Era 1 Episode 5: Cain and Able

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Voiceover

You are listening to the Bible breakthrough with Pastor David Engman and Scott Brekke. In this study, we will break down the Bible from B.C. to A.D. chronologically while offering historical context and real-life application for today. This series is brought to you by the Breakthrough Media Network.

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Pastor Dave

All right, my name is Pastor Dave Engman, and this is Scott Brekke. And we want to welcome you to the Bible Breakthrough. And we want to thank you for joining us. Ultimately, our goal is to lead you into a deeper, more intimate relationship with Jesus.

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Scott

Again, please look for the bonus video to this episode. As we discuss various topics that come up because of the scripture that we cover today. Also, the show notes will be linked in the description of this episode.

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Pastor Dave

In the last episode, we read Genesis 3:1 through 24, and we saw how deception and confusion led to men and women. The woman sinning and sin’s brutal consequences. The scripture that we're going to cover today is Genesis four, one through 26. And here you're going to see how dramatically sin had affected humanity as Cain murders his brother, Abel.

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Pastor Dave

The three questions you should consider as you listen are What's the text saying? What does it mean? And, how can I apply this to my life.

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Scott

Before we open up and read the Bible? Let's start with prayer. So, Lord, again, before we jump into your word, Lord, I just pray that your Holy Spirit would just move through this place, Lord. And I pray for our audience to Lord, that they would just they would just be hearing for what you're trying to bring out in your scripture.

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Scott

Today. Lord, bless this time. In Jesus name. Amen.

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Pastor Dave

Amen. All right, so let's open up. Let's read the Bible. We're going to read again from the passage of Genesis three, verse one, and we're going to go through 24, I believe…

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Pastor Dave

Scott, would you be willing to read that Actually, we're going to go through verse 26.

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Scott

And it's chapter four, verse one through 26.

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Pastor Dave

Correct.

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Scott

Okay. All right, let's read.

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Pastor Dave

Sounds good.

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Scott

Now, Adam had sexual relations with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant when she gave birth to Cain. She said, With the Lord's help, I produced a man. Later, she gave birth to his brother and named him Abel. When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd while Cain cultivated the ground. When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord.

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Scott

Abel also brought a gift. The best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected. Why are you so angry? The Lord asked Cain, why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right.

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Scott

But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master. One day, Cain suggested to his brother, Let's go out into the fields. And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

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Scott

Afterward, the Lord asked Cain, where is your brother? Where is Abel? I don't know, Cain replied, am I my brother's guardian? But the Lord said, what have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground! Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has swallowed your brother's blood. No longer will the ground yield good crops for you, no matter how hard you work.

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Scott

From now on, you will be a homeless wanderer around the earth. Cain replied to the Lord. My punishment is too great for me to bear. You have banished me from the land and from your presence. You have made me a homeless wanderer. Anyone who finds me will kill me. The Lord replied, no, for I will give a seven-fold punishment to anyone who kills you.

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Scott

Then the Lord put a mark on Cain to warn anyone who might try to kill him. So, Cain left the Lord's presence and settled in the land of Nod, East of Eden.

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Scott

Cain had sexual relations with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Then Cain founded a city which he named Enoch after his son. Enoch had a son named Irad. Irad became the father of Mehujael. Mehujael became the father of… these are not the easiest to pronounce. You want to help with that?

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Pastor Dave

Methushael.

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Scott

Methushael became the father of Lamech. Lamech married two women. The first was named Adah and the second was named Zillah. Adah gave birth to Jabal, who was the first of those who would raise livestock and live in tents. His brother's name was Jubal, the first of all who play the harp and flute. Lamech’s other wife, Zillah, gave birth to a son named Tubal-cain.

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Scott

He became an expert in forging tools of bronze and iron. Tubal-cain had a sister named Naamah. One day, Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, hear my voice, listen to me, you wives of Lamech. I have killed a man who attacked me, a young man who wounded me.

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Scott

If someone who kills Cain is punished seven times, then the one who kills me will be punished seventy-seven times! Adam had sexual relations with his wife again, and she gave birth to another son. She named him Seth, for she said, “God has granted me another son in the place of Abel, whom Cain killed.” When Seth grew up, he had a son and named him Enosh.

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Scott

At that time, people first began to worship the Lord by name.

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Pastor Dave

Well done, man! I know those words… names are hard to pronounce sometimes and…

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Scott

I did the best I could!

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Pastor Dave

Well, I think God just you know, just loves to honor us. Even when we make mistakes on those, we just kind of do our best and move on. So.

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Scott

Yeah.

