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Then just once more to this, our fourth study in the book of Genesis. On our last occasion, we began to study the second account of creation as we find it in the early chapters of that book. And we urge the conclusion that the second story of creation comprises the bulk of chapter two, the whole of chapter three, and the whole of chapter four. uh Let us just look again at the evidence that may, uh, that brought us to that viewpoint. We found that in those three chapters, two, three, and four of Genesis, there was a word that appears time and again, and very significantly appears at the main center of interest of each of those stories. In chapter uh two, we read of man's body made out of the ground. We are then told man's function, the purpose for which he was originally made. Up till this time, there had not been a man to till the ground. So God planted a garden in Eden, and of the ground, of the dust of the ground, he made man and gave him his purpose and function, which was to till the ground. So this term, the ground, comes at this vital part in the opening story of chapter two, the origin of the materials of man's body and the reason, uh, for man's task and function to fill the ground. Then in chapter three, we have a story of the temptation and the ensuing curse that was pronounced by God in his discipline upon mankind. So to Adam, he said, cursed is the ground for thy sake. Uh, in the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread, thorns and thistles shall it being forced to reap, and thou shalt till the ground under these more difficult conditions until thou return to the ground from whence thou wast taken. The solemn, uh, curse, therefore, brought about through Adam's sin, and we notice that the term ground is at the heart of the curse. Man was made to till the ground. Now, as a result of his sin, he is disciplined. He is not turned out and forbidden evermore to till the ground, but now his function will become that much more difficult under the disciplines of God, made necessary because of his sin. Then in chapter, uh, I apologize, this three should be four. In chapter four and verse eleven, we have a story of Cain. How he murdered his brother Abel and defied God over the matter. And God pronounced, uh, once more a curse, but a somewhat different curse upon Cain. Not now, when thou tillest the, when you till the ground, it shall bring forth thorns and thistles to you, but rather cursed art thou from the ground. When now you till the ground, it will not yield to thee her strength. And Cain, who at once saw the significance of this curse, replied to God, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Uh, uh, upon thy face I shall be hid, thou hast turned me out from the face of the ground. We see, therefore, at the central point in these three parts to the grand story, how this term the ground, uh, is central. So that let's grasp again the initial, uh, point made here, man made out of the ground, man made to till the ground. It will help us to see the significance of what subsequently happened in these next two chapters. So then, uh, uh, tonight we are going to think of man's fall. On the last occasion, we were thinking of man's life, celebrated the wonder and the beauty of that many splendid thing that is the life that God has given to his human creatures. Tonight, however, we have to consider the very opposite. What is death? What does it mean to die? What is death? And we shall find, of course, that because life was not merely physical life, but with life came a whole host of wonderful potentials and capacities, so that life proves a very detailed, marvelously complex, and gloriously wonderful thing. Through one man's sin, uh, uh, through one man's disobedience, sin entered to the world, and death by sin. And death meant that man began to die at every level of life, all the way downwards, until he returned to the dust from which his body was originally taken. We shall discover in the, uh, uh, the first story tonight, the story of chapter three, how when Adam sinned, God imposed disciplines upon him and upon Eve, but he didn't destroy them. And in terms that were fitting to their simple state in those far off early days, God announced the glorious salvation that he was about to provide as an answer to human sin. Now, in the final story, the story of Cain, we shall meet a man who, having sinned, grossly sinned, not only defied God, but rejected the way of forgiveness. And what, in consequence, happened to him? With him, as I say, it wasn't when you till the ground now, it will won't won't yield her strength to you. It was cursed art thou from the ground. In other words, Cain, you might as well get out. The man was made to till the ground. That was his first and prime purpose for existence in those first days. When Adam sinned, he was allowed to continue with his God-given function. But when Cain defied God and refused the forgiveness that God offered him, God turned him out of his job. And lost the very purpose for which he was created. Cain, as we are told in the story, was not killed. He was allowed to carry on existing. In fact, God put, God put a mark upon him so that anybody finds him should not be disposed to kill him. But that simply tells us this. There's something worse than physical death. That is to exist, having missed the purpose for which you were created, to spend an eternity lost, existing, but lost. These then are the solemn stories that engage our thoughts this evening. And we come first to chapter three, to the story of the fall, and inquire first of all how it was that man fell. And what was the temptation that was put in his way by the cunning serpent? There's chapter three, now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. Volumes have been written about the identity of the serpent, and how it should come to pass that the serpent could speak, and whether the serpent really spoke or by his, uh, uh, uh, uh, maneuvers and looks and so forth, evoked the innermost thoughts of Eve. We shall not stay to consider all those suggestions tonight because the New Testament has pronounced upon the topic, and I as a Christian accept the interpretation of the New Testament. In two Corinthians chapter eleven, Paul says to the Corinthian believers, I fear lest by any means that old serpent, the devil, that is Satan, who deceived Eve by his cunning, should corrupt your thoughts from the simplicity that is towards Christ. So it was Satan himself using the serpent in some way or other that was allowed to tempt mankind. Notice it is true of him as it was true of, uh, the serpent, the physical serpent. The physical serpent was most cunning of all the beasts that God had made. God made the serpent that was the vehicle of Eve's temptation. And when we come to the deeper point that it is Satan that tempted our first parents to sin and still carries on his nefarious work. It is good to remember that Satan himself is a creature. If you say, why has God allowed Satan to rebel and to continue rebelling? That is not because God is not almighty. But when Satan rebelled against God, and did so, as you see here in chapter three of Genesis, by raising doubts about the character of God in the minds of Adam and Eve, that doubt about the character of God could not be dispelled simply by an exercise of God's almighty power. The fact that God is almighty has never been in doubt. Not even Satan doubts it. But the big questions in our universe are not who has the greatest power, but it is a moral question, who has the greatest love for mankind? You can't prove love, and you can't prove moral