I suppose you know the name of the first baby that ever lived—it was Cain. But can you tell me what kind of man he grew to be?
His father and mother had sinned, as we have seen, but we are very sure they confessed to God and were truly sorry, and looked forward to the time when there would be a Saviour, as God had said. I am quite sure Adam and Eve are among the millions of young and old that have died in faith in God and will not be sent to hell in the day of judgment. So I think their oldest boys, Cain and Abel, must have often been told by their parents about their being sinners and of the promised Saviour.
When the boys grew to be men, Abel raised sheep, but Cain cultivated the ground. Cain brought an offering to God, but what he brought would not do, because it was the fruit of the ground, which God had cursed on account of Adam and Eve’s sin. Abel, instead. brought as an offering, the first born ones of his flock, and God long, long afterward in the Epistle to the Hebrews chapter eleven, has told us that Abel’s was “a more excellent sacrifice than Cain’s.” Abel knew and confessed. in bringing his little dead lamb, that there was no other way to come to God by faith, but in connection with the death of an innocent one instead of himself. Of course, it was only as looking on to the true Lamb of God, that God could receive a lamb of the flock whose death couldn’t save anyone from hell.
Cain got very angry because God was not pleased with what he brought, and God spoke to him about it, but he was just the same hard-hearted, rebellious man as before, and when Abel and he were in the field, Cain killed his brother because Abel pleased God, and his own ways did not. It does not seem that Cain was ever sorry for his horrible crime; he even lied to God about it in his impudent speech that is given us in the ninth verse. But nothing is hid from God. He sees everything, knows all our thoughts and hearts, and said to Cain, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto Me from the ground.” Cain said to God that his punishment was greater than he could bear, but, as before, his heart was not changed. He went away to the east to live, his conscience making him unhappy to live near his parents and the others of his family.
We read of no more offerings or sacrifices to God; I think Cain wanted to forget God, like so many are doing today, and, as far as we can tell, God let him have his wish. About the Cain family, we are only told of their building a city of their own; of one of his descendants (a son in the fifth generation who proved to be a murderer like Cain) having two wives; and of the family making and using harps and organs, and of brass or copper and iron workers among them.
If you or I had been alive then, and could have gone to visit the city of Cain’s children, we should have found them busy trying to drown out the memory of their father’s terrible crime, the memory of that murdered brother, with harps and organs and singing, and with the first factories at work making various things out of iron and copper. We might have enjoyed their music, and admired their industry, but we should have remembered the sin unrepented of, and wondered how the Cain family expected to meet God.
You and I have to meet God some day; perhaps soon, it may be today. Are you ready? Do not turn away, and say, “I’ll think about that another time.” God’s time is now.