Sermon Tone Analysis

*Family Foundations, Part 5 – The Most Important Starting Point for Parents (Gen.

4:3-5)*

/Preached by Pastor Phil Layton at Gold Country Baptist Church on January 4, 2009/

www.goldcountrybaptist.org

 

Genesis 4:1-5 (NASB95) 1 Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, “I have gotten a manchild with /the help of /the Lord.” 2 Again, she gave birth to his brother Abel.

And Abel was a keeper of flocks, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

3 So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.

4 Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions.

And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; 5 but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard.

So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.

We began a few weeks ago reviewing some of the foundational truths in Genesis 1-3 about family, marriage and manhood and womanhood.

In Genesis 4, we began our verse-by-verse study through this chapter last month and will continue working our way through Genesis in the weeks ahead.

In our last study, we drew several observations from verses 1-2 about the biblical view of children.

This evening we continue in vs. 3-5, and we’re not in a hurry to rush through this chapter, because there are many truths here that are foundational for parents and all people to understand.

At the end of verse 1 is the mention of the first child to the first parents ever, and then their second son Abel.

In the Bible, terms for parents and children are used in (I believe) every book of the Bible.

From Genesis to Revelation this is a dominant image and relationship.

You know how many times the Bible uses a term for parents or children?

8,150 times in my Bible!

Over 8,000x we read of child ~/ son ~/ daughter ~/ father ~/ mother – this is a major subject.

Roy Zuck notes, “We normally think of the Bible as a book about adults and for adults—and it is.

However, the Bible includes hundreds even thousands of references to children and related subjects such as conception, childbirth, families, and descendants”[1]

 

This is not just the language of physical life and relationships, but it is language often used for spiritual life and relationships.

One of the fundamental ways God is revealed by His Son Jesus is “our Father which art in heaven.”

Child is a common yet profound term used to describe the relationship of God’s people to God, both Israel and the church.

The /Dictionary of Biblical Imagery /sums up how fitting this metaphor is for us in relation to God:

1) Children are /learners/,

2) children are /dependent/,

3) children are a /reflection/ of the parent’s nature,

4) children were /cherished/ in Bible times.[2]

Christ Himself loved children and had a special place for children.

A little child is one of the key illustrations Christ used for those who are of the Kingdom of heaven.

They were very important to Jesus in contrast to the views of some in their culture (and in ours).

The OT also has a very high view of children.

A book on Bible manners and customs contrasts questions of today’s parents with the Jewish mindset: ‘the people living in ancient Israel would have found [the mindset of many couples today] strange and startling.

For example, the following questions would not have entered the minds of the Israelites:

“Should we have children?” “If so, should we limit the number to one or two?” Or, “If we do have children, when should we begin?”

The ancient Israelites’ attitude could be summed up like this: “We want children.

We want them now … many children … children are very important to us.

In fact, we would rather be ‘wealthy’ with children than with money.”[3]

In contrast today, our society has hundreds of thousands of unwanted, unloved, and un-fathered children, to say nothing of the millions unable to be born because of a “woman’s choice.”

My wife and I knew a married couple in the apartment complex next to us years ago, she had a stay-at-home job, but when she would get pregnant she would have an abortion, because she didn’t want kids.

One survey done in America showed that 70 percent of parents surveyed would not have children if they had to do it over again.[4]

There is an organization in America called N.O.N.

(The National Organization of Non-Parents).

They say they don’t want to complicate their lives with children.

What are we doing with the future generation?

Even when they are born, it seems as though they are left to themselves.[5]

But Eve knew that children were a blessing not a burden, as verse 1 says.

This man, this child, was from God, a gift in God’s image and for God’s glory to multiply on the earth, as we saw past weeks.

For this week, I want us to notice together for the first parents ever and the first children ever, notice the first thing Scripture records about them.

The first reality, the first activity, the starting point that Scripture first mentions and highlights is WORSHIP.

Our text begins in verse 3 with the statement “So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD”

 

It’s interesting to me that it doesn’t mention a lot of other things about the two boys and their parents and how they were brought up -- it begins with their worship, their offerings, their sacrifices to God.

