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God and His Gospel Preaching to Cain, Who Rejects It
Genesis 4 chronicles the beginnings for the first family after the fall of man into sin. The first couple of verses portray positives for the parents and their children.
1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. 2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
So much could be said here. Here I write a day after Mother’s Day, the mother of all living conceives and bares a son. Not long before, Adam and she hid from God, ashamed and frightened after having rebelled against His command. It looked hopeless for those two and the end for all humanity. Not so fast though. God promised Eve a seed that would crush the head of the serpent, obviously Satan.
At the start of chapter 4, she maybe got that man from the Lord already. But no. She believed though. And then came along his brother, Abel. The family thrived with the raising of domesticated animals and farming the soil. God gave life, blessed with children, and provided for needs.
In light of what God says later to Cain, one should assume that God informed the two boys His regulations for worship of Him. But this is what we read in verses 3-4:
3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. 4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering:
Both Cain and Abel brought offerings to the Lord, but only Abel and His offering, the firstlings of his flock, pleased the Lord. Much later the author of Hebrews writes in 11:4:
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.
Faith comes by hearing the Word of God, which was then the basis for Abel offering a more excellent sacrifice than Cain. This testifed that Abel was righteous. Like 10:39 said — he believed to the saving of his soul. God has pleasure in Him (10:38), but without faith it is impossible to please God (11:6). Abel believed, was saved, but not Cain. Later John the Apostle writes in his first epistle (3:11-12):
11 For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. 12 Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.
As he was of the wicked one, love for his righteous brother was absent from Cain. God didn’t approve of Cain’s offering and rather than look to get it right, Cain got angry and pouted. Like a missionary, God confronted Cain in Genesis 4:6-7:
6 And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? 7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
God told Cain. It didn’t have to be this way for him. He could trust God, acquiesce to His Words and will, and be accepted. God reached out to Cain in a loving way. He showed him the path of goodness, the road to take. We know from the next verse, that Cain rejected it.
Even after Cain murdered his brother, and the Hebrew says it was premeditated, murder in the first degree, God visited Cain with an offer to confess and repent beginning in verse 9:
And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper?
This reads like God gave Cain one more opportunity and Cain just lied to Him. When God visited Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they repented. Their son would not.
In Genesis 4, God evangelizes Cain. He preaches to him the good news of salvation, something his brother Abel already received. Cain is an example of a typical unbeliever, who turns away from the Lord and His love. May we join God in the same ministry of reconciliation.
Worship Is God’s Priority for Men: The Case of 2 Chronicles 25
The impression from an overview of scripture is that worship is God’s priority for men. Jesus said to the woman at the well, God is seeking for true worshipers (John 4:23). Jesus said this. David was a man after God’s own heart (1 Samuel 13:14). What was David’s priority? The worship of God. 1 Chronicles 25:14-16 provide another example:
14 Now it came to pass, after that Amaziah was come from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought the gods of the children of Seir, and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense unto them. 15 Wherefore the anger of the LORD was kindled against Amaziah, and he sent unto him a prophet, which said unto him, Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people, which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand? 16 And it came to pass, as he talked with him, that the king said unto him, Art thou made of the king’s counsel? forbear; why shouldest thou be smitten? Then the prophet forbare, and said, I know that God hath determined to destroy thee, because thou hast done this, and hast not hearkened unto my counsel
Amaziah, king of Judah, conquered the Edomites based on a prophecy from God. God gave his mercenary army the victory over Edom, which had rebelled against his great-grandfather, Jehoram (verse 14). He obeyed God in slaughtering the Edomites. However, as you can read above, he brought Edom’s gods and bowed down to them and burned incense to them. How did God react to that?
God’s anger was kindled against Amaziah, because of the false worship. There’s more. God was the one who delivered the Edomites, and these new gods could not deliver them. So, God sent a prophet to confront Amaziah.
False worship doesn’t make any sense. God gives every good thing and yet people worship another god and in numbers of different ways. What is it? It doesn’t explain the insanity of this, but we know it still occurs. The true God is not worshiped in a true way. He’s ignored. He’s refused. What causes men to choose a different god or worship the true God in a way He would never accept? Why do they do it?
