Cain became very angry when God didn’t accept his sacrifice. This devotional reading looks at how God showed Cain mercy while He was correcting him.
Nuggets
- Cain saw that his offering wasn’t accepted and became very angry, and God called him on it.
- We must be righteous in the eyes of God.
- When we choose to sin, we still have to watch out.
- Sin was waiting to overtake Cain.
Cain and Abel both offered sacrifices to God. God accepted Abel and his sacrifice, but He didn’t accept Cain and his sacrifice.
We don’t have to imagine Cain’s response. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected” (Gen. 4: 5 NLT).
How did God react to that?
Let's Put It into Context
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Devotions in the The Influence of Sin series
Cain’s Anger and Dejection Acknowledged by God
“‘Why are you so angry’ the LORD asked Cain. ‘Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master’” (Gen. 4: 6-7 NLT)
Cain saw that his offering wasn’t accepted and became very angry, and God called him on it.
Up to this point, we don’t know exactly why Cain’s sacrifice was not accepted. What we do know here is that God confronted him.
God didn’t have to converse with Cain, but He chose to do so. God is like that. He will confront us so that we will confess our sins.
“Come now, let us reason together, says the Lord: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool” (Isa. 1: 18 NLT).
It is also important to note that God didn’t appear to Cain as He did on Mount Sinai.
“On the morning of the third day, thunder roared and lightning flashed, and a dense cloud came down on the mountain. There was a long, loud blast from a ram’s horn, and all the people trembled. Moses led them out from the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. All of Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the Lord had descended on it in the form of fire. The smoke billowed into the sky like smoke from a brick kiln, and the whole mountain shook violently. As the blast of the ram’s horn grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God thundered his reply” (Ex. 19: 16-19 NLT).
On that day, God appeared to Cain almost like he did to Elijah. “And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper” (I Kgs. 19: 12 NLT).
God is primarily interested in our spiritual condition. He knows that is the most important for eternity.
Dods explained why Cain’s anger wasn’t the right response. He wrote, “… that is, if thou doest not well, the sin is not Abel’s nor anyone’s but thine own, and therefore anger at another is not the proper remedy, but anger at yourself, and repentance.”
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Our sin is our consequence and responsibility.
God wanted to know why Cain was envious. Cain shouldn’t have been focusing on the fact that Abel’s sacrifice was accepted and his wasn’t.
Cain should have been focusing on why his sacrifice wasn’t accepted. Abel’s sacrifice — accepted or not accepted — was between him and God.
God was showing His mercy to Cain by trying to guide him from where he was to where He wanted him to be.
Yes, God comes to us where we are. No, God doesn’t leave us there. He is in the business of cutting out our sin.
Do What Is Right
We must be righteous in the eyes of God.
When we read right in God’s Word, we need to read righteous. We aren’t talking right and wrong here. We are talking good and evil.
A sacrifice is a God thing. We can’t keep it on our creature level.
Did Cain think that God should accept his sacrifice regardless of whether it was true worship or not?
This is the first if/then situation — stated as a since/then situation. If Cain would have offered the correct offering with the right attitude, then God would have accepted it along with Abel’s.
Since God did not accept Cain’s sacrifice, the if/then turned into a since/then.
Or Watch Out!
When we choose to sin, we still have to watch out.
We who know the rest of the story know that sin won. Still, at this point, God was telling Cain that — at this point — he still had a choice.
To me, this drives home a very important fact. A sacrifice given without the relationship will be rejected because we are making our choice of obeying God or not without even knowing Him.
If we make a sacrifice to God without ABCDing, it could be for a number of wrong reasons.
- We don’t really understand our sin and God’s forgiveness.
- We understand, but we don’t care.
- We want to act like we want God’s forgiveness, but we only want the fire insurance.
I’ve told you that God told Pastor Steve three years ago that the Church was missing Jesus. About a year and a half later, He told him that we were missing Jesus through ignorance and apathy.
We don’t know, and we don’t care!
