Am I My Brother's Keeper?

Boy, when I get mad, you know what I just hate to hear someone say. I do know. You hate to hear somebody say, well, what are you mad about? That makes me even madder.

Well, we're going to find out what happens today when God asks Cain that very question. Here. I'm leaving. Hey, hey, hey, hey, this is Jim. And I'm Dorothy.

And we are glad that you're with us again. And we're glad you've come back to Genesis. We're walking our way through Genesis. And we're making pretty good progress. It's heavy going.

There's a lot in these few chapters. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty condensed. And I said this at the end of the last episode we did, but if you feel like you're generating more questions than you're answering, then that means you're reading Genesis correctly. That's right.

This will create a lifetime of questions and a lifetime of answers. This is some great stuff.

So that's why we come back to Genesis, but it is condensed.

So this is not the abbreviated version, but we have gone, well, we've gotten pretty far. We watched the universe get created by God. We watched God create man and woman. And then unfortunately, last time we watched the fall.

So that was kind of a bummer.

Well, yeah, and where we left off, God had actually expelled them from the garden. Right. Right? They're going to be the effects of the things that you've done. There's going to be death, there's going to be pain, there's going to be suffering, there's going to be sorrow.

But he gives them so much hope. There is hope, yeah. Yeah. And we mentioned that last time. And I don't know if you caught it.

We mentioned it really quickly in passing, but you know, when they got kicked out of the Garden of Eden, it was guarded by a cherubim so that they wouldn't go back in until the conditions were right. And it's not a cherubim who really keeps people out, but makes sure that the The right people get in.

Well, yeah, the cherubim are guardians of the holiness of God, right? And this cherubim has a flaming sword in his hand.

Well, you know, if you track that picture of the sword through scriptures, it comes back to what comes out of the mouth of God. Right. We see in Revelation and later in the New Testament pictures of Jesus pictured as the one with this two-edged sword coming out of his mouth.

So the issue for which they were cast out of the garden has something to do with... they disregarded the word of God. Exactly. And so God sets up this guard. You can't come back in here because you have demonstrated your unwillingness to abide by my word.

So, you know, that's an interesting kind of symbolic way of laying that out so early in the story. And that the word itself is going to be the dividing line to separate. And there's another good thing about that. You would think that when they fell in the Garden of Eden and got cast out of the Garden of Eden, that God would say, we're doing this over again.

So he starts off with a new Adam and Eve, which he does. He pushed up all the clay and started. Right, and that's a good thing because God allows it to go forward still. And he does not destroy the Garden of Eden. It's still there, and it's not blocked forever from someone coming in.

It's still there.

So it actually holds a promise, a hope that eventually some may be able to enter, and the cherubim will let them through. And there's a clue to that when we studied Exodus. I think you mentioned this in the last show. When we studied Exodus, there's so much time spent on how to build the tabernacle. Oh, yeah.

Right? And you remember there's curtains that separate the most holy place, which symbolizes the presence of God coming into the very presence of God. And what separate picture that's put on those curtains? Our cherubim. It's a cherubim.

So, in a real sense, you could say, you mean coming back into the Garden of Eden, passing the cherubim that lets you back in the Garden of Eden? Is that like getting past the cherubims on the curtain that leads you into the presence of God in the Holy of Holies? And the point is, yes. Yeah, but the only way you get there is through the sacrifice. Right.

Right? Even in that model of the tabernacle, the altar of sacrifice is the first thing you encounter. Yeah. Got to get past the sacrifice. And, you know, God himself actually put that in place, that picture, when he clothed Adam and Eve with garments of skin.

Right? Right. It's kind of a veiled part of the story, but God himself took the lives of animals that he had created in order to cover their nakedness. Yeah. So, oh my gosh, these big ideas are laid out.

Yeah. But there is hope because God didn't destroy everything. Right. Right. He's got a plan, and that plan is where the hope is.

Well, today, you might wonder if there's a plan because we're going to. You're going to follow Cain and Abel.

So if you're following with us, we're in chapter four of Genesis, and Adam and Eve are around. And, well, you know, there's going to be babies.

Well, yeah, so that in itself is hopeful, right? That God has told them, now you've introduced death into the picture. But the next picture we see as the page turned is life being recreated. Exactly. Life again, new life is so beautiful that God...

gives them the privilege of continuing to give life.

