Genesis 4:1
And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

Our lesson text now jumps past the account of the fall in Genesis 3 to the conception and birth of Cain.

The majority of interpreters see all the events of Genesis 4 as occurring after Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden (3:23, 24).

Against this understanding, however, is a proposal that the construction in the original language has the author backtracking (at least briefly) to events that occur prior to the expulsion.

This theory means that Eve’s future punishment noted in Genesis 3:16 connects with childbearing already experienced.

Whether what is recorded in the verse before us happens before or after the fall may affect interpretation.

If the birth of Cain takes place before the fall, then Eve’s words I have gotten a man from the Lord are seen as giving the Lord credit.

If the birth of Cain takes place after the fall into sin, however, Eve’s words are understood by some to be a boast in that she is claiming to have created a man just as the Lord did.

This reveals the fact that Adam and Eve certainly did not anticipate that the struggle was going to be long.

When Cain was born, Eve must have said, “I have gotten the man from the Lord. God said that the seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent—and here he is!”

But Cain was not the one. He was a murderer, he was no savior at all. It will be a long time before the Savior comes.

For a minimum of six thousand years—and I think it has been longer than that—the struggle has been going on between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent.

In either case, we see underway the God-ordained imperative to multiply.

The sexual function between husband and wife is God-ordained.

Sexual expression neither resulted in nor resulted from the fall into sin by Adam and Eve.

The name Cain occurs 20 times in 17 verses in the KJV, and all but one of these (Joshua 15:57) refers to the individual in the verse before us.

Three of the occurrences are in the New Testament (Hebrews 11:4; 1 John 3:12; Jude 11).



Genesis 4:2.
And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

These are the two boys that we are looking at.

The designation Abel occurs 16 times in 13 verses in the KJV, although some refer to a stone (1 Samuel 6:18) or a city (2 Samuel 20:14, 15, 18).

Four of the references to Abel the man are in the New Testament (Matthew 23:35; Luke 11:51; Hebrews 11:4; 12:24).

To be either a keeper of sheep or a tiller of the ground is a common occupation in antiquity.



Genesis 4:3
And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.

The phrase used here refers to a long indefinite period.

This was probably the first offering that he brought, even though the Lord had explained to the First Family the necessity of the Sacrificial System, that is, if they were to have any type of communion with God and forgiveness of sins.

There is evidence that Adam, at least for a while, offered up sacrifices.

“In process of time” actually means “at the end of days,” which would mean on the Sabbath Day, on the day that God had rested.

“Cain brought”—the idea of “brought” means to an appointed place.

They are bringing an offering to God to an appointed place to worship.

All this would indicate that they are doing it by revelation.

I know that they are, for when we turn to Hebrews 11:4, we read: “By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts: and by it he being dead yet speaketh.”

How could Abel offer it “by faith”?

“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17).

God had to have given His Word about this, or this boy Abel could never have come by faith, and that is the way he came.

The other boy did not come that way. “Cain brought of the fruit of the ground.” There is nothing wrong with the fruit.

Don’t think that he brought the leftovers—his attitude is not that of giving old clothes to the mission.

I think that the fruit he brought would have won the blue ribbon in any county or state fair in the country.

He brought the best of his beautiful, delicious fruit. and he brought it as an offering to the Lord.

Cain knew the type of Sacrifice that the Lord would accept, but he rebelled against that admonition, demanding that God accept the labor of his hands, which, in fact, God could not accept.

So we have, in the persons of Cain and Abel, the first examples of a religious man of the world and a genuine man of Faith.



Genesis 4:4
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:

This is what God demanded; it was a blood sacrifice of an innocent victim, a lamb, which proclaimed the fact that Abel recognized his need of a Redeemer, and that One was coming Who would redeem lost humanity.

The Offering of Abel was a Type of Christ and the price that He would pay on the Cross of Calvary in order for man to be redeemed.

As stated, this was a Type of Christ and the Cross, the only Offering which God will respect.

Abel’s Altar is beautiful to God’s Eye and repulsive to man’s.

Cain’s altar is beautiful to man’s eye and repulsive to God’s.

These “altars” exist today; around the one that is Christ and His atoning work, few are gathered, around the other, many.

God accepts the slain lamb and rejects the offered fruit; and the offering being rejected, so of necessity is the offeror.



Genesis 4:5
But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

Someone may say, “I don’t see anything wrong in the thing Cain did.”

In the eleventh verse of his epistle, speaking of apostates in the last days, Jude says, “. . . They have gone in the way of Cain . . .”

What is the way of Cain?

When Cain brought an offering to God, he did not come by faith—he came on his own.

And the offering that he brought denied that human nature is evil.

God said, “Bring that little blood sacrifice which will point to the Redeemer who is coming into the world. Come on that basis, and don’t come by bringing the works of your own hands.”

Cain’s offering also denied that man was separated from God.

He acted like everything was all right.

This is what liberalism does today in talking about the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man.

My Christian Siblings, things are not all right with us today.

We are not born children of God.

We have to be born again to become children of God.

Man is separated from God.

Cain refused to recognize that, and multitudes today refuse to do so as well.

The third thing that Cain’s offering denied was that man cannot offer works to God—Cain felt he could.

Scripture says: “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost” (Titus 3:5).

The difference between Cain and Abel was not a character difference at all, but the difference was in the offerings which they brought.

These two boys had the same background.

They had the same heredity.

They had the same environment.

There was not that much difference between them.

Don’t tell me that Cain got his bad disposition from an alcoholic grandfather on his father’s side—he didn’t have a grandfather.

And don’t say that Abel got his good disposition from a very fine grandmother on his mother’s side.

They just didn’t have grandparents.

They had the same heredity and the same environment.

The difference was in the offerings.

That offering makes a difference in men today.

No Christian takes the position that they are better than anyone else.

The thing that makes them a Christian is that they recognize that they are sinners like everyone else and that they need an offering, they need a sacrifice, and they need Someone to take their place and to die for them.

Paul says of Christ: “Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood . . .” (Rom. 3:25).

Therefore Paul could further write: “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God” (Rom. 10:3).

That is the picture of multitudes of people today.

They are attempting through religion, through joining a church and doing something, to make themselves acceptable to God.

God’s righteousness can only come to you—because it must be a perf