Abel: Faith Filled Worship, Part 1

Kootenai Church

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November 15, 2021

Abel: Faith Filled Worship, Part 1

Abel: Faith Filled Worship, Part 2 (Hebrews 11:4)

00:17: Come behold, behold, in the sky
03:13: The mystery of the cross I cannot comprehend
03:20: The agonies of Calvary You, the perfect Holy One, crushed your son
03:34: Who drank the bitter cup reserved for me
03:41: Your blood has washed away my sin,
03:47: Jesus, thank you The Father's wrath completely satisfied,
03:54: Jesus, thank you One to enemy now seated at your table,
04:02: Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you,
05:00: Jesus, thank you, my soul
05:31: I want to live for you, love my soul
05:46: I want to live for you
07:19: Now seated at your table, Jesus, thank you
08:29: Let's sing His fame in skies afar Oh, praise to Him who reigns in awe
08:39: Who guides the galaxies of awe Yet bends to hear our prayer
08:49: With sovereign power and tender care Praise to Him whose love we sing
09:08: In Christ the Son, the servant King Who left behind His glorious throne
09:18: To pay the ransom for His own Oh, praise to Him to bear our sorrows
09:31: Sin and shame, who lived to die The all -sufficient sacrifice
10:20: Of joy and hope To Father, Son, and Holy Ghost Eternal God, unchanging
11:49: Mysterious and unborn Honest Lord, bright seraphim
12:05: In ceaseless fire And good morning and welcome to Kootenai Church.
18:44: We're glad that you're here today. Would you please stand as we sing this morning, Christ our Glory. Our rest is in heaven
19:15: Our rest is not near Then why should we tremble
19:22: When trials draw near Be still and remember
19:29: The worst that hath come But shortens our journey
19:36: And hastens us home
19:41: Christ our Glory Christ our hope
19:48: Christ our King Forevermore Be still and remember
20:00: The worst that hath come But shortens our journey
20:07: And hastens us home No hour should be wasted
20:18: On seeking our joy And placing our hope
20:25: In what will be destroyed We look for a city
20:32: That hands have not raised We long for a country
20:39: That sin has not slain Christ our
20:46: Glory Christ our hope Christ our
20:53: King Forevermore We look for a city
21:02: That hands have not raised We long for a country
21:09: That sin has not slain Though trouble and anguish
21:27: Increase all the more They cannot compare
21:34: To the glory in store Come joy or come sorrow
21:41: Whatever befalls The light of the
21:48: Savior Will outshine them all
21:54: Christ our Glory Christ our hope
22:01: Christ our King Forevermore Christ our
22:10: Glory Christ our hope Christ our
22:17: King Forevermore Christ our
22:23: Glory Christ our hope Christ our
22:30: King evermore. Come joy or come sorrow, whatever befalls, the light of the
22:46: Savior will outshine them all.
23:09: By faith we see the hand of God, in the light of creation's grand design.
23:19: In the lives of those who prove his faithfulness, who walk by faith and not by sight.
23:31: By faith our fathers roamed the earth, with the power of his promise in their hearts.
23:41: Of a holy city built by God's own hand, a place where peace and justice reign.
23:52: We will stand as children of the promise. We will fix our eyes on him, our soul's reward.
24:03: Till the race is finished and the work is done, we'll walk by faith and not by sight.
24:17: By faith the prophets saw a day, when the longed for Messiah would appear.
24:27: With the power to break the chains of sin and death, and rise triumphant from the grave.
24:39: By faith the church was called to go, in the power of his spirit to the lost.
24:49: To deliver captives and to preach good news, in every corner of the earth.
24:59: We will stand as children of the promise. We will fix our eyes on him, our soul's reward.
25:10: Till the race is finished and the work is done, we'll walk by faith and not by sight.
25:24: By faith the mountains shall be moved, and the power of the gospel shall prevail.
25:34: For we know in Christ all things are possible, for all who call upon his name.
25:45: We will stand as children of the promise. We will fix our eyes on him, our soul's reward.
25:55: Till the race is finished and the work is done, we'll walk by faith and not by sight.
26:13: In Psalm 103, David says, Bless the
26:18: Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the
26:24: Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his benefits. Who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion, who satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle.
26:43: He continues and he says, The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his sovereignty rules over all.
26:50: Bless the Lord, you his angels, mighty in strength, who perform his word, obeying the voice of his word.
26:58: Bless the Lord, all you his hosts, you who serve him, doing his will.
27:04: Bless the Lord, all you works of his, and all places of his dominion, bless the
27:10: Lord. Bless the
27:25: Lord, O my soul, O my soul, worship his holy name.
27:35: Sing like never before, O my soul,
27:41: I'll worship your holy name. The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning, it's time to sing your song again.
27:56: Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes.
28:08: Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul, worship his holy name.
28:18: Sing like never before, O my soul,
28:24: I'll worship your holy name. You're rich in love and you're slow to anger, your name is great and your heart is kind, for all your goodness
28:41: I will keep on singing. Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.
28:51: Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul, worship his holy name.
29:01: Sing like never before, O my soul,
29:07: I'll worship your holy name. And on that day when my strength is failing, the end draws near and my time has come, still my soul will sing your praise unending.
29:28: Ten thousand years and then forevermore. Bless the
29:34: Lord, O my soul, O my soul, worship his holy name.
29:43: Sing like never before, O my soul,
29:49: I'll worship your holy name. Bless the
29:54: Lord, O my soul, O my soul, worship his holy name.
30:03: Sing like never before, O my soul,
30:09: I'll worship your holy name. I'll worship your holy name.
30:21: You may be seated. Good morning.
34:32: I have a number of announcements that I need to go over this morning, many of which, in fact, probably all of these are not in your bulletin.
34:38: They require a little bit of an explanation. First of all, every time at this time of the year, every year at this time of the year, we have a fundraiser for the
34:46: Crisis Pregnancy Center, our local one here in town, and this year is no different. Out in the foyer and around that big post that's right in the middle of the entryway there, you will see some pieces of paper taped up on the wall there.
34:59: If you would like to sponsor one of the clients for the local Crisis Pregnancy Center, you can take one of those pieces of paper, and Mary Ann Britton will be out there after the service to explain to you how we go about doing that.
35:09: It's a great opportunity to bless some of the young women who are their clients of the center.
35:15: So that's first. Second, we have a Christmas choir that we'll be meeting next week if you would like to participate in that and be part of one of the special services or special music for one of the services around Christmastime, then please plan to meet next week after the service in this classroom that is back here.
35:34: Carve out a little bit of time for that. And then third, I need to announce this kind of every year about this time just to remind you of a reminder about parking in the parking lot.
35:44: Our parking lot, because it's not paved and we don't have lines spelled out for people to park, it kind of proves that evolution can never happen because left to itself over the course of time, without a reminder, it just degenerates into chaos instead of any kind of order or semblance of structure.
36:01: So when you come in, please remember to park as close as you can to somebody else who's already in the line.
36:07: Don't just go down and find another place where you think might be a line and just park your car there. Just find a car and park next to that.
