Welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the Book of Genesis. This is study #9 of Genesis, chapter 4 and we are going to read Genesis 4:9-12:

And JEHOVAH said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

I will stop reading there. At this point we know from the previous verse that Cain has killed his brother Abel. The Lord is addressing Cain and He says to him, “Where is Abel thy brother?” We understand that God knows all things, but God often asks questions to cause the individual who has offended Him to consider what they have done in their offense. Also, when we have sinned against God and transgressed His Law, if someone would come broken before God and say, “Here is what happened. I slew my brother and I feel awful. I did a terrible, terrible thing. I murdered my brother.” That may be a different matter than when someone commits a sin and then follows up his sin with more sin, like lies and cover ups, in his attempt to hide his sin. That is Cain’s situation. He was not contrite. He was not repentant in any way. He responded to God’s question: “I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?” Cain had to be aware he was lying to God.

What a foolish thing it is for man to lie to God because God is all knowing and God knew the thing he had done in rising up against his brother and murdering him in the field. Perhaps the body was lying in the field or maybe Cain covered it, but it is very obvious because Cain’s action was outward and visible and God could see it. Cain was aware there is a God. He had heard it from his father Adam and his mother Eve, as well as the witness of the entire creation. The fact that there were no other people testified to the truth that God had created all things and, yet, Cain still attempted to lie to God. There can only be one explanation and that is that man’s heart was blinded (since the fall of man) and Cain possessed that blind heart. He had come forth from unclean parents, since Adam and Eve both had fallen into sin and died in their spirit essence in the day they ate of the tree and they later gave birth to spiritually dead children. Abel was also born in sin, but at some point God had saved him, but Cain remained dead in his soul and he had that desperately wicked and deceitful heart. It was so deceitful that he thought he could lie to God and get away with it.

People have been lying to God all through the history of the world to this day and, especially, in our day people lie to God. Deep down in their heart every human being knows there is a God and, yet, they lie about it. They say things like, “Well, it all began with the Big Bang. That was the origin of all things. That is why we are here and it is how man developed to be the creature that has dominion over all the other creatures because of evolution.” They are obvious lies. They are ridiculous lies and, yet, this is the nature of man. Man is a liar because he takes after his father the devil who was a liar from the beginning.

So Cain resorted to what comes naturally to an unsaved individual. When asked where his brother was, Cain tried to protect himself by lying. People do that all the time. They think lies are a form of protection. It starts with little children. Let us say there are two children in a room and something gets broken. The parent goes into the room and says, “What happened? Who did it?” So, one child lies because he does not want to get in trouble. He says, “My brother did it.” The other sibling says, “You are a liar. I did not do it. You did it.” Mankind has a natural tendency toward this as they believe that a lie is protection to guard them from further harm. If you have broken the law and the police come, you lie. If you are caught cheating in school, you go one step further and you lie about it: “I was not cheating.” Man always protects himself through lying, but lying is really no protection. It is something that, in itself, does injury to the one that is lying.

If only the character and heart of Cain had been broken and contrite and sorrowful. If only he had a heart that would recognize, “I have done wrong. I got so angry I slew my brother and now I am so sorry that I have offended you, O God.” If only he had reacted as King David did when Nathan the prophet came to him and said, “Thou art the man.” David had used his position as king to set up Uriah the Hittite in the forefront of the hottest battle and the general Joab ordered that the other soldiers would retire from him, leaving Uriah to be slain. David used the sword of the enemy to slay his own servant in order to cover up his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba, Uriah’s wife. David tried to cover things up, using deceit, and his deceit resulted in murder. However, when David was convicted by the Word of God through Nathan the prophet he became broken before God. He was grieved, as we read in Psalm 51, a Psalm that God moved David to write and which records the reaction of David to his own sins. Notice the inscription of Psalm 51: “To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet came unto him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba.” Then it goes on to say in Psalm 51:1-3:

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

Notice that David acknowledged his transgressions. That is what Cain failed to do and that is what any unsaved individual often fails to do – they will not acknowledge the transgression. Instead, they cover it up with more transgression as they lie about what they have done.

Then it goes on to say in Psalm 51:4:

Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

It says in Psalm 51:17:

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

A broken and a contrite heart acknowledges and recognizes its offense to God. During the day of salvation this would have been the reaction of the elect when they heard the Bible. The Bible is a Law Book and when the elect sinner heard it, it convicted him of his sins. It shined a light into the darkness of the sinner’s heart and it revealed this commandment and that commandment and the sinner began to see his sin and the tremendous number of his transgressions.

