Grace OPC Sewickley PA

Sermon Book: Genesis

  • The City of Man and the City of God

    The City of Man and the City of God

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, April 18, 1993.

    About this sermon

    God extends common grace even to Cain, and that draws a sharp line. The work Christians do for the world serves the city of man, and the city of God rests on another foundation. Cain names a city after Enoch in a vain attempt at a memorial that will not last.

    More sermons from Genesis · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    We are beginning this evening our reading with Psalm 49. Psalm 49, the word of God, “‘Hear this, all peoples, give ear, all inhabitants of the world, both low and high, rich and poor together. My mouth will speak wisdom, and the meditation of my heart will be understanding. I will incline my ear to a proverb. I will express my riddles on a harp. Why should I fear in days of adversity when the iniquity of my foes surrounds me?

    Even those who trust in their wealth and boast in the abundance of their riches, No man can by any means redeem his brother or give to God a ransom for him, for the redemption of his soul is costly, and he should cease trying forever, that he should live on eternally, that he should not see the pit.

    For he sees that even wise men die, the stupid and the senseless alike perish, and leave their wealth to others. Their inner thought is this, that their houses are forever and their dwelling places to all generations. They have called their lands after their own names. Man in his pomp will not endure. He is like the beasts that perish. This is the way of those who are foolish and of those after them who approve their word.

    As sheep, they are appointed for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd, and the upright shall rule over them in the morning, and their form shall be for Sheol to consume so that they have no habitation. God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol.

    He will receive me.” Do not be afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house is increased. For when he dies, he will carry nothing away. His glory will not descend after him. Though while he lives he congratulates himself, and though men praise you when you do well for yourself, he shall go to the generation of his fathers. They shall never see the light. Man in his pomp, yet without understanding, is like the beasts that perish.”

    Then turning to Genesis chapter 4, verse 17. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. And he built a city and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son. Our God bless us for obedience to you, that obedience that is known through submission to you.

    O God, may that submission itself be born of our love. Surely you have loved us first, even when we did not love you. But now, O God, we have been born again, and we do confess that we love you, our God, and would submit ourselves to you, trusting you. understanding that you have our well-being at heart and design nothing for us that shall not work for our good. Lord, may we be enabled to hear your word this evening, that our lives may be molded and shaped by this word. May it be our God that we carry your word in our hearts. and live by it throughout the week.

    We ask this for the sake of Christ, the living word. Amen. In our last message on Genesis 4, that’s been some time ago now, we made mention of the fact that this verse, verse 17, Genesis 4, gives testimony to God’s common grace. Here, the excommunicated came. Note that.

    The excommunicated Cain, though cut off from God and in fact living under God’s judgment, is preserved within a context of God’s mercies. For instance, as we look at the text, we see that Cain is preserved within the context of the mercies that are attached to the estate of marriage. Cain is given progeny, he is given a seed, the process of which, the very fruit of which, gives testimony to the continuing graciousness of God, a graciousness that is extended even to the wicked. God causes his sun to shine upon the unrighteous and righteous, his rain falls upon both, this being a common grace.

    Now, likewise, the remainder of this verse, and the mention that it makes of the city testify to the same end. There is that in the city and about the city now mentioned that will in fact testify to us about God’s graciousness. The city then is going to operate on the level of the first institution mentioned, the institution of family and marriage. Therefore, we need not think of the city simply because it is mentioned in connection with Cain and his seed as being evil in itself. City then is not evil in itself any more than the family is evil in itself, or marriage.

    These matters then pertain to the realm of God’s common grace. There is benefit to be found in these aspects of reality for all of God’s creatures. The city becomes an arena for commerce and for community, for collective enterprise, for communal security even, and for the restraint of evil.

    Now, I know you may be thinking, It’s been a long time since cities could be defined along the lines that I just described. Arenas in which it seemed as if God’s common grace had the upper hand. To be perfectly accurate, there is a sense in which cities never could be described in the way I’ve just described them. I’m bold in my assertion.

    Cities, no less than the institution of the family, bear the mark of God’s common grace, they being a principal means by which man is preserved and through which he is enabled then to develop, as he might, within this world. Order rises. The family speaks of order, the city also speaks of order. Order rises then in connection with the city, and that by God’s design. Order rises within the fallen world, and that for man’s common good. A couple of things can be said further about this whole matter. First is this, that we might see the limitation that is set upon the city as the city is itself set within the order of this creation.

    The city serves its purposes within the realm of God’s common grace. The city serves its purposes within the realm of God’s common grace. The city and its world of politics is not, nor can be, of God’s special grace. The city of man, therefore, even as that city bears the mark of God’s common grace, the city of man has its value.

    We as Christians, we as believers in God, we as citizens of an entirely different city and its order, need not hesitate to speak of that value which the city in the arena of man has. We need not hesitate even to labor in the interests of the value which the city of man has. This means that we who then work within the city of man need not think of our labor as being useless, meaningless. Our labor has value because in our labor, in our work, we are affirming the value which the city in God’s ordination does in fact have. There is the realm of politics. Can Christians be politicians? Yes. Yes, they can. But they must approach that task with what Dr. Van Tilde called epistemological self-consciousness.

    You can’t be naive with regard to the order of that city in which you labor. nor can you be ignorant of the value assigned to that city by God. You cannot make that city into something other than what it is. It must then become clear to us that while the city of man does have a positive virtue and value, The city of man is not, nor can it be, the city of God. Earth is not, and it cannot be, the city of God.

    Now, it is precisely at this point that much Christian thinking even some Christian thinking well intended. I do not say all Christian thinking is well intended. But it is precisely at this point that much Christian thinking goes wrong. There seems to be something in the air breathed by many Christians that resents and resists the polarization the biblical polarization between the city of God and the city of man. There seems to be something in the air breathed by many Christians that then drives these saints to both deny the fundamental difference between the two cities, and even to work to achieve the impossible, that is, to make the city of man into the city of God. Now this is the stuff out of which the deepest forms of frustration are born. But even though that is true, and too many people realize too late that that is true, it is also the stuff out of which Christian utopianism is born.

    We are going to make the world over. That is our goal. That is our agenda. That is what we are here to do. That is our purpose. This is also the stuff out of which much millennialism is made. Triumphalism, socio-political activism, all in Christ’s name.

    I believe that it is at this point that certain of our dear and beloved Dutch friends went wrong. I also believe that it is at this point that certain of our Scotch and Scotch-Irish friends went wrong. And I most certainly believe that it is at this point that our dear, beloved Covenanter friends have made a fundamental mistake.

    For the Covenanters believe, extending the image from city to nation, that the nations as political entities are the realm of God’s special grace. That is, they are to be redeemed as nations. Thus the city of man becomes the city of God. And the inherent polarization set out for us in Scripture, resolved for us only in the blessings of eternity, are claimed to be resolved on the plane of this creation and in this world.

    Let me reiterate my point then. The city of man has its value, and we must appreciate that value, even its political value. to the point that we can, yes, rightly, justly engage ourselves in that political domain. But the city of man is not, nor can it become, the city of God. It will not happen. You see, the city of man belongs to the order of this world.

    And as it does, it becomes an arena in which God’s common grace operates. While the city of God belongs to the world of God’s special grace, the former is earthly, The latter is heavenly. But a second thing we must say further about this whole matter is this. Even God’s common grace works compound the guilt of those who are benefited by that common grace while failing to acknowledge its source. And the compounding of this guilt works itself out in that evil that confounds the value that lies within this arena of common grace, so that the value is not seen and even lost from view. Thus, the city of man though bearing the stamp of God’s common grace, becomes a realm in which man himself is enshrined, in which he is exalted, in which he becomes like a god, with the city his domain. That domain and his own identity self-defined expressions of his own hostility to the God to whom he owes his life. This is precisely what we see in the case of King. In fact, it is this reality that now overtakes the narrative given us here in Genesis 4 so thoroughly to the point that it seems as if the testimony to common grace is nearly obliterated.

    You have to read between the lines to pick up the message about common grace. builds his city after the birth of his son. The city and the son lie upon a continuum. They belong to the same order of thinking as far as Cain is concerned. They are connected by their name. Cain will do with the city that he builds what he has done with his son in naming him. Even though that child is a testimony to God’s graciousness to Cain, in his sin, Cain gives the boy a name that will define his own depravity. He calls the child Enoch.

    The name means memorial, or dedicated one, or dedication. But what, possibly, could the naming of that child mean in Cain’s mind? To whom or to what does that name refer? It most certainly doesn’t refer to God, as if the child were dedicated to Him. Nor can the name stand as a memorial to the child in the sense that the child is a dedication to himself. Instead, the child with this name becomes a memorial to his father, to Cain.

    The child stands as dedicated to him. And as such, the child now becomes the symbol of his father’s aspirations. This child then becomes an extension of the father in time, and a guarantee of the father’s longevity. It is the same with regard to the city. Cain names the city after his son, and in this act extends to the city his convictions concerning his son. As the son becomes a memorial to Cain’s permanence, so also does the city.

    Now you know why we read Psalm 49. Now you see it. You understand whose mind is being described in Psalm 49? It’s the mind of Cain. And did you hear what was said in the 11th verse of that 49th Psalm? Their inner thought is this. What’s going on in Cain’s mind as he names his son, as he names the city? Their inner thought is this, that their houses are forever, and their dwelling places to all generations. They have called their lands, no, their sons, their city, after themselves, by their own names.

    In Cain’s use of the name Enoch, he has in mind specifically a dedication, a memorial, now, from which God is excluded. In Cain’s mind, it is a simple matter of tit for tat. God has excommunicated me, I have excommunicated God. So much is this to the forefront in what we read in Genesis 4, that it seems obvious from the inspired narrative that this is the fact that we are not to miss.

    There is the prevailing positive value of the city. of the political structure, of the institutions of this world, all of these giving testimony to God’s common grace. But in the midst of even these testimonies to God’s graciousness, there rises the line of Cain, the line that hates God. with every ounce of its energy the world is mine the world is mine my life is my own and I will not give them up It is now the prevailing strength with respect to this commitment within the city of man, despite the wonderful positive evidences of God’s common grace, that drives us to cry out all the more for that full revelation of the eternal city, that city that has foundations. whose builder and maker is God.

    Let us pray. Our Father, do bless us, your children, even in this world order as we would understand the positive values of those institutions and entities which are set before us as testimony to your common grace. Enable us, Lord, to do well with our attitudes that we might even see these matters clearly to the benefit of those who don’t see them at all. And yet, Lord, as we witness the triumph of the spirit of Cain in the city of man, may we also, because of our faith, acknowledge your great sovereignty and the truth of the gospel, that we are brought to an even greater city still, one that cannot be ruled by wickedness by unrighteous men, but one that is eternal in the heavens. a dwelling place into which all who are dedicated to you shall be brought. Forgive us, Lord, in our confusions. If we make the city of man into the city of God, if we have aspirations in that direction, if We believe that in fact is what should take place, have we then become guilty of a form of idolatry whereby we have transformed something that pertains to this temporal order into that which belongs to the eternal order. Oh God, preserve us. from that. And at the same time, Lord, to give us energy, dedication, love in our service even within the city of man to the benefit of those with whom we live. We pray it to your glory and

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Common Grace and the Sanctity of Marriage

    Common Grace and the Sanctity of Marriage

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 28, 1993.

    About this sermon

    Common grace is already at work in Genesis 4:17’s account of marriage, even among Cain’s own line, and its sanctity. Children remain a real blessing even to an unbelieving world, and life itself begins at conception, plainly assumed in this text.

    More sermons from Genesis · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. And he built a city, and he called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son.

    After Enoch was born, Irad. And Irad became the father of Mechugiel, and Mechugiel became the father of Mechugiel. And Hushiel became the father of Lamech. And Lamech took to himself two wives. The name of the one was Ada, the name of the other Zillah. And Ada gave birth to Jabal.

    He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. And his brother’s name was Jubal, and he was the father of all those who played the lyre and pipe. As for Zilla, she also gave birth to Tubal-Cain, the forger of all implements of bronze and iron. And the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naomi.

    And Lamech said to his wives, Ada and Zilla, listen to my voice. You wives of Lamech, listen to my speech. For I have killed a man for wounding me, and a boy for striking me. If Cain is avenged, Adam knew his wife again, and she gave birth to a son and named him Seth, for she said, God hath appointed me another offspring in place of Abel, for Cain killed him. And to Seth, to him also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call on the name of the Lord.

    Father, we know of the effectiveness of your word in many places in the world. receive the information we have heard tonight with gladness that there are opportunities for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Bulgaria, in Mongolia, and also in Ethiopia.

    Lord, be pleased to hear us on behalf of these efforts, and would you raise up those who are especially gifted of you and called of your to work productively in these fields. May we participate in the proclamation of the gospel in these places and rejoice that we have a part in such a ministry. We ask these things in Jesus’ name.

    Amen. Now, Genesis 4 verse 17 is one of those marvelous texts, because it is packed full of things. It teaches so much. In fact, it sets before us so many things that we won’t be able to cover them all tonight. and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch, and he built a city and called the name of the city Enoch after the name of his son.”

    The first thing that I want to call your attention to in this passage is the fact that this text affirms for us the marriage state and the sanctity of that ordained institution as a common good, as a common good. That is a good that is enjoyed by all of humanity, regardless of whether they have faith or not. It’s obvious that Cain doesn’t. So here is the affirmation of the state of marriage, the sanctity of that ordained institution as a common good.

    Now, to be sure, tragedy is looming. Let’s drop down a few verses. Verse 19, to be exact, there we are told about the assault upon the institution of marriage by a man named Lamech. Truly a vile example of humanity, he loads himself up with two wives. In Genesis 6, the story goes on. In Genesis 6, we are told about a greater tragedy still. Here in the second verse of that sixth chapter, Scripture confronts us with the mixing of the races.

    Now, it’s not what you might think. It’s not what some have imagined, specifically the mixing of the races. It is rather a mixing, a mixing about which God is supremely concerned. It’s not the mixing of black and brown. It’s not the mixing of yellow and white.