36:14: Not close enough so that you need a can opener to get into your car, but close enough so that you're not leaving three -quarters of a space between you and the car next to you or a car and a half length or something like that.
36:24: And this is going to become especially necessary as we get closer into winter when we're going to be losing space for plowing snow and storing snow.
36:33: So please just keep that in mind. And then two last ones, both of which regard conferences that we're having.
36:40: Our spring conference, our spring equipping conference featuring Daryl Harrison and Virgil Walker needed to be rescheduled because of a scheduling conflict with Daryl Harrison.
36:49: So that has been moved from the third week of May, May 20th to the 21st, I think is when it was.
36:55: We had to postpone that two more weeks to June 3rd through the 5th. So please take note of that. This conference is
37:01: Daryl Harrison is the dean of social media at Grace to You, the radio ministry of John MacArthur.
37:08: Virgil Walker runs or helps run G3 Ministries that does the G3 conference and many of the regional conferences that G3 Ministries puts on.
37:15: G3 is gospel, grace, and glory. Those two men are probably the most equipped men to handle the subject matter that we are going to assign to them, and that is the whole area of social justice, progressive
37:27: Christianity, woke theism, Marxism, socialism, egalitarianism, all of the liberal things that are kind of coming into Christianity and becoming more and more prevalent.
37:39: We're going to have them here to address that. We're going to probably plan for an all -day Friday as well as an all -day
37:45: Saturday. So whereas we used to do just Friday night and Saturday, since we have both of those guys, we're going to milk as much out of them as we possibly can.
37:53: So it will be an all -day Friday. We'll be starting Friday morning and going all -day Friday and then doing all -day Saturday as well.
37:59: So that will be June 3rd through the 5th. And then lastly, Justin Peters called me this week and asked me for a favor which
38:07: I was happy to oblige him. He asked if he could come and do his Clouds Without Water seminar here at our church and if we could record it.
38:16: That recording will be the update for his video set of DVDs that he does. It will be the updated conference.
38:22: It was 2010 when we had Justin do that last, even though he's been here part of our church for so many years in the interim.
38:30: But he needs to update his video, so we are going to do that. We're going to have a conference with his Clouds Without Water seminar,
38:37: January 14th and 15th, so that's a Friday and a Saturday. This conference will be free.
38:42: We're not going to charge anybody to come into that and we are going to provide the food for that for Friday night and Saturday.
38:48: We're going to take up an offering which will help cover the food expenses and any money given over and above the cost of the food will go to support
38:54: Justin's ministry. And because we want it to be a high -quality sound and audio recording for Justin's ministry, we're going to not allow children under the age of 5, and if you have a kid who's over 5 who fusses and screams, then not them either, but no children under 5 in the sanctuary while we're recording that.
39:13: Because as much as I love the sound of screaming children during my own messages, since we are recording this for Justin, we want to try and exclude that as much as we can.
39:22: So the online registration is up on our website. We just need to know who's coming so we know how much food to prepare for that and how to set up the sanctuary here.
39:30: It's going to be shots of the audience as well as shots of Justin doing his seminar. Two sessions on Friday night and four on Saturday, January 14th and 15th.
39:39: So mark those out on your calendar. And again, there's no cost to this. You just have to go to the church website and register. And you'll see it on the rotating banner that's at the top of the website.
39:47: You can click there. Just give us your name, how many people are coming to the party, so we know how many people to expect. All right?
39:54: That's it. That's it. Please turn to Genesis 4. Genesis 4. And speaking of Justin, by the way, he will be here to preach
40:02: November 28th, the Friday after Thanksgiving. Genesis 4.
40:23: And we're going to read beginning at verse 1. Now the man had relations with his wife
40:28: Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, I have gotten a man -child with the help of the
40:34: Lord. Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
40:41: So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. Abel on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions.
40:51: And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering, but for Cain and for his offering he had no regard. So Cain became very angry, and his countenance fell.
41:00: 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?
41:07: And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it.
41:13: Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.
41:20: Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?
41:26: He said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.
41:36: When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer yield its strength to you. You will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.
41:43: Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is too great to bear. Behold, you have driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from your face
41:49: I will be hidden, and I will be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. So the
41:55: Lord said to him, Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, so that no one finding him would slay him.
42:04: Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain had relations with his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch.
42:13: And he built a city and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son. Will you stand with me as we pray?
42:23: Let's bow our heads. Our Father, we come to you today recognizing that we are dependent upon you for the grace to worship you as you should be worshiped.
42:34: We need your grace to approach you. It is only because of the merits of Christ and what he has done through his sacrifice that we can have any standing before you, for what you require is righteousness and holiness and purity in the inner man.
42:47: And we in ourselves have none of that. We thank you that by the death of Christ and through his life and his perfection that we are made righteous in your sight.
42:57: We pray today that as we come together to worship you that our hearts may be pure before you. We confess to you our iniquity and pray that you would give us grace to see our sin, to see ourselves in light of your law and of your word, and that you would give us grace to seek after you in your face and to worship you as you deserve to be worshiped.
43:17: You are worthy of all that we could give you and so much more. We pray that you would strengthen us today to honor you and to glorify you and to worship you as we ought in Christ's name.
43:46: I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold.
43:55: I'd rather be his than have riches untold.
44:03: I'd rather have Jesus than houses or lands.
44:11: I'd rather be led by his nail -pierced hand than to be the king of a vast domain or be held in sin's dread sway.
44:34: I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today.
44:50: I'd rather have Jesus than man's applause.
44:58: I'd rather be faithful to his dear cause.
45:06: I'd rather have Jesus than worldwide fame.
45:14: I'd rather be true to his holy name than to be the king of a vast domain and be held in sin's dread sway.
45:38: I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today.
45:54: He's fairer than lilies of Paris blue.
46:02: He's sweeter than money brought out of the coal.
46:09: He's all that my hungering spirit needs.
46:18: I'd rather have Jesus than let him lead than to be the king of a vast domain and be held in sin's dread sway.
46:41: I'd rather have Jesus than anything this world affords today.
46:58: In Ephesians chapter 3, verses 17 and 19, it says, So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you, being firmly rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
47:28: Speak, O Lord, as we come to you to receive the food of your holy word.
47:41: Take your truth, plant it deep in us, shape and fashion us in your likeness that the life of Christ might be seen today in our acts of love and our deeds of faith.
48:06: Speak, O Lord, and fulfill in us all your purposes for your glory.
48:25: Teach us, Lord, full obedience, holy reverence, true humility.
48:37: Test our thoughts and our attitudes in the radiance of your purity.
48:49: Cause our faith to rise, cause our eyes to see your majestic love and authority.
49:02: Words of power that can never fail, let their truth prevail over unbelief.
49:20: Speak, O Lord, and renew our minds, help us grasp the heights of your plans for us.
49:33: Truths unchanged from the dawn of time that will echo down through eternity.
49:45: And by grace we'll stand on your promises and by faiths we'll walk as you walk with us.
49:58: Speak, O Lord, till your church is built and the earth is filled with your glory.
