Finished up outside 😊When expectations are not met

Genesis 4: 4 - 8

⁴ and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, ⁵ but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. ⁶ The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? ⁷ If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

⁸ Cain said to Abel his brother, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him. 
Now we are at a later time. Here we read that boys are grown and are working. Cain is a farmer, a tiller of the soil. And Abel, has becomes a keeper of the sheep. This is interesting because it shows that from the very beginning that mankind was involved in agricultural and the keeping of gazing animals. He was not, initially a hunter-gatherer only; as taught in schools in our museums.

So, in our scripture we are told that both Cain and Abel brought an offering to God. And there are two things implied by this account:

First, that there must have been a prescribed time indicated to bring an offering to the Lord.

The phrase, "In the course of time" is a strong suggestion that there was a prescribed period.

Second, there is a prescribed place to take an offering, since we’re told they were to bring it before the Lord, a definite place where they were to appear in the presence of the Lord.

This clearly indicates that Adam and Eve had passed on to their boys what they knew and had learned of God, and had trained them to worship.

They were not, as we are sometimes told, fumbling blindly after God, seeking to find their way to an understanding of divine truth. Mankind began on that level. Paul makes this clear in Romans 1:20-23; “Man, who knew God, who knew who he was, departed from that knowledge and turned to idolatry.” 

This indicates the degeneration or the decline of mankind.

Now, the offerings Cain and Abel bring to God reveal a significant difference between the two men.

Cain's offering of fruit was instantly rejected; but Abel's offering of a lamb was instantly accepted.

I think we can safely assume that Cain ought to have known better than to bring an offering of fruit unto God. His father Adam would have taught him, that God had cursed the ground, and to offer the fruit of a cursed ground to God was obviously wrong and insulting.

I also think we can reasonably say that Adam and Eve, and Cain and Abel, knew the most basic truth which the Word of God strives to teach us. As we’re told in Hebrews 9:22; "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins,"

Remember all of this is designed to teach us and to show us the importance of

something crucial.

That is: "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins."

It is designed to teach that the problem of sin is not to be taken lightly.

It cannot be settled by simply deciding to turn over a new leaf, or by changing one's attitude.

Since it’s something that is embedded in the human race.

It can only be solved by death. That, of course, is what ultimately explains the cross of Jesus Christ and why, in his coming, he could not merely teach us good things but he had to die to deal with the problem of sin.

Now getting back to today’s scripture… our account says that Cain was angry that God rejected his offering, and that his face was downcast that makes it appear that Cain came expecting God to accept his offering.

Maybe he felt that his offering of fruit and grain was just as good as his brothers offering… after all, he had worked hard and labored in the hot sun to provide his offering.

But the Lord had no regard for his offering and that made him angry.

1 John 3:12, tells us that he was angry "because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous"

You see, Cain got jealous and was angry. He didn’t like the way God was acting; He didn’t like what God was happy with Abel’s and not his own.  

What bothered Cain was that God did not conform to his idea of rightness.

Which is how we can be when God presumes to be contrary to our feelings or to our expectation, [like Cain] we can become offended…

And we wonder, "How can God do this? Why does God allow this?"

When we do this it’s all because we want God to operate, the way we think He should.

When we ask… as we sometimes do, "Why did this have to happen to me?"

The only way to answer this is, "Why shouldn't it?

These things happen to everyone… Why should any of us assume that we have special immunity to the normal problems, the injustices, or trials of life?"

When our expectations of God or others are not met, we are often quick to anger. But we must be willing to recognize our resentment for what it is and quickly turn back to trusting God.

In the light of this, how much of the evil of our day comes out of the seeds of dislike for one another and of refusal to repent when the grace of God convicts us?