Chapter 1
Abel
It was by faith that Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. God said he was pleased with the gifts Abel offered and called Abel a good man because of his faith. Abel died, but through his faith he is still speaking.
— Hebrews 11:4 NCV
My dad used to have a poster on the wall of Homer Simpson choking his son Bart, while shouting, “As far as anyone knows we’re a nice normal family.” Family dysfunction seems to pretty much be the standard these days. I mean, who knows what normal is anyway? But our dysfunctional families aren’t anything new. In fact, the first family (no, not the President and his wife, but the real first family) was about as dysfunctional as you can get.
Adam and Eve had been banished from the Garden of Eden because they managed to break the only rule God gave them. Denied access to the life of luxury and ease they once enjoyed, they were now forced to work the land and carve out a life for themselves by the sweat of their own brows. And it wasn’t long after their eviction from Paradise that they decided to start a family. The Bible tells us that Eve “became pregnant and gave birth to Cain... After that, Eve gave birth to Cain’s brother Abel. Abel took care of flocks, and Cain became a farmer” (Genesis 4:1-2 NCV).
Following God’s command to “be fruitful and multiply,” Adam and Eve, of course, had many other children. In fact, over their nine-hundred-plus years of marriage, they probably had enough children to forge a small army. Yet, these are the only two children of whom any details are given. Actually, until the birth of Seth, these are the only two of Adam and Eve’s children mentioned at all.
Now, life must have been very difficult for this first family—building a home in the wilderness away from the safety and protection of the garden; it’s almost reminiscent of those early American families that moved out west in their stage coaches and wagon trains. And it was during this embryonic stage of humanity that faith makes its first appearance. Here’s the tale as told by God himself:
When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the LORD. Abel also brought a gift—the best 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. 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.
Afterward the LORD asked Cain, “Where is your brother? Where is Abel?”
“I don’t know,” Cain responded. “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! From now on you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth.” (Genesis 4:3-12 NLT)
Despite the failures of his father and the apparent bitterness of his brother, Abel was able to become a man of great faith and enjoyed an authentic connection with God. Abel’s faith affected his life in astonishing ways—both good and bad. But first, Abel’s faith in God led him to...
1. Reverence
The Bible says, “It was by faith that Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did” (NCV). People have argued over why God was pleased with Abel’s sacrifice but not Cain’s. Perhaps it was because God had specifically asked for animal sacrifices—which he received from Abel but was only offered a fruit and vegetable platter from Cain. It may have been that Abel brought “the best of the firstborn lambs from his flock,” while Cain may have only brought the leftovers. While both of these are possible, neither of them seems very probable. I don’t think either answer quite touches on the real issue.
Eugene Peterson got it right in The Message, which says, “By an act of faith, Abel brought a better sacrifice to God than Cain. It was what he believed, not what he brought, that made the difference.” The difference was faith. Cain may have been going through the right motions, but not with the right motive. Warren Wiersbe puts it this way: “Cain wasn’t rejected because of his offering, but his offering was rejected because of Cain: his heart wasn’t right with God.” God isn’t interested in routines and rituals, he wants relationships! Abel’s faith in God developed into a genuine love and reverence for God which, in turn, translated into an acceptable sacrifice of heartfelt worship.
Cain and Abel had apparently learned the importance and practice of worship from their parents, Adam and Eve. Yet, as far as Cain was concerned, it was just lip service. As Jesus once said, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me” (Matthew 15:8 NLT). Genuine worship is matter of the heart.
Jesus later defined worship in these terms: “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:23-24 ESV). According to Jesus, true worship can be recognized by two characteristics—spirit and truth. I’ve sometimes heard this explained as worshiping with the right attitude (spirit) and with the right actions, or according to the “biblical pattern” (truth). But that isn’t quite what Jesus had in mind. The term spirit refers to the human spirit—the invisible, intangible part of our being that relates to God as he really is, since God himself is a spiritual being. And the only way that we can do that is through the power and ability of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus described as “a fresh, bubbling spring” that gives “eternal life” (John 4:14 NLT). And to worship in truth, means truthfully or authentically. Cain’s worship of God was rejected because it wasn’t in faith or authenticity. Abel, on the other hand, offered worship that came from the heart and was, therefore, accepted by God.
