Now, Genesis chapter number 4, this is the familiar story of Cain and Abel, and I'm going
to read, stay in Genesis 4, but I want to read for you from Jude, verse 11 in the New
Testament, where the Bible, speaking of false prophets, says, woe unto them, for they have
gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and
perished in the gainsaying of Corey.
So Cain is someone who's held up in the New Testament as being a bad example of someone
who we should not be like.
Later in 1 John chapter 3, God says that we should love one another and not be as Cain,
who was of that wicked one and slew his brothers.
So Cain is one who's held up as a bad example throughout the Bible, and so tonight I want
to preach a sermon called The Way of Cain.
You know, what was wrong with Cain?
Where did he go wrong?
Now first of all, I want to show you that number one, he disobeyed God.
Now it says in Genesis 4, 1, and Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and bare Cain
and said, I've gotten a man from the Lord.
And she again bare his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of the sheep, but Cain was a
tiller of the ground, and in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit
of the ground an offering unto the Lord.
Now when you read this in verse 3, it seems like Cain is doing something good here.
I mean, he's bringing an offering unto the Lord, and usually we would think of that as
being a good thing.
He's worshipping the Lord.
He's giving something unto the Lord.
It says in verse number 4, and Abel he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and
of the fat thereof, and the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering, but unto Cain
and to his offering he had not respect.
And Cain was very wroth when his countenance fell.
Wroth means angry.
Wrath is where that comes from.
Now go to Hebrews chapter number 11, toward the very end of the New Testament, Hebrews
chapter 11, because when you're reading this story, you don't really get the fact that
there was any commandment given from the Lord.
It just sounds like, okay, Cain brought one offering, Abel brought another, God respected
the one, and he did not respect the other.
But if we let the New Testament interpret the story of what was happening, it says in
Hebrews chapter 11 verse 4, by faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice
than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts,
and by it he being dead yet speaketh.
And the significance of that statement is that the Bible tells us that Abel offered
that sacrifice of the first things of his flock by faith, and the Bible tells us that
faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
It wouldn't really make any sense to say that Abel offered that sacrifice by faith
if it was just something that he came up with on his own.
I mean, if we just come up with something on our own and do it, we're not doing that
by faith.
When we get something from God's word, when God tells us to do something, and we say,
you know what, I'm going to do what God told me to do because I believe that God's word
is right here, and I believe that, you know, what God has said is the right thing for me.
I'm going to trust his word.
So that's what Abel did.
He was obviously responding to a directive from God in order for it to be said that by
faith he offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain.
Because if you look at all the other people there in the list of Hebrews 11 who did things
by faith, they were doing things that God told them to do.
And so God had told Abel, and he'd obviously told both of them, what the offering should
be.
If you remember when Adam and Eve first sinned in chapter number three, they prepared for
themselves aprons of fig leaves in order to be a covering for them because they realized
they were naked and they were ashamed.
So they sowed themselves aprons out of fig leaves, and God replaced those fig leaf aprons
with coats of skins, and he gave them something else to wear that was from an animal skin.
Now in order to make a coat of skins, what do you have to do to an animal?
You have to kill it.
Okay, so blood had to be shed, an animal had to die, and that was a picture of course of
Jesus Christ dying for our sins to provide a covering for our sins so that we could be
clothed in that robe of righteousness that is not our own righteousness.
And Paul said, not having mine own righteousness.
And we think of the apostle Paul as a pretty righteous individual.
He was a pretty good guy.
He did a lot of great works for God.
And he even said, you know, that we don't trust in the flesh.
He said we have no confidence in the flesh, but he said if any man hath whereof, he might
trust in the flesh, I more.
He said I'm circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin,
I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, a Pharisee concerning zeal, persecuting
the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
But what things were gain to me, those accounted loss for Christ.
And he says later in the chapter, not having my own righteousness which is of the law,
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.
So when Adam and Eve put on those coats of skin, that pictured, it was a covering of
the lamb.
You know, it was a covering of the righteousness of Jesus Christ who had made an atonement
for their sin.
And just as that animal died for their sin, that was a picture that one day the Lord Jesus
Christ would die for our sins.
Every animal sacrifice in the Old Testament was pointing the children of Israel unto that
future Messiah that would come and be sacrificed and be offered for their sins.
You know, the great scripture in Isaiah 53 that predicts the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ says, when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin.
You know, that great scripture that talks about him being, you know, wounded for our
iniquities, bruised for our transgressions, and it says his soul will be made an offering
for sin.
And that's what happened.
This idea of animal sacrifice is something that's all throughout the Old Testament.
It started long before Moses and Mount Sinai.
We see Adam and Eve.
We see Abel.
Later we're going to see Noah offering animal sacrifices, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all
the way through the Old Testament, all the way up into the Lord Jesus Christ.
These animal sacrifices were offered.
Man's cheap substitute is the fig leaf apron.
That pictures our works.
When we're trying to cover for our own sins by doing good works, you know, what we can
make, what we can produce to try to cover our sins.
And it looks silly.
You know, that fig leaf doesn't cover much, you know, that fig leaf apron.
An apron doesn't cover much in general.
You know, I don't think anybody would leave the house in nothing but an apron.
But we see here in chapter 4 the same type of thing here with Cain and Abel because Abel
is offering a blood sacrifice, you know, an animal sacrifice of an animal.
And you know, Cain is just, he's too vegan.
You know, he's vegetarian.
You know, he just wants to offer only fruits and vegetables.
I don't know if he just has an aversion to meat and butchery.
But he offers fruits and vegetables.
Now all throughout the Bible there are all these examples of people who are doing things
where you'd look at them and say, well, you know what, I think his heart's in the right
place.
But they're not doing what God told them to do.
And all kinds of people throughout the Bible are constantly suffering and constantly being
punished for doing things their way instead of doing things God's way.
