S. THE WAY OF CAIN

THE WAY OF CAIN

TEXT: Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core. - Jude 1:11. The author of this letter was a half brother of our Lord Jesus Christ, as was also James, author of another New Testament letter. In His lifetime the half brothers of our Lord did not believe on Him as the Savior, but were converted by the cross and the resurrection and later became very prominent in the church. Paul refers to them and their standing. One of them became the pastor of the First Church at Jerusalem, and presided at the famous conference recorded in Acts 15:1-41; the other is the author of this letter. The object of the letter is thus stated: "When I was giving all diligence, to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." The letter then is an exhortation to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. The occasion of it is thus stated: "There are certain men crept in unawares who were before ordained unto this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our Lord into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God, our Lord Jesus Christ." Mark well this occasion. There had crept into the church men who denied not merely the divinity of Jesus Christ, but the necessity of the death of Jesus Christ as the ground of redemption.

Now as the author of this letter had obtained his salvation through faith, excited not by the life but by the death of our Lord, as he himself found salvation in Jesus Christ dying upon the cross, he regarded that as the faith once delivered to the saints, and held it needful that he should himself contend earnestly for it and exhort others to like contention, evidently regarding it as fundamental and vital, in both its doctrinal and practical form. It was treason to deny His divinity and His sacrificial purchase-it was slander and sacrilege to turn this grace into lasciviousness. But note particularly that to deny the divine purchase as a doctrine, or to wrest its grace into an excuse for lawlessness, is here called "going in the way of Cain." The passage, therefore, flashes great light upon the brief and obscure Old Testament record of Cain. In this light we see the life and sin and ruin of Cain, and by contrast, the life and righteousness and glory of Abel. It is first of all worthy of remark, that Jude’s comment makes the Genesis account of Cain and Abel a simple, straightforward historical transaction. Indeed it seems impossible to credit any man with any proper respect for the New Testament who persists in regarding the book of Genesis as an allegory, myth or poetry. The New Testament treats Cain and Abel as real persons, actually doing what is attributed to them in the Genesis narration. They were sons of Adam and Eve, the first human pair. They did, according to revealed law, come up before God with offerings. There must have been a law prescribing it, obedience to which was righteousness. One offering was accepted ¾ the other rejected. God himself discriminated and testified. Because of the divine discrimination, Cain was exceedingly angry. His anger burned also against his brother, even unto murder. I suppose there were many children and grandchildren at this time-thousands, doubtless; there could have been easily half a million ¾ and this transaction made such a solemn impression that in the fifth generation after, we find a descendant of Cain quoting what God says about Cain: that whosoever slew Cain should be avenged seven-fold. And this wicked man was drawing a deduction from it. His deduction was that if God would avenge seven-fold one who slew Cain, who without provocation killed his brother, then He ought to avenge seventy-fold anybody that slew him for killing one who had grievously injured him, and wounded and bruised him. That was the argument of Lamech. The first impression then that ought to be received by our minds is, that the account in Genesis is a simple, historical transaction, or you simply reject both Testaments. You adopt an arbitrary method of interpreting the Bible which has no fixed boundaries. Turn away from the simple, straightforward story of fact and begin to treat it as legend or poetry, and you break down all barriers in your treatment of the Bible, and leave nothing certain concerning anything that is in it. It is infidelity to treat the Bible that way, even though the man be president of a theological seminary. The next thing necessary to an understanding of this transaction is what is called the right of primogeniture. It has had a great deal of influence in this world. There is scarcely a nation upon the face of the earth but has today the impress of the ancient law of primogeniture. By it kings rule and dynasties are established. To get at it a little more clearly, in the early days of the world’s history, in what is called the patriarchal dispensation, the first-born was the head of the house. All authority was vested in him. He was, first, the ruler, just as Abraham was ruler over all his household. The second point is that by the right of birth he was the priest of the family. It became him to make the offerings for the family. The book of Job refers to patriarchal times, and Job says that he made an offering for his children lest even unthoughtedly they should have committed a sin against God. The power of ruling men, the power lodged in the priesthood, for the head of the family was both head and priest and ruler, was so great a power that some of the most remarkable struggles mentioned in the Bible have reference to this primogeniture-business. What was the trouble between Ishmael and Isaac but this? Hagar fondly imagined that Ishmael should have the right of primogeniture, and when Isaac was born, born of the true wife and not the bondwoman, and his birthday celebrated as being the birthday of one who was the head of the house and the future priest, just as a king celebrated the birth of the prince who is to succeed him, Ishmael mocked at the whole proceeding, and persecuted the infant child whose title to the primogeniture was thus publicly recognized.

