Insight for Living

Bill Meyer: You'll likely recall the Old Testament story about Cain and Abel. Cain, in a fit of rage, murdered his brother. He turned sibling rivalry into the world's first homicide.

But before we dismiss Cain as the villain, we should understand this unsettling truth: the same capacity for rage that drove him to kill his brother resides in every human heart. And today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll urges us to examine our secret thoughts when jealousy whispers, anger simmers, and resentment festers. Chuck titled his message Cain: The Farmer Who Murdered His Brother.

Chuck Swindoll: We do live in a day when wrong actions are rationalized, and you can find enough people to give you enough counsel you will be patted on the head and told you are just a tragic victim of life. And as a result, no wonder you want to murder everybody you meet. Rather than, my friend, you are responsible for the rest of your life. Yes, painful as it is, difficult as it is, take responsibility for your actions.

Face the fact that much of your response, revealed in your face, comes from your own chosen attitude. And that's where the power of Jesus Christ is so magnificent. Now, let me show you all of this in scripture. Now that I've told you all of this with such passion, let me show you why I say it. If you do well, your countenance will be lifted up. Now, look at verse seven. If you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, and you must master it.

Like an animal with long claws and big teeth, hiding in the shadows of the doorway. In all of our lives, sin crouches, and it is ready to pounce and to dig its claws and its venom of poison into us and to take charge. Listen to this. And when it does, it masters us. But it need not do that. It's at the mercy of our green light.

And he warns Cain. He says, "You've got to take charge, Cain. You've done what is wrong. Your countenance is fallen in your own self-appointed guilt. You've deserved to have it fall, you've disobeyed me. If you will do well, your face will be lifted up. If you don't, I warn you, Cain, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, and you must master it." See the word master? It's the Hebrew word that means dominate. You must take charge. You must dominate it.

This is a wonderful, wonderful place for me to remind you of the words of Ephesians 4: "Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity." Those are serious words. That's why the Lord says don't go to bed angry. Don't let the sun go down on your anger. That's a wonderful secret to a happy marriage. Don't go to bed back to back. Don't let anger put you in bed early. Stay at it, talk it through.

My wife and I have a deal that we will not go to bed angry. And we'll stay up till 2:00, sometimes 3:00, talking it through. Believe me, about 3:00, you'll agree to anything. You just finally give up. Whatever! And you solve it, and you go on. But I talk to couples, and they go back, they say, "Well, I remember back in 1949." And while one of them is hysterical, the other one is historical. "1949, I remember he said this to me in a crowd, and I never have forgiven him for that." Well, sweet bippy, it's time to forgive him. It's time to go on.

Because as you go to bed and as it gets set in concrete, you, listen, you give the devil an open door to take charge, and sin gains the mastery over you. And you spend your days in resentment, and it turns to bitterness and rage, and ultimately, murder. If not actual, mental. And it becomes verbal murder. You and I have been around people like that whose marriage is nothing more than a dialogue of murderous comments to one another.

This whole thing finally finds its origin in the story of Cain and Abel. You must master it. Not only Cain, but you and I. Now, look at verse eight. He doesn't master it. I think Cain is like the spoiled child, the indulgent child who passes off the warning of a father or of a mother. "I don't need to listen to that kind of garbage. I'm not going to pay any attention to that kind of counsel." And what happens?

Cain told Abel his brother. It came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and sin took the mastery. He killed him. First murder. You want a sacrifice? There's your sacrifice, God! And the blood spilled across the ground, and the lifeless body of Abel hung in Cain's arms. And before you look with a lot of pride at Cain and go, "How could you ever do it?" you've got to know something. The same nature rests in your heart and it rests in mine. Sin crouches at the door of every one of our lives.

I have disliked certain people so much that murder could begin to build up in my heart if I did not forgive them, and so have you. Thankfully, there's nobody on a murder list in my life. But I'll tell you, I've met people who do have murder on their hearts. I worked with a young man at a Christian camp several years ago who was a basket case of emotional trouble. He was an accident or an explosion getting ready to happen.

I asked him what life was like, and he described to me a very difficult home situation. He talked to me about a father who had been unfair and brutal at times. And as a result, this boy kind of lost himself in the moment and he said to me, "I just want you to know that I'm waiting for the moment, and I'll kill him." He meant it. Very little of what I said penetrated this veneer of bitterness.

