Hebrews 11 verse 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. Well, dear friends, we have been looking at the book of Genesis just once, and now a second time. The book of Genesis means beginning. And there are the beginning of many things, especially in these first chapters. Last time we saw in the life of Adam, we saw the first human being. We saw the first sinner. And we saw the first saved person, Adam, together with his wife Eve, we trust and may believe on the basis of God's Word. Now as we keep on reading in chapter 4, we have more firsts. Children, we have the first sacrifice by man. Last time we saw that most likely the Lord sacrificed a lamb or some kind of animal and took the coats of skin and clothed Adam and Eve with them. But now we have the first sacrifice by man, by Cain and Abel. We also have, secondly, the first murder or slaughter of a man, Abel. by Cain. And we have, as we hope to see later on, we have the first prayer meeting. The first prayer meeting. Tonight we're privileged to have a prayer meeting. I don't know if you noticed, but the very end of this chapter We have this line, then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. Charles Spurgeon has a sermon on this text and it's called The First Prayer Meeting. And we'll come to explain that a little later on. So you have these firsts, the first sacrifice by man, you have the first murder of a man, and you have this first prayer meeting of a number of men and their houses we trust. And all of these things come together to teach us that we need to depend alone on the blood. We need to depend alone on the blood. And we'll work that out in different ways in our short time together. We want to see, first of all, the opposite of depending alone on the blood. We want to see, first of all, secondly, the grace of depending alone on the blood, and then thirdly and lastly, the life of depending alone on the blood. Able, depending on blood alone. Well, first of all, the opposite. And the opposite of depending on blood alone, children, was really in the person of Cain, the first man that was ever born on the earth. Of course, Adam was made of the dust of the earth, God formed him directly, and Eve was taken from his side. And the first one ever born on the earth was Cain, and he was named Cain because it means acquired or gotten. I've gotten a man-child with the help of the Lord, Eve said. And no doubt her hopes were high regarding Cain. At least we can sense that. I've gotten a man-child with the help of the Lord. And when it came to Abel, maybe her hopes weren't so high. Children, do you know what Abel means? I don't know if anyone here is named Abel, but Abel means vapor. Breath and and the senses frail breath vapor It's the word that's used elsewhere in the Bible to describe how fleeting life is It could be that Abel, when he was born, he was, as sometimes happens, a weakly child. Maybe he barely lived. And Adam and Eve said, you know, life really after the fall is a vapor, isn't it? And they called their son Abel. At any rate, that's what his name means. But both of these boys grow up, and the sense we get is that they come to age. They come there into the strength of life as young men, and they make an altar. They build an altar. And we want to first look at Cain's altar and Cain's sacrifice. Now, before we show what was wrong with his sacrifice, we need to see something, at least on the surface, commendable. This, Cain, makes an altar. And he brings a sacrifice. And he brings it to the Lord. Notice that in verse three. He brings an offering unto the Lord. You don't have here a false god in his mind that he erects this altar for a false god. No, he brings it to the Lord and he builds an altar And he even gives something that belonged to him to the Lord. He brings a sacrifice. All of these things are in and of themselves. They speak to the fact that Cain was not an entirely irreligious man, a man who simply scoffed at God and the worship of God. He does, we would say in our own language, in our own terminology, he worships. He does devotions. He goes before God. He knows that he has to bring something before God, and he's conscientious about it. He builds an altar. He gathers some of the fruit of the ground. He's a tiller of the ground. He brings that, and he brings an offering to Jehovah, to the Lord. So on the surface, there are a number of things here that are commendable in and of themselves. There is, however, this fatal flaw. And it is that Cain can do without blood. Cain can stand before the Lord and bring a sacrifice before the Lord apart from blood. And this isn't just an oversight on his part. No doubt, Adam and Eve, from their own experience there in paradise, as they were clothed with those bloody garments, they would have passed this on. And the whole scripture makes clear, without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. Even at the level of the conscience, those whose consciences have not been seared, they realize that someone, something must pay the penalty for sin, and I can't do it. Because I'm sinning against a holy God, an infinite God, who deserves everything, and who deserves my life, and who deserves perfect obedience. And the soul