The Way of the Righteous

Grace Fellowship Church

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This sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca.

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For the last number of weeks, or I suppose over the last couple of weeks,

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I've opened our study in Genesis in a book other than Genesis. And I'm going to do the same again today, if you'll entertain that, if you're willing to entertain it.

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In the Gospel of Matthew, if you could turn there with me, to the 7th chapter.

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In the 7th chapter of that Gospel, we find our Lord Jesus Christ concluding the greatest sermon that has ever been preached.

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And nearing the culmination of this Sermon on the Mount, our Lord uses one of the most compelling word pictures,

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I think, in all of Scripture, and really in all of the English language, if we can say it that way, although it's translated.

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In chapter 7, in verse 13, and then again in verse 14, what we see is our

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Lord summarizing the entire course of the human race.

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And in doing so, he identifies just two paths that one can take in this life.

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Though there are billions of people in the world today, and though if we were to go into the annals of the world, we would find that there have been tens of billions, up to a hundred billion people in the history of the world.

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There are not billions of ways that one may go, but only two.

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And here our Lord identifies them as these. There is the narrow gate, followed by a narrow way, a way that is hard, a path that, if I can color this a bit, is uneven and hemmed in, that few have or will travel, and yet a way that leads to life.

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And then, conversely, there is a wide gate and a broad way, a path that is easy and well -traveled, that has been made smooth by billions of feet, yet it is a way that leads to ultimate destruction.

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In this whole wide world, there are only two kinds of people traveling on only one of two possible paths.

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There are those who are on the narrow way, traveling the way of the righteous, that leads to life.

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And there are those who are on the broad road of destruction, the way of the wicked.

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And what a vivid picture these two verses paint, though they are but only a few words, and only a couple of verses.

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What a graphic and sobering picture that we see.

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And yet, as I have recounted this, some of you have been thinking this is a familiar story, so familiar, in fact, that it goes into our ears, and yet it does not resound in our hearts any longer.

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It does not stir our consciences one little bit. It does not ring like thunder in our minds and in our souls.

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We don't respond to the truth of the narrow way and the broad way as we did the very first time we heard these verses, when we heard this account for the first time.

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And so I ask you, for those of you who have been stirred by Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14 in the past, can you remember the first time that the

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Lord confronted you with these two verses? That as you read them, you felt it within your soul, the deep and the weighty truths that were found within.

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Though it was many years ago for me, and the duration of my Christian life at that time would probably be more aptly measured in months than in years,

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I remember the first time that I came upon Matthew 7, verses 13 and 14, and the feelings that I had as I read these words.

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When I encountered these two verses, it was as if these verses, driven by the Holy Spirit, struck me like a freight train that came out of nowhere.

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And at that moment, as I read about this narrow way and the broad way, I was confronted by this reality.

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Maybe you've had a similar experience. That now that God had saved me, now that I had entered, as it were, through the narrow gate that is the

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Lord Jesus Christ, I could not any longer walk on the broad road that I was so accustomed to.

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Though all, and I mean all, of my friends and family were laughing it up and living large on the broad way, that was no longer my way of life.

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At the decisive moment that the Lord saved me and effectually called me to Himself, He whisked me off that highway to hell and plucked my feet down on that narrow path.

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And reading these two verses, I came to appreciate that though it was and is most certainly the better way,

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I had this sobering realization that this narrow way was going to be a much more difficult path to walk.

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Did you ever have that realization? That though Christ's burden is light, though His yoke is good, the way is hard.

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I was accustomed to walking in the midst of the crowd, living for no one but myself.

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But then, because of the Lord, because of His work in my life, those days were behind me and I was no longer my own, but I was

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His. And the Lord charted a new course for my life that was going to try me, and refine me, and test me, and temper me.

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That was going to take me, take you, brothers and sisters, out of the crowds of Vanity Fair and to pluck you onto the hard roads.

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And the Lord was going to make you on that narrow way walk some difficult steps with no one around you except for Him alone.

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Do you remember seeing in these words the cost of being a

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Christian, of following Christ? And yet, perhaps why

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I remember encountering this verse for the first time, why it's so clear in my mind, is I remember seeing that the way was going to be difficult, that not many were going to go this way, and yet,

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I remember thinking, and I'm still convinced of it, that there was no way more desirable, no path more worthy of my walking than this one that the

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Lord had put before me, whatever comes, come what may. Dear friends, when was the last time you were reminded of this truth?

