WCOG: Genesis 3–4
by Jeremy Painter
Abundant Hope Fellowship, Bremerton, Washington
Kind: Bible study
Scripture: Genesis 3:14-19, Luke 2, Job 1:7, Genesis 4:1-9, Hebrews 11:4, Hosea 6:4-6

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/jeremy-painter--wcog-genesis-3-4
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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I didn't quite finish Genesis chapter three in the last lesson. I'm not going to go through chapter three today, but I would like to use this as a springboard into chapter four, the curses that God mentions in chapter three first in his speech to Adam, and then his speech to Eve, and then his speech to the serpent. And then I want to use that as a kind of foundation to go into chapter four. First, God speaks to Adam after Adam has partaken of the forbidden fruit, and this is the pronouncement of judgment upon him. God says, because you have done this, this is verse 14 of chapter three, cursed are you above all, I'm so sorry, this is to the serpent. Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field, on your belly you shall go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and

the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, you shall bruise his heel. Okay, now what does all of that mean? This is the curse pronounced over the serpent for tempting Adam and Eve into disobedience in the Garden of Eden. Okay, you'll be the most cursed above all the animals, and on your belly you shall go, dust shall you eat, what does that mean? Now some have taken this to mean that this is the reason why the serpent slithers on its belly now. God took away its legs, its hands, feet. That's probably, that's possible, but it's probably not necessarily what's going on here. Dust shall you eat seems to be representative of the lowliness of the serpent's position. The serpent, when a serpent appears a few years ago, my wife sent me some pictures of some snakes all coiled around the porch right outside the place where she worked. She sent me this picture. She's the trauma that this

image produced was really, it was off the charts. So it has this kind of terrifying effect upon you, but more importantly, this is not really about snakes. This is about the devil. Dust shall you eat, dust, eat my dust, we say sometimes. The idea is, is your position when it's all said and done is going to be of the lowest kind. Okay, the Satan is associated with hell with the underworld. He's eating dust even right now. He's already been conquered. He's eating dust. One of the prophets, in fact, it's in the prophet Isaiah. There's a reference to one of the heathen kings who exalted himself up above God. But there's the promise that one day he would be paraded in front of the people that he had conquered and the people that he had wounded, the people that he had made slaves, but now they've been set free from this king and he would one day be paraded before them and the people

would point at him and say, you mean that was what we were afraid of? This is a double reference. It's a reference to the pagan king, but also it's been taken, interpreted, understood to mean also is a reference to Satan himself. We have this image of Satan as being powerful. Almost we ascribe to Satan omnipresent, omnipowerful, omnipotent powers, but there's going to come a day. There's going to come a day when the scales are going to fall away, when Christ returns. He's going to be paraded before our eyes and we're going to say that was what we were afraid of? A conquered enemy, a pathetic enemy, but it's not just for the future. It's for now. He's already been defeated. He goes about like a roaring lion, but he's been conquered. Dust shall you eat. Dust, all the days, not in the future, all the days of your life starting right now. But then listen to this. He's not done. That's bad enough.

I will put in the tea between you and the woman. There seemed to have been an attempt at establishing a natural connection between the serpent and Eve. Why didn't the serpent go to Adam, went to Eve? I'm not completely sure why. In Hebrew, the word for snake is chave. That's how you pronounce it. That's how you pronounce the word snake. And the name of Eve in Hebrew is chave. Chave was tempted by chave, suggesting that perhaps the serpent was trying to use some kind of natural sympathy, trying to develop some kind of kinship with the woman. By the way, whenever something monumental was about to happen in human history, there was an encounter between the supernatural and a woman or a woman, the serpent and Eve. And then we have the whole fall of mankind. And then we have in Genesis chapter six, we have these fallen angels encountering the daughters of men, again women. And the next thing that happens is a