    God isn’t concerned about that. What God is concerned about is the mixing of the seed of belief, or the seed of covenant, with the seed of unbelief. Paul, later on in the history of salvation, in the ethnically diverse and mixed world of his day, had but one word from the Lord on this matter. Let believers marry only in the Lord.

    Then he moves through the book of Genesis, the tragedy continues. The stories of Abraham and Jacob set before us the handmaiden custom of the ancient world. If your wife can’t produce, then maybe her handmaiden can. The stories of Abraham and Isaac set before us the regal royal right to a harem on the part of pharaohs and Philistine kings. The stories of Jacob and his sons present to us polygamy, rape, prostitution, adultery, And the story of Lot, backing up a bit, presents to us the hideousness of homosexuality and incest. What a mess. And the tragedy is compounded because God’s elect line seems to be drawn into all of these intrigues and moral monstrosities.

    But here, before the dissent begins, in Genesis 4.17, as we are looking specifically now at the unbelieving line, the line of Cain, a norm, a standard, is set out before us.

    Kane is bound to his wife, and it is within that context that we are told about their intimacy. There is no other legitimate context. a beautiful affirmation of God’s intention and order, even for a fallen world. Christ himself later will say, He who created them from the beginning made them male and female and said, For this cause a man shall leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. then is a standard set out by which the believing and the unbelieving world are then to be ordered.

    But further, what a beautiful affirmation of the benevolence of God, even to those who are hostile to him. or indifferent about him. Although the institution of marriage is about to be plunged into a nightmare, a nightmare that’s going to overtake even the elect, although the institution of marriage is about to become a battleground in which domestic wars are waged. Although the institution of marriage is about to be assaulted by every form of perversity, God preserves for himself in the institution of marriage a testimony with regard to himself and his kindness. Within marriage and through marriage, then, blessings come upon humanity. And by marriage, God in his benevolence restrains evil and promotes that which is commonly good. Indeed, Psalm 145 verse 9 says, is good to all, and his mercies are over all his works.

    We who do believe might then well bless our God even for the testimonies of mercy that are evidenced amongst the unbelieving world. the institution of marriage and its sanctity. I might say that this quote as an aside is because of the drift of this argument that the Protestant Church has rejected the Roman Catholic doctrine that marriage is a sacrament. You see, marriage doesn’t just belong to the Church, marriage belongs to the whole world.

    Moving on in this text, we have a second matter, a matter that may well help us with regard how we might interpret Scripture. We have a very direct lesson here with respect to the principles of biblical interpretation. This rises for us because it is this text that has always proved to be a puzzle for interpreters The proverbial question, where did Cain’s wife come from? Now the immediate response is that Cain married his sister, only his sister isn’t mentioned previously to this. I’m not saying that that’s incorrect, neither am I saying that it’s correct. What I will say is this.

    It is at this point that we are given marvelous opportunity for understanding better the intention of Scripture in its entirety. The Bible is a book about redemptive history, salvation history. Bible is not a book of comprehensive history. In other words, the Bible isn’t telling you everything, and it’s not telling you about everyone. This means, then, that the Bible, being the book of redemptive history that it is, is concerned to lay before us those facts which are important for the realization of salvation through God’s work in history.

    The matter of Cain’s wife is a question of relative unimportance, generally, to salvation history. Her birth is not of importance. Her name, seemingly, is not of importance. We are enabled better to guard against drawing out of a biblical text more than we ought, making hasty decisions about a scripture passage. We may well assume, for instance, that Cain was Eve’s firstborn and that Abel was her secondborn. I’ve preached through this chapter as if that were the case. We might also assume that because we are not told about other children, the only children that Adam and Eve had were Cain and Abel. That is obviously not the case, since this woman did come from someplace.

    We must realize, then, that Scripture’s purpose is not an encyclopedia. any more than it is a book of comprehensive history. Drawing this out a bit further, the Bible is not a science book. It is not a book of philosophy or a book of morals. It is not a manual even for systematic theology.

    It is at heart a book of very selective history, the purpose of which is to lay before us the story of that battle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, a conflict culminating in the birth of Jesus Christ, whose life, death, and resurrection is triumph over Satan. The Bible’s failure then to mention the origin of whom’s wife or even her name is a go for us in the direction of a better understanding of the Bible’s intention. We are forced to read the Bible on its own terms.

    Tonight I have a couple more remarks to make to you. I want to speak about the child. The child’s name is Enoch. This child is born into the world. We have the accounts of the births of Cain and Abel previously. This child’s birth seems to be of a line with theirs. In other words, the birth of this child set before us a normal physical human being.

    This isn’t to say that there aren’t the tragedies of birth. We know about those tragedies. But even here there is affirmation once more of the continuing grace, common grace of God, even to an unbelieving world. Not only are their marriages an affirmation of the order that God has set within his creation, but the very children that they produce are a testimony to the same end. Secondly, with regard to the child, notice this. Child’s conception and birth are seen to be as of a piece. They belong together.

    Why specifically mention the conception? What purpose does that serve? As far as the people of God are concerned, or the history of redemption is concerned. Why mention the conception? Why not just mention the birth? The conception and the birth are seen to be as of a piece. They belong together. They are mentioned together. They are told together. This specific mention of the conception testifies to the general witness of the scripture, that is, life begins at conception. There it is. Now this is what the Bible says, regardless of what science says, regardless of what the Supreme Court says. Life begins at conception, according to the Bible.

    The unbelieving world doesn’t believe the Bible. It is a great tragedy when, in counter-variance to the witness of Scripture, that world denies that life begins at conception and even goes so far as to execute its unborn. But how wonderful when the unbelieving world, despite its unbelief, affirms this truth and resolutely refuses to act so wickedly. Only the Church can rejoice when the unbelieving world refuses to execute its unbelief. But how wicked it is when believers, claiming that they accept God’s word, reject this clear testimony of scripture.

    The world itself has something to say about our hypocrisy. Be assured, God will have something to say himself about our hypocrisy. and he will judge us. These matters thus far, somewhat disconnected, I must admit, are now a consideration of Genesis 4.17. The sanctity of marriage, even within the unbelieving world, a clue as to how to approach reading your Bible, interpreting it. and also the matter of life, the generation of children, and how that generation process is to be viewed by us who claim to embrace the Word of God. Let us pray. Our Father, as with this text, so with all texts, Lord, bless us with understanding through your Spirit that we, in seeing the things that are laid out for us here by your Spirit, might live obediently.

    If there is then that respect for marriage within the unbelieving world, what of ourselves? If we witness the respect for life within an unbelieving world, then what about ourselves? So God, give us then your grace abundantly that we might not say one thing and do another.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Common Grace Serves Special Grace

    Common Grace Serves Special Grace

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 21, 1993.

    About this sermon

    Adam, Eve, and Cain sin on a vast scale, and common grace exists to serve special grace. It never stands beside special grace as an equal. Cain goes into exile east of Eden, while the righteous dwell eternally in God himself.

    More sermons from Genesis · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Let’s listen to the word of God. Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling, my steps had almost slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant, as I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For there are no pains in their death, and their body is fat. They are not in trouble as other men, nor are they plagued like mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace, the garment of violence covers them, their eye bulges from fatness, the imaginations of their heart run riot.

    They mock and wickedly speak of oppression, they speak from on high. They have set their mouth against the heavens and their tongue parades through the earth. Therefore his people return to this place, and waters of abundance are drunk by them. And they say, How does God know, and is their knowledge with the Most High?

    Behold, these are the wicked, and always at ease. They have increased in wealth, Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence For I have been stricken all day long and chastened every morning If I had said I will speak thus Behold I should have betrayed the generation of my children When I pondered to understand this it was troublesome in my sight until I came to into the sanctuary of God, then I perceived their end.

    Surely thou dost set them in slippery places, thou dost cast them down to destruction. How they are destroyed in a moment, they are utterly swept away by sudden terrors, like a dream when one awakes. O Lord, when aroused, thou wilt despise their form. When my heart was embittered and I was pierced within, then I was senseless and ignorant. I was like a beast before thee.

    Nevertheless, I am continually with thee. Thou hast taken hold of my right hand. With thy counsel thou wilt guide me, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And besides thee I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from thee will perish. Thou hast destroyed all those who are unfaithful to thee.

    But as for me, the nearness of God is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all thy works. And then, Genesis four, verse sixteen, one came out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden. What a foundation you have given for us. You have given, O God, the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, and even now you are building up your church as a holy dwelling place in the Spirit, fit for you to dwell in. O God, throughout the world, your people are being drawn by your word that they may in fact be built upon such a foundation, they then being a holy temple in God. O Father, there are living stones in this temple, we ourselves having been made alive by the blessing of your grace. May we be zealous to do all things according to your word, that we might not insult the foundation that is given us, nor the cornerstone that has been laid.

    In Jesus’ name, amen. that the record given us of that first transgression in Genesis 3 sets before us a bit of overreaction on the part of God, that all ought to be removed now as we move into the fourth chapter. For here we are most definitely confronted, and that unambiguously, with sin’s seriousness and its utter destructiveness. Now, in all honesty and truth, we dare not minimize the weightiness of that transgression by which our first parents plunged humanity into ruin. There are the subtle features of their sins, their sin, and we dare not overlook the account of their sin.

    There was the lie. There was the refusal to accept blame. There was, in fact, the shifting of blame to someone else. Finally, the point that that blame came to rest upon God himself implied in our first parent’s reaction was that God himself was accountable. He was to blame for what had taken place.

    Beyond this, there was Adam’s condition of mind and soul, an unwillingness on his part to come to his wife’s defense, refusing either to intercede for her or to offer himself in her place. These fundamental failures, this wickedness, these failures and wickedness are a floodgate, and early on the potential for corruption and the heights of wickedness are set before us. Unmistakably now, we have this set before us in Genesis 4.

    Cain’s self-centered, earth-oriented worship, which has earned for him the Lord’s rebuke. There is also God’s loving pursuit of Cain, a pursuit which ends with Cain rejecting his God. even though God has lovingly, graciously appeared to him and pleaded with him.

    There is the premeditation in Cain’s heart, there is the doing of the deed, the murder of his brother, and then there is the taunting of the Lord. All of this set, setting before us the magnitude of wickedness that is now unleashed upon the world. came taunting the Lord. Am I my brother’s keeper? These things then, latent within his parents’ offense, but not overt as yet, they subsequently come to light.

    Cain’s murderous heart, then, it is proved, is as much directed against God as it is against his brother. Cain hates God as much as he hates his brother. In contrast, his parents had, in time, humbled themselves before the Lord their judge. They had in time expressed their faith, their confidence in the Lord. But Cain, their son, will have none of this. From face to face with God’s judgment, be it even the prelude to eternal judgment, His response proves to be unlike his parents. His response is not one of humility, a humility by which he would throw himself upon the mercies of the Lord and repent.

    Instead, we find him expressive of a fear that now there would be removed for him all insulation, there would be removed from him all protection for his life in this world. His interest in God’s presence, which he makes special mention of, his interest in God’s presence is only to be interpreted along these lines. he sees dissolving, the protection he sees removed. He stands now doubly the exile, for he shares the alienation that his parents knew, the alienation from the garden, the special dwelling place for God with his parents. But now he also knows the alienation that has come upon him, an alienation that cuts him off from the church, from the assembly of the Lord, an assembly to which God had especially connected himself even in this sinful world. The terror then that momentarily overtakes Cain, when confronted with God’s judgment, is due to the threat that he now will be cut off from this world that upon which he had set his hope. After all, hadn’t he murdered his brother Abel for the purpose of removing the competition? removing the one whom he imagined a threat to his own plane in the earth and to the earth. But given even the enormity of the sin, and sin expressed even in the fear that this man has within his soul, God proves to be gracious even to this one, for he promises order even in such a world into which Cain is driven.

    A world that stands apart, then, from the Church. He promises that he will preserve Cain’s life even in this world of exile into which he is driven. He will preserve him from destruction from those who would do to him what he has done to his brother.

    Here is grace. It is not special saving grace, but it is grace. Nevertheless, it is truly unmerited, undeserved, but it is a grace. Yes, to be sure, this grace is ultimately for the sake of the Church, which must exist in the world This grace then serves the purpose of a blessing for the Church, since all things are for the sake of the elect. Indeed, common grace serves special grace.

    Nevertheless, this is a grace by which the fallen world continues as a world, and even a world over which God himself is sovereign. It bears the stamp of his compassion upon it. It bears the emblem of his sovereignty within it. This then is reflected upon by Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 5. when he states, for God causes his Son to rise upon the evil and the good, and sends his reign on the righteous and the unrighteous.

    Now, in such a world, many will pursue interests and enterprises, that proved both pleasurable and beneficial to them and to others, all the time quite oblivious to the promise of God and His sovereign oversight. In fact, in such a world, many, not knowing a thing about the story of Cain or its significance, will assume the horizons of this world to be the only true horizons, this world being the only world, in fact, that exists. They will think the pleasures and the benefits experienced in this world to be all that there is. From their ignorance they presume upon the goodness of God, And that which should work to correct and convert them only condemns them.

    Isaiah reflects upon this truth in the twenty-sixth chapter of his prophecy, the tenth verse, where he writes, Though the wicked is shown favor, though the wicked is shown grace, He does not learn righteousness. He deals unjustly in the land of uprightness and does not perceive the majesty of the Lord. But it is not only the wicked who are confounded by such a world as we have just described. The righteous themselves may also go astray. In a world in which life continues for the wicked, and in which there is existence outside of the church, the righteous may become restless and disturbed, confused about the promise of the Lord’s justice and the swiftness of His retribution.

    We find the psalmist asking about the prosperity of the wicked. We find him addressing the problem of a temptation that is overtaking his soul, namely envy of the wicked. You have it set before you there in Psalm 73. The psalmist in that 73rd Psalm does not miss the mark.