God will give them a really clear directive, really clear instructions, and then they have
a better idea.
You know, God tells them, look, when you carry the Ark of the Covenant, you're going to put
two staves through it.
What's a stave?
A pole, okay?
He puts two poles through the Ark of the Covenant.
And he said the Levites, the priests in fact, are going to carry the Ark upon their shoulders.
And that's how I want you to carry it.
But they decided, hey, let's just put it on a cart with wheels.
Why would we sit here and carry this thing on our shoulders?
Let's put it on a cart with wheels.
Let's pull it by animals.
But what happened when they did that, they're riding along and the oxen that were pulling
the cart stumbled.
And the Ark began to shake off the cart that they had made.
And then Uzzah, again, hard in the right place, trying to do a good thing, wants to stop the
thing from falling off the cart.
And so Uzzah puts forth his hand just to steady the Ark.
And when he touches the Ark, he dies.
Why?
Because no one is allowed to touch the Ark.
So he touches the Ark, he dies.
But really, it wasn't Uzzah's fault.
It was the fault of the people, really, who had the stupid idea of putting it on the cart
in the first place when God made it really clear how he wanted the thing to be carried.
And then the next time David brought the Ark, he said, you know what?
This time we actually read the Bible and we're going to do it God's way and the Levites are
going to carry it on their shoulders on the staves the way that God told us to do it in
the first place.
At first, David was upset and said, you know, why did you do this to Uzzah?
He's a great man.
He was doing a good thing.
He wanted to steady the Ark.
But then he thought about it and said, you know what?
We disobeyed God.
We should have done it God's way and that's why somebody died because we're not obeying
the Lord.
Now, a lot of people today have a different image of God than what the Bible presents
because the Bible presents an image of God from cover to cover that says, do it my way.
And he's not playing games.
He gives clear instructions and he wants people to obey him.
And we constantly see throughout the Bible people with their heart in the right place
just kind of worshiping the Lord however they think is the best way.
And you know what?
All that matters is just my intent and just my heart and God knows my heart and all this.
But you know what?
We constantly see that as being something that God doesn't accept starting with this
story.
God doesn't respect that.
The saying goes that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
And all throughout the Bible we see a lot of people who seem like their hearts in the
right place.
But honestly, in my opinion, if they're not doing what God said, their heart's not in
the right place.
And we're about to see in Cain the fact that his heart's not in the right place at all
when we see the way he reacts to correction.
So the first thing he did, number one, was he disobeyed God.
And we need to be careful when God tells us something that we do it.
Now you say, well isn't God a merciful God though?
Yes he is.
And that's why when people make mistakes through ignorance and when people sin through ignorance,
he'll often give them another chance.
He'll often be merciful and let things go.
Also when we as believers intercede for other believers, God will often hear that prayer
of intercession and be merciful unto others.
That's why we should pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ when we see them commit
sins and when we know that their heart's in the right place but that they're going into
sin we need to pray that God be merciful to them.
Sort of like Hezekiah did in the story where the children of Israel, they did not celebrate
the Passover exactly as it was written in the Bible but it was because they hadn't done
the Passover in so long they didn't really know how to do it and they weren't really
prepared to do it but their heart was in the right place and they wanted to serve God.
They tried their best and then Hezekiah prayed and interceded and said, you know, the good
Lord pardon every one of them and you know, God heard that prayer and pardoned them.
So yeah, God does show us mercy and God is patient with us but let me tell you something.
When you know to do good and you do it not, it's sin and the Bible says to him that knoweth
to do good and doeth not to him and it's sin and when God sits there and gives you a clear
instruction and says this is the offering you're supposed to bring, he's not going to
be merciful when you just turn around and just bring something completely different.
God expects us to, when we know the truth, to act upon it and obey it and God expects
us to look in the Bible and find the truth too.
I mean, if we have a Bible sitting on our shelf for 20 years, we don't know how to live
our lives because we never open it and read it.
It's not going to work to say, well, God, I didn't know.
He knows you had that Bible that was sitting there and you didn't read it.
That's your problem.
So God does expect obedience and He expects us to follow His commandments and not to just
loosely, oh, you want an offering, okay, I'll bring you fruits and vegetables.
I don't want a salad.
I mean, that would be like, what if my wife served me fruits and vegetables for lunch
or dinner?
I would not have respect under that offering.
You need to slay an animal and serve it unto me, okay, for breakfast, lunch, and dinner
because I don't want to be like Cain.
I want to be a little more like Abel and eat a lot of meat.
But anyway, number one, he disobeyed, but number two, here is the big mistake of Cain
because honestly, disobeying is something that we've all done.
Every single person here has disobeyed the Lord and every single person is going to disobey
God again in the future.
But here is the difference between who is going to be blessed by God and who is going
to be cursed by God is that number two, not only did he disobey, he refused to be corrected.
This is the big downfall of Cain.
Look at verse six because it says, well, look at verse five, it says, but unto Cain and
to his offering he had not respect and Cain was very wroth.
Now Cain doesn't have the right to become extremely angry at God, which is what very
wroth means, and his countenance fell.
Now dear God in his grace and in his mercy wants to give Cain another chance.
So here is what he says in verse six, and the Lord said unto Cain, why art thou wroth,
and why is thy countenance fallen?
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?
And if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.
But unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.
And Cain talked with Abel his brother, and it came to pass when they were in the field
that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him.
So here is the major downfall of Cain.
He refused to receive correction.
God gives him a chance, and God says, don't get angry, Cain.
If you do what's right, I'll accept you.
It's not too late to repent, to go back and do it right.
And he gives him that second chance.
This is something that we could see all throughout the Bible, but go to 2 Chronicles 25.
Let me give you a great example of this from 2 Chronicles 25.
