Herald Of Faith, Inc.   www.heraldoffaith.com
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Faith And Sacrifice

Abel offered a better sacrifice than Cain. God, who judges such things, said so, and that settled it. Cain didn't like the judgment, and sought revenge. In killing his younger brother, he was protesting the fact that his own sacrifice wasn't considered good enough. 

I understand Cain. His descendants died in the Flood, but his spirit isn't that easy to wipe out. The Jews speak of the mark of Cain, and the "wandering Jew" who can't die, but he can't really live either. Condemned to perpetual unhappiness by what seems an arbitrary judgment by God. God decided to accept Abel's offering and reject Cain's. Abel's offering got fire from heaven. Cain's just rotted on the rock.

Abel offered from the flocks because he was a shepherd. Cain offered from the fruit of the land, because he was a farmer. Both are acceptable offerings in themselves, according to later Old Testament patterns. It is appropriate that our sacrifice come from the work we are intimately involved in. We are familiar with it, and can make good judgment on the quality of the sacrifice.

We have no record of Adam's offering sacrifice. Only a hint that animal sacrifice may have been desirable because God made skins for Adam and Eve to wear. There in the Garden of Eden, God initiated the first killing of an animal. The message had been, "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" but this sacrifice showed that there was substitution, or at least a postponement of physical death on the literal day that they sinned. Perhaps also a hint at the future sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Did this make a deep impression on Adam? Did he kill more animals to make coverings for his sons? Was the significance in the killing of the animal rather than in the covering made for the people? The Bible doesn't say; it only says God made skins to cover Adam and Eve.

I wonder if God conducted interviews with Cain and Abel when they offered their sacrifices. "Cain and Abel, come here and stand beside your sacrifices before I determine whether to accept them."

There they stand. In front of Cain is a giant fruit basket, filled with oranges, apples, pomegranates, bananas, kiwis. There are grains and vegetables. Orchids, roses, gladiolus, mums laid out artistically, with both balance and abundance. A horn of plenty with wonderful and exotic plants from the ends of the earth.

Abel, over on the other side, has laid some raw meat, bloody and red. It comes from the firstlings of his flock, the fattest or best part. He looks at the stunning beauty of Cain's offering, and sighs. “Oh, if I only could work the fields like Cain, then I could present a beautiful sacrifice.” I respect the meat cutters of this world: they do their job, and I like the looks of a good steak on the barbecue grill. But this stack of meat on a rock?

“Cain,” God said, “that's very beautiful. You are the eldest and the example setter, the first person ever born in the world. Tell me how you prepared your offering.”

“Pleasure. I traveled the whole world for the best fruits and vegetables. From each field, I took a little, and brought it back as a beautiful and artistic offering to You. I sought the best advice on laying it out so it would be attractive. I chose a large flat rock to hold the sacrifice up to you. You see that the sacrifice reflects the beauty and variety of the creation you made. Please accept it as the best I know how to give. I want the religious aspect of my life to be acceptable to you.”

And Abel?

Abel, the younger brother, looks up at God, looks over at Cain's sacrifice. “Oh God, how can I explain? I work with the flocks, leading them about on the mountain meadows. I don't have time to seek the best from other places, because I have to be here for the animals. As the ewes gave birth, I chose the firstborn to set aside for you, and I have killed them and taken the best parts of them for the sacrifice. I can't get my mind off the lamb. I put my hand on its head, and suddenly realized that it wasn't just the lamb I was killing. It was like killing my own child. It was me there under the knife. It crushed me. I feel so unworthy. And the lamb, it was silent as I killed it, but I was weeping. Oh God, may my sacrifice be acceptable in thy sight. And the grief of the ewe when the lamb was sacrificed. Oh, how it broke my heart.”

Cain, what do you think of the sacrifice of Abel?

“I would have been happy to trade some of the fruit for some good lambskin. I've found many uses for it. I agree that the meat isn't the most beautiful thing in the world, and I understand the part about the heart breaking, both his and the ewe's. Those are noble passions, but they really aren't necessary. Besides being in poor taste and a little kitsch, they may in fact interfere with the expression of genuine liturgy. He could have offered something more...genteel, and it still would have been acceptable, and accomplished the purpose.”

Abel, what about Cain's sacrifice. What do you think?

“Cain has indeed made a beautiful sacrifice. I wish I could lay it out so nicely. Perhaps I should have asked him to help me. If it pleases you, I will do so next time. It's good to have an older brother who can help. I do hope you can accept both of our sacrifices. But I can't get my mind off the lamb. It's as if it lives inside of me, that it's death has put life in my own heart.”

The moment of judgment comes. Whose sacrifice will be consumed by God's fire? What would you choose? The one with all the beauty or the one with all the blood? The one offered by the firstborn of creation, or the one given by his little brother?