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That we have been called to a quantitatively, or sorry, a qualitatively different life than those of our neighbors around us.

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That we have not only been called to believe something different from them, but to walk an altogether different path.

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A path that is more difficult, yet it is a good way that God Himself has designed for us.

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As we come to our text in Genesis 4, I believe the Lord has this reminder for us in the account of Cain and Abel.

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Together we're going to look at the life of Cain, who is on the broad road, if I can put it that way, and the life of Abel, who we find on the narrow way.

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And as we compare and contrast these two brothers, I want to remind you of what it means to live on the narrow way.

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Here, I believe, Abel shows us what it looks like to live on the way of the righteous.

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What this looks like, how this hastens us on. And my prayer is that the

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Lord would encourage us, by His example, to live differently from the world.

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To live on that righteous way, to walk on that narrow path. And so, with your

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Bibles open to Genesis 4, in verse 1, as I mentioned, we're coming out of chapter 3 now, entering into the meat of some of these narrative sections.

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We'll look together at verses 1 -16. And the first verses that I want us to look at together are verses 1 -7.

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And as we do, I want us to first look at this. What I'm calling the offerings of the righteous.

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This is what we read in chapter 4, verse 1. Now Adam knew

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Eve, his wife. And she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the

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Lord. And again she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of the sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground.

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In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground.

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And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions.

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And the Lord God had regard for Abel and his offering. But for Cain and his offering, he had no regard.

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So Cain was very angry and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, why are you angry and why has your face fallen?

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If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door.

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Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.

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If we are to live, brothers and sisters, emulate Abel on the way of the righteous. The first thing we need to look at is this, the offerings of the righteous.

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As we enter into this new scene in Genesis, we find Adam and Eve obeying God's command to be fruitful and to multiply.

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You'll remember we've heard about that command, and then specifically about the offspring that were to come from Adam and Eve.

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And here we see them acting on that. In verse one, we see that phrase that Adam knew

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Eve. This is a euphemism for marital intimacy between husband and wife.

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Where the first child, their firstborn, Cain, is conceived. And this passage is full of all kinds of exegetical gems that we need to see to truly appreciate the complexity, the beauty, and the full meaning of the passage.

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For instance, that name Cain. For us, it has become synonymous with murder, with death, with evil in the world.

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But what did Cain mean when Adam and Eve named their firstborn child this name?

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It bears a striking resemblance and is closely related to the

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Hebrew word kanah, which means to begotten, or to inquire, or even to buy.

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It's recognized here that in choosing this name, Eve, along with Adam, not only were grateful for the realization of God's promise of offspring, but it filled them with joy at the birth of their firstborn child.

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And here they have come to recognize, Eve says, by the help of God, that children are, by the sovereign hand of God alone, that they are a blessing, a heritage from the

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Lord. Unlike our culture that kills its unborn, Adam and Eve at least had this right, that it was a good thing when

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God gives them a child. And here, not just a child, but the first son of man in the history of the world.

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He was one that they had gotten from God, that they had acquired. To use that purchasing language, he was of great value and of great worth.

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And so Cain, as he is born, his birth is accompanied by much fanfare. But it's not just his birth, in fact.

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When we look and trace the life of Cain here through chapter 4, we find that it's not just his birth, but his life.

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If you look closely, you can begin to see in verse 1 that Cain is introduced as the main character of the narrative.

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Throughout the text that we'll look at today, we'll see that the significance of his name is explained, that his occupation is described, his offering is recounted, his attitudes and emotions, his dealings with God, his lineage and many other details.

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Meanwhile, if we look at Abel, you'll see again and again and again that he is not a standalone character in the story, but he is almost only always referred to as Abel, the brother of Cain.

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Abel, the brother. Abel, the brother. Abel, the brother. And we've all been in situations where we have been introduced, or someone says, as is often the case,

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I think of pastor's wives. Oh, this is so -and -so, she's the pastor's wife.

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Or this is so -and -so, he is the child of this individual. And here we have

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Cain, the main character, and Abel, standing in the shadow of his brother.