rightness simply by an exercise of power. Satan then a creature, and he came to the woman to begin his nefarious temptation. He said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, you shall not eat of any of the trees of the garden? Deliberately overstating, of course, the original prohibition. But that was a wily tempter's device, wasn't it? Oh no, said he, that isn't what God said, do you see? We can eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, all of them, except this one, for God has said of this one, thou shalt not eat it nor touch it. And I thought so, said the devil. There is one, isn't there? You see, that's just like God is, actually. He makes a lovely garden, he puts you in the garden, and there he puts a beautiful tree right under your noses for you to admire, and just as you're going to eat it and enjoy it, he said, no. You see, that's God all over, said Satan. He loves to tantalize people, hold up pleasures in front of their noses, and then say they mustn't enjoy them. You see, says, uh, uh, uh, Satan, the real facts are these, that God knows that in the day you eat thereof, you shall be as God, knowing good and evil. And the fact is, God doesn't want you to be as God. He wants to keep you down, you see. That's the kind of tyrant God is. Loves to tantalize people with pleasure and then say they mustn't have it. And then when they try to rise in i- i- in the world and develop all their potentials and gain knowledge of good and evil, then he wants to keep them down. He's afraid you shall become as God and independent and able to decide for yourself. Who said he? Not heard that before. Oh. Well, look at the tree, said Satan. So the woman looked at the tree, you see, and she saw that the tree was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desired to make one wise. That's how God had made it. She saw it was good for food, a delight to the eyes, that is, aesthetic satisfaction. She saw it was desirable to make you wise, that is, intellectual satisfaction. Well, what else do you want, says Satan? Physical satisfaction, aesthetic satisfaction, intellectual satisfaction. That is life, my dear Eve, said he. That is life. Take it, woman. But, said Eve, but God has said, uh, in the day we eat thereof, we shall surely die. Oh, you poor innocent, said Satan. Uh, nobody round here believes that anymore, God and his word and all that stuff. Nobody believes it. That's all hat. Bother God's word. You can have life, physical satisfaction, aesthetic satisfaction, intellectual satisfaction. You can have it without God. And instead of remaining there as an infant, having God to tell you what's right and what's wrong, you can make up your own mind and go your own way. Listening to that, Eve was deceived, and she put forth her hand and took of the fruit and ate it. Therein is taught us one of life's major lessons. It was repeated by God through Moses to the Israelites in the wilderness. It was applied to life by our blessed Lord as he faced the same tempter in the wilderness. And the basic principle of life is this: man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. And that, you know, is not God making life difficult. It's God who made the lovely things, things good for food and good for beauty and good for intellect. But the God who made them and gives them reminds us that put all those together, and by themselves they do not spell out true life. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God. Suppose, madam, one of these days, I don't know why you should, but suppose you got it into your head, a strange idea, that you would like to get to know me and become my friend, you see. So you invite me to your house for dinner, and there, of course, you've got the thing beautifully laid out, like the ladies do, and you sit me down, uh, on your right hand as your guest of honor, you'll see. And so the meal begins, and I bury my head in the soup and the hors d'oeuvre, and you try to make conversation. You say, it's been a very nice day today, hasn't it? I don't make any reply. That's a bit odd. So you wait till I get to the beef steak, uh, and you say, do you plan to go anywhere on holiday? This is the time of year people are going on holi- or making their plans for holiday. Are you making any plans for holiday? I don't reply. And you say, I always knew Englishmen were curious, but this is very curious. As we get to the suite, you have one last attempt. You say, have you read any good books recently? I lift my head up and I say, madam, I'd like to tell you something. I think this food, your cuisine, is absolutely marvelous. Just enjoying it immensely. And I think those oils on the wall, the po- portraits you have there, are superb. They're works of genius. And the background music you've put on is absolutely delightful. I'm enjoying it immensely. But as for you, I'm not interested in you, woman. Like you to know that. I can enjoy this food here without you. In fact, I don't believe you exist. But even if you exist, I don't want anything to do with you. I want to go my own way. I'm enjoying this food marvelously. I don't need you, and I don't want you. I'm not interested in your conversation nor your words. What would you do? You'd reach for the button on the ejector seat, wouldn't you? Press it hard. And what a fool I should be. For the beautiful cuisine and the food and the sausages and the beef steak and everything else, lovely to be enjoyed, but were in your mind the basis of a friendship that would lead on and perhaps become permanent long after the beef steak had gone and been forgotten. And all the lovely things of life that God has given us, for our enjoyment. All of them meant to lead us to him, and to listen to his word, and through his word to find eternal life, which will last when the pleasures of this life have long since gone like broken toys and gone to the dustbin. To suppose we can enjoy life and no life, simply by physical satisfaction and the pursuit of beauty and intellectual satisfaction without God and his word, is the number one lie in this universe, and millions have been and still are deceived by it, are they not? And then it was not only the question of enjoyment. They had been forbidden to eat of the tree of life because in their innocence, like, like toddlers on the nursery floor, had no concept of evil, what was evil, and being innocent, though full-grown humans, they would need to be told what was evil. To attempt to face evil by themselves and make up their own mind was a sure way to be deceived. Therefore, God forbade them to try to go their own way, and did it by setting down a positive commandment. Now you shall not do this, because he is the sole and final authority in morality. That is so, isn't it? That is an exceedingly important thing. I remember i- i- i- in my youth, I've had several stages of youth, I'm in the last one now, uh, you'll see, but some of us Christians in the university devised a little device where we might get talking to our non-Christian friends, do you see? So we set up what we called a Christian forum and invited sundry speakers to come and talk to us, do you see? They could talk on anything they liked. The only condition was that when they'd finished talking, we might be allowed to ask questions. And there came one of our delightful colleagues, a very brave, uh, majestic man he was, blinded as a commando in the war. But charming though he was, a complete atheist. You'll see, and he developed the thesis that you can be good without God. You don't need God to tell you how to live. You can make up your own mind as to what is right and wrong. And it works this way, said