Cain

Adam and Eve gave birth to a child and Eve says, with the help of the Lord I have brought forth a man... I had a son and I didn't think I had given birth to a man... I think that is significant that she realized he was a man from birth...

So in the course of time... Cain gave an offering to God from the soil and Abel from the flocks... and God rejected Cain's offering but received Abel's offering. That had always bothered me until a short time ago when my pastor stated that Abel's offering was from the "first fruits" and Cain's was not. Meaning, that Cain gave what was left over and Abel gave before he worried about what he needed for himself or his family. Wow... How often do we do that? How often do we pay our bills and after that is done, decide what we can give God.... Or worse yet, we pay our bills, buy what we want, and after all that is done, decide if we will give God anything.... Yet we expect so much from Him... even if it were not material things, we expect peace and health and mercy and grace, yet struggle with giving offerings to the God who gives all... sheesh... we are about a sickening lot of people...

So, when God does not look at what Cain gave with favor, Cain is mad and his face is downcast and God says to him... Then the LORD said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."
Sin is crouching at your door and it desires to have you... but you must master it.... How often do we realize that sin is really crouching at our door? How often do we realize it desires to have us? How often do we do what is right in order to be accepted?

Then Cain calls Abel out in the field and kills him... When God asks where Abel is, smart alec that Cain is, he says am I my brother's keeper... Can you imagine speaking to God in such a way??? Whew... So God says that The LORD said, "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth." Cain said to the LORD, "My punishment is more than I can bear. Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me." But the LORD said to him, "Not so; if anyone kills Cain, he will suffer vengeance seven times over." Then the LORD put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So Cain went out from the LORD's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

How very like us... Cain kills Abel, then thinks it is unfair that someone might kill him... What in the world? The worst part of all this to me would be to have been driven from the presence of the Lord. Can you imagine? Just on days that God is far from us or silent, we struggle... but to literally be driven from the presence of the Lord... But just like God... He didn't give up on Cain... He continued to help him... to prosper him... to love him... Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch.
Before we are driven from the presence of God... We need to recognize Him in all His glory and majesty and honor and give to God the first fruits of our labor...