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And so in this account, we see the prominence of Cain and Abel playing second fiddle.

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But let's root out a couple more of these exegetical gems. The meaning of Abel's name, which is not described or hinted at, has a fascinating meaning.

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Abel means breath, or vapor, or even vanity. We see the word

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Abel, the name Abel, used as a word in Psalm 144 and verse 4, where there we read this,

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Man is like a breath, Hebel, Abel. His days are like a passing shadow.

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Now here, Bible commentators are almost unanimous in their agreement in pointing out that Abel's name itself foreshadows the brevity of his life.

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In fact, even compared to his brother, some have commented that he was a vanity by comparison.

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And so in the story, at least by human appearances, and up until we get to the second half of Genesis 4 and verse 4,

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Cain is the main man. He is the firstborn. He is the gotten of God. He is the very center of attention.

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And Abel is the transient vapor of the story. He's a shadow of his brothers.

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His very identity is rooted in his brother's role as the firstborn.

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But in verses 3 -5, we begin to see this narrative that we are so well acquainted with take shape.

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And because familiarity breeds contempt, brothers and sisters, track with me. I know you know this story, but let us see what it means.

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In verses 3 -5, we see Cain and Abel present their offerings before the

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Lord. And the Lord, we're told, has regard for Abel's offering, and yet not for Cain's.

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In fact, in verses 6 and 7, when Cain becomes upset about this point, the

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Lord points out that it is Abel who has done well in his offerings, and Cain has not done well.

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And there have been no shortage of arguments about why it was that Abel's offering was accepted over and above his brothers.

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Maybe some of you are acquainted with this. One that I found particularly interesting, coming from the

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Calvinistic viewpoint, is this. That here we see the first instance of election. Now, I agree with the doctrine of election, but I don't necessarily agree with that interpretation.

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But then why? Why did the Lord choose Abel's offering and not

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Cain's? I think that we find some clues, again, as we dive into the text.

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And we find some of the characteristics of the offerings of the righteous. First, in verse 4, we see that Abel offered what

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I am calling the first and the best. Here we're told that he brought from the firstlings of his flock, from the firstborn of his flock, and not only that, but from their fat portions.

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Now, in our culture of plenty, we simply don't understand what it means, the significance, the kind of sacrifice that is required in bringing our firstborn, the firstborn of our flock, the first fruits of our crop.

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But what this indicates is that Abel did not bring his leftovers. He did not take the food that he needed to prepare his lunch, to provide for his family, or for any that would come after him.

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But he took what was meant for him, what was given to him to live on.

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Not leftovers, and he gave that portion to God. It was not after he had his fill.

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It was not that which was convenient to him. It was everything that he had to live on.

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And then if he was to eat, he would have to trust in God to provide additional, subsequent animals for him.

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But it wasn't just his firstlings. It was the choicest of those offerings.

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The fat portions represented the very best of the meat. Over the last number of years, as I've learned how to hunt, one of the things that's really interesting, as my wife and I have begun the process of learning to butcher, is this, that not all cuts of meat are equally good.

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That there are some, often is the case, and it's a lovely way for me to serve my wife, my wife will come and dump all the smaller parts of meat that I have to cut through the sinew, and make the best of the little pieces.

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But here, Abel does not give the back of the calf, and the little pieces that need to be cut apart, the sinew and the gristle.

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But instead, what he gives are the biggest, the best chunks of meat, that when they hit the table, they make a thud.

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He gives the first and the best of what he has. And in this offering, there is simultaneously sacrifice and faith expressed.

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But more than that, not only does he give his first and his best, but moreover, he gives an offering that reflects

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God's provision for him. While Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground,

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Abel was aware that an animal was the first sacrifice in the garden. Therefore, he did not bring the fruit of the ground, like the fig leaves that the first parents sowed together, but he brought a blood sacrifice.

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He had seen how God had provided for the human race, and he reciprocated in his offering.

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His offering was a response to God's revelation of what was needed to cover the shame of man.

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Now there are some, some amongst the Puritans, who have, as they have commented on this, have said that surely

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God must have commanded a blood sacrifice. That is why I'm not going to tread on that ground.

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That is, in my mind, mere speculation. What we see is the offering that is received is the offering that mirrors that first death in the garden.