he. You don't have to call in God as an authority. You simply come to an agreement one with another. He said, you see, if, if you poke your finger in my eye, I shall poke my finger in your eyes. And when we've done that a dozen times, if we've got any eyes left, we shall come to an agreement. Look, I won't poke my finger in your eye anymore, and you won't poke your finger in my eye. We shall come to an agreement, and all shall be well. And that's how we can do without God in morality in this world, you see. And so he gave his speech. And at question time, I asked permission to speak, you see, and said, um, uh, uh, I- I- I- I'm Hitler, if you could imagine that, you see, and I'm going to poke my finger in your eye in a very big way. And if you say to me, oh, don't poke your finger in my eye, because if you do, I shall poke my finger in yours. I say, no, you won't for the moment anyway, because I've got the tanks and you haven't. And I'm going to poke my finger in your eye in a very big way, and you won't be able to stop me. And then when at last you get enough tanks to defeat me, I shall blow my own brains out. So you haven't got me now, have you? And I got away with sixty million murders. What will you say to me, I said. Said he, I tell you to go and get lost, which I thought wasn't altogether an adequate reply. You'll see. Morality, good and evil, right and wrong, are not a matter of taste, are they? Not a matter in the end of our private judgment. You'll see. I say to you, I like oranges. So should you. And you say, no, I shouldn't. You like oranges? Well, like them. I don't like oranges. I like bananas. Well, who's to say you're wrong? You like bananas and not oranges. That's a matter of taste, isn't it? We can make up our own minds on it. But morality is not a matter of taste, is it? What would you say to the aforesaid Hitler if he said, I like killing Jews and I'm going to kill them? And you say, but you oughtn't to, oughtn't to kill Jews. And he says, but I like killing Jews. It's not a matter of taste, is it? What is the final authority in morality? And the Bible's answer to that is the final mo- uh, uh, authority in morality is God, our creator. Get rid of God, and God's right to lay down the law, then ultimately it will lead to moral chaos. So Satan tempted Eve to grasp at life without God and his word, to abandon obedience to God's authority in morality and behavior, and set herself up in the place of the ultimate authority. I am the authority. I do what I like. You shall be as God, said Satan. So they were deceived. And the first result of it was that they realized they were naked and hid themselves in the trees of the garden. Satan had suggested that if they disobeyed God like that and grasped his independence, they would rise in the universe and be as God. They found to their cost. Instead of rising, they discovered they were animals. They had gone down somewhat, with animal desires that now they would find difficult to control. If that was the temptation, in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. They didn't immediately expire, did they? They began to die at all levels, until eventually they turned back to dust. God's reaction was, first of all, to speak to the serpent. And the Lord God said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly thou shalt go, and dust thou shalt eat all the days of thy life. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed. It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Oh, what majestic words they are, are they not? God's pronouncement first to the serpent, who thought he had so won a victory over God and his purpose, and ruined God's handiwork. God defies him. Announces his ultimate defeat. The woman's seed, says he, not only shall there be a permanent enmity between thee, uh, thy seed and the woman's seed, but the woman's seed shall bruise and crush and break thy head, though thou shalt bruise his heel. Marvelous words. And now please stand in awe of the wonder of God's strategies. Satan had filled the human heart with that insidious lie that man could be as God. What will God do in response to that? How will he overcome it? Here in germ, in simple language, God is making known that wonderful mystery that God himself will become man. And God had so built humankind that God could get inside his own creation, and God could become man. And we recall the wonderful words of Philippians two, do we not? Who, being in the form of God, thought it not a thing to be held onto, to be on equal terms with God, but emptied himself and took upon him the form of a slave, and being found in the likeness of sinful flesh, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, that is the death of the cross. All those heart, those words cheer my heart enormously. The amazing wisdom and grace of God. And I repeat it. Satan trying to get man to rebel against God and climb up and be as God and turn God off his throne. And what will God do? Wipe out mankind like that before he succeeds? No, indeed not. God has, in his own predetermined counsels, the opposite strategy to defeat man's blasphemous attempt to become like God. God will become man, and at the level of man will defeat Satan. God has made man. God isn't going to give up and say man is a total wreck with him with something new. If God made man, man to succeed. God's handiwork. God will not be defeated. And how will he get the victory out of defeat? Well, God himself will become man, and in the person of Jesus Christ, God made flesh, the God man. He will defeat Satan and bring his works eventually to nothing. The very contemplation of it is worth a hallelujah, my brothers and my sisters. You think of it. How will you get over the honor? You'll not get over it for all eternity, I guarantee it to you now. You're human, aren't you? Coming from the hand of the Creator. And the Son of God has become human and become one of us. That's why he's not ashamed to call us brethren. Why isn't he ashamed? I could think of many a reason why our blessed Lord Jesus should be ashamed of me, and perhaps even of you on times. Why isn't he ashamed? It's not because he isn't proud. Of course he isn't proud. He's not ashamed to call us brethren because he who sanctifies, that is the Lord Jesus, and we who are sanctified are all of one, verily God, yet become truly human. Oh, what an exciting thing our Christian gospel is. How marvelous are the ways of God. One of these days, says Paul to the Christians at Rome, God shall crush Satan under your heels presently. To the woman and to the man, God had some solemn words, as now he imposed disciplines on them. But in those very disciplines, we note the mercy of God. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception. In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. That great privilege and glory that is the woman's glory. Pray notice that the very terms of the discipline indicate that God is going to continue with his plan. She shall be allowed to have children. Wonderful, isn't it? Adam was listening to it with both ears, you know. And when he heard God say that, says this word of in verse, um, twenty uh, of the same chapter, Adam called his wife's name Eve, the mother of all living. So right in the middle of the discipline that God was now pronouncing, Adam heard this glorious gospel message. Oh, thank God he's not going to destroy my Eve forthwith. God is going to allow her to live on. God is going to allow her to have children and be the mother of multitudinous generations. There's the mercy of God for you. And of that woman's seed, one day the very Savior would come. But in spite of that, there were disciplines. When our men, man and woman were sinful, they couldn't be allowed, could they, to go on as if sin didn't matter, as if sin had no results. Sin has consequences. And now, therefore, they must be put under discipline, because you'll see, otherwise, sin might get the complete mastery of them. So nature's way would now be made more difficult, more painful, and in a some sense, the sexual relationships would be coarsened. He shall rule over you. The word is not altogether a nice word. And similarly with Adam. Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife and hast eaten of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for thy sake. In toil shall thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground, for out of it thou wast taken. For dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Allowed to continue with his God-given occupation, but now under discipline. Now it can no longer be the joy and ease of a human innocent in paradise. Now that we'd be facing a world where evil has sown its seed, it will be toil and sweat. He shall have to toil to have the fruit grow, and to his endless frustration, the only things that would grow without toil would be the weeds, you know. I have you noticed that in your garden? I've noticed it in my garden so very often, you know. I do my best to make the roses bloom, as they should. They are very frustrating things sometimes. The weeds need no encouragement. They grow without my help. They grow all over the place against my wishes, and they remind me every time I'm living in a fallen world, when man rebelled against God, God allowed nature to rebel against man. That's good, isn't it? If God allowed this world to continue a paradise, we should live under the misapprehension that, after all, perhaps even if we're sinners, it doesn't matter. And every discipline, every pain, every weed, every drop of hard labor and sweat is a reminder that we're sinful men and women living in a fallen world, and we need to get right with God. We need to learn the basic lesson that nature teaches you, that God is not mocked. What a man sows, he shall also reap. That is still an unbreakable law, isn't it? I think sometimes, my brothers and sisters, we confuse ourselves in that we fail to make a distinction in our thinking between the penalty of sin and the consequences of sin. The penalty is God's judgment, isn't it? His wrath. From that we are saved forever by the precious blood of Christ. But the penalty of sin is one thing, the consequences of sin are another. Suppose for some reason a Christian farmer, and he has been, uh, told by the Lord that he should grow wheat in his field. And he knows it's a command of the Lord, for some reason or other. But the price of barley is much better, you see. So he decides to grow barley instead. And when the barley begins to grow up and come into the ear, do see, then he has an attack of repentance. Oh dear, I know I should have sown wheat, and this is barley, and I disobeyed the Lord. That's terrible. And he goes to the Lord and says, Lord, please forgive me, I sinned. I sown barley when I should have sown wheat. Please forgive me. And the Lord forgives him, doesn't he? For if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And then he says, Lord, change the barley into wheat. Do you think God would? Well, do you see? What a man sows, he reaps. That is true in nature. It is true in life. We need to remember it as believers. If you will fight with one another, says Paul in that same context, you better beware, lest you be devoured one of another. For if you sow enmities, you'll reap destruction. He that sows to the spirit shall of the spirit reap eternal life. He that sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption and endless tears. These are the disciplines of life, are they not? And yet within it all, not only was there the promise that one day the woman's seed would gain complete victory over the serpent. At that moment, God himself made them skins, killed an animal and took the skin of the animal and made them at, uh, adequate clothing in the sight of God. Marvelous prototype of what God would do through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Not only to allow human life to continue then under discipline, and using that discipline to teach important moral and spiritual lessons, but with the certainty of immediate acceptance with God and forgiveness, and the glorious hope that one day the Savior would come. So much then the story of chapter three. But now we move on to chapter four, related, as we see, by the common use of the same word, ground. Okay, a- a- Adam and Eve had two sons. The one was Cain, the other was Abel, 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 the Lord. 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, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very rough, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin croucheth at the door, and unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain told Abel his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew. And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not. Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground, and now cursed art thou from the ground, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength. A fugitive and a wanderer shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the ground, and from thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth, and it shall come to pass that whosoever findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, lest any finding him should smite him. Our first task, then, is to decide why it was that, uh, God accepted Cain's sacrifice and rejected, uh, accepted Abel's sacrifice and rejected Cain's offering. I suppose the most frequent explanation given is simply this, that Abel brought a lamb, a kid from the herd, shed its blood, and came to God on the basis of the shedding of blood for the remission of sins. Whereas Cain came offering the work of his own hands, the fruit of the field, and therefore was denied acceptance by God. There is a great deal of truth in that. It is not quite the whole truth, is it? Let's examine the matter a little bit more deeply. They came to bring, says the Old Testament, an offering, a present. The Hebrew word is mincha in the book of Leviticus. It is not said they came to bring a sin offering, nor even a burnt offering. They came to bring what in later terms would be a meal offering to the Lord, you'll see. Then why was Cain's presence, so to speak, rejected? The Apostle John tells us in in J- one John chapter three in precise terms, why it was rejected. This is one John three and verse eleven: For this is the message which you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain was of the evil one and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous. That was the first ground of the enmity that sprang up in the heart of Cain, according to the Apostle John. Abel's works were good. Cain's works were evil. That is why he was rejected, and why, of course, he was so jealous and envious of, uh, jealous of his brother that he slew him. Cain was of that evil one and slew his brother. Be it observed, as many have, that this murder took place in the context of religion. Cain was in process of making a show of religion and offering to God a sacrifice, and God rejected it because God read the man's heart anyway to start with. He was just using a sacrifice, a religious sacrifice, to cover up the fact that his heart and his works were evil. There are many people who treat religion like it today. They have no intention of repent, but they have the