Bill Fitzhenry's Thoughts For Today…

Understanding important truths from the Bible….

Genesis 4:9 ESV

9 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother’s keeper?"

This of which we read in Genesis 4:9 by the years of Genesis 5 took place less than 165 years after Adam sinned. It is the first recorded question that man asked God. It lies at the heart of man’s separation from God. The lost man lies to God and refuses to acknowledge that God is the law-giver. Paul plainly states, “the carnal mind is enmity against God and is not subject to the law of God, neither can it be.” Romans 8:7-8

In Genesis 5:2 the work “keeper” means “to pasture” and by extension “to be a friend.” Cain’s question has “keeper” as he denies any responsibility for his brother. Here “keeper” is to guard” or “to protect.”

Cain denies any responsibility to guard or protect his brother. There might not be enough information to ask but the question does arise, “who is the cause for the need of protection other than Cain?”

Cain lays down the principle of man’s failure in the whole of the second table of the law. His confession is he does not love his brother and as a result he commits the most extreme of sins man can commit, murder.

Among the absolutes of I John there are two that strike close to man. They are first the affection for the world excludes affection for God. I John 2:15

15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

The second is the absolute demand that we love one another for failure in this instance is to fail in the whole. I John 4:7-12.

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to bethe propitiation for our sins.

11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

The failure in this demand is seen in what we call “small things.” Selfishness, greediness, slander, racial bigotry, and vanity betray the failure to love in the lost and in the inconsistent behavior of the believer. Genesis 4:10.

10 And the LORD said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground.