Diving into the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, Rick Hughes unravels the roots of criminal behavior from a Christian viewpoint. The episode examines how rejection of divine authority and the grip of jealousy and bitterness can lead to irrational and sinful acts. With thought-provoking insights and practical advice, Hughes challenges listeners to audit their intentions and align their actions with God’s plan, emphasizing the inevitability of divine justice for one’s deeds.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
SPEAKER 01 :
Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, just about 30 minutes, please stick around. We’ve got some information for you that will encourage you, motivate you, give you some insight. Hopefully, you’ll orient and adjust to the plan of God. My job is to just get it right, get it simple, not try to… beg for money or not try to solicit support, but give you accurate information. Hopefully you will take that information and use it in your life, especially about what we’re going to talk about today. But let me give you a few reminders before we jump into the product. God gave us two different ends. Let’s don’t forget that. One of those ends we sit on and the other one we think with. And success in our life will depend on which one we use the most. Heads you win, tails you lose. Remember, bad decisions limit future options, and if you make enough bad decisions, obviously you don’t have many options left. And so your option as a Christian is to learn the Word of God, to replace human viewpoint thinking with divine viewpoint thinking. As the Bible says, let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus, Philippians 2, 5. And in Romans 12, 3, stop thinking in terms of arrogance beyond what you should think. but think in terms of humility as God has assigned to each one of us a standard of thinking from his word. That standard of thinking is called divine viewpoint. And when you can learn the word of God and think divine viewpoint, not human viewpoint, Then you have wonderful wisdom, wonderful insight, wonderful ability to make a good decision based on good information, usually a faith-based decision, not a decision based on emotions, but based on faith, a faith-based decision based on what the Word of God says. And so that’s how we operate in this life. We operate on faith. There are several ways to perceive phenomena. We can perceive it empirically with scientific data. We can perceive it rationally with argument and logic. Or we can perceive it by faith. And faith is how Christians operate. For without faith, it’s impossible to please God, the Bible says. So the study that I want to jump into this morning is related to something I taught you earlier, maybe two or three weeks ago. when we dealt with criminal adversity and dealing with criminal adversity in the church, things like that. We want to go a little bit further with that today, and I want you to hear some of this information because at some time in your life, you’re going to be a victim of a crime more than likely. As a believer in Jesus Christ, you may be more than likely, maybe even more so, twice as likely to be a victim of a crime because we’re more trusting, we’re more open, we’re we’re not quite as suspicious or vindictive as other people are. So I gave you a verse from the last time we studied this in Psalm 37 one. And this is called doctrinal orientation. That’s a wonderful problem solving device. Problem solving device one, two, three, four, five. Doctrinal orientation. When you orient your life to what the word of God says and replace your thinking with divine viewpoint thinking. So I gave you Psalm 37 one that said fret not yourself because of the evil doer, that’s the criminal, they shall soon be cut down like the grass and wither like the green herb, the Bible goes on to say. And so we talked about criminal activity in the church and things that would happen. So let me go back to some things that my pastor taught me a long time ago. He said this, he said the criminal is an irresponsible person. The criminal is irresponsible. He won’t take responsibility. And number two, that all crime is the product of human volition, not environment. In other words, the criminal chose to be a criminal. He wasn’t forced into it by the way he grew up or was raised or the community that he lived in. He chose to do what he did. Just because a person lives in squalor doesn’t mean they have to be a thief. Just because a person lives in a bad part of town doesn’t mean they have to be a drug dealer. We choose to do what we do. That’s called human volition. And the criminal lacks maturity, since the criminal, he or she, can’t handle any responsibility. They’re not responsible. They don’t want to be answerable to any authority, and they don’t want to be held accountable until they are forced to obey. And that’s usually the police officer, the court, the jail, the prison, et cetera. So the criminal has a fragmented soul. Minus virtue, he’s vindictive thinking, he violates the laws, but his soul is fractured. Listen to James 1.8, a double-minded man is unstable in all of his ways. Now let’s take this as a Christian. If it’s a Christian criminal, he’s double-minded. The Greek word, disukos, D-I-P-S-U-C-H-O-S, disukos, means two-souled. So it means he’s uncertain, he has a divided interest, he vacillates. So the criminal is not the only person with divided interests. It could be you also. But sin and the word of God or Bible doctrine do not balance. One of them will destroy the other. And this is a fact. So this is how some Christians wind up becoming criminals. They choose to do what they do. They rationalize it on emotional revolt. They rationalize it through arrogance. and they do what they do, and eventually they get caught. So criminality is sinful, but not all sin is a crime, that’s for sure. Criminality is sinful, but not all