    For he points out the fact that those who live for this world, the kings of the world, and the line of kings, seem to do so well in the world. They’re the ones that get ahead. They’re the ones that seem to be so talented, or at least have the world recognize their talent. They seem to be the ones endowed with such intelligence, gifted in so many areas. capable in so many dimensions.

    Believers make a mistake, as in fact the psalmist hones up to his mistake, taking it a step further. Believers make a mistake when they gush over a celebrity who supposedly has become a Christian. Or a Christian who has become a celebrity. I’ll say it again. Believers make a terrible mistake when they gush over a celebrity supposedly becomes a Christian or a Christian who becomes a celebrity.

    Now this is not to discount or downplay the ability, the giftedness that we find in many a believer. It is merely to say that the world’s recognition of that ability can hardly be the objective of a believer’s life. Nor is that ability, or the world’s recognition of it, ever the basis for assessing the validity of our faith.

    As if such things were a proof that God exists. and should be sufficient evidence to anybody who had eyes to see. I sometimes get the impression that some talented Christians, that is talented in a worldly sense, some talented Christians like quarterbacks, like guitarists, But some talented Christians, that is, talented in a worldly sense, are saying that because they are so talented and have had such success, the world should get in line behind them to acknowledge that God exists after all.

    This is proof that there is a God. My goodness, I threw a touchdown pass and won the game. Now how many self-respecting pagans are impressed by thinking like that? When there are far more pagan quarterbacks that are throwing infinitely number more touchdown passes. Pagans have done quite well for themselves without any belief in God whatsoever. We’re surrendering them to us as we look out at a world in which God’s graciousness has even granted giftedness to unbelief. We sufficiently warned not to confuse giftedness in the world’s sense with the blessing of God, insofar as that blessing were then the means by which others would be convinced that there was a God after all.

    Consider Cain’s lot now, however. The truth of the matter is broadcast to us in the 16th verse of that fourth chapter, despite what appearances may be set before us in this world. The truth of the matter is that Cain has gone out now from the presence of the Lord. Whatever he finds in that world apart from God, it is, after all, apart from God.

    He is out of the church, he is excommunicated, he is dwelling in a place called Nod, east of Eden. He moves east toward the rising sun. as a parody of the move his parents had made when driven from the garden, a move on their part which was toward their coming redemption and the gift of the morning star which was to arise for them. Cain, however, moving eastward, comes into the land of Nod. Nod means wandering.

    It is the land of wandering. Despite appearances, here is the true nature of the world into which the kings of the earth have come. Despite appearances, these are the true aliens, the true strangers. Having chosen a world that they believe is permanent, they find in the end that it proves to be impermanent. A world in which, if the truth be known, they not only wander, but grope about as blind. Ironically, the text says that Cain dwelt in naught. He dwelt in wandering? You see, his dwelling is an illusion. His life is a dream.

    But on the opposite end of the spectrum, and then despite appearances, those who seem to be, from the world’s point of view, strangers and aliens, even pilgrims, these are the true heirs, those to whom all things belong, for they themselves belong to the Lord. He Himself being their eternal inheritance. The Lord is the strength of my life and my portion forever.

    Let us pray. We may in fact be overcome because it seems as if our faith has proved to be useless to us. The wicked prosper. Everything seems to be given to them while your people are denied, while they suffer in fact. But Lord, even here within the courts of your church, we are instructed with respect to the end of the matter, that those who appear to be permanent are actually living in the world of impermanence, and we who seem to be impermanent are those who have been given an everlasting habitation. Lord, we would be blessed in the knowledge that you are our inheritance, truly our portion, that sealed to us through Christ your Son.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Common Grace to Cain

    Common Grace to Cain

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 14, 1993.

    About this sermon

    The church itself symbolizes a sanctuary, an eternal rest reserved for the elect, against which Cain’s motive for killing Abel stands out starkly: the inheritance. Even so, God’s coming to Cain afterward carries a real eschatology of common grace extended even to the wicked.

    More sermons from Genesis · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    We read tonight from Genesis 4, verse 8. Listen to the word of God. And Cain spoke to Abel his brother, and it came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What have you done?

    The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground, and now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.” And Cain said to the Lord, “‘My punishment is too great to dare. Behold, thou hast driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from thy face I shall be hidden.

    And I shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and it shall come about that whoever finds me will kill me.’ So the Lord said to him, Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, lest anyone finding him should slay him. Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

    Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. He built a city and called the name of the city Enoch, after the name of his son. Now to Enoch was born Ired, and Ired became the father of Mehugiel, and Mehugiel became the father of Methuselah, and Methuselah became the father of Lamech. And Lamech took to himself two wives. The name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other Zillah. And Ada gave birth to Jabal.

    He was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of those who play the lyre and pipe. As for Zilla, she also gave birth to Tubal-Cain, the forger of all implements of bronze and iron, and the sister of Tubal-Cain was Naama. And Lamech said to his wives, “‘Ada and Zilla, listen to my voice, you wives of Lamech. Give heed to my speech. for I have killed a man for wielding me, and a boy for striking me. If Cain is avenged seventy-sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.”

    Our God, it may appear to us that your word would slip away from your church in our time. Only because of your grace, your word continues to abide with us. Lord, may we respect your word. May we honor you in the respect that we show to that word. Your word is infallible. It is inerrant.

    Lord, we ask that we might not give ground with respect to these points that we have embraced these points that then describe our convictions concerning your word. For our Father, we are asking that our respect for your word would not merely be by our words, as if unaccompanied by a life in keeping with the words we speak. Therefore, Father, we are asking that we might be obedient from the heart, truly what we find. We ask, Lord, that we would see that we would find Christ in your Word, that our obedience might be the very obedience of Christ coming to expression in us. We pray this in his name. Amen.

    I like old movies. I don’t much like new movies. One of my favorite old movies is Charles Lawton’s version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Black and white vintage. There is a scene in that film that is quite memorable. Quasimodo swings from the cathedral to the pillory on a rope suspended from construction scaffolding. He does this in order to rescue the wrongfully accused gypsy girl, Ismerelda. He returns with her in his arms by way of that rope, shouting as he goes, The Quasimodo is appealing to the medieval custom that offered temporary immunity to those who fled to the Church for protection from civil authority.

    The Church was the symbol of refuge and safety. Now, this medieval practice caught in this film was built on ancient custom. In fact, many early civilizations practiced variations on the theme of the rite of sanctuary. Temples and religious shrines were places of asylum for many cultures, according to many religions. This custom was even known within Israel, and we have it reflected upon on occasion in Scripture.

    Do you remember Adonijah? Adonijah was David’s son and Solomon’s rival to David’s throne. that upon learning that David had declared Solomon king and that his own ambitions had been thwarted, Adonijah fled to the tabernacle and grabbed hold of the horns of the altar on the assumption that Solomon would not pursue him there and that he would not execute him there. Now, things turned out fine for Adonijah. Extracted from him was an oath that he would at least acknowledge his place in light of Solomon’s ascendancy.

    Things, however, did not turn out as well for Joab a mere chapter later in 1 Kings. This all taking place at the opening of the book of 1 Kings. Although he had resorted to the altar, although he had followed Adonijah’s example, was struck down there, executed nonetheless.

    There is, then, that refuge, that safety, which the Church even symbolizes for her people church in this world symbolizes for her people. But even beyond the church and the benefits attended to it in this creation, there is that true and heavenly sanctuary above, which remains the place of pure refuge and absolute safety for all those chosen of God’s grace. In fact, the very powers of death, the gates of hell, to use Jesus’ language, will not destroy the Church and certainly will not destroy that true and heavenly sanctuary. granted to God’s elect. Prior to the uncovering of Abel’s murder, Cain knew the protective care of God’s sanctuary. He knew the refuge character of the Church, even though Man had fallen by way of his parents’ sin. The church had survived, and Cain was a member of it.

    Genesis 4, in the opening sections of this chapter, is a look at the church in its primitive form. We see in these opening verses to Genesis 4 something of the early Church’s worship, ministry, and discipline. We note that the Church at this time is synonymous with humanity. All of Adam’s family, and therefore all of humanity, that’s all that there was then, All of Adam’s family was in the church, and this church, the fall of man notwithstanding, enjoyed the special fellowship with God, and was blessed by his protective care.

    So, we see then, even Cain knew the protective care of the Lord, and the Lord’s sanctuary. He knew the protective care of the church. He knew that despite the fact that he would prove to be the serpent’s seed, not the woman’s seed. As time played itself out with respect to his life, His condition of heart is exposed by his offering, that is, by his worship, by his fallen countenance, that is, by his disposition, by his premeditation, by the murder, that is, his action, And by his brutalization of God, through his wicked sarcasm, which he throws in God’s face, am I my brother’s keeper? Am I the shepherd’s shepherd?

    Cain, then, is one who presumes upon that condition which prevails because of God’s protective care. Cain is presumptuous, possibly concluding that since his parents’ sin did not eradicate that care, neither would his sin, regardless of how heinous. In fact, we perceive that Cain, in his sin, has acted in the interests of the dominion which he claims over both the church and the earth.

    As if God would then be powerless against the permanent conditions that seem to presently exist. No action by Cain, not even murder, could or would alter this arrangement. In fact, his actions, that is Keynes, would ensure that arrangement. Is Abel then rival to Keynes’ claim? than remove Abel. But removing Abel, in Cain’s mind, does not jeopardize Cain. He is convinced that nothing will be altered by his action, and that what he has, he will continue to have. even if it is on the basis of the presumption that God’s protective care would continue.

    But now God comes. Now God comes. And when God comes, He comes in a way that reveals the apocalypse itself. His coming has apocalyptic proportion. It brings near the concluding, final judgment of the law. And Cain is face to face with the true nature of things and the transformation that God’s drawing nigh must mean. The reversal of such expectations as Cain had, the undoing of those presumptive thoughts and convictions which When Jesus, later in the history of redemption, comes upon this world, he is God in the flesh, and he comes in apocalyptic dress and significance. When he appears, the kings of his day, believing the church and the world virtually theirs, conspire to execute him.

    They are convinced that nothing can alter their position in the scheme of things. In fact, their action will ensure their position in the scheme of things. In one parable, Jesus presents their thinking this way. They say, this is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize the inheritance.” At root, Cain is killing the heir in his execution of Abel, in the hopes, in the conviction that he is securing for himself the inheritance.

    But God’s visitation sets the record straight. After all, Abel is not without an advocate. Even though he is dead, he is not without an advocate. Nor is he without an inheritance. Even the inheritance upon which he has set his heart. That inheritance. turns out to be the advocate himself, none other than God and the kingdom of his splendor.

    The irony of Cain’s crime is that it deprives Abel of nothing that Abel prizes. For Abel’s inheritance is God. It is the kingdom of God. And Abel is not denied either. Even this world, which seems to be lost to Abel, is bequeathed to him in that all that is God’s is Abel’s.

    This then reflected upon later in the Psalms and by Jesus when he speaks in his Beatitudes remarking on the fact that the meek shall indeed inherit the earth. McCain, he loses what he imagined was his. In the picture of eternal judgment now, he is identified by God as the enemy within the inheritance he hoped to secure. He is a stranger, he is a wanderer, he is excommunicated from the church, he is hid from the face of God, cut off from God’s presence, and denied the earth itself in the end. What Cain perceived in this forecast of his eventual eternal doom is his absolute powerlessness and the disappearance of all protection, even that protection upon which he presumed.

    There is then no sanctuary left to Cain. That is the horror of hell. That is the horror of hell. There is no protection. There is no sanctuary left to gain, then, in the ultimate playing out of the affairs that are set before us here in Genesis 4. He has no covering left for himself even within the church, for he has been cast out of the church. But in this circumstance, we must recognize that though the end of the world is forecast, and hell even in all of its horror, is asserting itself in this text. We are not yet at the end of the world, and therefore an even deeper irony intrudes within the text and within the case of King.

    Marked out for destruction The Lord mercifully provides protection for this one, even outside the church. The wicked are granted a grace, even in the drawing of their breath. The wicked are granted a grace by the Lord, a kindness shown to them, a protection is granted them even though they are outside the sanctuary of the Lord. This protective care is what we call God’s common grace. distinguished from his special grace by which he saves his elect. In this common grace, God exhibits a mercy upon an unbelieving world, and inculcates through this common grace a sense of order and restraint within this present world order. This grace, this mercy, should itself be convicting.

    Understanding it, one would think it would drive sinful men to their knees in repentance. But it just seems to harden the wicked, as is evident from what we read further in Genesis 4. On the one hand, the city that is built by Cain’s descendants and the line of Cain are testimonies of God’s mercy within an unbelieving world at the same time They are testimony to the fact that these men, wicked as they are, are driven to greater lengths to create for themselves their own sanctuary, their own city and temple, in which they will establish for themselves protection against any intrusion and any threat, deceiving themselves all the more. thinking they are safe, when they are not. These then confirm their sin, and confirm the fact that they are marked out for God’s judgment.

    Oh, that we would rejoice in the special mercies shown to us. Yes, there are those blessings of God’s common grace in the world which are a help to us, but how wonderful The reality of that protective care that is found nowhere else but in God’s sanctuary. We are brought into that sanctuary by God’s mercy and there we are secure. In this world, for the next. Our Father, may we be appreciative of the full range of your mercy, the kindness which you have directed towards an unbelieving world. May that be instructed to us. May we rejoice in those evidences of your common grace, but also, Father, may we see that we, like our God, might in fact be merciful ourselves when it comes to the unbelieving world.

    We also ask, Lord, that you will heighten our appreciation for the protective care that is given us within your household, within the sanctuary that you have established. A sanctuary in which you are in communion with us, with the assurance that there is nothing that can destroy the fellowship that exists between us and you. All of this, then, see you to us through Christ and by your Spirit, in whom we rejoice.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Church Discipline in Genesis 4

    Church Discipline in Genesis 4

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, February 7, 1993.

    About this sermon

    A direct line runs from the PCUSA’s abandonment of church discipline, and even Machen’s own failure to discipline, back to the order already structured into Genesis 4. Discipline is a biblical concern the OPC cannot afford to treat lightly.

