(Hebrews) 3-Cain and Abel — Leonard Ravenhill

Faith Makes God’s Power and Character Known

But for all our lives, I'm sure, is the 6th verse. Without faith it is impossible to please him or please God, for he that cometh must believe that he is. He is. If we get that deeply entrenched in our minds and hearts, we'll have no difficulty believing God.

When you get one of these papers, you'll see what he is able to do. Hebrews 2 .18, he's able to succor. Hebrews 5 .7, he's able to save from death. 7 .25, he's able to save to the uttermost. 11 .19, he's able to raise up.

Jude 24, he's able to keep. 1 .21, he's able to save souls. And I would say, to back all that up, I think we should, at least I'm doing this, I'm soaking myself more and more in the 40th chapter of Isaiah, to see who this God is, his vastness, his majesty, his power.

Faith as the Substance and Foundation of the Christian Life

Faith is a substance. Without toying with this too long, substance. Actually, it comes from a Latin word, substans. Sub, you know, the subway goes under, the submarine goes under. Substans. So, sub is under and stans is stand.

So then you say, it means to understand. No, it doesn't. It means to stand under. It means to get under all these things in our lives or in the world. Get under them with what? The word of God. How firm a foundation he is saying to the Lord is, lay in for your faith.

The more deeply we sink into the word of God, the more immovable we are. I remember the first time I was in New York, I went downtown and saw men peeping through some boards. What's happening is, look, I look and there, I believe the whole of Manhattan is on one great sheet of rock.

And in order to go up 65 or 100 stories, you've got to go down to that bedrock. They didn't stop halfway. They worked until they hit the slap of rock and then they can go up and up and up and build the Empire State Building and those other marvelous buildings there.

So same with us with the word of God. If the word of God is something that God has given to us that we may build on, then we need to know all the foundations. Faith is the substance of things hoped for.

The evidence of things not seen. I think that the actual translation of that is, faith is confidence. A conviction of things not seen. You can believe easily, pretty easily, things you can see. But so many of these people have to reach out into the unseen.

If I can see, why do I need faith? If I have faith, what do I need to see? Mercifully, we get to both things sometimes. Through faith, we understand that the worlds or the ages were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen are not made of things which do appear.

Cain and Abel: Faith Expressed in Worship

By faith able. Have you ever wondered why Adam and Eve are not mentioned before Cain and Abel? I've read biographies of, not everybody, but hundreds, I think, of people in the Bible. Some are good, some are imagination.

But nobody says a lot about Adam and Eve. Where did they disappear? Did they repent? Did they build an altar? Not that we know of. The first character here, it is by faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.

Now, you know, the, what we need to do is go back now to the foundation story of this. That is to go back to Genesis chapter 4. Chapter 4, verse 1, Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.

And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. In the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought, and it really means he came forward with an offering.

He came forth with an offering. He came forth with what? In the process of time it came to pass, Cain brought forth the fruit of the ground as an offering unto the Lord. I don't find any distinction in the characters of Cain and Abel.

They were very much alike. But there's a distinction, of course, in the way that they came with their offering. Cain brought forth the fruit of the ground and offered it unto the Lord. Abel also brought forth the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof, and the Lord had respect unto Abel.

Look at the next verse. Cain came with his offering, but God had not any respect for him. Now why? Well, I think for the simple reason that there's something fundamental here that Cain had ignored. Abel brings a firstling of the flock.

Now there's a sign at the sign, at least in my Bible, of that word flock. Actually in the Hebrew it means sheep or goats. A flock of sheep or goats. Well, the prototype obviously must be a lamb. Because it said he separated.

Abel also brought the firstlings of his flock and the fat thereof. Now that's very much symbolic of sheep, of lambs. They're very, very fatty. They're not like the ordinary cattle. But he brings an offering and the Lord had respect unto it.

Why not respect of the offering of Abel? Because he brought the fruit of the earth, which was cursed. As it says there in verse 17 of the previous chapter, unto Adam he said, because thou hearkened unto the voice of thy wife.