flood as a result of this encounter. Then there's going to be later on, and I'm skipping all kinds of instances, but there's going to be the birth of Samson. Here is an encounter between an angel and a woman. And then the greatest example of all of this is going to be in Matthew chapter one, Matthew chapter two. We're going to see that or rather I should say Luke chapter two, that an angel appears unto Mary and says, blessed are you among women, blessed is the fruit of your womb. You're highly favored. And then we don't have a fall of mankind like we had with Eve. We don't have the flood that follows the encounter between the supernatural and the daughters of men, but now we have the salvation of the human race. It's almost as if, and again, I don't understand all of this, but it's almost as if God has determined in some way, shape, or form that women are boundary human

beings. They stand at the boundary. I don't want to stay here forever, but at the boundary, I've often found it to be true in our own family. My wife senses something before I do. She seems to be aware of an attack before I do. She seems to be aware of things that are happening before I do. I saw this with my mother and my father. She knew the scoop before dad had any clue. Now God made man the head of the household, but that doesn't mean that he's always the first one to know about things. If you're a mom, if you're a mom, if you're a grandmother, if you'd have care of children, if you've got a care for a family, the Lord is oftentimes speaking to you, speaking through you, to be sensitive to the Holy Ghost and be in prayer. Oftentimes, you're going to see a threat to your family before anyone else does in the family. Take your job seriously.

Now this curse, I will put enmity between you and the woman, almost speaking of this ability that women seem to have to sense an attack. And then between your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. What's that talking about? He shall bruise your head. Who's he here? Put up verse 15. Okay, good. Verse 15, who's the he and he shall bruise your head? It's the offspring. Okay, her seed. This seems to be the first prophecy of the Christ in all of scripture, because ultimately a human being, all God, all man, Jesus Christ, is going to bruise the serpent's head. That is, if you bruise the serpent's head, this is a mortal blow. This is the conquering of the enemy. I remember I heard a really good Bible teacher one day, just kind of as a side note mentioned, he asked us to visualize Calvary. He read this text and then he asked us to visualize

Calvary. And then he brought to our minds the text that says that Jesus was crucified on Galgotha, the place of the skull. It's a picture of a head, a skull. A skull is dead. It's a dead head. And what is happening here is you have a cross piercing the skull. He shall bruise the serpent's head. And then it's not quite over. And you, serpent, shall bruise his heel. That is, you'll constantly, you'll constantly shadow him. You'll constantly taunt him. You won't be victorious over him, but you'll be there. Again, I don't know what all of that means, but I'm reminded of Job chapter one. I think it's verse seven. Don't pull it up because I might have the wrong verse there. It says, all the sons of God, that is, all the angels came before the throne of God. And then there's this verse and Satan came also. That verse is a reminder that you can walk into the most beautiful places and

you can have the most beautiful intentions and noble intentions, but be mindful, Satan comes also. If there was any place where Satan wouldn't seem to belong, wouldn't seem to be able to go, it would be heaven. But nevertheless, there he is. We can build a great church. Satan came also. We can build a great family. Satan came also. We can build a great career and Satan came also. There's always that lurking at the heels, the bruising of the human heel. So there's that promise, these curses that are put upon the serpent. Then he turns to the woman and he says, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain, you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. Four lines, just four lines. I'll multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain, you shall bring forth children. This is top of mind right now. Of course, for me and my family, Abby went

through 24 hours or so of labor. As I recall, I think that's the number. It was a long time. She wanted to go natural, but they ended up with the pain medication. I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain, you shall bring forth children. So in other words, human beings, Adam and Eve were capable of having children before the curse. So having children is not a product of the curse. It's not a consequence of the curse. It's the pain that's the consequence of the curse. But then there's this. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. With every line here, there's so much I feel of human history that's wrapped up in some of these simple statements that they're deceptively simple. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. In other words, there's a natural conflict that's going to result from the fall between husband and wife, between man