that sins, even in the slightest degree, it must die. So Cain here, for all his good motives and all his good actions at one level, he is basically standing before God unclothed with blood, not needing blood. He stands, we would say, on the basis of the rest of the Scriptures, in his own righteousness, and he imagines here that God must accept of him based on his own righteousness, based on himself as he is before God. In fact, God should be well pleased with him because he's taking some things and he's offering them unto the Lord. He thinks he's doing God's service here. And congregation, we need to see this very carefully, no matter who we are. And not just for a first time, but afresh, again and again. And it is to whatever extent we think that we please God, of ourselves, by ourselves, by what we do, apart from the blood. We are an offense to God. And it's a wonder that God bears with us. It's a wonder that God's long-suffering keeps His wrath from breaking out upon us. Two men went to the temple to pray, Jesus said. One of them a Pharisee, and the other a Republican. And much like Cain, the Pharisee came before God, and he thought God should be pleased with him. of himself. Yes, he went to the temple. Yes, he prayed. Yes, he, in a certain sense, was devoted to the Lord. But all that came forth from this man's lips was, Lord, I thank Thee. Lord, I thank Thee. Lord, I thank Thee. Lord, I thank Thee. And of course, it is not wrong to thank the Lord. We must thank the Lord. We owe Him everything. And it is a great crime not to be thankful. It says somewhere in the scriptures about wicked men that they were not thankful. So we must be very thankful. So the Pharisee doesn't do wrong in the fact that he thanks the Lord, but he does wrong in this, that he imagines that the Lord can and will accept of him apart from the blood. Many people in churches, even conservative and orthodox churches, they come into places like this. They sit under the Word, Lord's Day after Lord's Day. They give of their tithes and offerings. They do certain things, many things, many good things in and of themselves. But they have the false notion that God will and must accept of them as they are, based on what they do. And dear friends, there's one terrible, fatal mistake with all of that. And may the Lord teach us this and keep us from this. We are not safe. We are not saved apart from the blood. We cannot and will not escape unless covered by blood. And so we see here, first of all, Cain as the opposite of what it means to depend alone on the blood. But let's turn now, secondly, and at greater length to Abel, in whom we see someone who does depend on blood. I have five points here, sub-points on Abel. First of all, we see a concern in Abel. A concern in Abel. Notice what the text says here. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock, and of the fat thereof. Abel had a concern, and that is that the justice of God be satisfied. That his wrath against Abel for his sin would be appeased. That his life would be viewed by God, not as it was in and of itself, but covered by the blood of something else. In this case, this lamb. And no doubt it wasn't easy for Abel to take one of the firstlings of his flock, that means the best of his flock, the chiefest of the flock, to take this lamb, this beautiful lamb, and to slay it, to slit its throat, or however he would have done this, and to have this lamb be killed for his sake, not the Lamb's sake, for Abel's sake. And in that whole ceremony and ritual there on top of that altar just outside of Eden, Abel made clear that he had a concern that to be accepted in the sight of God, he needed something to atone for his sin, not for sin could anything atone, God must save, and God alone. Not the labor of His hands, not the first fruits of the earth, of the ground, not even the altar per se, but the blood, the blood of sprinkling. I ask you tonight, do you have that same concern? Do you have that same need in your soul that you know that the Lord, if He were to deal with you as you deserve, it would not be good. You would not escape. As the psalmist says, enter not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified. Do you share this concern of Abel? Does the Spirit made room for the blood in your life? Do you need someone to make satisfaction for you? Because you can't. Because from the crown of your head to the sole of your foot, you're sin stained. You're leprous. You're vile. You're unable to atone for your own sins. And no one and nothing can do that. except for blood, as the Lord Himself has shown. But Abel had more than concern. Abel had, secondly, confidence. How do we know that? Well, that was in Hebrews 11, verse 4. By faith, Abel offered. a more excellent sacrifice. There wasn't simply a sense of need. There are people who have a sense of need, but it never comes to faith in their life. And in Abel's case, he rested the weight of his never-dying soul on the provision and promise of God in the gospel, which God had announced in the mother promise, I will put enmity between thee, Satan, and the woman, between thy seed, Satan, and her seed. He shall bruise thy head. Thou shall bruise his heel. There would be blood from that