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THE KING’S BUSINESS
to account. “Where is thy brother?” So the Lord makes a man ihis own accuser. He does not charge Cain with the crime, but puts the question to his mem ory and conscience which reply truly while his lips reply falsely. “Where art thou?” “Who told thee?” “Hast thou eaten?” (Gen. 3:9-11; 2 Sam. 12:1-13). “A guilty conscience needs no accuser.” (5) Cain’s answer. “Am I my brother’s keep er?” This was at once a confession of his crime and of his responsibility— had he been innocent he would have made a direct answer and no evasion; (6) his question reveals the conscious ness of its affirmative. Not so mani festly has He given His angels charge to keep our feet and bear us up in their hands as He has us our brothers. We are obligated to protect their goods not to spoil them; to rejoice in their pros perity not to envy it; to guard their lives not to destroy them. Who of us can bear the inquisition, “Where is thy brother?” 4. Cain’s punishment. (1) Abel’s blood fertilized a bitter crop for Cain,” “cursed.. .from the ground.” No matter how broad the acres, and how large the profits of the sinner all is cursed to him. (2) “A fugitive and a wanderer.” Such is fallen humanity, a fugitive from jus tice, without a guide, a compass, or a safe, or final harbor. (3) Cain despair ed; “My punishment is greater than I can bear;” (or “My sin than can be for given”). Even he needed not to des pair. There is One who bears our pun ishment for us (Isa. 53:4-6); and there is forgiveness for the chief of sinners (I Tim. 1:5). Even a thief can get back to Paradise (Luke 23:43. Flood. Gen. 6:9-22; 7:11-24. age, the Antidiluvian; whose covenant is the Protevangel (Gen. 3:15), its ju dicial catastrophy the Flood, and its rul ing principle Anarchy. Man was left without legal restraint, moral or civil. The case of Cain and Lamech are typi cal of their dispensation (Gen. 4:15, 23, 24), they sinned with impunity so far as legal retribution goes; and thé age closed With violence and confusion, demonstrating “the exceeding sinfulness of sin,” and the godless, demoniacal dis position of “the flesh.” Since that age God has “restrained the remainder of wrath” (Ps. 76:10) by moral and civil codes the germs of which are found in Gen, 9:5, 6, and the flower in Exod, 20;1-
patronize God with the fruits of its apos tate workings, that He inay he induced to wink at its iniquities; and it is filled with impotent rage to be cast down out of His heaven (Rev. 12:10-12). 2. The Lord’s reproof. (1) The long suffering of God. We see how he bears with unreason, petulence, ingratitude, and the vilest of sinners. “Come now, and let us reason together” (Isa. 1:18). “Why are thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen?” If Cain had been willing to face these questions honestly, - he mast have been convicted of his un reasonable conduct, “if thou doest (of- ferest) well, shalt thou not be accepted?” What is more reasonable than that God should refuse to receive sinners with their sin; or than that He is so ready to relieve sinners of their sin, if they come in the way and with the offering He has provided? “Bring,” He says, "Abel’s offering with Abel's faith, and you shall find Abel’s reception, and a lifting up of your dejected countenance?” 3. Cain’s crime. (1) Cain could not vent his rage on God, but turned against God’s servant, his brother, and became the first persecutor, the first murderer, of the first martyr (Matt. 23:35), (2) Sin hides itself “among the trees of the garden” (3:8), or alone with its victim In the field. In such a place “Cain rose up against his brother and slew him.” (3) But, “the eyes of the Lord are in every place,” and even dead men tell bales, for the Lord said, “The voice of thy brother’s blood crleth unto Me from the ground,” so the Lord’s ears as well as his eyes are in every place. “Mur der Will out” if not now then in the judgment (Matt. 23:35). (4) Cain called Lesson V. February 2—The GOLDEN T E X T—"T h e w ages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ o u r L ord.” Rom . 5:23. I. THE ANTIDILUVIAN AGE. t. The Ages.. Revelation divides time into seven dispensations, each is dis tinguished by a ruling principle, opened with a covenant, and closed by a catas trophy. Of the first, or Edenic, the law was Probation; the covenant of obedience unto life; the judicial catastrophy was exclusion from Eden and the Tree of Life; and death; and all entailed on pos terity. Under probation man failed, he was “lost” and is lost. Probation past forever, but salvation was provided. (2) Our last lesson introduced the second
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