    More sermons from Genesis · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Tonight we begin our reading in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Beginning with verse 1 then, hear the word of God. It is actually reported that there is immorality among you. and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. And you have become arrogant and have not mourned instead in order that the one who has done this deed might be removed from your midst. For I, on my part, though absent in body but present in spirit, have already judged him who has so committed this as though I were present.” In the name of our Lord Jesus, when you are assembled and I with you in spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus, I have decided to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

    Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, just as you are in fact unleavened, for Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the feast not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

    I wrote you in my letter not to associate with the immoral people. I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother that he should be an immoral person, or a covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler, not even to eat with such a one. have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? But those who are outside God’s judgments, remove the wicked man from among yourselves.”

    Genesis 4, beginning at verse 8. And Cain spoke to Abel, his brother, and it came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel, your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What have you done?

    The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. Now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it shall no longer yield its strength to you. You shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth.

    Cain said to the Lord, My punishment is too great to bear. Behold, thou hast driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from my face I shall be hidden. And I shall be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and it shall come about that whoever finds me will kill me.

    So the Lord said to him, Therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain, lest anyone finding him should slay him.” Then Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

    Our Father, we would have our worship refined by you. May your word be effectual to that end, that we would hear what you say and then find, Lord, that our worship would be in keeping with what we have heard. Our God, may the order for this assembly be in keeping with your word. Do in fact, Lord, keep us from self-righteousness, for we know our sin, and such grace, even in the formalities of worship, comes from you that we might not boast in ourselves. Therefore, our God, even as we worship here tonight, we give you all praise, knowing that because of you we are assembled, and because of you and your word, we worship the way we do. Keep us, Father. Be gracious to us. We ask in Christ’s name. Amen.

    My first congregation was an independent congregation in southern New Jersey. It was a church, however, that had a long history of Presbyterian commitment. It dated from 1680. And from the early days of the 1700s, it was within the Presbyterian fold. It had left the mainline church in the early seventies and it called me as its first pastor in its new status. Shortly after I arrived to pastor that church, I was compelled to make a very painful visit. That visit was to one of my trustees. He was a middle-aged man. quite successful, but living not with his wife, but with his secretary.

    Now this was the sort of thing that my new congregation, at least before I arrived, ignored. Not that they didn’t talk a lot about it. Gossip in that community abounded. There was a lot of discussion. But when it came to doing anything, and that is anything responsible about the situation, the Church did absolutely nothing. do feel somewhat sorry for that trustee. See, I was a young, energetic pastor in my first congregation, and I was out to slay dragons and every form of evil that I could lay my hands on. As I say, I do feel somewhat sorry for that trustee, for he was hardly prepared by that meeting, he was hardly prepared for that meeting we had that day.

    You see, South Jersey was no different than any other place in this country. All in all, effective church discipline had died out many years before my arrival. And as far as the life of that church was concerned, church discipline played no role whatsoever. We can go so far as to say that church discipline within the mainline churches of Protestantism in this nation disappeared before the turn of the century.

    And the church began to operate, by and large, on the basis of some sort of unwritten gentleman’s code. The church, as far as its public life was concerned, was no longer interested in what we would call holiness, but it was very much concerned with what we call etiquette. And proper etiquette precluded church discipline.

    Consider the situation. The last trial of any weight in the Presbyterian Church was conducted in the last decade of the last century. It involved Charles Briggs, a professor at Union Theological Seminary. That was a doctrinal case. Following that case in 1893, doctrinal discipline was shelved altogether. Latham himself was not disciplined because of aberrant doctrine. He was disciplined because he went against church order. It was a polity question, not a doctrinal question. So doctrinal discipline was shelved altogether in the church. When it came to moral questions, the way in which you handled those was to, in effect, publicly, that is, hush them up and hide them. These morality issues, however, were never resolved in any conclusive or public fashion. Now, you might think that your heritage as Orthodox Presbyterians is a little better. Well, let me disabuse you of that.

    Machen himself was party to all of this business, as sad as it is to say. A number of years ago, we in Calvin Forum were reading through Machen’s classic book, the one he wrote in 1923, Christianity and Liberalism. I do in fact commend that book to you if you haven’t read it. But everyone in the group was moving along in fine fashion through the chapters of that book until they arrived at a later chapter, a chapter that dealt with the Church. Now, Machen was facing a monumental Church crisis, even in 1923.

    But his arguments in that chapter were not simply weak, they were wrong. In the previous chapters, he had argued so forcefully that liberalism was such a departure from historical Christianity that it was not Christianity at all, but an entirely different religion. But then when he came to the subject of the Church, He argued that the liberals should voluntarily withdraw from the Church, since they no longer in all honesty could subscribe to the tenets of historic Christianity.

    Now, as has been suggested by Jim Gidley recently, that’s like asking the wolves to voluntarily stop attacking the sheep. In that chapter on the Church in Christianity and Liberalism, Machen does not deal with the question of discipline, bringing these then who have departed from the truth of the gospel to ecclesiastical justice. And in Machen’s failure to do that, it becomes clear to us that the notion of church discipline no longer had a part in church consciousness, not even in the consciousness of one as fine as J. Gresham Machen. Now, I am glad to say that Machen later repented of this position.

    Before his death, he said that the responsible thing to have done earlier would have been to bring charges against the liberals who were denying the essentials of the faith. But even though Machen did say that later in his life, that is not to say that Machen was seeing things as clearly as they ought to be seen. He may well have moved well where doctrinal matters were concerned, but he did not move well where moral matters were concerned. How do I know this?

    During the summer months before his death, That would have been the summer of 1936, and shortly after the founding of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in June of that year, it was discovered that Machen’s right-hand man, the Reverend H. McAllister Griffiths, a man who held no lesser position than editor of the Presbyterian Guardian, had compromised himself and was involved in gross immorality. Griffith was, of course, immediately relieved of his position as editor of the Presbyterian Guardian. His contact with Machen seemed to come to an end. Some letters exchanged between them, basically Griffiths then being without employment, asking Machen for money to carry him through.

    But the man was never formally disciplined in the church, and the case was hushed up. Not only was he never formally dealt with, he retained his credentials. He remained a minister in good standing in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and he retained his position in the board of that organization that Machen had organized in 1933, the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, an organization in which Machen served as president. But Machen, who kept this whole matter quiet, who was party to hushing it up, who was party to the cover-up in the name of that gentleman’s code of ecclesiastical etiquette, in the end got his own comeuppance.

    The independent board of which Machen was the president met in November 1936, in the fall following that summer. Now at this meeting, there was to be the re-election of all of the officers of the board, and Machen was standing for the office of president again. nation was not reelected.

    He was removed by the margin of one vote. Guess who cast that deciding vote? None other than H. McAllister Griffiths. Paul Machen’s eyes seemingly were clear with respect to the doctrinal issue. He was prepared to pursue doctrinal discipline within the church, but he was not yet prepared to pursue moral matters in the church. Had he lived longer? lived only a month and a half after that election took place in November, maybe things would have been righted. But as they stand now, the record reads that they were not. So O.P.s cannot claim that they have everything right by virtue of the heritage they claim.

    We can stand in amazement of the state of affairs that I have just described for you, especially as it comes to expression among those like Machen, for two reasons. First, because of the devotion of people like Machen to the Bible. And secondly, because of the devotion of people like Machen to the principles of Reformed, Calvinistic, Presbyterian ecclesiology.

    With respect to the former, devotion to the Bible, We are face-to-face with that issue, you see, in Genesis 4, and the Lord’s dealings with Cain. I want you to keep in mind here my major contention as we have been working our way through this fourth chapter of Genesis. I want you to keep in mind that contention that I have made as we have been working our way through the fourth chapter of Genesis. Laid out here in front of us is, albeit in primitive form, structure, order, with respect to the Church of Jesus Christ, the Church of God. Laid out in front of us here in primitive form is the structure and the order that the Church, in fact, is to reflect. God himself plays the role of pastor in this fourth chapter.

    He comes to Cain and he approaches him earnestly, seriously, issuing warning to Cain, but doing so in love and with entreaty. Why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen? Then we hear of Cain’s response. The conference that he holds with his brother. The fact that when they are alone, he rises up against his brother and he kills him. thus burning the counsel of God, rejecting his word. And now the Lord comes once more, this time to adjudicate a case with respect to this crime that has been committed. He conducts his investigation, he asks Abel about his brother’s whereabouts. Cain’s response is one of contentiousness and bitterness. I don’t know. You should read that response by Cain as utterly flippant. Am I my brother’s keeper? Am I the shepherd’s shepherd?

    As caustic and as sarcastic as you can imagine. and that in the face of God. That is all that the Lord needs to indict the man. He judges not only the words, but the heart that generates those words. The Lord then calls his witnesses Babel’s blood. The ground itself, which has received that blood, these now standing together with the Lord to testify concerning the guilt of Cain. The sentence is pronounced.

    The earth, the earth which Cain thought was his The earth, which he thought belonged to him, does not belong to him at all. The earth itself tells himself it belongs to the Lord, and ultimately its hostility to him will bring ruin upon him. He has become an alien in the final analysis. In that which he has set his love upon, he loses that which he hoped to gain, for in the end, the ables will inherit the earth. And even more immediately to the matter we are addressing, Cain is excommunicated from that church east of Eden.

    The Lord’s sentence is discipline of the most extreme kind, but it includes in it all discipline of lower level. And this discipline is in place, you see, in the church from the very beginning. And this discipline is consistently and constantly expressed with respect to the church throughout the entirety of Scripture.

    Does it matter whether we are in the Old Testament or the New? Haven’t I read to you tonight a passage from the new 1 Corinthians 5 that speaks about a discipline case within the church at Corinth? Discipline is not an Old Testament issue. It is a biblical issue. And it is a biblical issue from the very beginning.

    It’s as if in a fallen world there cannot be a church without discipline. If you want a church without discipline, then you do not want the church of God. You want something else. The question then becomes, how could those like Machen miss this fact? They were devoted to the Bible, weren’t they? They read their Bibles, didn’t they? How is it possible for them to miss the obvious?

    From the very beginning, discipline in a fallen world belongs to the definition of what the church is, and God himself leads the way in discipline, giving us example with respect to the entire matter. I’ll make a suggestion to you. Church discipline disappeared because there was a secularism even in men as fine as nature. If there was discipline to be carried out, with respect to moral matters, it would be carried out by the state, not by the church. It will be carried out by the state only.

    But secondly, we asked how could these white nation claimed to be representatives of the great reformed Presbyterian tradition and missed the obvious. The reformed tradition, the Presbyterian tradition, held discipline as one of the marks of the true Church. Discipline being then an outworking of a conclusion of the other two indispensable marks, namely the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments. Therefore, if there was to be an expression of orthodoxy in its Presbyterian form, it would have to include discipline. To the extent that it did not, to that extent, it too lacked the full reflection of what it purported to be. The LPC, from the beginning, was in need of improvement.

    And we who are a part of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church should insist that she improve herself. We doing what we can in the interests of that improvement. Living holy lives ourselves and also holding others to the standard of holiness that we profess. May we not flinch at our duty to Christ at this point. Let us pray.

    Father, you set before us the example of yourself, the one who came in discipline in the church early on to deal with the matter of Cain’s crime. Lord, may we be reminded of the consistency of your word with respect to the church, discipline always then being part and parcel of the church’s identity. We ask, Lord, that we would not then recoil at the thought of discipline within the church, that we would even welcome it with respect to ourselves, knowing that it is for our good and your glory. and for the honor of Christ. But Father, where discipline is pursued in that you would be pleased to revive it in your church, Lord, may it be pursued with meekness and humility, so that all who would bring sin to another’s attention would do so with kindness and forbearance and in the hope of the restoration of the sinner. We all then looking to ourselves lest we too be tempted.

    Father may it please you now to grant to your church a full reflection of those marks which are essential to her. glorious preaching of your word, right administration of the sacraments, proper exercise of church discipline. We ask this in Jesus’ name.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Magnitude of Cain’s Crime

    The Magnitude of Cain’s Crime

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 31, 1993.

    About this sermon

    The sheer magnitude of Cain’s crime measures the magnitude of the fall itself, rooted in Cain’s rejection of God and his covenant. Christ died for people exactly like the Cain who would have killed him.

    More sermons from Genesis · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Matthew chapter 23, beginning with verse 29. Hear the word of God. and Pharisees, hypocrites. For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in the shedding of the blood of the prophets.

    Consequently, you bear witness against yourselves that you are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.” Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers, you serpents, you brood of vipers. How shall you escape the sentence of hell? Therefore, behold, I am sending you prophets and wise men and scribes. Some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city. upon you may fall the guilt of all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abed, to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things shall come upon this generation. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her how often I wanted to gather your children together the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you were unwilling behold your house is being left to you desolate for I say to you from now on you shall not see me until you say Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”

    Then, returning to Genesis chapter 4, beginning at verse 3, And so it came about at the end of days that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground, and Abel on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions.

    And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and for his offering he had no regard. So Cain became very angry, and his countenance fell. Then the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? Why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you, but you must master it. And Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field that Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and killed him.

    Give strength, O God, to your people, even in those nations where the power of oppression is felt. And Lord, if we are brought to that point where we also experience that oppression, for our faith in our Savior, we ask of you that courage to stand firm, immovable in our faith, determined with respect to the gospel we have embraced. Now, Lord, strengthen us by your word. We ask it in Jesus’ name. Amen.

    I had a good friend, a Christian, who is a former alcoholic. I once asked him why he drank. He said, because I was angry. He went on to say, I didn’t stop drinking. I couldn’t stop drinking until, by the grace of God, I got rid of my anger. I asked him what he was angry about. He says, now I can tell you. I was angry about God. I was angry about life. I was angry about other people. I said, well, doesn’t seem that there’s much left.