50:11: You may be seated. Turn now, if you will, please, to Hebrews chapter 11.
50:32: Hebrews chapter 11. We're going to read together beginning one verse prior in chapter 10, verse 39, and we'll read through the end of verse 7.
50:40: Hebrews 11. Now faith is the assurance of things. Oh, sorry, verse 39. I called that out and then
50:46: I don't know what I was thinking. But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul.
50:53: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.
51:00: By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
51:06: By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous,
51:13: God testifying about his gifts. And through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. By faith
51:20: Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death, and he was not found because God took him up. For he obtained the witness that before his being taken up, he was pleasing to God.
51:29: And without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.
51:38: By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.
51:50: Let's pray together. Our Father, it is our desire that you would speak to us through your word as we have just sung.
51:57: It is our expectation because you have promised that your word, when it is accurately and rightly proclaimed, that your voice is truly and powerfully heard.
52:06: We pray that that may be the case today. That you would use your word to soften our hearts, to encourage us in the truth, to comfort us, to convict us, to encourage us and equip us, and to reprove us and rebuke us as necessary.
52:19: We pray that in the course of our study here that we may see clearly the provision that you have made in the sacrifice of your
52:25: Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and all that that means for us and for our worship. We ask your blessing upon this time in Christ's name.
52:32: Amen. Hebrews 11 has for us numerous examples of men and women who with faith and through faith accomplished great things and saw the blessing and approval of God in their lives.
52:44: And what is remarkable about Hebrews 11 is not only the numerous people that are there, but the variety of people, the variety of kinds of people, the variety of their experiences and their cultures and the things that actually they accomplished for the
52:57: Lord. And what we see in Hebrews 11 is that faith in the life of a believer is seen in a number of different ways.
53:03: Here just in this chapter we see that faith pleases God, it does good works, it obeys
53:08: God's Word, it looks forward and anticipates heavenly promises, it trusts God, it conquers obstacles, it turns its back on the wealth of the world and the approbation of the world and actually endures hostility.
53:21: It does all of those things. Faith is so ubiquitous in the life of a true believer that it is applied in so many ways.
53:28: It is seen in every corner of their life and in every element and aspect of their life. That is what we should expect, that just as we have received
53:35: Christ Jesus we would walk in Him and that in every area of our walk we might see our faith demonstrated and we would see our faith rewarded.
53:43: It's easy to apprehend that or get that with the mind. What is more difficult is to apply that in the heart so that we're actually living according to faith in our day -to -day walk.
53:54: This journey through Hebrews 11 is going to help us to see what that looks like in various areas of our life.
54:01: In the example of Abel we see a man who was worshiping in faith, whose faith was informed, whose worship was informed by his faith.
54:09: We see a man who applied faith and trusted God even in the midst of his worship and his sacrifice and that is in fact what pleased the
54:16: Lord with Abel's sacrifice as opposed to Cain's sacrifice. The very first example in this series of men that is presented to us in Hebrews 11 is
54:24: Abel. And the author goes all the way back to the very beginning, Genesis chapter 4, and gives us him as an example.
54:30: And you'll notice what the author says at the end of verse 4 that Abel, through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.
54:37: That is something that can be said actually of everybody in Hebrews 11. All of these men and women are dead and yet their example still speaks to us.
54:44: The lessons from their life still speak to us. But there is something about Abel, there is a way in which
54:49: Abel speaks to us that is unique in ways that the other people mentioned in Hebrews 11 do not speak to us.
54:56: And we're going to get to that not this week, but we're going to get to that next week and it has to do with Abel's death and his prophecy and his role as a prophet because Jesus called him a prophet.
55:04: But that will be next week. Today we're looking here in Hebrews 11. We're going to be turning back in a moment to Genesis chapter 4, but I just want you to recognize that what the author of Hebrews says in Hebrews 11 verse 4, that Abel, though he is dead, still speaks.
55:17: This is a lesson for us and there are a number of lessons from the life of Abel. You've heard the old adage that dead men tell no tales.
55:24: Well, all the dead men in Hebrews 11 still speak. They have plenty of tales to tell us and they have plenty of lessons to learn and may
55:29: God grant us ears to hear the lessons from Hebrews chapter 11. So Abel is the very first, what the author calls in verse 2, the man of old.
55:38: He's the very first man of old that the author presents to us. And by going back to creation in verse 3, by faith we understand that the worlds are prepared by the word of God.
55:45: The author is already indicating that he's going back to the beginning and he's going to now give us a chronological approach to the
55:51: Old Testament where he cites various men and even women throughout the Old Testament and the examples in their lives of faith.
55:59: And he wants to show us that living by faith is not a uniquely New Testament reality. We tend to think that.
56:05: We tend to make the mistake, or Christians tend to make the mistake, that you look at the Old Testament saints and it was their works, their deeds, their mighty heroicism that was the basis upon which
56:14: God accepted them, and that is not the case. It is faith. It has always been faith. No man ever is accepted by God on his own terms or the merits of his own life.
56:23: Never. It has never been that way at no time since Christ died and at no time prior to the death of Christ.
56:29: All the way back to the very beginning, men were accepted by God on one term and one term only, and that is faith.
56:36: And by taking us back to Abel, he's giving us that example. He's demonstrating that. Now, Abel is notable and remarkable for a number of reasons.
56:43: I'll give you three of them. First, Abel is the first person in Scripture whose faith is explicitly demonstrated in his actions and whose faith was explicitly commended by God.
56:55: Now, we may say that there are some things that Adam and Eve did earlier which implicitly showed a faith or a belief, but Abel is the first person in Scripture whose faith is explicitly demonstrated in his actions and whose actions and faith is explicitly commended by God, the very first one.
57:11: Others may have had faith prior to him, but he's the first example offered chronologically in Scripture, and he is an example of a faith that informed his worship.
57:22: Now, this is significant, remember, for the original audience of the book of Hebrews. What was the issue for the original audience of the book of Hebrews?
57:30: They had come out of the temple worship, and now they were worshiping God under the parameters of the new covenant in keeping with the demands of the new covenant, having abandoned the sacrifices and the priesthood and all of the forms and the rituals of the old covenant, and now their worship has entirely changed.
57:46: It is an entirely different kind of worship than what they had grown up with. Having been used to hearing the bells and smelling the smells of all of the temple worship, now they come together and they gather together as a
57:57: New Testament, New Covenant community, and there's no smells, there's no bells, there's no lowing of the animals and the sheep and all of the stuff that they were used to hearing when they went up to the temple.
58:08: So now their worship is radically different in so many ways that it affects all of the senses, actually, of their worship are affected.
58:15: And so now the question for this New Covenant community is, what does it mean to move forward and worship in faith in the new covenant, having abandoned all of the forms and features of the old covenant?
58:27: How am I to worship in faith? How am I to approach God in faith if I can't go to a physical priest that I can see and hear the words of that physical priest and see the animal offered on my behalf?
58:38: How does faith now inform my worship? That is an issue that's all the way through the book of Hebrews. And so the question that they had to face was, would they go back to that, or would they press on in faith to the preserving of the soul?
