And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.
God confronted Cain with his hidden murder, declaring it known and treating the blood of Abel in the ground as a witness crying out against him and calling for judgment. The killing grew from jealousy over worship, when Abel's lamb offering was accepted and Cain's offering without a lamb was rejected, until anger and hatred mastered Cain and he slew his brother in the field. For that bloodshed the ground that received it was cursed so it would no longer yield its strength to Cain and he became a fugitive, yet his life was spared to give him opportunity for repentance. The blood of the murdered cries to God for vengeance and holds the murderer accountable, while in contrast the blood of Christ speaks in behalf of sinners for forgiveness and righteousness. That first murder began the enmity between Satan and his subjects and Christ and His followers, in which the wicked persecute the righteous because obedience condemns sin, and it assures that God hears and records every oppression of His suffering people and will avenge their wrongs.
Murder Exposed Before God
God confronted Cain with murder in the question of what he had done, declaring that the hidden killing was known, and the voice of Abel's blood crying from the ground bore witness against Cain and made him answerable, introducing judgment upon him. The shed blood spoke to God from the ground, testifying to the crime and exposing it before Him, so that Cain stood known and accountable for what he had done. With that testimony the curse upon the ground and upon Cain's life as a fugitive followed, the ground that had received the blood no longer to yield its strength to him.
Nothing was hidden from God, for a heavenly Watcher who had established the sacrifices saw the whole killing in the field. God was acquainted with every act of Cain and even the thoughts of his heart, and He informed Cain that nothing was concealed from Him. The cry of the blood therefore meant omniscience made plain: the murder committed in secret was fully seen and fully known.
The murder grew from jealousy over the offerings, for Abel's lamb offering was accepted by fire from heaven while Cain's fruit offering without a lamb was rejected. Cain argued about his offering, grew angry that his younger brother was accepted, and hated Abel for maintaining that God is just. He had first disobeyed by refusing God's specific requirement to bring a lamb for a burnt offering and mingle the blood of the lamb with his offering, placing his own understanding, will, judgment and imagination against God's words instead of obeying implicitly as a little child. In wrath he rose up against Abel in the field and slew him, persisting in his wrong course in opposition to God. He let passion burn until the tempter took possession of his mind and his own will blended with Satan's will, mastering and ruling him and leading him farther than he had contemplated, even to his brother's death.
When questioned Cain lied, saying he did not know where Abel was, denied being his brother's keeper, and refused his duty as elder brother to care for and protect Abel from evil. He had lost the sense of God's continual presence and omniscience, yet he knew the enormity of what he had done. God gave him time to reflect and opportunity to confess the murder and the falsehood used to hide it, but he remained rebellious and blamed Abel and God. Therefore the voice of entreaty and admonition in the question gave way at once to sentence.
The killing was the first death in the human family. It continued the account of Cain as a tiller of the ground and Abel as a keeper of sheep, standing in the line of departure from God's plain commands that filled the world with transgression and sin and led God to destroy the world. It brought grief to Adam, who saw in it a result of his own sin and the rupture of his family.
Curse, Sparing, and Flood
The voice of the brother's blood crying from the ground exposes a hidden murder and brings immediate sentence, and because of that sin the earth is cursed a second time beyond the curse pronounced for Adam's transgression. The ground that opened to receive Abel's blood will no longer yield its strength to Cain, and he is cursed from that ground to be a fugitive and a vagabond upon it. Though the earth retains remaining beauty, it shows signs of decay under this added curse, and the curse grows heavier through continued human disobedience.
The murder deserved death, yet God in mercy confronts Cain with what he has done and spares his life to grant him opportunity to reflect, confess, and repent. Cain refuses that opportunity and lives only to harden his heart and encourage rebellion against divine authority. He becomes the head and tempter of a line of bold, abandoned sinners, and his example and demoralizing teaching corrupt his descendants until the earth is filled with violence.