    Sinful anger is damaging and damning. But sinful anger doesn’t lead only to drunkenness. It doesn’t lead only to the slavery of alcoholism. Sinful anger can also lead to murder. in a world of rage. Is that what we are witnessing? Rage that some would try to justify. That rage when all is said and done is sinful and despicable. Sinful anger, then, can lead even to murder. Consider now again Genesis 3 and 4. The treatment we find here of the fall of man. These chapters set before us the depths to which man can and does descend in his depravity. There is first of all religious defection, chapter three.

    In all of its heinousness, this religious defection that has at its heart an attack upon God himself. Now, this religious defection is followed by an incredible crime. No mere attack upon man generally, no mere attack upon some stranger, but an attack upon a brother. In fact, an attack upon one who is a member in the very same church. A crime that in its senselessness multiplies infinitely its gravity. May we be reminded of the seriousness of sin, the seriousness of the fall of man. An attack upon God followed by an attack upon even those closest to us.

    We are told in verse 5 of chapter 4 that Cain was angry. We can only imagine the effect of his dejection. The effect upon him and everyone else around him. Cain’s scowl. fallen countenance, expressive of his own self-interest and self-importance, truly a badge that he wore that could not be missed. He begged to be noticed. He begged for a response. As far as his offering was concerned, He had expected that this offering, which he had presented before God, would be accepted. But it wasn’t. And in the rejection of that offering, now Cain turns. He turns, not first of all against his brother, but against the God who had rejected the offering.

    Thus the continuity between the third chapter of Genesis and the fourth. But I want you to notice something about this anger and attitude in Cain. There is distress expressed by others in scripture. But Cain, in his anger and in his attitude towards God, is much different from those who express their questions in a spirit of inquisitiveness before God.

    Think of the Psalms and the psalmist. Do we hear a note of anger rising from him with respect to his loss, his circumstance? Is the psalmist at times disquieted? Does he find himself in despair? Yet the psalmist always remains open to the Lord. Even while he is asking questions as to why his soul is in such despair, why he is so internally disturbed, he remains open to the Lord. His countenance may well have fallen, but he finds himself seeking out God.

    The psalmist, therefore, never abandons, truly, in any ultimate sense, his faith. Rather, he is always pursuing in his faith. Faith is working itself out in him. It is being perfected in and through him. Therefore, the psalmist is always at prayer. He is regular in his approach to God. And in that approach, he makes his complaint known to God with a faith that God will, in the end, resolve his predicament.

    But none of this is found in Cain. None of it. His fallen countenance is no testimony to a residual faith in God. Instead, we have here in this man a heart filled with contempt. And such is the level of his contempt that he will not initiate and advance an approach toward God.

    He will not pursue God for an answer to his predicament. but rather contents himself, justifies himself with the thought that he has gotten a raw deal, and that he will never again place himself in God’s hands. He will never again make himself vulnerable to God’s winds of judgment, God’s acceptance, and His rejection. So though it seems as if the story is playing itself out between two brothers, it is first of all playing itself out in the older brother in his relationship to God.

    Now in all of this, it is important for us to remind ourselves of what we have been trying to establish all along. But particularly here in Genesis 4, we have laid out before us, in primitive fashion, the structure and order of the Church of God. In these early verses, then, in Genesis 4, the Church is uniformly and plainly imbued, and all personages are members of the Church. This means, you see, then, as we take up the figure of Cain, Cain is a member in the church.

    He is a communicate member. You remember, he is bringing sacrifice and offering. He is a communicate member in the church east of Eden. as are all the rest of his family members. Everybody at this point in salvation history is in the church. Now I ask you, as you look at the outline of the church, its structure and order here in Genesis 4, can you find for me the pastor who has at work in this church. Who is the minister in this church east of Eden? Why, it’s God himself. He is the pastor, the minister. He is the shepherd and the bishop of this flock.

    Cain may well be incensed with his minister, his pastor. His attitude now infecting the entirety of the church, disturbing its life and its worship. But for all of his unrest, for all the rage that he feels, particularly with respect to his pastor, he will not approach him, he will not initiate. For such is his attitude towards God. that it is well described as hatred. Cain hates God. But will you note the pastor in the text? Cain may well not approach God, but God approaches Cain. God knows the condition of hearts in Cain. God knows the sin that is in Cain. Nevertheless, even while Cain is a sinner, and in sin, God comes to him.

    He initiates, he approaches this one. Lovingly, then, this pastor seeks to minister to him. And in doing so, he lays himself open. He makes himself vulnerable, even to such attacks. as might rise from vain. God’s approach to Cain is one of entreating. In it we hear warning, but this warning is issued out of graciousness. Cain must come about, he must turn around. he must repent or prove himself to be the slave of sin. Sin is like a ravenous beast crouched at the door, ready to pounce. Unless he rises Unless Cain reverses his direction, sin will have its way with him and it will devour him. But notice also the manner of God’s approach to this sinner.

    One thing God does not do in his approach to Cain is speak to him in terms that bring into view the ultimate questions of election and reprobation. In his address to Cain, he does not suggest to Cain, well, after all, we know that you’re not elected, you could not be expected to perform as I have expected you to perform. So we’ll write you off and move on. Rob’s approach is thoroughly covenantal.

    He recognizes Cain as a member of the church, as part of the community of faith. He calls upon him to act in keeping with his church membership. He beckons him to live in light of that which he is declared to be, as it were, as a member of that fellowship.

    In all of this, there is model for the pastoring of God’s flock. Before any would be called to this task of ministry, God himself will play out that role. And those who are called to this task must follow after Him and enter into the very outworking of that task found in God Himself. And woe be to those who would presume upon their office to declare God’s ultimate purposes with regard to election and reprobation as it applies to the people that they address. Their approach, too, must be in terms of that entreaty, until it be that those people prove themselves to be outside of the fellowship of God’s covenant community.

    Here is my conviction as we move on and draw Abel into the story. that we have in Abel one who looks to this God who is shepherd and pastor in the church east of Eden. We have in Abel one who looks to his God, and in his own life and service is being molded and shaped after that which he observes. This shepherd of sheep acknowledges that he has a shepherd, whom he loves, whom he serves, whom he has not spurned, and whom he delights, from whom he learns continually. There is a bond, then, that exists between the shepherd and the shepherd. There is a bond that exists between Abel and God, the pastor. One that is accentuated in the relationship affirmed in the service of offering that both Cain and Abel had observed. It all becomes clear in Cain’s mind. The shepherd cannot be separated from the shepherd. And so as his anger and rage are vented towards God the shepherd, it is only a matter of time before his anger and rage are vented towards his brother.

    If he could have, he would have killed God. If he could have, he would have killed God. He does kill the one who is bound to God, however. This drama, those who hate God, then hating those who are bound to God, plays itself out throughout the history recorded in scripture and the history of the church. There is the blood of martyrs who have stood for the gospel, who have been executed not by pagans, but by those who imagined themselves to be even within the boundaries of the church. And in venting their rage against these who stood for the truth, they were actually venting their rage against the God of truth. There is not only the blood of righteous Abel, but the blood of the prophets, including that of Zechariah mentioned by Jesus in Matthew 23. The one who had been murdered between the temple and the altar. The drama is played out. The anger and the rage spoken of. But in the midst of it, there is the intrusion of the shepherd once more. He comes in the flesh. He makes entreaty, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I would have gathered you to myself.

    And this one, intimately, essentially bound to his Father in heaven is similarly treated. This one is not then merely bound to the Lord as Abel was. This one is himself the Lord, who in his love lays himself open and makes himself vulnerable. to men in their sin, their hostility to God. And in that act, bringing to clarification all of the features of that hostility, not just hostility between man and man, that being a second order of things, but the hostility that is primary, that exists between man and God. Such is the love of God as he comes into this world that he will offer himself even for those who would kill him. In the light of that awful truth, have then subsequently the message proclaimed within Jerusalem, that here Christ, the servant of God, the one bound to God, the one who is himself the Lord, has been taken and with wicked hands executed.

    Such is the revelation of the truth of the matter that these canes on the day of Pentecost cry out, what shall we do? And how marvelous it is that the blood of Jesus Christ speaketh better things than the blood of Abel. For Abel’s blood cries out for vengeance. And Christ’s blood cries out for forgiveness. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

    O Lord, we see the awful character of the crying of Cain. And Lord, we realize that it is no mere attack upon his brother, but also an attack upon his brother’s creator. How wonderful your mercy and how perfect that mercy is in that when you send your son you make plain the hearts of men and the intents of those hearts. Oh God, we plead with you that we would be conscious of exactly what is in the balance Yes, a love for our brothers and sisters in Christ, but our love for you, you having been so gracious and forbearing with us, having given your own life for us. Receive our thanks and gratitude this evening.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Abel’s Accepted Offering

    Abel’s Accepted Offering

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 24, 1993.

    About this sermon

    Three reasons explain why God accepts Abel’s offering and rejects Cain’s, and Cain’s falls short in two specific ways. Abel’s faith in the unseen world, as Hebrews 11:1 describes it, is the same faith the New Testament calls for.

    More sermons from Genesis · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    We begin tonight once more with a look at Hebrews 11, and we read again from the first verse. Hear the word of God. This is Hebrews 11, verse 1. By faith is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen, for by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.

    By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain. through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous. God testifying about his gifts and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. By faith, Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death. And he was not found because God took him up, for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up, he was pleasing to God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of those who seek him.

    By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of a righteousness which is according to faith. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going.

    By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise. For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God. By faith, even Sarah herself received ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered him faithful who had promised.

    Therefore also there was born of one man and him as good as dead, at that, as many descendants as the stars of the heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. All these died in faith without receiving the promises. but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a city of their own, and indeed, if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

    Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” Then turning back to Genesis chapter 4, reading from verse 3, it came about at the end of days that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground And Abel on his part also brought the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portion. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.”

    Our God, your church, will in fact take shape beneath your word and according to it. And even from the outset of revelation, Lord, we see you have worked to bring that form and shape to bear. on your people in this creation. Our God also, we are conscious of the unity of your people and would ask that you would set that unity before us and that we would apply ourselves with respect to it. May it please you to hear us on behalf of those communions, those denominations, especially that confess the Reformed faith, and not only in this proximity or even in this country, but throughout the world. And may it be, Lord, that in these churches there is that zeal to have a form of government, an order, a discipline, a worship. that is in keeping with your prescription. Forgive us, Lord, when we fall and sin and willfully disobey. Correct us, Lord, and draw us back that there may be that blessing for us and an increased good and well-being for your people. We ask this through Christ, who is the King of the Church, the One who has given Himself for the Church. Amen.

    The life and the faith of the Church in the fallen world continues to unfold before us as we consider God’s revelation to us here in Genesis chapter four. I’m saying to you that the life and the faith of the Church in the fallen world is continuing to unfold before our eyes, even at this point in God’s revelation to us.

    Note that the Church, and that it is the Church, that has its appointed times for the making of offerings. The force and power of what is said there in verse three of that fourth chapter, so it came about at the end of days. It is the Church with its appointed times of offerings, times indicative of a general order and structure for the worship of God as in fact that worship and that order are asserting themselves in this seminal congregation here at the beginnings of Revelation. As it is of the law of nature that in general a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God, so in his word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment, binding all men in all ages, he hath appointed one day in seven for a Sabbath to be kept holy unto him.” Even in Genesis 4, we see what the confession of faith speaks of in its 21st chapter, the 7th paragraph, taking shape and expressing itself.

    Now, in Genesis 4, we focus upon two congregants. That doesn’t mean that others weren’t there. It doesn’t even mean that Adam and Eve didn’t have a very large family. But for the purposes of redemptive history, we are focusing upon two congregants in this assembly.

    Cain, the firstborn of Adam and Eve, comes with his offering to the Lord. that offering from the fruits of his labor, from his efforts in the killing of the ground. And also Abel, his younger brother, he brings an offering from the flocks he has been commissioned to keep. Now we are specifically told that Abel brings of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions.” You read that in the fourth verse of that fourth chapter. It seems obvious, then, that we are to conclude from the telling of the thing that Abel surrenders the choicest and the best to the Lord. And this, then, here in the text, to reveal to us something specific about Abel, something that stands in contrast to Cain.

    But what is it, now, what is it specifically that does stand in contrast between these two and between their offerings. Is it just the quality of the offerings? It’s almost as if the Lord were baiting us here, as if he were setting something in the text over which some might stumble. For it seems that there is that certain religious mind that is bound to read things along the lines that the contrast is exclusively related to the quality of the offerings presented. In fact, this kind of religious mind is so liable, so liable to hide behind external prescription. External prescription, even as it relates to the quality of offering, to the point of wrapping itself then in a coat of smug self-satisfaction. Having then presented the best to the Lord, this kind of religious mind concludes and that, presumptuously, that the Lord ought to be more than satisfied with what we have brought.

    After all, we’ve given him the best. Can you not hear the echo of Israel’s self-righteousness in such sentiment? Can you not hear the voice of self-righteous Pharisees in such thoughts? Really offering to God the best and the choicest cuts will not do. There may be something in this for us presently. After all, this congregation has done quite well this last year in presenting its offerings, and I would assume that for many within this congregation, the Lord did in fact receive the best and choicest cuts. But this should not be a reason for us to wrap ourselves in a cloak of smug self-satisfaction. Brother, Abel does in fact offer the best and the choicest. But while this is true, the heart of the difference between him and his brother between their offerings is found much deeper.

    On the basis of Hebrews 11, we go through it again. On the basis of Hebrews 11 and that fourth verse, we understand the difference to revolve around faith. And in considering this text, Hebrews 11, 4, we rightly conclude that this faith, specifically spoken of here, is seen particularly from the angle of justification. Abel is a man who is justified by faith, He has justifying faith.

    Cain does not. Now, thinking about that story in Genesis chapter four, and the telling of it there, we realize that we have been given a bare, a stark reading of the thing. The style is unembellished. There’s not a great deal of detail given us in the telling of the story. But in light of what we have in Hebrews 11, verse 4, this text now, in retrospect, cries out for more fleshing out. It is clear. Is it not?

    If Abel has justifying faith that he did not approach God with his offering for the purpose of buying God’s vote, yes, he brought the best and the choicest of his flock, but not so as to win God’s approval. He was not seeking to be accepted by his works as if he could by his works make God his debtor.

