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Cain and Abel

April 20th 2015

by Steven Crook

We know that Adam was created by the Lord and then placed in the garden of Eden to tend it. Adam was also given the job of naming all of the animals.

As Adam was naming the animals, he noticed they each had a partner. Adam desired a partner, so the Lord created Eve out of Adam’s flesh and bone to become Adam’s wife.

I am going to cover Adam and Eve’s first two sons, Cain and Abel.

We are going to read about these two sons and then talk about why someone so old, who is dead and gone, is so important to us today.

“Two Sons”

The story of Cain and Abel is found in Genesis 4.  I am going to be reading from the contemporary English verison.

Gen 4:1  Adam and Eve had a son. Then Eve said, “I’ll name him Cain because I got him with the help of the LORD.”
Gen 4:2  Later she had another son and named him Abel. Abel became a sheep farmer, but Cain farmed the land.
Gen 4:3  One day, Cain gave part of his harvest to the LORD,
Gen 4:4  and Abel also gave an offering to the LORD. He killed the first-born lamb from one of his sheep and gave the LORD the best parts of it. The LORD was pleased with Abel and his offering,
Gen 4:5  but not with Cain and his offering. This made Cain so angry that he could not hide his feelings.
Gen 4:6  The LORD said to Cain: What’s wrong with you? Why do you have such an angry look on your face?
Gen 4:7  If you had done the right thing, you would be smiling. But you did the wrong thing, and now sin is waiting to attack you like a lion. Sin wants to destroy you, but don’t let it!
Gen 4:8  Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go for a walk.” And when they were out in a field, Cain killed him.
Gen 4:9  Afterwards the LORD asked Cain, “Where is Abel?” “How should I know?” he answered. “Am I supposed to look after my brother?”
Gen 4:10  Then the LORD said: Why have you done this terrible thing? You killed your own brother, and his blood flowed onto the ground. Now his blood is calling out for me to punish you.
Gen 4:11  And so, I’ll put you under a curse. Because you killed Abel and made his blood run out on the ground, you will never be able to farm the land again.
Gen 4:12  If you try to farm the land, it won’t produce anything for you. From now on, you’ll be without a home, and you’ll spend the rest of your life wandering from place to place.
Gen 4:13  “This punishment is too hard!” Cain said.
Gen 4:14  “You’re making me leave my home and live far from you. I will have to wander about without a home, and just anyone could kill me.”
Gen 4:15  “No!” the LORD answered. “Anyone who kills you will be punished seven times worse than I am punishing you.” So the LORD put a mark on Cain to warn everyone not to kill him.
Gen 4:16  But Cain had to go far from the LORD and live in the Land of Wandering, which is east of Eden.

There are a lot of things I have said in this story, so I am going to break them down into small parts and point a few things out, then after pointing a few things out, we will talk about them.

When Adam and Eve were kicked out for eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Adam was told that he would have to sweat to produce food from the ground for him to eat.

Gen 3:17  The LORD said to the man, “You listened to your wife and ate fruit from that tree. And so, the ground will be under a curse because of what you did. As long as you live, you will have to struggle to grow enough food.
Gen 3:18  Your food will be plants, but the ground will produce thorns and thistles.
Gen 3:19  You will have to sweat to earn a living; you were made out of soil, and you will once again turn into soil.”
Gen 3:20  The man Adam named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all who live.

Did you notice that Cain was a farmer, and Abel was a shepherd? It may not seem like a big deal, but God gave different jobs to the two sons coming from Adam and Eve. The first son, Cain, would do what his father Adam did, but the second son, Abel, would be given a completely different job.

What was Cain’s job? He was a farmer. What was Abel’s job? He took care of the animals.

Do you think it is important to God when He gives us jobs to do, that we do those jobs as God wants us to do them? Yes!

With Cain and Abel, the Lord gave them instructions to make a sacrifice to Him. With Cain’s sacrifice God was not pleased, but with Abel’s sacrifice God was pleased.

Because the Lord was not pleased with Cain’s offering, Cain became very angry and eventually became so angry he killed his own brother.