and woman. The desires of a woman may be one thing. Don't expect that the husband's desires will be the same. It seems to be the promise. There are two different desires at work here, and there are often times that cross purposes with each other. And now, that doesn't mean that husband and wife should be constantly in conflict, and you fight and you fight and scream at each other like cats and dogs, and you say, well, I'm just carrying out the will of God here. Genesis 3.16. It is Genesis 3.16. No, sir, no, ma'am. Your desire might be contrary. That doesn't mean your relationship needs to be contrary. In fact, what happens in marriage is often times a compromise of desires. You compromise with each other. All right, boy. This would be a whole Bible study on this right here, but I'm only in chapter 3 here. Now to Adam, he said, oh, I'm sorry. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but

he shall rule over you. This seems to suggest that the natural state of things following the fall is for the wife to want one thing, but what she gets in return is being ruled. That's the natural state of things as a result of the fall. Again, that doesn't mean that that's the way we need to live. It just means it's going to take a lot of effort. It's like the ground. It's cursed by the sweat of your brow. It's not going to just willingly give you the fruit. You have to work at it. You have to sweat for it. You have to shed blood and tears for this. Sweat, blood, and tears to bring fruit out of the ground. That doesn't mean you say, well, God cursed the ground, so I guess we're not going to eat. No, you work at it. Same thing is true here. Your desire will be for your husband and contrary to him, but what you will get

is he shall rule over you. Again, that's the natural consequence of the fall, but that doesn't mean that that's how we have to live. To Adam, he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Ooh, look at that. You think God came down hard on the woman. She's going to have pain in childbearing. That takes up how many days of your life? For Christina, that was four, five, six, seven, eight days. But to the man, in pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles, it shall bring forth for you. You shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of

it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Heavy judgment, heavy judgment. Okay. In the Garden of Eden, there was just this generosity of the world. But after Eden, there's no generosity left. You're going to have to ring the earth of what it could give. There's going to be pain and effort in everything you do. And then, but it's not just pain and effort, but there's going to be a clock in your body, an internal clock in your body, and it's going to break your body down. Broken, broken, broken, broken, broken down. Life in this world is very difficult. It's very difficult. And just think about it for a second. You sleep somewhere around eight hours a day. That's one-third of your day. One-third of your day. You need in order to live the other two-thirds. You need one-third of your day to rest and conk out in order to be able to survive the other two-thirds of

the day. If you live 90 years, that's 30 years you have to sleep in order to get the other 60. Life in this world is hard. You can't imagine right now, I can't imagine what kind of freedom there is going to be on the other side of our transformation, on the other side of Jesus returning. When we receive the new body, what we will be free from. I just walk around. Couple of years ago, I started when I was working three jobs and then running a business. I just, I was tired all the time. And I thought, what's going on? What's causing this tiredness? So I went in and did a sleep study. They said you've got severe sleep apnea. And then I get on the sleep apnea CPAP machine and I'm still waking up. Vitamins, give me something. Coffee in my veins right now. I'm walking around like a zombie. And pretty soon I just, I remember my youth. I was old

enough or young enough to still remember my youthful body when I wasn't tired. When I got out of bed and I was sleepy for the first 15 minutes, but then I was just, boom! I was out the door and no problem. I wasn't looking back. I was kicking and screaming, being put in the bed at night. And now what has happened? There must be some serious, I must be vitamin deficient. No, out of dust you were taken and to dust you shall return. I just learned a little while ago to, well, tiredness is just a permanent condition. I'm gonna have to deal with it. Just deal with it. Do the best I can. Stop going to the doctor every, you know, wanting to go to the doctor every couple of weeks. And I have to deal with it. The dust is going back to dust. Okay, now big, heavy, foreboding, ominous prophecies for human beings that know nothing of what's on the horizon.

