CAIN, HIS WORLD, AND HIS WORSHIP
Genesis iii.
It is a terrible hislorv of mans hopelessness - the
history God lies given us in His word. I say history. because we have a setting
forth of his sins and failures from the beginning : but - then the blessed
grace of God is shewn forth in it, because it tells of Christ to come.
It is simple that mans heart is evil. This is true but it has been proved
evil in the presence of everything which ought to have restrained its evil. God
has given us the history of man's ways, and of his dealings with man (not
merely stated dogmas) and in whatever ways He has dealt with man, we find the
evil of mans heart breaking out, and following its course, spite of
all.
Man, having sinned against God, is turned out of paradise (Gen.
iii.). The next thing we read. of is the outrageous wickedness of man against
his brother : Cain, Adams first-born, slaying Abel (Gen. iv.). Then comes
the flood sweeping away a whole generation of evil-doers (Gen. vii.). Mercy is
shown to Noah, he and his house saved through judgment; yet immediately
afterwards we find him drunk in his tent, and Ham his son mocking and
dishonouring him (Gen. ix.).
God speaks to Israel at Sinai, thundering
with His voice His righteous demands on man: yet awful as the presence of God
is (and even Moses said, I exceedingly fear and quake), before Moses comes down
from the mount the people have made the golden calf, and broken the first link
that binds them to the service of Jehovah (Ex. xxxii.). In the ministry of the
Lord Jesus Christ we see God visiting the Jew, and dealing with sinners in
grace in the person of His Son: Him they slay and hang on a tree (Acts v. 30).
Israels history (mans under the most favourable circumstances) is
one scene of violence and evil all the way through; so that Stephen (in
testifying to them after their rejection of Christ and the descent of the Holy
Ghost in witness of Christs glory) says they were but doing as their
fathers had ever done. "Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye
do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye" (Acts vii.
51).
Notwithstanding all the dealings of God with man - the voice of
God and the judgments of God - man is so hopelessly bad, that the nearer he is
brought to God, the more culture there is bestowed upon him by God, only the
more is manifested, and that in darker characters, the sin and desperate
wickedness of his heart, working spite of all in sight even of Gods
judgments. In the sin in the garden we see the character of mans evil as
against God; Cains sin is sin against a neighbour. (" What is written
in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love Jehovah
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength,
and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself" (Luke x. 26. 27).) Of
course both are sins against God (all sin being against God); but whilst in the
sin of Adam and Eve we see lust and disobedience, in Cains there is
something more - it is sin as exhibited against a neighbour.
Man, as to
his actual condition, is a sinner cast out of paradise, already out of the
presence of God; -and he ought to have the consciousness of being out, and that
the only way of getting back to God is through His Son.
We are not in
paradise. We have got out of it some way or other; and we are in a world which
is under judgment, and, where death is staring us in the face. Adam had just
been driven out of paradise, and Cain must have had (through Adam) the
remembrance that there was a time when man was not out of paradise, when he
heard Gods voice in the garden without fear, when he had not a bad
conscience, and when he was without toil. Saints or sinners (in our own eyes),
we have been driven out of Eden, and we are in the wilderness utterly excluded
from Gods presence. We ought to have the consciousness of being out, and
of the misery of our condition. But alas! we have lost all remembrance of the
place in which we once were, and have become familiarised to the ruin and
desolation consequent upon sin. Still it is true, and we cannot deny it, that
we have got out of paradise, and are in a world constantly under sentence. We
may try to make the best of the world; but we must always feel that something
has come to pass, something that has brought in death and judgment. Happiness
cannot be associated with sin, any more than sin can be associated with God. As
for man, though he seeks to buoy himself up with his sins, and to delude
himself with the lie of Satan, sink he must, sooner or later, under the power
of the sin and death already come in. He is just spending his energies to make
the world pleasant without God, and himself comfortable and rich in it, to die
out of it.