sin is a crime. Think about that one now, and you’ll understand it. It’s not a crime to worry, it’s not a crime to be afraid, but these are sins, mental attitude sins, that you face in your life sometimes. So the criminal does not respect the freedom of other people, He or she in this case doesn’t even recognize the rights of other people, thus they feel like they’re justified in breaking into your home, breaking into your car, breaking into your bank account, stealing your credit card numbers. They justify that because you have it and they don’t and they think you’re guilty and they’re not guilty. So as we do a case study of some crimes mentioned in the Bible, hopefully we can draw some conclusions. and make some applications to our life and to the circumstances that we’re involved in. The first case study I want to look at would be in the book of Genesis. This seems to be where the first criminal activity took part. There’s a man named Cain who kills his brother, his name is Abel, and then he tries to hide it from God. And that’s an interesting thing because what can be hidden from God? Nothing. And the principle to learn in this study are threefold. Number one, you have to learn the power of negative volition. Negative volition is very, very, very powerful. And so people that are negative to the plan of God, you will not change them. If they have negative volition, you can argue with them till you’re blue in the face. You’re not gonna change anybody. Matter of fact, the only person you can really change is yourself. You can’t change the way your kids think. You can’t change the way your wife thinks. You can only change yourself. And God, the Holy Spirit can do changing if they’re convicted. If the Holy Spirit convicts them, then they can change if they want to. Just like you can’t make anybody lose weight. You can’t make anybody vote Republican. You can’t make anybody cut their grass. They have to choose to do it. And so the power of negative volition will be seen in the life of Cain. And secondly, we will see the impact of hatred and jealousy causing the first crime. And we will see the first evidence of sin as it relates to violence. Sin as it relates to violence. So in Genesis 4, 1 through 15, the NASB, the New American Standard Bible, gives us some insight on this. And here’s a question I want you to think about. How did Abel know what to do on this case? And this is about making a sacrifice. How did Abel know to do the right sacrifice? And the answer is his parents taught him. And Cain rejected what he had been taught by his parents and chose to present his sacrifice his own way. He chose not to do what his brother did. His brother did what his parents taught him to do. So here we go, Genesis 4, 1. Now the man Adam had relations with his wife Eve, that’s sex, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, I’ve gotten a man child with the help of the Lord. And again, she gave birth to his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of flocks. Cain was a tiller of the ground. This is a case of the farmer versus the shepherd. So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground. You know, some kumquats and squash and spinach and all that sort of stuff, watermelons, cantaloupe, whatever. But Abel on his part brought the firstling of his flock of their fat portion. So he made a blood sacrifice. This is what was required in Genesis for the cover of the sin of Advent and Eve when God killed an animal and clothed them with the skin of an animal. And that was the first blood sacrifice. It’s always been that way in the Jewish religion and the sacrifice of the Passover lamb. and the blood had to be put over the doorpost or the Passover angel would kill anybody in the house. And this is the Passover. And so here is Abel doing what his parents taught, which his parents saw God do. That’s make the sacrifice and taught them how to do it. And it says the Lord respected Abel. The Hebrew word shah means to considered what he did. He considered Abel’s offering. But for Cain, verse five of Genesis four, And for his offering, he had no regards or no respect. And so the Bible says Cain became very angry. This is mad at God. And he took it out on his brother, by the way. Let me suggest something. If for one minute in your life you ever think God treated you unfairly and you’ve been mad at God, you must wake up and stop doing that. There’s no way God would ever treat you unfair or anybody unfair because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. He doesn’t hate you, he’s not mad at you. Sometimes you may come under the justice of God because you leave him no choice like a parent that has to discipline their child. So Cain got angry at God and at his brother. And what was in his mind was displayed on his face. His countenance, his ponine, his countenance fell. You know, sourpuss, operation, lips turned down, grunt in his teeth, mad. And the Lord said to Cain, actually had a conversation with him. This is the Lord Jesus Christ in the pre-incarnate form. Why are you angry? In other words, why are you sinning? And why has your countenance fallen, unhappy face? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? But if you don’t do well, then sin is crouching at the door, and its desire is for you. That’s a good thing for you to remember. If you obey God, it’s a good thing. But if you don’t obey God, sin is tempting you. It’s crouching at the door. It’s going to jump on you. Its desire is to control you. But God, the Lord Jesus Christ, went on to tell Cain, you must master it. Don’t be a slave to your sin nature trends. You see, both Cain and Abel had a sin nature just like you and I. They inherited that sin nature from their father, Adam. And you have to learn how to control the sin nature. And so the Lord Jesus Christ gives a warning. You must master your sin nature. Cain told about this conversation, verse eight, to his brother Abel, maybe looking for some kind of sympathy, you know. It came about when they were in the field. Here he is out there out working in the field, or maybe Cain invites Abel over to look at his latest crop of cantaloupes and says, You know what that guy told me the other day? And off he went on the Lord, and he got very angry, and he got very mad. Maybe Abel rebuked him. Whatever happened, Cain rose up against Abel and killed him. I don’t know if this is premeditated murder or they just had a big fight and they killed him, but the determined criminal can lure you before he attacks you. He lured him into the garden. He wanted him to get out there away from his parents and away from everybody so there would be no witnesses of what was about to happen. And so verse nine of Genesis four, the Lord said to Cain, where’s Abel, your brother? And Cain in his natural humility said, I’m being facetious now. I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper? And the Lord said, well, what have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. The Lord knew exactly what he had done. He had killed him and buried him. And now you’re cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood. And so now he’s cursed from the ground. He received your brother’s blood from your hand. When you cultivate the ground, it will no longer give you its strength. and you will now be a vagrant the rest of your life and wander over the face of the earth. This is a life sentence, maybe unintentional homicide, thus he’s not sentenced to death, but there were no prisons at the time, so I don’t really know what’s going on here, except that this is a sentence. You will wander the earth forever. As long as you’re alive, you’ll never have ability to cultivate the ground, and you’ll just be a wanderer. Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is too great for me to bear. Here we go. That’s not fair. That’s not fair. That’s not fair. Behold, you have driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from your face I will be hidden, and I’ll be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. So the Lord said to him, therefore, whoever kills Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord appointed a sign for Cain so that no one finding him would slay him. Now, I have researched everything I can, and I cannot find out what that sign was. Even some people said it was a dog. He gave him a dog to go with it. I don’t know. It wasn’t a sign. Whatever it was, And I’m not here to really discuss that. There’s no way I can cover all the doctrines taught in this passage in just one or so radio shows. But I want to focus on a couple of things. One, and I want you to look at this in your life. Cain rejected the authority of his parents, and as a result, murdered his brother. So crime came into the world because of the rejection of parental authority. That’s where it started. He knew the proper thing to do. He knew the right way to do it, but he wasn’t gonna do it. Two, when Cain murdered Abel in Genesis 4, That was a satanic attack on the seed of Adam because Adam had been promised that through your seed, the Savior, the Messiah, would come. It’s Genesis 3.15, the first proto-vangelum, the promise of a Redeemer. So this was an attack on the first promise given to Adam after he sinned, that God the Father would provide a Savior from Adam’s seed who would come through the woman as a child bearer. So Satan… and the fallen angels understood that a savior would come in the line of Adam as true humanity through the woman. Therefore, Satan knew he had to cut off that line from Adam to Christ. He knew that. So in the first generation, Satan inspired Cain to murder Abel, who was a believer. But then the line continued on through the next born child, which was Seth. She had another son, Seth. So that Satan realized murder would not work to cut off the line. If he had Seth killed, then God would just give her another boy. So killer lust is the problem-solving device of Satan. He’s a murderer. The Bible tells us he’s a murderer. He’s always been a murderer. And killer lust is a problem-solving device of any of the weak person. Inferior people trying to prove that they are superior, often result to violence, torture, and even murder. So there’s no doubt that Satan inspired Cain to murder Abel, who was a believer, to keep the Savior from coming into the world. But Seth also became a believer, and so the line of Christ came down, not through Abel, but through Seth. Cain followed the same principles that his mother followed in her original sin, arrogance and pride. He was proud of what he did as a farmer and he was arrogant. He wanted to be accepted by God based on who and what he was. And he became very bitter because of his arrogance. And he thought he was maltreated by God. I hope you’ve never felt that way. Here’s some more principles. The middle attitude sin of bitterness and jealousy can motivate someone, even a Christian, to commit horrible crimes. Everything from slander to murder. I mean, if you don’t believe me, just look at American politics. Corrupt power will stop at nothing to keep the power. And there have been many, many, many murders in the political scene of American history, I assure you. Most of them you don’t know about, but it happens. Power wants to keep the power. Everything from slander to murder. It’s the public lie and getting the public to turn on a person or whatever they can do to keep their power. If that doesn’t work, then kill them. That’s the way it goes. Always has been that way because it’s satanic in its origin. So jealousy is fed from the unrealistic self-image of arrogance. You know, what’s interesting is you may be seated in the room across from a person who you can’t stand simply because you’re jealous of them. Maybe you’re jealous of their prosperity or maybe you’re jealous of their social status or jealous of whatever. But this