While you're turning there, let me mention to you a few other examples of this throughout
the Bible.
I think the greatest example is King Saul versus King David.
Now King Saul, we think of him as a bad king, even though he started out as a very godly
and a humble man, and he did a lot of great things for the nation of Israel.
He delivered them from their enemies.
He was filled with the Spirit of God.
But we think of Saul as a bad king because he went down a bad path after he became king.
And you'll notice that when Saul makes mistakes and he's corrected by a prophet, Samuel, he
bristles at that.
And he reacts by just making excuses for himself and not having real remorse or any
real repentance when he's confronted with his sins.
For example, when he was supposed to kill all the Amalekites, King Saul, and then he
makes excuses like, well, you know, I saved of the best of the animals to offer a sacrifice
unto the Lord.
Well, that's not what God asked for.
God wanted the animals to be killed.
But he said, no, no, no, we saved some of them to make an offering unto the Lord.
And then he tried to blame the people.
Well, the people wanted to save all this stuff.
And then he's like, well, why didn't you kill all the Amalekites?
Well, I only left one alive, King Agag.
But still, you left one alive.
They were supposed to all be killed.
And then later on, when he's chasing after David, out of his jealousy and out of a wicked
heart, he's chasing David.
And he says he's sorry.
And he realizes, wait a minute, I'm doing wrong here by hunting down this innocent man,
David.
But then what does he do?
He turns right back around and goes out and does it again.
He says he's sorry, but he does it again.
So constantly, we see Saul making mistake after mistake after mistake.
And instead of receiving correction, he gets upset, he argues, he makes excuses.
And that was his downfall.
Now David, on the other hand, the man after God's own heart, he also made mistakes.
He also committed actually some major sins.
And we think of the big sin that he committed with Bathsheba, but if you actually read the
whole story of David, like when I was preaching through 1 Samuel chapter by chapter, there
were a lot of sins that David committed in that story.
There were a lot of mistakes he made.
Because long before he even committed adultery with Bathsheba, first of all, he began to
multiply wives.
Work on a second wife.
And taking on a second wife is something that God has never allowed or told man to
do.
And there were lots of other things that he did where he showed a lack of faith and committed
sin.
But the difference was that when someone came to him and corrected him, he got it right.
That was the big difference between David and Saul.
That's why David's kingdom lasted forever and that's why Saul's kingdom was cut short
and it did not go into his son Jonathan.
Because of the fact that he couldn't receive correction.
This is an important facet of our lives.
Look if you would at 2 Chronicles.
This is a king Amaziah, the king of Judah, look what it says in verse number 14.
It says, Now it came to pass after that Amaziah was come from the slaughter of the Edomites.
And up to this point he'd been doing what was right in the sight of the Lord.
But when he came back from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought the gods of
the children of Seir and set them up to be his gods and bowed down himself before them
and burned incense unto them.
Wherefore the anger of the Lord was kindled against Amaziah and he sent unto him a prophet
which said unto him, Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people which could not
deliver their own people out of thine hand?
He's saying, this doesn't even make sense.
You wiped these people out in the name of the Lord, now you're worshiping the gods of
the loser?
That doesn't even make sense.
They lost.
If their gods were real, why did they get destroyed?
And why did you win?
So he's saying, you know, why did you even worship these gods?
I don't know if you just thought they looked cool.
You know, these graven images or molten images, these statues of these weird looking, you
know, half animal, half human gods.
Whatever the reason, he worshiped these other gods.
And it says, It came to pass, verse 16, as he talked with him that the king said unto
him, Art thou made of the king's counsel for bear?
Why shouldest thou be smitten?
So he's threatening him.
He's saying, stop preaching against me or I'm going to hit you.
I'm going to smite you.
And when he says that, that he should forbear or stop preaching, halfway through verse 16
it says, Then the prophet forbear and said, I know that God hath determined to destroy
thee because thou hast done this and hast not hearkened unto my counsel.
See there's hope up to that point, that Amaziah would get right with God, that he would
turn away from these false gods, that he would destroy the idolatry that had crept
into his home, and that he would serve the Lord only.
But when the prophet comes to him and tells him, Amaziah, you've done wrong, here's what
God has said, here's what you need to fix, when he did not accept that correction, that's
when he knew, you're done.
You're going to be destroyed.
It's over for you.
Let's keep reading.
It says in verse 17, Then Amaziah king of Judah took advice and sent to Joash the son
of Jehoahaz, the son of Jehu, king of Israel, saying, Come, let us see one another in the
face.
And now let's jump down, it says in verse 20, But Amaziah would not hear, for it came
of God, that he might deliver them into the hands of their enemies, because they sought
after the gods of Edom.
So Joash the king of Israel went up, and they saw one another in the face, both he and Amaziah
king of Judah at Beshemesh, which belonged to Judah.
And Judah was put to the worst before Israel, and they fled every man to his tent.
And on and on it talks about how in verse 27, Now after the time that Amaziah did turn
away from following the Lord, they made a conspiracy against him in Jerusalem.
And he fled to Lachish, but they sent to Lachish after him and slew him there, and they brought
him upon horses and buried him with his fathers in the city of Judah.
So he meets a pretty bad end.
First he gets involved in a war that he shouldn't have been involved in, and because he goes
out and just goes to war for no reason, he ends up getting the whole city of Jerusalem,
this capital city destroyed, the walls get knocked down, and all these bad things happen.
Then his servants conspire against him and try to murder him.
He flees out of Jerusalem, and then they go follow him there and murder him.
Okay, why?
Because he would not listen when somebody tried to correct him.
Now that prophet, he thought that prophet just had it in for him.
You know, just being mean to him.
But really that prophet could have saved his life, and could have saved the wall of Jerusalem
from being destroyed, and could have saved him a lot of trouble if he would have listened
to the rebuke.
