Genesis 4: God Looks at the Heart Behind Your Offering

Introduction

The preacher has been a retired pastor since April 30, after 42 years of ministry in churches in Spain, England, Switzerland and Italy. He has preached in four languages. He first preached at the age of 16, while still in high school, on the account of the temptations of Jesus in Matthew. Since then he has understood his calling: to share the Word "without shouting, without thinking he has the whole truth, without thinking he is more than anyone else."

This Sunday, at the Chiesa Cristiana Evangelica Battista di Genova, he does not offer a classic sermon. He goes back to what he did when he taught Old Testament exegesis: opening three windows onto three Hebrew words in chapter 4 of Genesis. The offering, sin, and calling on the name of the Lord, "when we know we have gone wrong and made a big mistake, perhaps not like Cain, but a big mistake all the same."

The text read is Genesis 4:9-15 and 4:26: "Where is Abel, your brother?" He said, "I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?" Then, after the birth of Enosh: "Then men began to call on Yahweh's name."

Outline of the message

1. Reading Hebrew with humility

"Those who shout, thinking they are the only true interpreters of the Word, are to be pitied." We must approach the Word with humility.
Italian, Spanish, English and German are "logico-formal" languages: each word has a precise meaning, taken literally or figuratively. When we say a person is a lion, we know it is an image of his courage.
Hebrew is an analogical language. We arrive at the meaning of words through the roots that form them, by combining them.
Cain is not called a "farmer": he is the man who bends over and toils on the earth, the adama from which man was taken. Abel is not called a "shepherd": he is the one who walks behind the flock, as in Psalm 23. The shepherd walks behind so that he can see all the sheep and bring back the one that strays, with a small stone thrown so as not to hurt it too much.
Consequence: "What the Bible says is very elaborate, very complex." We must interpret, otherwise, as Jesus says, we teach human opinions as the doctrine of God (Matthew 15:9).

2. First window: minha, the offering

In the story of Cain and Abel there are two altars and two offerings, two minha. The two sons of Adam and Eve did not agree to build a single altar and worship the one God in the same way.
Cain offers the produce of the ground, the fruit of his trade. Abel offers the firstborn of his flock.
God looks with favor on one of the offerings and does not look at the other. Cain burns with anger against his brother and kills him.
Why did God not look at Cain's offering? Some say: because there was no blood. But Leviticus does provide for offerings from the fields and the trees. "The problem is, as Jesus says, what comes out of your heart" (Matthew 15:18).
God looks at what motivated your offering. If what is in you is good, he looks with favor. Otherwise, he looks elsewhere.
"There will always be these two altars, there will always be two offerings, and there will always be God's gaze turned toward one or the other": the altar where we offer what is good in us, and the one where the offering is stained with greed and selfishness.

3. Second window: hattat, the sin crouching at the door

Before the murder, God warns Cain: the anger that has entered him and drives him to harm his brother is sin (Genesis 4:7).
The word is formed from two roots: the beast that is outside, in front of your house, and that lies in wait. "If you give it the chance to enter, it will enter and devour you." But God says to Cain: "you, rule over it."
The apostle Peter says the same thing: the devil prowls like a lion, looking for a chance to enter and devour (1 Peter 5:8). Do not let this evil desire enter you.
Our idea of sin comes from Tertullian, a third-century theologian, later refined by Augustine: every omission, action or thought contrary to the law of God.
But to translate hattat into Greek, the apostle Paul chose hamartia: the arrow shot from a bow that does not hit the target. To sin is to go wrong, to miss the mark.
Cain's mistake: offering something without a spirit of gratitude, perhaps only so that his harvests would multiply. "Worshiping God at the wrong altar."
"The mistake is not the action itself": it is the motive. It is not to give glory to God, nor to help another, nor to give a part of ourselves as the Lord gave his Son out of love.
Cain let sin enter him, and sin led him to see his brother as the enemy to be destroyed.