Sparing the first murderer teaches the whole universe what results when sin is permitted to go unpunished and the sinner is allowed to live forever in rebellion. Divine forbearance does not repress wickedness but only makes the wicked more bold and defiant. Long life proves no blessing to the sinner, for the history before the flood testifies that the longer men lived the more corrupt and abandoned they became. In fifteen centuries Cain's influence ripens in crime and pollution that demand destruction of the whole world by the flood. This proves the sentence of death upon the fallen race for transgression just and merciful, a blessing rather than a curse because it cuts short a career of unbridled iniquity and frees the world from hardened rebels.
The same mercy governs the judgment after idolatry at Sinai. Sparing those transgressors would have produced evils even greater than resulted from sparing Cain. It is therefore mercy that thousands should suffer to prevent the necessity of visiting judgments upon millions, that the many might be saved by punishing the few.
Blood Cries for Justice
The blood of a murdered person cries to God from the ground for vengeance, calling Him to judge the murderer and to hold the guilty accountable. That cry calls Him to judge not only the murderer but also those who knowingly shield him from punishment. The blood of victims killed through drunkenness likewise cries to heaven, and dealers whose traffic ruins others cannot cover their guilt with gifts, for God will not accept their offerings and their money is stained with blood.
Abel's blood cried unto God against Cain the murderer, speaking against the one who shed it. In contrast the blood of Christ speaks in behalf of sinners better things than spoke the blood of Abel. Christ gave His life and shed His blood to remit sins, so that by faith man receives Christ's righteousness.
Abel's innocent blood, shed by his brother, cried from the ground as a witness to murder and begins the history of righteous bloodshed whose guilt accumulated from generation to generation. The blood of slain prophets likewise testified against those who rejected God's warnings. Those who rejected Christ would be held responsible for righteous blood shed from Abel to the prophet Zacharias, and judgment would come upon their generation. The stain of Zacharias's blood in the temple court remained a witness crying to God for justice as long as the temple stood.
As Abel's blood cried, so the blood of slaughtered martyrs cries from the ground for vengeance, and their cries rise from their graves calling for God to judge and avenge them. Their bones lie in heaps in Waldensian valleys, in mountains, dens, caves, clefts of rocks, rocky caverns, dungeons beneath monasteries, beneath molding walls, and in hidden pits. They were slain by starvation, exile, cruel torture and the cruel hand of man under Roman power. The ground where they lie was cursed by Roman power but is sanctified by their blood. Their cry will be answered in the great retributive day when the Life-giver calls them with the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God to come forth from their graves to life, because they walked with God, counted not their lives dear, and valued integrity to God above ease, above property, and above life itself.
Persecution of the Righteous
The killing is the first example of the enmity between the serpent and the seed of the woman, between Satan and his subjects and Christ and His followers. After Satan gained control of the human race through sin, Christ enables souls through faith in the Lamb of God to renounce the service of sin and cast off Satan's yoke, and Satan's wrath is kindled against them. Abel's holy life testified against Satan's claim that man cannot keep God's law. Cain, moved by the spirit of the wicked one and unable to control Abel, killed him in rage, and the same spirit is manifested wherever any stand in vindication of the righteousness of God's law.
The cruelties heaped upon followers of Jesus through all the ages, setting up the stake and kindling the burning pile for Christ's disciples, are instigated by Satan and his hosts because they cannot force submission, and are the rage of a vanquished foe. Every martyr of Jesus dies a conqueror by the blood of the Lamb and the word of testimony. Cain represents the wicked persecuting and killing the righteous because their right-doing condemns sinful conduct, a conflict extending from the fall to Christ's second coming. There are only two classes in the world, those like Abel who steadfastly adhere to God's commands and those like Cain who refuse to obey.