But because he didn't listen, it just got worse, it got worse.
You know, and when he lost that big battle to Israel, and had the wall knocked down,
that should have been a sign to him, hey, you know, maybe I'm being punished by God
like that prophet said.
But then he still didn't listen.
And then he ended up being murdered, you know, because of his insolence.
But look, if you would, at Proverbs 29, book of Proverbs 29.
Another great example, and I mean, we could go through the whole Bible, but another great
example is King Ahab.
King Ahab was the most wicked king of Israel up to that point.
There had been a whole bunch of kings of Israel, many of them had been wicked, but it said
that King Ahab was more wicked than all the kings that were before him.
And Elijah came to King Ahab and rebuked King Ahab.
And when Elijah preached right to the face of King Ahab, and King Ahab said to Elijah,
you're my enemy.
But when Elijah preached the word of God to him, he actually was sorry.
And he actually realized that he was wrong.
And he received that correction, and God spared King Ahab.
Because he cried, he had tears, and he wept unto the Lord, and he was truly sorry from
his heart that he had done wrong.
And so God said unto him that he would be spared.
Let me tell you something.
Remorse and repentance, when you're confronted with something that you've done wrong, goes
a long way.
But when you resist correction, you're going to fail, both in this life with the people
of this world, and in God's sight.
Look what the Bible says in Proverbs 29, it says, I'm not turned there, but I think I
have it memorized.
He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that
without remedy.
Do you see that?
He that being often reproved, verse 1, sorry, Proverbs 29 verse 1, he that being often reproved
hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
When you get that reproof and you harden your neck, instead of basically bowing your head
would be the opposite of hardening your neck.
And obviously that's figurative of the fact that you're sorry, that you're humble.
Look down, that's a symbol of humility and being sorry.
Now this isn't just before the Lord.
Obviously when the Lord rebukes us, we need to be sorry.
We need to admit to the Lord that we've sinned and confess unto him and repent of our sins.
Now look, this isn't salvation.
Repenting of your sins is a daily thing for Christians, or it ought to be.
It's a weekly thing, it's a monthly thing.
It's happening constantly in our lives.
A lot of people will try to attach this to salvation.
In reality, salvation is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
In order to be saved, we just have to believe in Jesus Christ our Savior, confess with our
mouth the Lord Jesus, believe in our heart that God has raised him from the dead, then
we shall be saved.
But repentance and remorse and being sorry for our sins is a way of life unto the Christian.
When we do wrong and when we realize we've done wrong, we admit it, we confess it, we
forsake it, we're sorry.
This is something that we need to continually do in our lives.
It's not a one-time deal.
It's something that needs to be constantly happening.
But you say, well how does God rebuke us?
You know, God's not going to send a prophet to me like he sent to David that says thou
art the man and then I'm going to say to him I've sinned, I'm sorry, the way David
did.
But wait a minute, when you come to church sometimes you'll hear preaching that even
though I didn't write the sermon for you, although sometimes I did write it for you
buddy.
I know what you're into.
No, I'm just kidding.
But anyway, I don't write the sermons with any person in mind.
You know, I've got my spies kind of figuring out what sins people are into so I can preach.
No, I have no idea.
I remember in the first year that I was pastor back in 2006, I preached a sermon.
I was preaching against smoking.
And four people came up to my wife separately and said, I know Pastor Anderson was preaching
against me.
How did he find out that I smoke?
You know, he had it in for me.
It's like there's four people smoking, you know what I mean?
I wouldn't even know any, I thought no one smoked in the church.
I had no idea.
But yet all four people thought he was directing that at me.
He's mad at me.
He's got it in for me.
No, it's just the Holy Spirit's got it in for you.
And so I get up and preach.
I'm not directing this at any certain person.
There's too many people.
It's just preaching the Bible and you know, if the shoe fits, wear it.
But when you come to church and hear preaching, you should apply it to yourself.
Now there are some people who are constantly applying it to everyone around them and not
to, you know, they're thinking like, oh man, I wish so and so was here to hear this.
They really need this.
Oh man, the person who needs this isn't here.
You know, you need it.
Constantly just, you know, I remember one time, you know, in all the years that I've
been pastoring, funny things have happened.
I remember I'm getting up and preaching on something one time and I'm preaching about
being lazy or something.
And this guy literally is pointing to his girlfriend or something and he's just like.
I mean literally, I'm up there preaching about like, you know, sleeping in too much and being
lazy and he's just like.
I mean literally.
But you know what, a lot of people are doing that in their heart.
That guy was doing it physically, but a lot of people are doing that in their heart during
the preaching.
But honestly, we should be much more worried about ourselves in our lives.
When we hear Bible preaching, we should be asking ourselves, okay, how can I improve
in that area?
Where are some areas where I can put this into practice, where I can do better?
And what are some areas where I'm corrected and I maybe don't handle it as well as I should?
So when we come to church and hear preaching that hits on our sins, which come on, we all
have sins and when we come to church, sometimes preaching is going to hit us where it hurts
and when that happens, how do we react to it?
Do we get mad and say, I'm never coming back to this church?
That's how some people are and that's why they go to these big fun centers where there's
never any preaching against sin.
They go to the liberal fun, it's like a McDonald's, basically, church is like a restaurant where
you're served spiritual meat and drink, right?
The word of God is like food and the sermon is like a preparation of a cook that's serving
you spiritual food.
Okay, basically, those churches are like a spiritual McDonald's.
That's the quality of the food that they're serving, but they have a play land.
Ooh, they have a slide, they have all these little plastic balls to swim around in, you
know, they're probably filled with a lot of germs of a lot of, you know, kids climbing
in there and all the saliva and snot and, you know.
But anyway, I'm saying, you know, ooh, let's go to Chuck E. Cheese, you know, Baptist Church
because they have a play land and they have a big, you know, a guy in a mouse costume
that's going to come, you know.