Now watch it, we're in trouble here. When he listened to the voice of his wife, he got into trouble. The exact same thing is said of Abraham in Genesis 16. Now, if you find me shot during the week, you know it's a woman that did it after this.

You listen to the voice of your wife. When I commanded thee, thou shalt not eat of it. Abraham did the same thing. Goes to his wife and says, we're going to have a child. Oh, mercy. What? Well, come on, come on.

You're a hundred years of age. I made thee. We're going to have children? Yes. Oh, wait till I write home and tell my mother about this. What will she say? You should never have married a preacher that crazy anyhow.

But he hearkened to the voice of his wife. She said, you know the custom around here? You know, when you're in Rome, do as Rome does. It's an ordinary thing for a man whose wife cannot bear children to take a servant girl who he really owns and have a child by her, which he did.

And if you think that hasn't been a headache, what do you think of the Arabs today? By one man disobeying. I'm not saying a man shouldn't listen to his wife. They should counsel together. That's part of the joy of living, I think.

But you see, it says here distinctly in this 17th verse, Adam, he said that because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and eat of the tree of which I commanded thee. Cursed is the ground for thy sake.

See, he brought what? Did he bring? He brought the fruit of the earth. Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, verse 4. But the earth was cursed. Now, why did Abel bring an offering of a lamb? Remember, the first shedding of blood in history was done by God, not by man.

It was done by God when he slew the animals. Verse 21 says,. And to Adam also, to his wife, did the Lord make coats of skins and clothe them. What have they done? They tried to make a covering for themselves.

They took leaves and made themselves aprons. But God says you can't cover yourself with aprons. There's only one way to be covered, and that's through the precious blood. Well, this man, Abel, he, uh, Cain, pardon me, he ignored that.

He doubted the example, and yet he preferred to do it his own way. Oh, I'm told God won't mind. I am bringing an offering. I mean, I've worked hard in the fields, and not the labor of my hands can fulfill my Lord's demand.

Nothing in my hands I bring, and simply to the cross I cling. Abel, verse 2, Abel was the keeper of the sheep, but Cain was the tiller of the ground. In the process of time he came to pass, Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.

And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock. The firstlings. That reminded me of a statement here, where is it? In Colossians 1 .15, 14. In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.

Jesus was the firstborn. This man brings the firstling of the flock. It wasn't some old haggard lame sheep. It wasn't something that wouldn't cost him anything. One of the precious things. How many sheep did he have?

Was one of the reasons why Cain didn't make an offering economic? Oh, there's not many cattle around here, many sheep. I don't think the Lord will mind if I just bring something of my own. But the Lord has already set the type again in covering, in slaying the beasts and giving them the skins to clothe them.

Faith Comes by Hearing the Word of God

How does faith come? By what? Hearing. Well, you say, what did this man hear? Oh, I can think of a hundred dozen things he heard. I can't think that Adam and Eve walked in the cool of the Garden of Eden without Abel and Cain hearing.

It must have been one of the most amazing things because, after all, they didn't have the revelations we have that God would speak in the way that he spoke. Chapter 3, verse 1 says,. Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord had made.

And he said unto the woman, Are Cain and Abel listening? I don't know, but I suggest that they were. He said unto the woman, Hath God said? I think that Cain and Abel overheard God speaking to their father.

Faith cometh by hearing. It germinated in one man, it did not germinate in the other. Hath God said? The woman said, verse 2, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden God said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it lest ye die.

They did as they were not supposed to do. Okay. Verse 7 says, The eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons and they heard the voice of the Lord walking in the cool of the day.

Verse 9, And the Lord said unto Adam, Who art thou? Do you think he was terrified? Do you think he hid behind the bushes? Do you think Cain and Abel were saying, Oh, what's going to happen now? Dad didn't expect that God would come back again.