You remember the story of Jacob and Esau. What was the issue between them? They were twins. The issue was, who should have the right of primogeniture? Who should be the head of the house? Who should have the right to rule? Who should be the priest of the family? Esau irreverently sold his birthright for a mess of pottage. God, however, had predetermined that the birthright should vest in Jacob and not in Esau. This brings us to the third and greatest point involved in it. The original significance of the primogeniture was this. That in that line the seed of the woman to bruise the serpent’s head should come, and this office became important on account of the expectation that any firstborn son might be the one appointed of God for the redemption of the world, and he was to have sovereignty, not only over his own immediate family, but over the whole world. The seed of the woman should become earth’s future deliverer and Savior.

I mention one other historical incident to illustrate it. Reuben was the first born of Jacob, and the Scriptures show us when, where and how he lost his birthright. By that great sin which he committed against his father the birthright was taken away from Reuben and vested in Judah.

Now let us read again in order to see what the issue was between Cain and Abel: "And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And 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 the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering."

Literally, the Lord kindled; as it is implied in other places, he sent down fire to consume the offering; or, as it is expressed in the letter to the Hebrews, God testified; He tested by fire that this was the right kind of an offering, an offering of the firstlings of his flock, an offering which pointed to the redemption that should come from the blood of the Lamb. "By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain." "But unto Cain and his offering He had not respect."

There were the two offerings. Fire was burning that Abel made. The offering of Cain was disregarded. He stood there and looked at it. Why was he angered? Why did his countenance fall? Let us read the next verse and see: "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" Or, rendered according to some of the best Hebraists in the world: "If thou doest well, shalt thou not have the excellency? That is, shalt thou not have the right of primogeniture, and unto thee shall be thy brother’s desire and thou shalt rule over him." When God said that to Cain what did He mean? He meant to show Cain that he had misconceived what followed from that transaction of God’s accepting one and rejecting the other. Cain understood the preference for Abel’s offering to indicate that he had lost the right of primogeniture; that he was not to have the rule over his brother; that he was not to be the priest in that family. His countenance fell, and he was very angry.

God said to him, "If you do well, you shall not lose this position of rule. If you do well, you shall retain the priesthood in your family. And if you do not well, a sinoffering lies at the door. You have brought me the fruit of the ground. I have required a sin-offering. I have required the firstling of the flock that shall point to the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. Here in the presence of your rejected sacrifice, and when your right of primogeniture is hanging in the balance, and is about to he taken away from you forever, I show you how it may be retained. Go, bring the right offering, and the desire of thy brother shall be unto you, and thou shall rule over him."

Cain refused to do it. There had come an eventful time in his history. He had determined in his heart that he would not seek the forgiveness of God as a sinner whose sins were to be expiated vicariously. What does it mean? It meant that he denied the Lord. It meant that he stood as a deist. He denied the promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head. He denied that he needed any atonement, but he stood upon his own record before God, and not as a sinner at all.

Now, says Jude, the author of our text, "When I was about to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary that I should exhort you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." Why? "Certain men have crept in unawares that deny the Lord Jesus Christ, that deny the necessity for any atonement for sin, and they have gone in the way of Cain." Which shows that there in the first family Cain went the way of the deist. Cain denied the necessity of an atonement. Cain would not offer of the blood of the firstling of the flock unto God. And there was also the way of Abel. By faith in the coming Messiah, in the seed of the woman that was to bruise the serpent’s head, in the One by whose shed blood the remission of sins should come, by faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, and God testified of his gift, and by that sacrifice Abel being dead yet speaketh.