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Two Bible commentators who have perhaps one of the best commentaries on the whole

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Old Testament, Cael and Delich, they say this, Abel offered thanks here for the forgiveness of sins, or for the sin -forgiving clothing received by man from the hand of God.

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And so it was an act of worship, not just in spirit, but in truth, in accord with what

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God had revealed. But still more, I think that we see here that Abel offered his sacrifice with a right heart attitude to God.

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And this is, in some ways, I concede, an argument for silence, but I think it is a valid argument.

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In verses 6 and 7, we see Cain's anger and his scornful face when his offering was not accepted.

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Now this doesn't provide comment on Abel's heart attitude, but it seems to provide a contrast.

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Here you have silent Abel giving his best, giving his first, giving that which is in accord with God's revelation.

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And then you have Cain, who when he is confronted and in fact given the opportunity in verse 7 to do that which is well, rather than doing that which is well, rather than adding to his offering, rather than amending his offering, rather than correcting at the next turn.

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Instead, we see murder. While Abel was offering his first, his best, with a right heart,

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I think we can discern. Again, Bible commentators see this as an indicator of his heart attitude.

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We see the contrast in Cain's attitude. 1 Samuel 16 .7

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comes to mind. For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the

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Lord looks on the heart. Now what are we to make of all of this? There are some who are saying, we don't do sacrifices anymore.

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We don't give peace offerings. We don't come to the Lord's table, for instance, and unload our bushel of barley or our meat.

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So what is the Christian today to make of this? Well again, if we see it this way, if we look at one of two people, either walking the way of the righteous or the way of the wicked, what can we learn?

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There is Cain, who comes with much fanfare. He brings an offering.

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It is a true offering where sacrifice, real sacrifice, is involved. But he does not bring his first and his best.

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He does not bring that which reciprocates what the Lord has done.

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And though this might seem like a rather minor thing, God rejects his offering.

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And he gives, in fact, this terrifying warning. In verse 7, as he says that sin is crouching at the door, its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.

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Not only can we trace that, and you might recall that the message I sent out this week, if you're on our

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Signal group, lining the arcs from Genesis to Revelation and throughout the

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Bible, here we can actually draw a line back from Genesis 4 to Genesis 3, verse 16.

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When man and woman fall in the garden, we see that language. To the woman I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing.

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In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.

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Just as the relationships within the family are perverted, so this relationship with righteousness and sin will be perverted.

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It is there, it is waiting for you, its desire is for you. But it points even to something far more grotesque.

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And this is what I think is absolutely fascinating, stunning about historical interpretation.

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That word for crouching, rabbes, is strikingly similar to the

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Akkadian word rabissu. And it's as if the

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Lord, in his wisdom and in his planning, actually likens sin crouching at the door to an ancient

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Akkadian demon, a mythological beast of ancient

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Near Eastern religion. And according to this Akkadian mythology, rabissu was a vampiric demon who would wait at one's door to either guard the door or to attack them.

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And this demon that was known according to that tradition as the Lurker would be dispatched by the

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Akkadian god Enlil to silently wait at a person's home until the exact right moment when he would strike its victim.

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This picture of sin lurking is not the picture of a friend waiting around the corner to surprise you.

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It evokes an image of the demonic, of malevolent evil spirits sent to destroy you at your moment of greatest vulnerability.

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That is Cain and Abel. There is nothing in this account that draws attention to him.

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As I mentioned twice already, he lived in the shadow of his brother, and yet he brings his first and his best with heart, according to the will of God.

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And brothers and sisters, I want to ask you, which man do you relate with best?

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The one who in a miserly heart holds back some for yourself.

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Some of the best of your time, and your talents, and your treasures, and whatever it is that the

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Lord God has given you to steward. Or are you the one who gives with liberality, giving the first and the best of everything that the

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Lord has blessed you with? The Lord is not simply, brothers and sisters, after our offerings, but He is after the very best of us.

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It says in Romans 12 and verse 1, what our worship is to be. It is not merely songs sung to God on Sundays, but it is a life given to Him in Romans 12.

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I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

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You want that offering language, that sacrifice language? Your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.

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When you go about your life day by day, are you giving the

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Lord your God absolutely all? Are you holding a little back, a little bit here, and a little bit here?

