Dealing with Anger

Do you remember the TV show "The Incredible Hulk?" The main character was a scientist named Dr. David Banner. And he was basically a very friendly man. But whenever he got angry, his eyes would turn green. And he would be transformed into this big green hulking monster. If you were a person in need, he would save you. But God help you if you were the one he was mad at. Because he would pick you up. And throw you on the other side of the room like you were a rag doll. Dr. Banner didn’t like what anger did to him. In fact, the whole show is built around Dr. Banner’s desire to find a cure so that this won’t happen to him anymore.

The message I get from the show is that if you don’t learn to deal with your temper, it could turn you into a monster of a person. It could change you into someone you don’t want to be.

This is what happened to Cain in Genesis chapter 4. He had a bad temper to start with. But he didn’t deal with it. And it turned him into this other person. An evil person. We pick up the story in verse one: Adam and Eve had two sons: Cain. And then Abel. Verse two says that "Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil."

What I want you to notice about this is that at this point, no one has anything to complain about. God has blessed both Cain and Abel with the ability to work with their hands. And if you scroll down to verse 17, you see that Cain has a wife. So he has employment. He has companionship. He has his health. And he has a God in heaven who is watching out for him.

Sometimes when we get angry, we forget about the good things that we’ve been blessed with. And all we can think about is how we have been wronged! Or how our rights have been violated. Or how this person wasn’t nice to us. Or how we didn’t get what we deserved.

I’m sure by now, you have discovered that life is not always fair. And life is not always easy. There are disappointments. There are difficulties. And there are hard times. But one thing that will help us to put everything into perspective is to take time to thank God for the things that we DO have. And thank God that he loves us enough to deprive us of what we don’t really need! And that he has our best interests at heart.

I think that Abel understood this. Perhaps Cain did, also. I think that deep down, they knew that every good thing that they had in life came from God. And so they decided to give back to God a small portion of what God had given to them. Verse three tells us that Cain offered up some of the fruits of the soil. And Abel gave God the fat portions of the firstborn of the flock. And then verses four and five tell us that the Lord looked with favor on Abel’s offering. But he rejected Cain’s offering.

The question that has puzzled people for centuries is "Why did God reject Cain’s offering? What was wrong with it?" If I was Cain, perhaps I would have said, "Lord, what did I do that was so bad? You’ve blessed everything I’ve done so far. And I just wanted to show my appreciation. Is there anything wrong with that?"

You might be able to argue that Abel put more thought into his offering. After all, Abel didn’t just give God any old slice of meat. He gave him the fat of the firstborn. He gave him the best of what he had! In fact, we find out later on in the Bible that the Lord prefers the fat portions. Leviticus 3:16 says "All the fat is the Lord’s." Save me the meat