Lord of all creation Of water, earth, and sky The heavens are Your tabernacle Glory to the Lord on high
God of wonders, beyond our galaxy You are holy, holy The universe declares Your majesty You are holy, holy Lord of heaven and earth Lord of heaven and earth
Early in the morning I will celebrate the light When I stumble in the darkness I will call Your name by night
God of wonders, beyond our galaxy You are holy, holy The universe declares Your majesty You are holy, holy Lord of heaven and earth Lord of heaven and earth
God of wonders, beyond our galaxy You are holy, holy The universe declares Your majesty You are holy, holy Lord of heaven and earth Lord of heaven and earth
I am weak, but Thou art strong; Jesus, keep me from all wrong;
I’ll be satisfied as long As I walk, let me walk close to Thee.
Just a closer walk with Thee. Grant it Jesus, is my plea, Daily walking close to Thee, Let it be, dear Lord let it be.
Through this world of toils and snares, If I falter Lord who cares?
Who with me my burden shares? None but Thee, dear Lord, none but Thee.
Just a closer walk with Thee, Grant it, Jesus is my plea, Daily walking close to Thee, Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.
Just a closer walk with Thee, Grant it, Jesus is my plea, Daily walking close to Thee, Let it be, dear Lord, let it be.
Dear Lord, let it be. Dear Lord, let it be.
I’m satisfied with just a cottage below, A little silver and a little gold;
But in that city where the ransomed will shine, I want a gold one that’s silver-lined.
I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop, In that bright land where we’ll never grow old;
And someday yonder we will never more wander, But walk the streets that are purest gold.
Don’t think me poor or deserted or lonely. I’m not discouraged, I’m heaven bound;
I’m just a pilgrim in search of a city, I want a mansion, a harp and a crown.
I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop, In that bright land where we’ll never grow old;
And someday yonder we will never more wonder, But walk the streets that are purest gold.
I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop, In that bright land where we’ll never grow old;
And someday yonder we will never more wander, But walk the streets that are purest gold.
Grace Bible Church PastorTeacher Robert R. McLaughlin Sunday, May 15, 2016
We have now completed the first dispensation of innocence and saw that even though man was placed in a perfect environment, he failed and rejected the plan of God for that dispensation, GEN 2:15-3:7.
It was at this point that man experienced for the first time a knowledge of “good and evil” that brought into existence the human conscience when his problems really began.
1. In GEN 3:7, they now realized that they were naked and they became ashamed or embarrassed which they were not back in GEN 2:25.
2. For the first time, they were conscious of the fact that they had disobeyed God ; and they sewed fig leaves together and tried to cover their sin.
PRO 28:13 He who tries to cover his transgressions will not prosper, But he who confesses and forsakes {them} will find compassion.
3. In GEN 3:10, now that they have a conscience, they were afraid, and they were living in fear. 4. Adam hid himself.”
It was at time that because they now had knowledge of good and evil that they also experienced a conscience of what is good and what is evil.
Dispensation = Conscience Opening Event = Able offers a lamb – Cain murders Abel Man’s Responsibility = Believe and obey – GEN 4:3-7; HEB 11:4.
HEB 11:4 By faith [by means of pistis or doctrine] Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts [blood sacrifice], and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.
His conscience was so defiled and perverted that we read that God destroyed those who were on the earth in GEN 6:5-7.
Man’s Tendency = He fell away from God – GEN 6:11-13. Closing Event = Judgment – flood – GEN 7:11-23 Personal Salvation = By Grace through Faith – GEN 6:8; HEB 11:4-7; 1PE 3:18-22.
The dispensation of the conscience was a period of negative volition beginning with the first murder in history, GEN 4:1-15.
She was so deceived from the fall that she thought Cain was the male child from the Lord and the fulfillment of GEN 3:15, which was the first promise in human history and the first prophecy in human history.
Cain’s name Qayin means “one who was made with the help of the Lord.”
This child, Cain, was to be the one who would bring the end of Satan and restore Eden or Paradise.
The name Abel is also very interesting when you learn that Habel means vanity, vapor, nothingness and even disappointment.
The name assigned indicates disillusion on the part of the original parents.
They left behind a perfect environment! Perfect sex! Perfect food! No work, no sweat, no kids.
The name assigned indicates disillusion on the part of the original parents because by the time that Abel was born, they discovered what they had left behind by way of perfect environment.
Cain turned out to be a murderer and a loser in life. Abel turned out to be a winner and a visible hero.
There’s no place for blaming the parents! And there’s no place for the parents blaming themselves. Cain was a product of his own decisions not his genes.
EZE 18:20 “The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity;
the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.
Cain was the first unbeliever recorded in human history. Cain was also the first criminal in human history.