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It reminds me of the King Amaziah, of the ancient kings of Judah and of Israel.

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It is a verse that I never have to look it up. It just will come to my mind with regularity because of the fierceness of it.

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It says that Amaziah did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. We have seen that description of the kings in ancient

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Israel and in Judah. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not with his whole heart.

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Are you giving to God your first and your best with a whole heart?

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This is the way of the righteous. As we see the offspring of the woman and of the serpent begin to emerge, already we'll talk about the conflict in this next point.

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Here we see the way of the righteous. It is one who gives from the very best of all that they have.

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I'm reminded of the picture of John Calvin who had a seal. Some of you might recall this, the seal that he would put on his letters and stamp on envelopes and whatever else someone sealed in the 1500s.

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It had the image of a hand, an outstretched hand, with a heart in the hand and a heart aflame.

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And the motto that went with the seal of his life was this, I give thee all,

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I keep nothing back for myself. Is that your life, brothers and sisters?

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Leonard Ravenhill, he had a fantastic quote on this point. He said, there are three persons living in each of us.

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The one we think we are, the one other people think we are, and the one

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God knows we are. Who does

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God know you to be as it comes to what you give him of the life that he has given you?

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But let's consider further. In verses 8 and 9, we see another aspect of what it means to live on the way of the righteous.

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And that is, I'll phrase it this way, the afflictions of the righteous.

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In verse 8 we read, Cain spoke to Abel, his brother. And when they were in the field,

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Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the

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Lord said to Cain, where is Abel, your brother? He said, I do not know.

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Am I my brother's keeper? This verse paints a clear picture of this great battle between those who are on the narrow way and those who are on the broad way, those who are the sons of the woman, the seed of the woman, and those who are the seed of the offspring.

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And here we read that Cain draws Abel out of the field. Now there's a textual variant here.

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If you're familiar with textual criticism, there's some debate about what belongs there. Some of you in the bottom of your

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ESV, you might have something like this, that when he called Abel, he said, let us go out to the field.

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We don't know exactly what happened. We don't know the words that were said, but for one reason or another,

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Cain draws Abel out, and when he draws him out, he puts him to death. He was not prepared to kill of the animals in his flock, but he was more than prepared to kill his own brother.

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And why? In 1 John 3, in verse 12, we begin to see, it's fascinating, we don't read about Abel or Cain after chapter 4, really, unless we're finding them in lineages, especially

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Abel. But in the New Testament, it begins to interpret this whole encounter for us.

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And in 1 John 3, 12, we read this, We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one, and murdered his brother.

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And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil, and his brother's righteous.

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But the story continues. As Abel, or as Cain returns in verse 9, the

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Lord confronts him. And in almost mirroring what happened in the garden, we know the

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Lord God knows already what has happened, but he says in verse 9, Where is Abel your brother?

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You can see there's almost a repeat of the garden. If you were under any illusions that the nature of man had changed between Adam and Eve, and their sons

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Cain and Abel, we see it again. Where is Abel your brother? And rather than falling on his face and repenting of his sins, rather than recounting exactly what happened, he adds one sin to another, and he says this,

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Am I my brother's keeper? As if to say, my brother Abel, who is a keeper of the sheep, am

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I his keeper? Yet we know what exactly has happened. Because his own deeds were evil, and his brother's righteous, he put his brother to death.

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And we see our Lord interpret this experience in a couple of different places, but one of which is in Luke chapter 11 and verse 47.

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That there, as our Lord Jesus is denouncing the lawyers of his day, those teachers of the law, he indicates that their persecution of him is a reflection of the persecution of Abel by Cain.

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That this is not just one tiff that happens between one brother and another thousands and thousands of years ago.

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But this is something that has happened, and will continue to happen through the ages when we find two that are side by side, one whose deeds are evil and one whose are righteous.

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In Luke 11, verse 47, he says to these lawyers, Woe to you! For you build the tombs of the prophets whom your fathers killed.

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So you are witnesses, and you consent to the deeds of your fathers, for they killed them, and you build their tombs.

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Therefore also the wisdom of God said, I will send them prophets and apostles, some of whom they will kill and persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, may be charged against this generation.

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From the blood of Abel, in Matthew's account, in chapter 23, he calls him righteous

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Abel, to the blood of Zechariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary.