They're now being kicked out of the Garden of Eden and God says to his angels, two of you get down there and guard the tree of life so that nobody, so that neither of them can go back because if they eat of the tree of life, they will live perpetually, but in a fallen state. That means we'll be locked forever in our fallen condition, which means that in one sense, death is God's way of keeping us from immortalizing sin, perpetuating it forever and ever and ever. It ends up being a kind of form of mercy in our current condition. I can't imagine if you get, can you imagine, can you imagine as wicked as the world can become if the threat of death was not hanging overhead? If we didn't wear ourselves out, how terrible human beings might become after five, six, seven, 800 years? My goodness. What I'm trying to say here is that in everything that God does, there's a silver

lining in it. There's a form of mercy in it. And in God's wisdom, he has decided that we should return to the dust in this life. And he put these cherubim out in front of that tree to make sure that no one could access that tree and to be stuck forever in its fallen state. And it says that he gave those cherubim flaming, revolving swords. I tried to visualize what that means. And that seems to be helping us visualize it's something like lightning, forked lightning is what he guards the tree of life with. All right. Now chapter four. Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord. And again, she bore his brother, Abel. Notice how Abel is introduced as Cain's brother. Cain's brother. That's very, very important because the center of this story is Cain. We're seeing it all from Cain's point of view. He's the central character

of chapter four. And everybody in relation to him is or we see everybody else in relation to him. And he's later going to say, am I my brother's keeper? Which is really the climax of this particular chapter. So Abel is introduced as Cain's brother. Now notice what it says about Abel. Abel was a keeper of the sheep and Cain a worker of the ground. Just real quick, I brought that note about the cherubim just a minute ago. As I said, they were sent to keep or guard the tree of life. And then in the next couple of verses, we're introduced to Abel who is a keeper or a garter, someone who guards sheep. And then we're going to have one more time where that keeper is going to come up, aren't we? Am I my brother's keeper or guardian? All right. So Abel is a keeper of the sheep and Cain is a worker of the ground. Cain follows in the footsteps of

his father. Adam was a gardener. Cain's a gardener. There's nothing wrong with his occupation. Abel becomes a shepherd, which is a favored occupation in scripture. He's called a keeper of the sheep. Verse three, in the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. And Abel also bought brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel in his offering but for Cain in his offering, he had no regard. So if you look at this, trying to figure out where did Cain go wrong? Let me read that again. Let me see. In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. Okay, he gives an offering to the Lord. And Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions an offering to the Lord. They both brought offerings, but God favors one and not

the other. Why? Well, look at the details. Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground. He might say, well, maybe God doesn't like to be brought an offering of fruit. He wants an offering of animals. But that's not it either. As we find out in the book of Exodus, we find out in the book of Numbers, find out the book of Leviticus, the book of Deuteronomy, that God accepted both an animal offering and a grain of. So it wasn't the offering itself. That was the problem. But then look at more of the details. Look a little bit closer. Zoom in a little bit more. In the course of time, Cain brought to the Lord an offering and offering of the fruit of the ground. Abel brought the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. In other words, Abel was giving to God his best, his first, where Cain was giving whatever. A portion. The Lord has

regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering, no regard. Cain seems to be more self-absorbed. He doesn't give God his best, as Abel does. Hebrews 11, chapter 4, in the New Testament, says something along these lines. 11, chapter 11, verse 4. By faith, Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous. God commended him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. Okay, so the author of Hebrews believes that he gave a more acceptable sacrifice. So it's not just a firstborn. A firstborn, you're never sure if there are going to be anymore. You give over that firstborn right then and there. And again, you're not sure if there's going to be second and third and fourth, but you're giving your first. Okay, so you're making a priority of giving of yourself your resources to God. Okay, and but it's not just the firstborn. It's up