But here's the thing, when you get a little bit older, you get a little more mature, you
actually go to pizza that tastes good, right?
You actually go to a restaurant where you're getting high quality food and you're not just
picking a restaurant based on, hey, the slide.
That's what a toddler would do.
And that's fine for toddlers, you know, to say, hey, let's go to McDonald's because there's
a toy in the Happy Meal, you know.
And then they go to church and they want to get a Happy Meal.
And Pastor Ronald McDonald's going to give us a toy if we come on Sunday morning.
You know, you get a little older and you're like, forget McDonald's, forget Chuck E. Cheese,
that's nasty.
And you want to go to a nice restaurant and you're thinking about the quality of the food,
you're thinking about what it tastes like.
Well, it's the same thing, just a baby Christian is sucked in by all the gimmicks.
Those who want spiritual meat, they want something they can sink their teeth into and they like
hard preaching because it will help them to grow and help them to get the sin out of their
life and help them to learn something.
I mean, what's the point of going to church if you just want to just stay the same, not
learn anything, not grow, not get any sin out of your life.
I mean, look, if somebody's just going to tell you, think about this, you know, I used
to enjoy training in martial arts and I went to some classes last week that were like that.
And you know, what if I went to a martial arts gym and they just said, all right, you
know, go ahead and punch the punching bag, you know, go ahead and kick it, go ahead and
knee it, go ahead and elbow it.
And they just told me, man, you're doing great.
And they never told me I'm doing it wrong.
They never gave me any critique and said, well, actually no, that's not how you do it.
What if they just said, man, you're doing awesome.
You look great.
Yeah, keep going.
I hit it again.
Yeah.
And you're just like, well, I just love this gym because I just get so encouraged.
It just feels so good to just go and I get encouraged and I, you know, I'm punching the
bag, I'm kicking it.
And you know, in reality, you're all sloppy and you know, you're like a little kid, it's
all hammer fist, you know.
And you're just, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm doing great, you know, just, yeah, this
is great.
No, you want to go somewhere where somebody's going to tell you, no, you're doing it wrong.
Let me show you how to fix it.
I mean, that's what you need.
That's what training is.
That's the whole point.
If nobody's going to correct you, then it's not even worth paying the money for, what,
to get the motivation, just to get some yes man to just tell you everything that you want
to hear.
But a lot of people, they just hate to be told that they're wrong about anything.
They just hate to be told, hey, you have sin in your life.
Well, how dare you.
Of course, everybody has sin in their life, but how dare you say that I do.
I mean, I know everybody does, but how, you know, I know the Bible says that everybody's
told a lie in their life, but, you know, how dare you say that I've ever lied.
And there are people who just hate being corrected.
They'll never make it into church like this.
Just because whenever they hear the preaching, they're like, oh, he's talking about me.
If I am, that means I love you.
I'm, you know, I'm helping, but I'm not anyway because it's just generalized for the whole
crowd.
You feel like it's directed at you because of the fact that that's, you know, the issue
that you have in your life.
Like I remember I took this guy to church one time, and this guy had grown up in a Christian
home his whole life, and the pastor was getting up, and he was preaching against a lot of
the TV sitcoms that were on, and he was preaching against, you know, Seinfeld, Friends, Ellen,
you know.
This is the stuff that was on back in the 90s.
And he's just, he's preaching about what's wrong with all these shows and how, you know,
you need to stop watching all these worldly TV shows and everything, and they're being
a bad influence on your mind and this and that.
And I remember we get in the car afterward, and he's like, man, you know, he wasn't used
to the hard preaching.
And he's like, man, he's like, what, you know, what, why was the pastor ripping on, you know,
Frasier?
And I'm like, and I told him, I said, I said, you know what, the pastor didn't mention Frasier.
That was the Holy Spirit, you know, because that was like, he just, he just filled in
the blank of his favorite show that wasn't even mentioned, okay.
So I said, that must have been the Holy Spirit, and then that just kind of shut him up.
Then he's just, oh, okay, you know.
He didn't mention that.
Because I knew, because I knew this pastor, and he was one that brought up the same shows
over and over again.
So I knew the list pretty well.
I knew what was on it and what was not on it, okay.
But anyway, that's why a lot of people won't come to a fundamental baptism.
You say, why, you know, why don't people come to Faithful Word, you know.
They could learn so much Bible, but they don't come because they don't like anything
that makes them feel convicted in their heart, like they have something wrong.
They want to go somewhere that just makes them feel good, you know.
And really, that's going to be their downfall, when they just want to just, but look, it's
not just church, also just when you read the Bible.
Sometimes you'll come across things that correct you, and you need to respond to that.
But let's forget the Bible for a moment and think about just other areas of life.
What about at work?
You want to succeed at work, learn how to take correction?
And how many people have you seen at work that cannot take correction?
We've all seen it, right?
I mean, the boss just comes to them.
And sometimes today we have such a weird culture in some work environments.
You'll see sometimes the manager will just be using like kid gloves and just, well, now,
you're doing really good, but, you know, I think you could just do just a little bit
better.
See, I've never had, you know, it's funny, I talk to a lot of people in their job, I've
never had one of these jobs where the boss treats you well, never.
Every job I ever had, the boss just cusses you out daily, and just, you know what I mean,
just pretty much every job, you know, just totally unreasonable, totally unfair.
That's every job I've ever had.
But you know what, though?
The one who takes it, and you say, well, why should I take that?
Because he's the boss, because you want to bring home that paycheck to mama, that's why.
The reason why you take it is because it's about making money, and it's about, you know,
being a good employee.
And even if your boss is not being a good boss, you can still be a good employee, and
you're still going to succeed, and you're still going to make money.