Here is a big lesson to take away from the study today, and it is that in all of the bible, in all of the stories, even if you don’t know how this can be true in every story, there are always TWO men being talked about.

Does anyone know who the two men might be?

The two men always talked about are just like Cain and Abel, except they are discussed with different names. Those names are the “first man Adam” and the “second man Adam.”

Those might seem like really strange names, but let’s look at some of the other parts of the bible to see if we can understand this better.

1Co 15:44  As surely as there are physical bodies, there are spiritual bodies. And our physical bodies will be changed into spiritual bodies.
1Co 15:45  The first man was named Adam, and the Scriptures tell us that he was a living person. But Jesus, who may be called the last Adam, is a life-giving spirit.
1Co 15:46  We see that the one with a spiritual body did not come first. He came after the one who had a physical body.
1Co 15:47  The first man was made from the dust of the earth, but the second man came from heaven.
1Co 15:48  Everyone on earth has a body like the body of the one who was made from the dust of the earth. And everyone in heaven has a body like the body of the one who came from heaven.
1Co 15:49  Just as we are like the one who was made out of earth, we will be like the one who came from heaven.

In the entire bible, we have things which are called types and shadows. These types are things which are like one another.

What is a shadow like?

A shadow is similar to what makes the shadow, but isn’t the thing itself. For example, if I am standing with the sun above me, then a shadow of me is made on the ground. The shadow looks like my shape, but isn’t me.

So, when we talk about types and shadows, we are talking about items which are like the main thing we are talking about. A shadow is like me but isn’t me.

When we talk about the old man Adam and the new man Adam, and also talk about Cain and Abel, we can see that the old man Adam is like Cain, and the new man Adam is like Abel.

How are they alike?

Cain was the first son born to Adam and Eve. Cain was also someone that worked with the ground. Cain worked with the earth. Cain thought he could make something with his own hands and his own works and please God with it, but that did not please God.

This is how Cain is like the old man Adam.

Abel is the second born to Adam and Eve. Abel worked as a shepherd and not as a farmer, so he worked with beasts. He protected them and provided for them. When Abel needed to make an offering for the Lord, he gave the best offering he had, and it pleased God.

Abel was not able to work with his hands to produce this for God but was completely relying on God to make the beasts under his care grow big and strong.

Cain is like the first man Adam, and Abel is like the second man Adam.

What did Cain do to Abel?

The old man Adam has being killing the new man Adam since the very first brothers.

In fact, does anyone know what Abel means in Hebrew?

Abel means “breath.” Where does your breath come from?

Now, I am going to ask a question that isn’t meant to make anyone feel badly, but I want to ask you why Jesus died?

Jesus died for the sins of the whole world!

1Jn 2:1  My children, I am writing this so that you won’t sin. But if you do sin, Jesus Christ always does the right thing, and he will speak to the Father for us.
1Jn 2:2  Christ is the sacrifice (ATONEMENT) that takes away our sins and the sins of all the world’s people.

What happened to Abel? He was killed by Cain, so just like Cain, who is a type of the old man, we, too, kill Jesus because we sin. However, God loves us so much that He made Jesus an atonement. He made Jesus a sacrifice, so we can be brought back to being able to be in the family with God.

When Abel was killed by Cain, Cain was marked and told He had to also wander around to live place to place. When Abel died, Adam and Eve were given a NEW SON to be in the place of Abel.

That son’s name was Seth.

Gen 4:25  Adam and his wife had another son. They named him Seth, because they said, “God has given us a son to take the place of Abel, who was killed by his brother Cain.”
Gen 4:26  Later, Seth had a son and named him Enosh. About this time people started worshiping the LORD.

What the story of Cain and Abel teaches us is that even though we can do something horrible like murder, God is going to redeem us. The Lord has made a way for all of humanity to be brought back to being family with Him.

Does anyone know who Noah’s family came from? Did Noah’s family come from Cain’s family or from Seth’s family?

They came from Seth’s family. The only people to survive the great flood all came from Seth’s family.

So the Lord has a big plan that will make sure that all of mankind will be brought back to God’s family, in a new body and as the new man Adam.