mental attitude of sin is one of the worst. Resentment of other people is associated jealousy. And jealousy and bitterness always go hand in hand together. Jealous people become emotional people who then become irrational people. So we have jealous Cain, emotional Cain, irrational Cain. jealous of Abel, emotionally arguing with God, rejecting, who told you? You know, I’m not my brother’s keeper. That’s what he said. And so, and then here we go at the end. He becomes irrational and commits murder. You know, this is true of a jealous lover. A spouse can become very irrational and can commit murder, has done so many, many, many times in history. There have been many murders with jealousy. So Cain was jealous of Abel, who received God’s blessing, And thus Cain became emotional and irrational, plotting to get even with his brother. Thus the irrational jealousy became uncontrollable anger with the intent of malice or harm. You know, jealousy, like bitterness, is related to hatred. You know that, don’t you? Since jealousy is both an arrogance and an emotional sin, it’s totally irrational in its hatred and totally irrational in resentment of other people. What does the Bible say about it? Proverbs 27.4, wrath is fierce and anger is a flood, but who can stand before jealousy? In James 3.14 and also in verse 16. But if you have bitter jealousy and strife in your heart, and do not become arrogant and lie against the truth. For where jealousy and strife exists, there is unruleness, that’s lack of control, and evil deeds, that’s murder and revenge. So the criminal, obviously, Cain thought he could deceive God, and criminals thinking they can deceive God. They deceived you, didn’t they? So they figure if they can deceive you, they can deceive God. You won’t know I broke into your home. You won’t know who I was. I did it in the middle of the night. You weren’t there, so I deceived you, they’ll say. They’ll claim that no one knew who they were, but God does. God knows exactly who it was. I’ve had stuff stolen in broad daylight in front of the hotel, sitting there two doors down from the entrance. People break in and steal things. I didn’t know who it was, but it wasn’t me they stole from. It was God because it was God’s car and God’s supplies. And I didn’t have to worry about taking vengeance. The Lord can handle that. That’s why the Supreme Court of Heaven is open 24 hours a day. So here’s the principle. God sees everything. Nothing is hidden from him. The criminal can be a thief in the middle of the night, in a dark night, black clothes, black hat, black mask. See even sunglasses, but God can see him. Proverbs 15.3, the eyes of the Lord are in every place watching evil and good. Have you been a thief? Have you been a deceiver? Have you thought that no one recognized what you did without finances or any checking account or any taxes? God does. first samuel 16 7 the lord said unto samuel don’t look on his countenance don’t look on the height of his statue because i refuse him man looks on the outside i look on the heart he has the ability to see your motives he has the ability to see your intentions and he has the ability to see your desires Isn’t it funny how Cain thought his punishment was too harsh? Cain said to the Lord, my punishment is too great to bear. You’ve driven me this day from the face of the ground, and from your face I will be hidden, and I’ll be a vagrant and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me. Oh, he said, poor pity me, pity me. He didn’t mind killing his brother, but he didn’t want anybody to kill him. How about that? The criminal, like Cain, often becomes a coward under God’s justice and complains about harsh treatment. I remember the story about a young man in Alabama who was a very mean criminal, very brutal criminal. And my friend, who was the head deputy of the sheriff’s department, took him to prison. They had to go back and get him maybe six months later to testify. And when they went back to pick him up, he was totally different man. Humble, quiet, didn’t say very much. And my friend said, you know, when I brought you down here, you were pretty tough and pretty mean. We weren’t sure. I said, what happened to change you down here? And he said, well, they had me out there working in those cotton fields. It was 100 degrees and it was really hot. And he said, I asked the guard, could I get a drink of water? He said, yeah, it’s over there on the tractor. Go over there and get you a cup of water. And he saw that tractor driver sitting up there with that umbrella drinking water. And he said, how do I get to drive one of those tractors? And the guard said, well, it’s simple. Just take that guy off and you can have it. And my friend who was with him looked at him. The guy told my friend, said, you know, they got some real mean tractor drivers down there. So he got humbled a little bit. He just wasn’t able to take him off that tractor. Criminals often become cowards under God’s justice and complain about harsh treatments. So God knows all of your intentions, all of your desires, all of your motivations. God knows that. You’re not gonna pull the wool over his eye. So you might as well face up to the fact that you’ve sinned and you might as well confess the sin to God way before it’s too late and you get in deeper than you are already. You may be already in pretty deep. Now is the time to get out. Now’s the time to be honest. Like David said in Psalm 32, as long as I hit it, I just dried up like an old man and died. But when I confess my sin, you gave me the vitality of my life back. You can’t be a criminal and serve God. Think about that. You’re not going to get away with anything. Sooner or later, he will expose you. Until next week, this is your host, Rick Hughes, saying thank you for listening to The Flatline.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054, or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
