Monday, February 17, 2025
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Murder
Adam and Eve bore Cain. Eve said, “I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.” Next she bore his brother Abel. Soon Abel kept the flocks and Cain ploughed the ground.
Both boys worked hard at the farming that kept food on their family’s table. Both of them understood that the Lord God, as part of their family, should partake in the fruit of their labor, just as did their mother and father. Abel brought a lamb for God, and Cain brought grain. Then God did something totally unexpected.
The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering of a lamb, but on Cain and his grain offering he did not.
Why? That’s the question all of us ask over and over as we live on this earth. From my point of view what seems fair and loving would have been to accept both offerings. When God accepted only one, then Abel the youngest brother must have been pleased. And Cain, as we know, was angry.
God knew Cain and Abel better than they knew themselves. He spoke to Cain as a father would speak to his son.
Why are you so resentful and crestfallen? If you do well, you can hold up your head. But if not, sin is a demon crouching at your door; it desires to have you. But you must rule over it.
I learn the most about myself through mistakes. When another person rejects my gift, is he rejecting me? NO! God told Cain he must resist that thought, reject it entirely.
Beginning with Cain, we’ve made that mistake over and over – thinking that I am what I do. But God says, “You are who you ARE.” When what you do is wrong, you can do something different next time. But you must “rule over” the idea that there is something wrong with you.
Cain went to bed that night, perhaps sleeping beside his brother. God’s rejection of his offering burned in him. He did not take his thoughts captive, instead they took him. And so in the morning he did what had never yet been done.
While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
The Lord said to Cain, “Where is your brother?”
“I don’t know,” Cain replied. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Oh, boy. Not a good thing to say to God.
God cast Cain out of Eden into the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain would not be allowed relationships with his family. He could not farm; the land would not produce for him.
You shall become a restless wanderer on the earth.
Cain, frightened, said that without any family, alone in the world, anyone could kill him on sight. Then God told Cain how he would protect him.
If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged, sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain.
How did his family take this first murder, first runaway, first sign of God’s new relationship with all of them? The bible doesn’t say. It does describe what happened next in the home of Eve and Adam.
Adam again had relations with his wife and she gave birth to a son whom she called Seth. “God has granted me more offspring in place of Abel,” she said, “because Cain killed him.”
Abel had no children, Cain had many. The second generation of mankind inherited Cain’s sense of being a failure and consequent false pride.
You sit speaking against your brother, the Lord says. When you do these things, shall I be deaf to it? Why do you profess my covenant with your mouth though you hate discipline and cast my words behind you?
God cast Cain out of Eden into the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain would not be allowed relationships with his family. He could not farm; the land would not produce for him.
Offer unto God a sacrifice of praise.
 (Genesis 4, Psalm 50, John 14, Mark 8)
For the next four days I’ll be traveling from Austin to Urbana, Illinois (weather and God permitting). So on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, February 18-21, I will post devotions from the same days in 2022. Hope you enjoy them!
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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