58:50: So Abel is the very first one whose faith is explicitly demonstrated by his words. Second, Abel is the very first one to suffer as a result of his faith.
58:59: Now having just come out of the chapter 10, where these to whom the author is writing had endured a great conflict of sufferings and been made a reproach and had endured tribulations and affliction, and where even though they had not suffered to the point of shedding blood and resisted to the point of shedding blood, if the trajectory continued, we could expect that they were going to eventually shed their own blood for their faith.
59:22: So the example of Abel is an example of one, he's the very first one who suffered for his faith. In fact, he suffered the very worst thing that he could have suffered, and that is death.
59:33: And he suffered death, not at the hands of a complete stranger, not at the hands of somebody out in the world, but somebody that he had
59:41: Thanksgiving, well, they didn't have Thanksgiving dinner, somebody that he had dinner with, had sat around and had been raised together in the same home, they had enjoyed the same benefits and the blessings, had conversation with the same parents, sat around the same dinner table, and enjoyed conversation together.
59:57: And these early Christians to whom the author of Hebrews is writing and speaking, these were people who had been ostracized from their believing community, sorry, from the
01:00:05: Judaistic community, and having embraced the believing community under the New Covenant, they were now experiencing this type of hostility and opposition, not just from their own countrymen, but sometimes, in some cases, from their very own family members.
01:00:18: Abel is the perfect example of one who suffered, who suffered the worst suffering possible, death, and he did so at the hands of his own family member.
01:00:26: This would just ring in the ears of this believing community. Third, Abel is the first person to ever die.
01:00:35: Though other blood had been shed prior to this, it was animal blood, Abel is the first person to ever die, he is the first person to be murdered, he is the first person to be martyred, he is the first human to shed his blood, and that makes him also the first person to step into heaven, in the presence of God.
01:00:52: Now, you and I get to step into heaven, there's going to be a lot of people there. But when Abel died, and he stepped into the presence of God, it was just him, and the
01:01:02: Lord, and the multitude of angels. That's lonely. And if we were to read the record of Genesis, we might expect that it was a lot of years before somebody else stepped in to join him in heaven.
01:01:13: He's the first person to die, not the first blood to be shed, but this is important, the first human blood to be shed. And since his is the first human blood to be shed, it becomes something of a type of foreshadowing, a picture of ultimately a blood of a righteous man who would be shed, in terms of a sacrifice, namely the
01:01:28: Lord Jesus Christ. And we'll get to that more again next week. So there are three notable features, if you're looking at verse 4, three notable features of Abel's example.
01:01:36: Abel is an example to us in his sacrifice, that we would say his worship, in his righteousness, and in his testimony.
01:01:42: His sacrifice, his righteousness, and his testimony. You see them in verse 4. By faith, Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous.
01:01:52: So sacrifice, his righteousness, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.
01:01:57: That is his testimony. So we're going to look today at Abel's sacrifice, and then next week we'll be back here in Hebrews 11, looking at his righteousness and his testimony.
01:02:08: To look at his sacrifice, let's go back now to Genesis 4. Back to Genesis 4. We're going to look at the account that we read at the beginning of the service.
01:02:17: Genesis 4. Though we're not going to go through the entire chapter, we are going to go through the first five verses of that, to just look at the sacrifice and why it was significant.
01:02:28: Before we jump into the text, I want you to understand that what you're about to read is real history. Real history.
01:02:33: This is not an allegory. It's not a myth. It's not an Aesop's fable. It's not some story that's told to communicate some higher point or some symbolic reference.
01:02:42: It's not an allegory telling the events through the course of millions of years that bear no resemblance to the text.
01:02:49: This is literal history. Not the kind of history that is invented in the minds of atheists and evolutionists who rewrite their tales weekly and invent scientific fact out of whole cloth by the dozens whose story is constantly changing.
01:03:01: This is actual real history. There was a literal creation out of literally nothing by a
01:03:07: God, and there was a literal garden, a paradise, with a literal Adam, a literal Eve, a literal temptation, a literal snake, a literal tree, a literal fall, a literal curse, a literal exile from that garden, literally cherubim at the entrance of the garden.
01:03:21: All of this, this is all real history. This is human history taking place roughly about 6 ,000 years ago.
01:03:27: So this is not an allegory or a myth. We're going to treat this as history because it is, in fact, history.
01:03:33: Now, I say that not so that you might wonder why it is that I didn't make the word literal the word of the day for the kids today, but just so that you understand how we're going to be approaching this and what our position is on the book of Genesis and the early chapters of Genesis.
01:03:47: Genesis 4, verses 1 through 2, let's read it together. Now, the man had relations with his wife, the man being Adam, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said,
01:03:56: I have gotten 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.
01:04:03: Now, this takes place after the curse. The fall is in Genesis chapter 3. Genesis 1 and 2 is the creation of the world is perfect.
01:04:09: God pronounces it very good. The fall happens in Genesis chapter 3, and after that, the Lord curses the man, curses the woman, curses the serpent.
01:04:16: And there is a curse upon all of creation in Genesis chapter 3. Adam and Eve are exiled from the garden.
01:04:22: They're kicked out, and two cherubim are stationed at the entrance to the Garden of Eden so that they could not come back in. They would not go back into that paradise.
01:04:29: They were completely exiled from that garden paradise. That all takes place in Genesis chapter 3.
01:04:34: Now, we get to Genesis chapter 4, and Adam and Eve begin to do what God had commanded them to do at the very beginning, which is to be fruitful and multiply.
01:04:41: So now they start having children, and it would become very apparent very quickly that their children were just as ravaged by the fall and just as cursed and just as wicked and corrupt and broken as Adam and Eve ever hoped that they would not be.
01:04:54: They were just as corrupt as it was possible to be. Their children are going to end up being just like them. And the fact that this fall happened before Cain and Abel were ever born or Adam and Eve had conceived children indicates that it was likely something that happened very quickly after creation.
01:05:11: So we don't have the creation week unfolding and then millions of years before Adam and Eve fall. We have the creation week unfolding and then very quickly
01:05:19: Satan sweeps in with his plan to destroy humanity and to destroy what God has created, and he tempts the man and the woman, and they fell into sin.
01:05:27: So this happens very early on. We're not talking about a long period of time. Then they began to have children, and I want you to think of something.
01:05:34: This occurred to me this last week, and I don't know that I've ever thought of this or heard this presented in this way, but Adam and Eve would have been uniquely able to remember what it was like to walk with God face to face.
01:05:46: This is something that Cain and Abel, because they were born after the fall and conceived after the fall, this is something that Cain and Abel would have known nothing about.
01:05:54: But Adam and Eve alone, out of everybody who has ever existed, would have known what it was like to stand in the presence of God and to see him face to face and to walk with him in innocence, in purity, in holiness, and in righteousness.
01:06:10: They would have known that. They could only have described that to Cain and Abel, and I would expect that words would be a little inadequate to describe what that is like when you're trying to express to Cain and Abel, your children, what it was once like before you ruined everything.