The world he cannot keep. He may build a city for himself,
as Cain did (ver. 17), and call it after his own name (Cain called his city
after the name of his son); but it will be with him as David speaks, "Their
inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, and their
dwelling-places to all generations; they call their lands after their own
names. Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that
perish. This their way is their folly; yet their posterity approve their
sayings. Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them" (Ps.
xlix.). Cain did not like the sense of the wrath of God lying upon him. (
"And Jehovah said unto Cain, Wherein Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not:
am I my brothers keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of
thy brothers blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou
cursed from the earth (not merely "Cursed is the ground for thy sake," etc., to
Adam], which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brothers blood from thy
hand: when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her
strength, a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said
unto Jehovah, 'My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast
driven me out this day from the face of the earth and from thy face shall I be
hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth, &c.
(vers. 9-14) Gone out from the presence of Jehovah (ver. 16), he had become
so great in the earth that he could build a city. Man never likes to be in the
truth of his condition. Cain shrinks from being "a fugitive and a vagabond,"
and he tries to build a city, and he does build a city, in the endeavour to
make the world as pleasant as he can without God. It might be said, "What harm
was there in building a city ?" In the first place There would never have been
the necessity for this in paradise. Moreover it was proof of insensibility as
to his sin against God; it showed quiet contentment under the effect of that
punishment which at first he had felt was greater than he could bear; ii was
the last expression of total alienation of heart and affection from
God.
Driven out from the presence of God, he sets about to establish
himself. He seeks for himself a home, not with God in heaven, but on the earth,
from which God had pronounced him "cursed." He makes himself master of a city,
where God had made him "a vagabond." And mark further the faculty man has of
making himself happy in his estrangement from God. We find amongst the family
of Cain not only "the father of such as dwell in tents, and of such as have
cattle" (ver. 20), but " the father of such as handle the harp and the organ"
(ver. 21), and "the instructor of every artificer in brass and iron" (ver. 22).
Now there is nothing wrong in working brass and iron; neither is there any harm
in sweet sounds (we read in the book of Revelation of harpers in heaven); but
what Cain was doing was this - he was making the world pleasant without God..
These are the efforts of man, who has settled himself down in a world
where judgment has placed him, and who is trying to make himself as happy, and
the world as pleasant, as he can without God, till death and judgment overtake
him. If I saw a man, who had committed some wicked crime against his father,
the next day playing on musical instruments, should I say there was no harm in
that? Such was Cains world.
And is it not like your world? Is
there any difference between your world and Cains world? Is it a better
world because Gods Son has been crucified in it? Has that act on the part
of man made it more acceptable to God? (because that has happened since the
days of Cain.) Where is the difference? They had their "harps and organs;" and
so have you. They had their "artificers in brass and in iron;" and so have you.
It was Cains world then away from God; and it is Cains world still.
The like tree produces like fruit. Man is carrying on the world by himself, and
for himself, endeavouring to keep God out of sight; as much as possible to do
without Him, lest He should get at his conscience and make him
miserable.
(The believer is "not of the world," his home and citizenship
are in heaven; and his walk down here on the earth should be in the distinct
consciousness, in the distinct confession, that lie seeks a country" Heb.
xi. 14). This is of the last importance: anything of the earth is ofthat which
rejected Christ.)
Can you find any difference between Cains
world without God and your world without God? You may object that you are not
without God, that you are called by the name of Christ - are Christians, and
have a "religion" also. The believer is "not of the world," his home and
citizenship are in heaven; and his walk down here on the earth should be in the
distinct consciousness, in the distinct confession, that he seeks a country"
Heb. xi. 14). This is of the last importance: anything of the earth is of that
which rejected Christ. Cain had a "religion." He was a religious man, as
religious as Abel. But he had no love to God; he had no faith. He was a
religious man, but not a godly man.
It is a strange introduction to
this picture, the setting forth of Cain as a worshipper, and a worshipper
moreover of the true God. We read, "And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain
was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass that Cain
brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto Jehovah" (vers. 2,
3).
There is no mention made of false gods before the flood. Cain was a
worshipper of the one living and true God. Soon after the flood there were
idolaters; and then God called out a separate people as witnesses of His
character to make good His name and grace. But there is not any mention made of
false gods before Joshua xxiv. 6 - 8, "Your fathers worshipped other gods" a
fresh crime, a fresh snare of the enemy, which called for new measures on the
part of God. Satan had come and slipped himself in between man and God, and was
the one that was really worshipped though under the name of gods; and the call
of Abram was the call and witness of "the most high God."
