Dennis Tuuri

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 into his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. 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 lie at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother. And it came to pass when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him. 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 art thou cursed from the earth, 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 vagabond 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 of this day from the face of the earth, and from thy face shall I be hid, and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. And it shall come to pass that everyone that findeth me shall slay me.

The Lord said unto him, “Therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Enoch. And he builded a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch.

Now turn to 1 John chapter 2. Beginning at verse one, my little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And he is a propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.

But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk even as he walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which he had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard from the beginning. Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you.

Because the darkness is passed, and the true light now shineth. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother is in darkness even unto now. He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whether he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake.

I write unto you, fathers, because you have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you little children because you have known the father. I have written unto you fathers because you have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you young men because you are strong and the word of God abideth in you and ye have overcome the wicked one.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes, The pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.

Let’s pray. Father, we would be those who would abide forever in your presence and not be driven further and further away. Help us each one individually and then corporately today by the power of your spirit to hear your word. May we not be that arid, dry ground that does not drink up the water that’s poured upon it. But gently, Lord God, minister your word to us that your spirit might soften our hearts and transform us that we might be matured in our obedience and our love for the Lord Jesus Christ and his people. In Christ’s name we ask it.

Amen. Please be seated.

Through these two texts of scripture, drawing some observations out in somewhat organized fashion hopefully, Lord willing. And the topic, the subject is marriage and maturing children. And I really want to stress by way of application the teens, the young men and women that are growing up in the context of our church and communion. And this is really kind of geared at them.

In the providence of God, we’ve done a series of—I don’t know a dozen or so—sermons on marriage based on Genesis 2 and 3 and the first section of verse one rather of section four. Last week when we talked about sexual relationships. And now we talk about progeny, children. This is a very important story to at least give a glance to, if not go into detail on as we begin to move through the Old Testament and what it teaches us about marriage. There are some major themes here and can’t touch on all of them, but I do want to at least use this story of Cain and Abel as sort of an example to us of the two seeds, the maturing children that come forth from Christian marriage, which is what Adam and Eve are all about—biblical marriage before Yahweh and Christ.

And then go to 1 John 2. There are some very definite links. I’m sure you noticed at least a few of them between 1 John 2 and 3 and these opening chapters of the book of Genesis. You know, the commandment from the beginning. The brother being an indicator of how well your relationship to God is. And we see that mirrored quite clearly in the Cain and Abel account. So they are linked. And actually Cain is specifically mentioned later in chapter 3, I believe, of First John. We’ll get to that as well.

So there is this linkage that I think it makes it legitimate to use these two texts together to help draw a unified picture for us in terms of the exhortations we should be giving to our young people as they mature in Christian households.

So, just go back to Genesis 4. We’ll work our way through the Cain and Abel account, at least the first portion of it. We’ll be returning to Genesis 4 at a later date—in a couple of weeks, three weeks, I’m not sure when—to talk about Lamech. Now, Lamech was the seventh generation, as it were, from Adam. And we see in Lamech this progression of evil. And we also see pictured in Genesis 4 the development of metallurgy, metalwork, the development of agriculture that we read about here. Animal husbandry is going on with Abel.

There is societal and cultural advance. But at the same time, great wickedness advancing as well. When we get to Lamech, the seventh generation out, we’ll see this full-blown really in-your-face paganism. And he is the first polygamist, which is why it’s important for our series on marriage. We’ll talk a little bit about polygamy and its relationship to men who seek power and authority and domination of others.

And this Cain account really is part of this progression. So there is culture going on. There’s also development of music. There’s the development of formal worship. By the end of chapter 4, we read that then men begin to call on the name of the Lord. Now, they’re obviously calling on him here, but in a more formalistic sense and in an organized structure. So culture advances outside of the garden away from the direct presence of God.

But in that advancement and maturation of civilization, there’s also this advancement of evil. That’s kind of the big picture which we’ll be going to as we go through these texts in the next few weeks.

Okay, but turning now to verse one. Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and bare Cain and said, “I have gotten a man from the Lord.” And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

Couple of comments. Eve kind of exclaims out, “I’ve gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” And I think the right way to see that is that’s kind of her profession of faith. She’s relying upon that promise of the redeemer to come. She’s gotten a child. Now God has blessed her and caused her to conceive in spite of her great sin back in the garden. So I think it’s a positive statement, but the statement has some ambiguities to it. And without getting into the technical idea here, this is one of—I think the only place where a baby or a newborn is called a man.

Now that word hearkens back to the man that God created. Some commentators among them think that this is actually not a good statement by Eve, that Eve is saying like the Lord, I’ve created a man. You know, she was drawn out of Adam and now a man is drawn out of her. I don’t think they’re right in that. I think she really is making a profession of faith. She’s saying a good thing, that’s proper to rejoice in the progeny that God gives to Christian couples.

But it is interesting because I think what it does do—this phrase “I’ve gotten a man from the Lord”—reminds us of the first Adam. And there’s a sense in which Cain is the second Adam. Now we talk about Jesus as the preeminent second Adam. But you know, this is the second man that comes forth and it comes forth from marriage. And so I think one of the purposes of God phrasing it this way and Eve saying it that way is to draw attention to the correlation between this section in Genesis 4 and chapters 2 and 3.

There’s definite correlaries, and this is one of them. There’s a progression. There’s similarities and there’s differences between the two stories. We’ll see this, but remember we had a sequence in Genesis 2 and 3 of narrative and then dialogue with the serpent and Eve and then the central action of man’s sin when he takes the fruit and then narrative again, or dialogue rather. We got narrative dialogue narrative dialogue again between God and Adam and Eve questioning them, judicial inquiry, and then his statement. And then we’ve got a narrative account of their expulsion from the garden. Okay, so as the sun comes up in that text we got description and narrative as the sun comes up in this text we’ve got description in narrative.

But then as it approaches the middle of the text, we’ll see that God and Cain have dialogue the way that the serpent and Eve had dialogue. And then at the center of this section, as the center of the beginning section in two and three was Adam’s sin—so the center of this section, what is it? It’s Cain slaying his brother. That’s the center of the section.

And after that, God comes to Cain and questions him, draws him out, and then pronounces judgment. And then we have a narrative account of the expulsion of Cain from the presence of God. And we have a narrative account again at the end of this section with Cain being pushed even further away from the entrance to the garden out there into the hinterlands.

Now, so very similar development between these two accounts.

Secondly, what I want to say here is that there’s nothing wrong with being a tiller of the ground. We’re not supposed to automatically say, “Oh, he’s a tiller of the ground. That’s not good.” Now, obviously, this second Adam was like Papa. Papa was a farmer and the son here, you know, the lad here is a farmer as well. That’s a good vocation. And notice that these two vocations provide the basis for food and clothing.

Food is the grain crops that are grown primarily and some degree of food from the animals. But the animals, remember that God says specifically they’re used for is clothing for Adam and Eve. That’s why he gave them skins. So we’ve got food and clothing—the central aspects of the requirements of Christian marriage. You know, provision for nurturing food and guarding clothing being portrayed in the two lines of differentiation that begin to happen.

You know, culture differentiates into specialty vocations. This idea that men are all supposed to be completely self-sufficient, have your own little ranch, all self-contained in your home—not biblical. By the end of the book of—by the end of the Bible—the church of God has become a city and various works within the context of that city are the results of people who are really excellent at metalwork for instance in the context of the tabernacle and temple or other trades or vocations.

So this differentiation is not bad, it is good.

Okay. Then verse three. In the 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 unto his offering, but unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect.

Now, we all know this text. Hopefully, we’re pretty familiar with it, except some of you young people coming up. But what it says at the “in process of time,” what it says literally is the cutting off of days. And I think what it’s referring to is this time of year. The cutting off of days is almost always this expression used with respect to a particular period or framework of time, whether it’s a year, a day, or whatever it is. So what we think here is it’s the end of the year, by which we mean the year of harvest.

So as the crops have become matured and the animals have become matured, what will become the first month of the year in terms of the Jewish calendar—the harvest month—this becomes now the time when the sacrifices are due. So they’ve gone through the agricultural year and now they’re going to offer their sacrifices to God.

Now, why isn’t Cain’s offering acceptable to God? This is a central issue in this text. Now, the Scofield Reference Bible and all those that follow him will say, “Well, the problem is that Cain doesn’t have a bloody offering.” And I’ve said that myself. I think that’s absolutely wrong. The word used for offering here is not sacrifice. It’s the word used generally for an offering doesn’t have to be bloody. And in fact, when we get to the sacrificial system, that particular Hebrew word is usually used of cereal offerings.

So there’s nothing wrong with Cain bringing the fruit of the land that he worked. What do we know about the differences? Why was God had respect unto one and no respect unto the other? And let me suggest several things.

Abel had a sacrificial offering. Read it very closely what it says here. Cain brought of the fruit of the ground, an offering unto the Lord. Nothing special. He picks up some fruit from the ground, whatever it is, offers it unto the Lord. But what does Abel do? Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. The first of the flock and the best of the flock is what Abel brings as an offering to the Lord.

Abel had a sacrificial intent in his offering, in his worship to God. And Cain does not apparently have that kind of sacrificial intent. Now, his daddy had told him to worship the Lord, no doubt. And he had a sense of duty to do it. And I would challenge you young people now as you’re beginning to grow up to men: Why do you bring forth tithes and offerings here at Reformation Covenant Church? What do you think when you walk to the front and bring forward your first fruits or the best of what you have and offer it to God by means of offering it to the church?

Are you just doing your duty or are you able to sacrifice, giving? Do you pay yourself first or do you pay God first? What’s your attitude? What’s your heart attitude?

Now notice what happens here. Cain is going to end up where you don’t want to be, children, beloved children of this congregation. You don’t want to go down that road of anger and no control and killing your brother and banishment, and having a generation later Lamech, who’s just a terrible, awful, wicked, evil guy.

Cain is conquered by the sin that crouches at the door. Do you want to be conquered? Do you want your life to be marked by that kind of frustration and anger and sassiness that Cain shows to the Lord? Or do you want to be like Abel?

The scriptures clearly point these two brothers as examples to young men and by implication young women growing up in the context of Christian homes, maturing children in the context of Christian marriage. What’s your attitude? Well, it’s a test for you. You see, I believe Cain’s attitude was wrong. Cain did not have a sacrificial attitude. Cain was just doing his duty.

Now, there’s a second aspect of this. We’re told in the book of Hebrews 11:4 that by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts. And by it being dead yet he speaks.

Abel’s the model of faith and love for God and as a result sacrifice to God. Cain is the model not of love, but of the manipulation of God. Why do you do your duty if your heart isn’t right before God? Because you hope that by offering God your tithe, he’ll do something for you. It’s a form of manipulation of the sovereign God. Or it can be. And it reveals the heart of Cain as the text continues on telling us that when God rejects his offer, now the test comes.

God has rejected your offer. Something has happened that you didn’t expect. You did your duty. You brought that 10% or whatever it was. What is it to God what your attitude is? You did your duty. It is everything to God what your attitude and motivation is. He has no respect for such offerings. Proverbs 21:27 says, “The sacrifice of the wicked is abomination, but he much more so when he bringeth it with a wicked mind.”

The scriptures tell us in the text we’ve read that Cain hated his brother, and he hated his brother because ultimately he was estranged and not in proper relationship with God. You can’t hate your brother and love God. Cain hated God, and his attitude toward his sacrifice was wrong. The sacrifice itself wasn’t really sacrificial. It wasn’t motivated by love. It was motivated by manipulation. It wasn’t really submission, as is demonstrated in his response when God does not have acceptance of his offering.

We read continuing on in the text that indeed after God does not accept his offering, that Cain is very wroth and his countenance falls. Now, we don’t know how it was that God manifested his acceptance of Abel’s offering and his rejection of Cain’s offering. I don’t know how that worked, but I know it’s true. I know that the sovereign God decided to accept one and to reject the other. And the question is, what’s Cain’s response going to be to this? Cain’s response is anger. Uncontrolled anger. He was very wroth and his countenance fell.

We’ve talked about this. Parents, look at the countenance of your children. Children, if you find yourself in outbursts of anger, think of Cain. Think of the road that he walked. Think of the generations after him that walked that same road. Be fearful of the judgments of God upon your life and turn away from such uncontrolled anger, wrath, and the fallen countenance.

God in his grace begins this dialogue. Remember the serpent comes to Eve by way of narrative structure, kind of similar passage to this one. The serpent comes to Eve and says, “Well, what’s going on here?” Well, now we got God coming to Cain, right? But he’s not like the serpent. He’s trying to help Cain get through this. And listen to what God says. The Lord said unto Cain, “Why art thou wroth? Why is thy countenance fallen?”

God brings us to meditate on our actions. He causes us to be self-reflective on who we are and what we properly should do as a result of who we are. Cain here is supposed to repent. The idea is not that you’re supposed to be perfect every time and never get angry. You’re not supposed to, but you will. But when the spirit of God comes alongside you in conviction, children, then you don’t want to stiffen. Then you want to humble yourself. When your parent comes to you and sees your anger, sees your fallen countenance and pleads with you. Look at what you’re doing.

Do you think about it? Remember Cain, parent and child, and use that as an example to your children to bring them to self-reflection.

If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? And if thou doest not well, sin is at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

You’ve got an enemy. Children, as you mature in the Lord, recognize that your adversary, the devil, prowls in your heart, prowls in your home, prowls in this church. Remember, in the church, this is where the devil lives. There’s a sense in which that’s true. He’s here to test you. He’s at that door when you come in, and he’s seeking whom he may devour. He sees. God sees and turns you over to him. If your intent as you come forward to offer your lives in consecration to God—if that’s not sacrificial and love and submission on your part, if instead it’s duty and manipulation of God and if it’s rage really against the God who won’t accept you—you’re turned over to that beast who crouches at your door.

The word here for accepted can be forgiven. If you do well, things are going to go good. We’re supposed to instill hope in a bad situation to members of the covenant community. Our children need to hear from us over and over that if they do well, they’ll be accepted, because they hear from the devil over and over: “You’re no good. You’re no good. You’re no good. There’s no help. There’s no help. There’s no help.” That’s what the devil does to them. He drives them to despair. He beats them down. We don’t want to do that. We want to exhort our children to do well and to be up and straight up with God.

That’s what the word means. The word accepted here in its literal sense means to be upright. Cain’s countenance had fallen. Draw a frown, you little kids, if you’re trying to remember this part of the lesson. Okay. What are the two differences between Cain and Abel? Forgiveness. What is forgiveness evidenced by? Well, it’s evidenced by moving from a frown to a smile. We’re accepted and brought up as our sins are forgiven to us.

Okay. We’re also—the picture is that sin and the demons, the devil, he crouches down. And when men become like the devil, when Cain becomes serpentine and satanic in their efforts, and young men and young women, if you go the wrong path going out of this sermon, you go down there a little bit lower, a little bit lower. You’re like that snake, because God is causing you to recognize your image-bearing. Now the snake who crawls along the ground. But if you’re forgiven in Christ, you stand upright before God and you’re to have an attitude of life that is upright about your actions.

If you’re deceitful and if you got wrath and envy and resentment and you’re manipulating God by your supposed duty, you’re going down. God wants you to know that. But if you’re forgiven in Christ and you confess your sin and you do well through confession of Christ, you’re coming up then away from the ground. You see, you’re soaring up to the heavens. You’re like those tall trees. You’re like those big tall spires on the churches that reach up to God.

Young men and young women, that’s what your parents want for you. They want you to be upright. They don’t want your countenance fallen. They wanted it lifted up. They want you to accept the offering of Christ. The word for one of Christ’s offerings. The offering goes up to God. It raises up. Some of you guys know this. The smoke goes up. That’s the transformation of your state. Solid to gas in the case of whatever you’re smoking. But the picture is a rising up again. It’s the same picture. Do well. Recognize that God has accepted the sweet-smelling offering of Christ as your substitute and rise up with the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Upstanding. Upright. Right? So this upright, this accepted could be seen as the law of God making your life upright. You could draw a little picture of an altar with smoke ascending—the altar of Christ. Remember we from Isaiah 6, it’s applied to your life. You could draw it as a frowny face or a smiley face. You’re not supposed to just paste on a smiley face. You’re supposed to be pleased that God has accepted the offering of Christ.

You’re not supposed to be like that crouching demon. You’re supposed to be an upright man of God forgiven by him.

Cain’s found countenance wasn’t like this. God warned him: “Watch it. You’re not here by yourself. That serpent, he’s out there, too. I didn’t keep him away from you. I want him out there to test you.” Children, you’re being tested today. You’re being tested in terms of your commitment to biblical worship. Are you like Cain? Do you try to manipulate God through doing your duty? Do you try to just do your duty?

Do you sacrifice the best that you have to God? Do you pay God first, first, and do you offer beyond the tithe for the building and other ministries of the church or other people’s help—the best of what you have? See, that’s the attitude. The attitude is submission. Abel was submissive. You don’t read much about Abel here. He had a good sacrifice. Hebrews says he had faith in the word of God. He was submissive to God.