Now that we have before us the reason of the hatred of Cain for Abel, to what purpose does one read the history of royal families if he fails to note their jealousy of each other, and how, when one stands nearest in the line of succession, he becomes instantly the object of hate, of stratagem, of every kind of conspiracy? How often has the assassin’s knife sought to win the way to a place of rule, of power! How, like a mounting devil is this ambition to rule, to have supremacy! And when that man stood before God’s altar and saw the right of primogeniture being wrested from him; when, like Reuben, unstable as water, his birthright goes to Judah; when, like Esau, irreverent and profane, it was sold for a mess of pottage; when, like Ishmael, the son of a bondwoman, that yet coveted it and persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, so in this case Cain determined to kill the one that was to have the rule, the one that was to be the priest unto God.

We now come to a sad thought. What is it? That whenever a man is out of proper relation with God, that man gets out of proper relation with his brother, with his fellow men. And I Wish to say here today that no scheme of socialism that leaves

God out can succeed in its object. Herbert Spencer may write on the subject until his pen drops from his pulseless fingers, and John Stuart Mill and other humanitarians may attempt to devise their schemes of even justice to our fellow men until Gabriel blows the trumpet that announces the judgment, and it will yet always remain true that there can be no right feeling toward our fellow men when our feeling toward God is lost. Bottomed upon harmony with God is all hope of harmony with our fellow men.

Whoever in his heart turns away from the offering of Jesus Christ may seek cheap fame by telling how he will work for the amelioration of the human race, but the fact remains that into the thinnest air vanish all such vain dreams of benefiting men when we reject the gift of God. Cain, being astray from God, hates his brother. Mass together the regular and disciplined armies of the Old World; let the million of Russia join the million of Prussia, and the million of France and the possible 750,000 of Italy; add to them the standing army and navy of England; and you never can by bayonets coerce humanity. You plant your cannon on a thin crest of a volcano and each jar that comes may break the crest and precipitate an eruption that shall sweep down every barrier that human might interposes against the excesses of a maddened populace. There is no hope for government nor for society when you break the bonds that unite to God.

Mark you, how God deals with this man before he is forever rejected. He expostulates with him and points out to him how he may retain his high estate. As if He said, "I will not send the fire of acceptance upon the mere fruits of the earth when you deny the Lord God, who is to purchase your salvation. When you turn away from expiation for sin you cannot come into my court. But if you do well you shall have the excellency. I will not depose you. The desire of your brother shall be unto you, and you shall rule over him. The sin-offering lies at the door." And see him turn and look upon the firstling of the flock and hesitate in the presence of one sacrifice smoking, and one unaccepted, and the whole future of his life resting upon his decision: "Shall I bring this lamb and offer it upon the altar and say I am a sinner? If I come before God, I come as a sinner. If I come before God I must come seeking remission of my sins in the blood of the Lamb that is offered. Or shall I thwart God?"