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Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation.

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Brothers and sisters, if we are going to walk the narrow way, if we are going to be of that lineage, if you don't mind me continually referring to this, to that lineage of the seed of the woman, to be that lineage of the seed of the righteous, if I can say it that way, we must not only be prepared to offer our all to God, but we must be prepared, even as we give our best to God, to suffer for it.

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Some will look at me and say, Shane, you're preaching a loser's theology.

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We're going to be victorious. We are going to conquer. We are going to crush our enemies under the soles of our feet.

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And there is truth in that, as the eschatological arc continues into glory.

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But let me say it this way. First, in this life, we will have trouble. And if we are to give the

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Lord our all, we will endure affliction. And we must be prepared to accept, to receive from our

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God that affliction. There's an account in the life of John Wesley that speaks to this truth.

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One day, John Wesley was riding on horseback, thinking about his ministry, when in a moment it dawned on him that he had not been persecuted for three whole days.

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And wondering to himself, am I guilty of some kind of backsliding, or some kind of sin, that the

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Lord has withdrawn his blessing from me? He got off his horse and onto his knees.

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And he prayed these words. He said, can it be that I have sinned and am backsliding?

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And as he is there on his knees, at the edge of a hedge praying, a farmer who was familiar with John Wesley saw him praying.

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And he recognized him and he thought to himself, isn't that John Wesley? And he said to himself, I will fix that Methodist preacher.

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And picking up a rock, he hucked it at John Wesley's head. It whistled past him. And just as it did, missing him,

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Wesley stood up and said, thank God, it is all right. I still have his presence.

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Do you ever wonder, brothers and sisters, that maybe, just maybe, you're doing something wrong because the world does not hate you enough.

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I'm not talking about being ridiculous and rude in the name of Christ.

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I'm talking about being faithful. And why is it then that our Lord said, woe is it to you when the whole world speaks well of you?

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We've been looking at the Second London Confession. Some of you have probably either were present or you listened to the history of the confession as we looked at it.

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And one of the things as I have been looking at that confession is the price that our brothers and sisters in Christ have had to pay at various times simply for being faithful of the tremendous suffering that has been endured by Christians throughout the ages simply because they believed

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Christ and they sought to obey him. Thinking on these

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Puritans and some of these Puritan forefathers of ours, I think of the Covenanters.

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We'll hear when Mack Tomlinson comes, Lord willing, in a couple of months and preaches at our conference.

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He's writing a book on the Covenanters. So I won't say too much, but I'll maybe just edge this in to warm you up so that you're aware of who they were.

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They were Scottish Presbyterians who were seeking to reform the church and under the act of uniformity.

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And some of us, we heard about this in our study. They were hunted like animals. They were tortured.

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They were killed for sport. It culminated in something that became known as the killing time where for three years they were violently persecuted and put to death.

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In all, amongst these Covenanters, 18 ,000 Christian men and women in Scotland died for nothing other than seeking to walk with their

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Lord with a clear conscience. To be faithful to him. Even if it meant being faithful unto death.

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A few years ago, when we looked at the English reformers on our Reformation Day service, some of you might remember me talking about Hugh Latimer, who was an

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English reformer and who was put to death, being burned at the stake with a man named

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Nicholas Ridley. And as they were being put to death, he said to Nicholas Ridley, be of good comfort,

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Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England, as I trust shall never be put out.

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Also during that time, during the reign of Mary Tudor, a woman, if I can call her that, a woman named

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Lady Jane Grey, who was a 17 -year -old who was to take the throne as a

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Protestant queen. And when Mary Tudor came, what they called Lady Jane Grey's reign, they called her the

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Nine -Day Queen. Because on the ninth day, in the shadow of the

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Tower of London, they cut off her head, and the last words that she said were, Lord, into thy hands

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I commend my spirit. Now there are some teenagers in this room. She was but merely a few years older than you, and yet suffering for her faith.

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Or John Bunyan, to go from the Covenanters and some of these

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Reformers to a Reformed Baptist brother, who in 1660 held what was called in that day a conventicle, where they would meet in the outdoors to preach the gospel and to worship

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God. For what purpose? To worship Him with a clear conscience, worshiping

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Him as He had revealed to them. If I can draw that line from them to Abel, as He had revealed, worshiping them with a clear conscience.

