Acceptable Gift

By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain...
Hebrews 11:4


A friend and I discussed Cain and Abel the other day and what each of their occupations and offerings signified.

• Cain was a farmer and therefore bound to the land...tied down to the acres he cultivated. He had restricted mobility because of his occupation. Because of farming though came the advent of towns and cities.  People stayed put rather than replenishing the earth (Genesis 1:28).
• As a farmer Cain tilled the soil, planted seeds and worked to produce his harvests.  In essence he was being self-sufficient.
• Abel was a shepherd.  He wasn't restricted to a particular location.  Should God tell him to such and such a place, Abel could go...taking his sheep with him.
• As a shepherd Abel's increase in flock was not the result of what his hands could produce, so to speak.

During our discussion we did not conclude that being a shepherd was the better profession and that Cain missed his calling.  We were just noticing the symbolisms and what we thought they meant.

God must have spoken to Cain and Abel concerning the manner in which they could approach Him.  Even after the fall of man, God was never inaccessible to man. Though man had fallen, God was not silent.  Man was the one who separated himself from God; God didn't separate Himself from man.  God never abandoned man.

Genesis 1 records the creation of man.

Genesis 2 records man's communion with God.

Genesis 3 records the fall of man.

In Genesis 4 the way back to God is made known.

Abel heard and believed what God had spoken.  Cain heard but didn't believe what God had spoken.  The "sweat of his brow" could be no substitute for the "blood of the lamb."

Cain was not godless, as is often represented.  On the contrary he was most religious, and the offering which he brought cost him much more than Abel's did.

In all this we are show the great fact there there never have been but these two ways in the world's history.

• The one rests of what God has said, the other rests on what man thinks.
• The one rests on what Christ has done, the other rests on what man can do.
• These two words sum up and embody the two ways--DONE and DO.

--E.W. Bullinger