222
THE K I N G ’ S BUS I NES S
June, 1942
he rejected the blood, and he was the first :Unitarian because he would claim salvation by character, Abel re vealed that he was coming to God by faith (Heb. 11:4), a faith that presup posed a revelation of God to which it , was the response. God showed His ac ceptance of Abel and His rejection of Cain, and they both were aware of it. III. C ain V F ull R ejection (6-15) Cain was given full opportunity to be accepted (vs. 5-7). Evidently he de sired God’s favor, but he wished to have it upon his own terms. When those terms were rejected, his anger rose against God and the man whom God had accepted. The text might be read either as meaning that the sin offering was at the door waiting to be offered, Qr that Sin itself was at the door ready to spring upon him to his ruin. Cain would be safe if he would take God’s way, instead of going Mn a way of his own choosing. ■ Cain rejected the opportunity for acceptance and vented his anger upon God’s man (v. 8 ). “Wherefore slew he him?” i asks the Holy Spirit in the record in 1 John 3:12, and He answers, “Because his own works were evil.” The evil works do not refer to the murder, but to the evil offering which Cain presented. Cain became insolent, mocking God .with the taunt that, having accepted Abel, He could not protect him (vs. 9, 10). And he denied his membership in the human race by asking: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” ;; Finally, Cain heard his punishment (vs. 11-15). The punishment came to him because he rejected the faith; despised the blood, and insulted the Spirit of grace (cf. Heb. 10:28, 29). Only after his rejection of grace and mercy was the final verdict heard: "Now art thou cursed ... .” The igno rance of the sinner is revealedJin Cain when he said, “Mine iniquity is greater than can be forgiven” (v. 13, R. V. margin). God.is not willing that any should perish. He would protect even such a man as Cain; hence there was a sign given by which he would be set apart. It was not a sign set upon Cain but was given for him (cf. R. V.), not to punish him, but to protect him. What that sign was, or is, cannot be told for a certainty, but we can be sure that God sees it, and it behooves all of us to respect even the sinner who is rejecting God’s mercy. We hate the sin, but, if we are of God, we must respect the sinner. Points and Problems 1. "1 have gotten a man from the Lord" (Gen. 4:1). After all to the con trary that has been said on this im portant text, I still feel that we have
here a very clear indication that Eve understood the great promise made to her in Genesis 3:15 regarding the coming of a Saviour who would be her “seed.” ; Driven from the Garden of Eden because of sin) she re membered ' the promise of God, and what could be more natural than that this birth of her first child should be regarded by her as somehow the ful fillment of that promise? The mère literal translation of Dr. Smith in Ellicott’s commentary supports this view: “I have gotten a man, even Jehovah.” The critics argue that such a knowledge of Messiah, the God- man, would be inadmissable at such an early date. But here it is. God may have told our first parents : a great deal more than is recorded in Genesis. See also the saying of Eve at the birth of Seth: “For God, said she, hath ap pointed me anothèr seed instead of Abel, Whom Cain slew” (4:25). Evi dently: the character of Cain soon in dicated to Eve that he could not be the promised “seed,” and her hopes began to be centered in Abel. Then he was killed by Cain. Thus ,thé new son, Seth, is to her the “seed” God has given. Nor was she altogether mistaken, for Seth began the line which culminated in the true “Seed,” our Lord. 2. "Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground" (4:2). There has been much discussion re garding the original and basic occu pation of men. Evolutionists probably would begin with What they call “food-gathering peoples,” then hunt ers, then cattle-keepers, and then agriculturists. But according to Gene sis, both cattle-keeping and ' agricul ture existéd from the time of man’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden. And horticulture also dates from' the beginning (Gen. 2:9,15). The fact that Cain begins by tilling the ground and ends by building a city (4:17) should not be regarded as merë coincidence. City-building and the activities which attend it arise only where agriculture has become a basic activity. The no mads do not build Cities. It is also a matter of deep interest that in those activities where man's power to change the conditions of environment in his own favor becomes greater, the more he i s .inclined to depend upon
himself and ignoré God. Thus the keeper of sheep could do little beyond guiding them to pastures - already growing and guarding them from wild beasts; Agriculture opened thé way for greater independence; irrigated agriculture still more; and the final extreme is reached in the complex in dustrialism of city lifè. Aber the righteous was a keeper of '■sheep— what wé might expect: 3. "And Cain was very wroth" (v. 5). The Hebrew might be translated liter ally, “it burned .to Cain exceedingly,” Or as we might say today, “It burned' him up!” Modern speech is, after all, not so modern. Human: passions are the same in alk ages, and the Bible describes them accurately and with color, though oiir English translations sometimes softqn what God really Said. Golden Text Illustration H ebrews 11:4 , As in thé lives of Abél and Cain, so also in the story of Raymond Lull, two opposing views of the way of sal vation are represented. Saved out of a profligate-life as a young man, Lull, a member of the Spanish nobility, de votedly strove to. make Christ known to the;Mohammedans of North Africa in the-thirteenth century. But Moham medanism has no place, for the Tull atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, and its adherents bitterly oppose those who are saved by faith in Him. Twice driven from Moslem terri tory, Lull returned and at the age of eighty was stoned to death while preaching to the Mohammedans at Bugia. In spite of this seeming defeat, still the words of Raymond Lull speak today: “He who loves not, lives not; he who lives by the Life cannot die.” • —Selected, MEMORY VERSE: „“ Ou t o f t h e ground made the Lord God to grow every tree, that is pleasant to the sight, and good (or food” (Gen. 2:9). APPROACH: ’ A mother had to be gone from home. She said to her two, children, “ I shall expect to find the back, Jane, Abel’s Love Gift G enesis 4:1-16
house clean when you may take care of the kitchen and bath, and L u c y , you may straight en up the f r o n t rooms.” ' Jane did as her mother told h e r , b u t L u c y thought she had a b e t t e r idea. She decided BLACKBOARD LESSON her mother a gift,'so she cut out an apron and started to work. When Division « «
Made with FlippingBook Annual report