the first, the fat portions of the firstborn. Okay, and again, we're talking about an ancient culture where the best cut of the meat, what would that be for a beef? Filet mignon, sirloin, okay? What would be the worst? What would be the worst cut of beef? Because I don't know. The tongue? Okay, the tongue. Let's let's go with the tongue. All right. All right, so you could almost think Cain would give the tongue or the ground chuck, but Abel, he's looking for that best cut. And he gives that. Think about what that, how that how again, we think very differently today. We don't give cuts of beef to the Lord. Okay, but you have to imagine a time and a day in which currency was not, was not dollar bills or credit card. It was, it was meat. It was fruit. It was food. That was your currency. Okay, so think about the difference between these two hearts. One just gives God whatever,

but one says, what's the best? And then gives that to the Lord. He doesn't keep it for himself. Okay, this note is hit a couple of other times in throughout scripture. One is in Hosea chapter six, verse four. God says, what shall I do with you? Oh, Ephraim. That's another word for Israel. What shall I do with you? Oh, Judah, your love is like a morning cloud like the do that goes away early. In other words, if you around here, this is not so much true in St. Louis, but here on the West coast, in the morning you wake up its gray skies. The fog is really low. It looks like it's going to be a gray, miserable day. And then by one o'clock in the afternoon, you can't even imagine, you can't even imagine a cloud. You've got blue skies everywhere. Okay, this is what God is saying. Israel's love was like. It seems so promising at the beginning of things, but

it doesn't take long before it's all gone. Your love is like that. Therefore, I have hewn them by the prophets. I have killed them by the words of my mouth. And my judgment goes forth as the light. Listen to this. For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings. You can get to the point in your relationship, your walk with God, where you're just doing the bare minimum. You're just trying to keep up the appearances. You're trying to keep the tradition going, but there's no heart in it. There's no thought in it. There's no love in it. But what God really wants is the steadfast love. More than he wants even the tradition, there's a story in the Old Testament about King Saul. I'm going to read a little bit of this story to illustrate the point. The word of the Lord came to the prophet Samuel and said, I regret that I made Saul to

be king. For he has turned back from following me. He's not carried out my commands. Samuel was angry and he cried out to the Lord all day and night. And then he rose up early in the morning to meet Saul. And Samuel was told, Saul went to Carmel, where he set up a monument for himself. And on returning, he passed on down to Gilgau. When Samuel came to Saul, Saul said to him, May you be blessed by the Lord. I have carried out the command of the Lord. But Samuel said, What then is the bleeding of sheep in my ears and the lowing of cattle that I hear? Okay, what was supposed to happen was Saul went out against the enemy that had tormented Israel. And he destroyed the enemy. But God told him, Don't keep any of their stuff. Don't take any of the spoils. I want it all destroyed. But when Samuel showed up on the scene, hoping that they had

been completely destroyed, he heard the sound of the bleeding of the sheep and the lowing of cattle. In other words, Saul had directly disobeyed a very explicit command of the Lord not to keep any. And he had kept the spoils for himself. In other words, he wasn't following the voice of the Lord. So Samuel said to Saul, Stop! I will tell you what the Lord told me last night. And Saul said, Speak. Samuel said, Oh, you are little in your own eyes. Are you not the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel. And the Lord sent you on a mission and said, Go utterly destroy the Amalekites. Fight against them. Why then didn't you obey the voice of the Lord? Why did you swoop down on the spoil and do what was evil on the side of the Lord? Saul said to Samuel, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord. I have gone on the mission

on which the Lord sent me. I brought Agag, the king of Amalek. I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But from the spoil the people took sheep and cattle, the best of the things devoted to destruction to sacrifice to the Lord your God and Gilgal. In other words, I disobeyed the voice of God so that I could give him an offering. And Samuel said, Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obedience to the voice of the Lord? To obey is better than sacrifice. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. Because you have rejected the word of the Lord, he's also rejected you from being king. It's pretty heavy. It's very heavy. Don't you get it, Saul? I didn't want the sacrifices. I don't need those animals. I don't need any of this stuff. I wanted you. I wanted your heart. That's what I wanted. Not this stuff. I wanted you. So this is why it seems that God