01:06:26: What it was once like, it would have been almost impossible to put that to words, would it not? But they would have had that memory.
01:06:32: This is something that Cain and Abel would have never known anything about. So she names the firstborn
01:06:38: Cain. His name seems to be quite intentional, as is obvious from the words that she says when she says in verse one,
01:06:44: I have gotten a man -child with the help of the Lord. Those words are a description of why she named him Cain.
01:06:50: The name Cain means gotten, received, or acquired. So you'll notice in verse one she says, she's explaining, giving commentary on his name,
01:06:58: I have gotten a man -child with the help of the Lord. That's her explanation. Now if you have a translation that does this, you might notice that there are some italics in that verse where she says, with the help of, those words are in italics.
01:07:11: So when she says, I have gotten a man -child with the help of the Lord, with the help of is in italics, meaning that it's not in the original manuscripts.
01:07:20: It just literally reads, I have gotten a man -child, Yahweh. The Lord is the name for God.
01:07:27: I have gotten a man -child, Yahweh. Now that is most likely an expression of Eve's own faith in believing what
01:07:33: God had promised back in chapter three, verse 15, when he says to the serpent, and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed.
01:07:44: He shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. That's what we call the Proto -Evangelion, the very first proclamation of the gospel.
01:07:51: This is a gospel prophecy. Even in the garden right after the fall, in the curse upon the serpent, which
01:07:56: Adam and Eve would have heard these words, God promised that one would come through the woman who would end up reversing the curse and destroying the serpent and undoing everything that they had done in the fall.
01:08:06: That was the promise. That was the prediction. And so Eve, as she gives birth to that first child, she may have been thinking back to that time in the garden when the
01:08:13: Lord said that one would come from a woman who would undo this and destroy the serpent. And so she finally says,
01:08:19: I have gotten a man -child, Yahweh, the Lord. Meaning that Eve probably would have understood that whoever it was who was going to come through the woman, and because it's the seed of the woman, that's a very odd construction.
01:08:32: It's a prophecy also of the virgin birth. Whoever this one who was coming from the woman would need to have been
01:08:37: God in human flesh. He would need to be the God -man in order to destroy the serpent. Eve would have understood that.
01:08:43: Eve would have been looking to that. And so she names Cain, Gotten, maybe thinking, and this is speculation, but maybe thinking that this child that she was bearing was the one that the
01:08:54: Lord had promised back in chapter 3, verse 15. Eve was correct in thinking and believing that it would need to be the
01:09:01: God -man who would come to conquer, to destroy the serpent. But if she thought Cain was that Messiah, she was woefully mistaken because Cain ended up not being the
01:09:12: Messiah, but a murderer instead. It probably wouldn't have taken her more than a couple weeks to figure out that Cain wasn't the fulfillment of this promise.
01:09:24: How long does it take parents to realize that their newborn child is a wretched, vile sinner?
01:09:30: Not very long at all. Not very long. Which may explain why it is that she says, and when she names
01:09:37: Abel, she gives Abel the name that she does. She names him Abel, the secondborn. And that word is translated as breath, or empty, or vapor.
01:09:46: It kind of carries the idea of something being short and brief. In fact, it is the same word that is translated as vanity in Ecclesiastes.
01:09:57: Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. And I don't need to give you PTSD by going back to Ecclesiastes. But that's the very word that is used.
01:10:04: Breath, vapor, pointlessness, emptiness, brevity, shortness. What a name.
01:10:11: To be named vanity? There's no good take on that name.
01:10:19: Name's in breath. Now, Abel's name ends up being probably a more apt name for Abel than Cain's name was for him.
01:10:28: If Cain means gotten, I've received the fulfillment of the promise. Swing and a miss. Just a bit outside on that one.
01:10:35: So probably realizing that Cain was not going to be that, the second child's name is vanity or brevity.
01:10:41: His name ends up actually becoming a very good description of his life. It was short. It was very short, especially considering the length of days in that era.
01:10:49: The additional detail in verse 2, and Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. There's obviously a gap between those two sentences.
01:10:56: They didn't come out of the womb, a keeper of the dirt, and a tiller of the ground, a keeper of flocks.
01:11:02: So there's a gap there in between those two sentences. We're obviously fast -forwarding in the text. Abel found an occupation as being a keeper of flocks, and Cain acquired the skill and discipline of tilling the ground.
01:11:12: One raised animals, and one raised vegetables. Now, this is going to come into play in terms of the sacrifice that they give, but not in terms of the morality of each man's occupation.
01:11:22: This is something to keep in mind. There's nothing inherently sinful or wrong about tilling the ground and raising produce.
01:11:28: That's hard work, and it's noble work. In fact, one may even say it was necessary work since everybody back then was vegetarians.
01:11:34: None of them were meat eaters yet. So what Cain ended up doing was for the very sustenance of humanity at the time, tilling the ground and working that cursed ground as it was to provide food for people, probably his family as well as others, involved in some sort of commerce,
01:11:48: I would imagine, that that ends up being a very noble occupation, and it is good. And it is also noble to keep flocks and to be involved with that.
01:11:55: So God's rejection of Cain's offering, his sacrifice, is not a commentary on the nobility or the holiness or the righteousness of Cain's occupation at all.
01:12:06: Because God's rejection of that has nothing to do with the occupation. It is all entirely based upon the sacrifice and what was expected by that sacrifice.
01:12:16: So Abel was not raising flocks for the sake of eating them. Keep that in mind as well. How do we know that?
01:12:22: Because men didn't eat animals back then. It's not till after the flood. All men were vegetarians. In the garden, they were naked vegetarians.
01:12:30: After the garden, they were clothed vegetarians, but they were still vegetarians nonetheless. So why was
01:12:36: Abel then raising flocks? The precedent is set back in Genesis 3, verse 21, the
01:12:41: Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. God killed an animal and He took the skins and He clothed them so that every day
01:12:49: Adam and Eve woke up and they put on themselves a reminder of the curse, of the fall, of their sinfulness, of what they had lost in innocence.
01:12:58: God killed the animal and shed the animal's blood. This was the first blood that was shed. But Adam and Eve would have seen that and saw that God was killing an innocent victim to cover them.
01:13:07: And this sacrifice in Genesis 3, verse 21 ends up becoming a foreshadowing of a later sacrifice where one would die in order to cover the sins of his people and to take them away.
01:13:17: So they would have seen the sacrifice and they would have then repeated that sacrifice because we can expect that Adam and Eve would have known very well that God cannot be approached except through a blood sacrifice.
01:13:27: An innocent victim has to die so that they can approach God because of their sin. They would have learned that in Genesis 3 and that would have been carried on further.
01:13:35: So we can conclude that Abel would have been a keeper of the flocks for the sake of providing two things.
01:13:41: Number one, animals for sacrifice by which they could worship. And number two, clothing for humanity. Those were the two things that Abel's occupation would have provided.
01:13:50: Cain's would have provided food. So you had food, clothing, and an approach to God, a sacrifice for their sin. All of that right here in the beginning portion of Genesis.
