Cain;s Road Of Religious Ruin Series

Intro:

1. In my research of Cain and Able, I discovered that all of their problem stemmed from the fact that they were roommates.

In "Children's letters to God" I found these:

Dear GOD,

Instead of letting people die and having to make new ones, why don't You just keep the ones You have now? -Jane

Dear GOD,

Thank you for the baby brother, but what I prayed for was a puppy. -Joyce

Dear GOD,

What does it mean You are a Jealous God? I thought You had everything. -Neil

Dear GOD,

Maybe Cain and Abel would not kill each other so much if they had their own rooms. It works with my brother. -Larry

There might be something to that, here is a list of how College students, would have written the Bible:

1) Instead of God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh, He would have put it off until the night before it was due and then pulled an all-nighter and hoped no one noticed.

2) Reason why Moses and followers walked in desert for 40 years: He didn't want to ask directions and look like a Freshman.

3) Paul's Letters to the Romans become Paul's E-Mail to the Romans.

4) Ten Commandments are actually only five, but because they are double-spaced and written in a large font, they look like ten.

5) Reason Cain killed Abel: They were roommates.

2. Cain had at least two bad room mates - and I'm not talking about Able. I am talking about his own sin nature; and Satan! We looked at Cain not long ago in the book of Jude, but since most of you were not here for it, this will seem fresh.

3. Cain's Road of Religious Ruin.

Trans:Gen. 4:1-24

I. FIRST, CAIN WAS NO DIFFERENT THAN ABLE.

A. By Birth - they were both sinners.

"When Adam sinned, sin entered the entire human race. His sin spread death throughout all the world, so everything began to grow old and die, for all sinned." Romans 5:12 (TLB)

Machintosh, "Cain and Able were born, not inside, but outside of paradise - they were the sons not of innocent, but of fallen Adam. They came into the world, as partakers of the nature of their father; and it mattered not in what way, that nature might display itself, it was sinful nature still - fallen, ruined, depraved nature."

"Look, I was guilty of sin from birth, a sinner the moment my mother conceived me." Psalm 51:5 (NET1)

"The wicked are estranged from the womb; These who speak lies go astray from birth." Psalm 58:3 (NASB)

B. By Behavior - both committed acts of sin. Rom.3:23

"But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe." Galatians 3:22 (NASB)

C. Both had Belief.

Cain believed in his offering - Cain was no atheist, "he brought an offering to the Lord." He was no atheist! He believed in what he offered before God, or he would not have offered it!

Most Americans are not atheist either; and most believe in their offering to God. That offering is in the form of good works; doing the best they can; etc.

Trans:The difference between Cain and Able was in in themselves. The difference between the lost and saved today, is not, in the saved or lost.

We all have the same physical Birth; sinful Behavior; and Belief in something.

And therefore, there is no difference in God's invitation to salvation - it goes out to all sinners, because that's all there is!

And that is the amazing thing about the invitation of the gospel.

Reminds me of something that happened back in May 2004, Robert Kirkpatrick received an invitation from the National Republican Congressional Committee to attend a $2,500-a-plate fundraising dinner in Washington with President Bush.

In addition to the invitation to dinner on June 19, there was a letter from Vice President Cheney stating: "And also ask you to serve as a representative of St. Clairsville, Ohio at the President's Dinner."

Cheney wrote that if Robert couldn't make it, he would "hope (that Kirkpatrick) will serve as an Honorary Co-Chairman of The Dinner and help us maintain and increase our Republican majority in the U.S. House and regain our majority in the U.S. Senate."

Robert was "overwhelmed"' at the opportunity to be invited "to such a prestigious event," but he had to decline because he was an inmate at the Belmont Correctional Institution in eastern Ohio.

Robert, 35, was sentenced in 2003 to nearly 3 years for drug possession and escape.

National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Carl Forti said the organization did send the letter to Kirkpatrick, but it was a mistake. Carl said, "It clearly was a mistake, it was a P.O. box. We obviously didn't know it was a P.O. box for a state penitentiary.'"