was rejected. But even at that point, it's amazing that God gives him this invitation and invites him to think it through and do what's right. Listen to First John three twelve. Not as Cain. Who was of the evil one, and slew his brother?
And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brothers were righteous. Cain was of Satan. Cain's life was evil. His deeds were evil, and this is a reflection of the evil of his heart.
Does that mean that when it says Abel was righteous in that passage, that somehow, on his own, he could please God? No. Relatively, he must have been a better guy, but that in itself, as I said, was not enough. He still needed to recognize his sin and need for a blood sacrifice as an atonement. I guess you could say the message was this: Your sinners.
Sinners need to be covered. Sinners cannot cover themselves. God must provide the covering, and the covering will be provided by death. That is what was revealed. And so God, in His mercy, at that mercy seat, says to Cain, "Why don't you just do what is right?
If you don't." Sin, which is already like a lion crouching at the door, is going to pounce on you and destroy you, dear friends. Doctor Barnhouse used to say, "At this point in the Bible, the highway to the cross began to be built. The highway to the cross began to be built right here. There would be one lamb." For one man, later at the Passover, it would be one lamb for one family. Then on the Day of Atonement, it would be one lamb for the nation, and then at Calvary, it would be one lamb for the world.
This is where the life of faith really begins. It begins with the acknowledging of sin and the need of an atoning sacrifice. Abel bows to the truth. The truth is he's a sinner. The truth is, he's under the sentence of death.
The truth is, God has designed a substitute for His place. The truth is, bring that offering, and God will provide forgiveness. And that's exactly what He did. Cain, on the other hand, is the first hypocrite, the first religious phony. Refuses to obey the revealed will of God.
Cloaks his rebellion, however, in a religious activity. Shows up in the presence of God with an offering.
Sought to patronize God again. This is the way of Cain and Jude eleven, the way of false religion. This is the way of the Pharisees and all other false religionists. The first thing we learn about Abel is that he brought a more excellent sacrifice because it was what God required. The second thing we learn about in Hebrews eleven verse four.
Is that God testified that He was righteous? God testified that He was righteous, and this is this is so very foundational in the gospel because it is when we come to Christ. Who is our sacrifice? When we recognize that we are sinners and that Jesus paid in full the penalty for our sin, and we embrace that by faith, we believe that and we act on that. And as it were, we come to the altar and embrace the sacrifice of Christ as our own sacrifice, being offered to God.
It is at that moment that God gives testimony that we are then declared righteous. And that is exactly what happened. If you can find your way all the way back to Hebrews chapter eleven, just for a moment, anyway, you read there that because he offered to God a better sacrifice, a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, he obtained the testimony that he was righteous. Testimony from whom? God testifying about his.
Gifts, and this would indicate perhaps that there was more than one. Maybe there was more than one such occasion of such offerings. That would make sense, wouldn't it? Since the only single sacrifice that satisfied God was the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ, every other sacrifice had to be repeated and repeated and repeated. God did not respect Abel for what was in Abel.
God did not respect Abel because there was something personally attractive about him. God respected Abel because of his offering. Because he believed God's revelation about the necessary blood sacrifice, Abel was as much a sinner as Cain. He was as liable to eternal judgment as Cain. But he believed God.
He obeyed God, and that faith was counted to him for righteousness. And here you have the first time that we have a record in Scripture of righteousness being credited to the account of an obedient sinner. This is such a monumental thing; it is credited to his account. God gives testimony that that this man Abel has obtained righteousness. His act, an act of faith.
Was an act which brought the very righteousness of God to cover him. It is the stunning foundation, isn't it, of understanding the doctrine of justification? Abel, honored God, brought the right sacrifice. God honored Abel, imputed righteousness to him. Imagine having God give testimony.
That you are righteous, but I would like to encourage you by saying, if you put your trust not in an animal sacrifice like Abel did, because that was what God designed for then, but if you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, the perfect sacrifice, God will give open testimony that you are now righteous. He will impute his righteousness to you, credit it to your account, cover you with the very robe of his own righteousness, as Isaiah put it. I love that. Second Corinthians five twenty one. He became sin for us that we might be made righteous in him.
That his righteousness might become ours, the righteousness of God in him.
So, first of all, he offered the right sacrifice. Secondly, then he is credited with righteousness. First Samuel two thirty, God says, "Them that honor me, I will honor." And what greater honor could God ever grant to anyone than to bestow upon that person His own righteousness? Again, we should be reminded of Philippians three. I won't take time to go there, where Paul says he spent all his life.
Trying to achieve a righteousness of his own, and then he met Christ. He embraced Christ as his substitute, as his blood sacrifice. He embraced Christ as his offering on the mercy seat on the altar, and he received a righteousness. He says, "Not of my own, the very righteousness of God, given to me." He received witness. Is another way to translate that in eleven four.
Affirmation from God, more than affirmation, declaration from God, proclamation from God. God affirms openly before all the hosts of heaven that righteousness has now been granted to this penitent sinner.
Well, the other side of the story, of course, is Cain. Cain's given an opportunity, as I pointed out in verses six and seven, to to do what's right. He has really no interest in doing that. God is offering him mercy. God is saying, "Cain, come again to my altar, offer the right sacrifice in obedient faith, and you will be accepted.
