Attitudes Have Consequences: Cain & His Legacy

Attitudes Have Consequences

(Cain and His Legacy)

 

April 16, 2022

Larry R Evans

 

Introduction 

 

At a college commencement address, the story was told of two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says ‘Morning, boys. How’s the water?’ And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and says ‘What in the world is water?”

 

The truth of the story is clear. We can become so immersed in our surroundings that we become oblivious to how they sustain or influence us. The same can be said for our thoughts and attitudes. They become part of who we are and determine what we become. One of the best examples of this is what we discover in the story of Cain and Able.

 

Back to the Beginning

 

There are two questions found in Genesis that are asked throughout the Bible.  They are questions that every Christian of every generation answer either directly or indirectly.  What are they?

 

Adam and Eve had just sinned through their disobedience.  We find the first question in Genesis 3:8,9.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man, “Where are you?”  

The LORD (Yahweh) God (Elohim), asked where you were in your relationship with me? It was obvious.  Their hiding told the story!  They answered by blaming each other, God, and the serpent.

 

The second question is found in Genesis 4:8,9.

Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

As with Adam and Eve, Cain also presented a pretense. 

 

QUESTION: What did God ask Cain?

 

What was Cain’s answer?  Was he answering God’s question?  How was he trying to evade the truth of God’s question?

 

CLUE/QUESTIONS: Six times in the story the word “brother” is used. “Keeper” is used once and not by God but by Cain.  What was God asking and what truth did Cain use to evade God’s question?

 

In general, the word “brother” is a relational term used to describe family, whereas “keeper” is a functional term such as to guard or protect such as a guard of prisoners.  God is asking about the way he was to care for his brother in the closest loving ways.  He was not asking he had been guarding or controlling his brother—which Cain had tried to do and ended up killing his brother.  

 

Ellen White does use the term “brother’s keeper” but always from a compassionate sense rather than from a formal or controlling responsibility.  Notice, what I believe is a divine interpretation of the dangerous temptation that Cain and many others face.  

Any man, be he minister or layman, who seeks to compel or control the reason of any other man, becomes an agent of Satan, to do his work, and in the sight of the heavenly universe, he bears the mark of Cain (Manuscript 29, 1911). { 1BC 1087.3 }

The Development of an Attitude

 

By the time Cain and Able come onto the scene, God’s perfect world was undergoing some unfortunate changes.  Their parents had sinned, and the judgment had been pronounced as we saw in Genesis 3 last week. It did not sit well with Cain. In the book Patriarchs and Prophets (p.71) we find an interesting description of what was taking place in the mind of Cain.

Cain cherished feelings of rebellion, and murmured against God because of the curse pronounced upon the earth and upon the human race for Adam's sin. He permitted his mind to run in the same channel that led to Satan's fall—indulging the desire for self-exaltation and questioning the divine justice and authority.

The future legacy of Cain was at stake. God knew it. Cain was focused on the present situation. God’s asked questions to jar Cain’s self-destructive thoughts.  The questions were grace-filled although Cain did not see them that way.

 “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must rule over it.” (Gen. 4:6,7)

Cain had an attitude problem. God saw it. Cain did not.

 

QUESTIONS: How did Cain develop this attitude? When did God begin working on an attitudinal change?

 

Let’s see how the attitude of Abel and the attitude of Cain began to be manifested.

Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering, he did not look with favor. So, Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. – Genesis 4:2-5

An Attitude in Action

 

QUESTION: What was the difference between the way the two brothers worshipped?

·      Cain brought the fruit of the soil to worship.

·      Able “also” [in addition to] brought an offering of the firstborn. 

They knew that in these offerings they were to express faith in the Saviour whom the offerings typified, and at the same time to acknowledge their total dependence on Him for pardon; and they knew that by thus conforming to the divine plan for their redemption, they were giving proof of their obedience to the will of God. . . Besides this, the first fruits of the earth were to be presented before the Lord as a thank offering.  Patriarchs and Prophets p.71

QUESTIONS:  Was this worship?  What is to happen during worship? In what way is God involved in worship? What outcome does God have in mind with true worship?

