Brother Gary Sunday Morning 11/25/12
We’ve celebrated the national holiday of Thanksgiving for
149 years. But since the beginning of
time God has provided a way for us to spiritually be forgiven of sin. God promised a messiah, a savior. We are thankful that a messiah has come.
The first recorded thanksgiving in the scripture:
Gen 4:1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she
conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
Gen 4:2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel
was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
Gen 4:3 And in process of time it came to pass, that
Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.
Gen 4:4 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:
We read about two brothers.
They both believed in God. People
can actually believe in God but fail to worship God in spirit and in
truth. They both brought offerings of
thanksgiving to God. Indeed everyone
needs to be thankful for the benefits of the harvest and the food that is set
before them. We need to be thankful for
those things in life that make us so comfortable.
Able identified with his spiritual need. It is important to be thankful for tangible
things and yet we can fail to identify with our spiritual need and look to God. Able also brought a firstling of his
flock. He had the benefits of life and
of what the ground produced, yet he also realized that man had a spiritual
need. God had made a sacrifice to cloth
Adam and Eve. Able recognized his need
to make an offering for his spiritual need.
Cain made an offering of thanksgiving. But God did not accept his offering. When an offering was accepted God manifested
it in different ways, sometimes by sending fire down from heaven and consuming
the sacrifice.
In the Gospel day the supreme sacrifice has been made
through His son Jesus Christ. God has a
way of giving a witness that it is well with our soul when we please God.
When Cain responded to being rejected of God, He did not
humble himself. Each of us has needs in
this audience and we would all pray, “Oh God help me to be clothed with
humility.” We will go through many learning
experiences in life and God will need to correct us. It is vital that we don’t respond as Cain
did.
Gen 4:5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not
respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
Gen 4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou
wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
Cain was wroth. Can
you imagine that as God created all of us, that one would be angry with their
creator?
I want to talk to you children about honoring your
parents. I see men and women in this
audience this morning that work hard to make provision for their children. It is vital that you as children are
thankful. It is vital that when you are
corrected that you are not angry.
As I work through this message, if I shake and tremble as I
did when I studied this lesson, you will see me literally shaking and
trembling. It is hard for us to believe
that we could ever become a fugitive. I
had wonderful parents and God was real to me as a child, but I could have been
a fugitive.
Cain may have said, “It isn’t fair.” Life will not be fair. He responded with anger and jealousy. It is normal for a child to have a dark
countenance when they are in the training stage, but Cain was no three year
old. His heart was, “I’m going to give
this to God but I’m only going to do it the way that I want to do it.”
“Why are you wroth?”
In Cain’s anger, jealousy, and wrath, God came and dealt with him. We are blessed to have a God that is so great
and eternal and so full of mercy and compassion that He would come to us and
plead with us when we are so wrong.
He has done this for me too.
I see it in the scripture so clear this morning. He tried to reason with Cain, “If you do
well…”
It doesn’t matter who a person is or what education they
have or where on this earth that they are, if they do well then God will accept
them.
Gen 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be
accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over
him.
When an individual is wrong and rebellious against God… Cain
allowed his carnality and humanity to cause him to be so angry that it worked
hatred toward his brother. God did not
cut him off and say, “You are done for.”
God said, “When you are wrong, plead with your brother for a lamb that
you may be able to make an offering for your sin and rebellion against God.”
In the Gospel Day the lamb has already been sacrificed. Jesus pleased the father and forgiveness has
been bought already.
God dealt with Cain.
This warms my heart that for every sinner in the world today, God is
dealing long and hard with them. God
asked Cain why he was angry for there was a sin offering. God helped Cain to know that his brother
would still honor him. “Do what is right
and your brother will not try to take away what is yours through being the
first born.”
God pleaded with Cain.
I ask this question to myself and to each one on an individual basis,
“Is God pleading with you?” There will
be times in our life when we have challenges in which God knows what is best
for us but because of our humanity we are so afraid of what God is dealing with
us about.
There is something about rejection and being misunderstood
that we have phobias of it. If God is
pleading with you, humble yourself before God.
I ask you to pray again for me. I believe that this will be the best year of
my life. It will not be that way because
I sit in my lazy-boy and you bring me hot chocolate and caramel apples. The best things of my life will be because
when God speaks I clothe myself with humility.
You must be clothed with humility or you will never answer
the call. You will either choose your
own way or you will let some other human choose your way. God has better things for you than you could
ever choose or someone else could ever choose for you. God will never fail.
Suppose Cain would have said, “Help me find a lamb.”
“In the process of time”: things happen in the process of
time. In the process of time, I found
myself in grade school, in the process of time I graduated, and in the process
of time I found myself in high school. In
the process of time I felt rebellion in my heart, and in the process of time I
felt conviction. In the process of time
a golden opportunity was presented and God said, “No son, I want you to go this
way.”
In the process of time have you brought an offering unto
God? Sinners need to be thankful. They should thank God for their food. Who else should they thank? Everyone should thank God for their
food.
In the process of time it appears that Able brought a thank
offering but he also brought a sin offering.
You want to be able to look back at that moment when in the
process of time you knew that you’d sinned and had come short of the glory of
God and came to God repenting.
