Sin and Its Single Solution

Genesis chapter 4 is where we are at today, Genesis chapter 4. And as you turn there, I want to remind you of a very familiar verse in Galatians chapter 6. Verse number seven that says, Be not deceived. God is not mott. For whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. Reap. Galatians chapter 6, verse number 7, is quite the commentary on Genesis chapter 4. Adam and Eve had been forgiven, yet the consequences were devastating. Let's look today at sin and its single. Solution. There's only one solution to man's sin, and we're going to find it in Genesis chapter 4.

We're going to begin by looking at number one, two sons. Number two, their sacrifice. Number three, the sin.

Number four, its sequel. And number five, the solution. To sin. Number one, two sons. Genesis chapter four, verses one and two. Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, I have got a man-child with the help of the Lord. And again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. Two sons, one Cain. One able. The name Cain means to acquire or to get. Eve was praising God for the son that he gave her.

And you can imagine her deepest thoughts. Maybe this is the promise of Genesis 3:15. Maybe this is the seed that will crush the serpent's head. I mean, what did she know? All she knew is that she was given a promise that her seed would crush the serpent's head. And she would like to think that immediately following her sin, God would bring the Messiah to atone for all that and make things right. It would be many, many thousands of years before that ever took place. But she had high expectancy, great anticipation.

Number two, son is, of course, Abel. His name means breath. It's translated vanity 38 times in the book of Ecclesiastes. Cain is a reminder that life comes from God. Abel is a reminder that that life that comes from God is a very short life. James would so eloquently state it in James chapter 4, verse number 14: your life is but a vapor that appears for a Little while and then vanishes away. Cain became a farmer. Abel became a shepherd. It gives us their vocation because I think the Bible wants us to understand that work is a good thing and that their Father taught them about work.

Whatever you are to do, do it heartily, as unto the Lord, Paul would say in Colossians chapter 3. And so they would be good workers. They would be responsible young men. Their father would teach them the importance. Of being responsible young men, using their gifts for the good of the people and for the glory of God. God wants us to be good, faithful work. Six days you shall labor. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, the Bible says.

And these boys would be good workers. Adam would make sure that his boys understood that they were to be responsible in their work. But all work. With no worship makes one an idolater. And so he would teach them, of course, about worship, that they might worship the one who gave them the ability to gain wealth. They needed to understand that they could not focus on the gift without, first of all, focusing on the giver of that gift, the Lord God of the universe.

Deuteronomy 8 spells it out well, doesn't it? That all of our wealth, all of our prosperity comes from who? Comes from God. So we move from two sons to their sacrifice. That's in verses 4 to 5. Excuse me, 3 to 5. So it came about in the course of time that Cain. Brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. And Abel, on his part, also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offspring, but for Cain and for his offering, he had no regard.

We guard. Now we'll stop right there. It's important for us to note that God accepted one sacrifice and rejected the other sacrifice. And of course, you need to understand why God did so. When you understand why God did that, then you begin to understand the character of Cain and the character of Abel. The first thing I want you to notice is.

Number one, the requirement, and then number two, the response. The requirement was this: it was at the end of days, literally, the text says. There was a certain time, evidently, a certain place, and a certain way that they were to worship. They were to honor their God. Adam would not only teach them about work and its importance, but he would teach them about worship and its importance as well. And so he would begin to instruct them about what God would require of them. Our God is a God of order.

God had established a set pattern. Now how do we know that? Well, go back with me to Hebrews chapter 11. And in Hebrews chapter 11, we have once again a divine commentary on the Bible. And the Bible is always the best commentary on the Bible. So Hebrews 11, verse number 4 says, 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. Though he is dead, he still speaks. And we're going to talk about that at the end of our sermon this morning.

Through Abel's death, he still is speaking to us. But we understand that by faith Abel offered his sacrifice. Now, how does one obtain faith? Hebrews 10:1. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. So evidently, God had to have instructed them as to what they were to do in order for Abel to have the faith to believe in God to do what God had prescribed. Faith cometh by hearing, literally by hearing a speech, a specific speech about God. So evidently God had given them a specific Set of instructions that they were to follow in order for them to understand sacrifice, in order for them to understand worship.

Abel had faith. Abel believed that. They were required to come before God. Adam and Eve knew that. God had symbolized that when he had slaughtered the animals and sacrificed blood to atone for their sin and then to cover them because of their sin. And Adam would have had to have taught them that. Now, the question comes: how old are these boys when this happens? I believe they're over 100 years of age. How do you know that? Because the Bible tells us at the end of Genesis chapter 4. That Adam and Eve come together once again, and they have another child.

This child's name is Seth. And Seth is born, according to Genesis chapter 5, when Adam is 130 years of age. So we presume. That after Abel was killed, that Adam and Eve then began to have more another child, specifically, they had a lot more up to that point, and we'll see that in a moment. But they would have another one, and therefore they would probably be over a hundred years of age, maybe 120, maybe 125, give or take, five or ten years. So these boys had been well instructed in the ways of God.

Adam made sure of that. Eve made sure of that. After all, they understand that the wages of sin is death. And they want their boys to follow the Lord. So they instruct them in the ways of God and what God would require of them. What se to number two, their response.

