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The first record of the human family are not cave pictures. (No such thing as cavemen.) It is a story of religion, faith, obedience, persecution, hatred, and murder. And the thing that is highlighted in this family relationship is the faith that produces righteousness; it’s the faith that justifies.
Produced a superior sacrifice
- offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain…
- Both of them offered something to God.
- Genesis 4:4-5 …respect unto Abel…Cain and to his offering he had not respect….
- That’s the cry of the world that Christians, the Bible, should respect everyone’s beliefs.
- You could bring your service to God and He might not accept it.
- Excellent because only Abel’s was a SACRIFICE.
- Abel’s offering more excellent because the COST was greater.
- You can’t even approach God without a sacrifice.
- The offering of blood, the life of the flesh, sacrificed for sins.
Produced a clear approval by God
- by which he obtained witness that he was righteous…
- The offering wasn’t what made him righteous, his offering was the result of his righteousness.
- Righteousness was obtained in Abel by obeying what God said. And God testified of his righteousness when the sacrifice was made.
- …God testifying of his gifts…
- God’s stamp of approval was on Abel’s sacrifice. And not only did he know it, but Cain also knew it.
- The way God approved sacrifices in the Old Testament was by fire.
- The Lord interrogated Cain about why doing right was so hard to do.
Produced results long after his death
- …he being dead yet speaketh.
- Revealed from faith to faith as faith is passed on, enduring the test of time. Romans 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
- By Abel’s faith that justified him, he presently testifies of faith that justifies.