Those rooted and grounded in the truth stand together in defense of the law of Jehovah, while those supporting falsehood against truth stand on the side of the prince of darkness. Those who yield themselves to do the will of Satan oppress God's servants just as Cain oppressed Abel. Abel was murdered because he obeyed God's law, the same law Satan refused to obey, Adam transgressed, and Enoch obeyed in walking with God. His death came from a cold, critical, unforgiving, accusing spirit that is not satisfied with pointing out what it imagines to be a defect in a brother but resorts to compulsion to force men to comply with its ideas of what is right.
When the power of love and the grace of Christ are lost, that same spirit reaches for the strong arm of the state to enforce dogmas and execute decrees, and this is the secret of all religious laws ever enacted and of all persecution from his day to the present time. The persecution of Abel is the first thing recorded in Scripture history after the fall. It stands at the beginning of history opposite the persecution against those who refuse to receive the mark of the beast at the end of Scripture prophecy, and it warns against indulging any spirit of persecution against those bearing God's message to the world.
God Hears the Suffering
As surely as the blood of Abel cried from the ground and ascended before God, so the prayers of suffering humanity in need rise and come up before Him just as surely. This includes His servants imprisoned in dungeons or chained with criminals, whose prayers rise to Him like that blood cried to Him from the ground. He is not indifferent to pressing need, whether of white or black in any place and wherever His children are.
He hears and records every injustice and oppression done to His people. He is present in every court of justice and marks how men condemn His servants and silence their voices. Satan is the instigator of every such injustice, inspiring his agents to hurt Christ by bruising the bodies of His people. Cruelty done to God's servants is recorded as done to Christ in the person of His saints, and He will avenge their wrongs.
This lays responsibility on those placed where they have received many blessings and comforts and where they can do much good. They are accountable to deny self, take up the cross and follow Jesus, and to minister freely with what they have received to those who have few blessings and little encouragement, to the most needy and suffering. That work embraces the poor, destitute, neglected and oppressed in the Southern States who long for help to become better informed and better clothed, whose longing God marks. It is to be done by deed in relieving them, and by Christlike work, rather than by seeking self-profit, spending time devising for self-interest, or speaking empty comfort and empty words. Angels wait and look to carry testimony of help given for this suffering class to the courts above and to heaven, and for neglect of this work laid upon every saint there is accountability.
Warnings for Daily Life
The question put to the murderer answers all who deny being their brother's keeper, for it is spoken to Cain and spoken again to the rumseller. God hears the blood of the murdered crying to Him from the ground and holds the murderer accountable, and the same reckoning falls on dealers in liquor whose traffic brings ruin. They will be held accountable for the wretchedness brought into the homes of those weak in moral power who fall through temptation to drink, and will be charged with the misery, suffering and hopelessness brought into the world through drink. They must answer for the woe and want of mothers and children who suffer for food and clothing and shelter and bury all hope and joy. The blood of victims killed as a result of drunkenness cries to heaven for vengeance as Abel's blood did. Their wealth and money are stained with the blood of those they have harmed, and their gifts cannot cover guilt or be accepted as offerings on God's altar.
The history warns against taking the first step in disobedience by refusing God's specific requirement. Cain refused to bring a lamb for a burnt offering and to mingle the blood of the lamb with his offering, following his own understanding, will, judgment and imagination instead of obeying implicitly and becoming as a little child. Passion burned and the tempter took possession of his mind until his own will blended with Satan's will, leading him farther than he contemplated to the death of his brother. Refusing to do God's words gives place to the devil for him to master and rule the mind, and because Cain disobeyed God and killed his brother the second curse was pronounced upon the earth.
Cain's feeling against Abel was resentment toward a brother who knew of his sin, and it warns against repeating that resentment when brethren refuse trust. One who is annoyed because wrongdoing is known and who resents those who know it, who has led precious souls astray and created temptations for them which they have not power to resist, is not safe to be entrusted with the flock of God or to be given credentials as a safe teacher. To be called a second Cain is to be looked upon as a murderer like Cain who slew his brother, whose teaching is rejected and despised and whose power to do good to fellow men is destroyed.