So the story goes on, even though there's great failure.

So we go on today. Yeah, let's read. We're in chapter 4, verse 1. Go for it.

Okay.

Now, Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I've gotten a man with the help of the Lord. and again she bore his brother Abel.

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

Okay, wait a minute.

So some considerable time has passed between their birth and their adult occupations. Yeah, we skip their entire upbringing. That's right. We just jump straight from their birth and their names into who they grew up to be.

Okay, so Abel is a keeper of the sheep and Cain a worker of the ground. In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. Do you want to stop there? Sure, sure.

Before we talk about God's response.

So we have two sons and presumably some daughters because some marriage comes up later. Right. Yeah, but these two sons are the highlight, Cain and Abel. And they settle into certain provisions, professions. I mean, Cain, a worker of the ground, and Abel, someone who has animals.

And even though it's before the time when Moses gives the commandments about doing sacrifices to God, they are recognized. The fact that God is worthy of worship. There is some understanding that you must bring an offering to this God. And even though they're not in the Garden of Eden, God has still preserved their lives, and their parents, you know, Adam and Eve, can tell them all about this God.

So this is not a nebulous thing to them. God's real. They're no longer in the garden, but God is still present. Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, he went with them. Yeah. So they so they have offerings, and Cain brings his, and Abel brings his. I might point out, it's interesting, too, there's some slight, I don't know what you want to call it, kind of wordplay going on here because Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. It doesn't say the first offering or the best offering, it just says.

Literally, some offering, some offering, and yet there's a distinction because when Abel brings his, he also brought the firstborn. Right? That was always important because it's the first of all the product that God gives to you, and the best, which is the fat portions. And if you look in the Old Testament, especially if you go back to Leviticus, I looked it up as well. I think it was back in, oh, what is it?

Leviticus 3, I'm looking at it. It talks about the sacrifices, and the best part of the sacrifices is the fat. In fact, at the end of Leviticus 3:16, it says, The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering with a pleasing aroma, and all the fat is the Lord's. Right, right.

So, this is the best part.

So, Abel, in contrast to Cain, brings the best in the first, and Cain just brings some.

Well, yes, but it's not that that offering was unacceptable because even when the offering was instituted centuries later, both a grain offering and an animal offering were acceptable. I'm not saying that's the issue. I'm saying that one might have brought the best and the other might have been.

So, you know, we have to have some of giving something to God. Yeah. Right. But there seems to be this idea that Abel. Abel understood, perhaps, on a deeper heart level what was required.

Right. And actually, we find that out by looking at God's response to their two offerings. Right. Well, let's look at the response to the two offerings. Oh, I might, well, no, we'll keep going.

Okay, so this is the second half of verse 4. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, he had no regard.

Okay, that tells us right out of the get-go that it's the people God's looking at, not their offering, because their names come first.

Well, yeah. In fact, if their names weren't going to be an issue, it would have said the Lord had regard for Abel's offering. Right. It doesn't say that. The Lord had regard for Abel and his offering.

But for Cain and his offering, he had no regard.

So we get kind of caught up in this whole thing about trying to figure out why one was accepted and the other one wasn't. But this is really the God who sees the heart judging the two men. Right. And it's not the nature of the offering that's such a big deal.

Well, and, you know. It's just really interesting that we understand that it's not the substance of the offering that God's looking at. And actually, the writer of Hebrews kind of unpacks this for us a little bit because neither Cain nor Abel shows up a lot in other places in the scripture, but they are referenced. But here, the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 11, verse 4: by faith. Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith.

Even though he's dead, he still speaks. Right. So the issue apparently was faith. What did they believe about God, or do they believe God at all? And, you know, there's a theme in the Old Testament when Israel is failing, where God says, you know, I'm not happy with your sacrifices.

That's not the issue. Yes. The issue is your heart's condition.

So that's exactly what we're seeing here. Probably one of the most colorful of those passages is Isaiah 1. I would encourage you to go and read that where God says, I've had enough of your sloppy sacrifices.

So sacrifice and worship is really not substantially about the value and worth of the gift you're bringing. It's about the heart that you bring. And that's what we see here. I might add another thing that's interesting here, too. This is the first time, well, we see here Cain, who's the eldest, and in ancient cultures, the eldest is always preferred.

