Is the Story of Cain and Abel Relevant Today?

This is a real life story. This is real life. When we read the story of Cain and Abel, we sometimes find that in the Bibles that we buy for our children, in these children's Bibles, and sometimes we find this story and we see the smoke of the offering of Abel travelling up 90 degrees to heaven. And Cain's, the smoke from the offering is just a little off course. That is not a true representation of the story.

And when we open those Bibles and when we teach our children these stories, we must make sure of the facts coming from the word of God. Now sometimes when we want to tell our children the story of Cain and Abel, if it was to be in a kid's talk, we would be tempted to say, once upon a time, there was a man Cain. And that would have been correct because this story is a little bit more about Cain than Abel. I don't know whether you've picked up on this, but working with the text, we read so much about Cain and so little about Abel. But my question to you today is this: is this real life story relevant?

Wouldn't it be better not to start with once upon a time? And along those lines, try to tell the story. Because really when we think about the outline of the story, I think this story has everything that would put it on a current affairs. I think this story, if I was a journalist, I would be able to run the story and keep people's attention. Because really, this is a current affairs.

Think about the things we see on a current affairs. Think about the story. We can ask, who were these two brothers? Why did the one kill the other one? What would his reasons be for doing this?

Why did he end up in a distant land and who is God in this whole story? Because really, there are some huge things that happened to these two brothers. It's not just an ordinary story. It's a real life story and it's very current for each and every one of us. When a baby is born in our homes today, what do we as Christians do?

The very first thing you do, if you're a Christian lady and that first grandchild is born is you pick up the phone and you phone your mum and you say, there's a new little boy in our family. And everyone rejoices. That's if the mother-in-law is not already there when the baby is born, isn't it? It's such a big event.

And people are so happy when the new baby arrives in the family. But Eve does something completely different. She doesn't speak about the son. She doesn't talk about a baby. Look at the text.

She says, I have brought forth a man. And why does she say that? She doesn't say, I gave birth to a son or a boy. But I brought forth a man. Because Eve felt that the wrongs that she as a person did before God and her husband would be righted by Cain.

Cain would be the one who would mean the mistakes of Adam and Eve. A man was born to crush the serpent's head. This is the reason. This is what Eve feels within herself. A man is born.

And then when you look into this text and when we delve a little bit deeper into this text, we only read that later, she also gave birth to his brother Abel. One little sentence. On the one hand, and now there are many theologians saying that they were twin brothers. Because we don't read about another event where another boy was born. It all happened together.

Later, Abel was born. He was the second born of twin brothers. Now, when we give attention to this, on the one hand, a man was born, the firstborn. Like in history, like it always worked, it was all about the firstborn child. We've even read about that in our reading of the law this morning.

Should I bring my firstborn for the transgressions of my sin? It was all about the firstborn and the name Abel means breath or nothing. On the one hand, a man was born, one of the twin brothers, the other brother, his name is just breath. Nothing. And then we start asking those questions which would put this story on a current affairs.

So why would God then accept the offering of a breath of a man rather than the offering of the man that was born to rectify the mistakes and the sins of his parents? How does the almighty one fit into the story? Let us let the story unfold. Cain and Abel, twin brothers, different occupations. We see Cain becoming a crop farmer and Abel, a stock farmer.

And we have to remember that there are no stipulations on how to bring an offering. It is way back in the day. There are no rules and regulations. This offering was just something that came from the two brothers. Something that came from their hearts.

And they wanted to bring God an offering. And when we look at the text in Hebrews 11 verse four, there is an interpretation on why God accepted the offering of Abel and not of Cain. In Hebrews 11 verse four, we just read that the way that Abel brought his offering was different to the way that Cain brought his offering. What do we know? We know that when Abel brought his offering, he brought the best that he had.

And God did not put in a little mark behind that offering because of the fact that the quality of the offering was better than the quality of the offering of Cain. Hence me saying that those little children's Bibles are wrong in suggesting that. He is the almighty one.