But he says, Where art thou? He said, I heard thy voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. Verse 13, The Lord God said to the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

And the Lord said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all Catiline, above every beast. On thy belly thou shalt go, and thus shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed.

It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. What does it say in Romans 16, 20? God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. I'm still believing that these young men, surely they were full of curiosity.

They had no traffic to watch. They hadn't all the things round about that you and I have. And there in the beauty and glory of the garden, they must have listened to father and mother talking. And one is grasping hold of the truth and the other is ignoring it.

Faith cometh by hearing. They'd heard the voice of God. They'd heard the voice of Satan. They'd heard the voice of their parents. And yet again, I'm kind of holding on to this. Because they had heard, and faith cometh by hearing.

It's very much the same today. You sit in a congregation. Someone goes out and says, Boy, I didn't get anything out of that meeting. Well, if the first thing, of course, of any meeting is what God got out of it.

Not what you got out of it or I got out of it. But then someone else says, You know, that was just so illuminating to me tonight. One person hears, the other people hears, and the other person doesn't hear.

Here is the promise of God. Verse 16, Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children. And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

We should all write that out and send it to Mrs. Farrow. She doesn't know much about that. But that's God's order. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, And hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, Saying, Thou shalt not eat, Cursed is the ground for thy sake.

Next verse, it's thorns and thistles. And so forth. And verse 19, By the sweat of thy face. Now let's go to 21 again. Adam also unto his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and clothed them. Skip down a minute into chapter 4.

Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, And said, I've gotten a man from the Lord. And she bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. But notice, they were not born in paradise.

Adam and Eve had been kicked out of paradise before they had children. If they'd been born in paradise, we might have said, Oh, there's something very exceptional about them. They didn't wear shoes, so they didn't have to take their shoes from off their feet.

But I'm sure that every inch of paradise was holy ground. God walked there. Inconceivable to us, I'm sure. Verse 24 says, He drove them out of the place. He drove out the man, and He placed them east of the garden of Eden.

And cherubims with a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life. It's significant to me that the first character that's mentioned in the long line of faith is a man who is worshiping.

It all begins there. He couldn't do any other. Why was he bringing an offering? Why was he bringing a sacrifice? Notice there's no priest here. There's no altar here. There's no temple here. There's no tabernacle here.

This is an original. I suggest to you the reason that there's cherubim are here with flaming swords. Cherubims always defend. Where are the cherubims mentioned? They're mentioned in the garden of Eden, in the tabernacle, and in the temple.

Seraphim is only mentioned once in the scriptures as far as I remember. In the sixth chapter of Isaiah where it says, and he saw the holy beings and the cherubims were there. The seraphims were there.

Seraphims are always in the holy place. I think there were seraphims in the garden. I can't prove that. But cherubims are always there defending. What are they doing? They're with a flaming sword so they won't dare to transgress and try to get back into the presence of God in their sinful condition.

If they'd done that, they would have died on the spot in my judgment. So God keeps them away. Here are these flaming beings with swords. How do you think these folk felt? The cherubims had flaming swords which turned every way to keep them away from the tree of life.

If they'd eaten of the tree of life, apparently they would have perpetuated their iniquity. It would have gone on and on and on and on. Abel brought the firstlings of the flock. Again, it doesn't say built an altar.

I do not know if it's seen his people pray. It doesn't mention Adam and Eve even praying or worshiping. But I don't think they could have done any other as I see it. If day by day they heard the voice of God and God walked in the garden, do you think they did not worship?

I believe they did. And yet they brought no sacrifice. There's no evidence that they ever repented, is there? That's one of the mysteries we'll have to solve when we get into eternity. He had no respect unto the offering of Cain.

Cain’s Anger, Sin, and Violence

What was wrong with Cain? God said, you remember in Romans 5, 19, that by one man's sin many were made sinners. Didn't take long to prove that, did it? Adam and Eve of sin, immediately their offspring sins.