Well, he made his decision. The record says that he told Abel about it. Now imagine that conversation! "Abel, God tells me that if I will do like you do ¾ if I will offer a lamb I shall not lose my right of primogeniture; I shall be the priest; I shall have rule over you. He intimates that if I do not do this you will have the rule over me. Now I see a way out of it ¾ I will kill you. When I have smitten you down, how can you rule over me? When I have taken your life, how can you enjoy any right of primogeniture? Here is a way to evade God’s requirements. I will not offer the lamb. I will not submit to Abel. I will not be deposed. I will fight for my rights. I will kill the usurper who would take my place." Who told him that? Who suggested that move? "He was of that wicked one." The same serpent that beguiled his mother spun his fine web of sophistry around the feet and hands of Cain and entangled him in a net of delusion that by a short road of murder he could defeat the purposes of God and hold on to his primogeniture. And so he rose up against his brother and slew him. Now imagine him dragging him into some thicket and washing his hands and saying, "Who is the priest now? Who has the rule now? I will go back and make an offering. Who saw me do this? I will go back and see if there is another altar to gather the fire of acceptance to my offering." So he comes up before the Lord to make his offering by himself. There is just one man this time, not two. And he builds his altar, puts his fire on it and from out the Shekinah God speaks: "Where is thy brother?" As has been said by a distinguished minister of South Carolina, "If there was anything on this earth that Cain did know it was where his brother was. If there was one spot more localized in his brain than any other it was that bloody spot that was sucking up his brother’s blood. If there was one place on this earth that never left his sight, on which more light blazed than any other, it was the place where the dead body of his brother lay." But listen at him: "I know not." The bold, brazen liar! "I know not where is my brother. You have made him head of the house. You have appointed him as my priest. Now, am I my brother’s keeper?" You see what his object was. His object was that when he came to offer again, and not again offering the lamb, with his brother being nowhere, and he not being responsible to produce him, God would be bound to accept his primogeniture. And thus are men today, thousands of men, who have just that kind of light; that really believe, or at least persuade themselves that they believe, that they can go contrary to the plain teaching of God’s Word and yet be saved, and that they can remove the obstacles out of their way with a high hand. Now let us see if he gained the primogeniture. God said to him, "The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth out to me from the ground. You have been a tiller of the ground. Now I tell you that you are accursed from the ground. The earth has been made sick with the blood of thy brother. That earth shall not yield her fruit to thee. Thou shalt cultivate it in vain. Thou thoughtest to usurp the rule and the priesthood. Thou shalt never come into my presence again. Thou shalt never establish an altar. Thou shalt be a fugitive. Thou shalt be a wanderer."

See the two thoughts: One fleeing and one wandering; always on the wing; always at unrest; never having a fixed habitation, and "my face no more forever shall you see. Go out from my presence."

Now let us see what Cain said to that: "My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the ground. I had been making a living as a farmer. Thou hast cursed me from the ground. My brother’s blood on the ground has dried up its fertility toward me, and from thy face shall I be hid. I will never be able to pray again; never to go where God dwelt eastward of the Garden of Eden between the cherubim and kept the way to the tree of life. Never to approach the place where prayer is wont to be made and sacrifice for sin is offered. From thy face I shall be hid and I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer in the earth, and it shall come to pass that whosoever findeth me shall slay me."

You remember the tribal law, that if one killed another there was an avenger of blood, the next of kin, and that avenger of blood could smite the murderer wherever he found him. And there was not yet appointed a city of refuge unto which the murderer could fly. And Cain reasoned, "I can never be still. If I lie down at night I can hear the barking of the dogs of pursuit. If I rise up in the morning, I shall hear the shouts of the huntsmen of man. Wherever I go I shall expect to see the sword drawn to smite me and the avenger on my track, shouting, ’Blood! Blood! Blood! Whosoever sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed!’" And God says, "No, not that. That does not apply to your case, not your case. No need to summon the sheriff when the unpardonable sin is committed. No need to invoke the puny arm of human law when God Almighty smites. I will put such a mark on you; I will establish such a sign, that the most indignant man on the earth that will see you will sheath his sword and say, ’Let him go. God hath smitten him. He is in the hands of the Almighty. See him fly. See him wander. See the traces of despair in his face. See the man that cannot pray, and is not allowed to come into the presence of God. Banished forever! Oh, who will attempt to put one drop in the cup of wrath that God has mixed and pressed to those pale lips of despair? Let him go. He has God’s mark on him.’" And as the brand in the French courts fastened upon the flesh the stigma, the ineffaceable stigma of shame, that told to every one that looked upon it, "This is a convict doomed to the galleys and outcast from men," so this mark of God announced, "Whosoever shall attempt to kill Cain, I will avenge his death seven fold." Kill him! Why, who would raise a gun to shoot at the rich man in hell? What orphan that he ever defrauded, what poor man whose hard labor was unrequited, what weak man that he had ground under his tyrannical feet, would come up to the precipice of hell and look where the flames wrap him and behold the scorpions stinging him and the undying worm devouring him, would shoot at him? He is in the hands of God.