Abel believed God, he believed God. It was counted unto him as righteousness. He believed God and he obeyed God. His faith was evidenced in his obedience. And I believe that when he came to bring a sacrifice, he came to bring a blood sacrifice because without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. Hebrews 9, 22. Leviticus 17, 11 says, For it is the blood that maketh atonement for the soul. So I believe that in this sacrifice there was a blood sacrifice that was required. So Abel's sacrifice, according to Hebrews 11, was more excellent.

It was a better sacrifice. It was accepted because he knew what God required, and Abel obeyed. But Cain, his response was different. Cain, he didn't believe God. He decided to come to God on his own terms, in his own Way. He thought he could approach God any way he chose to approach God. And so he gave from the fruit of the land. And I imagine that what he gave was good fruit of the land. It wasn't bad fruit, it was good fruit. But he didn't want to come to God God's way, he wanted to come to God his way.

And thus, his sacrifice was rejected. Now, the reason he came to God his way was because his heart was not right with God. There is a people, Christ says, who honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Abel's heart was right, Cain's heart. Was not. Reminded of Isaiah 66, verse number 2. To this man will I look, to him who is of a broken and contrite heart, and who trembles at my word. That was Abel. He had a broken heart, and he believed in the word of God. But Cain had an arrogant spirit, it did not believe or f. His God. What's he just pointing number three?

The sin. And the first thing I want you to notice about the sin is they had an attitude of Cain. His attitude. His countenance fell. He was angry. He was an arrogant man. What's wrong with my sacrifice, God? Not good enough for you? What's wrong with the things that I have given you? Why don't you take my brothers and not mine? I'm just as good as he is, after all. I'm the firstborn. I'm the one in line to receive the inheritance. I'm the leader here. Take what I have given you. But God looked at it and saw nothing but zero.

It meant nothing to God. And his countenance fell. He became very angry. The Hebrew says that he burned with fury. I mean, it wasn just that he was a little ticked off. I mean, he was angry at God. His attitude was one of arrogance. Do you see the depravity of man showing through? From Adam and Eve and their firstborn. And his heart's condition. Sin is like a leprosy. Adam and Eve were told, don't eat this. So Satan comes along and says, I know what God said, but if you eat this, you'll become what?

You'll become like God. That's arrogance. That's pride. Now look at Cain. He just foregoes God altogether. What we as parents do in our sin, our children will magnify a hundred over. As parents, we should be careful how we live, how we act, what we do, where we go. Your kids are watching. Sin nature is rampant. It's like a leprosy. It just spreads to the entire family. And here was Cain, man. He just was so mad because God wouldn't accept what he gave. And he thought it was pretty good. The height of arrogance and pride for him to think that what he gave to God was good enough for God when God had already told him, This is what I demand of you, this is what I require.

And he dis. He burned with anger. Second thing about his ten, I want you to notice is not only the attitude of Cain, but his abandonment from God's grace.

Look what it says in verse number 6. Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door and its desire is for you. But you must master it. Notice God's redemptive character.

He comes after Cain. Cain offered the wrong sacrifice. That sacrifice was rejected. God comes back to him, gives him another opportunity. Gives him an opportunity to confess his sin. Give him an opportunity to repent of his sin. God comes, that's the way God is. He just keeps coming after you and coming after you, trying to get you to turn and follow him. God is just so loving and so caring for those who have rebelled against him because he wants to redeem man. He wants man to walk with him, and so he comes after him and says, Cain, why are you angry?

Now, you know as well as I do that when someone's angry, the last question they want to be asked is, Why are you angry? But God says, Why are you angry?

King. Now God doesn't ask questions to obtain information. He asks questions for your illumination. That you might have a light shed upon what? Your sin. And so God was going to shed light on Cain's sin. He was ruled by his anger. He was jealous. He was furious. His anger would lead him. To murder. With these, just to point number three, the attitude of Cain, the abandonment from God's grace, and number three, the assault on Abel.

That's verse number eight. And Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and what? And killed him. He killed him. Can you imagine that? He killed his brother. This man was so angry, and I believe he was so angry at God that he killed his brother. He was so furious that God would not accept what he had to offer, he took it out on his brother and he killed him. God knows where hate can take you. He knows that will take you beyond the limits.

And you'll do things you never dreamed you'd ever do if you have hate residing in your heart. But the fourth thing I want you to see about the sin is what we call the absence of repentance. It says in verse number 9, then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, 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.

When you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth. And Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is too great to bear. Behold, thou hast driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from thy face I shall be hidden. And I shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and it will come about that whoever finds me will kill me. Me. The absence of repentance. You lied. A non-repentant person always lies. I don't know where my brother is.

Am I my brother's keeper? Folks, King got off easy. The wages of sin is what? Is death. He should have died. He got off easy. The consequences of your sin, you get off pretty easy. Yes. Because you deserve death. That's what the Bible says.

Which leads us to point number four, the appropriation of God's mercy. Look what it says in verse number 15. So the Lord said to him, Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, lest anyone finding him should slay him. Look at God's mercy.