I go back to verse 5. But Cain, unto Cain and to his offering he had no respect. And Cain was wroth and his countenance fell. There you are, you've got anger. I suggest to you this man was boiling on the inside all the time.

The Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou hast not done well, sin. There's the first time it's mentioned in the word of God.

It isn't even mentioned in connection with Adam and Eve, though they sinned. At least it's not mentioned here in the exact scriptures, the first chapter. If thou doest well. If thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.

Unto thee shall be his desire and thou shalt rule over him. Cain talked with Abel his brother and he came to pass it as they were in the field. He rose up against him and he slew his brother. And number one problem was his anger in verse 5.

Number two problem is sin. In chapter 7, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother and it came to pass when they were in the field that he rose up against him and his brother and he slew him.

The Lord said, Where is thy brother's keeper? He said, I know not. So he goes from anger to killing his brother to being a liar. Isn't it easy once you start slipping? Don't we always try to cover one sin with another sin?

I don't know where he is. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the ground. You know, I found that a fantastic thing. We used to go through a city in England, the city of Lichfield.

It has twin towers at the cathedral, beautiful red brick, been there hundreds of years. We never passed through that town but what I remember that George Fox, the great founder of the Quakers, came to that city one day and he said, My feet began to burn.

I took off my shoes and put them under the bushes. And the Lord said, Walk through this city, raise your hands and cry at the top of your voice. Here is a strictly Protestant Episcopalian church with a famous bishop and he has to go through a crowded bazaar.

It was market day, shouting, Warn to Lichfield, our bloody city. Warn to Lichfield, our bloody city. He walked right through the market with everybody gazing at him. When he got out of the market, he said, I thank God for strength to do as he told me.

But then he said, the Lord said, Well, you've got strength to go back. Go back through the city. Oh, that's dangerous. He said, People came out of the apothecary shop, what we will call a drug store, and the food stores.

Everybody was crying, Behold, this madman. But he said, I went through the city and cried, Warn to Lichfield, our bloody city. Isn't it easy to sing here, nice and sweetly, in a nice warm room, Trust and obey, there's no other way.

But what about when you have to trust and obey by yourself? When you have to fight the in-laws and the out-laws and everybody else who says, You're nutty, God doesn't expect that of you. Yes. Just because he's not asking it of me, can I say he's not asking that of you?

That's right. He walked back to the edge of the city and he said, I found my shoes, I put them on, my feet did not burn, and I had great peace. Typical of a Quaker. A couple of years after, he was eating in the house of a very rich Quaker.

We always say the Quakers are rich in England anyhow. They own lots and lots of wonderful businesses and so forth. As they had supper, waited for supper, he went to the library and pulled down a book and it happened to open, it was a book of history, it happened to book about an incident in Litchfield, 200 years before, where 200 Christians had been murdered in that city, massacred.

And as soon as he read it, the Lord said, your feet were burning? You cried, won't, didn't know what? The blood of the martyrs was crying through you, crying, what's going to happen in the great day when the blood of all the massacred people around the world begin to scream for justice?

Nobody's going to escape. We give big medals and pensions to men like Eisenhower or British admirals and so forth, but one day they're going to be held accountable to God for every precious drop of blood that they've shed, because blood is life.

Thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground, and now thou curse from the earth, which hath opened a mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tell us the ground, it shall not yield strength unto thee.

Here it gets so interesting to me. Cain said unto him, my punishment is greater than I can bear. But I don't think, I don't notice that he made any offering for it. He's concerned about his feelings, he's concerned about his guilt, he's concerned about his guilty conscience, he's concerned about his brother's blood, but he doesn't repent.

How dumb can we be? How blind can we be? How deaf can we be? There are millions of people who go to church every Sunday and they recite scriptures or they sing hymns about the blood. It doesn't mean that much to them.

Any more than it does to people at Christmas singing in a tavern, how the herald of angels sing, Mild ye ladies, glory by, born that man no more may die, born to raise the sons of earth, born to give them second birth, and here they're going and drinking their way to hell.