01:13:58: Now, let's look at the sacrifice, verse 3. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the
01:14:05: Lord. Sorry, let me try that again. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.
01:14:12: Abel on his part also brought the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the reference to fat portions there indicates that he's not bringing live animals.
01:14:20: He is bringing sacrificed animals or he is sacrificing an animal at this place of worship. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering, but for Cain and for his offering he had no regard.
01:14:29: So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Now we can discern from the record of Genesis that there was some structure and regularity to their worship.
01:14:37: You can see the phrase there in verse 3, so it came about in the course of time. That phrase is translated in other places as at the end of days, or at the end of an appointed time, or the fulfillment of days.
01:14:50: And it indicates that there was a course set, a number of days, and when it came to the end of those appointed days then they came to offer a sacrifice.
01:14:58: There was some sort of structure, some sort of schedule or calendar that they had that meant that at the end of the days they would both bring their sacrifice.
01:15:05: The fact that they both brought the sacrifice on the same day, and at the same time, and to the same place, tells us that this was something that was done with regularity.
01:15:14: And if we can assume that Adam and Eve, and I think this is a safe assumption, if we can assume that Adam and Eve understood that approaching
01:15:20: God required a sacrifice and that this was something that their family regularly did because of their sin, that there was some sort of a calendar, some sort of a schedule, some sort of a pattern that had been revealed to this family, so that at the end of this time, at the appointed time, they would come to present their sacrifices.
01:15:37: Abel and Cain both had an appointed schedule for these sacrifices. And the fact that they came at the same time indicates that they both recognized the days had come to a conclusion and now it was time to offer the sacrifice.
01:15:48: I can only presume, and I think this is sanctified speculation, that God himself would have revealed not only the schedule for the sacrifices, but also the place in which these sacrifices were to be made.
01:15:58: Because later on in the book of Genesis, and later on the Pentateuch actually, et cetera, we see that God appointed not only the days of sacrifices, but also the places, and of course what type of sacrifices were to be made.
01:16:12: I have no reason to believe, we have no reason whatsoever to believe that these men had no idea what they were supposed to be doing.
01:16:18: They knew exactly what they were supposed to be doing. And as you're gonna see, that is the point why Abel's sacrifice was accepted and Cain's was rejected.
01:16:26: Not only was there an appointed time, but probably also an appointed place. The fact that they arrived at the same place to offer the sacrifice indicates that there was something that they did together.
01:16:35: They both showed up. The intention was that each of them would offer their sacrifice. Of course they offered different sacrifices, but the fact that they arrived on the same day at the same place tells us something was appointed.
01:16:44: The time as well as the place. It has been speculated. Now this is, I'm gonna say it right now, this is sanctified speculation.
01:16:51: It has been speculated that the place that they went to offer the sacrifice was back at the entrance of the Garden of Eden. And here's why.
01:16:58: Back in Genesis chapter 3, look at verse 24. So he, that is God, drove the man out, and at the east of the
01:17:06: Garden of Eden he stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction to guard the way to the tree of life.
01:17:12: So they were exiled from paradise and two cherubim were positioned there, cherubim were placed there with swords to guard the entrance so that man could never go back in to the scene of his crime.
01:17:23: Now man had known, Adam and Eve had known that it was in the garden that they walked with God. There they enjoyed fellowship with him.
01:17:28: And those angels were reminders that they could never go back to that, they could never have that again. They were now separated from God because of their sin.
01:17:36: Remember later on in the book of Exodus when God gave commandment to Moses to build the Ark of the
01:17:41: Covenant, you had the Ark itself which contained the tablets and the manna and the stick.
01:17:46: What was over top of the Ark? The mercy seat. What was on top of the mercy seat? In the middle of the mercy seat was the visible glory of God.
01:17:54: And over that mercy seat the blood was sprinkled from Ayon Kippur on the Day of Atonement. But where was that blood applied?
01:18:00: It was between what? The wings of the cherubim. So here in Genesis we have the cherubim stationed at the entrance of the
01:18:07: Garden of Eden. And I think that this is intentional. It seems to me, this is sanctified speculation because there's nothing in the text, but just allow me to indulge your imagination for a little bit.
01:18:16: They had to go up right in front of the angels, the cherubim, knowing that God was back there. And that's as far as they could come to approach
01:18:22: God. And right there between the angels they offered their sacrifices. It seems to me that that was the appointed place.
01:18:30: And I won't dwell on that too much more since I'm just inventing that. Well, I didn't invent that actually.
01:18:35: I got that out of other writings just so you know that I'm not the wingnut. If you want to chase the wingnuttery back you've got to go to the guys that I was reading.
01:18:45: Now when the sacrifices, when the sacrifices were made and where the sacrifices were made, all we can discern is that there was an appointed time and appointed place.
01:18:54: But we also know that what the sacrifices were to be was also appointed. Again, the precedent was set back in Genesis chapter 3 when
01:19:00: God killed the innocent animal to cover Adam and Eve. Covering for their sin, covering for their nakedness.
01:19:07: And both Abel and Cain would have known that God expected and God demanded an animal sacrifice.
01:19:14: Why would I say that? Because Cain's sacrifice was accepted and Hebrews tells us that this was an evidence of his faith.
01:19:24: What is faith? Faith is hearing what God has said and believing what
01:19:29: God has said. If Cain, if Abel went and offered an animal sacrifice and that animal sacrifice was an expression of his belief that what
01:19:38: God said was true, then Abel would have known what God expected and Cain would have known what
01:19:43: God expected. God expected an animal sacrifice and both of these men knew it. If Cain, if they didn't, if they had no idea what they were to offer, imagine this for a second, then
01:19:53: God's choice of the animal sacrifice over the vegetable sacrifice was nothing more than a capricious and arbitrary choice.
01:20:01: As if God got up that morning and said, I prefer meat today over vegetables. Both men had to have known exactly what it was that God had expected them to offer.
01:20:11: This is why Abel, in offering it, is expressing his faith, his belief, in God, that if he offered this animal sacrifice,
01:20:17: God would accept him on the terms of the animal sacrifice. Cain knew exactly what it was that God expected because Cain had grown up in the same home, seen the same sacrifices, and learned the same things that Abel did.
01:20:29: Both of these men knew what God demanded of them. So therefore, Abel's obedience becomes an evidence of his faith and Cain's disobedience becomes an evidence of his lack of faith.
01:20:38: You see, the presence of their faith is made manifest in what it was that they offered. And the fact that Abel offered an animal sacrifice demonstrates that he was believing what
01:20:47: God had revealed regarding animal sacrifices. The fact that Cain did not offer an animal sacrifice but instead offered a vegetable sacrifice from the fruit of the ground is evidence that he did not believe what
01:20:58: God said regarding animal sacrifices. He was not trusting in it. Therefore, he was not expressing his faith.
01:21:05: Both of these men knew that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. They had been told that. They had been told without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.
01:21:13: Adam and Eve knew that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. They had been raised to understand that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.