And there are people there, maybe they're doing some kind of a physical task of a trade,
and somebody comes up to them and tells them, hey, actually you do it this way, and they're
like, I know what I'm doing, I know how to do it, and then they don't learn.
Well, I know how to do it, I know, I know, I know.
Here's the thing, this is something you should never say to your supervisor at work, I know.
I know.
Don't say that to your supervisor.
You know, when my boss or my supervisor at work would tell me something that I already
knew, I just say, oh, okay, all right, yeah.
And I act like I'm hearing it for the first time.
Okay, yeah, I'll do that.
But that's the way to succeed at work.
Somebody tells you to do something, you say, okay, yeah, I will do it that way, hey, thanks.
Thanks for showing me how to do that.
Instead of just, well, I know what I'm doing, the way I'm doing it's fine.
Or well, this is how I did it at my other job.
So I'm just going to keep doing it that way.
It's like, no, this is how we do it here.
This is how you're going to do it.
And this is a good way to succeed at your job.
When the boss corrects you, and you know what, I don't know about you, maybe you've
had one of these bosses that's, you know, I don't know, that sits there and does yoga
with you and has a chiropractor come in and adjust you at lunchtime and you get to take
a nap on a bean bag every afternoon at your job and they have all kinds of company picnics
and company sporting events and they, you know, everything is, you know, they come and
measure you and measure your chair and your desk to make sure it's ergonomically correct
so you can be at maximum comfort.
I've never had a job like that.
I mean, every job I had was like, you buggity buggity, you know, I mean, that's the jobs
that I've had.
But sometimes that's where you make the money, you know, so you just got to do it.
So what I'm saying is that in all areas of life we need to become a person that does
not bristle when we hear correction.
What's your knee-jerk reaction when somebody comes to you and tells you you're wrong and
corrects you?
Is it to ask yourself, am I wrong?
That should be a good reaction right there.
Okay, am I wrong here?
Do I need to fix something?
No, maybe I need to fix this.
Not to have an attitude that just bristles, like grrr.
And you can literally just see it in people's face sometimes.
Someone will try to correct them and it's like you can just, it's like you can, their
heart starts pounding faster.
And it's like their blood pressure goes up and their heart's pounding and they start
like breathing a little quicker.
Somebody's telling me that I'm wrong.
And they have like a physical reaction to being told no, you know, to being told you
need to stop doing that, you need to fix that.
You know, you're, hey, stop being late to work, tuck in your shirt, you know.
What's your reaction?
Oh, sorry, sir, let me tuck that in.
And never have it untucked again?
Or just pfft, pfft, pfft, pfft, okay.
But what about other, just all authorities in your life, what about children to parents?
Children need to react well to being told no.
Now here's the thing.
If you have a small child, you tell them no.
You haven't even spanked them.
You just say to them like no.
You know, it's like oh, I'm sorry, you know.
And that's immaturity.
And that's bad.
And you know what, I love it when I can tell my children no, you need to stop doing that
and they just receive that correction.
And to me, that's a great sign of maturity.
And when I see that, I think to myself, wow, that, you know, thank God that my child is
being good and doing well.
Or sometimes, you know, you'll give a child a slap on the hand.
A little tiny child, give them a slap on the hand.
Or sometimes you give them a slap on the hand and they just take it.
And they realize I was wrong, I got my hand slapped, I'm not going to do that again.
That's a lot of maturity there.
But are you like that little kid where somebody tells you that you're wrong and you just freak
out?
That's how a lot of people are with their jobs.
That's how a lot of people are with the pastors preaching.
Even if it's not even personal to them and they're just like, just getting angry.
And also, you know what, wives with their husbands.
You know, and here's the thing, we live in a society where husbands don't have any authority
over their wives, for some people.
But you know what, the Bible teaches that the husband's the head of the wife and that
the wife should obey their husband.
Whether that's popular or not, that's what the Bible says.
And you know what, it's not an anti-woman thing.
Look, I can show you my phone after the service, I get an email every day calling me misogynistic.
What a stupid word.
But this is like a new word.
I never heard that when I was a kid.
I didn't hear that.
Did you hear that growing up?
It's this new cool, you know, Pastor Henderson, you're so misogynistic.
See I don't go with all your little trendy words and all your little trendy concepts.
You know, people have been doing it my way for the last 6,000 years, in all cultures
pretty much, in all nations of the world.
And it's worked out great for a lot of people.
But all of a sudden we're supposed to get on this trendy little faggoty type of a relationship
where, you know, my wife and I are supposed to dress the same, act the same, look the
same, talk the same, live the same lifestyle, have the same authority.
You know, frankly that just doesn't appeal to me, being a hetero kind of a guy.
Hetero means different.
I want to be different than my wife.
I want her to dress different.
I want us to act different, talk different, have our hair different.
You know, and honestly, we as Christians should follow a lifestyle in our marriage that's
a biblical lifestyle.
And honestly, women are just as happy in this lifestyle as men.
And there's a proper lifestyle where the husband is the leader.
Because here's the thing, women are not wired to want to be in charge and rule over a man.
It goes against the grain with them to be the boss and to make all the decisions.
They love to be married to a strong man.
Women don't want to be married to a weakling.
And when your wife walks all over you and you're henpecked and you're scared of your
wife, she looks at you and thinks, oh, you're pathetic, you loser, you weakling, you wimp.
Women don't like a weak man.
You know what women are looking for in men, strength.
I mean what woman says I want to grow up and marry, little girls say I want to grow up
and marry a weakling, a really weak man, a really soft, effeminate weak man that I can
tell what to do and lead them around by the nose.
That's not what women want.
Even the feminist women deep down, they're like, please rule over me, please be my leader.
So what I'm saying is that's what the Bible teaches.
But here's the thing, wives, ask yourself, what about when your husband tries to actually,
God forbid, exercise some of his authority in the home?
