Friday, April 06, 2007
Cain and Abel
Today I was reading the story of Cain and Abel. Don’t you find it amazing and sad the choice that Cain made? Imagine it, every day they came to the gate of the Garden of Eden to worship. They could see the angel standing there with its glittering sword guarding the way to the Tree of Life. How they must have longed for the right to enter into that beautiful garden, made especially for mankind. Can you imagine coming to those gates every day and seeing, right there before your eyes, proof that God had created the world, proof that Adam and Eve were exiled because of sin? How could you doubt God when all you had to do was look past an angel and see the proof of what you had been taught.
Every time they killed one of those innocent little lambs, how heartbreaking it must have been, remembering that God had not made any creature to die, but had intended that all creatures live forever in peace and harmony. Adam and Eve must have cried buckets of tears when that first lamb died, killed by God Himself (He obviously killed a lamb because He dressed Adam and Eve in animal skins, and showed them the sacrificial system that pointed to the Lamb of God who would die because of their sin). I know that I would cry buckets of tears now and I’ve seen lots of dead animals and people. They had never seen anything die, and that lamb had trusted them. It had played with them. They had named it, and now, because of them it had to die. Blood had to be shed. What an in-your-face reminder that sin brings death and that blood must be shed to atone for sin.
Can you image how hard it was for Adam to live for 930 years and seeing so much death; seeing his son killed; seeing his grandchildren reject God and all the while knowing that his sin was what started the whole thing. I believe that every time he pulled a weed from the garden he thought about his Garden home where there were no weeds; every time he cut himself on a thorn he must have longed to be back in
Then we have Cain and Abel. Raised the same way, by the same parents. Worshiping right there at the Garden gate. Able to see angels and admire the perfect Garden God planted specifically for His creation. But yet, and this always amazes me, Cain rejected the blood as the only way to salvation. He brought an offering of the fruit of the ground. Not that there was anything wrong with offering the best he had to God. But the sacrifice was to be a lamb, blood must be shed to symbolize Jesus’ sacrifice and the overwhelming love that God the Father had toward His creation that He would give up His Son to suffer and die for ungrateful human beings. And Cain was ungrateful. He determined that he would get salvation on his terms, in his own way. He would earn it. Unfortunately, most people since that time have rejected the blood of Jesus and tried to work their way to heaven. But, just like Cain, their sacrifice will not be accepted. Only by accepting Jesus as the only way to be saved will heaven be won. Yes, God calls us to keep His law; yes, He expects us to overcome sin and live holy lives; but He doesn’t expect us to do that on our own. He wants us to acknowledge that we are sinners, in need of a Savior; and beyond that, that He is Lord and we need to let Him live His life thru us. That is the joy of Christian service and Christian living. That is what Abel found and Cain rejected.
It is interesting that God always asks questions. He asked Adam and Eve: “Where are you?” Then He asked: “Why are you hiding?” He asked Cain: “Why is your countenance fallen? Where is your brother?”
God always gives us a chance to confess our sins and to repent from them and cast ourselves on His mercy. He is so ready to forgive. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
And yet, most of the time, like Adam, Eve ad Cain, we are sorry we got caught, but we really aren’t sorry for the sin. Cain didn’t like the penalty he had to pay for his sin, but he didn’t ask God to forgive him. Just like Cain, most of us would commit the same sin all over again if we have the chance. God said He would cleanse us from all sin. Most of us want the forgiveness part, but not the cleansing part. The cleansing means changing and making God our Lord, and we want to be in control. We have the delusion that we are captains of our own fate, when nothing is further from the truth. We are either on God’s side or on Satan’s side. There is no side where we are in control.
Praise God that if we allow Him to, He will come in and take control and cleanse us from all the sins and filthiness that separate us from Him. We can be victorious in His power and thru His grace. May that grace find you today and strengthen you as you fight the good fight of faith.