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And being caught leading this conventicle, he was imprisoned for three months. But at the end of that three -month term, what they told him was this, you are free to leave.

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The door is open, but you must never preach the gospel. And he said,

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I cannot with a good conscience accept my release. And then either lie and go and preach the gospel, or to sit back on my laurels, enjoy my freedom, and not preach that which

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God has given me to proclaim. Woe is me if I do not preach this gospel. And so refusing the release conditions,

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Bunyan remained in that damp jail cell for twelve years. Why?

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Because he said, if I'm going to live, I am going to give the Lord God my all.

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And if I cannot, then I will remain in this cell. When he was imprisoned, his wife was pregnant.

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The child, when it was born, was a stillborn. He had four remaining children. One of whom was completely blind.

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They're growing up for twelve years without their father. And at the end of it all, he said this,

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Oh, I saw in this condition that I was a man who was pulling down his house upon the head of his wife and children.

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Yet, thought I, I must do it. I must do it.

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Brothers and sisters, are you in a position where you can say, the

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Lord has called me to walk on the narrow way, to give him my absolute all.

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And come all the forces of hell, or high water, or whatever opposition, comes and assails, seeks to assail me.

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I will do it. This is the life that the

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Christian is called to. This is the life that we see of the first man living, seeking to please

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God in a sinful world. Death in the field, at the hands of his own brother.

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In God's great redemptive historical account, plot, we are not, nor should we expect to be, the popular, prosperous, or prominent characters who are universally adored by the world, but we are pilgrims.

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Marching on God's pilgrim way as exiles in a foreign land. And I ask you, how many of you are prepared to suffer in obedience to God?

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But lastly, not only do we see the offerings of the righteous, not only the end, or sorry, the afflictions of the righteous, but, and I gave it away, the end of the righteous.

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The end or the ends of the righteous. We read in verse 10, and the Lord said, what have you done?

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The voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground.

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And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.

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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.

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Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground.

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And from your face, I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.

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And whoever finds me will kill me. Then the Lord said to him, not so. If anyone kills

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Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him.

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Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

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Here we see the end of the righteous. As this blood is spilt and as God calls

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Cain to account, what we see is that the blood itself was crying out from the ground.

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As Sam and I were speaking on this passage, he brought this to my mind, Revelation 6 and verse 9.

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What does it mean that the blood was crying out from the ground? In that passage we read about the opening of the fifth seal in the book of Genesis.

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And there under the altar were the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness that they had borne.

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And it says this, they cried out with a loud voice, O sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?

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Here we see, maybe it was this picture. Or maybe this is simply just a turn of phrase that the

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Lord is using to indicate that he is aware of the guilt of Cain. But whether it is one or the other, we see that in the midst of this the cries of the unrighteous will reach the ears of God.

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And then there is this repeat of the garden. There's the asking of a question, where is

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Abel? And then there is a renewed curse. But this time, you will notice that when the first curse was issued in the garden, it was a curse issued to the serpent and to the ground.

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But now it's not to the serpent and merely to the ground, but it is a curse upon the man.

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And Cain, who is a worker of the ground, is told that through these trials still there will be an additional curse, that there will be no rest, that he will be made a wanderer and a fugitive on the earth.

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And then in verse 16, that he will be cast away from the presence of the

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Lord. What do we see here?

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I want to show you two things. That the end of the unrighteous, the end of the transgressor, is a hard end.

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Meanwhile, the ends of the righteous not only point to Christ, but receive every good thing from Christ.

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Augustine says, once said this, he said, the cost of obedience is small compared with the cost of disobedience.

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And what we see, as Cain comes to at least the end of our passage today, is that every evil that he has committed is ultimately going to come upon his head.

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As it says in Scripture, that there is no rest for the wicked, that there is no peace for the wicked, so Cain will have no peace.

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But he is confronted with the curse and with separation from God. He is left as a fugitive and a wanderer.

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And then in a rather ironic turn, Cain, who killed his own brother, now fears that members of his own family, because these are the only people, if you'll remember, that lived at this time, that members of his own family will now turn on him and kill him.

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And rather than responding with repentance, he responds with self -pity.