The smell of roasting lamb fills the air. Abel's sacrifice is accepted by God; Cain's remains untouched. Abel falls on his face in awe. Cain turns away in wrath, like a lawyer defeated at the Supreme Court. His countenance fell. God called him back. "Sin lieth at the door. If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" You can still repent!

But Abel is my little brother. Look at the bloody mess on the stone, and look at the beauty of my offering. You have disgraced me before him. You have not honored all my efforts to please you. You have been unjust and arbitrary.

Abel stays on his face before God, worshipping.

Did the two men talk about the incident? I doubt it. I think Cain went silent, internalizing his anger at God. One day he invited Abel to see his fields, and suddenly he rose up and killed him.

The first man of faith was Abel. The first expression of faith was sacrifice. The first man of faith, as he brought his sacrifice, said in essence, "the sacrifice is me", and was completely identified with his sacrifice when his brother killed him. Abel became a picture of Christ, in dying just like the lamb.

Why did God judge Abel's sacrifice as acceptable? Was He just being arbitrary, feeling sorry for the younger brother? Was it the sacrifice itself, that it was a blood sacrifice? Our text in Hebrews explains it. There was faith in it. How does that relate to our offerings to God?

Corinthians says, "First they gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us." There was a total commitment. They let go of their own control of their destiny. They gave their entire life over to God, not just their money.

The contrast between Abel and Cain is that Abel gave the firstlings, the first part, and the best parts. When you give the first, you don't know if there will be a second. When you give the best, you have only the second best left for yourself. You have honored God above yourself. That, incidentally, is the principle of tithing. You give to God first, before the bill collectors.

Cain gave, it says, of the fruit of the land. He presented a nice offering, but not a sacrifice backed up by faith.

I wonder how I would react if God conducted an interview every time I put some money in the collection or every time I thought I was doing Him a religious favor. What if He examined my faith? Would I be giving myself to Him, or would I be trying to hold Him off?

I'm afraid He would consider me cheap. And furthermore, I'm afraid that if I didn't think that way, I would end up like Cain. frustrated completely in my efforts to please God. It's a real dilemma. If I feel worthy, I'm not. If I feel unworthy, God may accept me. His sacrifices are a contrite heart and a broken spirit.

How do you measure sacrifice? Jesus said the widow's two mites were more than all the rich folks gave. Faith is not measured by the content of its sacrifice. It is measured by the heart behind it. It is measured by the cost to the giver. David said, "Neither will I offer to the Lord burnt offering of that which doth cost me nothing." No leftover, useless, or free stuff for God. No cheap grace.

Let me read you a story from a missions book called The Great Omission.
Some years ago a student from Columbia Bible College spent his summer at Hope Town in New York. (Some would call it "Hopeless Town.") His task was to diaper a twelve year old and feed a fifteen year old, to lift, guide, and love those whom society passed by because they were so unlovable, so physically unattractive. There he met a girl with the same heart and they were married. When Fred and Ronnie returned to school she found a position working with handicapped children in a government institution, since she had already completed her training as a specialist. There she discovered nine-year-old Bonnie, who looked no more than six. She was so abused she could not talk; her jaw hung open and she was never able to swallow her saliva. She tried to communicate with grunts. The young couple adopted her because God's love does not depend on the lovability of the one being loved, but on the loving character of the one who loves.

A distraught woman called me on the telephone and asked if I knew of anyone who could help her with three teenagers who had just lost their mother in an automobile accident. Someone needed to keep them for a few weeks until the relatives could get things together. The children were delinquent and wild, two years behind in school, and lonely. Alcohol and guns were their way of life. Fred and Ronnie moved in with the troubled teenagers, loved them, and won them. Then they led them to faith in Christ, discipled them, and finally adopted them. After graduation they moved back to Hope Town with four adopted children. It was there Ronnie felt life stirring in her own body. With joy they waited the birth of their first born. But then the doctor discovered something else in Ronnie's body--cancer. Next followed the weary round of surgery, radium therapy, pain, and finally remission. They took this as God's green light to head for New Guinea and fulfill their dream of missionary service. There they poured out their lives--and Ronnie's ebbing strength--on primitive ex-cannibals. God's kind of love is for the love-needy, not the love-worthy.

Then, one December just before Christmas, retarded little Bonnie knelt beside her mother's wasted body to pray. In halting, broken words that perhaps only her mother and father--and Jesus--could fully understand, she said, "Dear Jesus, Mommy hurts too much. Please take her to heaven." That night Jesus heard her prayer. Love does not lay conditions. Love gives. And the quality of love is proved by the sacrifice it makes.

Sacrifice! Giving your life. Letting go of what you have grown to depend on. The quality of love is proved by the sacrifice it makes.

God spoke well of Abel's offerings. Jesus spoke well of the widow's mite. They were commended as righteous.

How easy to justify a lesser sacrifice! How easy to say, "I give my money. No sense in giving up my life as well." 

