According to the Scriptures

Guest (Male): Pastor Damian says, "Get out of the driver's seat. That's God's place in your life."

Damian Kyle: You are simply unqualified to be in the driver's seat in a relationship with God. And if you are in the driver's seat in a relationship with God, then you view God as something less than yourself. And why would you worship a God that you esteem to be less than yourselves? None of us are qualified to be the lead or to lay down the conditions of a relationship with God.

Guest (Male): It's been said if God is your co-pilot, switch seats. Hi there, thank you for joining us today for According to the Scriptures. Pastor Damian Kyle will be continuing our series, Gleanings from Genesis. We'll be soon reminded that God is in charge and why we ought to do things His way. It's something Cain had a real hard time with. Let's lean in and listen to what Pastor Damian has to say from Genesis chapter 4.

Damian Kyle: What's happening here in God's eyes is as it's revealed to us in other places in scripture; otherwise, it makes it look like God is just arbitrary, God is just unreasonable, and that they had taken and brought their best and God just out of the blue accepted the one and rejected the other. But the fact of the matter is that God had given Cain and Abel very clear instruction about what kind of a sacrifice He would accept and He would not accept.

Otherwise, we would wrongly conclude that God only accepts animal sacrifices and He doesn't accept grain sacrifices, but under the law of Moses, He accepted both. He accepted both animal sacrifices—more than accepted, He demanded them—and then accepted when they were given animal sacrifices and grain offerings.

The Holy Spirit's commentary on this passage here in Hebrews chapter 11 really comes to our rescue. It's invaluable for us, and you might write it in your margin if you're prone to do that, so next time you read it, you can know the New Testament context. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 4, where we're told, "By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and through it, he being dead, still speaks."

And so, in Hebrews chapter 11, Abel is commended for his faith and commended for a faith that he demonstrated in offering an animal sacrifice. And so, the sacrifice that he offered is not the primary issue here. The issue is that he offered this sacrifice in faith. One of the fascinating things to understand about Hebrews chapter 11, in order to unpack the verse that helps us to understand the passage that we're looking at, is that in Hebrews chapter 11, that great chapter on the hall of faith, all of these great heroes from the Old Testament that were heroes of the faith, faith was never demonstrated on their part by guessing what the will of God was and then doing that in some kind of a blind faith.

In every single instance in the hall of faith, faith was demonstrated by knowing ahead of time what the will of God was in a given situation, what they were to do in that situation, and then, knowing what God's will was, the faith side of it was in then being willing to obey God's will at whatever the cost or in the face of whatever circumstances would oppose obeying what He commanded them to do in that circumstance.

Evidently, God made it very clear to both Cain and Abel what kind of sacrifice was to be offered to Him in this instance, how He wanted to be approached in this instance, and that He was to be approached in worship on the basis of an animal sacrifice. And as God would later formalize in the law of Moses, all the various offerings that were to be made, and all of it a picture and a type of Jesus, the seed of the woman, the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world.

Personally, and that's a qualifying statement, personally, I think that Adam and Eve, after God sacrificed what is presumably a couple of lambs following their sin in order to cover not only their physical nakedness and to clothe them with those skins but also to cover their spiritual nakedness—at that point, Adam and Eve began to offer some kind of a similar sacrifice to God from the beginning. Long before it was ever formalized in the law of Moses, we will see sacrifices being offered to God and all of this had been a part of Cain and Abel's spiritual heritage.

So often we look at, because we're so dominated by the idea or the theory of evolution that's so prominent within our culture, that we think of man and we think of religion and its development within mankind, that somehow in the very earliest history of mankind, it was very primitive and people were groping after God. They really didn't have a good understanding of Him, they didn't know how to approach Him, they didn't know how to have a relationship with Him, and so like all other areas of civilization, this has been a progressive growth until we have these refined, advanced religions that are in the world today, including Christianity.

But the fact of the matter is that from the very beginning it was pure. From the very beginning—I mean, you can't know God better than Adam and Eve knew God. You can't have revelation from Him, we got the Bible, certainly, but it wasn't a progression from some lesser thing to a greater thing in terms of religion and expressing a relationship with God. It began as something great, and then all of this other craziness of people sacrificing their children to Mammon and all of these other horrible expressions under Baal and Dagon and false gods of the Old Testament and then false gods that are expressed today. All of that has developed in the face of a purity that existed from the beginning.

