Was
reflecting on a couple of passages in the Old Testament and I thought of Eve
and son Cain. Like mother, like son in that they both added something not given
by God, but their own choice in will and speaking. And what is the choice when these are
facing a person: remembering a sinner to choose godliness or sinful indulgence? Yet, we have been given salvation by faith through Jesus. This grace whereby we
have been saved, it is the gift of God to us found in Ephesians 2:8. In this
undeserved kindness, we see in action, a love so wonderful and to be realized
with great things coming in our future with God and His Son!
But like I
mentioned in the beginning I was thinking of Eve and Cain. It those who keep talking when they should be listening!
Genesis 3:
1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD
God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not
eat of every tree of the garden?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may
eat the fruit of the trees of the garden: 3 but of the fruit of the tree which
is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall
you touch it, lest you die.’”
Now God did not say “touch it” but
He did say not eat that fruit! So Eve had a thought process already in movement.
If you are intent on that fruit, you most certainly will have to touch it to
eat it!
Genesis 3:4
Then the serpent said to the woman, “You shall not surely die.” 5 For God knows
that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like
God, knowing good and evil.
These two were made in God’s image!
Still we have a woman set on self-rule and not on God dependency. Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom
and instruction.
Genesis
3:6….so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was
pleasant to the eyes, & a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its
fruit & ate. She also gave to her husband with her, & he ate. 7 Then
the eyes of both of them were opened, & they knew that they were naked;
& they sewed fig leaves together & made themselves coverings.
Adam knew
she had eaten and was in the process of learning death and decay. So he ate
with her so as to not allow her to go alone into that pitiful place! Man is to
resemble God his maker: Genesis 5:1 This is the book of the genealogy of Adam.
In the day that God created man, He made him in the likeness of God. 2 He
created them male & female, & blessed them & called them Mankind in
the day they were created. ( Did not make them Adam and Steve, but Adam and Eve!)
And then in
Revelation 1:8 Jesus tells us that He has the keys to death and hell…the very
thing the devil caused in the first man & woman. Jeremiah 17:9 says, his
heart is desperately wicked. Jesus reinforces this in Matthew 15:19-20:
"For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries,
fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which
defile a man. . . ."
If one were
to present a truly converted person with the same options, he would choose the
life of virtue, peace and love. He would know he is righteous in God, born
again into the kingdom of God where there is much light and life!
Eve plunged
into a deep spiral toward death and decay.
Then we
find Cain in Genesis 4. In Genesis 4:1 Now Adam knew Eve his wife and she
conceived and bore Cain and said, “I have acquired a man from the LORD.” 2 Then
she bore again, this time his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but
Cain was a tiller of the ground. 3 And in the process of time it came to pass
that Cain brought an offering of the fruit of the ground to the LORD. 4 Abel
also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat.
And the
LORD respected Abel and his offering, 5 but He did not respect Cain and his
offering. And Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. 6 So the LORD said
to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?” 7 “If you do
well, will you not be accepted?” And if you do not do well, sin lies at the
door. And its desire is for you, but you
should rule over it.
( Just adding a note here: Cain is trying to do what his parents were to do in the beginning. But they failed to do what God instructed. And the garden of Eden was closed to them. Now Cain pushes the envelope, but man sinned and required a sacrifice.)
8 Now Cain talked with Abel his brother and it
came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his
brother and killed him. 9 Then the LORD said to Cain, : Where is Abel your
brother? He said, “I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” 10 And He said, “What
have you done? The voice of your brother’s
blood cries out to Me from the ground. 11 So now you are cursed from the earth,
which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. 12
When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. A
fugitive and a vagabond you shall be on the earth.” 13 And Cain said to the
LORD, “My punishment is greater than I can bear!” 14 Surely You have driven me
out this day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall
be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth and it will happen that anyone who
finds me will kill me. 15 And the LORD said to him, “Therefore, whoever kills
Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold. And the LORD set a mark on
Cain, lest anyone finding him should kill him.
Cain slew
his brother Able in the field. He did not like what God spoke to him!
Cain’s
heart was one of attitude and revenge. He was not a “happy camper” with God. From verse 9 of Genesis 4, Cain tells God
this: “ Am I my brother’s keeper? Evil shows itself most often in verbal
violence. In fact, the Apostle Paul quotes Psalm 10:7 to show that everyone,
Jews and Gentiles alike, are under the power of sin (Romans 3:14). And James
says " And the tongue is
a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members,
staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on
fire by hell. "(James 3:6)
And from a
violent heart comes violent actions.
So he
speaks out, probably yelling verse 14 : “ Surely You have driven me out this
day from the face of the ground; I shall be hidden from Your face; I shall be a
fugitive and a vagabond on the earth and it will happen that anyone who finds
me will kill me.”
