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Show sign of repentance, and in cowardly fear hears his sentence. What a terrible picture of unrepentant unre-pentant sinful man. How true It H to life, The Bible ts not a book to cover up Imperfections. It has Its Cain, Its Saul and its Judas, as well as Us David and Peter We should heed the message aDd warning so 6trongIy given Let us turn to the kind Heavenly Father here pictured as solicitous of his wandering sinful one, knowing that there is here a welcome for us. PBOBIEM OF EVIL TOPIC OF SERMON "The story qff Cain and Abol" Is really a continuation of the study, of the Problem of Evil. In the lesson of last week we saw tho temptation and sin with tho terrible results upon Adam and Eve. In this lesson we find that men continue to be represented as living In conditions of possible sin. The ways to be good or to he bad are open, and one may enter either. Wo find that the land has been peopled o,ulte a little, and the human race was therefore scattered by this time. There s n dlvcrslt) of occupations. One man tills the soil, another has flocks. They worship. One Is ac-; ac-; cepted, another rejected, by Jehovah. ; The rejected one Is angry and hid ! face falls. Jehovah speaks to him, admonishing him to try to do better; j that if ho does well that be will bo j receive 1. L!ut not heeding the kind admonition of God, he continues to I hate, lures his brother Into tho field ! Pnd kills hint. Jehovah appears on the scene and asks for Abol. Cain said that he knew not where he was, anl then with a heart as hard as stone asked. "Am I my brother's keeper?" Then Jehovah points out the awful-isess awful-isess of the hln and designates hl? punishment. Cain Is unrepentant and cowardly In the extreme, and fears only the revenge of the human race, that cries out for his blood. Jehovah marks him for protection. So he la compelled to live out his life as a miserable wanderer, in the land of Nod (wandering). This etor is oDe of those which represent the great heartbeats of mankind. Told, as all these were, uy father to son. from son to sou, thoy have the Imprint of the experience of a race, and should not be held as the sole product of the one who first or finally wrote It down. There Is a timelessness about it all, that makes It as real for us today as It was for them. It Is to this element of tlrae-lessness tlrae-lessness the unchanging reality that we wish to direct your attention. 1. The fact of human worship of Deity is co-e.tenslve with the race. Men have also brought gifts with their worship, according to tbelr conceptions concep-tions of Qod and his need On the one hand worship 1 acceptable and men receive the witness that they aro acceptable. Again, others find thdr worship nut satisfactory and either give it up or continue it heartlessly. Culn was told tint tho trouble wlih. bun was not his gift or his worship, but his lite. Sin was at the dr.or. A man can not worship God accept-oblv accept-oblv if his hands are defiled with sin But Gods tender care was thrown about Cain when the clouds darkened I hi.s face. Jehov3b makes koown to him . the error nrgs him to d .good and promises reward. He is told to I master sin and temptation, for It Is In his power to do o, as it Is for all of us. But not so, sin leads to rejection, canning jealousy. Hate follows and becomes the father of murder. A must cover this up. nd we find a heart uf stone, when he says. "Am I my brothers peeper?" !n is a terrible ter-rible taskmaster. A e fee how it drove Calo downwrd we realize how-It how-It also dealt with But Cain i absolutely mastered- lio shows u |