Now, in terms of Cain being responsible for a failure to bring the proper sacrifice to God, it's not only made clear to us in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 4, but the very context of the passage reveals it to us as well. Notice down in verse 6 and 7, Cain became very angry with God over His rejection of his offering, and then God rebuked him, declaring there in verse 6. He said to Cain, "Why are you so angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, then sin lies at the door and its desire is for you, but you should rule over it."

God, you notice, did not rebuke Cain because Cain guessed that God wanted vegetables for a sacrifice and he guessed wrong. God was rebuking Cain over a failure to do well and to do what was right. He was rebuking him for knowing what well was and then refusing to do it. So it isn't that God likes ranchers more than farmers. It is that one of these men obeyed God, and the other deliberately disobeyed Him.

Now, here in chapter 4, we have the division of mankind now into two streams, into two camps. And you have those who, like Abel, approach God on His terms. And the terms by which God is approached from the very beginning is on the basis of faith. It's very, very simple as you look at the life of Abel and his relationship with God. God told Abel what He wanted and how he was to be approached, what would please Him in this regard, and Abel simply obeyed God, and God accepted him.

And that is what we're called to do with Jesus. We have been told by God that He can only be approached through Christ. And as Jesus said in John 14:6, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes to the Father but by me." John wrote in his first epistle, chapter 5, verse 11, "And this is the testimony that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. And he who has the Son has life, and he who does not have the Son does not have life." This is known as clarity on the most important issue that anyone will address in life.

And as the Bible teaches, if we will obey God by believing in Jesus Christ, receiving Him into our lives, then we'll be born again. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life," as Jesus said about how to receive this salvation. And when we do receive that salvation, trusting in Jesus, then we are accepted by God. John chapter 1, verse 12: "But as many as received Him," that is Jesus, "to them He gave the right to become children of God, even those who believe in His name."

So all salvation is on the basis of faith. And here you have Abel, a very, very simple relationship with God, a very, very simple stream of mankind in this vein. And then you've got those like Cain, who disregard God's instructions, His word about how He's to be approached by sinful man. And Cain and those that are of kind of his lineage, spiritually speaking, disobey God, they rebel against God, and they are determined to approach God on their own terms. They will just approach God any old way that they choose, and God will just have to be happy with that.

Then they become upset and they become angry when they're informed that approaching God in that way is not acceptable to Him. And not only will God not accept it as with Cain, He won't even look at it. He won't even acknowledge that kind of an approach in the same way that He did not acknowledge Cain's self-righteous offering.

Do you know how God views our self-righteousness? It's quite a verse that's found in the book of Isaiah, and the first time you read it as a Christian, it's a real eye-opener. It becomes one that you never forget in terms of becoming a guard against ever thinking we can approach God on the basis of our own goodness. How does God view our attempts at making ourselves right or acceptable to God on the basis of our own works or human effort? The Bible says that God considers them to be filthy rags.

Completely unholy, completely unclean in His sight. And the verse is Isaiah 64, verse 6: "But we are all like an unclean thing, and all of our righteousnesses"—that's not our failures, that's us at our best—"all of our righteousnesses are like filthy rags." And that's how He views any attempt, even the best attempt of man, in order to believe in our hearts and minds that we can ready ourselves and qualify ourselves for a relationship with God or to one day stand before Him.

Now, some people have a problem with these kind of things. I certainly don't. I live with some level of self-awareness in life, and I'm even more aware of people who are around me in life. And I don't look at any of us, myself included, and say, "Ah, yes, we're qualified on some level to make ourselves acceptable to a perfect and a righteous and a holy God." But this is how He views our best. For a person to, like Cain, determine that we can approach God on our own terms, that we can approach God in the way that we choose or the means of our own devising.

To approach God in life, and this is not some abstract thing—people do this all of the time, and they will do it all over the world today—they'll say, "I'm going to come to God how I choose, and He's just going to have to be happy with that. He's just going to have to accept that." And when a person has that kind of an attitude in their heart, that kind of a belief, they possess two things at once. Number one, a very high view of themselves, and in fact, an astonishing level of pride and arrogance and self-importance. And the second thing that such a person has to possess is a very, very low view of God.