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Pastor Dave

One of the things that we do after we read the word of God is, is we really just try and understand what the main points are, what are the main topics, if you will. And so, we’ve come up with a few key points that I just wanted to kind of cover. What I'm going to do is, I'm just going to go through them and then we'll discuss them some questions that we'll discuss as well.

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Pastor Dave

So, the first key point that I arrived at as I read this was only God knows your heart. And in this we can see that Cain's heart was selfish. Abel's heart was not. For the second key point is God is direct with us. I like to say he calls a spade a spade. Right? That's the way it is.

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Pastor Dave

So, he's very direct here with Cain. And we'll talk about that as well. God accepts us when we do what is right. That's the third point. And the fourth point is God warns us, if… He warns us to do the right thing. So, sin is the warning, though. It's crouching at the door. We talked about that. And then just imagining that sin would be like a like a tiger, for example, just sitting there, it's crouching at the door and it's waiting to control us.

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Pastor Dave

Sin wants to devour us like a tiger would want to devour us. And in so doing, it will control us. Now, the devastation and the destructive nature of sin is revealed through Cain's actions. And what I had come to conclude is this, that when God called him out and asked him why are you so angry? Why do you look so dejected?

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Pastor Dave

So, God's calling him out, and it wounded his pride. And pride led to anger. And anger led to murder, in this case. And that led to denial. And denial led to lying.

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Pastor Dave

And lying had all of that, including it lying, it had consequences. So, God, the sixth thing, the sixth key point that I saw here is that God assured even Cain that he would protect him in the end. Cain was concerned, obviously, that he was going to get killed. God said, no, I'm going to make sure… and he marked him.

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Pastor Dave

Which then led me to the seventh point that I discovered. That is, that God is a God of second chances. I you know, I just believe that God was saying, look, you made a pretty bad mistaken here, but guess what? There's going to be time to correct that. Were there any other points that you.

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Scott

I can't believe you pulled out that many, that was awesome.

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Scott

Those are great. I think, though, the first one that really stands out to me is that you know, and as I read through this, at first, I was kind of like thinking, man, that almost at first didn't seem fair. That why would God choose one person's sacrifice? And then totally reject the other one.

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Scott

But what I started to see was in verse three here, it says that Cain presented some of his crops as a gift and then verse four says, Abel also brought a gift, the best portions of his firstborn lambs. So, I think like what you had mentioned is that the Lord's directly looking, not necessarily yes, he sees the sacrifice, but he's looking at what heart they brought their sacrifice to the Lord.

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Scott

And He is recognizing, as you know, I'm not going to accept something that's just done out of maybe like to me, it seems like when I read this, Cain's just bringing it to him, like, oh, here, I'm just doing this task like before. And his brother, Abel was bringing the best of what he had. So that's what stood out to me.

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Scott

What do you think of that part of, like, the best and some?

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Pastor Dave

Well, absolutely. I mean, God does know our hearts.

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Scott

Yeah.

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Pastor Dave

God. Only God knows our hearts. And he clearly knew what was going on here in regard to Cain and Abel. And Cain's heart was set right. And in, maybe pure. And I think Cain probably withheld his offering, he maybe didn't give all of it. And God knew that he kind of, maybe held some of it back for himself.

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Pastor Dave

Who knows right? But the word doesn’t really, at this point, the word doesn't really tell us, you know, we only have what we are going on as it pertains to this. Now, I will tell you that we will dive deeper into that very topic in the bonus discussion video that we're going to have. Here's a question I have for you, though.

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Pastor Dave

What is…

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Scott

For me?

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Pastor Dave

Yeah, for you? Here's a question I have for you, Scott. And of course, you guys that are listening or watching as well. What's the moral lesson of Cain and Abel? What's the lesson here? I know

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Pastor Dave

I know I’m playing with you a little bit.

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Scott

But what well, to know that there's going to be opportunities in your life and you I think you just need to recognize that sin is going to try to take you out. He's going to come at you and just recognize and do what, Like this says that the Lord saying, look, there's an opportunity approaching. I want you to do the right thing.

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Scott

Do the right thing. And when you don't do the right thing, well, guess what? Sin now has now entered in and to me, like in this story, it wasn't a lot of times when I've heard people say like, oh, it just happened, right? Like, oh, that just happened out of nowhere. It's like, no, I know that sin is like it's like almost this process.

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Scott

And you see that in here. And it’s recognizing the Lord's teaching, especially us through the story, how the Lord wants us to do what's right. He warns them again, just like he did his mom right. Sin's right there. Don't eat this. Don't! I'm warning you not to do this. And then, sure enough, he ultimately does fall into it; falls into sin.

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Scott

So, to me, it's learning that sin is a real thing. And ultimately, it's like you had talked about before the heart condition.