idea that they can bring God an offering, a grant to the church or something, or a few good works in support of a charity, and God will accept it as a cover of the fact that their lives are unrighteous, that their business deals are less than just, that their ways break God's law. And God's rejection of Cain's sacrifice tells us this straight, that God doesn't want religion that is simply a cover-up of unrepented of evil behavior. So that's number one reason why God rejected his sacrifice. There was a deeper one, wasn't there, of course? Hebrews chapter eleven says of Abel's sacrifice, by faith Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain, whereby he obtained witness about his works, a God bearing testimony thereto that Abel was righteous. And the first thing we have to notice there is this, that it was by faith. Ca- uh, Abel offered a better sacrifice. It doesn't say that by faith Abel did a lot better works than Cain. It was by faith Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain. What does he mean by saying by faith? Well, faith in scripture is always a response to something God has said. Faith isn't saying to myself, well, I have every confidence that if I do this, God will be pleased with it. No, faith is listening first to God, hearing what God says, believing God's word, and acting according to God's word. And the secret of Abel's sacrifice being more acceptable than Cain's was that he offered it in faith, that is re- in response to God's own indication. You say, where had God said anything about sacrifice? Well, in my humble opinion, God had indicated the way when having pronounced his disciplines upon, uh, Adam and Eve, God had taken an animal, slain the animal, skinned it, and himself made aprons for Adam and Eve to cover their shame. And in those solemn moments in the garden when man faced his maker over the question of sin, with the terrors of a guilty conscience, man found acceptance with God and covering for his shame on the basis of the shedding of blood, an innocent victim dying in the place of the guilty. The lesson had not been lost upon Abel. Now it was a question of how do we come to God? And exercising faith in the very example that God had given, Abel brought his kid from the flock, shed its blood, and offered that to God as his sacrifice, and God was well pleased with it. There's nothing wrong, of course, for believers to come, therefore, if they want to, offer their apples and oranges, their carrots and their potatoes, and many believers do, don't they? Giving of these things for the Lord's sake, to help the needy and the distressed in famine-stricken countries. Nothing wrong for believers to bring the product of their hands to God and give it to him. But that's not the way we come to God and find acceptance and forgiveness of sin. First, we must come on the basis of the great sacrifice of our blessed Lord and the shedding of his blood to find forgiveness with God, to put our faith in God and in the propitiation of Christ, and then to be pronounced just in the sight of God. For the just shall live by faith, and it is God who justifies us on the ground of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. You cannot do like Cain did. Come to God unrepentant and think by offering him some good products of your hands that all will be well. Some folks think that way, don't they? But I'm a good mother, says one woman, and doubtless she is. And I look after my children and I love them. That's excellent, madam. And I'm kind to my husband more than he deserves. I could believe it, does he? But that's no ground of salvation. Solem matter, uh, uh, uh, the principle to be followed is this, that we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God, and the law of God hangs over our head, the just penalty of the law, which is eternal death. We have to face that first, and let God point us the way to the only sacrifice that is adequate to make our peace with God, that is the sacrifice of our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. And so God came and pleaded with Cain. You will notice that in the story, won't you? Cain was intensely angry, and his face fell that God would reject his sacrifice as being inadequate and then take Abel's sacrifice. And God pleaded with the man. Look, Cain, he said, if you do well, shall you not be accepted? That is to say, if you do well, you'll be forgiven. If you do what Abel has done, if you come and recognize your sinership and that you need atonement, you need to be covered by the blood of an innocent sacrifice. If you do that, Cain, you'll be accepted too. There's no difference. There is no favoritism. If you come and do what is right, you'll be accepted. Learn this, Cain. If you persist in doing what is wrong, sin crouches at the door like some wild beast. It will master you, Cain. That is a very solemn lesson, isn't it? When we stand before God and we feel infuriated, somebody has told us that they're saved, you see, and we can't say that ourselves, so we get very angry with that. Who do they think they are? And I'm as good as them, and why doesn't God give me that assurance of salvation? And we get angry. And God please. Look, there's no favoritism. If you will do well and come the way you're supposed to come, you too will be accepted. But if you allow resentment and anger to rise in your heart against those who do come and trust the Savior, if you allow resentment to rise in your heart because you will not accept the way of sacrifice for salvation, Cain, be careful, because sin in the end will rise up like a wild beast and absolutely tear you to pieces. That is the seriousness of sin. It's like man trying to meet a wild beast. We shall not conquer it by ourselves. That is true in life, isn't it? You watch a little child, and he stamps and he puts on all his resentment and grows red in the face and cries and shouts because he, he's angry at mothers telling him not to do this, and it's all very sensible and in the child's good interest, but he gets angry. If that temper, that anger, that resentment against authority is never dealt with, it could, in the end, tear the child's life to pieces. If sin isn't pardoned, if we're not reconciled to God, if we continue demanding to have our way instead of God's way, and God's warning is solemnly this, that sin in the end will overpower you. That is the solemnity of the lake of fire. Under that final judgment, human beings will not cease to exist. They shall suffer. And some people say, but look, that's terrible. Why does God allow people to keep on suffering like that, you see? They only had seventy years to live, and now for their sin in seventy years, they're going to suffer for eternity, people say. Surely that's not fair. Oh, but my friend, that is not to face reality, to talk like that. Those who pass from this life unsaved and are condemned at the final judgment and are delivered to the lake of fire, they don't then automatically become saints and believers. They remain sinners, and sin will churn them up and ruin their humanity for all eternity. You see, the pangs of hell will never convert anybody. God doesn't have a heaven full of people that have been forced to go to heaven by suffering the pangs of hell first. God wouldn't lower his dignity to do any such thing. God will save people by his love. By the warnings of judgment, yes, but by his love. Through the sacrifice of Christ. Prevail upon them with his love that was so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes on him should not perish. But if we pass by that love of God, because we resent God and resent his law and resent his command to repent and