He had murder on his heart. So we're not reading some strange story of a weird guy that lived in ancient days. We're talking about today, we're talking about tomorrow. I'll guarantee you before this week is over, you'll read of another murder in the paper. I'll guarantee it. And some of them will shock you. I had a friend in Houston years ago when I lived there who was a homicide photographer. And he said, "I cannot even describe to you." He's a Christian man, a fine man. He said, "I cannot describe to you the bodies I've straddled and the pictures I've taken and the things I've seen that have come from the hands of human beings against another. Incredible."

Because sin crouches at the door, and when it pounces and controls, it knows nothing of compassion. Our father, the devil, our original father, is a murderer from the beginning. There is nothing too vile for him. Horrible as it is, this brother killed his own brother. And you know what the tragedy is? You know what the tragic scene is? You don't read it here, but you feel it. It follows every murder. It is this horrible sense of inhuman silence. I've never heard anybody talk about that. This instant silence that follows a murder. A life that once breathed and talked and laughed and sang and lived is snuffed out. And not even that humbles Cain. He quickly buries him in the field and covers him up with the dirt. That's done.

And after this hasty burial, along comes God, verse nine. The Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" Now, understand, it's the question like the Lord asked Adam. "Where are you, Adam?" God, understand, questions like these are for our benefit. God doesn't walk up saying, "Adam? Come on, Adam, don't hide." He knows exactly where. The question is meant for Adam to analyze. "Why are you where you are, Adam?" "Why is your brother not here, Cain? Think it through." Not, "Come on, where is he? You have to tell me." It's not like that. He is God. He saw it all. "Where's Abel your brother?" It's designed to make him think and to feel deeply.

And he said, verse nine, look at this impudent answer, "I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?" This is after he's just washed the blood off his hands. Don't think for a minute that every murderer has a conscience. Don't think for a minute that a murderer won't do it again and again and again. This man has done an unconscionable deed, and there is no sense of guilt. Verse 10, the Lord said to him, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground."

Whatever we may hide on this earth is known in full view by God. Your brother's blood cries to me. He knew exactly what he had done. He gave Cain an opportunity. Look at this investigation procedure, how different from ours. God questions Cain. He asked him earlier why, asked him where, and now he says, "What have you done?" Cain earlier ignored God's response, and now he answers, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Next, God stays with the facts, solid, hard, indisputable facts of verse 10.

"What have you done? The voice of your brother cries to me from the ground." He made no effort to confess. He didn't fall on his face and say, "I am guilty. I have done what is wrong." He stands with folded arms and his fists doubled up tightly. And the punishment is severe. "Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand." Remember, he's a farmer. He loses his green thumb with this curse. Look at it.

"When you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth." You talk about the lifestyle of the disobedient: vagrant and wanderers. From one act of disobedience to another. Everything you plant will die. I have some of Cain in me, I've discovered, and I no longer plant. Best thing I can do with plants is keep my hands off the plants.

But my blessing is I don't have to make a living at it. That was Cain's occupation, and he could no longer make a living. So he'll go from job to job, from job to job, wandering here and there, lonely, lost, disoriented. That's the picture. A wanderer on the earth. And look at Cain, finally we get a little emotion out of him. "My punishment is too great to bear." It's not a brokenness, but it is a confession saying, "I don't know how I can go on. You have driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and it will come about that whoever finds me will kill me."

"I'll appear rootless, I'll appear homeless, I'll appear a wanderer. And one of these days in one of those open, lonely fields, I'll get picked off. I know that's what's going to happen. Whoever finds me will kill me." Isn't it interesting he thinks others will treat him as he has treated his brother?

Now, you talk about grace. Had you and I been in charge of this jury, had you and I been in charge of this case, we would have said, "Next case. Serves you right." But look at the grace of our God. So the Lord said to him, "Whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold." And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, lest anyone finding him should slay him. What does that mean?