We come with our offerings saying, "I am worthy!" "My offering is worthy!" That is Cain's spirit. But the elders in heaven cast their highest honor --their crowns--before the throne day and night. They cry out, "Thou art worthy to receive glory and honor and power, for thou wast slain." That is the sacrifice of praise, casting your highest achievement and crowning glory down before the glory of the Lamb! They understand that His sacrifice is what makes possible our sacrifice.

Abel understood it. In offering his lamb, his spirit sees the cross. He recognizes the judgment of sin in the sacrifice. Life itself is offered, not only the lamb's life, but Abel's as well. It's acceptance lies not in Abel's righteousness, but in the lamb's innocence. Abel recognizes that the legal document of his life is an IOU. For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There is none righteous, no, not one. 

Yet Abel is declared righteous. He has given all. His heart is to God. His sacrifice is good.

Abel's attitude in approaching the sacrificial altar is "If I live, I live to the Lord. If I die, I die to the Lord." He dies. His death is acceptable. His sacrifice isn't a magic potion that stops the holocaust from touching him. It isn't offered on Abel's terms, but God's.

Abel is the first man recorded as ever killing anything. He kills the substitutionary lamb. Cain is the second killer. He kills righteous Abel. Religious wars begin.

There is more to it than a piece of meat on a rock. Peter says, "Ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver or gold [or fruit rotting on a rock] from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." (I Pet 1:18-19) There is life in that blood. That sacrifice makes possible the presenting of our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. Romans 12 says this is a reasonable service.

Cain brought his stuff. Abel brought the firstlings of the flock. Cain brought things he could spare. Abel brought what was closest to his heart.

God accepted the kind of sacrifice He could understand and identify with, for He had already set in motion the plan for the cross. He would offer the one closest to His heart to release man from bondage to sin.

What can we say? What can we do? There is no sacrifice we can offer that is satisfactory. Even Abel's is only called "more excellent." It is left to God alone to make the acceptable sacrifice. Abel and Cain both looked at the lamb. Cain saw a piece of meat; Abel saw a cross and the Lamb of God.

My faith cannot be in the quality of my sacrifice--nor in confidence in my motive for the sacrifice. My motives are a mixed bag of egoism, altruism, and religious pride.

No. Instead I look to God's sacrifice. The old gospel song says,
Look to the Lamb of God
Look to the Lamb of God
For He alone is able to save you
Look to the lamb of God

Another says:
Oh, this bleeding lamb
Oh, this bleeding lamb
Oh, this dying lamb
He was found worthy!

Your sacrifice can't compare to God's, but as you give more of yourself, you stand in ever-increasing awe at the work of the cross.

By Faith, Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice. My faith isn't in me. My faith is in the one who did what I could never do. His sacrifice enervates my little offerings.

How to respond? Look to the Lamb of God and stop pretending you're good enough. Declare yourself as trusting in Him and come off relying on your old tired ethics.

Your sacrifice can't hack it. But His does. He offers it in your place. What will you do? Turn away in wrath like Cain or look to the Lamb like Abel? If you add a nickel or a million dollars to your best efforts, your heart is still corrupt. 

Only Jesus makes the perfect sacrifice. His blood speaks forgiveness and mercy. Abel's calls for justice and revenge. The blood of Christ is better than the blood of Abel.

Can I drop down from the activity around the heavenly throne for a moment and talk about earthly sacrifice in the church? It is happening all around us. In our churches many people go out of their way to care, especially about our young people. It means getting to church early, cleaning up somebody else's mess so you can be more effective in touching the kids. It means sacrificing the right to get mad because that affects your ability to minister. It means cleaning up before and after a backyard Bible Club.

Sacrifice. Committing yourself to doing something distinctly unromantic, like nursery work and cleaning, and keeping at it when nobody seems to know you are doing it. 

Foster caring a child in need, an emotionally costly commitment. Caring for AIDS babies or cocaine babies, taking turns walking with them during the night, so your spouse can get some sleep.

It looks not too attractive, like a piece of bloody meat on a rock. But how does God see it? To Him, it is a Crystal Cathedral! He says, "By faith Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain."

Your faith produces sacrifice because you look to Jesus, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. Faith understands that what you give up is nothing compared to what you gain. Faith trusts the inner, Spirit-direction, in spite of external circumstances and pressures. You believe that the greatest sacrifice--the seeming defeat at Calvary--turned out in resurrection. God will also bring glory out of your sacrifice. You offer it, your eyes fixed on the cross. You complete, you complement, His sacrifice. You follow the example of the one who died and rose again. You die to yourself, and find new life in Christ. By faith, you sacrifice!

Lord of the Cross”
Increase my faith. Faith to offer up to you that which is so close to my heart! Faith to present my body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to you. Faith to understand that resurrection is stronger than death. Faith to look to the Lamb of God.



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Herald Of Faith, Inc.
PO Box 7
Anoka, MN 55303
763-427-0739
fax 763-427-0830

www.heraldoffaith.com