If God rejected his offering, he’d want God to come to him and help him figure out why. “What’s going on in my life? God, help me to see.” Sometimes, you know, it’s just you’re going to have to suffer for a while. Sometimes there’s specific things you got to correct. Cain, he didn’t want to hear from God as he comes to him. He didn’t want reflection. Cain was manipulative. He didn’t submit to God.

And if you don’t submit to God, what’s going to happen is people and things are going to tick you off repeatedly. So they’re going to tick you off. The world is filled with brambles and thorns, people that don’t do what’s right, and things that don’t work out right. And your life as you move in the main in the line of Cain is rage against God. Rage against the machines. One I think it’s a local—it’s a rock band or something. Well, that’s what it is with Cain. He rages against God.

You see, not so with Abel. He seeks godly progressive change and maturation. Not revolution, not rage. Cain goes off raging, angry, countenance fallen, rejecting the gifts of God—rejecting this wonderful gift of God that God as God comes to him to dialogue with him and help him to realize the reality of his conflict, that he’s got an enemy he must conquer. And he doesn’t conquer him, and so that beast eats him up. That beast comes to him, and he goes out then with his brother Abel, and it comes to pass when they’re in the field, verse 8, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him.

I want to read a quote about this offering before we leave it. There’s an excellent book that I’ve been using for this Genesis series by Henry Blocher called In the Beginning, the opening chapters of Genesis. And let me read you this paragraph from him about these offerings and what’s going on.

First, the Lord was absolutely free to approve or otherwise what was brought to him. God who is not bound—and he’s not bound to you today. No matter what you bring to him, he is not bound to accept it. He’s free and sovereign. You are not.

Secondly, Cain’s offering lacked any kind of sacrificial spirit. For the spirit of sacrifice supremely involves respect for the liberty of God.

Read that again. The spirit of sacrifice supremely involves respect for the liberty of God.

Cain’s reaction shows the profound paganism of his worship. If he was disappointed, it was because by his sacrifice, he hoped to build up credit with God. What made him beside himself with rage was that the Lord showed himself to be the Lord using his freedom of choice and by choosing the other man, showing at the same time Abel’s independence of Cain. Cain’s the older brother, remember? Tough thing to watch younger brother get accepted and you have problems. You want younger brother dependent upon you, but he’s not. Might that not be the deepest source of hatred against our brother, turning so swiftly to the will to murder?

We tolerate other people as objects to manipulate for our own ends, as pawns on our chessboard, but we do not tolerate their showing themselves to be truly the image of God by relationship with him, which we have failed to achieve.

I could spend some time here on marriage and sexuality that we talked about last week and wanting to have people be what we want them to be and being alienated because of their relationship with God that we don’t maybe have achieved in our own lives and the rage that turns into and the will to murder that arises in the heart of men and women as they try to work out these relationships. These are very significant words.

We tolerate other people as objects to manipulate for our own ends, as pawns on our chessboard. Young men and young women growing up, understand your tendency in Cain and Adam to do that—to see other people as pawns to manipulate, pawns on your chessboard instead of seeing their relationship to God apart from you.

We do not tolerate their showing themselves to be truly the image of God by a relationship with him, which we have failed to achieve. We do not tolerate in concrete reality a God who is free, who does not consult us in order to act and who upsets our impersonal ideas of justice and equality. We take a dim view of his being good and free.

So it was with Cain. So it is with us if we do not steel ourselves knowing that enemy crouches at the door. That Satan who wants our obligations to God to be simply obligations and not sacrifices. Who wants us to seek to manipulate God for our purposes, making even him as we’ve made his image bearer—men—pawns in our chessboard.

And as we then are filled with rage instead of adequate submission to him, differing approaches—the maturation of the two seeds finds itself in the opening verses of chapter 4 by different approaches to worship. Critical how we worship. Worship is the great test that God has given mankind to reveal what’s in his heart.

Cain kills Abel. And the Lord then comes to Cain. Verse 9, the Lord said unto Cain, “Where is Abel thy brother?” And he said, “I know not. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Now, you remember when God came to Adam? And Adam was not forthright either, was he? God comes to Adam says, “Where are you?” “Well, I’m hiding. What’s the deal?” Well, I was feeling kind of guilty and so I hid in the trees.” Instead of making a good confession, he tells half-truths. Okay.