Your "
artificers in brass and iron" are worshippers of the true God. So was Cain.
And he took some pains too. He offered that which he had been toiling
for in "the sweat of his brow." He was a "tiller of the ground," and he
"brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto Jehovah," He did not bring
that which cost him nothing (2 Sam. xxiv. 24); nay, his worship cost more of
toil than that of Abel. He came in the way of nature, offering the fruit of his
toil and labour; and you have done the same. This is ever the character of
false worship. Religiousness does not take man out of the character of Cain; it
the rather brings him into it. So that you have not got one step in that way
out of the character God has marked as that of Cain.
Observe, I do not
charge you with being hypocrites, for I do not say that Cain was not sincere.
There is no doubt indeed of his sincerity; but then his sincerity only
evidenced the hardness of his heart. Human sincerity means nothing; it is often
but the greatest proof of the desperate darkness in which a man is, Those were
sincere of whom Christ said, "He that killeth you will think he doeth God
service." Saul of Tarsus was thoroughly sincere when he thought he "ought to do
many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." He consulted moreover
the chief priests and elders, the religious authorities of the day. He was
zealous for his religion, and thoroughly sincere as a man, but totally blind as
to God and the things of Christ, thinking to do God service by fighting
against, and slaying, His saints. Cain in his sincerity brought to the Lord
that which cost him something, that which was the fruit of his toil. He came to
God as a worshipper, aaid in so doing offered to God that which he had brought
honestly as a man, but which proved him to be ignorant of his state as a
sinner.
"What then is man to hope for?" you will say. He is to hope
for nothing. Did he not get out of paradise because of sin? what possible
ground can he have as a sinner for hoping to get into heaven? What ground had
Cain for hoping that God would accept either himself or his offering? God had
driven man out of paradise because of sin: what ground had he to expect by the
works of his hands to get back into the presence of God? You may say, "It was
not the works of his hands, but the fruits of Gods creation." But what
would you think of the man who was hoping to get into heaven by offering his
corn and his wine to God, supposing like Simon Magus (Acts viii.), that the
gift of God may be bought? Why, it would shew that his conscience was as hard
as the nether millstone, utterly insensible to the condition he was in, as well
as to the character of God. The very worship of Cain proved the desperate,
utter, insensibility of his heart to the judgment of God against sin, and to
those mighty things which had just happened, the effects and consequences of
which he was now experiencing.
How came man to be toiling there in the
sweat of his brow? Their very toil told the tale of the curse. They had been
driven out of Eden for sin. But in Cain we see utter recklessness to the
judgment of God. He had forgotten the very nature and being of that God who had
set man perfectly happy in the garden at the first, to keep it and to enjoy its
fruits (fruits yielded to his hand without toil or labour); and supposed that
by toil and labour (the judicial consequences of sin) he could produce
something that God would accept. There was utter desperate recklessness to the
judgment of God.
Cains worship was the worst thing he did. It was
in fact the denying that he had sinned; such blindness to what he had been,
such hardness of conscience in supposing that he could get into the presence of
God in his sins as if nothing at all had happened! Such wretched assumption
that because he was a "tiller of the ground," tilling of the ground was all
right But how came it to be all right? Because God had cursed the ground.
He, a defiled sinner driven out of paradise, brings "of the fruit of the
ground" which Jehovah had cursed, "an offering unto Jehovah ;" that is, he
brings into the presence of God the sign and seal of the sin that had driven
him out from God!
And how comes a man to be going Sunday after Sunday,
as he says, to "worship God?" - What is; all this toil? To make "peace with
God?" God is "the God of peace;" He "preaches peace " - a made peace through
"the blood of the cross;" yet man goes on seeking to carry something into
Gods presence as "a duty," "to make peace" without once asking about
Gods way of peace.
Cain was a worshipper of God; but there was
no faith in Cain. There was no faith to recognize his own ruin and sin, no
faith to apprehend the judgment of God against sin: he had no presence of God
as he was, no title to be a worshipper of God. He had not a bit of faith to
recognize his own condition as driven out of paradise, his sin and estrangement
from God,.or that blood - death - was necessary, in order for him to approach
God.