The sinner that was not one of God’s elect would feel the conviction, but would want to run away from this light that was shining into his life because he preferred the darkness. He preferred his deception and the lies of the world, whatever they may be. He preferred lies to the truth because it cast him in a much better light (he thought), but only if he had endured and waited upon God because God starts by making the sinner sorry for his sins. The more he heard the Bible, the more he would see his sins and become troubled in his mind and soul as he saw that he had sinned, again, and again. Then he would have cried to God in the day of salvation, “Lord, have mercy!” He would be like blind Bartimaeus: “Thou Son of David, have mercy upon me.” Or, he would be like King David in Psalm 51: “Have mercy upon me, O God…Against thee, thee only, have I sinned.” Then God would bring the soothing ointment of salvation to the one He had drawn. First He showed him the error of his ways, but then God brought him the wonderful news of the Gospel after He showed him his ugly, dirty, rotten sins, but, really, most of us have only seen “the tip of the ice burg” in regard to our sins. There is always a vast number of sins that lies beneath other iniquities and we may not even see them until we have turned from the sins on the top. But all of these sins are gone for the one that is washed and cleansed and made white in the blood of the Lamb. All sin is forgiven and now when the child of God reads the Bible there is further conviction of sin and he says, “I fail in that area, too, but thank God this sin is also washed away because Christ paid for all my sin – past, present and future.” It becomes something in which we can glorify God, as we see our sin.

If only the people of the world had endured and submitted themselves to the Law of God and waited upon God. If only Cain had been of that “heart.” If only he had the heart that was after God’s own heart, like David and every child of God. God equips everyone He saves with that kind of heart. When God said to him, “Where is Abel thy brother?” Cain would have fallen down upon his knees and his brokenness would have come forth: “O, JEHOVAH, I have done wrong. I have sinned against my brother and against thee. I have done the most horrible thing.” If he had been one of God’s elect, God would have said to Cain what He said to King David: “You will not die. I have put away your sin.” Of course, God chastened David, but David was delivered from blood guiltiness and he was delivered from the penalty of death for sin.

But, here, Cain is not one of God’s elect, so he goes right to his lie: “I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?” Cain responded with a question back at the Lord: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The word “keeper” is a word that is primarily used to describe the keeping of the Law of God and the keeping His commandments. It is also a word that identifies with the keeping of sheep in a few places. It is a word that can refer to God keeping His people. It says in Psalm 121:1-8:

A Song of degrees. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from JEHOVAH, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. JEHOVAH is thy keeper: JEHOVAH is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. JEHOVAH shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. JEHOVAH shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

Here, God mentions that JEHOVAH is the “keeper” of spiritual Israel, His people, and it means He is their help and shield. He is their protection. He will keep them and preserve them from harm. In that sense, God commands man to be his brother’s “keeper” because God has given commandments concerning how we are to treat our brothers. As man keeps God’s commandment, it is a form of protection for his brother, a way of keeping his brother. Remember that Jesus said we are to love God with all our heart, mind and soul and our neighbor as ourselves and on these two commandments hang all the Law. So, it is very important that we treat our fellow man in a way that is according to the Law of God. God says in Exodus 20:12-17:

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which JEHOVAH thy God giveth thee. Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Here, we see that mankind is obligated to keep the commandments of God concerning his neighbor or his brother. One commandment that stands out because of the historical account we are reading is, “Thou shalt not kill.” Cain failed to keep the commandment and, therefore, he failed to “keep” his brother or his neighbor as all men are required to do. Cain is really trying to get around this and excuse himself to justify his action. He is saying, “Look, maybe I have responsibility to you, Lord, but I have no responsibility to my brother.” But that is not true at all and Cain was being deceitful.

It goes on to say in Genesis 4:10-11:

And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;

Here, we see that God knew all along what Cain had done. When God asked him where his brother was, God already knew the answer because the voice of Abel’s blood was “crying” to God. Of course, that is a figure of speech. It is not literal and the blood of Abel did not have the ability to cry out. There may have been some literal spilling of blood on the ground, but all that meant was that there was some blood on the ground and, yet, there was no literal cry from the blood. However, since God sees all, God is giving “voice” to the blood and God is declaring that Abel, in a sense, is crying out. It is exactly what God demonstrated in regard to the “souls under the altar,” in Revelation 6:10:

And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

Are the souls in heaven literally crying out for vengeance? No, but God is giving them “voice.” God is putting words in their mouths. This is what God’s justice requires. This is what the Law of God requires and it is as if Abel’s blood is crying out for vengeance and it is as if the blood of all the souls under the altar are crying out for vengeance. They are all in unison, beseeching the Lord, from the blood righteous Abel to the blood of Zacharias. It represents all the prophets that were slain upon the earth and, yet, they are all in heaven in their soul existence and they do not remember the things of the earth because the things of the earth are contaminated with sin, so they certainly are not beseeching God for vengeance. However, that is how God pictures it, spiritually. When God brings judgment, it is as though He has heard the cries of His people.