But the eldest here is not being preferred. It's the second one.

So this is the first example of a theme that'll go all the way through the Old Testament about the firstborn not being the favored firstborn. Yeah. Right. Other issues that are in the business. Right.

We see this pattern in other places. And put that in your back pocket because as we go through Genesis, ask yourself how often the firstborn scores the best. Right. Yeah. So in this case, Cain, the firstborn, does not square the best.

God chooses on another basis. Right, right.

So I just wanted to point that out, stick that in your back pocket.

Okay, so look at Cain's response. Because it says for Cain and his offering, God had no regard.

So, Cain. was very angry. And his face fell.

So he was like. Burned up with anger. He was mad. Hot and furious. Yeah, yeah.

And his face fell, right? He was. It was shown on his face. And verse 6: The Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted?

And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, its desire is for you, and you must rule over it. Wow, okay, this is huge! Yeah, yeah. So why do you think God asked him, Why are you angry? Doesn't feel like God doesn't know.

Right. Again, we ran across this before. This is not for God's benefit. No, it's for Cain's benefit. This is an invitation to a little introspection.

That's right. Maybe an invitation to confession.

Well, it's like he had asked Adam and Eve, where are you? You know, what have you done? What have you done? He wants them to. own their issue.

Right. Right. Uh Job? Job sitting under the plant? Oh.

Have you got a reason? No, you're thinking um Jonah. Jonah, I mean, right, misspoke Jonah. You do have a reason to be angry. You have a reason to be angry.

Oh, yes. These are all introspective questions and really an invitation for confession. Yeah. Well, and it's interesting, too, that angry is an explosive, hot, burning anger. But I kind of thought about this.

Why has your face fallen? What about your countenance? And looking into the meanings of those words, why are you so put down? Why do you feel put down? Why are you bummed out?

Yes. And then God offers him this really interesting thought. If you do well, Will you not be accepted or lifted up? But if you don't do well. Sin is waiting for you like a predatory animal, right?

Sin is just ready to pounce on you if you fall into this trap. Yeah, yeah. We have the return of uh Of the serpent, in a sense, predatory, a predatory creature who was out to get Adam and Eve, and God says here, and He's out to get you as well. You gotta watch out. He's crouching at the door.

Kind of reminds you of that 1 Peter. Passage about the roaring lion. Yeah. You know, proudly. He sneaks around.

Yeah. Right, right.

So. But this word is desire. The evil ones desire. He's wanting to control, wanting to possess, wanting to seize a hold of you.

So God is warning. Keen, which is an act of love. Yeah, exactly.

And it's also a fulfillment of what God told Eve about her seed, you know, that that seed will bruise his head, but you shall bruise his heel. There's a battle going on. Right. And eventually her seed will win, but there's a battle going on.

So, yeah, I just couldn't find that first Peter Pat. 1 Peter 5:8. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. It's the same picture, only there it's a lion. Here it's, well, it could be a lion here, crouching at the door.

Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's the picture of sin, the opportunity to sin being predatory. Right, right.

And making opportunities. And constantly watching for opportunities. Yeah. Okay.

So things go south from here.

Well, so God gives Abel or gives Cain the chance to think about it. Right. Right. And presents him the truth. But Cain is still obviously whopping angry.

Yeah. Because in verse 8. Cain spoke to Abel his brother. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him.

Okay, so. That sounds like they just happened to be in the field. But some of the earliest manuscripts say here that Cain said, Let us go out to the field. Meet me out in the field. He invited his brother.

Well, you know, God didn't like my offering, so why don't you come with me and look at the field? Maybe there's something wrong in my field. Right? He was trapping his brother. He was also getting away from his parents.

Wow, that's true. And perhaps getting away from God. And for maybe siblings to see. I mean, this is a way to do this secretly, is what this was. Went out in the field.

Okay.

Thinking that no one would see him. Nobody would see. Yeah, like, where's God? Right. Here we go again.

Let me start reading from here.

So, verse 9: So then the Lord said to Cain, Where's Abel, your brother? Here's the question again. Again, an invitation to confession. You got to be honest about this.

So he said, Cain said, Well, I don't know. Mm-hmm. Am I my brother's keeper? Bald-faced love, and then open rebellion. Right.