01:21:20: They both knew what God expected. And they knew what God had demanded. So now look at the sacrifice. Cain, verse 3, brought an offering to the
01:21:26: Lord of the fruit of the ground and Abel on his part brought the firstlings of his flock and of the fat portions. Now there is obviously a difference in the sacrifices that are offered.
01:21:34: And you might think that the sole reason for the difference in the sacrifices is the fact that each of them were just bringing what they had an abundance of.
01:21:40: That because Abel was a keeper of the flocks he had an abundance of flocks. He looked out over his flock one day and said, you know,
01:21:46: I've got a lot of lambs and not so many oxen. I guess I'll take a lamb and go offer that to the Lord. And that Abel looked out over his field and said,
01:21:51: I've got a lot of kumquats and corn and carrots. I don't know why all those started with the same sound but I'll offer all of those up to the
01:21:57: Lord as well. And that the substance of their sacrifice was just an expression of what they had an abundance of.
01:22:03: That's not it. You might be tempted to think that both of these men were pious and righteous and their hearts were filled with love and affection and faith and that Abel came and offered his sacrifice the best that he had and it was all done in faith.
01:22:16: And that Cain came and offered the best of his flock and what he offered was in faith and he was pious and righteous.
01:22:21: But that's not how Scripture describes these two men. Cain is described as a murderer. Abel is described as righteous.
01:22:28: The sacrifice ends up becoming an expression of their heart. In many ways,
01:22:34: Cain's sacrifice would have been far better than Abel's sacrifice. Just judging at it from a human vantage point.
01:22:42: See, there's nothing inherently sinful or wrong in offering to God the fruit of the ground. The Mosaic Covenant made provision for those kinds of offerings.
01:22:50: There's nothing inherently sinful in giving to God a vegetable offering unless God demands an animal offering.
01:22:57: If God demands an animal offering and you give to Him a vegetable offering, then it is inherently sinful. But the
01:23:02: Mosaic Covenant provided for offerings just like Cain brought that day. Further, Cain's offering would have been far more pleasing to the senses than Abel's offering.
01:23:13: I mean, if you had walked up there that day and saw the abundance of this polished, beautiful, glorious fruit that's almost unaffected by the fall in terms of what we eat today.
01:23:22: I mean, imagine the best of the vegetables, the best of the crop, the juiciest fruit. You have that and then next to it this bloody animal carcass.
01:23:30: Which is more appealing to your sight? Now you might say, look, I would rather have a piece of raw meat in front of me than a vegetable tray because I would be thinking to myself,
01:23:39: I'll see if Cain will sell me some of his herbs and spices and I'll make a nice rub for this and we'll cut down an apple tree and we'll smoke this over some apple meat and roast it over the fire.
01:23:48: But back then they were all vegetarians. Again, first naked vegetarians, then clothed vegetarians, but they were vegetarians.
01:23:55: So there is nothing appealing in Abel's sacrifice. Nothing at all. It doesn't look good.
01:24:01: It wouldn't smell good. It wouldn't even be appealing to the sense of taste. There's nothing about it that would have been in any way appealing.
01:24:08: Cain's would have been far better. In fact, Cain's offering was the product of his labor, his sweat, his toil. In many ways, it could have been the very best that he had to offer to God.
01:24:18: Here's the fruit of his labor and sleepless nights and all the work that goes into tilling the ground and producing a crop like that and then he brings it to the
01:24:24: Lord. In many ways, it would have seemed as if there was more effort and sweat put into doing that than what Abel had offered.
01:24:31: And food, to offer food, that was the very essence of sustenance, wasn't it? I mean, really, when you think about it,
01:24:38: Cain's offering was a symbol of the very thing that sustains us. We have no idea what kind of abundance or lack of abundance
01:24:45: Cain brought his offering out of, but he was bringing the very thing that they needed to exist. The fruit of his labor and all of these things, rather than being fine points that might demonstrate the reliability of Cain's faith or the glory of his sacrifice, ends up doing just the opposite.
01:25:01: Cain's sacrifice and his offering, as pleasing as it might be to us, was offensive to the Lord because it was not offered in faith.
01:25:08: How do we know it was not offered in faith? Because he did not offer an animal sacrifice. That was the evidence that he was not offering what he offered in faith.
01:25:16: And Romans 14, 23 says that whatever is not from faith is sin. Therefore, Cain's offering, as pleasing, as gracious, as abundant as it might have been, as good as it might have been, pleasing to us as it might have been, it was actually a sinful offering.
01:25:31: Because the vegetable offering represented Cain's efforts, his own works. It represented Cain approaching God on his own terms, not believing what
01:25:38: Abel had believed. You see, Abel had believed that because of his sin, an innocent victim had to die in his place before he could be acceptable to God.
01:25:48: He believed that the way to approach God was through the basis of a blood sacrifice, and that if a blood sacrifice was offered to God, as hideous as that might be to his natural senses, as crazy as that might be to his mind and his culture, and anybody else around him, if he offered that animal sacrifice,
01:26:06: God would be pleased with that, and God would accept him and his worship on the basis of that sacrifice of an innocent victim in his stead.
01:26:13: That is what Abel had to believe. And so in offering that sacrifice, Abel's confessing that he is a sinner, and that the only way that he can approach
01:26:20: God is on God's terms, and he must accept what God has revealed regarding approaching God on God's terms.
01:26:26: And Abel had to confess all of that just in offering that sacrifice. Cain thought he could come and offer to God something that pleased him, something that he wanted on his terms, not on God's terms, and that God would be pleased with that.
01:26:39: But the text doesn't, the text immediately says in verse 5, Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. When we read in verse 4, and the
01:26:46: Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering, but for Cain and for his offering he had no regard. Is it because God got up that day and decided he liked meat rather than vegetables?
01:26:57: See, that's not it. It was not an arbitrary and capricious action of God to reject one sacrifice and have regard for or accept the other.
01:27:06: It was because Abel did exactly what God had told them to do and Cain did the exact opposite of what
01:27:11: God had told them to do. Cain's face demonstrated his anger and his disappointment because he honestly thought that he had a shot at pleasing
01:27:19: God on his own terms. There are going to be a lot of people on judgment day standing in the presence of God who are going to be shocked to find out that their good deeds do not please
01:27:28: God. They're going to be angry, disappointed, and their countenance is going to fall when they realize suddenly that all of the things that they think should be pleasing to the
01:27:38: Lord, He regards as filthy rags. When they stand before God in their own tattered robes of their own self -righteousness, thinking that their good deeds, their good works, their self -improvement give them a standing before God, there's a lot of people whose countenance is going to fall.
01:27:52: Because they're going to find out that God does not regard their works like He regards the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.
01:27:58: There is righteousness and there is merit in what Christ has done and there is no righteousness and no merit in all of the good works of all of humanity over all of time.
01:28:09: It all pales in comparison. It is nothing. It's not righteous or good in any way in terms of how
01:28:14: God counts righteousness or goodness. A lot of people are going to be just like Cain. In fact, this episode demonstrates the heart of apostasy.