He can accept any offering. But God actually looked into and when we read the Hebrews text with the text of Genesis four, we come to the understanding that Abel gave to God because he wanted to give the best that he had to God with an attitude of thanksgiving. God is interested in why Abel gave the offering. God is also interested in what is happening in Cain's heart and why did Cain give the offering? So God is really interested in our hearts when we give.

How we give. That is what is all important to us. Now the second misinterpretation we can have with the story of Cain and Abel is to think that when God, the only thing that this text teaches us is that God did not accept. He did not accept Cain's offering. But he didn't reject Cain.

That's the second misinterpretation sometimes when we tell the story. God at that point in time did not reject Cain. The almighty God is in control. And because of the humble offering and the heart of which Abel made his offering, God accepted Abel's offering and not Cain's offering. Hebrews 11 teaches us because of the fact that the way that Cain offered, what was in his heart was not acceptable to God.

That's all that happened. Nothing more than that happened at this point in time. Let's let the story unfold a little bit further. Cain's name is often most mentioned. He's the representative of mankind in the story.

A man was born. And then we've read in that passage that this man, in his own power and in his own might, could not be successful. And how did Cain react? According to verse five, and what we've read in our text this morning is that he became very angry and downhearted by the fact that God did not accept his offering. He was downcast.

He had his head down hanging. His shoulders hanging. And he just couldn't understand what was happening. And in his anger, he kills his brother. And that's really, really what we need to understand about the story.

He kills his brother from the anger that's living within him. The very thing that God sees in his heart is his sin. And he acts out of his sin. You see, Cain did not consider or acknowledge the almighty power of God. When he took his brother into the field, he thought that God wouldn't see and that God wouldn't know.

And he killed his brother. And he did not acknowledge the almighty one and the power of God. Now when we put ourselves in the shoes of Cain, it is easy to come up and say, I am not a murderer. So yes, when we talk about Adam and Eve and when we say, would it have been any different if it was us in the shoes of Adam and Eve? We come up with the answer no because I also find a sin in my life. Would it have been any different if you were Cain?

Would the story be playing out differently? And when we look at the almighty one, when we look at God and we will be doing so shortly, we will see that God offered Cain at least two opportunities of grace. And this story could have been read in a totally different way if Cain just accepted God's grace in the story. But the first question is, are we murderers? Man, mankind, are we murderers?

Let's look at our relationships as Christians. When we ignore someone or when we walk away out of the life of someone, when we turn our backs on someone and say, this relationship has nothing in it for me anymore. I know of brothers who don't talk. I know of fathers and sons who wouldn't speak for decades to each other. That is Cain right there.

That is the attitude of Cain which was not acceptable to God. This is us. Walking out of each other's lives. This is us when we don't have that love for our brother and our sister and our friend as Christians. It is the very same characteristic that Cain showed.

And then in verse six, after all of this has happened in the fifth verse, in verse six, the Lord asks Cain, why are you angry? This is the first opportunity in the story where God gives Cain the opportunity to come clean. To confess. To say he's sorry. God gives him the opportunity with this question, why are you angry?

He gives him the chance to repent. Sin is like a beast crouching at a man's door. And Cain does not accept the opportunity to repent. He rather stays in his anger and acts from his anger, which was the very thing that was not acceptable to God. God wanted Cain to repent.

What was God's will for Cain? To take the opportunity, the grace, the hand that God extended to him. And then Cain pushes away the almighty one. He does not use the opportunity. He does not come clean.

He's not cleansed because of the fact that he did not use the opportunity of grace. He didn't want God to be God in his life. And then ironically, his punishment was even more than Adam and Eve. Think about it. Because at least Adam could, with the sweat and the effort that he put into, still gain a harvest from the ground.

But this man that Eve brought forward and brought forth couldn't even harvest from the ground. He was punished. Mankind was in deeper trouble even than with Adam and Eve with the story of Cain and Abel. The first murderer in the history of the Bible. We simply cannot ignore God.