Well, I tell you, I have read for over an hour one idea after another on the sign of Cain. And I've made a list of them. Some of them are humorous, others of them are possible, they're all intriguing. Someone said he placed a bright light around Cain so he would appear frightening to others and they'd stay away from him. One said he put leprosy on his forehead and no one would touch him because of that. Someone said he gave him a dog. First case of a guard dog in the scriptures, I guess. Another one said that the Lord changed his personality so others would be intimidated in his presence. One said he was given a bright-colored coat. Another suggested that horns grew on his head, and as a result, he looked kind of animal-like and people stayed away from him.

You know the answer? We don't know. When you get that many ideas, you just kind of close the book and say, "Well, I'll go to the next verse," because we don't know. The Lord never tells us here or anywhere what the sign was. It was some sort of protective measure, some sort of visible or invisible fence around him that kept him from being murdered, being killed. I see it as an act of grace. The Lord was saying, I believe, if you will ever in the balance of your life find a place for repentance, I'm ready to hear you. I'm ready to accept you. Not even your murder keeps you from me permanently.

It's quite a story. I sometime wish stories like this ended a little better. I wish we could have a nice wrap-up, nice bow on top and a pretty paper we could wrap it in and say, and as a result, Cain turned to the Lord, and the result was beautiful. You don't know what happened. Very little is known as a result of this. So I say let's search our own hearts. Let's learn two or three lessons from the story regarding Cain and Abel.

Here's my suggestion. Number one: God's way is the only acceptable way, take it. When the Lord says I will honor a certain offering, then that's what you need to do. Don't even need to ask why, you don't need an answer, you just need to obey. Scripture says there is a way that seems right to one, but the end thereof are the ways of death. All of us have ways that seem better than God's way, but they're not accepted. God's way is the only acceptable way, take it. If he says bring an offering, bring an offering. If he says come to me through Jesus Christ, come to him through Jesus Christ. If he says it's by faith and not works, believe him. Come by faith and not works. If he says his word is truth, believe it's truth. I don't care how intelligent, how many degrees you have, just believe his word. Just take it for the truth that he says it is. God's way is right, take it.

Second: jealousy is a sin that cannot be hidden, release it. Jealousy is a killer. Jealousy provides the seeds that are dropped that lead ultimately to envy and then to strife and then to major conflict. I've dealt with couples where the man is so jealous of the woman that he took, in one case, he took all the doors off the house. Isn't that incredible? After they'd been married three or four months, they came back to visit with me and I said, "Well, how's life?" And she says, "Well, kind of a funny thing happened." She says, "My husband's taken all the doors off the inside of the house. Taken them all down, pulled the pins and all the hinges and now every door is gone. All we have is open." I said, "Into the bathroom even?" "Oh yeah, that's one of the first ones he took down was the bathroom door." It's a weird guy. And I, and she said, "When he comes home from work, first thing he does is not come in and kiss me. He goes and checks the odometer in the car. And he figures out what the odometer was that morning and then what it is that night and he asks me why I drove 12.7 miles when I was just going to go to Ralph's that day and back and that's only 2.6 miles because he's clocked it. And what have you done in those other miles?"

I mean, that guy, that is a weird guy. That is a jealous man. I struggled with jealousy in my younger years. Cynthia will tell you about it, it was awful. And she threatened to shoot me—no, that's not true, but she should have. I mean, I just, it's ridiculous and I don't know how it happened, but I got cured of it real quick. She really leveled with me and talked about the prison that I had her in. And she loved me, and we were going together and we were talking about marriage, but she said, "I can't live with that kind of thing."

When I really analyzed jealousy for what it was, it was remarkable what it did to soften that part of my life. I can honestly say, and this isn't true of most things in my life, but when I dealt with jealousy, it got taken care of. I got a lot of weaknesses, a lot of struggles, but jealousy is not one of them. I don't sustain a jealous bone in my body for anybody. I have a lot of other battles, I say, but jealousy's not one of them. And when I see jealousy, I can look at it very objectively because I have been there. It's a terrible place to live. And if you're there, I'm telling you, you can release it. It can be dealt with. Do your loved ones a favor, deal with it. If you need help, get help, but get rid of it.