Worship is the first event recorded of the first family in this new world, and sacrificial worship is also the first act after the flood in Noah’s family who similarly are the only family entering a “new world” with a similar commission to Adam and Eve’s family

 

Worship is the first act recorded of mankind as new children come into the world of Paradise Lost, and when Paradise is restored in Revelation, the children of the Lord will continue to worship Him forever in heaven.

The first glimpse we have of heaven is worship – from the beginning to the end of the Bible (and human history) we see worship, either true or false.

Arguably every page of the Bible relates to this subject at least indirectly.

From the first Adam to the last Adam (Christ), our beginning and end is worship.

There are a lot of details /not/ recorded in the life of Eve’s boys – verse 2 just records their birth order and occupations, both noble and good occupations to God.

They were apparently at least young adults, who had been brought up by their parents and were old enough to be responsible for themselves and old enough to be married as we see later in this chapter in the case of Cain.

/Where and when and how did worship originate?

Where did this idea come from to bring an offering in v. 3?/ The text doesn’t tell us – it doesn’t even tell us this is the first type of offering brought by mankind.

Offerings may have been a very normal thing for them.

The commentators give us various explanations:

 

H.

C. Leupold: ‘Nothing indicates that this episode marks the inauguration of sacrifice by mankind.

It may not even have been the first time that these brothers offered sacrifices.

The casual way of reporting the fact that they brought sacrifices would rather lead us to believe that something was being done which was not of a character to challenge attention because of its newness … since no commandment is recorded authorizing or requesting sacrifice from man as a thing divinely sought, we are, no doubt, nearer the truth when we let sacrifices originate spontaneously on man’s part as a natural expression of a devout spirit and of gratitude toward the omnipotent Giver of all good things.

Sacrifice meets a deep need of the human heart.’

‘The origin of sacrifice, therefore, is neither to be traced to a positive command, nor to be regarded as a human invention.

To form an accurate conception of the idea which lies at the foundation of all sacrificial worship, we must bear in mind that the first sacrifices were offered after the fall, and therefore presupposed the spiritual separation of man from God, and were designed to satisfy the need of the heart for fellowship with God.

This need existed in the case of Cain, as well as in that of Abel; otherwise he would have offered no sacrifice at all, since there was no command [recorded] to render it compulsory … The offerings were expressive of gratitude to God, to whom they owed all that they had; and were associated also with the desire to secure the divine favour and blessing’[6]

 

*1.

**Worship is Natural and Constant for Children*

 

The place where the text begins for the first children ever is representative of all children since then.

We may not all do the same types of sacrifices but we are all always worshippers.

It’s been pointed out that all human beings, young or old, kids or parents

‘generally speaking throughout the history of the world have [all] been religious.

In fact the whole of the human race is incurably religious.

And you can go to the darkest corners of the world through human history and you're going to find people worshipping something.

The sun, the moon, the stars, animals, reptiles, insects, a rock, a tree, a waterfall, a river, a lake, a mountain, an image of their own making.

Or even worshipping themselves.

But man is incurably religious.

He has to attach his worship somewhere.

And Cain was a worshipper.

Cain was religious, verse 3 says …

[John MacArthur points out in this case in particular, for Cain and Abel, when you think of who their parents were, who had enjoyed walking with God in the garden in unbroken communion and worship before, Adam and Eve could tell their kids better than anyone about this, firsthand, what it’s like to be in perfect fellowship with the Lord and] what it means to be lost.

Who better understood what it meant to fall victim to Satan?

How many times do you think Adam sat those boys on his knee, how many times do you think Eve sat them down at the table and told them what Eden was like?

What the garden was like.

She told them what they forfeited by their sin.

How many times?

How many times did they plead with them to believe God and not Satan?

How many times did they plead with those boys to put their faith in the promises of God because the promises of God brought joy and blessing and the promises of Satan brought death and destruction?

I can't imagine anybody better equipped to get that message across than the two people who were thrown out of paradise.

… They could tell them what it was like because they were there.

[We saw Eve’s faith in past weeks, and] a mother like Eve would have plead with her boys to trust God.

And a father like Adam would have done the same.

And how many times had they recounted the story?

I'm sure Cain and Abel could have told the story in every single detail about how the fall occurred and how wonderful it was in the garden and how sad it was that they couldn't go back.

And they knew full well about the angel with the flaming sword in every direction to keep anybody from ever going in there.