will not come God's way, all then know this, instead of having our own way, sin, like a wild beast, will in the end master us. And they in the lake of fire shall remain sinners, unrepentant, forever. Oh, what pathos there is in the heart of God's appeal to Cain. Just you think of it. Almighty God coming to stand and speak and plead with a little creature of his own hands that is defying God. What a God he is. The New Testament has a phrase that never ceases to surprise me. God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. They say, would God do ever such a humbling thing as to commend his love? Comes up thoughts to me of clean, easy people who've got some brushes to sell, in the old days, not the modern ones, the old ones. And they knocked on the door, now they've got some brushes to sell, and the housewife said, no, thank you very much, I got oodles of brushes. Oh, but madam. And to stop the lady shutting the door, puts his foot in the door, doesn't he? So he get a chance to plead and commend to the dear woman how good these brushes are. Well, he's a salesman. But to think of God, not only giving his son, but coming to each one of us and commending his love to us and putting his foot in the door to stop us pushing the door shut in his face, if he possibly can, and urging his love upon us. God Almighty of heaven, with us such insignificant creatures and sinners in addition, commending his love towards us. If you do well, if you come the right way, shall you not be forgiven and accepted just as much as your brother Abel? Cain wouldn't. He not only wouldn't, he defied God. If God wouldn't have what he, Cain, brought, then God wouldn't have what Abel brought either. And he murdered Abel. What would you do met with a man like that? Suppose you had a, a, a beautiful garden and a conservatory and all the rest of it, but being retired, you, uh, had decided to go and stay six months with your daughter-in-law in New Zealand, because she married a New Zealander, you see, and you're going to go for six months, and so you appoint a gardener to look after your garden for you while you're gone. And you take him around and say, now, gardener, while I'm gone, I'd like you, of course, here in the, uh, uh, conservatory here on the glass house, I would like you to grow tomatoes. I love tomatoes. Whatever you do, don't grow cucumbers and, uh, uh, and uh, melons. You say, I don't like cucumbers and melons. Grow tomatoes. Oh. And you come o- home after your holiday in New Zealand, and you go out in the garden to see how the tomatoes are getting on. There aren't any tomatoes. The place is coming down with cucumbers and melons. You summon the gardener and say, quite a good man, I thought I told you I wanted tomatoes and not cucumbers and melons, and you've gone and filled the place with cucumbers and melons. What's this all about? Oh, he says, well, I know you said tomatoes. I don't like tomatoes myself, and I'm going to plant what I like, bother what you like. What would you say to him? You'd say, my dear man, here are your cards. Get going. Man was made to till the ground, so the ancient story says. And Cain was a tiller of the ground. When he not only defied God and refused the way of forgiveness and murdered Abel, saying to God, if you don't have what I bring, you won't have what Abel bring either. God said precisely that. Cain, you can get out. When you till the ground, it won't yield to you, you her strength. Cain saw the point. He said, my punishment is greater than I can bear. For thou has cast me out from the face of the ground, and from thy face I shall be hid. My punishment greater than I can bear. Yes. As it begins to, began to dawn on him, he'd lost the very reason for which he had been made. Then what is the purpose of life? Why were we made? Why were you made? I remember years and years ago being on a train just after the war, when food was very scarce, and opposite me was a young gentleman. I was young at the time too, and we shared our sandwiches and coffee, and we got talking about spiritual things, and I happened to use the word sin. He told me he didn't believe in sin. It's a silly word, mean anything to him. I said, oh, ah. I said, tell me, uh, old chap, um, uh, suppose you were clever enough to make a motor car. Yes, he supposed he could. I said, and suppose when you made this motor car, you'll see, and sat behind the steering wheel, nine times out of ten it went where you wanted it to go, but once in ten it just took no notice of you and went off anywhere, however you'd move the steering wheel. What would you do with that? Well, he said, I, I, I, I would uh. Scrap it. Ah, yes, I said. Uh, uh, I can understand you're doing that if five times it went where you wanted to go and five times where it wanted to go itself. But suppose it was nine times out of ten it went when you wanted to go, and just one time out of ten took no notice and went where it liked. What would you do? He said, I'd scrap it. If I made a car, said he, I would want the car to go one hundred percent where I wanted it to go. I said, I thought so. And I said, oh boy, God made us. The Bible says, for thy will we were and were created. And the trouble with us is all we like sheep have gone astray. We've turned everyone to his own way, gone where we wanted to, without regard for God. I said, my dear friend, you'll have to be careful that God doesn't put you on the scrap heap of Of eternity. eternity. Cain said, everybody that seeks finds me will kill me. No, they won't, says God. I'll put a sign on you so they don't kill you. Well, friend, there's something more serious, more terrible than death. And that has to end in eternity and realize you've lost the very reason for your existence, but must exist still in that hopeless torment of soul. Cain's successors went out and developed a very pleasant civilization. Their work in metal, their work in music, their work in the crafts was delightful. We are not to despise it. But the chapter ends with a very sad and sorry thing. They had learned the art of poetry and lyrics. They had their pop of the tops, uh, top of the pops in their day, as we do. And one man made up a lyric, and he sang it for the admiration of his wives. A young man just touched me and bruised me. I crushed him. If Cain is of end sevenfold, I shall be av- uh, avenged seventyfold. In other words, anybody dares touch me, I'll smash him. And he turned it into a lyric. Became top of the pops. A culture that was on its way to glorify violence. And as I read it, I shudder to think of how much modern entertainment, having lost its grip on God and on morality, goes steeply down that hill to take violence as a means of amusement and pastime and entertainment, and glorifies violence, losing the sense of the sacredness of human life. Solemn things. But the chapter doesn't end on that solemn note. For the final words, it says that Eve conceived again and bore another child in the place of Abel, whom Cain murdered, and history was to go on. Oh, thank God he let history go on until the time he sent his son that he might be redeemed. And thank God he's let history go on till the year two thousand and one. We are here tonight hearing still the loving call of God our Savior to make sure we are right with God and on our way to his eternal heaven. Should be rich, shouldn't it? There are several questions tonight, so that you will forgive me if I answer them briefly. It is not because, uh, uh, I, uh, wish to dismiss them casually, but the time suggests we ought to try to get through them fair as quick as we may. Question number one, the first day God made light. Light is vital for the existence