I speak to the young people here today, and particularly to the young people who are fascinated with the intellectual attainments that have startled the world; who are disposed to pay the tribute to mere human genius, and because a thing is smart, because it is well said, because it is grammatical and rhetorical, because it is daring, you admire the authors, be their names ¾ Tyndall, Huxley, Spencer, Darwin, Ingersoll, or what not, though they deny the Lord Jesus Christ and the necessity for an atonement.

O young people, see the first man that went that way! Will you go in the way of Cain? I ask you, go and stand where that road forks. See where Abel’s feet led to a Redeemer. See where Cain’s turned aside to wander in endless despair. Hear him cry out, "My punishment is greater that I can bear. Earth has spewed me out of her mouth. Man turns away from me. God’s face is hid from me. Deep and dark and endless hell waits for me. I am accursed from above and below and all around." Oh, see the way of Cain! That way whose steps take hold on death and hell. I ask you if you want to walk in it. The brother of Jesus, the brother who himself for a while walked in the way of Cain and did not believe in a Redeemer, yet who was converted as he looked upon Christ as the Lamb of God, with the sins of the world on Him and found Him to be his Savior, says, "I exhort you to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints. Beware of those who have crept in unawares and that deny the Lord Jesus Christ, and that have gone in the way of Cain. Follow them not. Follow them not."

It may be fashionable, but it is deadly. It may give you an air, of singularity and oddity. It may call forth the plaudits of the-thoughtless and-the foolish and the scornful and the ungodly, but it is the way of Cain. It leads down to eternal death. Jude, our Lord’s brother, piled up image on image in warning, as in the fiery stream of exhortation he appealed to men not to take that road. Look at his images; a tree, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; ocean foaming out her shame, in vain trying to batter down the granite barriers with which God stayed her encroachments and said, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther." See these waves dashing out their own shame. See yonder brilliant meteor flashing across the sky for a moment and going out into darkness; wandering stars, look at them. Clouds without rain; wells without water. Oh, walk not in the way of Cain!

I close with this application of the exhortation of Jude: That if you do not wish to be a fugitive and a wanderer, if you do not wish to have God’s face hidden from you forever, if you do not wish to perish utterly, then do not go that road at all. Count these men as the enemies of God and the enemies of their fellow men, that under the guise of learning or philosophy would beguile young men to walk in the way of Cain; Satan’s advocates, Satan’s advertisers, Satan’s couriers, Satan’s panderers. They stand at the forks of that road and say, "Young men, walk in the way of Cain. Deny the Lord Jesus Christ. Deny the necessity of the atonement. Deny that you are a sinner. Deny that you need any blood shed for the remission of your sins; walk this road."

Now, these men, with. all their high sounding claims, are themselves as blind as a bat. Satan has put thick bandages around their eyes. They are the blind leading the blind. They pride themselves on the fact that they offer you liberty when they themselves are the slaves of corruption. What man in bondage can make another one free? What slave can confer freedom? The truth of God alone can make you a free man in Jesus Christ.

Turn away from them. I tell you their shadows are baleful. Their communications are corrupt. Their beguiling came authoritatively from the wicked one himself, and they are but the plagiarists of the devil’s doctrine when they ask you to walk in the way of Cain. They may call it nineteenth century light. It is not light at all, but darkness all over. It came from the devil. It was whispered in the ear of Eve. It became the guiding influence of Cain and led him to become a fugitive and a wanderer, and it will make you a fugitive, and your lips one day will be parted with this despairing cry, "My punishment is greater that I can bear."

Oh, may God, in tender mercy to you, lead you to walk where Abel walked, a better path. He being dead yet speaketh. Cold is the corpse where the murderer shrouded thee, thou younger brother; all still and pulseless thy dead body lies; but Abel spoke, and not only God in heaven heard his voice when it cried to him, but ever since that time men hear the voice of Abel: "To the right! To the right! Keep to the right! Walk up to the altar of sacrifice, where the blood of the Lamb is shed, and heaven’s approving fire comes down, and find peace and redemption and remission of sins." Oh! hear the voice of Abel! Let us pray.