(Church of Cain) the Way of Cain - Part 2 — Ralph Sexton

Cain’s Offering and Abel’s Faith

Genesis chapter number 4, and Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said, I've gotten a man from the Lord. And she again bare his brother Abel. Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

And in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering.

But unto Cain and to his offering, he had no respect. And Cain was very wroth, his confidence fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, why art thou wroth? And why is thy confidence fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?

If you obey my word, will I not accept you? If thou doest not well, then there's only one explanation for that. Sin has entered in, or sin lie at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

Verse 8, And Cain talked with Abel his brother. And it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel and his brother, and slew him. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother?

And he said, I know not, am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? And the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. In Genesis chapter 4, in Genesis chapter 5, in Genesis chapter 6, we have an overview of the antediluvian days, the days prior to the flood.

Studying Noah’s Days and Christ’s Return

And in this passage of scripture, we read and recover from these scriptures a great lesson. We, in our past meetings, had the study on the doubts of Cain, entitled, Now Do You Believe God? We looked at some passages of scripture from Matthew 24, 37, 38, and 39, dealing with the fact that out of the mouth of Jesus Himself, He said, If you want to know how close we are to the coming of the Lord, you need to study, be a student of the days of Noah.

In Matthew 24, in verse 4, we find even the disciples are asking questions. They're saying, Jesus, how can we know? How can we tell when we're close? What will be the signs? When will it happen? And Jesus said, If you want to know, later in that same discourse, as He's talking to them, He said, The best way for you to know is God only knows.

Angels don't even know. But I will let you know that it's near, and the way that you'll know My return is near is study the days of Noah. And that's what we're attempting to do with this study of the doubt of Cain, the church of Cain, and today we will deal with the way of Cain.

What happened in the church of Cain and in the church of Abel? The church of Cain has a profession. The church of Abel has a possession. The church of Cain has a form of godliness. And the church of Abel has biblical holiness.

The church of Cain has a concession. And the church of Abel has conviction. The church of Cain has works. And the church of Abel has grace. There's a big difference in how we respond to the Word of God.

Jesus said, Ladies and gentlemen, if we want to know how close His return is and how we can prepare our hearts and lives, He said, you take your Bible and you read about 30 minutes of slow, deliberate reading, and read Genesis chapter 4, Genesis chapter 5, Genesis chapter 6, and you will know how close we are to the coming of the Lord.

He said for us to study the days of Noah. Then we should respond to what we read with a heart of faith. Hebrews chapter 11 and Hebrews 14 and verse number 4, it says, By faith Abel offered unto God. And that's what I have to do today.

That's what you've got to do today. I have to read God's Word. I have to receive this precious Word by faith. And then by faith I am obedient to the Word of God. I follow through with the Word of God by a daily commitment to walk with Him and to serve Him.

Genesis as a Road Map to Eternity

Noah's days as described in your Bible, the inerrant, infallible Word of God, that you can read in Genesis 4, 5, and 6, they are literally markers for us. If we would illustrate the road to heaven and eternity as an interstate, when I read Genesis 4, 5, and 6 and I go down through all of those events in there, they are like mile markers along the road.

When I see the commerce and I see the morality and I see the apostasy and I see all of the things happening, they are road markers for me. And if I'm paying attention and I'm using my road map, I'll know that I'm not very far away from that intersection of the trumpet sounding and the dead in Christ rising and we which are alive and remain being caught up together with Him, that I'm approaching that tremendous point in time.

In Genesis chapter 4, I have the description of the cultural world and the commercial world of Noah's day. In Genesis chapter 5, I have the generational study or the dispensational study out of the Word of God for Noah's day.

When I come to chapter 6 of Genesis, I have the study of the morals of the day. And one of the most awesome things that you can review in Genesis 6 is the power of corruption to pollute. That it permeated the whole culture of Noah's day.

Corruption was everywhere. And when that corruption was rampant and the hearts of men were polluted, they became a violent people. Sort of sounds like the news in America. That we are without natural affections.

That we have men abusing children. We have pornography growing at an unbelievable rate. And part of the focusing of that pornography business is that we are actually prostituting our own babies for our own pleasures as a sin-saturated society.

I am convinced intellectually and spiritually that I am living in Noah's day. I really believe that. It's not normal for a man to be attracted to a child. It's not normal for a school teacher to go seduce her little boys in her classroom.

There is something bad wrong with us. When the church of the living God cannot cry aloud and spare not, and the ministers of our day are intimidated with political correctness and popularity and paychecks, that they will not stand and just declare the inerrant, infallible Word of God.

I really believe that when I look at Genesis 6, I see that account of those angels which kept not their first estate in Jude 6. And I also see that human DNA altered with that race of giants. And I reflect upon today as the nation of Italy just a few days ago declared that they had cloned a horse, a race horse, and had duplicated it just like the sheep Dolly was reproduced.

And that they are now working another country announced in the human DNA. They are altering the organs of animals so that they can be placed in human bodies. I believe with all my heart that God has allowed me to be alive in Noah's days.