They haven't that much interest in the Christ that they're singing about. I'm staggered by this. Since his brother's offering had been received, wouldn't you think he would have run for a lamb or something and didn't necessarily have to build an altar?

He would have shed the blood. Because without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. This is a prototype of what's going to happen later. It was the blood of a lamb. What was the cry of John Baptist?

The first cry, they kill him if he goes back today, even in churches. He cried repent. That's a dirty word in evangelism. The more dirty word after repent is what? Restitution. Who preaches restitution?

Repentance, Restitution, and a Living Christian Witness

I saw a precious red-haired man kneel in a street one night in England. His hair went everywhere you can imagine. When I was down in the corner, everybody in the family was cross-eyed. He joked about it.

He said, we were so cross-eyed in our family, we ate off each other's plates. Now he said that, I didn't say. But he knelt there, the worst man in town. His sister owned the Ring of Bells, a big tavern at the corner.

Prostitute house too. That man got miraculously saved, delivered from a thousand snares. He'd been a conman, he'd robbed people, he'd done every perverted thing you can imagine. He got saved that wonderful day.

He'd been walking with God about 15 years, and I said to him, Bill, I'm going back to America. I wish you'd come with me. I'd like your company. He was a tremendous man of prayer. Boy, you could hardly get your feet, what his heart used to burst like a volcano.

And tears would come down his eyes. They're lost, lost, God. They're drunk. If it was Sunday, he'd say, Lord, they got a headache as big as the whole nation. I've been through that, God. I know the craving, a spark of hell in my throat that all the liquor in the world could never, all the beer in the world could never quench.

I said, come and give your testimony in America. Boy, you've got a testimony. I took him to that great church in Toronto. Dear old Oswald Smith was the pastor there. Oswald said to me, he's got some testimony.

Let's call a special meeting Sunday afternoon. Normally we don't have one. Well, I mean, he's not a star figure like some that were converted in Billy Graham's meetings. He'd had some stars. I said, he's just a little Englishman, a rebel, a sinner.

But he does know God. He said, I've heard him pray. I heard him pray yesterday. That man touches God. He has one hand on the throne and the other on lost people when he prays. I said to him, Bill, come with me.

He said in his Yorkshire dialect, hey, lad, I can't afford to go to America with thee. I said, you could. I said, after all, you own that big business on Main Street. You take a truck round the towns and you sell, it goes with a bell and rings and they come out and buy their fruit.

And then you stand in the main market on, you've got bags of money. He said, you're like my wife. She thinks I have. He said, Len, for the first 15 years I was in business, I robbed every person that I served.

I put a scoop in and say, hey, look, there's so many pounds of apples here. And when I handed them to the lady, she said, I've got my elbow on and pushed two or three off. Did the same with potatoes. Sold a dozen flowers.

I took one out, made a separate pile here. I robbed everybody systematically. But he said, listen, lad, it's nearly 15 years since I was saved. Do you know it's taken me 15 years to pay everybody back?

Every time I weigh a pound of apples, I say, all right, Sissy or Mary, whatever it is, and I grab another big one and stick it on, an extra one. Potatoes I put two or three on. Flowers I put 13 instead of a dozen.

I have tried conscientiously to repay every person I've stolen from for 15 years. It took me 15 years to rob them. It's taken me 15 years. So he said, Len, I don't have much money. And he said, my wife goes in the till.

I knew she did. I've seen her go in the shop and grab a bunch of pound notes and stick them in her purse, and off she goes. She was very, very extravagant. But I'll tell you what that man's testimony in town.

You could talk about hypocrites and everybody would say, listen, I don't reckon much to so-and-so and so-and-so and that big preacher and that deacon, but I'll tell you there's one lad in this town that's a real Christian.

You tell him some woman had lost her husband in the coal mine. He'd save some money and take it to her. She's going to flit, as they say, or move out of one part of town to the other. Well, lass, I hear you're flitting.