01:28:23: Cain is the very first apostate. He knew what God expected and demanded and he turned from that and said,
01:28:29: I'm going to approach God on my own terms in my own way. That is the heart of apostasy. Thinking that your own righteousness can make you pleasing in the sight of God.
01:28:39: Cain had no time for the foolishness of the animal sacrifices or the bloody religion of his parents and his brother. Instead, he thought that if he gave to God something that pleased him, that God was just like Cain and that God would accept
01:28:49: Cain's offering as long as Cain thought that his offering was good. Maybe even Cain thought, you know, if I just come to the
01:28:55: Lord and I'm just sincere and I give to God what I have in my own way, on my own terms and I just make sure that I just check my own heart,
01:29:03: God will accept that. He'll embrace that. Cain is not only the first apostate, he is also a perfect representative of everyone who thinks that they can determine how
01:29:10: God is to be worshipped. There is a sin that plagues modern evangelicalism and it is the notion that we can approach
01:29:18: God in our own way, on our own terms and that God is not concerned with how he is worshipped, what we sing, how we come before him, what we do for him.
01:29:26: God's just concerned that whatever we do, we just come to him on our own terms and our own way. Cain would have been a perfect megachurch seeker -sensitive pastor because you can see him almost, can't you, in your mind's eye standing up in front of people with a little soul patch and the skinny jeans, the
01:29:41: Hawaiian shirt with the tattoos, the nipple piercing, the earring, saying to everybody, hey, it doesn't matter how you come to God, just come to God on any way you feel pleasing to come to God.
01:29:50: We're just going to embrace you all in here, just come in. In fact, we're going to take our worship and we're going to take our service and we're just going to make it contemporary and culturally relevant and we don't want to offend anybody and we just want to make it exactly what, draw in the most number of people and the biggest crowd we can get.
01:30:04: That's Cain's approach to worship. My terms, my way, whatever makes me comfortable. This is the heart of apostasy and Cain is the perfect apostate.
01:30:16: God has provided a means by which we are to approach him and it is in and through only the Lord Jesus Christ who offered a perfect sacrifice on our behalf to pay the price for our sin.
01:30:25: Every last sin you have committed. And if you will not come to God on his terms, you will not come to God on any terms because he will not accept you on your terms.
01:30:33: He is the offended party. You are the guilty one. So he is the one who determines the terms of peace.
01:30:40: And if you will come to him, it can only be through the sacrifice of Christ. And if you try and approach him in any other way, it is just as acceptable as Cain's produce.
01:30:51: In fact, any other approach to God has no more power to cleanse you of sin and to bring you into his presence and to make you acceptable in his sight than a vegetable offering.
01:30:59: There is no power at all. He has provided a way and that way is in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. But you, like Abel, have to recognize that you have no righteousness and that an innocent victim had to die for your sin before you could be made acceptable before a holy
01:31:13: God. But there is a reason that we don't offer animal sacrifices and that we are not into bloodletting and that we are not involved in any of those kinds of offerings or sacrifices of the old covenant.
01:31:24: There is a reason we don't do that. It is because God instead has provided the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world and in that one sacrifice he has done away with the need for all sacrifices so that everything that came before him was a picture of what was to come.
01:31:37: It was an anticipation, a prophecy, a type, a foreshadowing of that ultimate sacrifice which would not just cover sin for a period of time but would take sin out of the way and not just remove all sin for all who will believe but actually give to them the righteousness that God demands so that in the sacrifice of Christ he has not just undone our sinfulness, he has clothed us with the righteousness that we need to stand before his presence.
01:32:02: No animal sacrifice can do that and nothing you can ever do can make you righteous. This lesson of Cain and Abel would have been especially applicable to these early
01:32:11: Hebrew Christians because remember having come out of that old covenant and having come out of their dependence upon all of those sacrifices and the priest and that priesthood and all of the forms and features of that old covenant, having come out of that, now some of them were thinking about turning back, going back to that.
01:32:28: Why? Because they were enduring a great conflict of sufferings, affliction, and persecution for their faith and going back to that seemed like a way to just make all of that easier and some of them would have been reasoning if we go back to that, if we just go back to the temple and adopt what we grew up with and worship
01:32:47: God in that way, surely it will be acceptable Abel is the perfect person to start off this list of faith because he is saying to them you do not worship
01:32:56: God on your terms and if God has abandoned that system, it is defunct, it is over, it is gone.
01:33:03: You come to him now through Jesus Christ and the one who has faith will have faith to the persevering of the soul. Do not shrink back to destruction.
01:33:10: Don't go back to that. There is no other acceptable worship other than in and through and by the
01:33:16: Lord Jesus Christ. You approach God through his sacrifice or no sacrifice at all. Those are his terms.
01:33:22: And if you will go back to that system and trust in yourself, then like Cain, you are just simply giving evidence that you have no true faith and you do not believe.
01:33:32: We are not of those who shrink back to destruction but those who have faith to the preserving of the soul. And to turn away from that, that is the essence of apostasy.
01:33:40: That is to commit the error of Cain. Let's pray. Father, we do thank you for the lessons in your word and for the reminder today of how important it is to worship you rightly, to approach you rightly.
01:33:52: We learn this from Cain and Abel. We thank you for the list of godly men and women in Hebrews 11 that reminds us that the way to approach you has been and always is by faith.
01:34:03: And we ask that you would help us to apply this faith and approaching you rightly to every area of our life.
01:34:09: That we may honor you as you expect to be honored. To worship you as you should be worshipped and to glorify you in the way that you have ordained.
01:34:16: That you would be glorified in and through us and in our lives as we walk in obedience to you. That is our heart's desire and our cry.
01:34:22: And we pray that you would strengthen us to that end. In Jesus' name. Please stand.
01:34:40: O great God of highest heav 'n Occupy my lowly heart
01:34:49: Own it all and reign supreme Conquer every rebel power
01:34:58: Let no vice or sin remain That resist your holy war
01:35:07: You have loved and purchased me Make me yours forevermore
01:35:16: I was blinded by my sin
01:35:25: Had no ears to hear your voice Did not know your love within Had no taste for heaven's joys
01:35:39: Then your spirit gave me life Opened up your word to me
01:35:48: Through the gospel of your son Gave me endless hope and peace
01:35:58: Help me now to live a life
01:36:19: That's dependent on your grace Keep my heart and guard my soul
01:36:28: From the evils that I face You are worthy to be praised
01:36:36: With my every thought and deed O great
01:36:42: God of highest heav 'n Glorify your name through me
01:36:49: You are worthy to be praised With my every thought and deed
01:36:58: O great God of highest heav 'n Glorify your name through me
01:37:13: Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that you will abound in hope by the power of the
01:37:20: Holy Spirit. You are dismissed. Have a great week. With faithful hands
01:39:20: He fulfills every promise He will never sigh
01:39:35: He feels our weakness, knows our need And for our good
01:39:42: He intercedes All is well because of God's grace
01:39:55: Every failure, every fear The Lord of comfort draws us near And all is well because of God's great love
01:40:16: He shines the heart of Jesus Christ With faithful hands
01:40:36: He fulfills every promise He will never sigh