Today, our worship doesn’t involve altars and animals, but true faith still leads to a heart of reverence and worship toward God. We have to understand, though, that worship is more than just sitting in a pew on Sunday morning, singing a few songs and saying a prayer—worship is a lifestyle. The apostle Paul said, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.” (Romans 12:1 NLT). In contrast to the dead animal sacrifice that Abel offered, God wants us to give ourselves upon the altar—to give our whole lives to him as and offering. It doesn’t matter where we are or what we’re doing as long as we praise and magnify him as we do it.
Do you know what it means to magnify something? When I was a kid, my dad bought my mom a colossal crimson-colored telescope for her birthday one year. I remember taking it out on the back porch; my dad steadied it as I climbed up on a small stool to peer through the little lens. That telescope magnified the moon! In other words, it made the moon bigger to me as I gazed in awe at its radiance, its cavernous craters and majestic mountains. The same thing happens when we magnify, or worship, God. He becomes bigger in our lives as we stand in awe of his indescribable beauty, his inexpressible splendor and incomprehensible wonder. When we learn to experience and magnify God in that way, then we’ll know the blessings of bona fide worship. In addition to reverence, though, Abel’s faith also led him to...
2. Righteousness
The Bible said, “The LORD accepted Abel and his gift” (Genesis 4:4 NCV). The writer of Hebrews says, “Through his faith he won God’s approval as a righteous man, because God himself approved of his gifts” (11:4 TEV). What does it mean to be righteous? Well, look up the word righteous in any thesaurus and you’ll find words like virtuous, honest, moral, upright, good, honorable and even blameless. Now, if we believe that Abel actually was all of those things, we might mistake him for someone who could walk on water. While I’m sure Abel was a very moral, honest, God-loving person, it’s important to pay close attention to the wording of this verse: “he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts” (ESV).
You see, it’s not that Abel was righteous by virtue of his own goodness or morality, but because God commended, or declared, him as righteous. Because of his faith in God, the Lord pronounced him righteous. Biblical faith will always lead to righteousness. But righteousness shouldn’t be thought of as a way of life, rather it’s a state of being, a status or condition. In other words, being righteous means being right with God—being accepted by God.
The Bible says, “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith’” (Romans 1:17 NIV). Another translation phrases it this way: “The Good News shows how God makes people right with himself—that it begins and ends with faith” (NCV). Righteousness, first of all, is an aspect of God’s nature and God extends his righteousness to us, making us right with him, by virtue of our faith. But faith in what?
It begins with faith in the fact that Jesus took our sins upon himself, suffering the punishment we rightfully deserved and, in exchange, making us righteous before God. But it continues as our faith—or trust—in God deepens into a richer, more mature faith. When it comes to our relationship and right standing with God, in other words, the bottom line is always faith—from beginning to end.
Many of us have a hard time believing that. We think there should be more to it than that. We see our acceptance by God as performance-based, so we do our best to earn God’s approval. I used to think like that. I thought: If I read my Bible… if I teach this class… if I pay my tithe… if I go to the right church… if I believe the right things about the right doctrines… then God will accept me. All of those may be good things, but they don’t mean anything if we think that our righteousness somehow impresses God. It doesn’t. And more often than not, that kind of attitude just leads to legalism and self-righteousness.
The Bible assures us that we are not as righteous as we think we are: “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6 NLT). The fact of the matter is—the only way to righteousness is through faith in a righteous God and only then does right-living make any difference. Sadly, however, Abel’s faith also led to...
Resentment
Cain had apparently grown jealous and bitter toward his younger brother Abel. And so, the Bible says, “While they were out in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him” (Genesis 4:8 NCV). There has been a lot of speculation as to why Cain would have enough animosity toward his brother that he’d be willing to murder him. Some people suggest that Cain was somewhat of a disappointment to his mother (that’s probably an understatement). I mean, God did tell her that she would bear a son who would lift the curse from humanity and crush the head of Satan. She may have thought that Cain was that child—he obviously wasn’t.
