So Cain is the prototype of the doomed. Religious? Sure. Man is incurably religious. And the world abounds in false religions, and they are all the religions of human achievement, right? You do something moral, you do something ceremonial, you achieve something and you offer that to God as the payment for your salvation, your ticket to heaven. That’s the religions of the world.
On the other hand, there is Abel, and he is a true worshipper. He comes realizing he’s a sinner; realizing he’s worthy of death; seeing in the sacrifice the image of a necessary, innocent substitute to die in his place, to cover his sin; as God had showed him through the story, no doubt told to him by his parents, about how God killed an animal to cover them and their shame.
So what you see with doomed people is a hopeful beginning, but very soon a pattern of unacceptable worship, and worship that is characterized by self-righteousness. They get involved in all kinds of religion, but not the truth. You know, in the climate today, there’s this idea that we all ought to accept everybody’s religion. God doesn’t do that. He only accepts the truth: The true worship that looks at the substitutionary atonement of the sacrificial lamb, namely Jesus Christ, who alone can take away our sins. All the rest is damning, false religion. Now, let me give you a third point and I’ll stop and we’ll take the rest next time. Unbelievers have hopeful beginnings. They offer unacceptable worship.
3. And thirdly, they resent the true worshippers.
This is pretty typical. The world hates true believers. They hate us because of our narrowness. They resent the fact that we say this is the truth, and everything else isn’t. They resent our righteousness. They resent our goodness. They resent our virtue. They resent the blessing of God. They love their sin. They are religious, but they love their sin. And the righteous are a living rebuke to them. That’s why you see in the world in which we live today, they want to keep us out of the public discourse, don’t they? They want to keep the Bible out of the schools, the Bible out of politics, the Bible out of social life, the Bible out of the culture, the Bible out of everything. It’s like Darwin said: I don’t reject the idea of God; I just reject the God of the Bible. I don’t want anybody telling me this is the truth. I don’t want anybody telling me I’m a sinner, this is sin and I’m on my way to hell, and I need to recognize that God provided a substitute to die in my place, Jesus Christ will take away my sin. That’s what they reject. They resent the true believers. And that was Cain. They are but the children of Cain. Verse 5: “So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.”
Unbelievers get angry about believers. They get angry over the true believers. They get angry over those who say this is the truth, and this alone is the truth, and this is the only way of salvation. Cain is self-righteous and he is stubbornly self-righteous. He lacks any contrition; he lacks any remorse; he’s not sorry that he brought what he brought. He’s not sorry that he didn’t do what his brother did. He’s not sorry about his disobedience. But rather, he becomes angry, and he becomes angry with his brother. And he becomes really ultimately angry with God. And he is saying: I really can’t deal with a God like you; I can’t deal with such a narrow god. If he was a true lover of God, if he was a true believer, if he had genuinely come to know salvation, when his sacrifice was rejected, he would have been broken. He would have been heartbroken. He would have been literally devastated and shattered, and catapulted into deep sorrow over God’s displeasure. But he isn’t. He’s just mad. He’s just mad. He’s angry about the narrowness of Abel; he’s angry at God because God has not accepted him as an equal. What kind of God are you that favors Abel over me? Very angry with God.
In fact, the Hebrew implies the idea of inward heat rising up into his face. He’s getting furious. He’s the prototype of the unbeliever. The unbeliever is angry at believers, true believers. He’s angry about the fact that we say this is the truth and everything else isn’t; that this alone saves and nothing else does. And he’s ultimately angry with the God of Christianity, angry with the God of the Bible. And it tells us he was so angry that his “countenance” or his face “fell.” This is a man whose anger has reached the point of despair. Again, characteristic of those who reject God, love their sin, they’re angry with God, they’re angry with the Bible, they’re angry with the God of the Bible, they’re angry with the people of the God of the Bible. They’re angry with the proclamation of the scripture. In our world, the society of Cain still exists. And they work feverishly and angrily to obliterate the God of the Bible, and the people who proclaim the Bible, from social influence. They don’t like us intimidating them. Once a person becomes fixed in unbelief like Cain, they resent the message of the truth. So here is Cain. God has given us this clear portrait.
And as we step back, we see exactly what an unbeliever, a doomed man, looks like; hopeful beginning, but comes to the place where he offers unacceptable worship, and resents those who truly worship God as God desires to be worshipped. The next thing that Cain demonstrates about unbelievers is that they reject the word of God. But we’ll wait till next time to look at that; it’s in Verses 6 through 8.
Our Father, we look again to the scripture, and we find that it opens up to us so many profound insights. The simple story of Cain is rich with instruction, and it translates right into our day. For as there were those who walked in the way of Cain, long after in the days of the New Testament, there are still many today who walk in the way of Cain; unbelievers offering unacceptable worship and resenting those who truly worship You as You have commanded in holy scripture. Father, we thank You for this picture, because it needs to be clear in our minds; that we might, even as you did with Cain, go to such people, confront their sin, and call them to turn, rather than perish. We thank You that we are in a spiritual sense in the way of Abel; not by anything that we have achieved, but by the recognition that we can’t achieve anything. Like Abel, we recognize that we need a substitute to die in our place, and to pay the penalty for our damning sin. We thank You for Your grace to us, and may You extend that grace to many more through us as we come across those people in the way of Cain, and direct them to the way of righteous Abel. Use us, Father, in that regard, in ways that perhaps we can’t even now know, as you bring people across our path, and prepare their hearts by your Spirit. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