son of Eve in the fullness of time. There would be a crushed heel. There would be the shedding of blood of which the lamb would be a type. And by faith, Abel rested his whole weight upon that, upon the promise of God. Now just to encourage you and to leave you without excuse, that was not a promise for a select group of people, whereby you first had to know this, and you then had to know that, and then the next thing, no. In fact, as we saw last time, the Lord preached that promise to Satan, to the serpent. I will put enmity. But Adam and Eve were able to listen in, and no doubt they passed this on to their posterities. You see, congregation, we are never saved knowing that we are elect. We are never saved because we have done certain things or have attained to a certain position in life. We must be saved as sinners, trusting in the promise for sinners. That's the gospel. There is no other way. Anything more restrictive than that is not the gospel, not the full gospel, not the free gospel. It's for sinners. It's for sinners as sinners, and nothing more. And that's what Abel was. And he rested the weight of his soul. He complied with the message of God. He cast himself, soul and body, on God's way of saving sinners. He, in the words of Scripture, submitted himself to the righteousness which is by faith. He did not seek to be wiser than God. He simply said, this is God's way of appointment. This is how God would save sinners. I rest, I submit, I fall on this way, on this promise, on this blood. There was concern, there was confidence, and there was comfort. What do we mean by that? Another way to put this was that the Lord made clear that his offering was accepted. The Lord had respect, it said, unto Abel and to his offering. And in Hebrews it says, the Lord made clear that Abel was righteous because of and on the basis of this one offering for sin. Now how the Lord did that, we don't know. Some people have thought that maybe as with Solomon in the temple, that the Lord showed with some kind of glory cloud upon Abel's offering, that he was accepted, but not Cain. We don't know how the Lord made it clear, but the Lord made it clear to both Abel and he made it clear to Cain. And that's why Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell. And though we may not know what this looked like exactly for Abel, we know that the truth of it was clear and manifest. And we know that the truth of it is clear and manifest in the gospel to every sinner who comes under the blood. Because what did the Lord Jesus Christ say about the publican who smote upon his breast and did not so much as dare lift up his eyes into heaven? but probably looking to the offering looking to the altar he said God have mercy upon me the sinner and actually in the original it says God be propitiated with me be pacified on the basis of the offering with me and what does the Lord Jesus Christ say this man went to his house justified rather than the other. Heaven rejoiced. Heaven made its sentence clear. And the Lord does this in the gospel. He doesn't do this in some mystical experience, though the Lord may come indeed very close, and he may seal this in an extraordinary way, but it's the gospel. How blessed is he whose sins have been freely forgiven, to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity. and in whose sight there is no guile. The gospel says this, the word says this, and the spirit attests to this in the heart, but it's true. Whether we know that comfort just in sliver form, in slight form, or we know it in a magnificent way, the Lord leads his people in his own way in the knowledge of that one and only comfort. As we confess in our Heidelberg Catechism, That I am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Savior who hath fully satisfied for all my sins. You see, that's the righteousness that the Lord makes clear in the gospel. for the sinner who trusts on God's appointed mediator, God's way of saving sinners. So there was concern, there was confidence, there was comfort, but there was also a cost. There was also a cost. You see, everyone who will live godly in this world will suffer persecution. It cannot be otherwise. The Lord Jesus made clear that we are not saved because we take up our cross and follow him, but he also makes clear that everyone that will be saved will take up the cross and come after Christ. Because the crucified Savior will have a people coming after him who know a life of tribulation and a life of cost. And he enables them to bear that. He gives them strength. As your day, so shall your strength be. And we learn to come under that cross, whatever that looks like in our life. And in the world you shall have tribulation. Abel had it. We don't know how soon it was that Cain leapt upon him and bludgeoned him or whatever it was, strangled him. It says, he rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. And something this newly created earth had never seen, it saw for the first time, at least physically. And that is that the blood of one man was spilt and entered into the ground. And there his body lay lifeless, the soul having departed. First time. And Cain must have buried that body. And yet the Lord knew. The Lord saw. And there was