Pastor Anderson, don't you understand, we just say that the men are in charge in church.
That's just what we say, but it doesn't really work that way.
Are you kidding?
I thought that's just something that we say, but it's kind of like hint, hint, wink, wink,
nod, nod, we all know who's really in charge type of thing.
No, I'm actually serious up here.
I actually mean it.
I really am that misogynistic, whatever that stupid word means.
I'm trying to figure out what that word means.
Isto is a prefix that would mean bad, have a bad attitude toward women.
I know the gyno is the woman part.
I'm trying to figure out sort of misogynistic, istic, that has to do with my belief.
I know the ist, I'm just breaking this word down for you folks, I'm doing the etymology
here.
Istic is what I believe.
So I guess I believe wrongly toward women because I think that they're weaker than men.
And I challenge any woman right now to come up and arm wrestle me right now.
I'm going to make the challenge that I've made over and over again.
I'm not the strongest man in the world.
Any woman can come up and arm wrestle me right now.
And if you can come up and defeat me in an arm wrestling match, I'll admit that women
are as strong as men, anyone?
And I've had about five women take me up on that over the years.
And they all went down.
And they went down hard, all right?
And I even made my wife arm wrestle me.
She didn't want to do it.
But I said, no, you're going to arm wrestle me, honey, and you're going to try your hardest
because I'm going to show you, baby.
But anyway, I was gentle.
But let me say this.
When your husband actually tries to exert a little authority in the home and says, no,
you need to stop doing that, what's your reaction to that?
What's your knee-jerk reaction when your husband says, honey, you need to stop doing that?
Honey, from now on, you need to do x.
From now on, you need to obey this and that.
What's the reaction?
Oh, how dare you?
You don't understand.
It's easy for you to say, man, you have it so easy.
What's the reaction?
Is it to harden your neck?
Is it to be stubborn?
Is it to be one who can't be corrected because that's the way of Cain?
What's the way of Cain?
Number one, it's disobedience to God.
What's the way of Cain?
Number two, it's refusing to be corrected, whether it's as a wife, a child, an employee,
whether it's just a Christian unto the Lord, whatever the case may be, or even just from
one man to another, if somebody comes to you and just gives you correction and tells you
you've done wrong.
Learn to be a person.
Listen to me, I want you to very carefully get this point.
Learn to be a person that accepts correction, that can be humble and accept correction,
and you will succeed.
In life, you'll succeed with the Lord, you'll succeed at your job, you'll succeed in marriage.
As a woman, you'll succeed all the way across the board if you just learn to be corrected.
Because let me tell you something, taking correction well goes a long way.
Sometimes your boss will just be infuriated, like, what are you doing, you idiot?
And you're just like, you know what, you're right, I'm sorry, I'm going to do it your
way.
And then it's like, yeah, okay, all right.
And then it just diffuses the whole situation.
You know, children who just admit that they're wrong and just say that they're sorry to their
business, they get less discipline.
They end up being shown more mercy.
It always works that way.
With God, it worked that way.
If you just say you're sorry, everything will be fine if you just take the correction.
Taking the correction can cover a multitude of sins, my friend.
It will really, we all make mistakes, we all mess up.
But you know what, you know, if anyone that was, whether it was my wife, my children,
my employees, if any of them, if I had to get on them and correct them about something
and they said, you know what, you're right, I'm totally sorry, it's my fault.
You're not going to be mad at them.
That's going to just, it's over, fixed.
Problem solved.
But we exacerbate problems in our life by just resisting correction.
And then lastly this, let me quickly say this, 1 John chapter 3.
What was the way of Cain?
Number one, he disobeyed the Lord.
What was the way of Cain?
Number two, he didn't like being corrected.
He couldn't handle it when somebody told him he was wrong.
He didn't respond well to correction.
He got mad when people corrected him.
He hardened his neck.
He got upset.
His countenance fell.
But thirdly this, he despised those who were more righteous than himself.
He despised those who were more righteous than himself.
Look what the Bible says in 1 John 3.11, it says, For this is the message that ye heard
from the beginning, that we should love one another, not as Cain who was of that wicked
one and slew his brother, slew means killed, and wherefore slew he him?
Because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous.
Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hates you.
So right there we see the motive for killing Abel because this tragic story ends in Cain
murdering Abel and not only ending Abel's life but ruining his own life because he spent
the rest of his life as a fugitive in a vagabond and his descendants went to the devil because
he ruined his life by killing Abel.
Why did he kill Abel?
Because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous.
You see people that go in the way of Cain, they have a tendency to be angry at those
who are better than themselves and to get upset.
Now here's the problem with this.
If you're that type, then what you're going to do is you're going to always surround yourself
with people that are more ungodly than you because you hate being around those that are
better than you.
And in reality it would be great to get around people that are better than you so that you
can learn from them, so that you can grow, so that you get, you know, you go to them
to learn how to do better.
Again, you know, going back to the illustration that I used about martial arts, you know,
what if you just, man I found this great martial arts gym, everybody there is just awful.
Like nobody can fight.
Everybody there is weak and I just go there and we do sparring and I just kick everybody's
butt every time and it's just, I just love it.
I just go down, I mean nobody knows how to fight, I just go down there and I just beat
up one person after another, it just feels great.
Now are you really learning anything?
No because, you know, you're just, all these little easy victories, you know, obviously
if you wanted to learn something, you'd want to basically go up against somebody who's
maybe a little better than you and it might involve you getting kicked around a little
bit, but you're going to learn something, you're going to grow more.
You know, it'd be like, there's so many different illustrations that we could use, but, you
know, it'd be like if I wanted to, you know, find a buddy that I'm going to lift weights
with.
You know, I'm just going to find the weakest person that I can because then I can just
look stronger and just, you know, just really show them up every time, it's going to feel
great.