had no regard for Cain's sacrifice. There was no heart in it. So Cain was very angry and his face fell. The Lord said to Cain, I love this. This is beautiful. This is absolutely a remarkable picture we keep on seeing of the Lord. He doesn't have any regard for this sacrifice over here. Cain's doing it all wrong. He's not putting his heart into any of this stuff. He doesn't really have any acknowledgement for his Creator. He's just going through the motions. And then Cain, his face is falling. His countenance is falling. And what does God do? Does God come up to him and punish him right there? No. Here's what he does. Why are you angry? You look down. Your face is falling. And he doesn't wait for an answer because these are rhetorical questions. Listen, Cain. I can hear it in the tenderest fatherly voice. If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you don't do well, sin is

crouching at the door. It's desire is contrary to you. But you must rule over it. You see that phrase? It's desire is contrary to you. But you shall rule over it. Didn't we just hear this? When God spoke to Eve, his desire is going to be contrary to yours. But he shall rule over you. Here are the same phraseologies being used again. But listen to this. If you do well, won't you be accepted? If you don't do well, sin is crouching at the door. In other words, there can be more sacrifices. Go out and do it right. Put your heart into this. That's what God's asking him to do. And if you decide not to do that, I want to tell you a little, I want to let you in on something that's happening to you. You can't see it. But right outside the door of your life, sin is crouching. Remember in the last chapter we had Satan, the serpent being depicted

as going on his belly. He's crouching. He's down low, eating the dust of the earth. Here again, sin is being depicted as crouching. But when an animal is crouching, it's waiting. It's waiting. It's crouching. The enemy doesn't have mastery over you, Cain. It will if you don't change your ways, but it doesn't have to have mastery over you. He's waiting for you to invite him into your heart. Don't open the door to sin. It's crouching. It's waiting. Don't open the door. Don't open the door. In other words, in other words, sin is looking for an opportunity. Looks for an opportunity. It's looking for the thin end of the wedge to stick into the door and get its foot stepped into your life somehow, some way, some way. Couple generations ago, I think I've told you all before, I think my dad's probably shared with you all here and there over the last quarter of a century or so. The family, the painter family,

a long time ago, we were not the stuff at all. We were a mess. In many ways, some of that mess is still here, but that was a big mess back then. I started asking some questions about our family when I was in Maine a couple of years ago, and I found out things I wish I had never known. I was looking for good stories. I was looking for reasons to be a little bit more proud. I was looking for chivalry. I was looking for heraldry. And I got the opposite of that in these stories I saw. My dad did a little digging a few years ago, too, and ended up causing a great big family coral because we did some DNA testing and found out some things. There were murderers in the painter family, adulterers in the painter family. And most of all, shot through with alcoholism. When my grandma came along, she shut that thing down. That's it. It's not coming

in this house. Grandma, grandma was a Rutledge. She wasn't a painter. She married a painter, but the rules had to change for him to come in to the family. No more. No more. You can make all kinds of arguments about Jesus drinking wine, all you want. You can talk about the apostles recommending wine for the stomach. You can talk about all of that stuff. But let me tell you, let me tell you, every single night people's lives are lost. I asked the local police officer a few weeks ago, what's the number one cause? What's the one cause that brings you out on all these calls? What's the root cause? I was wanting to know what's the root of it? Now, he wasn't a theologian. He wasn't a philosopher. He was just telling it like he sees it. And he said, alcohol, crimes being committed all over the place. Sin is crouching at the door. Don't open the door. Don't open the door. Don't

debate on whether this is good or bad, or where this is good, where this is bad. You don't know what might be in your family. You don't know what you might be inclined to. You have no idea. And you're not just living for yourself. You're living for other people too. So you close the door. You close the door. I'm not going to have a debate about this. I'm not going to play theology. I'm not going to play philosophy. I'm not going to play word games with this stuff. I'm not going to do it. I've seen too much devastation, too many lives lost. And I'm telling you right now, as your pastor, if you're dealing with alcohol, if you've got alcohol in your house, get it out tonight. Take it all out. Throw it out. In the name of Jesus, get rid of it. Close that door. Close that door for your family. It has spared us from so much heartache, so much suffering.

