In some recent studies a group of us have been looking at some of the early questions in the book of Genesis in the Bible.
When man first rebelled and question God and disobeyed he realised how serious the situation was and he thought he could hide from Almighty God among the trees, but our compassionate and concerned and caring God came asking "Where are you?" God was giving the couple the chance to straighten things out right away.
They had realised they were naked and they dressed themselves with leaves.
Can you imagine that hassle and bother and sheer difficulty? They had got their information from a very wrong and bad source.
There are many voices out there and we have to sift through them and even filter them.
Another question came.
"What have you done?" Yet, again, was not God offering them the opportunity to repent and confess the sin and have any guilt dealt with.
So many people are burdened by guilt of one kind or another.
These are highly moral and ethical issues, from which man seeks to run away and hide today.
When we move from Genesis Chapter 3 into Chapter 4 another very serious and tragic matter arises.
Up to this point there had only been vegetation and fruit for food.
No flesh was eaten until after The Flood.
Two men Cain and Abel come with offerings.
Cain comes with the fruit of the work of his hands and Abel comes with a blood offering.
God accepts Abel's offering but does not do so with that of Cain and Cain becomes exceedingly angry.
God asks, "Why are you angry?" The offerings were the result of what was in the men's hearts, and it was the heart of man that determined the acceptance or rejection of the offering.
God knew Cain's heart and challenged him.
Cain had not done right and Cain had no right to be angry.
We read that sin was crouching at the door, and Cain invites his brother Abel out into the field where Cain murders Abel.
"Why are you angry?" has developed into a terrible catastrophe.
We are dealing with the emotions here.
What is it that makes us angry? There is good anger and there is bad anger.
There is righteous anger and there is an anger that can be so centred on self.
We are dealing with rejection and resentment and even jealousy here.
The question now comes from the lips of Cain, "Am I my brother's keeper? No, but you are his murderer.
This is the first murder in history.
Sin causes such havoc and devastation and misery and suffering and tragedy.
What did all this do to God's heart because we read something of this in Genesis Chapter 6? But is this not where it all started? Abel's blood was crying out from the ground.
This is basically a just world and a moral world and sin has to be paid for and sin has to be dealt with, and that is why Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came into the world.
God realised how serious everything was becoming and he takes steps to deal with it Genesis Chapter 6 where Noah a preacher of righteousness is told to build an Ark which took some 120 years, and during this time he preached righteousness and what it means to be righteous before a righteous God, but only seven appeared to pay any attention.
Is this just all poetic language? Jesus Christ did not seem to think so! Sandy Shaw