The Birth, Death, and Rebirth of Hope

The Birth, Death, and Return of Hope

Genesis 4:1-26
Intro:

We're continuing our study of the book of Genesis so please turn with me to chapter four. So much has changed for Adam and Eve since they disobeyed God's command and ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Once they lived in a perfect world in perfect harmony with God and each other. Life as we long for it was what they knew before the fall. Everything changed when they sinned.

• Filled with shame and guilt they are afraid to be in God's presence.
• The soul-killing venom of sin is now coursing through every fiber of their bodies.
• The world they live in is now a fallen, cursed world. Bad things have entered into the world that they never knew before pain and conflict and futility and this dark, scary thing called death.
• Chapter three ends with them being driven out of the Garden of Eden - the perfect place created for them by God, the only home they have known, the place that represented the presence of God being with them - now God Himself is driving them out into a dark, fallen world.

It's not hard to imagine the devastation they feel by the tragic consequences of their sin. But all is not hopeless. God in His love did not destroy them. He did not curse them, He did cover them, making clothes for them out of the skin of animals. And He gave them a promise that from Eve's offspring there would one day come a Rescuer who would crush the head of the serpent. This is a promise that gives them a tremendous sense of hope - there will be a future, there will be future generations, and God will provide salvation from the power of Satan and sin.

We can see the signs of this hope in chapter 3:20 - before a child is born Adam calls his wife Eve which means the mother of all living human beings. They have hope for the future, hope that is based solidly on the promise of God!

Title: The Birth, Death, and Rebirth of Hope

As we look at this passage there is one simple point I want to make this morning:

Hope that is based on faith in God's promises can never be destroyed

I. Hope is born Genesis 4:1-2

Chapter four opens with happy news -Eve gives birth to a son. Now we are used to having babies but put yourself in their place. This is the first human baby ever born - Adam and Eve might not have even known what was happening to Eve - all of a sudden she's putting on weight and craving ice cream and pickles at night. And then there is a baby! You can hear the excitement and amazement as Eve declares "I have gotten a man (ish - Adam) with the help of the Lord". Only place in the Bible where a baby is called a man - but Eve realizes that this little thing that cries so much is a miniature Adam and she produced him - with God's help! And in their minds is the hope that this is the offspring through whom the Promised Redeemer would come. Then Eve has a second child and named him Abel. At this point Adam and Eve, who are still no doubt devastated by the events of the fall, are beginning to feel hopeful about the future again. Life really is going on. Things are looking up. Two boys - and one of them surely is going to be the one through whom the offspring comes. Hope was born with birth of these boys.

II. Hope is Murdered (vv 3-15)

In the course of time Cain and Abel both bring an offering to the Lord. Cain, like his father, works the fields and so he brings an offering of fruit of the ground. Abel is the first shepherd and sacrifices from his flock. And God accepts Abel's offering but rejects Cain's offering. Why? Some have said it's because God wanted an animal offering not a grain offering, but that's probably not the issue because later in the OT God would establish grain offerings as acceptable to Him.

We don't have to guess what the primary difference was, because Hebrews 11:4 tells us:

By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks. Hebrews 11:4 (ESV)

By faith Abel was careful to pick out the very best he had to offer - the best fat portion of the firstborn sheep - and offered it in faith to God. Cain, probably more out of duty than faith, simply brings some fruit of the ground. The humble faith toward God is missing in Cain. And God has regard for Abel's offering but He had no regard for Cain's offering. This is a tough pill for Cain to swallow. God enjoys Abel's offering and He rejects Cain's offering and that leaves Cain both humiliated and angry! And murderous thoughts toward his brother start to fill his mind.

God sees this and warns Cain that he is at a dangerous crossroads - he can choose to humble himself and learn from his brother's example and bring an offering in humble faith to God and it would be accepted. But he is in danger of choosing a darker path and God warns him that sin is crouching at the door of that choice like a wild beast that wants to devour him alive!

The danger of envy

The particular sin that is eating away at Cain's heart is the sin called envy. He envies the acceptance from God his younger brother received. Envy is wanting something that someone else has to the point that even if we can't have it for ourselves, we want to take it from them. In a warped way, their happiness or success hurts us.

Actor Sir John Gielgud was honest about the envy in his heart when he said, "When Sir Laurence Olivier played Hamlet in 1948 and the critics raved, I wept."

Most of us probably know what it's like to see someone else get rave reviews and find that we're weeping inside because of envy. A co-worker is promoted faster than you and it's eating you up inside. We hear people speaking with admiration of someone else and not only does it bother us, but in a weird way we begin to think that praise of that person is an insult to us. We see someone else get blessed and we wonder, "why couldn't that have been me?" Maybe some in this room even had a sibling who always seemed to get more attention, or better grades, or do better at sports, or just seemed to do everything better and you envied them. Something inside of you cringed when your parents spoke admiringly of them. And rejoiced when they failed. Envy is a terrible - and a powerful - sin.

There are other ruthless sins that crouch at the door waiting to tear us apart- bitterness, anger, jealousy, lust - like a wild beast, but here's the weird thing. Sin doesn't sit outside waiting to attack us from the outside - it's a wild beast that resides within the human heart, waiting for us to willingly open the door to it so that it can devour us from the inside out.

ILL: On Friday in Orlando a man went into the office complex where he had been let go of two and a half years earlier and opened fire - killing at least one person and injuring several others. When asked why he did it he said that they had "left him to rot". We don't know all the motives of this man, but I think it's safe to say that sin began working on him 2 ½ years ago eating away at him from the inside out and all it took was a flash point to bring it to a murderous boil.