No, but what would make more sense is to find the guy that's a lot stronger than you, right,
and go lift with him and have him show you some tips and train you and teach you, but
you know what that would take?
Humility.
Because, you know, he's going to be ahead of you and you're going to feel like, okay,
I'm the one learning, not the one teaching, but you're going to get more out of it, you're
going to grow more when you're around.
Now, it's the same thing with church.
A lot of people want to be a big fish in a little pond.
So they'll go to a church where there's no soul winning, they'll go to a church that's
really lame because then they can go there and feel like, man, I'm the most spiritual
person in this church.
You know, I can really show these people something.
In fact, I can even take the pastor and show him some things.
He doesn't even know the Bible.
Nobody in this church knows the Bible.
Nobody does any soul winning.
I'm the most righteous spiritual person in this church.
Now look, that's just pride that wants to be that big fish in a little pond.
The wise person would say, you know what, I want to go to a church that's filled with
some really zealous Christians that are a lot more spiritually mature than me because
if I can get around those people, man, I can learn from them and I can grow and I can be
like them and maybe some of what they have will rub off on me.
See the two different philosophies there?
The one that says I want to learn, I want to grow, I want to be around people that can
lift me up, not around people that are going to drag me down, but being around people that
are below you spiritually, it makes you feel good about yourself.
When you hang around with total losers and drunks and failures, then you start feeling
pretty good about yourself.
You go to a church where nobody's reading the Bible, nobody's doing any soul winning,
you can start feeling great about yourself.
But you know what you ought to be doing is going to the church that challenges you spiritually.
And a lot of people won't go to the best church because they'll basically, you know, whatever
the best church is in their area because most people live in an area where there are a lot
of churches to choose from, they won't always go to the soul winning, fired up church because
they're afraid that they're going to be, you know, they're going to feel pressured to get
involved and do more for the Lord.
Now here's the thing, nobody, you know, our church doesn't pressure people and say, hey,
you need to be out soul winning, you know, what's wrong with you?
How long have you been coming here and you're not out soul winning?
What's wrong with you?
That's not going to happen if anybody comes to our church, nothing like that happens.
You know, if somebody acted that way, I would rebuke that person and say, hey, you know,
you need to lay off of people.
Nobody's like that here.
That's not the atmosphere here.
But you know what it is though?
It's just that person's own conscience.
When they get around a bunch of people that are doing great things for the Lord, it's
their conscience that's telling them, you need to get out soul winning.
It's not anybody coming up to them saying, what are you doing?
When are you going to grow up in the Lord?
You're like a baby in Christ.
You've been here for years, you're still sucking your spiritual thumb.
Get out there and go soul winning.
Read that Bible cover to cover and then read it again and again and again and again.
But what it really is is the conscience is going to tell them, oh, wow, I need to be
tithing.
I need to be reading my Bible.
I need to be praying.
I need to be out soul winning.
You know, I need to get the sin out of my life.
I need to start acting right.
That's what it really is.
And people, they just don't like to get around people that are more spiritual than them because
it's their conscience.
They get around people that are more spiritual and it makes them feel unspiritual.
But you know what, though?
It's what we need to help us grow.
To get around role models.
Jeremiah said, I'll get me unto the great men that have known the way of the Lord.
We should want to go to the wise and learn from them and go to those that are more advanced
than us and get around them and be taught by them.
But that takes humility and that's what Cain lacked.
So number one, what was the way of Cain?
He was given a chance to God.
Number two, what was the way of Cain?
Refusing to receive correction.
He's given an opportunity to get it right.
He's given correction.
And he was even given a very gentle correction from God.
Where God even told him, look, if you do it right, I'll accept you.
I'm giving you a second chance.
He bristled.
And number three, what was the way of Cain?
He just hated people that were better than him.
He just hated the fact that his own works were evil and his brother's righteous.
It wasn't so much that God didn't accept his offering that made him so mad.
It was that Abel did it right.
I mean why kill Abel?
I mean who was Cain's problem really with?
God or Abel?
His problem's with God.
God told him to do something.
He didn't do it.
God corrected him.
He got mad at God so he killed Abel.
Why?
Because people have a tendency to take out their problem with God on somebody who's
doing it right.
Oh, you think you're so good, don't you?
You think you're so righteous, Abel, Mr. Abel goody-two-shoes.
You and your fatling dripping with fat offering of the flock.
You think you're so spiritual, and he killed him.
The Bible doesn't tell us how he killed him.
What did he do?
Kill him with his bare hands?
He's a rock.
What did he do?
It must have been violent, whatever it was.
Strangle him.
Knock his head.
I mean it was something bad, it was something violent.
Why?
Because he just hated his brother.
And that's why God said, you know what, don't be shocked, marvel not if the world hates
you.
Why?
Because the world hates a righteous person.
Why does the world hate a righteous person?
Because it hits their conscience.
Because it makes them feel like trash.
They love to watch TV and watch all the filthy reprobates because then it makes them feel
good about themselves.
They love reality TV and watch people, you know, dysfunctional homes and they're like,
oh man, you know, my house, I know my house has problems but it's not that messed up.
Makes them feel good.
But let's compare ourselves to a higher standard and let's love the righteous and love people
that are more spiritual than us and try to learn from them instead of just getting angry
at them.
You always beat me at everything.
If I go sowing for three hours, you go for four.
I read the Bible two times, you read it three times.
What's wrong with you?
Who cares?
Learn from them.
Grow.
Let's bow your heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we thank you for just your long
suffering and patience with us, Lord, and that you do give us correction in our life
and first of all, you've put human beings in our life to correct us.
But then aside from that, you've also given us your word that will correct us, Lord.
Help us to receive those corrections.
Help us not to go in the way of Cain, Lord, but help us to obey you when we mess up to
be corrected and to surround ourselves by godly people.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.