a voice, verse 10, what hast thou done? The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. You see, congregation, there is a age old war going on between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman. Which side, dear friends, are you on? Which side are you on? That line runs right through churches, right through assemblies. Cain was a church member, you could say. He was a religious person. He offered unto the Lord. And yet he revealed here that he was of the seed of the serpent, which was at war with the seed of the woman. And the seed of the serpent slew the seed of the woman. And so it has been. And for all who will live godly in this world, you will face persecution. Why are we surprised that many of our brothers and sisters in the world face persecution? That the police shows up at assemblies like this and arrests the minister, and takes him, and elders, and church members, and they're never heard from again. They go into concentration camps. They're tortured. not accepting deliverance. They're there. All over this world, that's going on. Never heard from again. Their families don't hear from them again. That is because the seed of the serpent is at war with the seed of the woman, even until now. And true Christians are bound together with them. And they must pray for them. Not so much even that they would be delivered from their captors. but that they would stand fast in evil days, that they would be faithful even unto death. Do you pray for that? Do you pray for your persecuted brothers and sisters that are suffering the same fate, we might say, as Abel? There is a cost to being a Christian. And in some countries, that looks like what I just pictured. In our own country, that means that you stand out. And that you're not ashamed for the name of God, no matter if that deprives you of a job, or of a promotion, or people malign you. And increasingly we are finding that if you stand for the Word of God, and you stand for the testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ, and be sure the persecution is indeed based on the Word of God, and based on the testimony of the Lord Jesus. The Lord Jesus said, happy are you if you are persecuted for my namesake. But that's the cost. And those who have committed the keeping of their souls unto a faithful Creator, those who have been washed in the blood, those whose hope is outside of themselves in the Lord Jesus Christ, the anchor of their soul is outside of themselves. Oh, it's with much faltering and much failing, much backsliding, much compromising. Sadly, we say this to our shame. Peter denied Christ. In that moment, not wanting persecution, not wanting the cost, he compromised so severely. It brought damage to his soul, and yet the Lord restored him. But let none of us think that faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is costless. It's a good cost. It's a happy cost. It costs you your sin, and that's good. It costs you shame, but shame for the name of Christ is gain. Those early apostles, they rejoiced that they were counted worthy of suffering, shame, and disgrace for the cause of Christ. Well, there was concern and confidence and comfort and cost. And there was this conclusion, for lack of a better word. What do I mean by that? You know, as horrific as it was, as painful as it was, as wrong as it was, the moment that Abel's soul left his body, instantly, he was in heaven. He closed his eyes on earth and he opened them in his soul in heaven, in the presence of God. And Abel was the first one in heaven. There was no other redeemed soul in heaven. There were the angels who must have wondered and welcomed this redeemed child of Adam. and the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. And there was Abel, the only one in heaven. But he was in paradise with his Savior, with his surety, with the seed of the woman, and with the Father, and with the Holy Spirit. And he'd fought the good fight. And he had finished his course, and henceforth there was laid up for him a crown of glory which none could take away. The sufferings of the present time are not worthy to be compared. with the glory that shall be hereafter. Oh, that we would keep that more in view, in sight. My dear friends, do you see what it means to depend on the blood alone? That's the only way to live. That's the only way to die. Children, young people, everyone here, this is true life. To be crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me in the life that I now live in the flesh. I live in union and communion with my Savior who loved me and gave himself for me. This, dear friends, is the grace of what it means to depend on the blood alone. And this leads to a life. This leads to a life of depending on the blood alone. And I want to close with that. And for that, I go to the end of the chapter, verse 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. What this means, congregation, is that in this godly line of Seth, as you can read in the next chapter, in chapter 5, you have the ungodly line of Cain, and you have the godly line of Seth, and people would come together and they would worship together in their houses, and families would come, probably on the Sabbath day. on the day that