Adam and the woman were right man and right woman, designed for each other by God, and, in spite of that, their children did not all turn out right.
HEB 11:4 By means of doctrine [resident in the soul] Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain.
Cain offered certain types of gifts and sacrifices but they had no meaning, there was no doctrine in Cain’s soul….Cain was an unbeliever and therefore was minus the appropriate doctrine.
Abel is a picture of the believer who has P.V.T.D. and does the right thing in the right way. Cain is a picture of an individual who is minus doctrine and tries to impress God with his works.
Physical symptoms of anger range anywhere from a mild headache to ulcers, high blood pressure, even heart attacks.
This dispensation began with Cain murdering his brother Abel, GEN 4:8, it ends with God destroying the human race, with the exception of Noah and his family, a total of 8; 1PE 3:20.
1JO 3:12, Cain was of the evil one, and murdered his brother because his deeds [his form of worshipping God] were evil [religious], but those of his brother were honorable and righteous.”
Cain offered to the Lord the result of his own sweat and toil, his own good works, he should have purchased a blood sacrifice or asked one from his brother Abel, who was a keeper of the flocks.
In GEN 3:19, man was to live by the sweat of his brow.
In the immediate era following the fall we have envy, jealousy, arrogance, and this was the motive for the first murder.
This is a also the beginning in history of capital punishment.
Capital punishment has been authorized form the time of the first murder, right down to this moment.
Even in the animal kingdom, every animal that murders, even domestic animals were also executed.
A murderer was to be executed, not rehabilitated, not counseled, but executed.
Capital punishment began in Gen 9; It continued in the Mosaic Law, EXO 21:14; Then in the hypostatic union, MAT 26:52;
In ROM 13:1-8, it continues in the Church-age; In the Tribulation, terrorism is dealt with by capital punishment; In REV 2:26-28, capital punishment will even be practiced in the Millennium.
“If murder demands capital punishment then why did God allow Cain to keep on living?”
The reason why Cain was not executed was because it had not been a law up to the time of Cain.
Prin-The mark of Cain was also the mark of divine protection not a mark of violence.
Prin-The mark of Cain permits Cain to remain alive so that he can have an opportunity to be saved.
Perhaps it was a hopeless, pathetic look, something that would stir pity in any individual’s heart, so that Cain became (as all of us are), an
God throws a circle of protective love about Cain and says in effect, “Yes, he is guilty. He’s a murderer — but he is still My property, and don’t forget it in your dealings with him.”
It was not a mark to brand him in the eyes of others as a terrible murderer, to be shunned and treated as an outcast or a pariah.
It is rather, a mark of grace, by which God is saying, “This man is still my property. Hands off!”
The heart of God is always ready to show mercy, 2PE 3:9; 1TI 2:4; 1TI 4:10; 1JO 2:2; JOH 3:15.
1. Grace – always true – Even though God had pronounced a curse on Cain, He was still going to extend some grace to him because there was no warning given to Cain that if he murdered someone, he should be put to death.
2. Government. The right of capital punishment belongs to a duly constituted government, and is never, ever to be an act of personal, private vengeance.
There was no government at this point. God designed capital punishment to be carried out by society, not as a matter of personal vengeance.
If God killed him, there wouldn’t be any living example of what an unbeliever’s life is like.
If God had killed him, then there wouldn’t be anybody to see what an ungodly life is like.
There were so few people in the world, God wanted to make it very clear to the rest that were being born after that the distinction between
the life of the righteous and the life of the unrighteous.
The sad reality is, by the time you get through that first generation, they were so bad that God only saves eight people from the flood? Eight.
To let it be seen what life is like for those who reject God. So He says to him in verse 12, “‘You’ll be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.'”
Hendiadys = saying the same thing twice to emphasize the intensity of what is being said, for example, “You’ll be a wandering wanderer.”
Cain’s mark was to be a vagabond; aimless, detached, no roots – roaming the earth under the sentence of God.
The doomed protest their judgment.
They have hopeful beginnings, they offer unacceptable worship, they resent God and God’s people, they reject God’s Word, they hide their sin.
HEB 12:16 That {there be} no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a {single} meal.
HEB 12:17 For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.
That is an assault on God’s fairness; God’s justice, God’s righteousness, God’s love and God’s kindness, grace and mercy.
That’s what unbelievers do when they hear the message about hell and judgment. “That’s not fair; that’s not right. God can’t do that.”
It’s possible to translate this as if Cain is saying to God “And from Thy face You have forced me to hide.”
“And so I’m just going to wander all over the place all my life as a vagrant and a wanderer in the earth”; and,” then he adds this, “It’ll come about that whoever finds me will kill me.”