God confronted Cain with his hidden murder, declaring it known and treating the blood of Abel in the ground as a witness crying out against him and calling for judgment. The killing grew from jealousy over worship, when Abel's lamb offering was accepted and Cain's offering without a lamb was rejected, until anger and hatred mastered Cain and he slew his brother in the field. For that bloodshed the ground that received it was cursed so it would no longer yield its strength to Cain and he became a fugitive, yet his life was spared to give him opportunity for repentance. The blood of the murdered cries to God for vengeance and holds the murderer accountable, while in contrast the blood of Christ speaks in behalf of sinners for forgiveness and righteousness. That first murder began the enmity between Satan and his subjects and Christ and His followers, in which the wicked persecute the righteous because obedience condemns sin, and it assures that God hears and records every oppression of His suffering people and will avenge their wrongs.
Murder Exposed Before God
God confronted Cain with murder in the question of what he had done, declaring that the hidden killing was known, and the voice of Abel's blood crying from the ground bore witness against Cain and made him answerable, introducing judgment upon him. The shed blood spoke to God from the ground, testifying to the crime and exposing it before Him, so that Cain stood known and accountable for what he had done. With that testimony the curse upon the ground and upon Cain's life as a fugitive followed, the ground that had received the blood no longer to yield its strength to him.
Nothing was hidden from God, for a heavenly Watcher who had established the sacrifices saw the whole killing in the field. God was acquainted with every act of Cain and even the thoughts of his heart, and He informed Cain that nothing was concealed from Him. The cry of the blood therefore meant omniscience made plain: the murder committed in secret was fully seen and fully known.
The murder grew from jealousy over the offerings, for Abel's lamb offering was accepted by fire from heaven while Cain's fruit offering without a lamb was rejected. Cain argued about his offering, grew angry that his younger brother was accepted, and hated Abel for maintaining that God is just. He had first disobeyed by refusing God's specific requirement to bring a lamb for a burnt offering and mingle the blood of the lamb with his offering, placing his own understanding, will, judgment and imagination against God's words instead of obeying implicitly as a little child. In wrath he rose up against Abel in the field and slew him, persisting in his wrong course in opposition to God. He let passion burn until the tempter took possession of his mind and his own will blended with Satan's will, mastering and ruling him and leading him farther than he had contemplated, even to his brother's death.
When questioned Cain lied, saying he did not know where Abel was, denied being his brother's keeper, and refused his duty as elder brother to care for and protect Abel from evil. He had lost the sense of God's continual presence and omniscience, yet he knew the enormity of what he had done. God gave him time to reflect and opportunity to confess the murder and the falsehood used to hide it, but he remained rebellious and blamed Abel and God. Therefore the voice of entreaty and admonition in the question gave way at once to sentence.
The killing was the first death in the human family. It continued the account of Cain as a tiller of the ground and Abel as a keeper of sheep, standing in the line of departure from God's plain commands that filled the world with transgression and sin and led God to destroy the world. It brought grief to Adam, who saw in it a result of his own sin and the rupture of his family.
Curse, Sparing, and Flood
The voice of the brother's blood crying from the ground exposes a hidden murder and brings immediate sentence, and because of that sin the earth is cursed a second time beyond the curse pronounced for Adam's transgression. The ground that opened to receive Abel's blood will no longer yield its strength to Cain, and he is cursed from that ground to be a fugitive and a vagabond upon it. Though the earth retains remaining beauty, it shows signs of decay under this added curse, and the curse grows heavier through continued human disobedience.
The murder deserved death, yet God in mercy confronts Cain with what he has done and spares his life to grant him opportunity to reflect, confess, and repent. Cain refuses that opportunity and lives only to harden his heart and encourage rebellion against divine authority. He becomes the head and tempter of a line of bold, abandoned sinners, and his example and demoralizing teaching corrupt his descendants until the earth is filled with violence.