of life. Why was this initial light not good enough for sustenance of animals, of animate and animal, which now require sunlight for life? And why was the sun not made right at the start? There are several questions there, as you see, and it is a topic which we shall have to bear with one another as we think about it and come to our tentative conclusions. Some people hold that the sun mentioned at day four uh, in Genesis, uh, was then created at day four and not before then. So that the light of day one, when God said, let there be light, and there was light, was not the sun's light. Now that is perfectly understandable, even in scientific terms. That the original light was simply photons, as they are called, and God called, caused the bursting out of photons in the mechanism of the universe, which provided Earth with light. You might, if you wish to, back home that theory, because in Hebrew there are two words. There's a word for light, or, and then there's a word for light holder, uh, Juzi, maor. And the word for light holder or light giver i- i- is used of the sun and the moon in the sky. So there's a difference in between light as such and a light holder or a light giver, a lamp. So you can say, if you wish, that the original light was, uh, photons, and then, uh, the sun was made subsequently on day four. The question, uh, goes on to say, why was this initial light not good enough for subs- uh, sustenance of animate and animal, which now require sunlight for life. Well, if you hold that, uh, the sun was not made till day four, then the s- uh, plants and things were made on day three. They require, uh, light, don't they? Plants do for their, um, uh, growth and health. Do you see? So I'm not quite sure that one could be absolutely positive in saying that the light of day one, if you regard it merely as photons, wouldn't be enough. You see, I, I say, well, that that's perhaps a supposition. Eh, you see, I have a difficulty with the idea it was just photons for the simple reason that day one tells us that when God made the light, he divided the light from the darkness, and he called the light day, and the darkness he called night, which seems to me to be talking in our everyday language, and refers to the fact that here on Earth we daily experience twelve hours of light and twelve hours of darkness. Now, that's easy to be understood if our light is coming far from the sun. So the sun is out here, the Earth is here, and the Earth is twizzling round, isn't it? So you get alternating day and night, light and darkness, with the sun, uh, uh, in the same place vis-a-vis the Earth. But if you had photons coming in from outer space in all directions, uh, well, you wouldn't get an alternating of light and darkness, day and night, unless you somehow had the light of photons focused somehow at one position in the heavens, which then becomes rather complicated, and I'm not scientist enough to solve that one. My own, uh, uh, view is that, uh, when Go- uh, Day one talks about God making the sun and the moon, it is, has in mind, its chief point is the purpose for which they were made. You will notice what it says, he let them be for, uh, signs and seasons, for days and years, sun, moon, and stars. The sun, uh, uh, to regulate the day, the moon to regulate the night, and the stars, uh, uh, and the galaxies, you'll see, uh, uh, and uh, uh, so forth. Uh, these were used, planted by God, as far as we're concerned, for signs and guidance. Now, we know in the ancient world how important that was. Farmers had to rely upon the constellations and their risings and settings each year to know what was the time to sow their seed. The re- revolution of the Earth round the sun once a year gave us the idea of years and the passing of the years, and then the cycling return for the, uh, uh, mechanisms of harvest and sowing and so forth and so on. I think, therefore, that, uh, uh, the sequence is likely to have been that when the Earth was first made, it was shrouded with water. Uh, uh, when the sun was created, therefore, there might have been some, uh, uh, indication of change between light and darkness as there is to some depth in the oceans, but not at the real bottom, do you see? Then when God created the firmament and gave, made space, and the waters were gathered together in one place, and so forth and so on, then the sun would have become visible, though it would have been there perhaps all the time. Now it become visible, and day four now telling you the purpose why God made them. At least that is the thing that seems, uh, most, uh, uh, likely to me, but I, of course, I would not want to be dogmatic and rule out other explanations. Here it says, the second question, the Earth's surface was reshaped after Noah's flood. Is there any indication of the Earth's appearance before this? Um, well, I don't know. That would be an interesting question to put to geologists. Uh, one of the very big advances in the last century was the knowledge of tectonic plates, was it not? And the way the Earth's, uh, surface and the tectonic plates are moving. Uh, this was dec- discovered by the, uh, sub- uh, the investigations of the bed of the oceans, and uh, you can measure how uh, much these tectonic plates are moving in the course of the year, and some of them are the cause of our earthquakes. New Zealand is a case in point. On the uh, eastern side of New Zealand, as you know, the big uh, plate coming in from the sea is buckling under the Earth's surface and getting hot down below and therefore producing volcanoes. And on the other side of New Zealand, the two plates are sliding against each other and causing friction and so forth. So that in New Zealand you get these effects of, in some parts, of steam coming up out of the ground, uh, so in much abundance that in one place they run a power station from the steam that's coming up through the ground. Eh, uh, what actually the earth was like before, uh, the fall and so forth, or before the flood, I don't know how we would determine it. Um, you said you cannot prove love by the exercise of power. The scripture says, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth and scourgeth every son he receiveth. Is this not the exercise of God's power to prove his love? Well, uh, uh, uh, yes, in a sense that is so, isn't it? Uh, I stand corrected to say, at least I'll modify my absolute statement. When God chastises us, it isn't present at the time, says the writer to the Hebrews, but we are to believe that he does it in love. Like our parents used to tell us when they chastise us, it hurts me more than it hurts you. I found that very difficult to believe. I'm not quite sure it was true, but perhaps it hurt them psychologically. It hurt me physically. But anyway, uh, yes, they did it in love, of course they did. But if we talk about the ultimate question in the universe, do you see? And who shall win in the battle for man's allegiance? How does God, uh, uh, uh, bring, uh, the rebel to repent and to trust him? Is it by simply putting on a display of almighty power that frightens the wits out of us and gets us cowering like insects in the mud. Well, no, you say, God doesn't convert us that way. It is through the cross of Christ that he wins us. Of course, the Holy Spirit comes and powerfully presents that message and powerfully pleads with us. But God's, uh, e- e- uh, the evidence God gives that he is the true creator is his loyalty to his creatures, his love for his creatures. It is not simply, I beat Satan because I have the biggest power. And you see, to put it crudely, if after the fall God had said, well, uh, uh, uh, Satan, I'm now going to destroy