Posts tagged ‘Cain’
Sermon Extra – When Our Desires Defy God’s Choices
Our desires don’t always line up with God’s choices. And when there’s a mismatch, conflict—and sometimes catastrophe—is not far off.
This past weekend in worship at Zion, we looked at a story from Numbers 16 about a man named Korah. Korah is a Levite, which means he belongs to the tribe God has chosen to care for the tabernacle—the tent where God dwells among His people. This is no small calling. Korah has been chosen for holy work.
But Korah does not want the holy work God has given him. He wants the holy work God has given to somebody else.
He does not want to serve near the altar of the tabernacle. He wants to stand at the altar. He does not want to assist the priests. He wants to be a priest.
So Korah starts fuming. Then he starts recruiting. He gathers a group of fellow grumblers, and together they bellyache to Moses and Aaron: “You have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the LORD’s assembly?” (Numbers 16:3).
Korah and his crew accuse Moses and Aaron of self-dealing, as though they have maneuvered and manipulated their way into Israel’s best and most powerful positions. But Moses and Aaron have done no such thing. They have simply received what God has given. As God says to Aaron a couple of chapters later: “I am giving you the service of the priesthood as a gift” (Numbers 18:7).
This is what Korah cannot accept. The priesthood is not a prize to be won. It is not a platform to be seized. It is a gift to be received. But Korah does not like God’s gift because Korah does not like God’s choice.
So God answers in judgment: “The earth opened its mouth and swallowed them and their households, and all those associated with Korah, together with their possessions” (Numbers 16:32).
Korah tries to climb above the place God has given him. Instead, he plunges beneath the ground.
This is what rebellion does. It reaches upward in pride, only to crash downward in death.
In Genesis 4, we read about another conflict between human desire and divine choice. Two brothers, Cain and Abel, each bring an offering to the LORD. God looks with favor on Abel and his offering, but not on Cain and his offering. Hebrews tells us why: “By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did” (Hebrews 11:4). Abel comes in faith. Cain, it seems, comes without it.
Cain is furious. And instead of repenting before God, he butchers his brother.
When God confronts Cain, He describes the crime vividly: “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” (Genesis 4:10–11).
In Numbers 16, the ground opens its mouth to swallow Korah in judgment. In Genesis 4, the ground opens its mouth to drink in Abel’s blood after Cain’s violence. In both stories, rebellion rattles the earth.
When our desires try to overrule God’s choices, creation itself testifies against us. The ground beneath our feet becomes a preacher. It announces that sin is never merely private, never merely personal, never merely “between me and God.” Sin wounds brothers. Sin fractures communities. Sin groans through creation. Sin digs graves.
Perhaps the earth is sometimes wiser than we are.
But then comes Jesus.
When Jesus breathes His last from the cross, the earth moves again: “The earth shook, the rocks split and the tombs broke open” (Matthew 27:51–52).
Once more, creation reacts. Once more, the ground opens. But this time, something different happens.
Matthew recounts that, when Jesus dies, “the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life.” And then, after Jesus’ resurrection, “they came out of the tombs and went into the holy city and appeared to many people” (Matthew 27:52–53).
The earth that once swallowed sinners begins to spit them back.
There is an old word for when our desires conflict with God’s choices: rebellion. Korah rebelled against God. Cain rebelled against God. And we rebel against God.
As we learn from the stories of Korah and Cain, our rebellion opens graves. But as we learn from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ sacrifice empties tombs.
One day, unless Jesus returns first, the earth will open its mouth to receive us, too. The ground will claim what sin has broken.
But it will not keep us.
Because the same Jesus who died and rose will call us from our graves. And when He does, the earth will have to give us back. The ground that swallowed us will surrender us. Death will not get the final word.
Jesus will.
Our rebellion will always be overruled by God’s choice. We cannot grab for ourselves what God has not given. Korah learned that the hard way.
But our rebellion is also redeemed by God’s choice. And for us, God’s choice is life.
And for life, God’s choice is us.
Cain, Kenites, and Relationships
Right now, at the church where I serve, we are in a series on relationships. One of the points we made this past weekend is that no relationship is perfect. Even those who are very close to each other and have a deep love for each other can offend and hurt each other – often unintentionally. If such offenses and hurts are not confessed and addressed, envy, bitterness, and resentment will take root and the relationship will fracture.
The problems of envy, bitterness, and resentment in relationships, of course, are nothing new. Near the beginning of history, we read of a relationship that not only fractures; it is violently ended:
Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. And Abel also brought an offering – fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The LORD looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering He did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry, and his face was downcast. 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 rule over it.” Now Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. (Genesis 4:2-8)
The story of Cain and Abel is tragic. But perhaps what makes it most jarring is that it is not particularly unique. Countless relationships throughout history have ended in terrible violence due to envy, bitterness, and resentment.
Perhaps you grew up in a household where envy, bitterness, and resentment were common. Perhaps these sinful roots resulted even in physical violence. Or perhaps these roots resulted in anger, mistrust, verbal altercations, or divorce. No matter what you have come from, for you, things can be different. In your relationships, things can be better.
