The Way of Cain

(#223, Hinkley/Yermo Aug. 1944; Radio, May 1953; Imperial, 1956)

Read Jude 11; Gen. 4:1-16.

Isa. 55 says that our ways are not God's ways.  The truth of this statement is demonstrated in our text in the character of Cain.  We are all classed with Cain in Isa. 53:6: "We have all turned to our own way."

ƒ    The way of mere human opinion.

One opinion is as good as another, but not as good as God's.  It's not what I think but what God says. 

Cain was an exponent of that terrible doctrine, "If a man does the best he can that is all that is required."  Man's best is not God's best; otherwise God would not have provided Christ, His best, as a sacrifice.

ƒ    The way of willful ignorance.

Cain must have known that man stood condemned as a sinner and needed a covering for his sin.  The very skins his parents wore evidenced this.  Also the language of v28 shows this.  Yet Cain chose to be willfully ignorant.

ƒ    The way of rejection.

    1.  Cain rejected God's way and God's counsel (v7).

    2.  God rejected Cain's offering and Cain (Gen. 4:5).

The offering and the offerer always stand or fall together.

ƒ    The way of hatred based on unyielding pride.

See I John 3:12.  He was unwilling to give in.

ƒ    The way of condemnation. v11,16.

Cain suffered the wages of sin.  He went out from the presence of the Lord.

All this was opposed to God's way...

    1.  The way of life.

    2.  The way of happy fellowship.

    3.  The way of joy & peace.

    4.  The way of the cross.

 

Which way are you following: Cain's or God's way?