This is just the worlds worship; and are you any the better
for it? Are you any the nearer to God? Tell me, dear friends, what if God does
not receive your worship? Suppose that, after all your well doing and toil for
God, God rejects it, for that is what Cains toiling met with from God
"unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect" (ver. 5), would you be
content?
How was it with Cain? "Cain was very wroth, and his
countenance fell." And it is ever thus. The moment God puts man on the true
ground of his condition before Him, the enmity of the natural heart breaks out
against God. Cain was "very wroth," exceedingly angry; and why? Because his
heart was opposed to grace. He had not owned the first principle of sin in the
presence of God.
And you, when the sovereign grace of the gospel comes
to you, are "very wroth." "What! a man do his best," you exclaim, "and not be
accepted!" So thought Cain. And so thinks every man naturally; that is, he
thinks that God must accept him just as well as he accepts God, bringing down
God to his own measure of holiness. And then the wrath of man breaks out, and
he rejects the righteousness that God holds out to him; he will not have His
Son.
There is not a principle in Cain that is not found in you. There
is no evil in brass and iron, nor is there any harm in sweet sounds; the evil
and the sin is in this, that men are using these things to hide God from them.
If you are worshippers of the true God, so was Cain. We may put a terrible name
on that which we see in Cain, and yet approve of the very same thing in
ourselves; the light tells us that was sin in Cain which the spirit of
self-love tells us is not sin in our own case. What difference is there between
you and Cain? Take the Bible and see if you can make out any difference. The
only real difference is this, that you have a further and more developed
knowledge of the Seed of "the woman" (Christ), and therefore that of the two
you are the more guilty.
Having sinned against God, abused His goodness,
and refused His Son, man turns to please himself as if nothing had happened. It
is more terrible to a spiritual eye to see insensibility after sin has been
committed, it is a far deeper shade of sin, than even the commission of the
crime. The returning of a soul to God, is just in the being awakened to a sense
of the awfulness of this state.
There is yet another feature in the
Cain character - open hostility to those who know Gods principle of
grace, to those whom God does accept. See what follows: "And 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 slew him" (ver. 8). Abel as a poor
helpless man should have demanded Cains sympathy, but Cain hates the one
whom God delights in.
And so it is now. Why are so angry at a fault in a
Christian which you readily excuse in a man of the world, if it be not hatred
to the name he bears? If it ought to produce better fruits in him, why not
adopt it yourselves? If you are expecting better from him than from the world
why not follow that which you profess to believe will produce the better
fruit?
But you have not merely hated the name of Christ, you have been
guilty of hating that which God has established in Christ. And here is the same
principle that crucified Christ, the desperate recklessness of sin.
You cannot deny that the world has crucified Christ. Gods Son is not now
in the world. He has been in the world. He became a man amongst men (" the Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among- us," John i. 14) - our neighbour. Man saw and
hated Him, and summed up his evil in killing Him. I ask you therefore, Has God
no such question with you as He had with Cain, "Where is thy brother" ver.9.
Christ has become mans "brother" (it is not the question of Gods
purpose and counsel here); and is not God demanding of the world, "Where is
Christ?" Cain replied, "I know not. Am I my brothers keeper?"
Here is a much worse character of sin than Adams. It is the haughtiness
and recklessness of sin. "Am I my brothers keeper?" Not only has there
been sin against God, sin that has exiled man from Eden and separated him from
the presence of God in peace, but there has been sin also that has led to the
hatred and destruction of a brother (blessed and perfect in His ways) whom man
has seen. Your disclaiming this displays, and is the proof of, the recklessness
of your hearts. "If I had not come and spoken unto them," said Jesus, they had
not had sin; but now they have no cloke for their sin. He that hateth me hateth
my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man
did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my
Father. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is
written in their law, They hated me without a cause" (John xv. 22 -
25).
The coming of the Son of God into the world has shewn the real
state it is in.
Why was Christ rejected by man, except that man hated
God? That was the only reason that Christ was slain in this world. They hated
God, and therefore they hated Him. They hated the light - " Every one that
doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should
be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be
made manifest that they are wrought in God" (John iii. 20, 21).