But look what Cain has done now. Look at the maturation or progression of rebellion and defiance against God. “Where is your brother?” Outright lie. “I don’t know where he is.” Outright lie. He knew where he was. He was lying dead in the place that Cain left him. And not add to his outright lie—outright impudence against God. “Am I my brother’s keeper?” “Am I the shepherd of the shepherd kid?” He’s sassy toward God. Adam wasn’t sassy. Adam wasn’t upfront. Adam was deceitful. But this is a maturation of evil, boys and girls.

You know, when you sass your parents and when you’re impudent or when you lie, you’re moving in the power of Cain. Cain’s the one with the will to murder. You’d kill your parents if you could in that spirit. That’s what the scriptures say. Repent. Turn around. Parents, pray for your children. Work hard with them. Sassiness is a bad deal. It’s not just some cute little thing. God didn’t see it as cute. As Cain says, “Remember my brother’s keeper.” Hey, that’s pretty good. Pretty funny line there. “Am I the shepherd?” No. It’s terrible. It’s impudent.

You want to be eaten up by the devil, children? You sass, you defy, you tell lies. You want to walk in the blessedness of the resurrection power of Abel? You tell the truth. You submit. You honor the authorities that represent God in the context of your life.

Cain rejects God and as a result, God then places a curse. Now, see the progression here as well. Remember we’ve made it the point several times when we’re going through God’s sentence on Adam and Eve that the land was cursed, but Adam and Eve were not said to be cursed. They had sentences imposed upon them. Difficulties ensue, but they were not said to be cursed.

But here, very clearly Cain is cursed. Verse 11, “Now art thou cursed from the earth, 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 vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.”

And God then expels him further and further east. Verse 16, Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod on the east of Eden. Further on—you know, that expression from the Grateful Dead. I’m not trying to talk about them. I don’t know them. I don’t know those people. But I am saying that the attitude “we go further on” is the attitude of Cain, who goes further away from the Lord. Further away from the marks of Christian civilization, driven out and expelled yet further away from the presence of God.

There is a maturation here of evil. There are differing hearts that are reflected in the society of God versus society of Satan. Augustine said that Cain here is the picture of the city of man and Abel’s the picture of the city of God. I think Rushdoony says it better in World History Notes and other places where it isn’t the city of man. It’s the society of Satan. Because that’s whose image—crouching now, slithering—Cain is going to take as he slithers through the earth.

Defiant speech, satanic actions of killing the brother in this maturation of evil. Cain has become a great image bearer, a fuller image bearer of the society of Satan. Abel—he’s characterized in Hebrews tells us with faith in God. Cain is manifesting the rejection of God’s gracious words to him in correction. Abel is the upright one that Cain could have been had he responded in grace to God’s pronouncements and declarations.

Cain has become the crouching slithering one. Abel represents the maturation of righteousness while Cain represents the maturation of evil.

Young people, how is it with you? Are you going to move in terms of the hope of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ—the resurrection that Abel, again from the book of Hebrews, tells us knew of and expected from his death? Or are you going to move further on, further away from the presence of God, the presence of his people, the presence of Christian culture and civilization?

That’s the two roads that are pictured for us in this text.

Now, one of the commentators says it this way. He says, “Abel was a model and Cain’s behavior must be avoided.” They’re both models for us. 1 John 3:11 through 15 brings both themes together. Quoting: “This is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another and not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not wonder, brethren, that the world hates you. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer. You know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.”

We repeat one of those phrases in our communion liturgy frequently. Understand its significance. Understand it goes back to these first maturing children, products of Christian marriage. Cain is a model, young men and young women, to avoid with every ounce of strength you have in you.

Well, let’s turn to 1 John now then and look at the core revelations here and how some of these things correlate to what we’ve just been discussing. And I want to—I gave you the context in verses 1-7, but let’s pick it up at verse 10. “He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.”

See, the contrast is obvious, isn’t it? Cain hated his brother. But he that hates his brother is in darkness and walketh in darkness and knoweth not whether he goeth. He’s a wanderer and a vagabond. That’s what Cain was, right? On the face of the earth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes. The enemy is one. The croucher has made him the crouching one.

And then he goes through these sets of delineations. “I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name’s sake. I write unto you, fathers, because you have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one.”