If you don't, sin, which is crouching at your door like a beast, is going to devour you." He makes his choice. Verse eight, Cain, the NAS says, "Told Abel his brother" simply means talked to. He went to Abel to talk to him, and it came about when they were in the field. Time has passed; they've left this place of sacrifice, and they're in the field. That Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.
Said this is the first. Human death, first crime, first murder. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Some people have suggested he didn't even know what he was doing because nobody had ever seen death. Oh yeah, they'd seen death. They had just seen death. He knew exactly what happens when you deliver a certain kind of wound to a living being because one had just been delivered at the place of sacrifice. This is not some oops.
What happened here? He knew exactly what he was doing.
He knew what life was, and he knew what death was. He had just seen it, if not on other occasions. Cain yielded, however, to Satan. He is of the evil one, as I just read you from First John three twelve.
So he yields to the evil one. He is of his father, the devil, who is a murderer from the beginning. John eight forty four. He yields. And he knows exactly what he is doing, and he kills his brother.
And the Lord steps in, and these are such familiar expressions to us. The Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel, your brother?" And he said, "I don't know." Now he's compounded his murder with what, a lie? I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper? He said, "What have you done?
The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground." The most important two words in there are "to me." God is personally, profoundly, grieved, exorcised, angered over this murder, and the voice of. The very blood itself is crying to him from the ground. Capital punishment has not yet been introduced; it doesn't come until chapter nine. For here, the punishment is perhaps worse.
Now you're cursed from the ground. You've prided yourself on your farming. Tilling of the ground, you're cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you. In other words, you're never going to be able to farm successfully again the rest of your life.
You'll never show up at another worship opportunity with any more of your own produce. You'll never have any more. You will be a vagrant. And a wanderer on the earth, homeless, alone, a wanderer, and he will never get away from what is chasing you. Cain said to the Lord, "My punishment is too great to bear.
Behold, you have driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from your face I will be hidden." And I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth. And whoever finds me will kill me. Every rock would hide an enemy. Every shadow an avenger. He would have this aimless wandering, useless life.
The sad reality here is there's no no penitence. You don't you don't hear any penitence. He just says my punishment's too great to bear. No sorrow for sin. Nothing like is it too late?
Can I can I come again with the right sacrifice? There is remorse. He wants to avoid the consequences. There's remorse. There's not repentance.
And so his guilt is just going to bite him and bite him and chew on him the rest of his life, and he's not going to be able to die. Verse fifteen: The Lord said to him, "Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold." Pass that around. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him.
So there's a degree of mercy in this, isn't there? Because there's always the hope that along the way, somewhere, this guy would come to his senses. He's the first apostate. He's the first purveyor of false religion. Did he recognize the existence of God?
Absolutely. Did he recognize the power of God? Yes. Did he recognize the sovereignty of God? Yes.
Did he recognize that God was to be worshipped? Yes. Did he recognize the God of the harvest? Yes. He did not recognize the God who required a blood sacrifice because he did not want to recognize his own sin.
And as I said, his wickedness takes its final step in verse sixteen when he goes out from the presence of the Lord as far as we know, never to return, and settles as a wanderer in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
So by faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice. By faith God credited to Abel's count righteousness. On the other hand, by works, Cain offers an unacceptable sacrifice, false religion, and is damned. There's one final comment to make about Abel, and it's there in Hebrews 11, and it is simply that he is a preacher of the value of faith, of the necessity of faith, of the excellence of faith. If you want to come to God, you come only by faith in His Word and obedience to what He asks, and not by your own works.
That's point one. You come by faith, which means point two: you can't ignore what God has said. You have to believe it and act upon it. Thirdly, you have to recognize the need for sacrifice. To cover your sin, though dead, Abel is a preacher.
I say it's the sermon of a dead man, preacher of a timeless sermon. The just shall live by faith, and those who try to come to God any other way will be destroyed. You're listening to Grace to You, the Bible Teaching Ministry of John MacArthur. Today we continued John MacArthur's study called "A Faith That Pleases God," looking at the faith of Abel.
Now, while it's always motivating to see examples of faith in Scripture, it can also be helpful to see what faith looks like in today's world. I have some letters here from people whose faith has been strengthened by grace. To you, the first one reads: "I am grateful for the MacArthur Study Bible and the MacArthur New Testament Commentary series. The commentaries open my eyes and help me understand God's Word. John MacArthur explains the Bible." In a way that helps me not only understand it better, but speak it to others and apply it in my daily life, and she signs the letter headline.
And then this letter that says, "I grew up in church, but my religious experience was mostly shaped by errant theology. It was very emotional and shallow.
However, the Lord, in His kindness, brought me on a path of discovering the true essence of the Christian faith. In 2020, He used men like John MacArthur to turn me back to the pages of Scripture, which is our first and final authority. I thank." The Lord, not only for John's teaching, but also for his life that has shaped me spiritually, my love and prayers are with you all. And he signs it, Sean.
Well, thank you, Sean and Edline, for those encouraging letters. We praise the Lord for His work in you through John MacArthur and the ministry of grace to you. And friend, if you have benefited from John's verse-by-verse teaching, we want to hear from you. Let us know how God is using grace to you in your life when you get in touch today. Include this station's call letters when you send an email to letters at gty dot org, or mail your letter to Grace to You, Box four thousand, Panorama City, California nine one four one two.
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Now for the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson. Be back tomorrow as John looks at the faith of a man whom God allowed to walk right into eternal glory. Find out what lessons you can learn from the faith of Enoch when we return with another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