    Instead, Abel approached God knowing full well that the approach of God to him had a sort of end times character to it. So it came about at the end of days that these two brothers brought their offerings to the Lord. Abel approaches God knowing full well that God’s approach to him had a sort of end times character to it. He also approached God knowing full well that his sin made God’s approach a very precarious and serious thing indeed.

    When Abel then makes his offering to the Lord, we must read it along these lines. His offering is out of a sincere trust in God and out of a joyful celebration of God’s inexplicable grace. Abel receives the testimony through faith that he is, in fact, righteous.

    What about Cain? In this congregation meeting now, in the early stages of the fallen world, at this point in church history. In this congregation we have one who embodies justifying faith, but on the other hand we have one who is embodying the lack of justifying faith. And in lack And in light of his lack of faith, that is, justifying faith, how then are we to read his offering? Does the fact that Moses fails to mention that Cain brought the choicest and the best mean that Cain actually failed to bring the choicest and the best?

    It may well be that he failed to bring less than the choicest and the best, but we’ve already said that the real distinguishing feature of the offerings will not be found ultimately in their quality. that Cain excelled in his labor, in his working with the earth, and that in a certain worldly sense he prided himself in having done very well with respect to this cursed earth with which he had to deal. But rather we might suggest with respect to the psychological makeup of Kain as he came to bring his offering to the Lord.

    This much is unmistakable. He believed in justification by works. He believed in a system of merits by which God would be obligated to him. It could well be that the extension of the system of merit, he thought, placed his brother at a disadvantage. How could his brother measure up to him? And how could God Him above me.”

    Cain had no notion of God’s inexplicable grace, to which he had to appeal. Neither did he have any sense of his need to trust the Lord. with such a faith so as to give free and thankful expression of that faith in and through his offering. He was a man devoid of gratitude.

    So then, Abel gives the best and the choicest. He makes his offering out of a justifying faith. But that is not all there is to the matter. And in a previous message I suggested that very thing. You see, there is a danger. a danger that justification can in itself generate its own false security. Those then capable of mouthing the language of faith, those believing that they have belief, contending themselves But they are secure, priding themselves even in the justification which they confess and claim. Jesus, therefore, is not that kind of church member who merely mouths the language of faith, a language that would then claim for itself justification.

    Abel’s faith is of the profoundest kind, and that is why it’s not sufficient to merely approach Hebrews 11.4 from the vantage point of justifying faith. Oh, it is inclusive of justification, inclusive of that justification that is absolutely sincere and genuine. But further, this faith that is spoken of in Hebrews chapter 11, attributed to Abel clearly perceives the unseen world that is now set before the audience to whom that writer writes. This faith then grasps hold of an unseen world, and it is specifically faith’s function to grasp hold of that unseen world.

    And if it doesn’t, it then proves itself not to be genuine faith at all. It will not even justify. The Church continues to run from Hebrews chapter 11. It is the great offense in Scripture. There are those who will preach on this text, on this chapter, as if it were some great romance. about the heroes of the faith, but miss the point altogether.

    The offense of this text is the fact that this writer is bold to suggest to us that the kind of faith that justifies, the only faith that justifies, is that faith that grasps hold of those things that are not seen. For faith is the substance of things not seen.

    Abel’s faith, even at this infant stage in the history of revelation and redemption, Abel’s faith sees God before he comes. Abel’s faith welcomes God’s acceptance. of the offering even before it is extended. Abel’s faith glories in the city that God is preparing for all those who diligently seek Him even before that city appears. And Abel’s faith surrenders all surrenders the choicest and the best in the certain knowledge that having given up the choicest and the best, he in fact has lost nothing but gained infinitely. Abel’s faith is such that in it he anticipates the Son of God. And by that faith, Abel welcomes the Son of God from afar. We who would claim such faith as Abel had and see our Savior close at hand, by that I mean in the full light of the marvelous revelation of the New Testament. Certainly our faith should be no less lively and genuine than Abel’s.

    Dear Father, may you continue to instruct us through the faith of Abel. May it be, Lord, that though he is dead, he still speaks, and that quite powerfully. May we be convicted, Lord, not to rest in our offerings, though they be the choicest and the best, not even to rest in the language of justification, but indeed, Lord, to make our calling and election sure by our faith through which we grab hold of those things which are unseen, testifying then, Lord, that such faith as we claim is a genuinely justifying faith after all. O Lord, May we be willing to confess that we are strangers and exiles here, that we have a city that you have made for us, and we are bound for a better country, a heavenly one. That city and that country Abel now beholds in glory. And Father, we also behold it through Christ with a faith like unto Abel’s. May we persevere and may our faith not falter.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Order of Worship Takes Shape

    The Order of Worship Takes Shape

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 17, 1993.

    About this sermon

    The church’s form and order of worship already take shape in Genesis 4, in the phrase ‘at the end of days’ in verse 3. From there, worship carries both continuities and real changes across the whole history that follows.

    More sermons from Genesis · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    We turn first of all tonight to Psalm 95, Psalm 95. Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord. Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving. Let us shout joyfully to him with psalms, for the Lord is a great God and a great King above all gods. in whose hand are the depths of the earth. The peaks of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for it is he who made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Come, let us worship and bow down.

    Let us kneel before the Lord our Maker, for he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers tested me, they tried me, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said that they are a people who err in their heart and they do not know my ways. Therefore I swore in my anger truly they shall not enter into my rest. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground.

    Our Father, we know that the matters that pertain to your kingdom are spiritual, that is, they are matters in the control and pertain to in the control of and pertain to the dominion of the Holy Spirit. O Lord, we would be filled with your Spirit, and in the filling, Lord, we would find ourselves then responsive to you and responsive to your word. Bless us, our God, as those who would be blessed of you with the blessing that you would communicate to us from your word this evening. We ask it through the living word of Jesus Christ. Amen.

    In Genesis 4, the form and administration of the Church, and that particularly now in her worship within the fallen order, within the fallen world, begins to take shape. In Genesis 4, the form and order of the Church, and that particularly here with respect to her worship, in the fallen order, in the fallen world, begins to take shape.

    Verse three tells us, So it came about in the course of time. The words in the course of time, according to one translation, the one I read this evening, is in the American Standard. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord. In actual fact, the time reference in that statement is not as general as the translation suggests. The Hebrew phrase there literally reads, so it came about at the end of days rather than in the course of time. So it came about at the end of days that Cain brought an offering to the Lord.

    We have two things in this statement then, literally rendered. We have two things that we do well to keep in mind. The first is, this phrase, the end of days, in this context, speaks of a specific termination point. It speaks of a specific termination point, and suggests to us, from any plain reading of it, that we are dealing with some sort of appointed time.

    It is as if, then, we have in view here a seasonal offering presented by Cain, and one that is brought at an appointed time, a time not appointed by Cain, but we must assume appointed by God. Now in this, there is something prophetic. For this seasonal offering by Cain, and also by his brother Abel in turn, links up with those offerings that will in fact be presented by the children of Israel in their own time. They also would bring seasonal offerings according to the appointment of the Lord, offerings very much tied to the year’s cycle and tied to the labors of the people with their flocks and in their fields, just as was the case with Cain and Abel. Obviously then, the worship activity of Cain and Abel, and we would surmise that worship activity together with that of their parents, had a particular form and ceremony, character to it, although we are not given the specifics in this text. being as it was, the family, being as it was, the first church, gathers for worship. And it does so generally and regularly in a cycle that leads up to and then leads from the appointed times which are established by God himself.

    Therefore, we need not think that schedule and form and ceremony were totally absent from the worship of the people of God prior to the institution of the law given at Sinai, and the prescriptions that are plain and clear in that law. to be sure with the coming of the law, a new day of worship dawns, a day in which worship is standardized and regularized afresh, so as to make the former ways of worship obsolete. When God then comes at Sinai and speaks as he does, Former ways of worship are no longer legitimate, for all worship then, if it be true worship, must be scrutinized in light of that revelation which God has given of himself at Sinai. Still, it is not that worship for God’s people in an organized and congregational sense appears first at Sinai, as if it existed for the first time only from that point. In fact, there are continuities with the previous ages that the newness of Sinai does not obliterate. The movement from Sinai then to Calvary and to the subsequent day of Pentecost brings new things.

    It is, in fact, a new day itself, a day, however, in which it is important to think carefully about the continuities with that which previously took place in worship. As there was a change as we move from the patriarchal era to the Sinaitic era, there are also changes as we move from the Sinaitic era to the age of the Spirit and the blessings that come with the Spirit. But with those changes, we are to be sensitive, especially sensitive to the continuities that exist. There is a regularity to worship in the New Day of the Spirit, for instance, as well as in the former era of the law. There is also an ordained clergy, as much in the new era of the Spirit as there was in the old administration of the law. A clergy that is set to oversee the blessing of the people, the administration of the sacraments, and the instruction of the people with respect to the word of the Lord.

    As Adam and Eve, then, congregated with their sons, and their sons, Cain and Abel, bring their offerings for the Lord, we see in infant form, in primal form, the church gathering for the specific and special purpose of worship, even at appointed times, at special at the end of days. And in this, there is a bond established between them and us, because we continue to do the very same thing.

    Now, the reason that I am pointing this out to you this evening is the fact that the people of God have had a habit of rebelling against such things as regularity, form, and even ceremony, those ceremonies prescribed by God in his word, to the point that now the imposition of any of these things in some quarters is viewed as a quenching of the spirit.

    Don’t bother me with form. Don’t bother me with those things that appear to me to be utterly restrictive. Don’t bother me with these things that set up what I consider to be an artificiality to the entire matter of worship. But regularity and form, and I might add even ceremony, have always been a part of the worship of God’s people.

    From the time of the fall, and I would surmise even before the fall, What is being said now is that for anyone to suggest that there is actually a line of continuity running through the various eras of redemptive history regarding the forms of worship is to virtually identify oneself as a candidate for a padded shell. My plea to you is that you not be intimidated by our present circumstance.

    I know what’s going on in other churches. You know what’s going on in other churches. As one individual said to me, the people in that church, they worship off the wall. They literally do. Worship services are turning into pure chaos. increasingly difficult to control, especially when you have in the midst of the congregation those who are clamoring because they contend that their gifts are being denied if they cannot be expressed in the formal worship gatherings of the people of God. My plea, then, with you is that you not be intimidated by the present situation, and that you realize afresh that our worship has very definite links to the very beginning of the worship experience for the people of God in a fallen world. Regularity, form, and even ceremony are not excluded at any point along the continuum.

    But let’s go on to the second point with regard to this phrase in Genesis 4.3, the temple phrase, at the end of days. That’s what we’re looking at. Not only does this phrase set before us something that pertains to the regularity and the formality of worship, even from the beginning, it also sets before us something of worship’s unique character.

    I don’t know whether I’ll be able to contain myself as I go through this. I want the power of that phrase to settle in upon you as you think about worship and what it is to be for you. We cannot deny in this the note of finality, the note of conclusiveness.

    As a matter of fact, it is difficult for us to miss in these words the suggestion of the end. I mean the literal end. the end of the world. As if something of the end of the world is intruding upon the experience of Cain and Abel as they come and present their offerings. As if something of the end of the world is intruding upon these brothers as they come to worship God.

    Here, the sobriety, the sobriety that is to attend worship is brought before us unmistakably. We are reminded, are we not, But worship is a meeting with God. The message about worship we do well to remember is that God is coming. God is coming to meet with his people. You understand why I read Psalm 95 for you this evening. God is coming to meet with his people. And sobriety is called for. Such seriousness. Such reflectiveness is called for because God himself is coming. But it is important for us to understand the nature of this sobriety that is to characterize our worship.

    It is not to be that kind of austerity that excludes joy and exuberance and celebration. You hear how that 95th Psalm begins with an explosion of praise to God. Indeed, there are many, many passages in Scripture dedicated to the vision of God’s approach to His people. These all overrun with the glories of glad anticipation and unrestrained joy.

    God is coming, He is coming to meet with His people. And that stands at the center of the worship experience for the people of God. Nevertheless, we do well to describe this attitude of the worshipers who are so then poised to meet with God as those who stand in reverent awe of Him, those then who understand the utter seriousness of what is transpiring. For this reason, it is so important for us to grasp the fact that the approach of God as He draws near to us in worship is not as if He were coming in some sort of general fashion, as if He were merely checking in on us. His approach here in Genesis 4 verse 3 is set at the end of days, as if worship itself were an end-time experience, as if in our worship we were coming face-to-face with something that approximates the end of the world. All of the things are in the balance. All of the things are passing before one’s eyes. It doesn’t help to sit and worship in a state of semi-consciousness. It doesn’t help to doze. It doesn’t help to be inattentive.

    The context is the end of days, as if worship itself were an end-time experience, as if in our worship we were coming face-to-face with something that approximates the end of the world. Our justification is in view, just as it was in the case of Cain and Abel.

    Eternal life is part of the picture, if not the most important part indeed. God’s gracious blessing and even His righteous indignation, then rise before us within this context the end of day. and to worship rightly, we must then grasp the end of day’s reality stamped upon our worship experience. We must understand that in worship, eternity, in its incomprehensible felicity, looms before us, and that in worship, eternity, in its ominous, gaping horror, stands ready to engulf us if we, in fact, reject God. God pleads with Israel, hear me, don’t harden your hearts as you did in the day of provocation in the wilderness. And all of this is being played out in the worship of Cain and Abel. It continues to be played out presently. in and for all of us, even as we seek to worship our God.

    O the blessings that have come to us, the incomparable blessings, the great day that has dawned for us through what Jesus Christ has brought. We now are privileged to worship our God in spirit and in truth, and this in a fashion that those formerly could not worship our God because the work of the Son was not yet complete and the Spirit had not yet been given. We then are bold in our claims. claiming as we do the blood of our Savior, by which we have been cleansed, by which we have been declared righteous, by which we have been accepted in the Beloved. May we all stand then, not rejecting our God, but accepting him and being accepted of him in our worship. through him whose blood does in fact speak better things to us than even the blood of David.