Later in Scripture, we read of a people called the Kenites, which, in Hebrew, means “of Cain.” There is some debate over whether these people were actual descendants of Cain or whether they simply shared a name with Cain. I tend to favor the latter view, but regardless of where one stands on the debate, this much is clear – they chose a different relational path than their namesake Cain did. Moses’ father-in-law was a Kenite and his descendants lived among the tribe of Judah:
The descendants of Moses’ father-in-law, the Kenite, went up from the City of Palms with the people of Judah to live among the inhabitants of the Desert of Judah in the Negev near Arad. (Judges 1:16)
The ancient envy, bitterness, and resentment that was so apparent in Cain and separated him from his brother gave way to a desire in the Kenites to be brotherly to the Judahites. And this brotherhood ran quite deep. Just a few chapters later, in Judges 4, Jabin, the king of the Canaanites, and Sisera his general, are oppressing the Israelites. The leader of Israel at this time, Deborah, leads a campaign against the Canaanites that is broadly successful, but Sisera manages to escape – that is, until he flees to the tent of a Kenite named Heber. Heber’s wife, Jael, invites Sisera into the tent only to seal the Israelites’ victory in battle by driving a tent peg into his head while he is sleeping. Yes, it is a gruesome episode, but it is also revealing. The Kenites, it turns out, were fully vested in and fully loyal to their brotherhood with the Israelites.
So, what does this mean for us? Like the Kenites with Cain, we can do relationships differently than those who have gone before us. We can form relationships that are stronger. And we don’t even need a tent peg to do so. The Israelites were commanded by God to fight their enemies, the Canaanites:
The LORD, the God of Israel, commands you: “Go, take with you ten thousand men of Naphtali and Zebulun and lead them up to Mount Tabor. I will lead Sisera, the commander of Jabin’s army, with his chariots and his troops to the Kishon River and give him into your hands.” (Judges 4:6-7)
We are commanded by God through Christ to love our enemies:
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (Matthew 5:43)
Jael drove a tent peg into Sisera in judgment of his sin and proved himself a brother to the Israelites. God drove nails into the hands of His Son because of our sin and made Him a brother to us:
Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters. (Hebrews 2:11)
Jesus’ relationship with us as our brother is the inspiration and foundation for our relationships with others. Envy, bitterness, and resentment really can give way to brotherhood.
The Cries of Those Lost
Credit: Sean Rayford / Getty Images
This has been another long week for our nation. There have been difficult, but critical, conversations about racism. There have been demonstrations. There has been violence and looting. There have been tears. There have been deaths. This past Thursday, there was new evidence presented in the case of Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old African American man who was shot and killed in Glynn County, Georgia.
In a Brunswick courtroom, a judge found probable cause for pressing murder charges against Greg and Travis McMichael and William Bryan. According to evidence presented by the prosecution, the three men pursued Mr. Arbery in pickup trucks until they were able to corner him. Travis McMichael then shot Mr. Arbery three times, fatally wounding him. After his death, Mr. Bryan testified that he heard Travis McMichael utter a racial epithet over Mr. Arbery as he lay dying. Evidence was also presented that Travis McMichael had used this same epithet repeatedly on social media and in text messages. It was an alleged pattern of hatred that can only be described as wicked and vile.
In Genesis 4, we read the story of history’s first murder – Cain’s murder of his brother Abel. God, however, will not let such a heinous act go unchecked. He confronts Cain, saying, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to Me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10). It turns out that even if the voices of our slain brothers can no longer speak, their blood still does. And God listens to their cries.
When the apostle Paul witnesses to the Athenians, he explains that, contrary to their fashionable polytheistic and religiously pluralistic sensibilities, there is only one God, who “from one man made all the nations” (Acts 17:26). In other words, ultimately, we are all brothers and sisters, for, ultimately, we all share a common ancestry and a common Creator. Ahmaud Arbery, then, is our brother. And our brother’s blood is crying out. And just like God listened to Abel’s blood, He continues to listen as more blood is spilled and speaks. We can listen, too.
This Thursday will mark 57 years to the day since President John F. Kennedy addressed the nation from the Oval Office and asked Congress to enact legislation protecting and promoting Civil Rights. As part of his address, he said:
We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution. The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated …
The fires of frustration and discord are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at hand. Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives …
It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this is a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the facts that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all.
Those who do nothing are inviting shame as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right as well as reality.
As a nation, it feels like we are walking through a deep valley over which death has cast its long and sinister shadow. But in this deep valley, we can stand together “recognizing right as well as reality.” In this deep valley, we can mourn the blood of fallen brothers, while also rejoicing in the blood of our risen Savior. In this deep valley, we can lift up our eyes to a hill called Calvary that shines with forgiveness and hope. As the old hymn says:
Abel’s blood for vengeance
Pleaded to the skies;
But the blood of Jesus
For our pardon cries.
May Jesus’ blood pardon us in our sin, and keep the souls of the slain safe in His care until He returns to raise them – and us.
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