Sparing the first murderer teaches the whole universe what results when sin is permitted to go unpunished and the sinner is allowed to live forever in rebellion. Divine forbearance does not repress wickedness but only makes the wicked more bold and defiant. Long life proves no blessing to the sinner, for the history before the flood testifies that the longer men lived the more corrupt and abandoned they became. In fifteen centuries Cain's influence ripens in crime and pollution that demand destruction of the whole world by the flood. This proves the sentence of death upon the fallen race for transgression just and merciful, a blessing rather than a curse because it cuts short a career of unbridled iniquity and frees the world from hardened rebels.
The same mercy governs the judgment after idolatry at Sinai. Sparing those transgressors would have produced evils even greater than resulted from sparing Cain. It is therefore mercy that thousands should suffer to prevent the necessity of visiting judgments upon millions, that the many might be saved by punishing the few.
Blood Cries for Justice
The blood of a murdered person cries to God from the ground for vengeance, calling Him to judge the murderer and to hold the guilty accountable. That cry calls Him to judge not only the murderer but also those who knowingly shield him from punishment. The blood of victims killed through drunkenness likewise cries to heaven, and dealers whose traffic ruins others cannot cover their guilt with gifts, for God will not accept their offerings and their money is stained with blood.
Abel's blood cried unto God against Cain the murderer, speaking against the one who shed it. In contrast the blood of Christ speaks in behalf of sinners better things than spoke the blood of Abel. Christ gave His life and shed His blood to remit sins, so that by faith man receives Christ's righteousness.
Abel's innocent blood, shed by his brother, cried from the ground as a witness to murder and begins the history of righteous bloodshed whose guilt accumulated from generation to generation. The blood of slain prophets likewise testified against those who rejected God's warnings. Those who rejected Christ would be held responsible for righteous blood shed from Abel to the prophet Zacharias, and judgment would come upon their generation. The stain of Zacharias's blood in the temple court remained a witness crying to God for justice as long as the temple stood.
As Abel's blood cried, so the blood of slaughtered martyrs cries from the ground for vengeance, and their cries rise from their graves calling for God to judge and avenge them. Their bones lie in heaps in Waldensian valleys, in mountains, dens, caves, clefts of rocks, rocky caverns, dungeons beneath monasteries, beneath molding walls, and in hidden pits. They were slain by starvation, exile, cruel torture and the cruel hand of man under Roman power. The ground where they lie was cursed by Roman power but is sanctified by their blood. Their cry will be answered in the great retributive day when the Life-giver calls them with the voice of the Archangel and the trump of God to come forth from their graves to life, because they walked with God, counted not their lives dear, and valued integrity to God above ease, above property, and above life itself.
Persecution of the Righteous
The killing is the first example of the enmity between the serpent and the seed of the woman, between Satan and his subjects and Christ and His followers. After Satan gained control of the human race through sin, Christ enables souls through faith in the Lamb of God to renounce the service of sin and cast off Satan's yoke, and Satan's wrath is kindled against them. Abel's holy life testified against Satan's claim that man cannot keep God's law. Cain, moved by the spirit of the wicked one and unable to control Abel, killed him in rage, and the same spirit is manifested wherever any stand in vindication of the righteousness of God's law.
The cruelties heaped upon followers of Jesus through all the ages, setting up the stake and kindling the burning pile for Christ's disciples, are instigated by Satan and his hosts because they cannot force submission, and are the rage of a vanquished foe. Every martyr of Jesus dies a conqueror by the blood of the Lamb and the word of testimony. Cain represents the wicked persecuting and killing the righteous because their right-doing condemns sinful conduct, a conflict extending from the fall to Christ's second coming. There are only two classes in the world, those like Abel who steadfastly adhere to God's commands and those like Cain who refuse to obey.