Cain put a
bounty on his head! All he had to do was repent. He added to what God had
spoken and was determined to get revenge. But God protected Cain with this
symbol, the ‘mark on Cain’. Anyone who tried to kill Cain would know they would
be responsible to payback seven fold the wrath.
Why did God
spare the life of the world's first murderer instead of taking it? One reason
is that he had not yet given man a command not to murder another human. Such a
command will be given, however, right after Noah leaves the ark after the
floodwaters subside (Genesis 9:6). An additional (and likely more important)
reason he was allowed to live is so that other humans would be warned of God's
view and judgment on sin. God would not allow it!
Seen in
Genesis 4:15, God gives warning: “whoever kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken
on him seven-fold.” Wow, what a warning!
Anyone attempting to further punish Cain by death would contradict his purpose
of allowing him to be a living witness of his judgment. It was God Himself who reserved punishment for
the crime of murder on Abel. No one would override God’s wisdom and authority
on this rebellion done.
The “mark
of Cain” had nothing to do with changing his skin color or anything like that. Man is made in God’s image. We are all one
blood in the lineage from Adam and Eve. The mark of Cain revealed he did not
worship God but worshiped himself instead.
Psalm 10:
3-11 NKJV For the wicked boasts of the desires of his heart’s desire,
He blesses
the greedy and renounces the LORD. 4 The wicked in his proud countenance does
not seek God; God is in none of his thoughts. 5 His ways are always prospering;
Your judgments are far above, out of his sight; As for all his enemies, he
sneers at them. 6 He has said in his heart, “ I shall not be moved; I shall
never be in adversity.” 7 His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and
oppression; under his tongue is trouble and iniquity. 8 He sits in the lurking
places of the villages; in the secret places he murders the innocent; His eyes
are secretly fixed on the helpless. 9 He lies in wait secretly, as a lion in
his den; He lies in wait to catches the poor; He catches the poor when he draws
him into his net. 10 So he crouches, he lies low, that the helpless may fall by
his strength. 11 He has said in his heart, God has forgotten; He hides His
face; He will never see.”
We are told
in verse 3 of Psalm 10 that the wicked pursue the poor. They turn on them
because they first turned against God. And this is what Cain did. These wicked
boast and are proud in their desires. They desired and pursued even though it
is the wrong thing in God’s eyes.
Like Cain, he had a greed and it got him into
some trouble. The heart determines one's
preferences and inclinations, and thus it determines one's choices, subjecting
the will to it. Murder came in the package from Satan and his demons. They
communicated that to man through the course of this world. YOU can see that in
the Flood in Genesis 6. The world has shaped our pre-conversion heart, and thus
it affects our relationship with God.
Yes, Cain
was marked for he was a man of cursing and deceit. He had desires to hurt others
like he did his brother Abel. God marked the man of murder. But God would not
allow him to die in that way. He would live as a vagabond.
Between the
moral and the immoral alternatives, outside of God is death and destruction. Within
His boundaries is life and much light guiding us the way home! Eve could have
had any tree in the garden, but the one God said “NO” to! Before her was the bounty of many
trees with much fruit to be had for two people. But that lust of the eyes is
deadly indeed! And Cain did not give the sacrifice that God delighted in, nor had the respect for, so what Cain had done had
not met the requirement needed to worship God.
Lawlessness
takes us out of the plan of God.
Lawlessness brings a haphazard kind of life, if you can call it that.
OUR Confidence should be in God and the promises He has given us. His promises
were given to be planted within our hearts and rely on the truth so that we
shall see them come to pass in our lives. God has abundance. He has no lack in
anything: He is GOD!
We must
submit to God and resist the devil. In that we set the standard of God in our
lives. Without His standard and the haphazard lawless way of living, other
catastrophes might occur to end’s one life. It will mark places like Sodom and
Gomorrah. It will be something that is seen decades later or thousands of years
later, a place where no man lives.
Cain would
be a vagabond, not living long enough to really settle anywhere for his heart
could not allow him to do that. Land was cursed so that any seed he put there
would not produce for him. Repentance was the required antidote to hell. Surely
we should desire to see God and His goodness and not turn away.
It is the
testimony of faith that we speak of every good thing we have through Him:
abundance not in things, but in God who desires to give us His kingdom. It is a
life totally occupied with the kingdom of God that is free from attitudes, freedom
in His love and mercy where a grateful heart and a joy in the heart abound in
the grace of God!
God is not
forgetful nor is He negligent. Instead God is patient and kind with sinners,
giving them every opportunity to turn away from their sin and repent. The
Scriptures warn us not to draw the wrong conclusion when God is patient with
our sin.
And what is
the choice when these are facing a person: remembering a sinner to choose
godliness or sinful indulgence? What will we choose?
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