There is given to every man a measure of faith. Don’t let anything or any spirit mess with
your faith, and especially don’t you mess with your faith.
God cares about everything in our life. The very hairs of our head are numbered. He knows our downsittings and our
uprisings. He knows how we think: He
knows if you freeze when something goes wrong; He knows if you think fast on
your feet and as you see it happening you run to the rescue. He knows.
Heb 11:4 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 he being dead yet speaketh.
I want to talk to you about your faith. Have faith in God. If you say to that mountain, “Be thou removed
and be cast into the sea,” then that is the way that it will be.
It takes faith to believe that Jesus Christ paid the price
for our sin and He did. When we come to
God with our faith He will give us a witness; Able obtained a witness that God
had forgiven him of his sin.
Gen 4:5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not
respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.
Gen 4:6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou
wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
Gen 4:7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be
accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over
him.
Gen 4:8 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.
We wonder about the conversation that they had that is not recorded. God had Moses emphasize this.
Our worship has an effect on time and eternity. God was faithful to Cain. Cain’s worship was rejected. If you have found yourself failing in worship
then I plead with you this morning. Your
worship will effect time.
Worship effects time.
I am responsible to God and to myself for the teachings of Genesis 4. We’re responsible to our self and to
sinners. Cain’s rebellion to worship
cost him in time: he slew his brother.
Able died saved because he worshipped the true God.
God left us this example.
Gen 4:9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?
Can you imagine refusing to worship God or heed his
pleadings and God coming back and asking what you did to your brother? Your brother is not just those that are saved
or your brother in the flesh. With everyone
in this world there is an identity that I meet with. How I live will affect everyone that I
meet.
Cain did not want to identify with that. Cain wanted to be independent and wanted the
center of the stage. If this is you then
you can get past it right while I’m preaching this morning. You can repent in your heart.
Cain had everything going for him. He was the eldest. He was afraid that Able would take everything
from him.
Worship affects time.
God asked him what have you done?
Your brother’s blood cries from the earth.
Gen 4:10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice
of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.
Sin is the terror of the earth. God told Cain that whenever he saw the earth
he would remember what he had done.
Regrets are the heaviest burden.
Anger and jealousy are cruel.
Effects of Cain’s rebellion:
1. Guilty of destroying his brother. The rest of the world may live how they want
to, but I shake and tremble, I don’t want to destroy my brother or anyone else. I don’t want that anger and jealousy and
wrath.
Forget all that stuff about those that treated me wrong. Don’t waste any energy on that. The other day I got so stirred up on thinking
about something that I was almost to the steaming point. God spoke to me, “Why are you wasting your
energy on that.”
No one can touch you if you are God’s anointed; don’t waste your mind and
energy on those that don’t like you. You
are not big enough to pack that.
2.
Rebellion toward God.
3.
The echo of his brother’s blood. Every time I look at the earth it echoes,
“You killed your righteous brother that would have given you a lamb.” However lost and without God a sinner is, we
would say, “It would be my pleasure to help you get saved.”
4.
Conscience of punishment now and in eternity. He was afraid to live. When people don’t do right they are afraid to
live and afraid to die. People are full
of fear.
“Everywhere I go people will want to kill me.”
People think that everyone knows what they’ve done because of their
conscience condemning them.
5.
He was driven.
One of the things that I love about being saved is that He leads
me. Everywhere He goes He leads.
6.
God’s face was blocked from Cain. When you see someone that you haven’t seen
for a long time, you look and look. I
look at pictures of my brothers that have been summonsed into eternity and I
want to always remember their face. I
want to remember Brother McConahae. I
look at the picture of my dad.
Can you imagine never seeing the face of God?
Worship God, God’s way. Be
thankful for the blessings that we’ve enjoyed and be thankful for Jesus.
7.
Cain became a fugitive. He was expelled from the presence of
God. Family connections were
broken. Can you imagine walking away
from God and never seeing family again.
Many in this audience get very lonesome for family.
Always wandering. Always a
fugitive. Never settled, never a part of
anything, never happy or satisfied.
Constant pain results with groaning and trembling. This is the life of a fugitive. The horror of a crime plaguing an individual
24 hours a day. Constant fears. A vagabond.
Having nothing and always going here and there. He went to dwell in the land of Nod, which
means wandering.
God wasn’t done with mankind. God dealt with Adam and Eve’s loss. Forgive those that have cost you losses. Maybe you have had sickness or lost
inheritance or wealth. Deal with it
saying, “It is over and it is done, let me move on.”
Gen 4:25 And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a
son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she,
hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.
Gen 4:26 And to Seth, to him also there was born a
son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the
LORD.
Eve had had at least two losses, Abel and Cain.
God had Moses record this for our benefit and our
edification. Abel brought a lamb to the
first thanksgiving. He recognized his
sin and need of forgiveness.
Joh 1:29 The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto
him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Luk 2:10 And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for,
behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
Luk 2:11 For unto you is born this day in the city of
David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
This is the first Sunday after 149 thanksgivings in
USA. Jesus is our lamb. He offered Himself willingly so that we could
come to God with whatever need that we have.
If you need to repent of sin then you can come to Him.
The only requirement is that you acknowledge
that you have a need and God will work with you.