Despite whatever his relationship with his mother may have been, his relationship with his brother, Abel, was apparently one of jealousy and resentment. He hated the fact that Abel was accepted by God, yet he wasn’t. I’m sure that this wasn’t just a one time occurrence either. Week after week, they probably brought their offerings to God—Abel brought his out of love and reverence, while Cain brought his perhaps out of duty and routine. Cain’s heart was not right with God—he lacked saving faith—and so he grew bitter and angry with his brother who was genuinely seeking God. His bitterness turned to rage and his rage led to murder.
I’d love to say that society has evolved and learned how to resolve our differences without bloodshed, but the reality is—things haven’t changed much over the millennia. During the infancy of the church, apostate Jews aligned themselves with Romans officials in an attempt to completely wipe out the Jesus movement. Under the authority of emperors like Nero and Domitian, Christians were hunted, killed by the sword, thrown to the lions, crucified, and even burned alive to give light to Roman revelries. Unfortunately, modern martyrdom is no less frequent. It’s estimated that more people have been murdered for their faith in Christ in the past fifty years than in the first three hundred years of church history.
In 1999, an angry mob of Muslim extremists attacked a Bible camp at the Station Field Complex of Pattimura University in Indonesia. They terrorized the group of children and teenagers and dragged a fifteen-year-old boy, Roy Pontoh, before the mob. “Renounce your Jesus, or we’ll kill you,” they shouted.
Terrified and trembling, Roy answered, “I am a soldier of Christ!” At that, one of the Islamic assailants swung a sword across Roy’s stomach, tearing into the Bible in Roy’s hands and ripping it to shreds. The next swing ended his life. The last word to fall from his lips was Jesus. As C.S. Lewis once said, “You never know how much you really believe anything until its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you.”
Not all forms of persecution against people of faith end in death, however. In 2004, a pastor for a Pentecostal church in Kalam, Sweden was sentenced to one month in prison for a sermon he preached, citing Bible verses that condemn homosexuality. He was tried and convicted based on a new hate-crimes law that makes it illegal to say anything negative about homosexuality. Canada and Australia have already passed similar laws, and the United States may not be far behind.
Even in America, resentment for those who love God has begun to subtly reveal itself. Just recently, a high school student was suspended for closing the morning announcements with the words, “God bless,” on a student-run daily news program broadcast on the closet circuit television system at Dupo High School in Illinois. These, and other cases like them, are becoming more and more common across the United States, as faith in God is held in higher and higher contempt.
But I’m reminded of the words of Jesus, who said, “But be faithful, even if you have to die, and I will give you the crown of life” (Revelation 2:10 NCV). Abel is enjoying his reward even as you read these words and we too can look forward to a similar reward in heaven, if we continue to hold onto the faith God has given us. Even here on Earth, though, Abel’s faith has ultimately led to his…
Remembrance
The Bible reminds us that, “Although Abel is long dead, he still speaks to us by his example of faith” (Hebrews 11:4 NLT). We don’t know whether or not Abel had any children, but he unarguably left a legacy. Today, millions of people have been affected by the faith of the first man to become a martyr for God. Children sitting in Sunday School classrooms all across the country are both inspired and terrified by the story of Cain and Abel. And he will be remembered for as long as the Bible is read.
One of the projects I started recently is a personal study Bible for my children. I bought a wide-margined NIV Bible and, verse by verse, I’ve started filling it with my own notes and commentary. I intend to hand that Bible down to my kids so that, even after I’m gone, when they have questions and concerns about God’s Word, they can open that Bible up and just maybe find the answers they need—in their father’s own handwriting.
What kind of legacy will you leave? How will you be remembered after you’re gone? Faith is meant to be passed down; it’s meant to be shared! My mother isn’t a preacher’s wife, or a missionary, or an evangelist of any sort. But she shared her faith with me as I was growing up—and, because of that, every person I ever lead to Jesus or influence in anyway will be because of her legacy of faith. What will your legacy be? To who have you bequeathed your faith? Will you be remembered as someone who just slipped back into the crowd or as someone who had enough faith to get into the wheelbarrow? Your faith is a gift from God—what you do with it is up to you!
Invitation:
I want to encourage you, if you haven’t put your faith in Jesus and been made right with him, then come forward now...