He comes in the ninth verse. Even after Cain does not accept His grace and His hand of grace, God gives him another opportunity in the ninth verse. And this is the final opportunity. When the Lord asks Cain, where is your brother? Have you ever thought about this in the story?

Why would God ask this? Because He knows. God knows where his brother is. He knows that Abel is dead. Why would He ask the question, where is your brother if He knows the answer to it?

He asks this question because He wants to give him another opportunity to come clean. This is an opportunity of grace. This is like you knowing that your child made a mistake and you're giving him the opportunity to say that to you rather than you punishing him for it. It's the same thing. Where is your brother?

And then once again, Cain the man thinks he can make things right on his own. He does not use the opportunity and he doesn't repent. What would you answer if God asks you this morning, where is your brother? Where is your friend? Where is your father?

How would you answer on that question. Our relationships and brotherhood in the word of God is so important to God. This attitude of friendship and brotherhood is not something that we can simply be looking the other way. It is not something where we can get past God by saying, those relationships, I've murdered them.

I don't need my father. I don't need my brother. I don't need a friend who doesn't trust me. This is Cain speaking. If we think in our relationships that we can get away with this, we are not reckoning with the almighty God.

He knows. He knows us. He knows the way that we see our relationships. And you see Cain actually reacted and responded by pitying himself, by feeling sorry for himself. He made a mistake and he felt sorry for himself and his face was hanging and his shoulders were hanging because of his sin and his self pity.

And this is why we read the story is to realise that this is not the way that God intended life for man. We shouldn't have self pity, but we should take the road of repenting. Repenting before God, coming clean before God, and bringing our relationships back to God in asking for forgiveness where we have murdered others by ignoring them, by walking out on them. Our church and in us, building this church and growing this church. How do we see our own community?

Do we have love for others? Do we turn a blind eye when there is someone who is hungry? When there is a child when Quibi speaks about, someone telling us we are part and parcel of your congregation, of our congregation. How do we react and how do we reach out to our community and to people in need? Everywhere where we go.

Do we have this focus of brotherhood? I would just like to read two texts from the word of God. On the topic, the very topic of brotherhood and there are many. But just Psalm 133 is a Psalm with only three verses and it's written about brotherhood. And if you are a bit of a poet, this is really good because it's like an Old Testament poem.

How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity. And this is the Old Testament speaking. It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron's beard, down upon the collar of his robes. It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion, for there the Lord bestows His blessing, even life forevermore. This is a poem about brotherhood.

For there the Lord bestows His blessing, even life forevermore. And then we read in the New Testament, in the book of First John, First John two verse nine, we read the warning coming to us from the other side, from Cain's perspective. First John two verse nine reads like this, anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. So this is Cain and this is us.

We have to have a hard look at our own heart and our offering, our lives which we offer as living sacrifices before God. How do we bring that offering before God? Do we love our brother and our sister and our father and our friend? Because if we don't, we simply are not in the light. And we have to come clean.

And we have to use this opportunity because I believe that everyone who reads the story of Cain and Abel has the same opportunity. These two opportunities that God gave to us. A double measure of His grace. Where is your brother? The way it was intended was that Cain would say today, I am Cain.

Standing before You, the almighty God, repenting and admitting my sin. Please forgive me, Lord. Please give me love for my brother. This was the intended ending of the story of Cain and Abel. Cain and Abel is actually our own life story.

And my prayer for each and every one of us in this congregation is that our own life story will play out with a humbleness before God. Will play out with an able heart. Because you see, even if you are only a breath of a man, the almighty one will powerfully work in your life. We don't have to be the man. We have to be in the presence of the almighty one.

And that will humble us. Brothers and sisters, this is the story of Cain and Abel. God giving you and me the opportunity to make things right, to repent, and to heal those relationships, and to come into the light. Let us live together as brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ in the truth. Let us not ignore each other.

But love each other. And let us repent from our sins. In Jesus name, amen.