And that I am experiencing the effect of the church of Cain. That I have seen what religion without God does to men and women around the world. These chapters of Noah's days give us a powerful record.

A record of religion without God's Spirit. It is literally the church of Cain. We see human depravity. We see that mankind will lie to himself while he is lying to a holy God. We will make excuses for our own sin while we even read the Bible and go to church.

Because our nature has fallen and we are wicked on our own selves without the life-changing power of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. I see the accounts of building and commerce and economic development.

I see actual accounts in Genesis 6 of city construction. Many times people have been to me down over the past years about would I sign on or could they use my name for certain products or referrals to certain churches or groups of people.

Because some people have an isolationist mindset. Or they think we ought to get up on Mount Mitchell with a big bore rifle and some freeze-dried fruit and wait for the Lord to come. Because things are going to get bad.

But if I study Noah's days and if I study Lot's days, I don't see that happening. I see that there was not poverty in those days. I don't see that there was a great financial collapse. I see there was prosperity in those days.

They were building and growing and in Genesis 6 they even were growing cities. They were building. And what's the curse of America? It's not our poverty. It's our materialism that we sold our soul for.

Materialism and the Christian Home

Our babies are wearing tennis shoes that cost more than my first car. We've got tennis shoes that pump up, pump down, left turn signal, right turn signal, CD player. That's just for shoes. A lot's happening.

And we're all caught up in this materialistic world. I really believe that when I read these passages of Genesis 4, 5, and 6, I see the story of the human race that's traveling. It's nomadic. It's moving.

And we've allowed that to come into our society, our culture, and our church. We don't have family time anymore. We don't sit down and have a family meal anymore. The strength of the Christian home was that family time.

Mama and Daddy and the children were at the table once a day at least. Most of the time, twice a day, they had breakfast together. And they had the supper meal, or if you're from the north, the dinner meal.

But either way, you know that they got together and they had that fellowship time, Mama, Daddy, and the children. But now everyone's on a different schedule. Mama's working one schedule. Daddy's working another.

The kids are on another. They've got to be at soccer practice. They've got to be at piano lessons. And they've got to be at the school. And everybody's living out of a fast food window or a microwave meal.

Or we're doing takeout or carry home. And everybody's not together because we're all caught up in that same spirit. We also know that music had a great part of Genesis 4, 5, and 6. It influenced the culture.

And we'll come back to that in a later study. And agriculture. And then a desire to be godlike. Not in the good sense, but in the little g. The same godlike that the serpent came to Eve in the garden.

He said, if you'll eat of this tree of knowledge and good and evil, you'll be just like God. It's the same teaching of the New Age movement. I exist. I am. Therefore, I am my own God. The same philosophy of man redeeming himself.

It's religion without the deity of the divine Godhead. We're also seeing a disrespect in our day of authority. And we're also seeing a religious authority has been removed. Matthew 24, 37. The Word of God says Jesus instructed us to study Noah's days.

The Certainty of Christ’s Second Coming

That all the words of Jesus are true. Even the words that Jesus declared about the days of Noah. Now, the most certain thing in your future. You listen to me. In the choir, the balcony, the main floor, in an overflow chair, wherever you are.

The most certain thing that you have in your future is this. The coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus is coming. He said that and He's coming. I love to study prophecy. I love to study world events.

Because I enjoy that. But I don't have to study anything other than what Jesus said. And He said in John 14 and verse number 3. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again. And you know what that means?

It means He will come again. So the most certain thing in my future and your future is that the Lord is coming again. Well, pastor, when is He coming? He said, read Genesis 4, 5 and 6. And when you see things happening in those chapters, happening in your lifetime, you will know that the Lord is near.

The Church of Cain and Religious Apostasy

Now, we see the doubts of Cain as religious apostasy. We see the church of Cain as man's efforts to replace the Holy Spirit. Now, do you believe God's message is a forerunner or a foreshadow of religious unbelief and religious apostasy?

The message on the church of Cain is a study on man's effort to replace the Holy Spirit. Listen to me. Even in fundamental evangelical churches, we are seeing the danger of mutation and the power of that church of Cain to affect the family of faith.

You say, what do you mean? Well, let me give you three or four things that I believe the Lord has spoken to my heart about. There are several others. But number one, one way that we're replacing the Holy Spirit is that we are going to see churches have a form of godliness, but they will deny the power of God.

They've got a building. They've got staples and stained glass and pews and people. But the power of God is a stranger inside their form. And sometimes it's a fundamental form of godliness. We're singing the right songs.

We're holding a 1611 Bible, but it's dead as last year's bird's nest. It's a form of godliness. Then the second element that I see happening in churches is the form of replacing the Holy Spirit with legalism.

That men and women devise a set of rules. And you have to look like I look, talk like I talk, go to the Bible college I went to, take the same religious papers I take. And if you don't do that, you must not be spiritual.

So we have now mutated the spirit of God into the spirit of legalism. The third element that I see and experience is that we then go down the road of intellectualism. We substitute that for the power of the Holy Spirit.