And probably one of the more famous phrases that people know in the Bible: I'm not, am I my brother's keeper? And I might remind you, we've looked at this word keep before. It's kind of a treasuring kind of word. Yeah, it's a guarding. It's clearly not taking your eyes off of something because it's precious to you.

So, in this particular sense, he's not saying, you know, I'm not my brother's cop, but except in a sense, as the older brother, he should have been. He should have been. And I think that's the deal right here. He should have been. He is his brother's keeper.

So. So he doesn't want to answer for where Abel is and he lies.

Okay, so he's a murderer and a liar. And a liar.

Well, we heard Jesus say that those are the characteristics of Satan. That's right. He's a liar, the father of lies, and a murderer from the beginning. Yep, yep.

So Cain has now adopted the very characteristics of Satan in what he's doing.

So he failed to master the sin, and the sin mastered him. Yep, yep.

So verse 10, so the LORD said, So what have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground, and now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

So at this point, God wasn't private. They went out in the field. God saw it. And he says, actually, the ground itself where your brother's blood has spilled cries out on behalf of this injustice. And so, because his blood was spilled on the ground, God says, I'm going to curse the ground.

Well, no, he says, you are cursed from the ground. You are cursed from the ground, yeah.

So, like, the ground itself is cursing you. In a sense, he had poisoned his own well by spilling his brother's blood on the ground that he had to farm. Yeah, the ground that he had to actually make a living off of and feed himself. God says, What you have done now is you've. You've made, you've really messed that up big time.

Well, it's interesting because it was already messed up, right? Because God had said to Adam, now the ground is cursed because of you. It's going to be in opposition to you. But this is worse. This is much worse.

Yeah. Yeah. What he said to Adam was that it was just going to be tough. It was going to be sweaty. It was going to be toil.

But now it's cursed. Oh, he goes on and describes it in verse 12. I stopped early. Verse 12.

So when you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Wow.

So the ground will not be as productive as it had been before.

Well, and if you're a wanderer, you're not farming. You're not farming. You're not stain put. Yeah, you're pneumatic. You're pneumatic.

You'll be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth. Never settled.

So, no more we have this nice little quaint farm with ground that you till and all that kind of stuff, these fields. No more. You're going to be a wanderer.

Okay, well, and think about being a fugitive as somebody who's always looking over their shoulder. Yeah. Right? They have to keep moving because they never feel safe if they hold still. Right, right, right, right.

Yeah. Yeah, it's a terrifying position to be in for the whole rest of your life. Rest of your life.

Now, you know, God did not necessarily inflict that on him. He's just describing now what it's going to be like. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. When you work the ground, it's not going to cooperate with you.

Right. And you're going to always be looking over your shoulder. You're never going to be able to settle down. Right. Right.

Because you've done this. Yeah, and I've always wondered, although this is speculative, whether this wanderer on the earth is the fact that he would try and grow crops in one place, it would be unproductive. You go, yeah, well, God said it'd be that way. Maybe if I go to another place, maybe it'll be productive over there.

So, in a way, maybe this wandering is his response to God saying, Well, you know, I'm going to curse you from the ground. And he's saying, No, I'm not. I'm going to keep trying in other places.

Well, it's really evident that from the time we get to the end of this part of the passage, that it was Cain who made the choice to walk away from the presence of the Lord. Oh, yeah. Right? Yeah. So, we better press on here.

Yeah, so 14.

So, behold, this is Cain, is this Cain's parent? 13. 13, yeah. Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Oh man.

Behold, you've driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. Boy, what does that sound like? He's blaming God. He's blaming God.

He's feeling sorry for himself. You're cursing me, and look what you've dooned me to. And now I'm going to be afraid, right? I'm never going to be safe. He blames God completely.

He's not really sorry for his sin. Nope. Nope. There's no sense of repentance here at all. It's only poor me.

He's not happy about the curse, about the judgment that's happened. He's caught. Yeah. Yeah. And the fear it's going to put him in.

And the self-pity is just kind of oozing out of this entire thing. In fact, he's showing more fear of man than he ever did fear of God in all of this. You know, the interesting thing to me is, too, that in verse 14, he says, and from your face I shall be hidden.

Well, God didn't say that. God didn't say he would be hidden from his face. It's almost like that's Cain's addition, right? Again, he's adding to what God had said. Right, right.

