Well, welcome back again to another podcast of Struggling Well, and Suzi and I, we're going to turn our thoughts today to a famous pair of names from the Bible from the very beginning. And it's not Adam and Eve
or Jimmy and Suzi.
Oh, no, we're not there.
Oh, we're not there. That's true.
but it is their sons, Cain and Abel. and you know, we don't know the exact amount of time that
Wait, can I stop you for a second?
You know, I'm going to do I have a choice.
No, I'm curious as to what was the what brought you here? What brought you to think about pain? and Abel.
you know, I just think again we often talk about and we do and it's true that sin entered the word world through Adam and Eve and their refusal to trust God and to take God at his word and again there was the punishment of them from God. we don't know the exact amount of time that transpires between chapter 3 and their fall in the garden and chapter 4 and Cain and Abel coming on the scene. we know that she gave Eve gave birth to these two, but and again, how many years passed, I don't know.
Um,
and I just was I'm fascinated by the fact that it didn't take long for mankind to devolve into a brother killing another.
Yeah.
I mean, that's so that's kind of what got my thought process going. and of course, The story is, I guess, not maybe everybody knows it, but it's a fairly well-known story in Bible. And Cain rises up and kills his brother Abel. really no fault of Abel's other than Cain doesn't like the way God responded to their offerings. And then when God punishes Cain, he says, "Your punishment is that you're going to be a wanderer on the earth." And Cain says to him, ", I can't. It's too much. My punishment is greater than I can bear and you've driven me away and I'm I've hidden from your face and I'll be a fugitive and wander and someone will find me and kill me. And then God said to him, not if any not so. If anyone kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord put a mark on Cain lest anyone should try to attack and kill him. And then it says Cain goes away from the presence of the Lord and what does he do? He builds a city. And I think when we look at the passage that we see that Cain's movement away from God began when it was it says when they grew up, Abel became a shepherd while Cain cultivated the ground,
right?
And when it was time for harvest, Cain presented, and I'm reading from the NLT, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift, the best portion of the first lamb from his flock. And the Lord accepted Abel in his gift, but did not accept Cain and his gift and that made Cain angry and so then God says to him, I love this. I love I would oh would I love to have conversation like this now with God. So the Lord says to Cain, why are you so angry? Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out. Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you, but you must subdue it and be its master. And then there's that whole question and answer between God and Cain when God says, "So, where's your brother?" And then you know, I love to read and I've read some on Spurgeon about this and it's fascinating to hear someone from the 1800s with their Is that was that right? 1800s. Yeah, I think so. Our producer is nodding. So, I appreciate him. He's a Bible scholar, aren't you, Tim? Yes, he is. Anyway, so the whole thing is so Cain goes out in the field. He kills the brother And the Lord says to him, "Where's your brother? Where's Abel?" And interesting because Spurgeon gives us some insight which I know I missed the first time reading through this. And that is that Cain was maybe already in this place of like, "What's wrong with my offering? I brought you some of my best stuff and Abel brought the first the very best of the best." It was the position of their heart. So by the time Cain kills Abel, His answer is to use the word that Spurgeon uses impedent. He's very like he's talking to God saying, "What am I, my brother's keeper?" I find that fascinating.
Yeah. I mean, it really is the story does show a progression because when Cain first gets angry in his response to God's not accepting his offering, God says to him, "Why are you angry?"
So, he has opportunities to check and understand. And yet he continues to refuse to listen to the voice of God. And then when the then when he gets his punishment to wander the earth, he can't trust God,
which is so fascinating to me.
Yeah. I mean, he's refused to listen to God and now he gets to the point where he can't trust God. And so Cain becomes a citybuilder. Why? Is there anything wrong with a city? No, there's nothing wrong with cities, but It was a direct repudiation of what God said to him. I will protect you. No one's going to take your life. I will protect you. And Cain said, "I can't believe you." So, he builds a city for his own protection.
And the interesting I'm probably reading into this, okay, but maybe the NLT is not helping me here. But so, when God says, "No longer will the ground yield good crops for you." Was Cain by God's design a farmer? And Abel was a shepherd. The I mean by God's design ga God gave them ability. I don't know. Did God give them ability to do different things? So now God says now it's going to be hard for you and he goes but the it's too much. I can't bear this. The very thing that God had I don't know maybe given him a ability to be an incredible farmer that could offer his first fruits to God. I'm just wondering because I think about when God calls us or ask us to do something. I don't know. Jimmy, what do you think? I'm just I'm kind of
Yeah, I think it's I think again it is this belief that we somehow can get to that God doesn't want our best.
And God wanted Cain's best and Cain refused to believe or to trust him that God was in it. God was looking out for him. And yet the God of scripture that we read about has always been a God of pursuing love. And even when Cain rises up and kills Abel and God's punishment is you're going to wander this earth. it was God pursuing him
and taking care of him. Even though it seemed rather harsh to Cain,
right?
So much so that he couldn't trust God. But he'd already refused to listen to God,
right?
And so, we get ourselves in a dangerous place when we refuse to listen to the voice of God. And the voice of God for us so often is what's revealed in the written word
and the refusal for us to believe, okay, this is the designer of life. I need to pay attention to how he wants me to live.
And I it's interesting, too, and I don't think it shows up in this version. But do you have the ESV there?
Yeah.
you know, he builds this city. Well, cities back then usually were built behind a wall.
So even though God has said to him, I'm going to protect you, he has this city now that perhaps he feels like this will protect me in case God doesn't. And I'm putting my thoughts into the text here. I'm not trying to mess up the text, but we do the same thing. We're not sure God is going to take care of what our hurt is, what our fear is, and so we build our own cities.
Yeah, we do. Any time that I seek to take control of my own life because I think I have a better plan than God has, I think the danger exists that I then turn my back and I don't listen to God any longer.
And I rely on my own ingenuity, my own cleverness, my own wherewithal to make life work.
And I think in light of how advanced we are, technology, medicine, you name it, we're so advanced that our trust in God has waned. you know, you go to other parts of the world where they are desperate for God.
they're not relying on what we rely on. And I don't know how sometimes I wrestle with how to live in this place that God has put me in and not talk about, oh, I wish, you know, we I lived in a different place where all I had was God. Well, I live here right now. God has allowed me or put me in this place. And so, how then shall I live in the midst of an advanced world that doesn't see any need for God? Because I can get sucked into that real easily.
Yeah. And I think it's I think it is important to step back and at times to just sit in the quiet stillness of recognizing and acknowledging who he is, who God is, how he is eternal, he's omnisient, he's omnipresent, he's all those things that are his attributes and he pursued me enough and you enough to extend grace through his son. son
that we would have relationship with him.
Boy, I hope as you've been listening to this today that maybe something has stirred inside of you because when we do this podcast, Jimmy and I are basically just having conversation. we're trying to bring up to the surface things that we've been wrestling with within ourselves together as a couple within our family. and I hope we both pray as well as Tim who prays with us every time we almost every time we do our podcast is that in some way you would be stirred enough to go to the Bible, to go to the word of God, to go to God himself and ask him to reveal in you the places that have kept you from him, whatever they may be.
Yeah. Have a great week.