They
loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil ;" and this is
their sin, that they have put the Light out of the world. Like Cain, they were
"of that wicked one," and slew their brother (1 John iii. 12)l. Like him
too in the motive "And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil,
and his brothers righteous" "Which of you convinceth me of sin?" (John
viii. 46.) Even Pilate said, "I find no fault in him" (John xviii. 38; xix. 4,
6). The world has sinned against God in crucifying and slaying Jesus. They
hated God, and therefore turned Gods Son out of the world, when sent to
it in love.
But there is another thing. It is not simply a question of
mans having killed the Lord Jesus Christ : the world has now to answer
for its resistance of the Holy Ghost. "Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost,"
&c. The testimony of the Holy Ghost, present in the world as witness of the
glory of Christ, is a conviction of the world of sin (John xvi. 7 - 15). He has
been sent down because Christ has been killed. The necessary testimony of His
very presence in the world is this : He would not have been here on earth if
Christ had not been killed. He is come in condemnation of the whole world
before God. I am here, He says, as it were, because you have
killed your Abel. It is not a question about particular sins; you have
killed Gods Son, you are a sinner because you have not believed on Him.
Well then, dear friends, are you the daily companions of those who have
rejected Christ, who have killed Christ? Are you of that world, and found with
that world in its pleasures and profits, its religion and its lusts, which has
done this, and which is still against God and against His Christ, vainly trying
to make yourselves pleasant without God? (Not merely Jews are in question
here; the world has done it, man has done it. "He was despised and rejected of
men." ) Or have you taken your stand with those who are "of God," who have
God with them and God for them, though the whole world that lieth in the wicked
one be against them? The efforts that are being made merely to improve the
world are but the sign of the insensibility of Cain. The Spirit of God is come
into the world to awaken us to a sense of what has happened in the world, and
of the truth of our condition as men.
How came poor Abel to be an
accepted worshipper? "And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings. of his flock
and of the fat thereof. And Jehovah had respect unto Abel and to his offering;
but unto Cain," &c. (ver. 4). He was accepted by blood. There was this
testimony in his offering: I cannot go to God as I am; I am driven out of
paradise, sin has come in between me and God, and death, "the wages of sin,"
must come in between me and God, or I cannot go to God - I cannot go as I am.
He took the place of a sinner, and put between himself and God in faith the
blood of a victim that had been slain. Unless in his going to God he had owned
his necessity that he could not get into the presence of God at all but by
blood, he would not have been accepted any more than Cain. But he knew and
owned that he could not get to God without blood; he was of faith, and faith
ever sees that "without shedding of blood there. is no remission" (Heb. ix..
22). He put death - judicially inflicted death (by slaying the victim) -
between himself and God, and then he comes into the presence of God as an
accepted worshipper. "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 gift: and by it he being dead yet speaketh" (Heb. xi. 4). But further,
Abel suffered with Christ. Having owned that he could not come into the
presence of God without the blood of the lamb slain, he takes his place and
portion with Christ in rejection. He is a sufferer from the wicked of the
world. That is how it must end. That is all that the Christian is to expect at
the hands of a world departed from God. "Marvel not if the world hate you" (1
John iii. 13).
"Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the
holiest," says the apostle, "by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way,
which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
and having a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near," &c.
(Heb.. x. 19, 22). All who come not through Him are rejected, because they do
not know that they are so utterly sinful that they cannot come into Gods
presence except through the blood of His Son. And on the other hand, all who
say, I cannot go up except through blood, see that it is the perfectness of
love - Gods own perfect blessed love - that to meet mans need
spared nothing, not even His only-begotten Son. "He hath made him to be sin for
us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in
Him" (2 Cor. v. 21). This is the language of faith. He is the only God, who,
when I was the chief of sinners, gave His Son to die for me. I know of no God
but a God of perfect love, bringing me out of all my vileness, hanging on my
neck in my vileness, as did the father to the returning prodigal (Luke xv.),
and bringing me into His house to rejoice with Him in the exceeding riches of
His grace.
We get perfect blessed peace through the blood of Christ,
without one pang of conscience left. "The worshipper once purged has no more
conscience of sins" (Heb. x.). The apostle does not say that he is not a
sinner, that he is not vile; but that God has so loved the vile and sinful as
to give His Son unto death to wash away their vileness and their sins.
J.N.D.