Yeah. I want to tomorrow night, if I can get somebody to give me to move all my stuff for the right price. Don't worry, lass. He said, I'll get a couple of lads to help me and we'll use my lorry, as he called it, my truck.

And he'd go and move them from one side of town to the other. He was just as full of good works as he'd been of corruption. He became a living monument. As the good book says, we're living epistles. As somebody said, they don't read these epistles, but they read the living epistles.

If you want to know the standard of Christianity, ask some drunkard. Don't ask somebody in church. The drunkard knows what we should be. We should be righteous. We should be holy. Our speech should be clean.

Our lives should be clean. We should be as upright as it's possible to be humanly. Out of us there should flow, as I try to say, Sunday, rivers of living water, rivers of mercy, rivers of compassion. Not looking for every opportunity to beat somebody over the head and bring condemnation.

I said to him one day, I said, Bill, you know, you're a wonderful guy. I don't know anybody I love more than, but I wish you'd come to church early Sunday nights. Did you see that lass I brought in Sunday night?

I said, yeah. She's one of the best-known prostitutes in town. He said, I recently made a deal with God. He said, I said, God, if you keep me as you've kept me for the past few years, I promise you I'll never go to church by myself.

So I get up and give out my text and wait. Wait for it, Len. Wait, that door's going to open. And sure enough, it did. Ten minutes after he got preaching, he comes in with somebody bruised and beaten up from fighting the night before because taverns were not open on Sundays.

He brought derelicts. He brought person after person that had been abandoned by everybody, the moralists, the police. Nobody wanted to touch them, the psychologists, nobody. And he'd say, you know, lad, there's one text I love above all in the Bible.

It's Hebrews 7 .25. He's able to save to the uttermost. And he said, Len, doesn't that mean the guttermost too? I said, it does. It means the uppermost, the uppermost, and the guttermost. The redemptive work of God in Christ was made so real in his life that the man became a living epistle walking on two legs in the city that's called the city University of Gambling, one of the lowest cities in the whole of England.

But God's redemption was worked out in him. Look at my eye on the watch. I'm a transgressor. I'll have to repent. Ken said, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me this day from the face of the earth, and from thy face shall I behead.

Now listen, and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth, and it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me, come on. There's only four people in the world out there. Adam and Eve, Ken and Abel, one's been wiped out.

Everyone that, who's going to kill him, his father and mother? Is he going to commit suicide? I don't know how this was worked out, but I read some years ago that at the time he said this, there were already 11 ,000 people in the world.

I don't know how in the world they knew that. But there's something here that, you know, these other guys skip up, only four people in the world. Ken, Abel, his brother. So there's only Adam and Eve left, and Abel and Ken.

No, he says, lest anyone that findeth me, shall slay me. Oh well, that's his opinion, is it? Go down into the end of chapter, verse 15. Any finding is repeated, for emphasis. There's a population. They're going to ask, well, where's Abel?

You didn't hear? His brother killed him. Can you imagine the shock of Cain when he saw his brother's blood spilled? There'd never been any blood shed before. Nobody ever been mutilated. I don't know how he killed him, whether he beat him to death, bashed him to death or what, but he killed him effectively.

When you think it would shock him enough to drive him to repentance and go to his parents and say, pray for me, help me. He doesn't do this. Lest any finding him should slay him. Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bared Enoch, and he builded a city.

The Way of Cain and the Way of God’s City

See how soon he got lost in materialism? He didn't say, dad, mom, do you think there's some way we could really get back? Oh, I remember the nights when the glory of God came down in Eden, and you talked with God, and my brother and I used to sit there and listen.

Here I am, I'm lashed with conscience. I can't sleep at night. I see my brother's battered body there. Doesn't do anything about it. Doesn't repent, doesn't ask for prayer. He just goes his way. What does he do?

He says he built a city. Somebody said God made the country, man made cities. What does it say? Cain built a city. What does it say about Abraham? He looked for a city. What does it say about John? He saw the city.