    Refresh yourself in the worship of your God. that you are standing in the line of true worship even as it comes down from the very beginning. That the regularity, form, and ceremony are intended as blessings, their directives from out of glory. But be conscious of the fact also that your worship is set in what is described as the end of days, so that even here in this assembly, something of the end of the world is coming to settle upon you here. Our Father, may we be sobered rightly. We know, our Father, that this sobriety does not exclude the great joy and exuberance that is to be shown by your people at your approach. But Lord, we ask that we might also have that appropriate sense of awe before your majesty, that we might reverence you as is right, and take stock of ourselves in terms of the seriousness of this whole matter of worship. For if you come to us in worship, then we are face to face with the matters of eternity and even our own eternal destination. O Father, we plead with you that we who understand the sacrifice of Christ would be prepared in worship and that even for the end. And Father, may it please you to change the hearts of those who are not so prepared.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • Faith in the Unseen

    Faith in the Unseen

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, January 3, 1993.

    About this sermon

    Cain and Abel differ in their work, their sufferings, and their standing, and Abel alone has faith in the unseen. Cain wants the world in front of him, while faith reaches for realities he cannot see.

    More sermons from Genesis · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    Now, if you are reading from Hebrews chapter 11, we will begin there, reading the first sixteen verses of this chapter. Listen to the word of God. the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen is not made out of things which are visible.

    By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts. And true faith, though he is dead, he still speaks. My faith Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death, and he was not found because God took him up. For he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God. And without faith it is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is. and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him.

    By faith Noah, being warned by God about things not yet seen, in reverence prepared an ark for the salvation of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed by going out to a place which he was to receive for an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise. For he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

    By faith, even Sarah herself received the ability to conceive even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore also there was born of one man, and him as good as dead at that, as many descendants as the stars of the heaven in number, and innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. All these died in faith, without receiving the promises. but having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a country of their own, and indeed if they had been thinking of that country from which they went out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.”

    Now, the man knew his wife Eve when she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, I have gotten a man-child with the help of the world. And again she gave birth to his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of the flocks, and Cain was the tiller of the ground. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground, and Abel on his part also brought her the first wings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering, but for Cain and for his offering he had no regard. So Cain became very angry, and his countenance fell.

    We are mindful, Father, of your Church throughout the world, and we are asking, Lord, that in your word you would strengthen your Church with truth so that your Church would stand against the evil of our day. We are asking also, Father, that there would be that sense of unity for your people, so that they would not then think of themselves as isolated or alone, or even boast of their exclusivity. We pray, Father, that we would have a sense of the expansiveness of your kingdom and of your church. and that we would bless you, Father, for those that you are bringing into that church from all the tribes and tongues and races of the world. We ask, Father, that we would be conscious of this enterprise, truly an enterprise of your Spirit, and most mindful of that bond that exists between us and those who have confessed to reformed faith. May we be zealous to pursue those ties and do what we can by prayer and other means to see those ties strengthened. But Father, we ask that we would not forsake your word or your truth in the interests of unity. May your truth triumph over all. May we be subdued by it, and may all your people submit to your glory. We pray this through the One who is the Living Word, who Himself submitted, Jesus Christ your Son. Amen.

    I want to address some misapprehensions about the story of Cain and Abel this evening and also focus a bit on our understanding of the figure of Abel before we end our message. With respect to some of the confusing things that have been said about the Cain and Abel There was that suggestion that Abel had in fact chosen for himself, or had assigned to him, the more noble occupation.

    That his occupation of the herdsman, or caring for animals, was more noble than the occupation of Cain, which was the tilling of the ground. Now, some have felt compelled to pursue that idea because they have found it more satisfying in relationship to the matter of the offerings that are presented by and by through Abel and King. Attention is called to the fact that Abel’s offering was, after all, an offering that had to be made with blood. being an offering of the firstlings of his flock, of the fat portions thereof.” This, then, is judged to be more honorable in light of what is later said in the book of Leviticus, that without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sins. So Abel is congratulated for having chosen the better occupation. in order to offer the better sacrifices, his sacrifice then being one accompanied by blood. This also on the background of what God himself has done. You read about that in the twenty-first verse of the third chapter.

    You remember Adam and Eve had tried to clothe themselves after their fall into sin. Their clothing was inadequate. God then clothed them with skins that he provides. Where did the skins come from? some animals have had to be slain in order to procure those skins for the clothing of Adam and Eve.

    Again, the slaughtering of animals, a sacrifice, if you will, blood involved, and again, one more time, Abel is judged to be on the better ground because of these connections. Cain’s occupation of killing the ground, it has been said, was less honorable. It has been said by some. This isn’t very good news to farmers. His occupation, so it has been said by some, was less honorable. His occupation, in fact, is mentioned second in the text. Verse 2, Abel is identified as the keeper of the flocks. Then we are told about Cain, who was the tiller of the ground.

    And on top of this, there is reflection upon the curse. So it is said, reflection upon the curse which God has pronounced upon the earth. That curse read out for us in verses 17 through 19 of the third chapter. Cain’s occupation then is brought more closely into contact with the cursed earth, per se, and is seen to have something of a curse overshadowing it that didn’t overshadow, seemingly, Abel’s occupation.

    Cain, therefore, is thrown into a subordinate role. Just how subordinate becomes evident to us when we recognize that if these approaches There wasn’t any way for Cain to come to God truly except through Abel, his brother. Talk about humiliation, insult to injury. The best he could do was offer some grave sacrifice or offering. Abel had the blood, he had to come to Abel in order to get the blood, and it was only through the blood, then, that he, Cain, could be accepted.

    Well, so goes. some of the interpretations that have been offered up with respect to this passage. There are others. There is that approach of liberal theologians. You know how they delight in finding mythological precursors to the Bible stories. They’re not at a loss here. They turn to Sumerian mythology.

    They dredge up the story of the shepherd god Dumuzi and the farmer god Enkindu, who engage in a great conflict and battle, a mortal conflict, representative of the two ways of life in the ancient world, shepherding and farming, a sociological battle. The liberal scholars have concluded that Cain and Abel The story that appears in scripture is merely a latter development of the myth that was told in Sumeria. This story was an attempt to come to terms with the rivalries that existed between those two ways of life, namely the shepherding way of life and the farming way of life. love of Abel is predictable. After all, Israel’s past history was bound to that existence which she had had in nomadic life previously, previous to their entering into the land of promise. And predictably, Israel gravitates towards the shepherd and the edge is given to Abel.

    He comes out on top. Well, I think it’s obvious to you that these are improper approaches to the story of Cain and Abel. The proper approach to this story does not assign impropriety or inferiority or even sin to Cain because of his profession. because of his occupation. The biblical text sees his task more in terms of the division of labor, which comes naturally, inevitably, automatically. Adam, his father, before him was both herdsman and farmer, and now his father, Adam divides the labor, most likely for efficiency, in a situation demanding some specialization and also a recognition of inherent or native ability. Cain may well have a propensity for farming. Abel, a propensity for herding flocks.

    But even here, as the Bible story goes on, the curse that has come upon the earth intrudes. It intrudes not just as man will battle the earth, be it as he farms or as he herds, but as man now begins to battle man. with respect to the labor he finds for himself within the earth.

    Man, in his occupations, will give evidence of the depravity that is settled upon him. The whole matter of occupation, labor, pursuit, calling, profession, the whole matter of one’s wife’s work can be dangerously and even wickedly competitive, filled with jealousy and envy, filled with a mean spiritedness and an underhandedness. Sin totally pervades mankind. But it also thoroughly and completely pervades all of mankind’s enterprises, his occupations, his tasks, even the way in which he pursues them.

    So then, these enterprises engaged in legitimately by Cain and Abel find them face-to-face with the potential of their own sinful natures. Find them also face-to-face with the potential that rises out of the curse that has fallen upon the natural world order. Thinking specifically now about evil in this regard. Abel is faced with the effects of sin and the curse that has come upon the natural order in his occupation.

    He is faced with that every time he is compelled to look for water for his thirsty flock. He is faced with it every time he is compelled to move his flock because the cursed earth will not yield its increase appropriately. He is faced with it every time he sees within his flock a deformed lamb born. He is faced with it every time he sees one of his sheep die from disease.

    Is Abel’s life a better life? Is it somehow preserved wonderfully from the effects of the fall? Is it somehow more noble in that it is removed from the effects of the curse that has come upon the earth? Or do we think of the shepherd’s life as being the more idyllic? I don’t think that there were the Samoan tones of Beethoven’s sixth symphony playing behind Abel as he was out shepherding his flocks.

    But even more than this, the fact that as Abel goes to work each day, he is confronted with the fact that the curse has affected the occupation in which he is engaged. Even more than that, Abel is faced with questions about himself. It is he, after all, who is going to work. He is faced with questions not about the cursed earth situation, but about his own depravity, his own sinfulness, that sin that afflicts him. potentially damaging his dealings with God and with man. As brief as the testimony is in scripture with respect to Abel’s life, it is marvelous. in that it seems that in Abel we have one set before us who fought well the fight against sin and its effects in himself.

    As far as his relationship to his parents were concerned, Abel must have been a good son. I don’t mean that he was simply an obedient son, a son that honored his parents. By that I mean he believed them. He believed them when they told him the story about their creation, about their original blessedness in the Garden of Eden, about the temptation to which they were subjected, about the sin to which they succumbed, about their fall and about their expulsion from that garden. He believed them, and he believed them from the heart.

    And as far as his brother was concerned, we may be charged with reading too much into the 8th verse of chapter 4 in Genesis, where we have this face-to-face confrontation between Cain and Abel. But we certainly aren’t reading too much into the character of Abel when we reflect on what is said about him in 1 John 3, 10-12. Cain, in that passage in 1 John, is spoken of as the one who hated his brother and out of his hatred slew him. By contrast, Abel is the one who loved his brother, who genuinely loved his brother. And I would suggest that the opening part of that 8th verse in chapter 4 in Genesis is suggestive of that love, that Abel was one who was approachable.

    He was open and he was trusting to a fault. Such was his love for his brother. Which makes his brother’s sin against him and crime all the more heinous. So with regard to his parents, Abel is a righteous man. He believes the truth which his parents have told him. With regard to his brother, he is a loving brother to a fault, and righteous in that love, open and trusting and even going to the extent of making himself vulnerable.

    But what about Abel’s relationship to God? We have the testimony from 1 John 3, verse 12, that Abel was in fact a righteous man, that with respect to his behavior towards his brother whom he loved, but also with respect to his attitude towards God. That description of Abel as a righteous man is repeated in the passage that we read this evening from Hebrews chapter 11, verse 4. This text that speaks about the righteousness of Abel in Hebrews speaks further about the character of man.

    For not only is he a righteous man with regard to God, he is a man who is filled with faith. It is important for us to understand exactly what is being suggested here when the author of the letter to the Hebrews speaks about Abel as a man motivated by, driven by, possessed by faith.

    What is the precise nature of this faith which Abel has? Let me suggest to you that it is more than his belief in the story told him by his parents. concerning their creation, their life in the garden, their fall, and their expulsion from the garden. The faith that is triumphing in Abel is more than his belief in the factuality of that story told him by his parents. Now let me suggest something else to you. This faith which Abel has is more than a belief in the fact that God exists. It is more than a belief in the fact that God exists. But I’ll say something further to you about this faith.

    Abel’s faith is even more than that faith by which Abel was justified from God’s sight. Now, I don’t want to play down I certainly don’t want to play down the faith as we have come to understand it and to glory in it, that faith that throws oneself upon the mercies of God without any claim upon God whatsoever, as if we had some sort of inherent goodness within ourselves. Now, by all means, Abel was possessive of that kind of faith. He was possessive of justifying faith, that faith which, in fact, does throw oneself upon the mercies of God with abandonment, without any claim upon God through some sort of imagined, inherent goodness within ourselves.

    But while Abel had this justifying faith, and while he had faith in all of the senses which we have mentioned thus far, a faith in the story told by his parents, a faith that in fact God existed, as strange as it may sound, such faith as we have so far described, dependent upon visible confirmations within Abel and to Abel.

    You see, God at this point in salvation history, early as it is, continues to visit this first family, he continues to come to them visibly, to show himself occasionally to them through a theophany, an appearance of himself. God at this point in salvation is still very much visibly involved with his world.

    And he would still make visits to Adam and his family. And he would, in those visits, confirm all that Adam and Eve told their children about what had happened previously. He would also, by those visits, confirm his own existence. How could it be denied? There he is, right in front of you. He has appeared, and he speaks. And even by his visits, he provides visible evidence of Abel’s justification. Now, I’m not reaching here. I’m not stretching matters. I want you to look at Hebrews 11 verse 4 one more time. You see what it says there?

    That text indicates to you that there was some means by which God testified to Abel that his gifts were acceptable. And the acceptance of those gifts was, in fact, a confirmation by God of Abel’s justification. Do you see it in that text? Do you understand? Abel makes his offering, God comes, and by some means, we don’t know how, there is some visible confirmation of the acceptability of that sacrifice from Abel.

    But as wonderful as all this is now, as glorious as it is, and I will not minimize that one bit, as soul and as God, glorifying of faith, all of these things that we have spoken of thus far, Adam and Eve are not up to. Abel’s faith is even more glorious still, and more sublime. It’s more wonderful than all of these things that we have spoken about thus far. Things that are indispensable, of course, to true faith.

    But even when they are totaled up, they land us short of that faith which was in Abel and expressed by him. Let me tell you about Abel’s faith. Abel’s faith gives all. Here we go. Abel’s faith gives all in the certainty that having given all, he has lost nothing. Oral faith gives the best, symbolic of the all, in the certainty that having given the best, he hasn’t lost it.

    Now do you see what characterizes this faith? Abel is able to see things invisible. The kind of faith that Abel has enables him to see things that are invisible. This faith will carry him beyond those things confirmed to him by sight. This faith grasps hold of those things that are unseen, not apparent. in its particular character is found also in that fourth verse of Hebrews 11. Justifying faith is there, but this other faith is also there.