In a way, that is what the Pharisees were doing in Jesus’ time. Jesus was telling them they were misinterpreting God’s Word, and they said they weren’t going to change.
Lately, God has been telling Pastor Steve that we are missing His presence. What does God’s Word say about His presence and how we get there?
- “The Lord replied, ‘I will personally go with you, Moses, and I will give you rest — everything will be fine for you’” (Ex. 33: 14 NLT).
- “You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever” (Ps. 16: 11 NLT).
- “God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God” (Mt. 5: 8 NLT).
- “So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most” (Heb. 4: 16 NLT).
- “You have said, ‘Seek my face.’ My heart says to you, ‘Your face, Lord, do I seek’” (Ps. 27: 8 ESV).
- “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart” (Jer. 29: 13 NLT).
- “The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth” (Ps. 145: 18 NLT).
- “Then times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will again send you Jesus, your appointed Messiah. For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets” (Ac. 3: 20-21 NLT).
We have to actively seek God to call on Him and receive His blessings and peace.
It tells me that we have to be all in with respect to our worship of God. We can’t do it halfway. We can’t do it part of the time.
We must worship God the way He requires at all times.
Sin Is At the Door
Sin was waiting to overtake Cain.
Try this visual. Satan is sitting on the porch swing just outside the door of your heart. He is just swinging away, patiently waiting.
Maclaren put it this way. He wrote, “The key to the interpretation of these words is to remember that they describe what happens after and because of wrong-doing.”
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After and because of. Because of our desire to sin — once we do — it rules over us.
Maclaren reminded us of Eve’s punishment for the original sin. “… ‘And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you” (Gen. 3: 16 NLT).
Substitute sin. You will desire to control sin, but it will rule over you.
Yeah, sometimes it feels like we are married to sin.
Even Paul struggled with sin, but he didn’t blame it on God.. “So the trouble is not with the law, for it is spiritual and good. The trouble is with me, for I am all too human, a slave to sin” (Rom. 7: 14 NLT).
This is the passage where Paul said he did what he didn’t want to do and didn’t do what he wanted — even though he wanted to do right.
How did Paul resolve that? “But if I know that what I am doing is wrong, this shows that I agree that the law is good. So I am not the one doing wrong; it is sin living in me that does it” (Rom. 7: 16-17 NLT).
No, this is not Paul comforting us that this is a license to sin. But it enhances the picture of sin at the door.
Sin is always at our hearts’ door, regardless of how strong a disciple we imagine ourselves.
Think about it. We talked about Satan making sin bright and shiny in order to tempt us. Now we learn that this bright, shiny temptation is always just outside our hearts. It is laying in wait for the tiniest of cracks in our faith in God.
It is shiny, but it is subtle, too. It can slip in, and we can sin before we even recognize it.
Spurgeon reminded us that the temptation can not only be a stumbling block, but it also can pounce on us unawares.
How can we withstand temptation? How can we keep from sinning?
Look at how at how Spurgeon’s described Cain. He wasn’t happy with his today, and he didn’t have any hope for tomorrow. Cain couldn’t defeat sinning because he didn’t believe God could do what He promised.
- “The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning” (Lam. 3: 22-23 NLT).
- “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today” (Mt. 6: 34 NLT).
- “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord. ‘They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope’” (Jer. 29: 11 NLT).
- “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4: 6-7 NLT).
- “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his Will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take” (Prov. 3: 5-6 NLT).
- “Don’t be afraid, for I am with you. Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will hold you up with my victorious right hand” (Isa. 41: 10 NLT).
- “For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline” (II Tim. 1: 7 NLT).
- “You can make many plans, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail” (Prov. 19: 21 NLT).
- “And this same God who takes care of me will supply all your need from His glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4: 19 NLT).
Yes, we are going to struggle in our lives. We have to be content where God plants us. We have to choose Him always.
Making the Connections #1
Okay. So, both Cain and Abel came from Adam and Eve. Sin and righteousness were both within Adam and Eve.
So, nature or nurture?
