The following story comes from Genesis Chapter 4. After Adam and Eve were kicked out of the Garden, they had two sons. When Eve’s first son Cain was born, she expressed delight in having a male descendant and she acknowledged that it was God who had given her a son. Not long afterward she gave birth to a second son, Abel. Despite their transgression in the Garden, Adam and Eve continued to be followers of God and they raised their children to believe in and worship Him also.
We are told that Abel was a shepherd and Cain was a farmer. Both are necessary occupations. “In the course of time Cain brought to the LORD an offering of the fruit of the ground, and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard.”
Cain and Abel each brought their offerings to the Lord to sacrifice as acts of worship. Presumably this is something they had been taught by their parents. We are never told WHY God accepted Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. Many Bible teachers focus on the two different kinds of offerings brought to God. They conjecture that God accepted Abel’s offering because it was of the best of his flocks while rejecting Cain’s offering because it was of the fruit of the ground. They’ll say the reason God rejected Cain’s offering was because it was not the proper kind of offering. But the Bible doesn’t actually say that. In fact, in the later sacrificial system of Israel, God blessed the presentation of grain offerings alongside the sacrifice of animals. Some cite Hebrews 9:22 which says, “Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.” Well, first of all, Cain and Abel were not under the law at this point (it had not been given to Moses yet) and second, there is no indication in the text that the brothers came to God for forgiveness.
I believe the fundamental reason why God “had no regard” for Cain’s offering was that Cain’s heart was not right. Here’s why I say that. In Psalm 51:17 David had great insight when he said, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” Isaiah knew the kind of heart God was looking for when he said this in Isaiah 66:2: “All these things My hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at My word.”
OK, so what should Cain have done when God rejected his offering? Should he have gone back and taken a sheep or goat from Abel’s flock and made a blood sacrifice before God? Some people will tell you that. But I don’t think so. What Cain should have done is repented and confessed his sin before God. There was something inside of Cain, in his heart, that wasn’t right. God knew this and exposed it. Cain should have done whatever it took to make things right between him and God. That’s what David did when he was confronted with his sin. But instead of doing this, Cain became angry.
“The LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.’” Did Cain “do well”? Did he make any attempt to do what was necessary to please God? No. The Apostle John gives us more insight into Cain’s spiritual condition: “For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous” (1 John 3:11-12). Apparently, Satan had gotten hold of Cain. He had filled Cain’s mind with evil thoughts. You all know what happened next. Cain killed his brother!
Cain had an ungodly, evil heart. He was a child of the devil rather than a child of God. The evil he harbored inside his heart revealed itself in an evil outward action – the first murder. Abel, a righteous man became the first human in history to die.