Intellectualism. And then the fourth and probably the most prevalent one that I see affecting even evangelical churches is emotionalism. Moving into the place of moving in the hearts and lives of people instead of the Holy Spirit.

Forms of Godliness, Legalism, Intellectualism, and Emotionalism

Now let me review this for you. A form of godliness that would be replaced with routines. Legalism that would be replaced with rules. Intellectualism would be a replacement theology of using, increasing my self-esteem and my self-worth over the holy, lovely things of God.

That I have an edge on everyone else. Emotionalism would be the road of ruin. No anchor. No taproot. Only stirred but not changed. Going to church, attending the social activities. But even in the house of God, planning, but seeing that I will participate in later the same day or later in the week.

I'm stirred by a religious moment but I am not changed by the power of God. I'm seeing a form of godliness and that form of godliness is illustrated by a religious ritual for salvation. I see legalism and I see rules that are controlling the exterior of people but nothing working on the heart of that depraved man or woman.

They're bearing no fruit of being Christlike. I see intellectualism that comes in as a replacement for the working of the Holy Spirit and a tenderness to Him. An increase of self-importance. And a disregard of John chapter 3 and verse 3.

And I see the evidence of emotionalism that produces ruin. So I find people stirred by not change. I have a form of godliness equaling routines. Legalism equaling rules. And intellectualism equaling a replacement theology.

And emotionalism moving in to a pathway of ruin and self-destruction. When the majority of our religious institutions are polluted by the Church of Cain. When the predominant religious forces of our day on the nation is now testified to be the Church of Cain.

The Loss of Biblical Authority

When our children and our teenagers and our young adults and newlyweds have been shaped by a society with no absolutes. And the weak pulpits of the Church of Cain. There is no right and no wrong. That's how you can have a Baptist minister in our community saying that you can get to heaven through Buddha just as easy as you can Jesus Christ.

It's because he's now practicing in the Church of Cain. That's why you can have ministers in our community saying the first 3 chapters of Genesis or the first 11 chapters of Genesis are nothing but Jewish folklore.

They've gone over to the Church of Cain. We're seeing, ladies and gentlemen, that there's no authority in the inerrant, infallible Word of God. And we have seen that seeping and permeating in even to the evangelical churches of our day and the evangelistic efforts of our day.

And we are now substituting concession for old time conviction. We're making sinners comfortable in the house of God. When the Church trades its authority of God's Word for political correctness, you've got the Church of Cain.

When the Church morphs from God's holiness to being comfortable in my sin, you've got Cain's way being lived in the pew. When our churches place more emphasis on our theatrical productions and popularity than we do the presence of God and his divine power, we're going to produce a generation of kids that will walk in the way of Cain.

When we give birth to a society and a culture that is absent of any reverence of the things of God or God's Word, then we're walking in the way of Cain. Wanderings of our children and our grandchildren that have gone out away from their heritage and their faith.

They're walking in the way of Cain. What does Jude 11 say? Jude 11 says, Woe unto them. Woe unto them. God says, and read Jude 11, there's an exclamation point in there. God's saying, Woe, don't do this, this is dangerous.

Woe unto them. Woe unto them. For they have gone the way of Cain. There's a great warning there. What is that warning? Religious, natural man. The way of Cain believes in a God and in a religion, but that God and religion is after man's own will.

Man’s Religion Versus God’s Saving Grace

Man's intellect replaces God's grace. And here's what scares me. Then we have man replacing God's initiative of our soul's salvation. The apostate teacher explains away the call of God. The apostate teacher explains away the conviction of God.

And the apostate teacher explains away the conversion by God. He's either God Almighty or He's not God at all. He's God that arrested my soul and changed me by His might and power. I didn't find Jesus.

Jesus found me. I didn't discover God. God knew me before He made work. He's a God of great power and great authority. The call of God to salvation. And later, after conversion, even the call of a holy God to divine service.

Conviction in most of our churches has been replaced with comfort for the sinner. Conversion has been replaced in most of our churches with contemporary services that are filled with religious activities.

Polling Culture and the Rejection of Absolute Truth

Cain's Way is a way that produces a society that uses the polling of the populace to determine the values preached from the pulpit. We will poll the population to see what our values will be from the pulpits of America.

And when we do that, then we produce children and grandchildren that will reject the Word of God as absolute truth without error. We're in a dangerous time. But we don't pay much attention because we've neglected Genesis 4, 5, and 6 in our study.

Barnum does a lot of research about churches. He did one a couple of years ago. And the Barnum Report came out. And this is what it said, Lorne. It said that one-third of all Americans do not believe in the God that's described in the Bible.

One-third of all Americans do not believe the God that's described in the Holy Bible. Most adults, the majority of adults, do not believe, almost two-thirds do not believe Satan is a real being as described in the Word of God.

Most people believe it does not matter which little god, G-O-D, you pray to. Every deity is ultimately the same deity, shrouded in names and attributes given by men and women around the world. So you pray to your God, and you pray to your God, and you pray to your God.

And it doesn't matter which gods you pray to because ultimately they're all the same God. You know what that is? That's just not so.