Now the context then for what we want to talk about—exhortations to maturing children in the context of Christian families—the context is some degree of age differentiation. Okay.

A little bit of technical stuff here. There is difference of opinion on these three designations: little children, fathers, young men. Now that’s repeated twice in verses 12 and 13, right? You see that it goes through it twice. Some people think that it’s talking about little kids, adult men, and then young men, okay? Or older men rather, and then younger men, okay?

But others think, no, John frequently uses the term “little children” to address all the congregation. So if you look at his epistle, the term “little children” is used a lot. So what they’re saying is that really that’s a general category and then there are two groups of differentiation—of age or maturity—fathers and young men.

Now that’s the view that Calvin took, Luther took it, a lot of the church fathers took it, and that’s okay with me. I don’t know which view is correct. I tend to think they’re right. That “little children” first is a general designation to all people, and then there’s a separation to fathers and young men.

Now, one reason they think that is because it doesn’t follow the normal progression of age. All right. It doesn’t go little children, young men, fathers. It goes little children, fathers, young men. So it looks like it’s a general statement first and then the specifics. Either way, for the purposes of our talk today, it doesn’t make any difference because either way, everybody agrees that the young men are differentiated from the fathers.

And while it probably has to do with spiritual maturity, we would also want to use the obvious reference to age that seems to be implied. Okay. So we’re talking now about the maturation of Christian children in the context of marriage. And I want to address not the fathers but the young men and say what specifically does this text tell us that young men need to be aware of in the context of their lives?

And I think what it tells us is that this differentiation results in different exhortations. Now you’ll see in verse 12, “I write to you little children because your name is for his father’s name’s sake.” Verse 13, “I write to you fathers because you have known him who’s from the beginning.”

The idea seems to be that the fathers, mature Christian men, older men now, are the ones who now know God not just in terms of forgiveness of sin or the name of Christ. They have come to know God in a sense in terms of eternity. They have come to know the unchanging God who is from the beginning and has manifested himself throughout all time, creation, and in his book, the scriptures.

There’s a depth of knowledge that is implied here with these phrases about the fathers that’s repeated again in verse 14. There’s a depth of knowledge of God that is achieved through age and a long walk with the Lord. And it prevents you from being blown about so much. There’s a stability to knowing God in eternity as it were, and to know that he is the God who changes not. He’s the creative God and he’s the God who changes not.

Now the young men aren’t quite in that posture. What’s told to them is something different. What’s told to them is, “I write unto young men because you have overcome the wickedness,” or the wicked one rather. Now the wicked one here means one who is actively and viciously wicked. Again, an emphasis—as it was like when God spoke to the maturing young man Cain—that sin crouches at your door there. There is this wicked one who is actively and viciously wicked.

And you must understand, young people at Reformation Covenant Church, this is what you are now engaged with as you mature into young men and women: battle. It’s warfare. That is an exceedingly important point. You are called to overcome, to be victorious in this stage of your life, not in later life.

In later life, you’re supposed to have passed that phase and moved into a depth of knowledge of the person of God himself that has left much of that behind. Now, we know that the Christian life is always a degree of struggle and battle. But the young men are supposed to have attained to the overcoming of the wicked one.

And we’ve talked about this at camp, talked about it other times. Jim Jordan working off an article by a guy named Oyven Rosenstock—he said what happens to you kids when you’re 10, 12, 13 years of age is you go through biological changes that produce then intellectual changes in your life. You go through puberty. Now, it’s real important you recognize right there, by the way, that the changes are not a result of your thought processes. It’s the result of God working on you in ways you have no control over. And then your thought processes result from those biological changes. Okay, it’s biological in nature.

But what happens is God causes you to differentiate, to become individualized. I think “to become half a person” is what has been said by these men. I think is a good way to describe it. You know, kids, they’re kind of sexless in a way. I mean, I know that boys and girls are different when they’re young, but they don’t—you know, they’re sexless for the most part. But when you go through puberty, then the maturation of your sexuality begins to occur.

Now, sexuality is a good thing. I hope I stressed that enough last week. I’m a little worried that I didn’t. I’m a little worried that you can’t stress it enough in the context of our day and age given the perversity of sexual practices of the Gentiles and given the Greek view that our bodies are bad things, that the church continues to struggle under.

It’s interesting to me that if you look at the history of…