After Adam laid with his wife Eve, they had Cain. She said, "With the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man." That is a good way to acknowledge the Lord in your life. It's funny, how adding a biblical command like, "if you plan to go somewhere and do something, don't say, 'We will do this.' Say, 'If the Lord wills, we will do such and such.'" Trying to live by that and actually say it in conversation and in response to questions like, "Are you coming to the game on Friday?" can be quite challenging and evoke raised eyebrows and responses of, "Oh, I guess that means no." Sometimes adding simple steps of obedience like this can keep your heart in the proper place in regards to God's role in your life.
After God received Abel's sacrifice but not Cain's, Cain's face was "downcast." The Lord spoke to him: "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast?" It's another one of those rhetorical type questions when it comes from God, who knows exactly why his face was downcast, just as He knew where Adam and Eve were when He asked, "Where are you?"
He goes on to say: "If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it." God is actually coaching Cain and giving him incredible advance warning insight into his future; but Cain has probably already plotted his plan and, instead of acting like, 'if it's the Lord's will, I will kill Abel,' he knew in his heart that it was not the Lord's will and he was deadset on doing it, so there's no way he's going to stop, pause, and seek the Lord about his next step or course of action.
After Cain killed Abel, God asked him another unnecessary for Him to know question: "Where is your brother Abel?" Cain faced his confrontation and complained about his punishment, as surely he'd be killed. The Lord put a "mark" on Cain so that no one would harm him. I wonder what this mark looked like.
Later Cain lay with his wife and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. It's so funny to look back at some of these stories and the characters' failures and then realize, 'Oh, these are my forefathers.' We can't just look at them like a nameless character in a play. These people are part of our heritage. Wow. The flaws work themselves from us all the way back, don't they?
Praise be to God Who paid our punishment on His Son, the incarnate member of the Trinity Who suffered death on our behalf.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at September 7, 2006 09:48 AM