And maybe a little bit from his parents' experience.

Well, perhaps. Yeah. But again, it was they who hid, and God sought them out. Yeah, that's exactly right.

So, you know, just like God, he did cast Adam and Eve out, and he's telling Cain, you're going to be wandering around, but God is still toward him. That's really interesting to me. It's very clear that it's Cain who said, I'm done with you. I'm out of here. Right, right.

And then a really unexpected thing happens after this because you would think that God would say, Good luck, buddy. You might get killed. But instead, in 15, he says, Then the Lord said to him, Not so. Right. If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.

And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. And then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. God's face is still toward Cain. And he's protecting him. He's protecting him.

Yeah, puts a mark on him. We don't know what that mark is. There's much speculation through the ages, but it was evident. invisible So that people would know, oh, leave this guy alone. It reminds me of those animals like lizards or something, or frogs that have the really bright coloration, which is meant to say, don't bite me because I'm poisonous.

So they don't mind being seen, actually.

So God does something, I don't know, something like a tattoo. I mean, we have no idea what we have. We have no clue what this is. But it was enough that anyone who would contemplate killing Cain would say, well, no, look at that.

So it was both protective. For Cain, but it also, in a sense, condemned him to live with what he had done. Yep. He was marked forever. Yeah, that's true.

And live with that for the rest of his life.

So it's an interesting, I don't know what you want to call it, kind of an irony that in the aftermath of this, God not only decides to protect Cain, but He decides that everyone should know who He was and what He's done for the rest of his life. Yeah, which is kind of a walking advertisement for the mercy of God. You mean you did that? You're the guy that did that, and God's still protecting you from the other people? Why would God do that?

Is God a God of mercy? See, that's kind of what the irony says to you as this guy walks around. And yet it's very true, right? God's attitude was to invite him to do well. He warns him not to not to be attacked by this sin, and he gives him this mark.

Right. So, again, here we have a little glimmer of hope in the midst of all this. When you think everything's going to blow up and Cain's going to be disintegrated by God with a lightning bolt, it doesn't happen. And instead, God is the one who's his protector, even from this point forward. It's just an astonishing thing.

This is this God that we understand who is a God who is not, you know, people like to look at the Old Testament God and say, He was just vengeful and he was nasty.

Well, no, here we're just three chapters in, and he's not that at all. He's not that at all. He's firm gracious. And he doesn't wiggle the line on righteousness. But he continues to be for mankind, even despite all those failings.

Verse 16 says, Went away from the presence of God. He set his face away from God. Yeah. And God lets him go. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, God does let him go.

So here, as he walks off into that, he's going off. He's lost his home. He's lost his people. He's lost the ground from which he can derive sustenance. I mean, his parents were pushed, sent away from Eden, and now he himself is going away from God himself.

I mean, it's a total estrangement from all the good of who God is and what God has created for fellowship with man.

Well, and he's consumed with self-pity, with blame for God, with justification of his actions. But probably the thing we really want to take away from this story is that God is more concerned with hearts than with stuff. Totally. And that's really evident all the way through the scriptures. Isaiah speaks about it.

David speaks about it in the Psalms really pointedly in 1 Samuel. Samuel says to Saul, the Lord has rejected you because you refused to listen to him. And speaking the obvious again, the results of sin in this particular case, Cain is alienated from the ground and he's alienated from society and he's alienated from God.

So you're alienated from creation and from nature. You're alienated from the people that you need for fellowship, from society, and from your Creator himself. And that's what sin does. It separates us. And so as we close out this section, we see Cain walking off into that future.

It's sad. It's really sad. Yeah. Because God gave him opportunity after opportunity. To do differently.

To do differently, yeah. You know, in 1 John 3. John writes in his little book, and he says, he says, you know, we should not be like Cain. who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him?

Because his own deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous. Right. Yeah. This just jealousy, this jealousy for God.

Well, we are at the end of our time. We'll come back and continue to look at Cain to find out the repercussions and see how it goes.

So I'm Jim. And I'm Dorphy. And we hope you join us again here on Board of the Day. Yeah. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org.

And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note. Huh, so am I my brother's keeper? That's where that comes from. That's where that comes from. How many times do people say that?

And that was Cain and Amy. Yeah. Yeah. Well, come back with us next time. Bye.

This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.