God's word speaks to us with the same warning not to take sin lightly. Is there anger? Don't let the sun go down without resolving it. Is there bitterness? See to it that it isn't allowed to spring up and defile many - root it out while you can. Is there envy? Bless the person you are tempted to envy and pray for their success. Sin is no pet - it's a wild beast that crouches in wait for an opportunity.

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
25If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Galatians 5:24-26 (ESV)

John Owen said, Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.

Cain murders his very own brother while in the fields. He is ready to lie about it - he feels no remorse - but God says that Abel's spilled blood is crying out to Him and God banishes Cain as a fugitive and a wanderer. Let's read vv. 16-24.

Gen. 4:16-24

So Cain goes away from the presence of the Lord and guess what happens? He prospers! He has children and they have children and they build cities and his descendents become master agriculturalists, musicians, and metal workers. But while they're prospering they're also drifting further and further from the Lord until you have this strange story of Lamech (the first polygamist) coming home and gathering his two wives to boast about his having killed a young man for striking him. No eye for an eye here - wound Lamech and he will kill you. And filled with his own self-righteousness he declares that if Cain was to be avenged seven fold, he would be avenged seventy seven fold. Cain was a violent man, his grandchild is even more violent. They are prospering in material ways but spiritually they are drifting far from God.

Adam and Eve have watched all this unfold and the hope they had for their two sons have died with Abel. Maybe they wondered if Abel was to be the offspring and sin simply overpowered God's promise. But God's promises cannot be overpowered by sin and God has not forgotten them. God promised that from Eve's offspring a Rescuer would come and God is always faithful to His promises.

III. Hope is reborn (vv. 25-26)

Genesis 4:25-26

Adam and Eve have a third son and Eve is a sadder and humbler mother - but her faith is more deeply rooted in God. Not the ecstatic "I've gotten a man - with the help of God" declaration, but a more sober, "God has granted me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him..." She can't think of one son without thinking of the other, their lives have been tragically intertwined. Eve didn't lose one son on that day -she lost two. The sadness isn't gone -but her faith in God brings a new hope. Hope is reborn.

And this chapter ends with the hopeful statement that after Seth gives birth to a son Enosh, at that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord. Faith reemerges in the human race! And it would be through Seth's lineage that Jesus would come - the One who would crush the Devil's head finally and forever on the cross.

Hope that is based on faith in God's promises can never be destroyed

Conclusion:
Have you ever had your hopes dashed to pieces? I mean, things really looked like they were lining up in a certain direction and you really hoped - and maybe had a lot of reason to hope - things would go a certain way.

• Maybe a job you were hoping to get - interview went well, but you never got that call back.
• Maybe a long hoped for pregnancy that ends with miscarriage.
• Or a dear friend that moves away from the area.
• Or a medical test you're hoping will come back negative comes back positive.
• Or the dreams you had for your marriage and/or children have not panned out the way you hoped.

As we go through life every one of us will have things we hope for be disappointed. We will. But the Christian hope isn't that circumstances will always come out the way we want or that things will always go well or easy for us. When I was a young Christian a guy in our youth group decided to stop following Jesus because he had asked for several things and God didn't give them to him. We can hope for things - hope that certain circumstances go a certain way. But our hope isn't in those things. Our hope is based on faith in God's promises and those promises are good and those promises all find their fulfillment in Christ. For the promise given to Adam and Eve is still the promise we cling to: Jesus Christ and what he accomplished for our eternal souls on the cross.

But you have come to ... Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. Hebrews 12:22-24

That better word is a promise: that on the day of judgment, our sins will not be held against us. We will find mercy, not judgment, on that day. The dark tragedy of the fall will be turned to the glory of Christ and our eternal joy as we trust in Jesus Christ. His blood speaks a better word.

And now, Beloved, just contrast [the blood of Abel] with...the blood of Christ. ...He hangs upon a tree. He is murdered-murdered by His own Brethren. "He came unto His own and His own received Him not, but His own led him out to death." He bleeds. He dies. And then is heard a cry in Heaven. The astonished angels again start from their seats and they say, "What is this? What is this cry that we hear?" And the Mighty Maker answers yet again, "It is the cry of blood. It is the cry of the blood of My only-begotten and well-beloved Son!" And God, rising up from His throne, looks down from Heaven and listens to the cry. And what is the cry? It is not revenge. But the voice cries, "Mercy! Mercy! Mercy!" Did you hear it? It said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Herein, the blood of Christ "speaks better things than that of Abel," for Abel's blood said, "Revenge!" and made the sword of God start from its scabbard. But Christ's blood cried "Mercy!" and sent the sword back again and bade it sleep forever-Charles Spurgeon

Lamech called out for an avalanche of vengeance to fall upon anyone hurting him- not seven times vengeance, but seventy seven times. But Jesus speaks of an avalanche of forgiveness when he tells Peter we are to forgive, not seven times, but seventy times seven. That is the avalanche of forgiveness that we have received through trusting in Jesus Christ.

The sword of judgment has been sent back to the scabbard and bidden to sleep forever. What good news! That is our hope, that is the promise we cling to, and we don't lose faith in God because circumstances don't turn out the way we hoped, or even, like Adam and Eve, tragedy enters our lives - for the final word over our lives is mercy. Forgiveness.

We are going to take communion together as a reminder of the better word that Christ's blood speaks over us.