    It is found in that verse’s reference to Abel’s better sacrifice. And the author of this letter to the Hebrews infers In his rendering of Abel’s sacrifice, he infers his conclusions with regard to that better sacrifice from his reading of Genesis 4-4, which tells us that Abel brought to God the firstlings of his flock and the fat portions of that flock.

    Abel gives the best. He does not do so in order to put God in his debt, but in order to demonstrate the fact that he gives all to God, he gives himself to God, totally and completely. And just as that sacrifice was consumed, the one offered by Abel, lost from sight, it was not lost from God. So also Abel, though consumed in his service to God, even to the point of death, even though he’s lost from sight, he is not lost to God. That’s what Abel believes. Even if he is lost from sight in this world, he is not lost to God, nor from God. but shall in fact be with God, in a world that is as yet invisible to the eye, and perceived only by, grasped, held up only by faith.

    Abel, no less than Abraham, no less than Sarah, no less than Isaac and Jacob, mentioned later in Hebrews 11. Abel, no less than these, believes in an unseen, better country, a city which God has prepared. country and city, into which God will receive even him, Abel, through the resurrection from the dead. And though he is dead and unseen Abel lives in an unseen world and continues to speak and what about Cain? we will have more to say about Cain and his character but for tonight Kane is an unbeliever. Kane is an unbeliever. In what sense is Kane an unbeliever?

    Does he not believe his parents and the story they tell? Of course he believes it. Is he an unbeliever in that he rejects the existence of God? What foolishness? God comes and talks with him later on in the passage. He believes in God. He most certainly is lacking in that faith by which he would be justified But even more, he willfully disbelieves in the reality of the unseen world. And I say willfully, because even granting the possibility of it, he doesn’t want it. And why? because he wants this world. He wants this world.

    We should all be Those who stand in the line of evil and his faith, not pain and his line, which is marked by unbelief. Let us pray. draw us on our Lord. Even as you have given us faith, may we move from faith to faith, that there would be this perfecting of faith in us, even the perfecting that is spoken of by the writer to the Hebrews. Faith that glories in the truth of the gospel A faith that glories in the fact that you are true and real. A faith that glories in justification, which is appropriated by faith alone. But a faith that is even more in that it has the ability to grab hold of invisible things and to live in light of them. O God, your Son, Jesus Christ, was the one to whom Abel pointed, and how beautifully he lived out such faith as was perfected in him, so that even through the experience of the cross, he did not break faith with you, but maintained faith, knowing for certain the realities of that unseen world. We are saved through this one to whom Eagle pointed.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

  • The Seed of the Woman and the Serpent

    The Seed of the Woman and the Serpent

    This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Genesis 1-4” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, December 27, 1992.

    About this sermon

    Cain and Abel are read through Genesis 3:15’s promise, Abel as seed of the woman and Cain as seed of the serpent. A warning follows against the idolatry of the family: the church, not the family, is the truly basic family unit, which is exactly why conflicts within families run so deep.

    More sermons from Genesis · Browse all sermons

    Sermon transcript

    who are reading from John’s first letter, which is 1 John 3, beginning at verse 1. Listen to the Word of God. Listen to the Word of God. See how great a love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called children of God, and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know God. Now we are the children of God, and it has not appeared as yet. that we shall be. Know that if he should appear, we shall be like him, because we shall see him just as he is.

    Everyone who has this hope fixed on him purifies himself just as he is pure. Everyone who practices sin also practices lawlessness, And sin is lawlessness, and ye know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. No one who abides in him sins, no one who sins has seen him or knows him. Little children, let no one deceive you.

    One who practices righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. The one who practices sin is of the devil, and the devil has sinned from the beginning. For the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared to this purpose that he might destroy the works of the devil.

    No one who is born of God practically sins, because his seed abides in him, but he cannot sin because he is born of God. For this, the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious. No one who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. who does not love his brother. This is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.

    Not in Cain, who was of the evil one, and slew his brother. And for what reason did he slay him? Because his deeds were evil and his brothers were righteous. We know that we are passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, but you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. And turning back to Genesis chapter 4, verse 8, And Cain spoke to Abel his brother, and it came about, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him. Father, we would rejoice in the order you have set, not only over the original creation, but over the new creation. And Father, we would rejoice in that the order of the new creation is of a peace with that which is above, true above.

    We read, Lord, of how there are twenty-four elders around the throne and even here, Lord, While we remain in this world, while we remain in this world blessed by the Church, blessed by the rule of those who are raised up, you have within you the power of those who are seated in your presence. O God, we please you to grant strength to your Church. here and also throughout this nation, which we find ourselves and throughout the world. May we rejoice, Father, when we see your rule rightly exercised.

    Thank you for those things you have given to us. to that end. We know, Lord, we are blessed indeed, and your word is foremost in their minds. You have that word foremost in our own minds. And as they have been subdued by that word, you also may by it we also might be subdued, so as to be a delight to them. We know, Lord, that by this fruit shall be a delight to you. We with them shall be a delight to you. Hear us, O God, for Jesus’ sake, that one who is with you in glory with the Holy Spirit forever.

    Now, I feel that it should be obvious to us that the purpose of Genesis 4 is not to provide us with a detailed and exhaustive account of the life of the world’s first family. In fact, we must not conclude from the account We have here before us that Cain and Abel were the only children born to Adam and Eve in the time described in this fourth chapter. Mention of Cain and Abel, both of whom belong sequentially and chronologically together. Mention of Cain and Abel sets before us, specifically, their representative capacity. is set before us so as to present us with the cosmic, grand, cosmic struggle between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. It is hard to say what exactly Adam and Eve talked about the promise that had been given them by God when God had spoken about the hostility that would exist between the feet of the woman and that of the servant. Remember, verse 15 of chapter 3, God’s pronouncement at that time. What does seem that clear is that Adam and Eve were hardly prepared for what transpired, reported for us here in the fourth chapter.

    Did they envision, for instance, that the seed of the serpent would actually be part of their family? Did that come as a shock? Did they envision that the seed of the serpent would actually be a part of their family? That a child generated by them could actually be a child of Satan? a child of Satan.

    Did they envision that war would actually break out within the family, between their children, among their descendants? Or did they think that possibly this war God spoke of, this hostility which he spoke of, would be between them collectively as humanity and some demonic alien force? Without a doubt, the crushing weight of the fall and its consequences settled in gradually over Adam and Eve. There is testimony of this, as we have pointed out, in the naming of the second child mentioned in that fourth chapter. He gives your second son the name Abel, which is a play on another word, which means vapor.

    Vanity. Vanity. Meaninglessness. Meaninglessness. Now that’s not the way we would ordinarily name our children. But can you understand why Eve might do that as the weight of the fall settles in upon her, and she begins to realize its seriousness. Our first parents then are becoming gradually aware of the dismal prospects. They are becoming gradually aware of the prospect that a cloud overshadows even the soul of a child of theirs. One as precious to them as their firstborn came. Parents in this latter day of ours really have no excuse.

    And in light of the biblical record and the history of humanity, they should walk with their eyes wide open. To be sure they should always be with their confidence in the promise of God, and that with respect to their children. God gives promises to his people with regard to their children. So, as far as the Church of Jesus Christ is concerned, she should always lean with her confidence in the promise of God with regard to the children born within the Church. But she should never forget the liability that exists the liability that exists, and ever beyond the alert and in prayer for those very children.

    For after all, the children of God and the children of the devil can in fact live under the same roof. have the same address, have the same biological parents. When I speak further with you this evening about this, the related matter, the related matters, The fact that the children of God and the children of Satan can live under the same roof forces us to acknowledge that the family, I know that I am about to speak heresy, in the estimation of some. The fact that the children of God and the children of Satan can live under the same roof forces us to acknowledge that the family per se cannot be the shrine at which we worship. And could it be that Genesis 4 is a providential imposition chapter in the history of redemption in order to teach us that very point?

    You cannot make an idol out of family. You cannot make a god out of family. We must of course honor God’s commandments concerning the relationships that exist in our families. Honor thy father and thy mother. We remember the fifth commandment, do we not? And surely we ought to respect And surely we are to respect this basic building block for the organization of society and human culture. And we are to be alert to the religious dimensions of the family relationships. But we must also see that devotion to family cannot displace devotion to God. Is it not obvious to us that again and again in Scripture, this very fact hits a square between the eyes? Moa has three sons. Do they all prove to be regenerate? Abraham has two sons. Are both of them regenerate? What shall we say about the sons of Isaac? And so it goes. Devotion to God, even in deference to the objections of man, the objections of well-intentioned fathers, well-intentioned brothers, can cut across family lines, family ties, family connections.

    In so many ways, the Israelites of the Old Testament forgot this very important fact. And by the time Jesus arrived on the scene, many Jews had turned family into a religion all by itself. And that is why Jesus’ statements shocked them So thoroughly, when he told them that they had to be willing to hate their mother and their father, their brothers and sisters, if they were going to be called his disciples, because nothing, absolutely nothing, could stand between him and them. Do you remember the objection of the one who said, I’ll come and follow you Lord, but first let me go home and bury my father? Peter says no. Jesus says no. Let the dead bury the dead. And we understand the implications of what Jesus was saying.

    That young man wanted to go home and bury his father, not because it was simply a matter of familiar piety to do so. familiar obligation, because by going home and burying his father, he would also lay claim to the family’s family plot. It perpetuates the family. It perpetuates the family. It should become the center of his religious existence.

    Similar things to those observed in the Jews. are observed among Christians. I must admit to you that one of the most amusing and sad things that I have observed at this time of year is the attitude of a number of Christians, particularly those who seem to become most sentimental about this season. Here are the real crusaders for the observance of Christmas. Nothing is spared. The cards, the food, the piles of presents, the lights on the house. and the massive family gathering with this latter item, and especially the family itself, as the particular focus of all the festivities.

    What seems to be especially extendable and optional to these people is the worship of Christ. The church may well be having a worship service, but these people aren’t there because they are much too busy. They have other things to do. They are tied up with family. Because, after all, the family’s importance is much more important than even God.

    But then I have observed about these sorts of Christmas crusaders that they are no different at other times of the year. Whenever there is a conflict between family business and church business, I know on what side they will come down. No question about it. No question about it. Family’s first. Family’s first.

    I’m not the only pastor. I’m not the only pastor. He has rolled his eyes. He has been told by a church member that the reason he wasn’t in church was because he had family in town. Now I might roll my eyes, but I can tell you that it’s a lot more serious with God. And I might add that one of the reasons why the Orthodox Presbyterian Church has had the struggle it has had in this nation in gaining a following is that it has refused to fall down at the feet of the great American God family.

    And this has cost it greatly, especially amongst conservative folk. Contrary to the popularly held evangelical dogma of our day, the family is not. The family is not the Christian’s basic social unit. The family is not the basic social unit. The church is. The Church is.

    And by all means we rejoice in the grace of God when he maintains our families together under the banner of Christ and Christ’s cross. May we not be so foolish as to compromise our love for our Heavenly Father, His Divine Son, and our brothers and sisters in Christ when things turn out differently. And may God especially keep us from that foolishness, the claims to be honoring Him when in fact it is dishonoring Him by placing family before Him and before His people.

    Now obviously our first parents, Adam and Eve, had a very painful experience. An experience that broke their hearts. An experience that would be repeated again and again throughout the history of redemption and is repeated even to this present day. A painful experience in sorting all this out. And if it wasn’t clear to them as they watched their boys grow up and develop, as they watched their boys’ manner of life and their worship.

    It most certainly became evident to them in the horror of that heinous crime of deliberate cold-blooded murder. The killing of crime has more than the sociological consequences for society at large. As much as it speaks to us about division, as much as it speaks to us about loss, as much as it speaks to us about tragedy, it also speaks to us about that which occurs in the Church of God. Even though Cain continues to live on, and even though he is still described as a son of Adam and Eve, he is representative of the serpent’s seed, and he is no longer part of the Church. His parents are compelled to acknowledge this. They must acknowledge this or else they join their son outside the assembly of the Lord.

    There are few things as tragic to a pastor for a pastor in dealing with people, in dealing with people and their attitudes about their families. As when you run up against the resident of a family on the part of someone who is claiming to be a Christian to acknowledge the true statement of theirs with regard to their family members, who simply will not face up to the fact that their children are unregenerate, who simply will not face up to the fact that their spouse has not been born again, who simply refuse to face up to the fact that their parents do not know the Lord. Many a Christian engages in a lot of wishful thinking. But it’s dangerous business, because if you refuse to face up to the truth with regard to your family members, you have placed yourself at risk.

    Conferring to accept the truth and to face it squarely, you are liable to place yourself outside the assembly of the Lord. We are compelled to acknowledge the fatal rupture within humanity, in society generally, but we are also compelled to acknowledge the more serious fatal rupture that has taken place. And if we are unwilling to do so, especially where our own family members are concerned, we are most likely proving that we are outside the assembly of the Lord, if not in body, then in spirit.

    And God have mercy upon us. O Lord, we ask that as hard as it may be for us, as heart-rending and as heart-breaking, let there pass before our eyes the experience of our first parents and the grief they experienced as a consequence of the fall of the sin. As they saw their family ripped apart, And not only that, as it pertained to society generally, but also as it pertained to a relationship to the God who had created them. O Father, O Father, we ask that by this route yet you would have mercy upon us, but also upon those who may not believe. and through our prayers and by our example my root of our pleading my root of our pleading mark there may be the change of heart and before it is too late and before it is too late there would be reconciliation that souls would be one that souls would be one oh god use us to that end oh god use us to that end the father also convince us of your purposes so thoroughly, that even though we might loathe our family members desperately, we would love you even more, and place ourselves in your hands, knowing that you are faithful. To us, Lord, bless we and stumble. and fall. For Jesus’ sake, we ask this. In order that we may be found to be with Him and with our brothers and sisters.

    The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.