the Lord had set apart to rest from the beginning of creation. They came together, maybe other times as well, but they came together to call upon the name of the Lord. What does that mean? Well, what are you doing here at this prayer meeting? What do you do when you fold your hands and close your eyes and an elder or myself and you hopefully you're praying and you say, oh Lord, You're calling on the name of the Lord. Why? You're calling on His name because you need Him. You can't do life by yourself you can't do redemption by yourself you you need him and so you call and literally it's cry they cried out upon the name of the lord the name of the lord was a strong tower and the righteous run into it and and are safe and the picture congregation is this the line of cayenne was growing stronger and stronger They built a city. They made weapons of warfare. They became skilled in brass and iron. They lifted their voice against the Lord. Look at Lamechum, the things that he says. If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold. And what is happening in our world today? It's happened since the beginning. We hear more of it now, but it's happening all over this world. And it's the cry of the seed of the serpent. It's the cry of the ungodly against God and against His Christ. It's the rage against Christ. And what are the godly to do? Are they to hit the streets and cry there? Well, let's cry to God. Let's come together like this in prayer meetings and cry to God. Cry not against our fellow brothers, but to cry to God. Lord, we need Thee. We need help. We need Thee. Without Thee, we can do nothing. Lord, come down and help us. We're not safe. We're not saved without Thee. Dear friends, we need this. And you know, Abel was in heaven, and these people knew it. Abel, the only one in heaven. And these people called here on the earth, may we stay steadfast even unto death. May we know in whom we have believed. May we experience what Abel experienced, and that is the comfort, the validation, the righteousness of the Most High. They combined together. They added their prayers to each other. They came together in companies, literally is what it means. They came and cried unto God. Do we do that? Are we resolved to do this? Like these Sethites in this fourth chapter of Genesis, to have prayer meetings in which we storm the mercy seat and say, God, will thou hear our cries and come down and revive thy church in the midst of years in wrath? Remember, mercy, regard not our sin, cover us with the blood of sprinkling. Dear friends, that is the life that depends on the blood alone. To live a life of prayer, supplication, by yourself in the secret place, but also where the godly meet. And together, joining prayer with prayer that God would yet have respect. You see, congregation, we don't end today with Abel. Because Abel was simply a type. The earth opened up and the blood of Abel went into this earth and it cried. Yes, it had a voice, but it had a voice crying for justice and for vengeance. But there was the blood of another in the fullness of time. And the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 12, it says that it speaks better things than that of Abel. Do you know what it speaks? Do you know what the blood of Christ speaks to you and to our perishing world? It doesn't speak for vengeance. When the Lord Jesus Christ was lifted up on the cross, And the blood from His crown of thorns and from His pierced hands and feet, when it started to drip upon this earth, and the earth as it were opened up to receive His blood. You know what the Lord Jesus Christ said? He said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. And that, dear friends, is the voice of the blood of Christ that speaks through the ages into your ears tonight, all over this earth. It speaks not vengeance, it speaks mercy for sinners, for will worshipers, for people who all their life long like the Pharisee have thought that God, God should be pleased with me. And this blood says there's mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ for sinners. There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. That's what his blood cries out. Don't we have much more reason than these Sethites who called upon the name of the Lord? Don't we have a million more reasons now that the seed of the woman has come and shed his blood? Don't we have reasons to hide under His blood? Are you safe under His blood? It's the only place of safety. What did the angel of death say? When I see the blood, I will pass over. Savior, hide me. till the storm has passed. Hide me beneath the blood. Redeem me with Thy blood. Purchase me with Thy blood. May Thy blood avail for me and for many others, still many here in this church who think to worship God like Cain did, and God should accept them. Oh, may the blood avail for them. May it avail for you. May it avail for our neighbors. May it avail for these people that we'll meet on the streets as we head home. May it avail for them. There are no worse sinners than we are. In fact, we're worse. And the blood can avail for us. Oh, shall we not call upon the name of the Lord, that He will have mercy on the basis of Christ's blood. Let's do it. To His praise, amen.