And this is the exact opposite of what is involved and required in approaching God. What's required there is to have a very high view of God and a very low view of ourselves. Someone might protest and say, "How could I have a low view of myself? I'm Mr. Wonderful." No, you're not. We can bring witnesses in. As the old saying is, humility is not a complicated thing in life. Humility is made up of two things, and that is honesty and a good memory. And that's the truth about it.

Every one of us has plenty in our history, if we would stop and think about it once in a while, that gives us plenty of cause for humility within our lives and a recognition that there is quite a gap between us and God, and there ought to be, if He is nothing like us and we want Him to be nothing like us. Now, God simply will not accept anyone approaching Him on the basis of anything or anyone other than a faith in Jesus Christ for salvation and the forgiveness of sins.

He will not accept being approached on the basis of anything else than a faith in His Son for salvation and the forgiveness of sins. And I think that in the pride and the arrogance and the sense of self-importance that really marks mankind in our age, this cannot be stressed enough. And if you are not a Christian yet, it is so vital that you know that you must approach God on His terms. You must worship God on His terms and not your own.

The gap that exists between you and God in any area of your life, in terms of intellect, in terms of strength, in terms of wisdom, in terms of knowledge, that gap is infinite in size. You are simply unqualified to be in the driver's seat in a relationship with God. And if you are in the driver's seat in a relationship with God, then you view God as something less than yourself. And why would you worship a God that you esteem to be less than yourselves?

None of us are qualified to be the lead or to lay down the conditions of a relationship with God. It is a privilege to know God, it's a privilege to have a relationship with Him, and it is a marvel that He is interested in us at all. And more of a marvel that He has made provision for salvation for us in the incarnation, the life, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of His Son, of Jesus Christ. And it's with a sense the prophet had when he approached God—a godly man, a righteous man in terms of desiring to walk with God—it's with the sense of, "Woe is me, for I am undone! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."

It's with that attitude that we are to approach God, that we are people of unclean lips and we dwell among a people of unclean lips and have no ability in and of ourselves to approach God. And the fact of the matter is that God should be feared until we end our rebellion against Him by putting our trust in His Son. He's not this jolly Pillsbury Doughboy in heaven that we poke in the stomach with a good work once in a while and he giggles for us. He should be feared until our issue of sin has been taken care of by putting our faith in His Son.

And all of this is in a wonderful and I think needed contrast to the casualness with which people view God today, view Christianity today, view Jesus today, and how a rejection of Him or dismissal of Him, how casually it is viewed. And once in a while, we need to read from the word of God how those very things that are done so casually by the people that we are around, how that very thing is viewed from the holiness of heaven, because that's where all of us are headed one day, either to be saved or to be judged at the white throne judgment of Christ.

And then there's the warning to anyone who would despise the salvation that's found in Jesus. Again in Hebrews, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." That is to face Him one day independent of Jesus's covering and His sacrifice. One day, imagine this—imagine this—to one day stand before Him as a mere human being, and to stand before Him as a part of His creation and say, "I rejected Your Son." You want to see arrogance and self-importance and pride exposed in a moment as misguided in terms of what to do with Christ? It'll be exposed in that moment.

And that to stand before Him having rejected His Son, and then to stand before Him with this confidence that in my own works and in the life that I have lived, I've now qualified myself to stand in His presence just as I am. Jesus's warning is no less strong. Jesus said, "But I will show you whom you should fear. Fear Him," speaking of God the Father, "who after He has killed has power to cast into hell. Yes, I say to you, fear Him."

But then the fear of God is this kind of quaint, misguided, historical thing that we've been involved with in mankind, and in the sophistication of the age, we've moved past all of that. And of course, look at the disastrous consequences all around us. But keep throwing money at it until you run out of money, but it's not going to work.

Guest (Male): There is still more to glean from the historical account of Cain's defying act of unbelief and self-righteousness. We'll have that for you next time on According to the Scriptures with Pastor Damian Kyle. We offer these studies in Genesis on CD. Let me give you our phone number where you can order it today: 209-545-5530. Again, 209-545-5530.

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