4. Humanity divided between two altars

After Abel's death, Adam fathers a son who takes Abel's place: Seth, whose name means "substitute" (Genesis 4:25).
Since the disobedience of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3), humanity has been divided: those who build the altar of idols, the worship of everything negative in us, and those who build the altar of God's mercy and love.
Cain builds a city. There the harp and the flute are invented for playing and singing, but also metalworking, to make weapons that kill more, better and faster (Genesis 4:17-22).
This deep contradiction in the human being continues. Today, drones and missiles guided by programs can strike down a house or a bus of workers. "It is no longer even Cain who kills his brother": it is the spirit of Cain become a program, able to govern ever more sophisticated instruments of death. "How sad."

5. Third window: calling on the name of Yahweh

Yet there is hope: the line of Seth, Enosh, then generation after generation down to Abraham. The first thing Abraham does in the promised land is to build an altar and call on the name of Yahweh (Genesis 12:7-8).
Even if the part of humanity that calls on God at the wrong altar advances in wickedness, it is possible to leave the land of distance, the land of Nod (Genesis 4:16), and to draw near to God.
"God is always near us, but we move away from him when we go wrong. It is we who move away." "Our Father who art in heaven" does not call on a distant God, but on a God who is near, from whom we have moved away.
To call on God is to draw near, to listen to what the Lord tells us and to put it into practice.
The word is formed from two roots, the first of which is "to call", to call someone by name. Jesus taught us that the name by which to call on God is "Father."
At the beginning of the service, the opening prayer summed up this meaning: calling on God so that he notices our existence, sees us and shows mercy to each one of us.

6. Love is as strong as death

So that this monster prowling around us does not devour us, we must stay close to God and cling to the altar where we offer the best of ourselves, and the best we can give to others: love, presence.
The fruit of sin is death, mot. The fruit of love, ahava, is giving life.
"Love is as strong as death" (Song of Solomon 8:6). The only power we have within us to oppose sin and death is to love.
"As Jesus offered himself, so we offer to God ourselves, our life, our love."
God's love is not only as powerful as death, it is far more so. "When God's love is unleashed, then there is salvation." What we can no longer overcome, God overcomes in us, giving us the strength to defeat this enemy by his love.

Key takeaways

There are always two altars. God does not look first at what you offer; he looks at what moved you to offer it.
Sin, hattat, is missing the mark: worshiping God without the spirit he expects, without gratitude or love.
Sin lies in wait at the door like a beast, but God says: "you, rule over it." Give it no room.
Calling on the name of Yahweh is returning to the side of a God who never moved away, and calling him Father.
Love is the only force that opposes sin and death, and God's love is stronger than death.

Personal application

On which altar are you placing what you give to God this week: gratitude, or the hope that he will multiply your harvests?
What anger or evil desire is lying in wait at your door right now, and how can you refuse it entry?
Is there someone you are beginning to see as an enemy rather than as a brother or sister?
In what area have you moved away from God, and what does it mean for you to call on him again as Father?
What can you concretely offer to others of the best that is in you: love, your presence?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

Why did God not look with favor on Cain's offering?

For the preacher, the problem is not the absence of blood: Leviticus also provides for offerings from the produce of the fields. As Jesus says, what matters is what comes out of the heart. God looks at what motivated the offering. In Cain's heart there was no spirit of gratitude toward the Lord.

What does the Hebrew word translated "sin" mean?

The word hattat means to go wrong, to miss the mark. To translate it into Greek, the apostle Paul chose hamartia: the arrow shot from a bow that does not hit the target. Sin is not only an act contrary to the law; it is worshiping God at the wrong altar, without the spirit the Lord expects.

What does "calling on the name of Yahweh" mean in Genesis 4:26?

To call on God is to leave the land of distance and draw near to God. God is always near; it is we who move away when we go wrong. It is also to call God by his name, and Jesus taught us that this name is Father. Finally, it is to ask that his gaze rest on us and that he show mercy.