Maybe it doesn’t matter why. Maybe all that matters is that they do it. In the end, the judgment will come for what, but why still matters. It doesn’t say, but I think we know. We’re supposed to know. God gives everyone every good thing, but God expects something from His worshipers. False gods don’t have the same expectations as God. It’s like doctor shopping. You shop for the god of your choice and have him be your god, and then you get what you want.
Another avenue today is to keep the God of the Bible but conform Him so much to your own preferences and your own style, that He’s not even the same God. He’s god, not God. That’s all over “evangelicalism.” People are important to evangelicalism, and evangelicalism’s god conforms to people. That’s who he is.
The wrong worship and the wrong god merge into one another. They become indistinguishable at some point. Keeping the same “God” is just a masquerade. And then people are so self-deceived, they just don’t know anymore. God knows and He’s angry.
In many ways, people again in a self-deceived way are thinking they can fool God. He won’t know. Or He’ll understand and accept. 2 Peter describes apostasy and in the most rudimentary way, it is not wanting accountability or authority. This does challenge the goodness of God and redefines goodness. Goodness becomes the object of man’s lust, and man doesn’t want a God who doesn’t give him what he wants. Reader, God knows. You won’t get away with it. His worship is His priority.
God is angry with false worship as described in the previous four paragraphs. On the other hand, someone who prioritizes that worship, as flawed even as he may be personally, is a man after God’s own heart. He prioritizes the true worship of God. That doesn’t excuse His flaws, but it’s helpful to know God’s priority.
Amaziah’s worship story is an amazing one. Do you agree? But let’s move on.
God sends a prophet to warn about false worship. True prophets warn against false worship, preach true worship. Practical, successful living matters to God, but worship is the priority. Today that would be to worship the right God the right way, which is in His church, regulated by scripture. Church growth is not the priority, except for more true worshipers. If there isn’t true worship at all, God doesn’t want church growth. He wants church disappearance or elimination.
The message from God through the prophet is not to seek after other gods. Don’t seek them in whatever way anyone may seek them. On the other hand, seek the true God. People don’t know Him, because they don’t seek Him. He must be sought to be known. This relates to a lot about believing the Lord. He is available and can be known, but we must seek Him. Sure, we can’t seek Him without His seeking us, but we must seek Him. It’s crucial.
The first half of verse 16 accounts of the threat by Amaziah to the prophet. That sounds serious, threatening someone who impedes your false worship. I’ve stood at the door arguing about worship for hours. A lot of people would say, let it go. It’s not important, the gospel is important. Except for the gospel is about worship (see John 4:23 again).
When doing spiritual warfare with someone about worship, it is emotional. People don’t want their worship rejected. If it is, something isn’t wrong with them, the false worshipers, it’s you the prophet. It was so serious for Amaziah that he threatened the prophet in one of the most mafia like threats in scripture. There were two components. First, there was a veiled threat of his job as the king’s counsel, a job he would have lost anyway if, second, he was killed by Amaziah.
I want to emphasize that false worshipers want to defend their false worship. I contend that it’s not about their god. It’s about them. They want what they want, and their god is allowing it. God gave the victory. He deserved to be worshiped, but whatever the gods of Edom offered Amaziah, he preferred it.
Not allowing the false worship is like taking food from an animal. I’ve found this to be the reaction. The false worshiper attacks the prophet to keep the worship. I’ve experienced dozens of personal attacks in similar situations with people angry over the challenge of their worship. Cain is an early example in scripture, challenging God and killing his brother over this same issue.
The prophet addressed both threats in an economy of words and in reverse order. Getting straight to the point, God is going to destroy you, implying that you are not going to destroy me. Second, you didn’t listen to my counsel anyway, so you really can’t threaten me with my job. The prophet stood up to the false worshiper and his false worship. He did not back off. This is God’s will, to confront false worship.
Modern evangelicalism and fundamentalism attack those who confront false worship. If you are reading this and you’re one of them, you’re probably defending your attacks with bad arguments. They call it a tertiary issue. You will be canceled by them for confronting false worship. Love is love after all according to the leftish value list. Love would accommodate false worship. God will kill over it. The prophet actually was saving Amaziah’s life. That is actual love, not the toleration of the leftist values now foremost in evangelicalism and fundamentalism. I face those values every week and almost every day.
2 Chronicles 25 is another case for worship as God’s priority for men.
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