Well, sort of nature. We each have a sinful nature thank you to the hereditary aspect of sin.
But since Jesus was 100% human, He had the same sinful nature. What is a sinful nature?
- “So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him” (Col. 3: 5-10 NLT).
- “When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God” (Gal. 5: 19-21 NLT).
- “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there” (Gal. 5: 24 NLT).
- “We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin” (Rom. 6: 6-7 NLT).
Well, sort of nurture.
Jesus made a choice to follow God’s Will. We have a choice as to what we are going to choose to do.
What did we start this devotion saying? Adam and Eve raised Cain and Abel right. They made different choices.
Abel choose God. Cain choose Satan.
Making the Connections #2
“And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself …” (Mk. 12: 30-31 NLT)
Isn’t it interesting that the sins in Genesis 3 and 4 mirror the greatest commandments?
We are to put God first. That is the reason why the first sin dealt with obedience v. disobedience.
We think the second sin was about social issues. It was about human relationships. But the root of it is still putting God first.
Can we get into Heaven if we have unconfessed second commandment sins?
We won’t get into Heaven if we have unconfessed first commandment sins.
Making the Connections #3
We try to tell ourselves that sin is only temporary. We won’t have to worry about it when we get called to Heaven.
Well, yes and no. Sin won’t be a thing in Heaven, but our deeds will follow us.
Maclaren explained it this way.. He wrote,
“Every human deed is immortal; the transitory evil thought, or word, or act, which seems to fleet by like a cloud, has a permanent being, and hereafter haunts the life of the doer as a real presence. This memory has in it everything you ever did.”
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Think about it. Books are going to be opened on Judgment Day. There are going to be books of memory opened. No, God didn’t forget anything that has happened.
- “For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body” (II Cor. 5: 10 NLT).
- “I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God’s throne. And the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books” (Rev. 20: 12 NLT).
We are also going to have our personal books. They will tell us what we have done that will be the foundation of our judgement.
Making the Connections #4
God’s definition of success is different than ours.
We can’t rely on just being a good person. We can’t think doing everything right is it, no matter what we think the Matthew 25 to-do list says.
Yes, it talks about wining and dining people, being good to strangers, and helping those who are downtrodden, sick, or in prison.
But we miss the beginning of that section of the story. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world’” (Mt. 25: 34 NLT emphasis added).
Those who are blessed means those who are saved. We have to have the correct relationship with God.
How do we have a good relationship with God? We search for and seek Him.
Searching for and Seeking God
Hearing His Word (Rom. 10: 17)
Reading His Word (Rev. 1: 3)
Praying to Him (Heb. 4: 16)
Studying His Word (Ac. 17: 11)
Meditating on His Word (Ps. 1: 1-2)
Memorizing His Word (Ps. 119: 11)
If we don’t have a good relationship with God, we only have ourselves to blame.
Making the Connections #5
We shouldn’t forget the fact that Cain was the older brother. Abel should have been the one to look up to Cain, but Cain wasn’t a good role model.
Yes, this is just another example where God did not follow the established firstborn provision. That tells me birth order is, while honored, arbitrary if the character isn’t right.
Look what Spurgeon said about this. He wrote,
“Christianity does not come into a nation to break up its arrangements, or to break down its fabric. All that is good in human society it preserves and establishes. It snaps no ties of the family; it dislocates no bonds of the body politic. Let all who are in authority, whether as kings or petty magistrates, beware of wantonly molesting a people who cause them no trouble, lest they be found in this matter to be fighting against God.”
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There is no social agenda behind Christianity. Society’s ills are not righted.
God is concerned about our spiritual issues, regardless of who we are.
How Do We Apply This?
- Resist sin to ensure our peace.
- Recognize that sin breeds sin.
- Thank Jesus for His work in defeating sin.
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Father God. It is our choice to sin against You. Forgive us when we do. Also, forgive us when we kick against the consequences You give us for our sins. We know You use these trials to perfect our character and make us holy and righteous as You are. Amen.
What do you think?
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