Those rooted and grounded in the truth stand together in defense of the law of Jehovah, while those supporting falsehood against truth stand on the side of the prince of darkness. Those who yield themselves to do the will of Satan oppress God's servants just as Cain oppressed Abel. Abel was murdered because he obeyed God's law, the same law Satan refused to obey, Adam transgressed, and Enoch obeyed in walking with God. His death came from a cold, critical, unforgiving, accusing spirit that is not satisfied with pointing out what it imagines to be a defect in a brother but resorts to compulsion to force men to comply with its ideas of what is right.
When the power of love and the grace of Christ are lost, that same spirit reaches for the strong arm of the state to enforce dogmas and execute decrees, and this is the secret of all religious laws ever enacted and of all persecution from his day to the present time. The persecution of Abel is the first thing recorded in Scripture history after the fall. It stands at the beginning of history opposite the persecution against those who refuse to receive the mark of the beast at the end of Scripture prophecy, and it warns against indulging any spirit of persecution against those bearing God's message to the world.
God Hears the Suffering
As surely as the blood of Abel cried from the ground and ascended before God, so the prayers of suffering humanity in need rise and come up before Him just as surely. This includes His servants imprisoned in dungeons or chained with criminals, whose prayers rise to Him like that blood cried to Him from the ground. He is not indifferent to pressing need, whether of white or black in any place and wherever His children are.
He hears and records every injustice and oppression done to His people. He is present in every court of justice and marks how men condemn His servants and silence their voices. Satan is the instigator of every such injustice, inspiring his agents to hurt Christ by bruising the bodies of His people. Cruelty done to God's servants is recorded as done to Christ in the person of His saints, and He will avenge their wrongs.
This lays responsibility on those placed where they have received many blessings and comforts and where they can do much good. They are accountable to deny self, take up the cross and follow Jesus, and to minister freely with what they have received to those who have few blessings and little encouragement, to the most needy and suffering. That work embraces the poor, destitute, neglected and oppressed in the Southern States who long for help to become better informed and better clothed, whose longing God marks. It is to be done by deed in relieving them, and by Christlike work, rather than by seeking self-profit, spending time devising for self-interest, or speaking empty comfort and empty words. Angels wait and look to carry testimony of help given for this suffering class to the courts above and to heaven, and for neglect of this work laid upon every saint there is accountability.
Warnings for Daily Life
The question put to the murderer answers all who deny being their brother's keeper, for it is spoken to Cain and spoken again to the rumseller. God hears the blood of the murdered crying to Him from the ground and holds the murderer accountable, and the same reckoning falls on dealers in liquor whose traffic brings ruin. They will be held accountable for the wretchedness brought into the homes of those weak in moral power who fall through temptation to drink, and will be charged with the misery, suffering and hopelessness brought into the world through drink. They must answer for the woe and want of mothers and children who suffer for food and clothing and shelter and bury all hope and joy. The blood of victims killed as a result of drunkenness cries to heaven for vengeance as Abel's blood did. Their wealth and money are stained with the blood of those they have harmed, and their gifts cannot cover guilt or be accepted as offerings on God's altar.
The history warns against taking the first step in disobedience by refusing God's specific requirement. Cain refused to bring a lamb for a burnt offering and to mingle the blood of the lamb with his offering, following his own understanding, will, judgment and imagination instead of obeying implicitly and becoming as a little child. Passion burned and the tempter took possession of his mind until his own will blended with Satan's will, leading him farther than he contemplated to the death of his brother. Refusing to do God's words gives place to the devil for him to master and rule the mind, and because Cain disobeyed God and killed his brother the second curse was pronounced upon the earth.
Cain's feeling against Abel was resentment toward a brother who knew of his sin, and it warns against repeating that resentment when brethren refuse trust. One who is annoyed because wrongdoing is known and who resents those who know it, who has led precious souls astray and created temptations for them which they have not power to resist, is not safe to be entrusted with the flock of God or to be given credentials as a safe teacher. To be called a second Cain is to be looked upon as a murderer like Cain who slew his brother, whose teaching is rejected and despised and whose power to do good to fellow men is destroyed.