you. Well, Satan, yes, he knows that God is almighty and can do it. But Satan could well have replied, yes, you can destroy me, God, but I've defeated you. You made a creature, didn't you? You were all powerful to create. You didn't have the ability to retain the love and loyalty of that creature, did you? So I've won, even though you destroy me. And God has the answer to that, and it is given in Revelation five. who is worthy to take the book and to loose the seals? Loosening those seals will set loose the judgments of God upon earth. Who has the worthiness to do it, as well as the power? Who is mo- has the moral worthiness to set loose those judgments? And the answer comes, uh, the lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed to take the book and open the seals thereof. How and why? Well, he's worthy to do it, for he was slain, you see. That's how God wins our hearts, isn't it? By his love in Christ at Calvary, and not sheerly by the exercise of tyrannical power. Yes. There's a second question here. In chapter three verse sixteen it says, he shall rule over thee. Was there a difference here in ruling over Eve as opposed to what God originally intended? What God originally intended is stated in chapter one towards the end, and then in the early chapters, uh, early verses of chapter two. And Paul expounds chapter two. This is man and woman before the fall. And he makes the point that, uh, Adam was first formed, not Eve. Secondly, woman was formed out of Adam, not Adam out of Eve. And thirdly, the woman was made as a helpmeet for the man. It is not said that man was then created to be made a helpmeet for the woman. Though doubtlessly there's to look after her. But that is the, the order in God's creation. It's a question of rank. Now, many people don't like the idea of rank. They think it's a nasty thing, rank. But then we all believe in rank, don't we? If you're going to have a decent game on a football field, perhaps you don't think football is decent to start with, but grant that, and if you're going to have a game of football on a football field, you have to have rank. There are eleven players, but one has to be the captain, and above him is the manager, and above him is the chairman of the board. That's how the thing is run. Yes, uh, when they're off the field, the captain himself is subject to the manager, but on the field, then it's the captain that has to decide who's going to take the free kick and will this, that, and other. And that's how the game has to be run. You, you, it would be a confusion if you didn't have rank. And so in the kingdom of Christ, there's rank, as there was rank. Adam and Eve were both to have dominion. If he was king of the earth, she was his queen. Then there was rank. God had given the leadership to man even before the fall. After the fall, this other word is used. Uh, thy desire shall be towards thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. As I understand the Hebraists, I'm not an expert Semitist, but as I understand them, the word is a strong word, do you see, uh, in- inclined to mean mastery over. And this in man-wife relationships seems to denote that they would become not the ideal that they had been to start with, but an element of coarseness and mastery. Not always true, of course, but then you only have to study the history of the ancient world to see how often and how still in our modern world that is true. Shouldn't be true among Christians, of course. This says, please turn over. Oh, there's a third question. Cain lost the purpose of existence. Can this be true of the believer? Will losing out at the bema remain with us in any sense throughout eternity? Well, I don't think a believer can, in the sense that Cain did, lost the, uh, lose the purpose of his existence. Uh, when we repent and believe and receive the Savior, we are born as the children of God, and we have as our purpose in existence to serve the Lord gladly and willingly, and to grow up in his family, do you see? That we as believers often stray, and instead of doing the will of God as we should, we stray and have to be brought back and repent and confess our sins. But the mark of all true believers is that they will eventually repent. And to look at it from the side of the shepherd, he will not lose any sheep that God has given him. He will bring them all home safely at last. But when you ask, uh, will losing out of the bema remain with us in any sense throughout eternity? Well, I would want to say yes, because, as I made the point earlier, we must distinguish between the penalty of sin and the consequences of sin. You see, if any man build wood hand stubble and his work is burnt up at the bema, the scripture says explicitly he himself shall be saved. His salvation isn't put in question. But if his work is burned up, he shall suffer loss. He gets no reward. That is an extreme case, of course, but, uh, visiting that for a moment, saved, but nothing to show for life's work. That will be a sorry thing. And if it should happen to any of us to stand before Christ and our work be burned up, I don't suppose we shall shout for joy, I'm glad it's all gone. We shall suffer loss, it says. Then there is the other side to it, isn't it? Not merely our works. Two Peter chapter one bids us use all diligence in the power of our faith to add the Christian virtues. Goodness, knowledge, love, this, that, and other, self-control. Doing this, says, uh, Peter, in this way, by adding these virtues, the entrance into the eternal kingdom shall be mun- ministered to you abundantly. So there's a difference between having an entrance, pure and simple, that is through the blood of Christ. Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they might have right to the tree of life and enter into the gates of the city. Entrance into the eternal state by the blood of Christ, the same for everybody. But an abundant entrance, that says second Peter chapter one, will depend on our adding those list of Christian virtues. It isn't possible, is it, that for one man, one dear sister, to be saved in her teens, say, and live a godly life, and not only work for the Lord, but allow the Lord to mold her character and strive daily to be ever more like Christ, and goes home to glory. And another man here, he he has been saved, but squandered his life and not made any attempt much to perfect holiness in the fear of God. That when he arrives in eternity, he should be exactly the same as the other woman. If you say that, you're saying that it doesn't, in the end, make any difference whether you have developed as a believer or not. And Paul makes it abundantly clear how he strives that he might present every man grown up adult in Christ. And, uh, not all believers arrive home as adults, do they? I mean, spiritually adults. So that's the distinction I make. I must pass on quickly. Yeah. In Genesis five, uh, it is stated that God created them male and female and blessed them and called their name Adam in the day when they were created. Does this infer that God created a race of people called Adam, of which Adam and Eve were the federal head? And is this perhaps where Cain and Seth got themselves wives? Well, uh, as I said the other night, Adam is the personal name of the first human being, Adam. But Adam in Hebrew is also the name of the species, man, as distinct from angel or animal. And Hebrew, uh, eventually says, I will destroy man whom I have made, Genesis Genesis six, as God willing, we shall see tomorrow. That is the race, the species, man. I shall destroy man, you'll see. Or the Hebrew will talk about the sons of man or the daughters of man. That's a very frequent, uh...