And that is true. And it breaks that generational curse. And you can apply this what I'm talking about here. I just use alcohol as one example. But there are dozens of others. That was the easiest for me because it was a big, big problem in our family. But I could talk about all kinds of other problems. It's not a question of whether or not that thing is right or wrong. It's a question of whether or not your family can deal with it. And you probably can't. You don't play with sin. You close the door and keep the door closed. You're doing this for you and your family. In the name of Jesus, get this stuff out of your house and take care of business. Be a man and a be a woman of God. Cain spoke to Abel, his brother. Here's Sin crouching at the door. God has graciously told him, here's what's about to happen. Be careful. And what did, what did,

what did Cain, Cain? Who was Cain's pastor? Who was Cain's pastor? Who's God? He didn't have a bumbling dummy like I am sometimes as a pastor. He didn't have Jeremy Painter as a pastor. He had God as his pastor. And God gave him a little sermon and said, hey, watch out. He didn't say, he didn't say, he didn't say, cursed are you? I'm not going to pay any attention to you. No, he didn't do any of that kind of thing. He said, change your behavior. That's it. What does, what is the very next thing we get? Cain spoke to his brother. Oh, that sounds good. Just stop the narrative right there. That's what you should do. Talk to you, the brother. I'm sorry, I, I, I, I was envious. But read on. And they were in the field when they were in the field. Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. The picture we're supposed to get here is a

premeditated murder. In other words, he invited with his words, Abel, his younger brother out into the field. And then the book of Proverbs has this beautiful, wonderful proverb in it, among many. But one of them is, do not deal treacherously with the neighbor that dwells alongside you, trustingly. Okay. Never, never. Somebody who's with you in trust, never take advantage of them. Never hurt them. You return the trust that you have been given. You give the trust back. You have reciprocal relationship right here. But what he did was he used his words. He used his brotherly relationship to invite him out in the field. And then with whatever instrument he had at his disposal, he killed his brother. Look at that. You get an opportunity to change your practice. But what you do is you try to change the rule. You see that? You think, how should I go about this? And your first thought is, maybe I should change what I do and

what I offer to the Lord. Instead, you change, you try to change the rule. You take it out on the, you try to eliminate your brother. No competition now. Then the Lord said to Cain, where's Abel, your brother? He said, I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper? What kind of dope do we have here? I don't know. You can't you just see the shrug of his shoulders? I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper? Well, I'm out of time. So I'll stop there. But I think on this relevant and appropriate note. Am I my brother's keeper? It's one of the great lines in all of the Bible. He's expecting it to be no, I'm not my brother's keeper. But it's the most obvious yes in the world. I am my brother's keeper. Murder. Is this a story, a tale about what happened once upon a time in some faraway kingdom? Is this some fairy tale? Did you see the news today? A

human being with two children and a wife, 31 years old. I don't even know what to say. Except scriptures speak forth. You tell the truth. We don't. We don't. There's a wickedness in here. Speak the truth. You are our judge, scripture. You tell stories about us that we would rather not hear. But you're right. Eternally right. It's in the middle of giving a Bible study today down there at Starbucks. And I get a text message and it's really hard to give a Bible study. I don't know why. I don't know much about him. But that was a, it was not just a political assassination. It was a, it was an assassination of a Christian voice. You see what, see what's happened? He's not human. Take him out. Kill him. Instead of changing us, we try to solve and eliminate the problem over here. The problem's not in here. The problem's out there. That's always, that's always the case with sin. We're always looking

for the problem out there. But the problem's right here. It's right here and sin is, is crouching at the door. Don't mess with this stuff. It's looking to rule over you. Looks for every advantage. In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus. Why don't we stand right now and let's, let's pray.