 

Do you agree with the following?

Worship works from the top down . . . In worship we don’t just come to show God our devotion and give him our praise; we are called to worship because in this encounter God (re) makes and molds us top-down. 

Worship is the arena in which God recalibrates our hearts, reforms our desires, and rehabituates our loves. Worship isn’t just something we do; it is where God does something to us. –James K. A. Smith, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit, p.77

 

Instead of approaching worship with an attitude of humility and thankfulness, Cain had an attitude of resentment for the penalty that he believe was given to Adam and Eve by God!  He had bought into the excuses presented by his parents!  Therein is a lesson for all parents.  Our words, our example, have a powerful influence.  Notice how Ellen White describes the different attitudes found in these two worshippers.

Abel was determined to worship God according to the directions God had given. This displeased Cain. He thought that his own plans were best, and that the Lord would come to his terms. Cain in his offering did not acknowledge his dependence upon Christ. He thought that his father Adam had been treated harshly in being expelled from Eden. The idea of keeping that sin ever before the mind, and offering the blood of the slain lamb as a confession of entire dependence upon a power outside of himself, was torture to the high spirit of Cain. Being the eldest, he thought that Abel should follow his example. TM 77

 

Cain’s Punishment and His Legacy

 

To drive home to Cain the gravity of what he had done, the LORD asked, “What have you done?” (4:10) 

 

Cain who had worked the soil (4:2) was now told that from that soil his brother’s blood was crying out. His success as a “farmer” would no longer be successful leaving Cain to be a wanderer. (4:11,12).

 

Cain was distraught. In deepest despair he cried out, “I will be hidden from your presence!” (4:14) He then feared for his life. (4:15). But something strange happened next. Cain deserved death.  He had killed his brother. He failed not because he was not a “keeper” but rather because he was not a “brother.” 

 

QUESTION: Why did God not make Cain pay the price – the ultimate price of being deprived of God’s presence—the very essence that Cain denied himself in his acts of worship?  Why save Cain from the curse that he deserved!!

 

We find the answer in Matthew 27:45-46, 50.

From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

The ultimate curse that was to fall upon Cain, was born by Jesus as promised in Genesis 3:15.  The darkness, the seeming abandonment by God, and the longing for His presence were all felt by Jesus as he bore the curse not only of Cain but for each of us. With no respect for Mel Gibson’s depiction of the sufferings of Christ, the physical pain did not compare with the feeling of being separated from His Father.

 

Concluding Challenge

 

You’ve heard it said many times, that “Elections have consequences.” It’s the political way for winners to tell losers: “Tough luck, you lost. Get over it.  It’s also a way for losers to remind winners when things go wrong that they had made a bad choice.  But it is also true personally. Attitudes like elections have consequences.  A deeper understanding of God and His love can turn the bitterest experience around. There is hope.  Attitudes can change.

 

Stephen Covey tells of an experience he had one Sunday morning on a subway in New York.  

People were sitting quietly—some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed.  It was a calm, and peaceful scene.

  Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway car.  The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed.

  The man sat down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The children were yelling back and forth throwing things, even grabbing people’s papers.  It was very disturbing.  And yet, the man sitting next to me did nothing.

  It was difficult not to feel irritated.  I could not believe that he could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all.  It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated, too.  So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, ‘Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people.  I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little more.’

  The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, ‘Oh, you’re right.  I guess I should do something about it.  We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago.  I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.’

  Can you imagine what I felt at that moment?  My paradigm shifted.  Suddenly I saw things differently, and because I saw differently, I thought differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently.  My irritation vanished. I didn’t have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man’s pain.  Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely.  ‘Your wife just died? Oh, I’m so sorry!  Can you tell me about it?  What can I do to help?  Everything changed in an instant.” – Stephen R. Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, pp. 30-31.