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He fears physical and social exposure. And as a picture of God's common grace, the

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Lord puts a mark on Cain to protect him from his own unceremonious demise.

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It reminds me of the proverb, Proverbs 13, 15.

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I like the way it's framed in the King James Version. It's very memorable. And brothers and sisters, we should remember this.

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The way of the transgressor is hard. The way of transgressors is hard.

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There are some in this room, and you are on the broad road. You have never had a desire, even once, to please the

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Lord. You have never been right with him by faith. My accounting of the Lord saving me and revealing with wonder and with shock and with awe the passage from verses 13 and 14 from Matthew 7.

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You have no accounting of that in your life. And you might ask yourself, why is life so hard?

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The way of the transgressor is hard. And it gets harder. And the ultimate end is this.

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It is curse. It is death. It is separation from the presence of God.

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And the response that God desires from us is not to make excuses.

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It is not to say with Cain in verse 13, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

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But to say before the Lord your God, My sin is greater than I can bear.

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And I will lay it before you. I will repent of it. And I will come to you on your terms.

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Which according to Scripture is this. Repentance. Turning towards God. And faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation.

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But this points one other place. That while the cost of obedience is small compared to the cost of disobedience.

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And that disobedience leading to judgment. There is a sense in which

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Abel's righteous life points to the end of that life.

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And whether you believe it or not, the end of that life is the Lord Jesus Christ. So often

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I kind of mock this idea of the, I don't mock the idea of a

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Christ -centered sermon. But I mock sometimes the gimmicky -ness that it has. That I can preach a text that there is, as far as I can tell, no pointing to Christ.

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And then say, Ah, here's one detail. That's how we get to Christ. We package Christ into the end of the sermon.

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Done. It was a Christ -centered sermon. There is actually a Christ -centric focus.

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Picture that arc from Genesis down to the Gospels to Revelation. Right here in the text.

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Where is it? In Hebrews chapter 12, in verse 22, we find that Abel, in his righteous life, in his suffering, in his giving, his offering of everything he has, actually prefigures

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Christ. In 12 .22 we read, But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living

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God, to heavenly Jerusalem, and to the innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

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Just as Abel's blood cried out for justice against the wicked,

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Christ's shed blood cries out for the forgiveness of the wicked.

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So dear brothers and sisters, when we live on this narrow way, when we give the Lord everything that he has given to us, to give it back to him in worship, we are emulating not just Abel, but we are emulating the

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Lord Jesus Christ. And when we suffer, not only are we suffering after the footsteps of righteous

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Abel, but we are suffering, we are filling up the afflictions that are lacking in the present world, that the world might see the sufferings of Christ through our sufferings.

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And living in that way, we trust not in Abel, nor in our own righteousness, nor in our trotting along the narrow way, but we trust in the one to whom

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Abel points, the Lord Jesus Christ whose shed blood speaks a better word.

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One brother writes, whereas Abel's blood cries out for vengeance, Christ's blood cries out for forgiveness.

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And so I put it to us one more time, brothers and sisters, are we going to walk on that narrow way, the way of the righteous, or are we going to walk on that broad road leading to destruction?

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Spurgeon told an interesting story about those who go on the broad road.

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We read here that Cain was separated from God. He said this, hell is like God's leper colony.

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He says, in countries where leprosy prevails, they shut up the lepers in a place by themselves, lest the terrible disease infect the whole district.

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Hell is God's leper colony where sinners must be confined forever when they are incurable and past hope.

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He writes elsewhere, there is no sleep in hell. Oh, what a blessing it would be if sleep could enter the habitation of the damned.

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Are you on the road that leads to that place? Or are you on the road of the righteous that leads to an eternal home in the presence of God, in the presence of God your master, where the way of the righteous is not your righteousness, but the righteousness of Christ, the shed blood of His that calls out a better word still.

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Brothers and sisters, let us walk on that narrow road, regardless of the cost, giving our best, giving our all, but ultimately trusting in all that this story points to,

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Christ and Christ alone. Let's pray. Thank you for listening to another sermon from Grace Fellowship Church.

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If you would like to keep up with us, you can find us at Facebook at Grace Fellowship Church or our

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Instagram at gracechurchyeg, all one word. Finally, you can visit us at our website graceedmonton .ca.