God didn't kill him. God didn't kill him. What did he do? God put a sign on him, put a mark on him. What that mark is, we don't know. But that mark that would save him would be the same mark that would shame him, that would tell everybody else what this man had done. And yet God in his mercy would protect him from other people. Why? Because God in His mercy is always calling people to come to Him, to repent, to get right with Him, because He wants you to be one of His children. Main point number four.

I want you to look with me at the sequel of the sin. The sequel of the sin. Tucked way back. In the New Testament, in a little book by the name of Jude, in the 11th verse, there's a phrase called the way of Cain. This is the way of Cain. And its sequel helps us understand his way. Because the way of Cain is the way that refuses to accept God's provision for salvation. And number two, the way of Cain is the way.

That rejects to accept one's responsibility to follow the word of the Lord. That's the way of Cain. But two things about this sequel you need to understand: Cain's departure from the Lord and Cain's descendants in the land. Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod east of Eden. He left the presence of God. He left it. He walked away from God. When you sin, you walk away from God. You turn your back on God and tell him that your way is better. Than his way. And so he would depart from the presence of the Lord.

And the next thing I want you to notice about the sequel of his sin is Cain's descendants in the land.

Listen very carefully. And Cain had relations with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch, and he built a city and called the name of the city Enoch after the name of his son. But you real that he married his sister. Now, it wasn't a sin to marry your sister. Genetic decay had not set in yet. In fact, Abraham, who lived 400 years before the law of Moses, before Moses. What? Married his half-sister Sarah. It wasn until Leviticus 17 and 18 that it was forbidden to marry within your family.

So it wasn wrong for Cain to marry his sister. He did. He had relationships with her, and they bore a son. His name was Enoch. Name means initiation. And Z means dedication. Not only did he leave the presence of God, he left the paradise of God, the place of God. When you leave the presence of the Lord, you might find yourself a new city. You might find yourself a wife. You might have yourself some kids. But until you get right with God, you will always be restless. He tried to begin anew. And so the story continues.

In verse number 18, now to Enoch. Was born Iroad, and Iroad became the father of Mah, and Mah became the father of. Methusha. Methusha Al, excuse me. And Methusha Al became the father of Lame, those names which you will be quizzed on after our service is over for pronunciation and spelling. And Lame took to himself two wives. The name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other was Zillah. And Ad gave birth to Jab. He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. And his brother's name was Jub.

He was the father of all those who play the leer and the pipe. As for Zillah, she also gave birth to Tub-Kain, the forger of all implements of bronze and iron. And the sister of Tub-Kain was Na'am. And Lame said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, listen to my voice. You wives of Lame, give heed to my speech, for I have killed a man for wounding me, and a boy for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lame seventy seven. Follow through with me very quickly on these descendants, that you might understand what is taking place here.

Here is a murder by Cain when he killed Abel. Has now turned into bigamy by one of his sons, Lame, who then in turn is involved in murder. See the consequences of sin? And it's hard to interpret verse number 23 and 24, and there are various interpretations. I believe it deals with the fact that Lame had killed somebody in self-defense, whereas Cain had actually premeditatedly murdered somebody else. That 's what's his brother. And because Cain had a sign given to him or a mark upon him that whoever killed him, their death would be avenged sevenfold, because Lame did it in self-defense.

His should be 7-fold. But I want you to notice that these boys: Jay-Bal, Jub, and Tub. Some names. Ever name your kids that? Ex. You have a boy named Jab, Jub, and Tub. But very significant names. It says that Jab and Jubal were the father of something. That means that they were the inventor, the creator of something. And all other names have a root meaning, which means to flow or to produce. What I want you to see is that in the city of Enoch, in the surrounding area, They began to develop a city that, number one, was full of prosperity, number two, pleasure, number three, power.

Whatever city longs for. Whatever we can't find in God, we seek to find it someplace else. And Jab. Was the father, the inventor, the creator of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. He would teach people. He was the inventor on how people could raise their livestock and be prosperous because of it. And then Jubal, well, he was the one who was the father, the inventor of those who play the lyre, of all musical instruments. And then there was, of course, Tub Cain. Who was the father, the inventor, the originator of weaponry.

And so he would be the one who would represent power in the city. The point being is that the city had everything. It was a city of discovery, the day of discovery. New things are being built. Everything centered around this family and what was taking place. But I want you to notice it was a city that was without God.

And had everything but God. Because the man who began the city, the man who led in the city, was without God. Had everything but God. Which leads us to sin's single solution. Verse number 25: And Adam had relations with his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, for she said, God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel. For Cain killed him, and to Seth, to him also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord. Lord, the only solution to your sin is to call upon the name Of the Lord.

The events of Genesis chapter 4 led the people in the city and the descendants of Cain. To call out to God. It brought them to their knees that they might seek after God. Where do the events In the sermon of Genesis chapter 4, they lead you today. Do they lead you to your knees to call out to God because sin is crouching at your door? That sin wants to master you and to control you? Where do you stand with the living God? Abel still speaks. I trust that you've listened to him. And don't follow the way of Cain, but follow the way of Christ, as Abel himself did.

Let's pray.