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Pastor Dave

So, I agree with that. I think that this story represents and teaches us a valuable lesson as it pertains to living with sincerity. In other words, there's a verse of the Bible that speaks to guarding your heart, watching what comes out of your mouth, because it's what's coming out of your mouth is a condition of your heart.

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Pastor Dave

And through this example here, what we learn is not just our about our actions, but about our attitudes and how they matter to God. So, our actions matter. But it's also important, I really want to stress this; it's really important to guard our attitudes because they matter to God, too. So, check your attitude. Sin is and does have devastating consequences.

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Pastor Dave

So, in our bonus discussion video, one of the questions that we're going to dive deeper on is why was Cain's offering rejected and Abel's accepted. We're going to talk about that. We're also going to talk about what was the sin of Cain beyond his attitude. We'll dive deeper into that. We’ll also dive deeper into some of the other points that we see that came out of this scripture.

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Pastor Dave

In other words, we’re going to talk about the devastation and the destructive nature of sin and we're going to look at even after the story concludes, that how God protected Cain and with his life and so forth. So, as we continue to do as we do with every one of our episodes, our objective here is really to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit regarding application and again, application, at least from my perspective, is really about obedience, Scott.

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Pastor Dave

And being obedient is really the key that unlocks the door to transformation. And, you know, we joke about this, but we… and I say this almost every time, but what good is knowledge if you can't or don't apply it. So, Scott, regarding application in this, like what is it that you see that we can take away from this and apply to our lives?

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Pastor Dave

And would you share that answer with me for the benefit of our listening and watching audience?

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Scott

Yeah.

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Scott

So, I think for me, something that we can I that I can apply personally would be, you know, like in this story, we have two brothers are bringing their gifts to the Lord. And I think what I take out of it is, is like, what are you presenting to the Lord? Just of, I think repetition and what I mean by that is like, have you offered your life up to Him?

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Scott

Like, I think of coming from just growing up in church and just kind of getting stuck in going to church every Sunday and occasionally on Wednesday nights… like, for me, it was just something that became, well, it's good to do, right? Kind of a habit. Yeah. Just a habit to do. And I was just going because it was fine, but it wasn't like Abel.

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Scott

It wasn't like, Here I am, Lord, here it is! I'm giving this all to you! It was more just like, well, I guess this is a good thing. I'll go. You know? So…

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Pastor Dave

So, what I’m, am I hearing you right then? So, what you're saying here is that as it pertains to your motives, what are they? Measure your motives. In other words, analyze and think about what it is you're doing and why you're doing them. And then I would say just not to answer your question, but I would say that we have an opportunity at that point to do what's right.

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Pastor Dave

In other words, we can correct our motive at that moment if we're recognizing that our motives aren't maybe in line, would that be a fair assessment? Maybe what you're trying to say?

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Scott

Yeah, because I think for my story, it was like at a point in my life where it just became like a religious act, like it was just like me going and it was just something that I was doing. But then there became a point where I was just like, Man, I'm just searching for something real here. I want something real authentic.

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Scott

And then when I surrendered my life to the Lord, it was like, all of a sudden just willing to just give him my life, give him that sacrifice, give him my will for his.

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Pastor Dave

Good deal. No, that's a really good answer. I'm serious that causes, that should cause all of us that are watching, tuning into this or listening really to consider what are we doing out of an obligation versus out of really wanting to honor God, you know, so how about you? How about our listening audience?

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Pastor Dave

What is it that you think about this scripture verse? What do you believe you could take from this and then apply to your life? And look, if you're struggling with any of this kind of stuff, anything biblical you know, you're not alone. I think everybody does. And I think it's part of the process of wrestling that draws us closer to God.

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Pastor Dave

And really, that's what he desires. He wants us to bring these wrestling matches, these struggles to him. So just hang in there, keep coming back.

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Scott

And again, just a reminder to check out the bonus video to this episode. As me and Pastor Dave, we're going to dive deeper into the topics that we talked about in this episode. So, stay tuned for that after.

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Pastor Dave

Thank you. Thank you for being a part of this, Scott. And thank all of you for tuning in and listening. We look forward to our next message and meeting together with you in episode six as we continue to study the first era of beginnings. The next episode we will be talking about Adam's descendants and how they fit into this puzzle.

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Pastor Dave

So, we're looking forward to that. Thank you and God bless.

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Scott

God bless.

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Voiceover

Thank you for tuning into the Bible breakthrough with Pastor David Engman and Scott Brekke. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and will join us again for more of the Bible from B.C. to A.D. We are a volunteer driven ministry and rely on you to help us get the word out to the world. Please, like this podcast on Facebook, share it to your page and continue to listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or anywhere you find your favorite podcasts. This has been a broadcast of the Breakthrough Media Network.