Third: when anger is ignored, it never corrects itself, confess it. When anger is ignored, it never corrects itself, never vanishes, it only multiplies. Some things don't correct themselves. You accept them face value. A flat tire. A flat tire, you will not go to bed with a flat tire and wake up in the morning and go, "Oh, it fixed itself!" A dirty diaper. That's another one. Baby walk around with a dirty diaper. You can't just go have supper and come back and say, "It cleaned itself! Look, it's all clean now." You got to do it. You got to get in there and clean it up. I could name a dozen things that don't fix themselves. Anger won't fix itself. You got to deal with it. You got to face it. You got to work it through. You got to confess it. Get rid of it. It's a cancer.

A friend of mine in Colorado while camping and hunting watched an eagle as it was clearly following its prey, sweeping and soaring and finally it came right down at treetop level and then suddenly it swept down and grabbed some animal in its claws. And it began to take off again, sizable animal. He stood there and he watched it and all of a sudden the eagle's wings flopped down and it kind of turned in a tailspin and just plunked. And he went and examined that and found that it had, that eagle had picked up a weasel. And while that weasel was airborne, that weasel grabbed that eagle at a vulnerable spot and found the main artery and, interestingly, the thud killed the weasel when it hit, and the main artery had caused the eagle to bleed to death and there they were right there on the ground. And when I heard that story, I thought, perfect example of anger when it's not dealt with. It'll finish you off. It'll take your joy. It'll cause your face to fall. And rather than clucking your tongue at Cain, saying how in the world could that man have lived a life like that, just realize the same potential rests in your heart.

Let's bow our heads together, shall we? God's way is the only acceptable way, take it. Jealousy is a sin that cannot be hidden, release it. When anger is ignored, it never corrects itself, face it. Deal with it. Get beyond it. This is a strong word I want to close with, but for all I know I've been speaking to someone who's anger has reached the level of murder. You may have very well planned in your heart a series of secret events, we read about them every day, where you think you'll get away with it and you think by getting rid of that person you will get rid of the feelings. You will only complicate and intensify the feelings. The death of another person never solved feelings. Never removed guilt. Never took care of bitterness. That's a heart matter. And that's why you have a Lord. That's why Christ died.

Our Father, we acknowledge that you know us better than we know ourselves, and in ancient stories like this one, we see the mirror of our own souls. Thank you for truth that can be learned from even the natural world, such as the eagle and the weasel. For information that can be clarified through illustrations, such as illustrations about jealousy or anger. But most of all, thank you for your spirit who takes the living word and drills it into our lives. Forgive us for running when we should have stopped and faced ourselves as we are. Forgive us for our years of foolishness, when knowing the right way we chose the wrong, when instead of doing what was obedient, we disobeyed. Thank you for your compassion, for your forgiveness, for not only putting a mark around Cain but around all of us, giving us time to change and to grow, to repent and to become the person you want us to be. We thank you for this great old story and may it make a difference in the way we live, Lord, I pray in the name of Christ our Savior. Amen.

Bill Meyer: This is Insight for Living with Chuck Swindoll. To summarize: God's way is the only acceptable way, so take it. Jealousy is a destructive sin that can't be hidden, so release it. Anger ignored never corrects itself, so confess it. These three principles from Cain's tragic story can transform your life today. Chuck titled his message Cain: The Farmer Who Murdered His Brother. If you're ready to explore more fascinating stories of forgotten lives, you can find all the resources for this study at insight.org.

You know, Chuck has this remarkable ability to resurrect these forgotten lives from a verse or two of scripture. Suddenly you're not reading about ancient history, you're sitting across from someone who knows what it's like to doubt, to be overlooked, and to navigate the struggles we still face today. Fascinating Stories of Forgotten Lives brings you these encounters. So whether you're starting your morning with one of these messages or your small group is hungry for something deeper than surface-level discussions, you'll be surprised at how powerfully these stories still resonate today.

And when you add the Searching the Scriptures Bible study workbook, you're not just hearing Chuck's insights, you're learning to dig for yourself. It's the difference between following someone on a trail and learning to navigate the terrain yourself. To order the Bible study workbook for Fascinating Stories of Forgotten Lives, call us at 800-772-8888 or go to insight.org/offer.

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I'm Bill Meyer. Join us when Chuck Swindoll tells the gut-wrenching story about a father who faced the ultimate test of faith Friday on Insight for Living.

The preceding message, Cain: The Farmer Who Murdered His Brother, was copyrighted in 1991, 1992, 2001, 2006, 2012, and 2024, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2024 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.